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Firefox soon to let you block AI features

You can soon turn off AI features in Firefox, through all future updates. (Picture: Mozilla)

Mozilla, the makers of the open source browser, are introducing both overall and granular control over the AI features of the browser.

— AI is changing the web, and people want very different things from it. We’ve heard from many who want nothing to do with AI. We’ve also heard from others who want AI tools that are genuinely useful, they write on their blog.

That doesn’t mean they won’t follow the rest of the world in rolling out ever bigger AI features, though — because they will. They are just offering an off-ramp for people who don’t like it.

The AI toggle in settings will be permanent, and move through future updates, so it won’t be borked sometime in the future.

Currently, Firefox uses AI for translations, alt-text in PDFs, enhanced tab grouping, link previews, and an AI assistant sidebar, which works across a whole host of providers. You will be able to turn these off indiviually, or toggle the whole thing off.

The feature will debut in Firefox 148, which rolls out on February 24.

Read more: Mozilla’s announcement, Mashable, Engadget, MacRumors.

OpenAI’s Codex suite gets a macOS app

Introducing the Codex app—a powerful command center for building with agents.

Now available on macOS.https://t.co/HW05s2C9Nr

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 2, 2026

For your discerning coding needs, you are no longer tied to the Codex web interface or terminal window, and can now vibe code on your own macOS app. Windows support is «comining soon.”

The app supports multitasking agents, creating and using skills, and automations.

Read more about it and get the app here.

To celebrate the launch, Codex is now available for Free and Go tiers, and paid plans get double the usage limits for «a limited time.»

Elon Musk’s SpaceX merges with xAI to build data centers in space

SpaceX will now be tasked with building orbital data centers, Elon Musk says. (Picture: SpaceX)

After a tumultuous week of rumor and hearsay, Musk’s space company is merging with his artificial intelligence company — that merged with x.com in March, 2025.

Musk himself is out with a long-winded mission statement of sorts today, where he presses the need to build AI factories in space, to «harness the sun’s energy.»

Musk reckons this will be the only viable way to build data centers within 2-3 years, saying they are cheaper and more environmentally friendly, and also has plans for «self-growing bases on the Moon.»

The merger sets a new M&A record, and the new company will become the largest privately held corporation in existence, with a net worth of $1.25 trillion. There are also plans for a market debut with a value of $1.5 trillion later this year, writes Reuters.

Read more: Musk’s statement, Reuters, The Verge.

Fimmaker Darren Aronofsky’s AI experiment on 1776 hits YouTube

George Washington, according to Aronofsky’s Primordial Soup. (Picture: screenshot)

Aronofsky used DeepMind’s tools to recreate the American Revolution for its 250th anniversary, and it looks none too shabby for an early stage AI production.

The short movies try to track specific days on the calendar to those of 250 years ago, will run through the year, and are made by Aronofsky’s AI studio Primordial Soup, with himself executive producing.

It would be ridiculously expensive to make the sets, hire extras and put them all in time-corrected garb for a two-minute short, so this is one of the few places where AI might make sense — not to mention recreating historical figures.

The film shorts aren’t all «AI slop,» though, as they use unionized voice actors for all speech.

Two episodes are already up. The movies are made with the help of Salesforce and distributed by Time Studios, a subsidiary of Salesforce.

Read more: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Gizmodo.

Anthropic clashes with Pentagon on lethality, internal surveillance

Anthropic needs a human in the loop for lethal work, and refuses to spy on Americans. (Picture: generated)

The $200 million contract with the Pentagon hangs in the balance as the company refuses to do things that might harm humans or society, Reuters reports.

At issue is whether their AI platform can be used to spy on Americans or to «assist weapons targeting without sufficient human oversight,» sources tell the news agency.

The Pentagon is aghast at Anthropic’s policies and is considering alternatives, saying they should be able to use any commercial AI tech regardless of usage policies so long as it complies with U.S. laws.

The contract is now at a standstill while they figure out their opposing demands.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently wrote that he had no problem supporting defense «in all ways except those which would make us more like our autocratic adversaries.»

Read the full scoop at Reuters.

OpenAI to retire whole host of legacy models in ChatGPT, including 4o

OpenAI is binning previously popular legacy models, used by 0.1% of users. (Picture: generated)

Brought back by popular demand after the turbulent release of GPT-5, OpenAI is now sending off the GPT‑4o, GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, OpenAI o4-mini and GPT-5 models on February 13th.

The reason for bringing them back was how clinical and cerebral, and less friendly GPT-5 had gotten, leading to a very public backlash.

After this, OpenAI spent a lot of time thinking about personality and customization — leading to GPT-5.2, which now has the overwhelming majority of users.

The previously very popular 4o model is now only used by 0.1% of users.

In their announcement today, OpenAI also says they are making progress towards a more creative version of GPT for adults, having rolled out age prediction earlier this month.

Read more: OpenAI’s announcement, discussion on r/ChatGPT.

Google intros Project Gemini – real-time, playable 3D worlds from prompts

Almost six months after launching Genie 3, a successor has arrived with more control, more detail and longer runtimes.

Running on a combination of Genie 3, Nano Banana Pro and Gemini, the new model produces 60 second (up from 30) fully generated, playable 3D worlds.

Continue reading “Google intros Project Gemini – real-time, playable 3D worlds from prompts”

OpenAI closing in on $100 billion funding round at $830B valuation

The big guns are all out for OpenAI’s latest funding round. (Picture: generated)

In what looks like one of the strongest funding rounds in history, OpenAI is getting investments from SoftBank and half of the Magnificent Seven.

