Esther Shein
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Longtime freelance writer and editor specializing in business, technology and education. Principal, college essay advising and editing firm, Exceptional Essays.
Articles by Esther Shein
Safeguarding Telehealth From Cyberattacks
Seemingly every day, more and more healthcare systems are implementing telehealth. That’s good news; the benefits are significant: better access for people in rural and underserved areas, convenience, and flexibility—not to mention safer and more efficient care. In fact, by 2030, one in 10 of all medical visits in the United States could take place virtually, according to ScienceSoft, an AI transformation and software engineering company serving the healthcare industry.
AI Puts Relevance in Context
You wouldn’t provide personal details to someone, even a friend, out of the blue. Statements need context. In the same way, context is becoming a fundamental mandate for AI as it moves from providing productivity gains to autonomous decision making in the enterprise. Because context shapes how the AI understands and generates outputs, AI agents need to understand what people mean—not just what they say.
How Dr. Martens, Target, Sawyer, Natpat Combat AI Tool Sprawl
As enthusiasm for AI mounts, it has become inevitable that employees seek out tools to increase their individual productivity — often, without IT’s knowledge, creating shadow AI. The proliferation of tools sometimes means teams have free reign to buy or use what they want without governance or oversight. This is creating massive tool sprawl inside consumer goods and retail enterprises due to duplicative programs and subscriptions.
Why are Women Leaving Computer Science?
While the world waits and wonders how AI will impact all jobs, some studies indicate more women are leaving the computer science field. There is also the question of whether computer science remains a viable college major. Student enrollment in computer science at four-year colleges fell 8.1% in the fall of 2025—the biggest one-year drop of any major discipline going back to at least 2020.
Communications of the ACM
The issue of building datacenters has garnered a lot of attention lately, with good reason. With dynamics including skyrocketing demand for AI compute, land for construction at a premium, and proposed sites bumping up against the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) effect, it seems logical to look to the skies and put datacenters in space, right? Companies including Starlink, Amazon, Blue Origin, and SpaceX think so.
Jeff Bezos Says Custom Chips Could Become Amazon’s Next Major Business Original
Amazon is betting its custom chips can become its next major business. Image: Brett Jordan/Unsplash Jeff Bezos says Amazon’s Trainium, Graviton, and other custom chips could become a major business as AWS expands its AI infrastructure. Amazon built AWS into the backbone of its business. Jeff Bezos believes custom computer chips could become its next major pillar.
New York Imposes One-Year Moratorium on New Hyperscale Data Centers
New York has imposed a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data centers while reviewing their environmental and energy impacts. Image: Flickr/Governor Kathy Hochul Photostream New York paused new hyperscale data center permits for up to one year while it studies grid, water, ratepayer, and community impacts. New York has become the first US state to impose a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data center development by temporarily pausing environmental permits for the largest projects.
New York Imposes One-Year Data Center Moratorium
Liberal View 1 hour ago Todd Blanche Was Asked If Donald Trump Is His ‘Friend.’ His Response Was Somehow Worse HuffPost - David Moye • 1h Sen. Chuck Schumer called the acting attorney general’s answer “an all-time Freudian slip and completely disqualifying.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made a truly embarrassing slip of the tongue during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
AI in law offices: How it's being used and the risks
Law firms aren't typically among the first to embrace innovative technologies, but in an industry where protecting sensitive data is paramount, they're using AI to summarize large volumes of information, write drafts, support legal research and analyze documents. Yet there have been more than 1,700 reported cases of lawyers filing briefs containing AI-generated errors. With penalties and fines on the rise, lawyers across the board are stressing that human oversight is essential.
UN Scientists Warn AI Could Cause ‘Catastrophic Harm’
Image: Tierney/Adobe · 4 minute read eWeek content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More An independent, first-of-its-kind scientific assessment of AI published by the United Nations has made a startling conclusion: No one can currently guarantee the technology won't cause catastrophic harm.
