Mr. Musk’s involvement in right-wing politics contributed to a 13% drop in deliveries in the first quarter, including steep declines in E.V.-friendly places like Norway.

The co-founder of Oracle and friend of President Trump, who was a flamboyant fixture in the 1990s, has returned to the spotlight through — of all things — TikTok.

They are expected to convene on Wednesday to discuss a potential sale of the app, which faces a Saturday deadline to change its ownership structure.

Sales of cars picked up recently partly as buyers rushed to lock in deals before President Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on cars and auto parts go into effect.

In Britain, amid growing evidence of harm to young people from extreme content online, a “Smartphone Free Childhood” campaign is going viral.

The start-up’s valuation, which has nearly doubled in six months, shows continued enthusiasm for A.I. among investors.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are investing in a Bitcoin-mining company called American Bitcoin, created by the merger of two firms.

The company, which uses artificial intelligence to develop new treatments, now counts the venture capital firm Thrive Capital as a backer.

What did they think about the national security breach, in which Trump administration officials discussed attack plans in Yemen on a commercial messaging app?

A lot of useful information is only as helpful as its organization. The same goes for my own brain, of course. Getting that information in different formats can help with learning it, and Google’s NotebookLM has been fun to experiment with for that purpose, particularly the customized podcasts with AI hosts.

The latest addition is the new Mind Maps feature. A mind map is an old technique for organizing your thinking using visual webs of information that connect ideas together. Imagine a branching tree where each limb is a concept and every twig is a supporting idea. They’re great for people who think visually.

The NotebookLM version is essentially that, but it is put together by an AI model. I decided to test this thing with two real-life situations: planning a garden and trying to become a whiz at DIY home repairs.

Mind Garden

(Image credit: NotebookLM screenshots)

The garden was first. I uploaded a pile of articles I’d been hoarding – stuff about companion planting, raised beds, native perennials, composting, and that one blog post where someone swears by pouring beer on their tomatoes. NotebookLM chewed through all of it and spit out a Mind Map upon request.

There were branches for planning, locations, and even the benefits of gardening, among others. Each branch had a long list of 'twigs' covering all kinds of subtopics, as you can see above. Each was clickable, causing the conversation part of NotebookLm to expound upon that topic. It was extremely helpful in keeping all those elements organized.

DIY

(Image credit: NotebookLM)

The same goes for the DIY project. My house has this charming quality where things just break for no reason. I’d already tried to fix a leaky toilet once, which ended with me flooding the bathroom and watching a YouTube tutorial through a veil of defeat.

This time, I came prepared. I uploaded manuals, how-to articles, and a few trusted repair blogs. Mind Maps whipped up categories like planning, building codes, and the essential DIY projects list within seconds. I chose flooring installation from that set of twigs, and you can see hardwood floors, moisture barriers, and an expansion gap.

There was something strangely calming about seeing the steps laid out so clearly. I clicked on “door hanging” and got an overview of the different types of doors and how to set them up from the AI. I felt like I'd had a conversation with someone who actually knows what they’re doing.

Different Thinking

NotebookLM already did a good job summarizing stuff, but the Mind Maps added a layer of clarity that made it feel almost tactile. I could see how ideas were connected and how it would help me learn faster.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. Sometimes, the Mind Maps get a little too enthusiastic and start branching off into tangents that don’t really help. One map tried to connect “composting” with “composing” music for gardening for some reason. And with very niche topics, the AI can still miss the mark by offering generic advice when what you need is something specific, like how to fix a loose tile without taking apart half your kitchen.

I’d also love more manual control. Right now, you can navigate and explore the maps, but you can’t really tweak them much. Sometimes, I want to drag a node, rename it, or cut a whole branch that’s not useful. Still, these are nitpicks. The core experience is solid, though.

The truth is, I didn’t expect to love Mind Maps. I thought they’d be a neat visual gimmick, something I’d play with once and then forget about. But I think I'll be using them more, especially for any ambitious plans I have for improving my home and garden. In a world full of tabs, a map is nice to have.

You might also like

• I used NoteBookLM to help with productivity - here’s 5 top tips to get the most from Google’s AI audio tool
• Google will turn those long documents into your next favorite podcast
• Google Gemini is racing to win the AI crown in 2025

The Swedish retailer H&M said it was exploring the use of artificial intelligence in producing “digital twins” of models.

The private equity giant is considering investing as the video app works to follow a law that requires it to separate from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, by next week.

The deal combined two of Mr. Musk’s companies, which have been on different trajectories. The transaction valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, the billionaire said.

The chairman, Brendan Carr, sent a letter to the company accusing it of violating equal employment opportunity regulations.

Elon Musk's AI startup xAI has purchased Elon Musk's social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, for $45 billion.

The start-up, which provides the processing power to help develop A.I. systems, faces questions about its debt and the overall economy.

President Trump’s intervention came while Mr. Milton was appealing his conviction on securities and wire fraud charges.

• Microsoft has revealed its new Windows Roadmap portal
• The roadmap aims to clarify exactly what features are inbound for Windows 11 and when they’ll arrive
• The idea is to cut through any confusion in terms of future functionality, although it’s early days yet for the portal

Ever get confused about what’s happening with incoming changes for Windows 11? I wouldn’t blame you – I end up scratching my head some of the time regarding features that are in the works, and I write about Microsoft’s OS for a living (among a good many other tech topics, that is).

Microsoft itself acknowledges a lack of clarity around features progressing through testing for Windows 11, and wishes to improve the situation with a fresh innovation in the form of a roadmap.

As Windows Central reports, Microsoft’s new Windows Roadmap portal is now live, with the company describing the reasoning behind the new website in a blog post.

