Last year, United States District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google violated antitrust law by illegally maintaining a monopoly in search. Now, Google and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have had their say in the remedy phase of the trial, which wraps up today. It will determine the consequences for Google's actions, potentially changing the landscape for search as we rocket into the AI era, whether we like it or not.

The remedy trial featured over 20 witnesses, including representatives from some of the most important technology firms in the world. Their statements about the past, present, and future of search moved markets, but what does the testimony mean for Google?

Everybody wants Chrome

One of the DOJ's proposed remedies is to force Google to divest Chrome and the open source Chromium project. Google has been adamant both in and out of the courtroom that it is the only company that can properly run Chrome. It says selling Chrome would negatively impact privacy and security because Google's technology is deeply embedded in the browser. And regardless, Google Chrome would be too expensive for anyone to buy.

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Intel's i486 was the first "computer number" I ever really understood. Sure, my elementary school computer lab had both the Apple IIGS and Apple IIc, and one of them was slightly more useful, for reasons unexplained to me. But soon after my father brought home his office's discarded Gateway desktop with a 486DX 33 MHz inside, I was catapulted into my first Intel sorting scheme. I learned there was an x86 before this one (i386), and there were models with different trailing numbers (16–100 MHz) and "DX" levels. This was my first grasp of what hardware I was actually using and what could improve inside it.

More than 36 years after the release of the 486 and 18 years after Intel stopped making them , leaders of the Linux kernel believe the project can improve itself by leaving i486 support behind. Ingo Molnar, quoting Linus Torvalds regarding "zero real reason for anybody to waste one second" on 486 support, submitted a patch series to the 6.15 kernel that updates its minimum support features. Those requirements now include TSC ( Time Stamp Counter ) and CX8 (i.e., "fixed" CMPXCH8B , its own whole thing ), features that the 486 lacks (as do some early non-Pentium 586 processors).

It's not the first time Torvalds has suggested dropping support for 32-bit processors and relieving kernel developers from implementing archaic emulation and work-around solutions. "We got rid of i386 support back in 2012. Maybe it's time to get rid of i486 support in 2022," Torvalds wrote in October 2022 . Failing major changes to the 6.15 kernel, which will likely arrive late this month , i486 support will be dropped.

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President Donald Trump said he is killing a broadband grant program that was authorized by Congress, claiming that the Digital Equity Act of 2021 is racist and unconstitutional.

"I have spoken with my wonderful Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and we agree that the Biden/Harris so-called 'Digital Equity Act' is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL. No more woke handouts based on race! The Digital Equity Program is a RACIST and ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway. I am ending this IMMEDIATELY, and saving Taxpayers BILLIONS OF DOLLARS!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post yesterday.

The Digital Equity Act provided $2.75 billion for three grant programs. As a National Telecommunications and Information Administration webpage says, the grants "aim to ensure that all people and communities have the skills, technology, and capacity needed to reap the full benefits of our digital economy."

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Schools across the US are warning parents about an Internet trend that has students purposefully trying to damage their school-issued Chromebooks so that they start smoking or catch fire.

Various school districts, including some in Colorado , New Jersey, North Carolina , and Washington , have sent letters to parents warning about the trend that’s largely taken off on TikTok.

Per reports from school districts and videos that Ars Technica has reviewed online, the so-called Chromebook Challenge includes students sticking things into Chromebook ports to short-circuit the system. Students are using various easily accessible items to do this, including writing utensils, paper clips, gum wrappers, and pushpins.

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Alex Mashinsky—the disgraced founder of the Celsius Network cryptocurrency bank who deceived hundreds of thousands into losing billions with the catchy slogan "unbank yourself"—was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Thursday.

Back in December, Mashinsky pleaded guilty to securities fraud and commodities fraud. Federal prosecutors slammed him for reaping $48 million in profits while causing billions in investor losses by artificially inflating the value of his network's token, Cel. The Department of Justice and dozens of victims urged the court to order a maximum sentence of 20 years, while Mashinsky hoped the court would agree that he had shown remorse and should only serve one year and one day, Reuters reported .

