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Brian McCullough
Welcome to the Techmeme write home for Thursday, July 24th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today the White House has rolled out its big AI action plan. Google reported earnings but really wanted you to know about consumer adoption of its AI. A new Kindle Color Soft T Mobile Starlink service is available to anyone and the Switch 2 is now the fastest selling console in history. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech the White House yesterday unveiled the AI Action Plan, seeking to have tech dominance over China solidified, including proposals to revamp permitting for AI infrastructure projects. Quoting Bloomberg from this day forward, it'll be a policy of the United States to do whatever it takes to lead the world in artificial intelligence, president Trump said Wednesday at an AI event hosted by the All In Podcast podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum, a consortium of tech leaders and lawmakers. The orders Trump signed include a measure addressing energy and permitting issues for AI infrastructure, a directive to promote AI exports, and one that calls for large language models procured by the government to be neutral and unbiased. America is the country that started the AI race and as President of the United States I am here today to declare that America is going to win it, he added. The so called AI Action Plan unveiled earlier Wednesday recommends revamping the permitting process and streamlining environment environmental standards to speed AI related infrastructure projects, while calling for withholding funds from states that place burdensome rules on the emerging technology. The blueprint seeks to make American technology the foundation for AI worldwide while enacting security measures to keep adversaries like China from gaining an edge. Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything seen since the dawn of the space age, trump said. It will challenge us to marshal all of our strength and flex the muscles of American ingenuity and resolve like probably never before. Under the recommendations, the federal government would ask businesses and the public about existing regulations that hinder AI adoption, with an eye toward rolling back those rules. The White House's budget office would also work with federal agencies that have overseen AI related funding to consider putting limits on those awards, quote, if the state's AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding. We also have to have a single federal standard, not 50 different states regulating this industry of the future. We need one common sense federal standard that supersedes all states, supersedes everybody, trump said Wednesday. The White House, signaling concern that AI could reshape the labor market, also asked the Education and Labor departments to prioritize skill development and training to assist us workers. It also proposes prioritizing investment in theoretical, computational and experimental research, a request that comes even as the administration has slashed grants to top tier research universities. Nvidia chief Executive Jensen Huang was in Washington for the event. Huang has forged a closer relationship with Trump despite criticizing US Export control policies on advanced AI chips. The tech boss scored a diplomatic win last week when the administration signaled it would allow Nvidia to resume shipments of an AI chip specifically designed for China's market. Trump on Wednesday echoed Wang's argument that US AI chip export controls give a leg up to the likes of China's Huawei, saying that, quote, necessary protections would remain but that, quote, the greatest threat of all is to forfeit the race and force our partners into rival technology, end quote. But back to the word that the Trump administration plans to vet AI models for ideological bias and limit government contracts to tech companies whose models offer objective truth. Quoting from the Financial Times in an executive order signed on Wednesday, the president urged federal agencies not to procure services that, quote, sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas, citing instances in which chatbots have allegedly distorted facts to satisfy diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Two separate orders also signed on Wednesday mandated the acceleration of data center permitting and promoted the export of U.S. technology and a boost to American companies such as Nvidia and amd. In a speech ahead of the signings, Trump vowed that the U.S. government would now, quote, deal only with AI that pursues truth, fairness and strict impartiality. A senior administration official said that the General Service Administration, which oversees government procurement, would draw up the rules to vet government contractors for instances of bias. Trump's political allies have long accused AI models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini of promoting liberal ideology, end quote. And then, on the copyright and IP issue side of things, President Trump said forcing AI firms to pay for each copyrighted work is, quote, not doable and called for common sense AI and IP rules. Quoting Deadline, Trump said, you can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or whatever you've studied, you're expected to pay for. We appreciate that, but you just can't do that because it's not doable. And if you're going to try to do that, you're not going to have a success program. When a person reads a