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#impacting #teachers #students #classroom
Google tapped the star power of Jimmy Fallon and other celebrities on Wednesday to unveil several new products, including the company’s next generation of Pixel phones.
Also participating in the event in Brooklyn, New York, were popular podcast host Alex Cooper, Formula One driver Lando Norris and singer Nick Jonas.
Google’s new suite of products includes four Pixel 10 phones, the Pixel 4 Watch and a revamped set of Pixel earbuds. The hardware will include new AI features designed to help users retrieve information, automatically create videos and snap better photos.
Google has been steadily layering AI capabilities into its Pixel products since 2023 as the Alphabet-owned competes with Apple, which tech analysts note has been slower to integrate AI features into the iPhone.
Google 
The Pixel phones, now on their 10th generation, will have an AI-powered feature called “Magic Cue” designed to anticipate a person’s information needs. For example, if travelers use the device to call their airline, the phone is able to recognize the number and display their flight information, according to Google.
The phones also comes with an AI tool called “Camera Coach” that will automatically suggest the best framing and lighting angle as the lens is being aimed at a subject.
Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president of platforms and device, said during Wednesday’s event that adding AI to its Pixel devices is aimed at making the phones more “personal and proactive.”
“So it doesn’t just wait and listen to your requests — it starts to anticipate them because it knows what you’re trying to do,” he added. “We call this personal intelligence.”
The basic Pixel 10 phone costs $800, the Pro runs $1,000 and the Pro XL goes for $1,200; a foldable version of the phone is also available for $1,800. Three new Pixel phones will be available in stores starting August 28, but consumers will have to wait until October 9 to get their hands on Pixel 10 Pro Fold.
The Pixel 4 Watch will be the company’s first smartwatch equipped with Gemini, Google’s AI assistant. The device will include new health and safety features, such as emergency satellite communications.
Gemini will also be coming to TVs, smart speakers, smart displays and cars this fall, Osterloh said Wednesday.
Google also used the event to announce that NBA star Stephen Curry will serve as a “performance adviser” on its products as part of a new multi-year partnership.
contributed to this report.
#Google #unveils #Pixel #phone #models #features #starstudded #event
PlayStation 5 video game consoles are about to get pricier — at least in the U.S.
Starting Aug. 21, the PlayStation 5 will cost $549.99 in the U.S., up $50 from its current price of $549.99, Sony Interactive Entertainment, which makes the device, said Wednesday in a company blog post.
The company attributed the price hike to the “challenging economic environment.” Pricing for the console in markets outside the U.S. will remain the same, the Sony said.
RICHARD A. BROOKS/AFP via Getty Images 
As of Thursday, a PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, which lacks a disk drive, will cost $499.99, while the more powerful PlayStation 5 Pro will run $749.99. Sony said it isn’t raising the price of PS5 accessories.
Other gaming console makers have also recently boosted their prices. Microsoft, which makes the Xbox, in May hiked the price of its Xbox Series X by $100 to $599.99. Nintendo, which makes the Switch, in August announced new pricing for its original console in the U.S. that it said was based on “market conditions.”
#PlayStation #prices #rise #U.S #starting #week #Sony
Nexstar Media will acquire rival broadcast company Tegna for $6.2 billion according to a joint announcement on Tuesday, another sign of consolidation in an already contracting TV broadcast sector.
The transaction, if approved, will bring together two major players in U.S. television, expanding Nexstar’s reach in the U.S. television and local news landscape. Nexstar oversees more than 200 owned and partner stations in 116 markets nationwide today and also runs networks like The CW and NewsNation. Tegna owns 64 news stations across 51 markets.
“Following completion of the transaction, the combined entity will be a leading local media company, well-positioned to compete in today’s fragmented and rapidly evolving marketplace,” the companies said in identical statements shared on their respective websites. “The new company will be better able to serve communities by ensuring the long-term vitality of local news and programming from trusted local sources and preserving the diversity of local voice and opinion.”