Can AI Prevent Suicides?
As chatbots become more widely used as de facto mental health therapists, news about models encouraging people to commit suicide is growing more common. For example, Google Gemini has been cited in a wrongful-death suit alleging that the chatbot drove a 36-year old Florida man into delusional behavior and ultimately coached him toward committing suicide. The mother of a 14-year-old U.K. teen alleges her son also fell prey to a chatbot and took his life as a result.
New Prospect Power Storage facility opens in Virginia
Elevate Infrastructure and ArcLight Capital Partners have begun operating Prospect Power Storage, the 150-MW/600-MWh Prospect Power battery energy storage facility in Rockingham County, Virginia. The two companies participated in a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate completion of the project. Officials said Prospect Power is the largest standalone battery storage asset in Virginia and the PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator.
Siri AI Supported Devices: Full List of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and More
Image: Foundry Apple’s Siri AI upgrade could bring smarter app actions and personal context, but only newer devices will support the features at launch. Apple’s biggest Siri upgrade in years is arriving with a catch: many iPhone owners may be left out. The company is preparing to launch new AI-powered Siri features that can understand personal context, analyze what’s on a user’s screen, and take actions across apps.
Clorox, Southern Glazer’s, SmartSKN Turn to Predictive Analytics to Sharpen Supply Chains
Driven by persistent global disruptions and the need for hyper-accuracy, established companies such as The Clorox Co. and Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits and agile startups such as SmartSKN are migrating away from manual supply chain planning in favor of predictive analytics. The shift toward AI-informed sourcing is rapidly transforming how the industry forecasts demand, manages inventory and mitigates logistical risk.
Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking to Vet Powerful AI Models for National Security Risks
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for federal review of advanced AI models before they reach the public, marking a notable shift from his administration’s earlier hands-off posture.
CNN Sues Perplexity for Alleged ‘Massive’ Copyright Infringement
AI search is running into the old price of journalism: somebody has to pay for the reporting. CNN has sued Perplexity in federal court, accusing the AI-powered research engine of unlawfully copying, scraping, and distributing its content after licensing talks between the companies failed. The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, puts the TV network inside a growing publisher backlash against AI tools that summarize and surface news at scale.
7 top technologies for metaverse development
The metaverse is a nascent, evolving space whose definition can vary widely depending on whom you ask. At this point in time, the challenge is to compile a comprehensive and dependable list of technologies that will help the metaverse flourish over the next decade. We managed to do just that. "We look at metaverses as not a specific group of technologies per se, because they are made up of multiple technologies," observed Marty Resnick, vice president analyst at Gartner.
Readying for Agentic Commerce
The way products are discovered, evaluated and purchased is starting to shift in a meaningful way. It's not because of a new channel or format, but because of who (or what) is doing the shopping. It was only a matter of time before AI agents made their way into commerce, offering a new kind of convenience for consumers who want faster, more guided decisions.
Claude Agent Users Face New Monthly Credit Caps in the Coming Weeks
Link to The Real AI Power Play: Who Controls Your Enterprise Data Layer? The Real AI Power Play: Who Controls Your Enterprise Data Layer? IT and data teams were promised that AI would make work easier. Instead, it's created new layers of complexity.
New Windows Update May Undo Bad Driver Updates on Its Own
Bad driver updates can turn routine maintenance into a support-ticket bonfire. Microsoft is testing Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery, a Windows Update feature that would let the company roll back problematic drivers to a previously known-good version without requiring manual action from users or IT teams. The feature is designed to help recover affected devices when a driver fails quality checks during Microsoft’s driver publishing process.
Are AI Agents becoming Autonomous Coworkers?
Your new autonomous AI coworker is here and wants to be helpful. The good news is you don’t have to bring them coffee. The bad news is they may not take instruction so well. That’s what a Meta employee recently discovered after her email was deleted by an OpenClaw agent without her permission. “Nothing humbles you like telling your OpenClaw ‘confirm before acting’ and watching it speedrun deleting your inbox,” Meta AI security and safety researcher Summer Yue tweeted.
