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Google’s AI Tools Embrace The Dream Of Clippy

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Clippy on ruled paper.
Microsoft’s Clippy sits atop its paper throne. | Image: Microsoft

The words “it looks like you’re writing a letter, would you like some help with that?” didn’t appear at any point during Google’s recent demo of its AI office suite tools. But as I watched Aparna Pappu, Google’s Workspace leader, outline the feature onstage at I/O, I was reminded of a certain animated paperclip that another tech giant once hoped would help usher in a new era of office work.

Even Microsoft would acknowledge that Clippy’s legacy is not wholly positive, but the virtual assistant is forever associated with a particular period of work — one packed to the brim with laborious emails, clip art, and beige computers with clunking hard drives. Now, work has changed — it’s Slack pings, text cursors jostling in a Google Doc, and…

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Science and Tech

Montana Bans Telegram, WeChat, And Temu From Government Devices

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A picture of Telegram’s paper airplane logo surrounded by yellow triangular shapes
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Wednesday, Montana governor Greg Gianforte didn’t only ban TikTok state-wide. He also accused Telegram, WeChat, and the shopping app Temu of being “tied to foreign adversaries” and directed that they and similar apps be banned from government devices and all state business. Gianforte also cited TikTok owner ByteDance’s CapCut video editor and Lemon8 as examples of offending apps.

With this ban, Gianforte largely seems to be targeting apps with ties to China, given that ByteDance, Temu owner Pinduoduo, and WeChat owner Tencent are all based in the country. Telegram is the exception: it was founded in Russia but is currently headquartered in Dubai. Gianforte’s letter claims that the Russian government uses the app to “monitor users and…

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Beepberry Is A Blackberry Keyboard Tinker Toy From The Founder Of Pebble

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Beepberry device in between a banana and apple
The ‘Beepberry’ with other fruits accompanying it. | Image: SQFMI

Are you a hacker who happens to miss their Blackberry? Looks like there’s a new product that’s just your speed: the “Beepberry.” It literally grafts the keyboard of a Blackberry Classic onto a pocketable custom board designed to fit a Raspberry Pi Zero W, all paired with a 400 x 240 “Memory LCD” screen that looks like it was ripped from an old graphing calculator — but is a bit more sophisticated.

Beepberry is designed by Eric Migicovsky, founder of the gone-but-not-forgotten Pebble smartwatch and more relevantly co-founder of Beeper: the hacky all-in-one messenging app that stuffs every service from WhatsApp to iMessage (using a jailbroken iPhone) into one place.

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TikTok Is Now Banned In Montana

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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies in Congress.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified in Congress to fight a federal ban. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte has signed a bill banning TikTok within the state — the first ban of its kind in the United States. The bill, SB 419, prohibits TikTok from operating “within the territorial jurisdiction of Montana” and demands mobile app stores make the app unavailable for Montana residents.

“To protect Montanans’ personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok in Montana,” Gianforte tweeted today.

TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter responded with a statement on Twitter. “Governor Gianforte has signed a bill that infringes on the First Amendment rights of the people of #Montana by unlawfully banning #TikTok, a platform that empowers hundreds of thousands of people across the state,” O…

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