Nexstar, based in Irving, Texas, will pay $22 in cash for each share of Tegna’s outstanding stock. Talks of a deal were reported earlier this month by the Wall Street Journal.
Through the deal, Nexstar said it would also be able to provide advertisers with a greater breadth of competitive local and national broadcast and digital advertising options. The agreement will also allow the media company to expand its presence in the Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle and Minneapolis markets, Nexstar’s chairman and CEO Perry Sook said in the announcement.
“The initiatives being pursued by the Trump administration offer local broadcasters the opportunity to expand reach, level the playing field, and compete more effectively with the Big Tech and legacy Big Media companies that have unchecked reach and vast financial resources,” he said.
If approved by Tegna shareholders, the deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026.
The news comes as more Americans shift from cable — in what’s known as “cord-cutting” — to streaming. According to a July Gallup poll of around 10,000 U.S. adults, 83% said they watch streaming services, while 36% said they currently subscribe to cable or satellite TV at home.
Nexstar shares jumped 7.6% in premarket trading. Tegna’s stock rose 4.3%.
contributed to this report.
#Nexstar #acquire #rival #broadcast #company #Tegna #billion #deal
With the rise of artificial intelligence, advocates say it can be a helpful tool for kids and teachers — but others say it discourages students from critical thinking.
Many educators have been teaching themselves how to use AI. For Jerome Ong, a 5th grade teacher in Ridgewood, New Jersey, AI has changed the way he approaches teaching. He now uses AI tools every week in his classroom.
“You have to find what works for your students,” he said.
Ong not only teaches his students what AI is — but also where it falls short.
“If you keep at it and say, ‘no, you’re wrong. You’re wrong’ — eventually AI will say, ‘I’m sorry, I was wrong.’ Doing that with your class can show you that AI isn’t really as smart as you think it is,” Ong said.
Training teachers to use AI
This summer, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic announced a first-of-its-kind plan to train hundreds of thousands of members of the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union.
“I think if we’re going to make AI work for students, for kids, we need to listen to teachers,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith.
The $23 million investment will go toward virtual and in-person training in New York City.
“AI holds tremendous promise but huge challenges—and it’s our job as educators to make sure AI serves our students and society, not the other way around,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten in the AFT’s announcement. “The direct connection between a teacher and their kids can never be replaced by new technologies, but if we learn how to harness it, set commonsense guardrails and put teachers in the driver’s seat, teaching and learning can be enhanced.”
“It can, I think, change the way teachers work in ways that empower teachers, gives them more information, makes it easier in terms of preparing for classes, thinking about how to put together lesson plans,” Smith said.
In a recent survey by Gallup and Walton Family Foundation, teachers reported saving an average of nearly six hours a week with the help of AI.
Ong said if AI is already here, “let’s try to figure this out to help our kids continue to learn and grow.”
However, critics cite cheating concerns and Microsoft’s own research, which showed a self-reported decline in critical thinking skills when AI was not used responsibly.
“This is a way to get profits,” said former high school teacher and AFT member Lois Weiner.
She thinks teachers would be better served by more support within schools than by an alliance with Silicon Valley.
“There is so much drudgery in the job, but the answer to that is to improve the conditions of teachers’ work,” said Weiner, adding that AI does not accomplish improving work conditions for teachers.
Smith said ultimately education should be left to teachers, “those of us in the tech sector need to provide the tools and empower the school boards and districts and teachers so they decide how to put those tools in practice.”
Changes in policy
CBS News analyzed shifts in AI policies in the country’s largest 20 school districts between 2023 and 2025.
The analysis found that while some district policies were unclear in 2023 or did not initially block the use of AI, there is now guidance on how it can be utilized in the classroom.
The data can be found below.
