Welcome back to Lately, The Globe’s weekly tech newsletter. If you have feedback or just want to say hello to a real-life human, send me an e-mail.
In this week’s issue:
🤖 A new chatbot for kids
🧓🏻 How to talk about online scams with your older family members
👨🏽⚖️ Google’s antitrust trial
💄 The new recession indicator
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Google to release AI chatbot for kids
Google will soon release an AI chatbot for kids specifically, the tech giant’s latest effort to create products geared toward younger users. In an e-mail to users of Family Link, the Google service that allows parents to manage what their kids can see online, the company said kids under 13 can use the chatbot to get homework help or ask questions. Google also said the kid version of its Gemini chatbot would include guardrails to prevent kids from accessing unsafe content. AI is increasingly becoming a part of students’ lives. In fact, a survey released by KPMG last October found 59 per cent of Canadian students are using generative AI for their school work, up from 52 per cent the year before.
As AI becomes more prevalent, some parents and experts are concerned that the technology can be harmful for kids, especially without comprehensive laws in place to hold tech companies accountable. For an upcoming story, I’m looking to speak with parents who are navigating AI use with their kids. Are you letting your kids use AI chatbots? Does your child chat with “AI companions” or chatbots based on fictional characters? Send me an e-mail or share your story here.
SECURITY
Online scams targeting seniors
'Grandparent scams' use AI to mimic the voice of family members.Illustration by Ruby Ash
If you have an older relative, it’s likely they’ve been on the receiving end of the so-called “grandparent scam” – a call from an anonymous number, with a voice that sounds like a family member claiming to need a large sum of cash for an emergency. It’s one of the seemingly endless list of scams targeting seniors online and by text and phone.
As reporter Ann Hui writes, the challenge of helping older loved ones navigate the online world safely can become a source of stress and anxiety. For older generations, being lectured by younger relatives or adult children may feel, at best, patronizing, and at worst, controlling. For younger generations, providing that support to older relatives can be a daunting – oftentimes thankless – task. But as the complexity of scams and hoaxes evolve, there’s a greater urgency for families to have these kinds of conversations.
ANTITRUST
U.S. seeks breakup of Google’s ad tech business
Last month, a U.S. judge found that Google had an illegal monopoly in the online advertising market, the biggest antitrust tech ruling since the U.S. government called for the breakup of Microsoft in the 1990s. The U.S. Department of Justice argued that Google owned large companies on both the buyer and seller sides of the online advertising ecosystem, which enabled the company to “acquire and maintain monopoly power” in the market. Now this week the DOJ has proposed a potential solution to Google: Sell its ads business. Google has responded by saying that divestiture is “not technically feasible” and instead offered other remedies, including allowing rival ad services access real-time bids.
Google recently lost another antitrust battle when the DOJ ruled the company also had a monopoly in online search. The outcomes of these two cases could fundamentally change how we use the internet, but as Google and the DOJ continue to negotiate potential remedies, it’s still too early to see what that future could look like.
What else we’re reading this week:
People are losing loved ones to AI-fueled spiritual fantasies (Rolling Stone)
They fell in love playing Minecraft. Then the game became their wedding venue (WIRED)
The death of Shopify’s start-up dream, one layoff at a time (The Walrus)
Adult Money
BEAUTY
Use a tube squeezer to get every last ounce of fancy creamSammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Toothpaste squeezer, $10
Forget the lipstick index. The new recession indicator is buying a metal squeezer to press out every last ounce of toothpaste, face cream or lip gloss. Globe reporter Mariya Postelynak recently wrote about how a TikTok video of an influencer using one of these squeezers went viral, and why women’s beauty and fashion trends have long been touted as economic barometers.
Culture radar
ENTERTAINMENT
New Disney park to open in Abu Dhabi
An artist's rendering of new Disney park planned for Abu Dhabi.Walt Disney Imagineering/Reuters
The magical world of Disney is getting bigger. This week, the Walt Disney corporation announced that its next theme park is set to be built in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The company will be partnering with Miral, a major entertainment company that’s worked on other themed attractions, such as Warner Bros. World, also in Abu Dhabi. In an official statement, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of Miral, says that the new Disney park will be “an experience that will inspire generations across the region and the world, creating magical moments and memories that families will treasure forever.”
Disneyland Abu Dhabi will be built on Yas Island, a popular tourist destination that is already home to several attractions owned by Miral.
This announcement marks the seventh Disney park worldwide, and the first since 2016 in Shanghai. Altogether, Disney’s theme parks hosted more than 140 million guests around the world in 2023. This expansion into the Middle East brings the Disney theme park franchise within a four-hour flight for about a third of the world’s population, making it easier for millions in the region, as well as those throughout Asia and South Asia, to meet Mickey in person. And with more recent parks featuring exclusive rides (like Journey to the Center of the Earth at Tokyo DisneySea), Disneyland Abu Dhabi could have some brand new attractions that we’ve never seen before. – Jordyn Streisfield