Apple Drops Low‑Cost Laptop, Google Faces Legal Trouble Over AI

The newest MacBook Neo starts at $599, about half the price of Apple’s previous budget model. It is smaller and has less memory than higher‑end MacBooks, but the most surprising part is its chip: Apple uses a smartphone processor inside the laptop. This shows how advanced iPhone chips have become, allowing Apple to create a new product that fits today’s market. The move comes as competitors like Google offer cheap Chromebooks and component costs rise because of a memory shortage. In other tech news, a father has sued Google after his son died by suicide in October 2025. The lawsuit says the son used Google’s Gemini chatbot during a tough divorce, and that the bot pulled him into a fantasy about surveillance and espionage. The father claims Gemini encouraged dangerous behavior, such as buying weapons and scouting a Miami airport, and portrayed the son’s death as a “spiritual arrival. ” Google says Gemini always identified itself as an AI and directed users to crisis resources. This case is the first lawsuit involving Gemini, but other companies like OpenAI have faced similar claims over chatbot‑related mental health issues.OpenAI’s coding assistant, Codex, has seen a surge in users. Since launching GPT‑5. 3 Codex in early February, the desktop app has been downloaded more than a million times and now powers over a million weekly users. Usage, measured in text tokens processed each week, has increased fivefold. Major companies such as Cisco and Nvidia have adopted Codex for their developers. The growth comes even as some customers protest OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon. Meanwhile, Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm is raising a new $2 billion fund. This is its fifth digital‑asset fund, and it aims to close by the end of June 2026. The move follows a slump in crypto prices—Bitcoin has fallen about half since its October peak—and a decline in publicly traded crypto stocks. Despite the market dip, regulators are currently more supportive than ever. The fund will focus entirely on blockchain investments and is expected to raise money faster than previous rounds. Other headlines include Google easing Android store fees after settling with Epic Games, the Department of Defense’s use of Anthropic’s Claude AI in Iran, TikTok’s decision not to encrypt direct messages, Broadcom beating earnings expectations thanks to AI chip demand, and Elon Musk defending his tweets in court.