Mashinsky's downfall started in 2022, when the Celsius Network suddenly stopped allowing withdrawals , claiming that "extreme market conditions" were to blame, a shady move that caused some customers to question the crypto bank's financial health. One month later, the bank filed for bankruptcy, exposing a $1.19 billion deficit in its balance sheets and still holding onto customers' funds while scoffing at supposed "misinformation" that their money would be lost.

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Yesterday's naming of Chicago native Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV—the first American-born leader of the Catholic church—has already led to plenty of jokes and memes about his potential interactions with various bits of American pop culture. And that cultural exposure apparently extends to some casual video games, making Leo XIV is our first confirmed gamer pope.

Speaking to NBC5 Chicago Thursday, papal sibling John Prevost confirmed that the soon-to-be-pope played a couple of games just before flying to the papal conclave earlier this week. "First we do Wordle , because this is a regular thing," Prevost said. "Then we do Words with Friends . It's something to keep his mind off life in the real world..."

OK, so the pope's love of casual word games doesn't exactly put him in the same category of people who are speedrunning Doom slaughter maps . But it's still striking to realize that the 69-year-old pontiff is among the reported 44 percent of American Baby Boomer men who play video games regularly and the 15 percent of Americans aged 55 and over who have played Wordle specifically .

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The British car industry got a big break from US President Donald Trump yesterday afternoon. Trump and UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer have agreed to a bilateral trade agreement that cuts tariffs on a range of imports from the UK, including pharmaceuticals, aluminum and steel, and cars.

Now, the first 100,000 cars that come to the US from the UK will only be subject to a 10 percent tariff rather than the 27.5 percent they have been under since the start of this trade war in April .

"The car industry is vital to the UK’s economic prosperity, sustaining 250,000 jobs," said Jaguar Land Rover CEO Adrian Mardell. "We warmly welcome this deal which secures greater certainty for our sector and the communities it supports. We would like to thank the UK and US Governments for agreeing this deal at pace and look forward to continued engagement over the coming months," Mardell said.

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For decades now, you could count on there being a certain rhythm to a Doom game. From the ’90s originals to the series’ resurrection in recent years , the Doom games have always been about using constant, zippy motion to dodge through a sea of relatively slow-moving bullets, maintaining your distance while firing back at encroaching hordes of varied monsters. The specific guns and movement options you could call on might change from game to game, but the basic rhythm of that dodge-and-shoot gameplay never has.

Just a few minutes in, Doom: The Dark Ages throws out that traditional Doom rhythm almost completely. The introduction of a crucial shield adds a whole suite of new verbs to the Doom vocabulary; in addition to running, dodging, and shooting, you’ll now be blocking, parrying, and stunning enemies for counterattacks. In previous Doom games, standing still for any length of time often led to instant death. In The Dark Ages , standing your ground to absorb and/or deflect incoming enemy attacks is practically required at many points.

During a preview event earlier this year , the game’s developers likened this change to the difference between flying a fighter jet and piloting a tank. That’s a pretty apt metaphor, and it's not exactly an unwelcome change for a series that might be in need of a shake-up. But it only works if you go in ready to play like a tank and not like the fighter jet that has been synonymous with Doom for decades.

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The European Commission has launched a new initiative to attract researchers and scientists to the European Union —especially those from the United States. The Choose Europe for Science program, backed with more than half a billion dollars, is designed to offer an alternative to researchers who have been forced to seek new opportunities following cuts in scientific funding imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration.

The program will invest €500 million ($568 million) between 2025 and 2027 to recruit specialists in various fields of knowledge to come and work in Europe. The initiative also includes a target for member states to allocate 3 percent of their GDP to R&D projects by 2030.

“The role of science in today’s world is questioned,” warned Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, in a statement on Tuesday. “What a gigantic miscalculation. I believe that science holds the key to our future here in Europe. Without it, we simply cannot address today’s global challenges—from health to new tech, from climate to oceans.”

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