#changing #work #teachers #classroom
#Capturing #melting #glaciers #data #art
Twenty-two years ago, Silicon Valley executive Henry Evans had a massive stroke that left him mute and paralyzed from the neck down. But that didn’t prevent him from becoming a leading advocate of adaptive robotic tech to help disabled people – or from writing country songs, one letter at a time. Correspondent John Blackstone talks with Evans about his upbeat attitude and unlikely pursuits.
#robotics #activist039s #remarkable #crusade
#Robots #powered #part #daily #life #MIT #professor
Dr. Joel Bervell, a physician known to his hundreds of thousands of followers on social media as the “Medical Mythbuster,” has built a reputation for debunking false health claims online.
Earlier this year, some of those followers alerted him to a video on another account featuring a man who looked exactly like him. The face was his. The voice was not.
“I just felt mostly scared,” Bervell told CBS News. “It looked like me. It didn’t sound like me… but it was promoting a product that I’d never promoted in the past, in a voice that wasn’t mine.”
It was a deepfake – one example of content that features fabricated medical professionals and is reaching a growing audience, according to cybersecurity experts. The video with Bervell’s likeness appeared on multiple platforms – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, he said.
A CBS News investigation over the past month found dozens of accounts and more than 100 videos across social media sites in which fictitious doctors, some using the identities of real physicians, gave advice or tried to sell products, primarily related to beauty, wellness and weight loss. Most of them were found on TikTok and Instagram, and some of them were viewed millions of times.
Most videos reviewed by CBS News were trying to sell products, either through independent websites or well-known online marketplaces. They often made bold claims. One video touted a product “96% more effective than Ozempic.”
Cybersecurity company ESET also recently investigated this kind of content. It spotted more than 20 accounts on TikTok and Instagram using AI-generated doctors to push products, according to Martina López, a security researcher at ESET.
“Whether it’s due to some videos going viral or accounts gaining more followers, this type of content is reaching an increasingly wider audience,” she said.
CBS News contacted TikTok and Meta, the parent company of Instagram, to get clarity on their policies. Both companies removed videos flagged by CBS News, saying they violated platform policies. CBS News also reached out to YouTube, which said its privacy request process “allows users to request the removal of AI-generated content that realistically simulates them without their permission.”
YouTube said the videos provided by CBS News didn’t violate its Community Guidelines and would remain on the platform. “Our policies prohibit content that poses a serious risk of egregious harm by spreading medical misinformation that contradicts local health authority (LHA) guidance about specific health conditions and substances,” YouTube said.
TikTok says that between January and March, it proactively removed more than 94% of content that violated its policies on AI-generated content.
After CBS News contacted Meta, the company said it removed videos that violated its Advertising Standards and restricted other videos that violated its Health and Wellness policies, making them accessible to just those 18 and older.
Meta also said bad actors constantly evolve their tactics to attempt to evade enforcement.
Scammers are using readily available AI tools to significantly improve the quality of their content, and viewing videos on small devices makes it harder to detect visual inconsistencies, ESET’s chief security evangelist, Tony Anscombe, said.
ESET said there are some red flags that can help someone detect AI-generated content, including glitches like flickering, blurred edges or strange distortions around a person’s face. Beyond the visuals, a voice that sounds robotic or lacks natural human emotion is a possible indicator of AI.
Finally, viewers should be skeptical of the message itself and question overblown claims like “miracle cures” or “guaranteed results,” which are common tactics in digital scams, Anscombe said.
“Trust nothing, verify everything,” Anscombe said. “So if you see something and it’s claiming that, you know, there’s this miracle cure and this miracle cure comes from X, go and check X out … and do it independently. Don’t follow links. Actually go and browse for it, search for it and verify yourself.”
Bervell said the deepfake videos featuring his likeness were taken down after he asked his followers to help report them.
Dr. Joel Bervell via CBS News 
He also said he’s concerned videos like these will undermine public trust in medicine.