book or an article, you've gained great knowledge. That does not mean you're violated copyright laws or have to make deals with every content provider, he said. You just can't do it. China's not doing it. End quote. Let's try to bang this one out real quick. Alphabet reported Q2 revenue up 14% year on year, net income up 19% and services revenue up 12%. YouTube's Q2 ad revenue rose 13% year on year to 9.8 billion, and Google's overall advertising revenue reached $71.3 billion, up from 64.6 billion a year ago. Google Cloud Q2 revenue was up 32% year on year to 13.62 billion, and they raised their 2025 capex forecast to $85 billion after in February, projecting a mere $75 billion. And on the AI front, quoting TechCrunch on the company's Q2 2025 call with investors, Sundar Pichai shared that AI overviews, a Google Search feature offering an AI summary of search results available in 200 countries and territories, now has 2 billion monthly users, up from 1.5 billion in May 2025. In addition, Google's Gemini app has grown to 450 million monthly active users. We continue to see strong growth and engagement with daily requests growing over 50% from Q1, Pichai said of the app. Meanwhile, AI mode, a way to use Google Search via an AI chat experience to get more in depth answers, has over 100 million monthly active users. Pichai said the service is available in the US and more recently India, but is still rolling out. The CEO also said the experience will be upgraded in the near future with the addition of the advanced research tool deep search and more personalized responses. On the developer front, Google said more than 9 million people have built with Gemini. Over 70 million videos have been produced with the VO3AI model since May. Google Vids, a VEO powered feature for text to video AI generation in Google Workspace now has nearly 1 million monthly active users in Google Meet. Over 50 million people used AI powered meeting notes in Google Meet. The company also said the stats are meant to illustrate consumer demand for AI features. For instance, Google shared that AI overviews were driving over 10% more Google search queries for the types of searches that show them. However, it's arguably difficult to determine how many people have truly and willingly turned to AI in search when the features have been thrust upon them as aggressively as they have been across Google's platform and products. Google quantified its growth by monthly tokens access, saying that it had announced at its developer conference in May that it had processed 480 trillion monthly tokens, and that figure has now doubled to 980 trillion monthly tokens. We are seeing significant demand for our comprehensive AI product portfolio, pichai told investors. Of course, this is all possible because of the long term investments we have made in our differentiated full stack approach to AI. End quote 1 more Google thing if you'll allow it and I have a reason for bringing this up now. Google has added new features to Google photos, including a VO2 powered photo to video tool and a remix tool that applies styles like anime and sketches to photos. Quoting 9 to 5 Google Photo 2 video lets you take an existing still image in your library and transform it into a dynamic 6 second clip. Imagine that perfect selfie with friends from a few years ago suddenly coming to life with subtle movements or a cherished photo of your parent as a child smiling back at you. After selecting a picture, you can choose 1 of 2 prompts Subtle movements or I'm feeling lucky. The process may take up to one minute. You can regenerate as needed before saving to your library or sharing. This is powered by VO2 instead of VO3, which makes possible sound with Google Photos imposing video generation limits in the Gemini app, generating video of any sort requires a paid subscription. Photo to video in Google Photos is free, with the rollout starting Today in the US on Android and iOS. Finally, Google Photos is adding a new Create tab to the bottom bar, joining Photos collections and ask search. The idea is to have a unified place to access photo to video, remix collages, highlight videos and more. This will begin rolling out in the US in August with Google adding new tools and continuing to refine existing ones over time. On the safety front, everything generated in Google Photos features an invisible synth, ID digital watermark and a visible one in the corner for videos. Just like Gemini, you will be able to leave feedback on generated media with a thumbs up or thumbs down. Now I'm squeezing this in here because when we talk about Apple being behind in AI, this is what we're talking about. This is the sort of thing that people pay the likes of Midjourney $20 a month for turning photos into videos. I mean someday soon that picture of me in front of a lake. Now make me jump into the lake and you can do it right there on your phone. Apple will let you do this on your iPhone when? Like how many years from now they are so so Amazon has updated its color screen Kindle ColorSoft with a cheaper 16 gigabyte model for 250 bucks and a new Kid Focus bundle. Quoting the Verge Our customers have loved reading Kindle in color. On average they spend more time on Kindle ColorSoft and read hundreds more pages than on our other Kindle devices, the company says in a blog post. That's why we're excited to introduce two new additions to the Kindle Color Soft family. The cheaper ColorSoft costs $30 less than the Signature Edition, but the more costly model has a few extra perks, including 32 