Google has told K-12 schools that if they want to turn off AI features in Search for students, they will lose access to Google Search entirely rather than just disabling AI Overviews. The move runs counter to recent district-level bans on classroom AI in places like Los Angeles, Seattle and New York City, prompting criticism from parent advocacy groups and elected officials including NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Ed Markey.
text.npr.org
· 2026-11-13
A North Carolina family has sued Google and Alphabet, alleging negligence after their 13-year-old daughter spent three months using a school-issued Chromebook to discuss depression, research suicide methods and plan her funeral, interacting with Gemini in ways the suit says 'coached' her toward self-harm. Monitoring software eventually flagged the activity, but the alert reportedly went to the personal phone of a former school counselor who had left the job nine months earlier before reaching her parents, who then intervened.
wired.com
· 2026-11-11
NASA announced it is accepting applications for its next astronaut class, posted on USAJOBS, the federal government's job site. Selected candidates will work toward lunar missions, the planned 2032 Moon Base, and systems intended to support a future Mars mission, reporting to Johnson Space Center. Requirements include US citizenship, a STEM master's degree or equivalent, three years of related professional experience, and passing a long-duration astronaut physical.
cnet.com
· 2026-11-10
Google Cloud has announced Gemini for Healthcare, an agentic AI platform built on its Gemini model to automate administrative and operational tasks in medical settings. The system connects to electronic health records, billing platforms, Medicare/Medicaid data and clinical guidelines to generate multi-step workflows, with human oversight built in. Early customers include Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Hartford HealthCare, HCA Healthcare, Highmark Health, Northwell Health, Optum and Stanford School of Medicine.
engadget.com
· 2026-11-10
Companies like BusPatrol, AngelTrax and Verra Mobility have installed AI-powered cameras on tens of thousands of school buses to detect drivers who illegally pass stopped buses. BusPatrol alone has equipped about 35,000 buses across 24 states, with flagged incidents reviewed by humans before citations are mailed. AngelTrax and Verra Mobility both claim 98 percent of cited drivers don't repeat the violation.
futurism.com
· 2026-11-10
NHTSA has opened a formal investigation into Waymo's software recall meant to stop its robotaxis from illegally passing stopped school buses with extended stop arms. Waymo issued a software fix in mid-November and a formal voluntary recall in December, but the agency says most reported school bus passing incidents occurred after those dates, including one flagged by the NTSB in mid-January.
wired.com
· 2026-11-09
The NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened a recall query into Waymo on Friday, examining whether a software update the company rolled out in November 2025 actually stopped its robotaxis from passing stopped school buses with flashing lights and deployed stop arms. The agency noted that a majority of such incidents occurred even after Waymo's remedy date. This follows an earlier NHTSA probe that documented Waymo vehicles driving past stopped school buses in Atlanta and Austin.
engadget.com
· 2026-11-09
NHTSA said in a November 6 filing that most reported incidents of Waymo robotaxis illegally passing stopped school buses occurred after a software update was completed in November 2025. The agency's Office of Defects Investigation has opened a 'recall query' to assess whether Waymo's fix actually works, following an earlier probe sparked by an Atlanta incident and multiple reports from Austin school district officials.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-11-09
BusPatrol has installed AI-powered cameras on roughly 35,000 school buses across 24 states to catch drivers illegally passing stopped buses, with police reviewing footage before tickets are issued. An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek and Type Investigations found Montgomery County, Maryland alone issued over 375,000 tickets worth $92 million, while the county kept about $18.5 million and paid BusPatrol roughly $40 million between 2019 and 2024. The investigation found no clear evidence that the program reduced violations or collisions near buses. Other vendors, including Verra Mobility, are expanding similar revenue-sharing programs, such as a new contract in Osceola County, Florida.
techspot.com
· 2026-11-09
A lawsuit filed in California Superior Court alleges that a 13-year-old North Carolina student, referred to as Emma, developed suicidal thoughts after months of interactions with Google's AI Mode feature on a school-issued Chromebook. Her parents say they learned of the AI use only after the school warned them she was in imminent danger of self-harm, at which point they found her drafting a suicide note and sought emergency psychiatric care. The complaint claims Google integrated AI features into widely used K-12 apps without adequately warning parents of potential risks.
tech.slashdot.org
· 2026-11-08
Bitdefender published research describing a 3AM ransomware affiliate attack on a UK school estate in which attackers stole backup credentials, created rogue domain-admin accounts, linked separate Active Directory domains, and spread across schools before deploying ransomware. Bitdefender says an AI system appeared to generate repetitive commands and troubleshoot issues while a human operator retained control of high-level decisions, using standard Windows tools like PowerShell and WMI throughout.
darkreading.com
· 2026-11-03
An Arizona State University lecturer and founder of AI implementation firm Main & Machine writes that businesses are underestimating the real cost of checking AI-generated output before use. He cites U.S. Census Bureau data showing overall business AI adoption at 17% to 20% in late 2025 through early 2026. He argues that treating 'human in the loop' as a mere checkbox fails because a quick second look often isn't genuine verification.
entrepreneur.com
· 2026-11-01
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