In an unexpected twist that few saw coming, the old-school mapping service MapQuest took the No. 1 spot on Apple’s free app charts in both the United States and Canada this week.

The app’s popularity surged after it refused to replace Lake Ontario with “Lake America.” What may seem like a small decision breathed new life into a mapping brand many associate with dial-up internet and printed driving directions.

All of this started after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 27, directing federal agencies to adopt “Lake America” as the official U.S. name for Lake Ontario. It didn’t take long for Google and Apple to fall in line, changing the lake’s name for U.S. users. However, MapQuest took a different stance, posting on X: “We’re not changing it.”

Continue reading “MapQuest Tops App Store After Rejecting ‘Lake America,’ Can the Comeback Last?” →

On August 27, Google launched Expert Intelligence, which the company describes as “a new way for you to engage with trusted content.”

The new tool lets readers add eligible books they bought through Google Play Books to Gemini Notebook, where they can use them as sources along with other material they’ve already added to the notebook.

However, you can’t just upload any old ebook you have lying around to your Gemini Notebook. If you purchased an eligible title from another platform, you won’t be able to use it with Google’s Expert Intelligence tools.

Continue reading “Google Expert Intelligence Adds AI Tools to Ebooks, but Only Through Google Play” →

You can now track flight prices, see what flights and hotels cost in points or miles, and book your hotel, all through Google’s AI Mode in Search. With the new update, Google is positioning its conversational AI tool to play a much bigger role in how we plan our travel.

The new features, which the search giant announced on August 27, bring Google Flights’ popular price-tracking tech directly into AI Mode. That means users in supported markets can tell AI Mode when and where they want to fly, compare current prices from more than 300 airlines and travel sites, and have Google email them if prices change.

Continue reading “Google’s AI Mode Is Turning Search Into a Travel Agent” →

Apple unveiled its new Mac mini on August 25, updating it with the M6 and M5 Pro chips for a significant performance boost. But the company is selling much more than just faster speeds.

The tech giant is also positioning its tiniest desktop as a machine that can stay on and keep AI agents working even when there’s nobody sitting in front of it.

The M6 model delivers up to 4x faster AI performance than the M4 Mac mini that came before it, according to Apple. And the company says the new Mac mini can run local models and create AI agents to automate everyday tasks.

Apple hardware chief Johny Srouji went a step further, calling the Mac mini an “always-on agentic device.”

Continue reading “Apple’s New Mac Mini Shows How Always-On AI Could Change Personal Computing” →

OpenAI has released a plugin for Apple Messages that lets users connect ChatGPT to the messaging service. The trouble is, it only needs one party in the conversation to opt in, and the AI has access to what everyone said.

The plugin went live on August 20, giving the chatbot the ability to read and search conversations, summarize recent chats, draft replies, and send messages via the Messages app on a Mac.

Users on all ChatGPT plans can access the plugin through the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS. OpenAI says it can be used in ChatGPT Work and Codex. The plugin works with iMessage, SMS, and RCS conversations on Apple silicon Macs.

Continue reading “‘That’s Between You, Me, and ChatGPT’ — Every Apple iMessage Conversation Is Now a Privacy Risk” →