Microsoft states that: “The Windows roadmap provides estimated release dates and descriptions for features being released. All information is subject to change. As a feature or product is canceled or postponed, information will be removed from this website.”

So, just because a feature is mentioned on the roadmap doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed for inclusion in Windows 11 eventually. That’s always been true of functionality in testing, though – if it isn’t working, or testers are giving lots of negative feedback, there’s always a chance Microsoft will dump a feature, and you’ll never see it again. (Or it’ll emerge in the future, in a somewhat different guise, perhaps).

(Image credit: Future / Jasmine Mannan) Analysis: Early days for a useful portal

An initiative like this is, of course, a laudable one from Microsoft. However, if you clicked through and perused the above blog post, you surely noticed that it’s targeted at IT professionals – those who manage computers for organizations. That’s because when you’ve got to take care of a fleet of PCs running Windows 11, there’s a lot of complexity involved, and you really need to stay fully abreast of what changes might be upcoming for the operating system.

But still, the average consumer – like me, or you – will likely also find the new Windows Roadmap useful to browse, just to see what new features are on the horizon. Or, if there’s a capability that you’re really keen on and haven’t yet got, you could use the portal to clarify whether it’s actually being rolled out to Windows 11 PCs yet, and what the expected general availability date is.

It should also help to clear up confusion when certain features seem to skip testing channels. There are four of these Microsoft uses, from the earliest (Canary channel) to just before release (Release Preview channel), and sometimes features will just appear in later channels, without even being presented to the early testers.

In short, this invention should allow you to more easily track the progress of everything that’s in the works for Windows 11, though looking at the roadmap now, I’m still encountering some minor points of confusion.

Let’s take an example of the PC spec cards, which were spotted hidden in the background of test builds early this year, before suddenly going into testing, and then pretty much straight into Windows 11’s latest preview update this week (prior to release next month). Blink and you missed the progress of that particular feature in testing, and its rapid shift through the gears was rather strange to witness.

So, what does the Windows Roadmap say about these spec cards? Firstly, that the rollout start date is March 2025, and what that means is the feature is only rolling out now – meaning a gradual deployment, so even if you’ve installed the March preview update, you may not see it (yet). Expected availability is then listed as the “April 2025 non-security monthly update,” meaning the preview update coming at the end of April.

What I don’t quite understand here is that surely the broad availability will be the full May 2025 patch (which is what the April 2025 preview update will become) – as far from everybody downloads the preview, or optional (non-security) updates. Most folks only get the full release, so really, that following update in May would surely represent the full availability of the feature. Wouldn’t it?

Okay, so maybe I’m nitpicking here, and I get that the gist is that for the full (non-preview) update in April, the PC spec cards will still just be rolling out – and not provided to everyone – but I think Microsoft could put this across in a better way.

Anyway, even if there are a few wrinkles to iron out, this is, of course, still early days for the roadmap, and it should prove a useful tool in terms of keeping an eye on what’s imminent for Windows 11.

You may also like...

• Windows 11’s latest patch declares war on BIOS updates for some Lenovo laptops, blocking them as a security risk in a bizarre turn of events
• Shock, horror – I’m not going to argue with Microsoft’s latest bit of nagging in Windows 11, as this pop-up is justified
• Windows 11 fully streamlined in just two clicks? Talon utility promises to rip all the bloatware out of Microsoft’s OS in a hassle-free way

• OpenAI limits free tier of ChatGPT to 3 images a day
• Sam Altman says "Our GPUs are melting"
• Limitation should be on a temporary basis

Amid the growing controversy over its AI mimicking the artistic style of Studio Ghibli, OpenAI is being forced to limit how many images ChatGPT can produce on the free tier to 3 a day because it's proving too popular.

In a recent tweet on X, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said “It's super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT, but our GPUs are melting. We are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient. Hopefully won't be long! ChatGPT free tier will get 3 generations per day soon.”

it's super fun seeing people love images in chatgpt.but our GPUs are melting.we are going to temporarily introduce some rate limits while we work on making it more efficient. hopefully won't be long!chatgpt free tier will get 3 generations per day soon.March 27, 2025

ChatGPT’s new image generation capabilities are clearly a step up in the development of AI image generation, proving superior in our tests to DALL-E 3, which is the model previously used by ChatGPT, and also what it will still default to once you’ve run out of generations in the new model.

In his X-thread Sam Altman also goes on to say that “(also, we are refusing some generations that should be allowed; we are fixing these as fast we can.)”

This could explain the frustrations I’ve been experiencing getting ChatGPT to produce text in images.

An image generated using ChatGPT's new image-generation abilities. (Image credit: OpenAI) ChatGPT rollout delays

It’s quite possible that you don’t have access to ChatGPT’s image creation tools quite yet anyway. While ChatGPT Plus and Pro users all seem to have access, not all free-tier users do.

On March 26 Altman tweeted that rollout to the free tier was going to be delayed: “Images in ChatGPT are way more popular than we expected (and we had pretty high expectations). Rollout to our free tier is, unfortunately, going to be delayed for a while.”

As we've said in our testing, even on the Plus tier, ChatGPT is already very slow when it comes to generating images, and when the rollout to the free tier is complete we would expect it to be even slower. The move to limit the free tier to 3 images on a temporary basis, while understandable, will inevitably lead to people feeling frustrated with the company.

Have you been able to sample ChatGPT's new image creation abilities yet? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

You may also like

• ChatGPT 4o image generation is so good we will never be able to trust iPhone renders again
• ChatGPT 4o just got better, although I’m yet to notice a difference
• OpenAI unveiled image generation for 4o – here's everything you need to know about the ChatGPT upgrade

“The group chats are popping off at the highest levels of government.”