1.8 Billion Gmail Users May Want to Check This AI Privacy Setting
Gmail users: Beware what you write. On May 7, Google announced two personalization updates to Gmail’s AI “Help me write” email-drafting assistant. However, Shark Tank’s Lori Greiner posted a warning on Instagram claiming that the tech giant doesn’t want users to know that it has been “allowing AI to scan every single one of your emails.” This includes tax documents, financial information, and personal conversations.
Protecting Higher Education in the Age of AI
Oscar Wilde famously said that “I can resist anything except temptation,” and colleges and universities are finding this to be the case with students since artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT burst on the scene.
Alphabet Poised to Overtake Nvidia as the World’s Most Valuable Public Company
Alphabet may be on the verge of upending the AI stock race. The Google parent is closing in on Nvidia’s market value, narrowing the gap between the two companies that have become shorthand for the AI boom, according to recent reports. Alphabet’s rally has been fueled by growing confidence in Google Cloud, custom AI processors, and major AI infrastructure deals. Alphabet still needs to close a gap of nearly $120 billion to top the market.
Samsung’s Free Android Upgrade Brings Better Security to Galaxy Phones
Samsung’s next Galaxy update may arrive with stronger security controls… but some users are watching their battery meters more closely than the release calendar. Samsung’s One UI 8.5 update is expected to add protections for theft, failed authentication attempts, app blocking, and inactivity restarts. According to reports, the rollout could begin in Korea first before expanding globally in the following days. The update is expected to be available as a free upgrade for supported Galaxy devices.
Top metaverse platforms in 2026, rise of spatial computing
While gaming and entertainment drive the majority of metaverse platform adoption, large vendors, such as Meta and Apple, continue to invest in business use cases. Metaverse platforms -- AKA spatial computing platforms -- are systems that let users create and interact within immersive 3D virtual environments. They generally fall into three broad categories: Consumer ecosystems, enterprise collaboration and design, and industrial spatial computing.
Microsoft Offers First-Ever Retirement Buyouts to Thousands of Employees
Microsoft is offering first-ever retirement buyouts to some US employees as AI-driven data center spending grows and tech layoffs continue. Image: Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images For the first time in its 51-year history, Microsoft is offering a one-time voluntary retirement program to select employees, sparked by the massive AI boom.
New Apple Phishing Scam Uses Fake $899 iPhone Purchase Alert
An Apple account notification has been exploited in a new email phishing attack that comes with a fake iPhone purchase claim. Image: akportfolio24/Envato One fake Apple alert is all it takes to send someone into a tailspin. A new phishing scam uses what appears to be a legitimate Apple security notification to trick people into believing an $899 iPhone was purchased through PayPal.
Chrome Privacy Concerns Rise as Expert Warns of Fingerprinting Risks
A privacy expert warns Chrome still allows browser fingerprinting and tracking, raising concerns after Google’s shift away from third-party cookie changes. Image: GoldenDayz/Envato Google may tout the safety features of Chrome, but a privacy consultant is calling into question how safe the browser really is. Alexander Hanff maintains that browser fingerprinting is not protected in Chrome. Browser fingerprinting is a technique used to track people by capturing technical details about their browsers.
Starbucks Launches ChatGPT App That Turns AI Prompts Into Drink Orders
Starbucks wants to whet customers’ whistles even further. So, naturally, it is turning to AI.
The Rise of Neoclouds
Neoclouds are the cloud infrastructure you may not be using, but should have on your radar to drive AI innovation. The cloud is no longer just about the hyperscalers. Neoclouds are specialized cloud providers that primarily offer GPU-as-a-service for AI workloads.