gigabytes of storage, an auto adjusting front light and wireless charging. The Kids Focus bundle, which Amazon is calling Kindle Color Soft Kids, comes with a color soft the 16GB model, according to spokesperson Connor Rice, a special cover you can pick one of two options and one year of its Amazon Kids plus subscription. Shortly after its release, Amazon briefly paused shipments of the Signature Edition following customer complaints about a yellow bar on the screen. Amazon now has a message on the Signature Edition store listing acknowledging that a small number of customers have reported a yellow band, and an Amazon spokesperson told the Verge that the company made a combination of software and display adjustments to address the issue. End't Mobile's Starlink powered satellite service, called tsatellite, is now generally available as a standalone subscription for US users, not just T Mobile customers. Quoting the Verge, the new satellite coverage option is called T Satellite, and it's currently available as a standalone subscription. It's being offered at $10 per month for a limited time, before increasing to $15 per month. It also comes included for customers on the carrier's $100 per month experience beyond or older go 5G plans your device will automatically connect to T Satellite if you're in an area with no cellular coverage. As long as there isn't a heavy amount of cloud coverage or trees blocking your view of the sky, you should be able text messages, including to 911, as well as share a link that temporarily tracks your location. T Mobile's support page says the ability to send pictures is available on most Android phones, and the company plans on adding support for more devices soon. T Mobile is also aiming to enable voice messages and will eventually allow devices to connect to satellite optimized apps, which it previously said could include AllTrails, AccuWeather and WhatsApp. The more than 650 Starlink satellites used by T Mobile cover the continental U.S. hawaii, parts of southern Alaska and Puerto Rico. The carrier says it's working on offering satellite connectivity while abroad and in international waters as well. Apple currently offers the ability to send texts and emergency Messages from the iPhone 14 and later for free, but it plans to eventually charge for it. There still aren't any details on price. Google also added a satellite SOS feature to the Pixel 9 that's free to use for two years after activation. While signing up for satellite service through T Mobile may seem redundant, the carrier offers support for more phones and also plans on adding new capabilities like picture and voice messaging. In order to use T Satellite, you'll need to have an unlocked device with support for ESIMS and satellite connectivity. Right now, more than 60 different phones can use T Satellite, including the iPhone 13 and up, Google Pixel 9 and the Samsung Galaxy 21 and newer. You can view the full list of eligible devices on T Mobile's website. Finally today, according to Circana, the Nintendo Switch 2 is the fastest selling video game device in US history, with 1.6 million units sold in June, topping the PS4's 1.1 million units sold in November 2013. Quoting IGN spending on hardware was up a whopping 249% year over year thanks to the console's debut, reaching $978 million and greatly surpassing the previous monthly record from June 2008 of 608 million. In total, the Switch 2 sold 1.6 million units in the US during its launch month, beating the PS4's previous sales record of 1.1 million units in November 2013. Unshockingly, it was the best selling console of the month, both in terms of units and dollar sales across both Nintendo Switch platforms. Switch 2 exclusive Mario Kart World was the best selling game of the month, Followed by Cyberpunk 2077 and Rune Guardians of Xisuma, both of which launched alongside the new console. In fourth and fifth place respectively were Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, followed by Street Fighter 6, Mario Kart 8 Hogwarts Legacy bravely defaults Remaster and Minecraft Because Nintendo doesn't share digital sales numbers with Sorkana, this chart may be missing some big sellers. For instance, we learned today that deltarune topped Switch two charts in digital sales in June, but with no physical addition and the game only costing $25, it's missing from the dollar sales ranking entirely. So does all this Nintendo Switch 2 success mean it's on track to outsell the Nintendo Switch 1? I asked Arcana analyst Matt Piscatella, and this is what he told me. What the launch sales of Switch 2 primarily tell us is that they made a lot of Switch 2 to sell at launch. Lifetime sales and launch sales of a console do not correlate, meaning that some consoles with small launches end up doing incredibly well. Lifetime PS2 only sold 400,000 in its launch month, while others with big launches ended up doing not so well. Lifetime since launch month demand is rarely satiated by available supply, and it is certainly not a great sign when it is. Historically, all we can really get a read on at launch is the confidence of the manufacturer to make so many units available and the ability of the supply chain to get those units to the market. But having the biggest launch month sales for any new video game hardware platform is a hell of a good start. The last of my college buddies finally got his hands on a Switch two this morning, so the Mario Kart World tournaments begin this afternoon. Talk to you tomorrow.
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