“When we have fiction out there, we have what are thought to be experts in a field saying something that may not be true,” he said. “That distorts what fact is, and makes it harder for the public to believe anything that comes out of science, from a doctor, from the health care system overall.”
#Deepfake #videos #impersonating #real #doctors #push #false #medical #advice #treatments
Swiss pilot Raphael Domjan beat the altitude record for a solar-powered electric plane in a flight that took him soaring to 9,521 meters, or 31,237 feet, his team announced Wednesday.
The SolarStratos plane made the landmark flight from Sion airport in southwest Switzerland on Tuesday, taking advantage of warm air thermals to go beyond the record that has stood for 15 years.
The certified altitude record for a solar plane stands at 9,235 meters, or 30,298 feet.
The achievement is “one of those unforgettable peaks that define great human and technological adventures,” the SolarStratos mission said in a statement.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images 
At cruising altitude, Domjan actually crossed paths with a commercial airliner, SolarStratos said, calling the moment “a powerful symbol of what the decarbonized aviation of tomorrow might look like.”
Domjan’s flight lasted five hours and nine minutes.
“I share this moment of joy with all the people who have been preparing for this achievement for years,” the 53-year-old said.
The data will be sent to the World Air Sports Federation governing body, which will decide whether to validate the new record.
“It is the pressure altitude corrected to standard density altitude that is recognized as the official reference for aviation altitude records,” the SolarStratos team said.
Domjan — whose company bio describes him as a “eco-adventurer” and lecturer who pilots planes, gliders and helicopters — is aiming to be the first to take a solar-powered plane above 10,000 meters, flying at the same altitude as airliners. If that barrier is broken, the team hopes to go on and make a first manned solar-powered flight into the stratosphere, which at Switzerland’s latitude begins at around 12,000 meters.
“This achievement marks a major milestone on the path toward reaching the stratosphere using only solar power — and already fulfils the mission’s goal: to capture imaginations with emblematic, spectacular challenges that promote solar energy and the protection of our biosphere and planet,” SolarStratos said.
The front-mounted single propeller plane, registration HB-SXA, is made of carbon fiber to ensure lightness and strength. SolarStratos is 9.6 meters long, and its huge wingspan of 24.8 meters accommodates the 22 square meters of high-spec solar panels topping the wings, and allows for flying at low speeds.
The plane, which SolarStartos calls “daring and finely engineered,” can take off at low speeds, from 50 kilometers per hour upwards. Its maximum speed is 140 kph, while its cruising speed is around 80 kph.
“Tomorrow can be better than what we have today”
In 2012, the pioneering Domjan became the first person to sail around the world in a fully solar-powered boat, a journey that began in Miami in 2010.
“It’s important to demonstrate what we can achieve with solar energy,” the adventurer told AFP.
“The dream of flight is probably the oldest dream of mankind,” he said.
“My goal is to show to the young generation of today and tomorrow that tomorrow it will still be possible to fly without burning any fossil energies,” he said.
“This is what we want to achieve: it’s really to show that the world of tomorrow can be better than what we have today,” he added.
A warm-up flight on July 31 got to 6,589 meters, surpassing the plane’s previous best in 2024.
FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images 
A first attempt on Friday was quickly abandoned when the forecast thermals failed to materialize, saving the batteries for Sunday when the plane got to 8,224 meters.
During the first phase of record attempts, the aircraft has to make maximum use of rising warm air currents to climb to around 4,000-5,000 meters. It then has to recharge its batteries at this altitude before climbing again.
Before takeoff, the batteries must be fully charged using solar energy, and the plane has to land under its own power — it cannot glide back in on zero charge — and have at least 16% charge in the batteries.
If the flight is to be certified as a record, all the energy used during the flight must have been produced by the solar cells. The current record was set in 2010 by the Solar Impulse experimental plane, with Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg at the controls.
#Pilot #breaks #altitude #record #solarpowered #plane #crossing #paths #commercial #airliner #team