Jeff Bezos-Backed EV Startup Raises $650M to Launch $25K Electric Pickup
Slate Auto, the EV startup backed by Jeff Bezos, secures $650 million in funding for an affordable pickup truck slated for delivery by the end of the year. Image: Slate Auto A $25,000 electric pickup just got a $650 million boost… and the EV market might feel the tremor. Slate Auto, an electric vehicle startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has secured $650 million in fresh funding as it accelerates plans to launch a lower-cost, mid-sized pickup truck in the US later this year.
Google Addresses Privacy Concerns Around Gemini in Gmail
The AI boom has cracked open a quiet but persistent question: what exactly are these models learning about us behind the scenes? As tools like Gemini weave themselves into everyday workflows, that unease has only grown louder. Google is now stepping in to draw a firm line, insisting that your personal Gmail data is not part of the training fuel behind its AI. In a brief but pointed message, Gmail VP of Product Blake Barnes sought to demystify how Gemini operates inside your inbox.
Microsoft’s Latest Windows 11 Update Adds New Features, Strengthens Security
Microsoft’s April Windows 11 update brings Smart App Control changes, AI-powered Narrator upgrades, and performance improvements. Image: Greentech/Adobe Microsoft’s new features, improvements, and security fixes for Windows 11 may lack some pizzazz, but the company maintains that they will enhance usability, performance, and security. Multiple outlets have reported that the company will start rolling out the Security Update for Windows 11 on Tuesday, April 14.
Amazon Eyes $9B Globalstar Deal to Compete Against SpaceX’s Starlink
Image: Generated via Google’s Nano Banana Amazon has stars in its eyes. The tech giant is reportedly negotiating to buy satellite telecom group Globalstar in its quest to build a low Earth orbit satellite business to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink internet service.
Escaping AI Pilot Purgatory
Remember the famous scene from “When Harry Met Sally,’’ when the older woman in the deli proclaims, “I’ll have what she’s having”? As AI continues to steamroll its way into organizations, leaders are clamoring for bite-sized tastes of AI in the form of pilots to see what they can automate. The goal, of course, is for pilots to move to production and translate into cost savings to help businesses remain competitive.
Google Messages Surpasses 10 Billion Downloads, Fueled by Samsung Shift
Google Messages surpasses 10 billion downloads while Phone by Google hits 5 billion, highlighting Android dominance despite user backlash over new features. Google’s grip on Android just got a lot harder to ignore. Its default messaging app, Google Messages, surpassed 10 billion downloads on the Play Store this week, doubling its reach in just over two and a half years.
Layoffs and Lawsuits Collide in Meta’s Worst Week Yet
Image: Jon Putman / Anadolu / Getty Images Meta is having a terrible, no good, very bad week. For the second time this year, the company on Wednesday laid off about 700 employees, hours before it was found liable for the mental health struggles of a young woman who became addicted to its platforms as a child. The Los Angeles jury also found YouTube to be negligent.
8 AI use cases in manufacturing
Manufacturers were slower than some industries to adopt digital technologies, a gap that became more visible during the COVID-19 pandemic as companies faced supply chain disruptions and shifting operational demands. The pandemic "really exposed the lack of [digital] investments they've made over time," said Sachin Lulla, consulting industrial products sector leader at EY Americas.
Amazon Reportedly Building AI Smartphone to Revive Alexa Ecosystem
Amazon is reportedly working on building an AI-native smartphone, codenamed ‘Transformer,’ several years after its Fire Phone flopped. Image: Generated via Google’s Nano Banana Ever wish you could control your home Alexa from your phone? Someday soon, you may be able to. Amazon is rumored to be launching a new smartphone, dubbed “Transformer” internally, according to Reuters.
Crypto.com Cuts 12% of Workforce, Targets Roles That ‘Do Not Adapt’ to AI
Cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com lays off 12% of staff; the latest in a wave of tech company layoffs as AI is integrated Image: Farknot Architect/Adobe Another week, another announcement about job cuts. And now, AI is coming for the crypto industry. Crypto.com announced Thursday that it is laying off 12% of its employees as it restructures around artificial intelligence, signaling a more aggressive shift toward automation and leaner operations.
Nvidia Launches Space-Ready AI Platforms For Orbital Data Centers
We may earn from vendors via affiliate links or sponsorships. This might affect product placement on our site, but not the content of our reviews. See our Terms of Use for details. Nvidia announces AI chip for space-based data centers at the annual GTC 2026 AI conference. Image: Generated via Google’s Nano Banana Ground control to Major Tom: The countdown is over — chipmaker Nvidia debuted computing platforms for orbital data centers during its annual GTC 2026 AI conference.
Google Maps Gets Its ‘Biggest Update in Over a Decade’ With AI-Powered Navigation
Getting from point A to point B may soon feel a lot less like guesswork. Google is rolling out its biggest Google Maps update in years. On March 12, the tech giant introduced Immersive Navigation and a new conversational feature called “Ask Maps” designed to make navigating, planning stops, and finding places along the way far easier.
Nvidia-Backed Nscale Raises $2B as AI Drives ‘Largest Infrastructure Buildout in Human History’
Image: Generated via Google’s Nano Banana AI data center startup Nscale has scored a huge prize, raising $2 billion at a $14.6 billion valuation in a deal backed by Nvidia. The valuation signals the aggressive push for critical specialized infrastructure as companies race to build the massive computing clusters needed to train and deploy AI models. It also indicates that Nvidia is going beyond selling GPUs and expanding to build an entire ecosystem powering AI’s skyrocketing growth.
Apple’s Next Big Laptop? A ‘MacBook Ultra’ May Arrive Sooner Than Expected
Image: Generated via Google’s Nano Banana Apple is notorious for keeping things close to the vest. But following last week’s launch of the MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max, rumors are swirling widely that the company may roll out either an M6 MacBook Pro or a “MacBook Ultra” this year. The latter would come with an OLED display, touchscreen, and a higher price point, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
Is the AI Bubble About to Pop?
The tech world is seeing a lot of talk on whether we’re in an AI bubble that may be about to burst. Such fears occasionally push major stock indexes down. A Bank of America survey from November revealed concerns about companies “overinvesting,” with 45% of investors saying they view an AI bubble as the top risk for the economy and markets. The resounding message: the hyperscalers building datacenter infrastructure need to slow down.
Nvidia’s Vera Rubin Promises 10x Efficiency as AI Power Demands Surge
Nvidia unveils Vera Rubin, a next-gen AI system promising 10x performance per watt, modular design, and liquid cooling to power future data centers. Image: Nvidia/YouTube The AI arms race has entered a new phase… one where speed alone no longer defines leadership. The real contest spans physics, power grids, and global supply chains, all straining under the weight of ever-larger models and rising compute demands.
The Hidden AI Jobs No One’s Hiring For - Yet
The headlines have been full of doom and gloom about the jobs that will be lost and industries that will suffer thanks to the speeding freight train known as AI, but even as more and more roles are automated, the technology will bring new jobs as well. “What we’re doing is augmenting human thinking with AI,’’ said AI futurist and author Daniel Burrus.
Zuckerberg Defends Instagram in Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial
Mark Zuckerberg defends Instagram in a landmark trial over claims the platform harms children, as Meta and YouTube face addiction allegations. Image: Jill Connelly | Getty Images Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared in a Los Angeles court on Wednesday and defended against claims that Instagram is designed to harm children, in a landmark case over whether social media is addictive.
Hackers Try to Clone Google’s Gemini With 100,000+ AI Probes
Link to The Real AI Power Play: Who Controls Your Enterprise Data Layer? The Real AI Power Play: Who Controls Your Enterprise Data Layer? IT and data teams were promised that AI would make work easier. Instead, it's created new layers of complexity.
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