SoftBank and Nvidia will be the largest investors, clocking in at $30 billion each, while Amazon will pitch in «potentially» $20 billion and Microsoft will contribute «less than» $10 billion, according to Reuters and The Information.

Apparently, Amazon’s investment could come with a caveat that OpenAI expands its cloud server rental with the company, which will likely not be a large hitch.

This will also be SoftBank’s second investment in OpenAI, after recently completing a $41 billion investment, and selling out Nvidia.

That would bring their holdings to $71 billion, which is still short of Microsoft’s reported stake of $135 billion.

Read more: Reuters, and The Information, summarized by Reuters.

Gemini on Chrome gets massive update

Gemini in Chrome goes big on agentic browsing. (Picture: Google)

Pro and Ultra users on Chrome in the USA are getting a huge update today, on everything from shopping to Personal Intelligence.

The new side panel (no longer a pop-up) is powered by Gemini 3 and goes big on agentic browsing. It can connect to your Gmail, Calendar, Youtube, Shopping and Flights information and can multitask to do things like booking flights from an email invitation.

It can even use your browsers stored passwords to log into shopping sites and complete your order, after finding your purchase in an embedded image.

It’s also getting Nano Banana to manipulate images right from the websites you are reading.

Everything should be ready to go in the new update for U.S. subscribers, and Google says Personal Intelligence will likely come in a few months.

Read more: Google’s announcement and thread, The Verge, Gizmodo.

The EU wants equal access for other AI models on Google’s Android

The EU wants other AI labs to have the same hooks in Android that Gemini has. (Picture: generated)

— The aim is to ensure that third-party providers have an equal opportunity to innovate and compete in the rapidly evolving AI landscape on smart mobile devices, their statement says, per Engadget.

It’s an investigation («proceeding») started under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), made to ensure major platform owners don’t abuse their power, and Google now has six months to find a workable solution.

Gemini enjoys system-level and app-level access on Android, and many competitors have flagged this as a violation of the DMA.

— We are concerned that further rules which are often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation, says Clare Kelly, Google’s Senior Competition Counsel to Reuters.

If no relief is found on the issue, the DMA allows for fines of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue.

Read more: The Commission’s statement, Engadget, Reuters.

Google brings AI Plus-subscription to 35 countries, including the USA

Google is countering ChatGPT Go’s debut in the USA with a competitive offering. (Picture: Google)

Google is matching ChatGPT Go, which entered the USA two weeks ago.

These subscriptions were intended as a low cost alternative for developing countries, but are now bringing a little extra for a low price in developed countries, too.

Google is famously stingy with declaring usage limits, and says Plus will give you «more access» in the Gemini app.

It will also let you access Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro. In addition to this, you get 200 monthly ai «credits» towards generating video in Flow, meaning the video model Veo 3.1.

Plus also offers 200 GB of Google One storage, and access to Gemini in Gmail, and other workspace apps.

Read more: Writeups on 9to5Google and TechCrunch.

OpenAI launches Prism, a research and collaboration tool for scientists

Prism is billed as a one stop shop for researchers, combining what was previously spread far and wide. (Picture: OpenAI)

Scientists are often plagued by having to use different platforms and apps for seemingly mundane things.

That’s where OpenAI’s new service comes in — as a LaTeX-native interface, it combines the paper writing in the same space as it does equations, references and «surrounding context.»

Of course there is a GPT-5.2 engine right there, so it’s easy to cross-reference and check for originality, find citations and proofread — and it’s a fairly nice research assistant, to boot.

Prism is available as of now for anyone who has a personal account with OpenAI.

Read more: OpenAI’s launch page, launch tweet, The tool itself, writeup on Gizmodo.

OpenAI says ChatGPT increasingly used in hard science

Growing rapidly; ever more people are using ChatGPT in scientific fields. (Picture: OpenAI)

In a report shared with Axios, OpenAI is touting ChatGPT’s prowess as a research assistant, saying it has «progressed past competition level performance toward mathematical discovery.»

The scales are still low — with 1.3 million users discussing «advanced hard science,» and an average of 8.3 million weekly messages on the topics.

To put this into perspective, an October, 2025, survey from OpenAI said that 0.15% of ChatGPT users engaged in conversations on self-harm and suicide, or roughly 1.2 million customers.

Continue reading “OpenAI says ChatGPT increasingly used in hard science”

DeepMind helps create animated movie headed for Sundance

In what is likely the first AI movie at Sundance, «Dear Upstairs Neighbors» was made with the creatives first. (Picture: Google)

The animated movie «Dear Upstairs Neighbors» was created by Pixar alumni Connie He, a group of animation veterans — and a team of researchers at DeepMind.

The movie was an experiment to see how AI tools could better help moviemakers, and ended up needing specialized tools.

Connie He provided the storyboard, the character design, the abstract background paintings, but a 45-person team at DeepMind soon realized that the off-the-shelf-versions of their software wasn’t good enough for this purpose.

They then fine-tuned the Veo and Imagen models to their artwork, and made a video-to-video model where the artists could sketch a scene for guidance and have the model add details and artwork, before upscaling it to 4K using Veo.

For precise detail, they also developed a tool that would let the artists fix detail in specific regions of an animation, without influencing the broader scene.

The movie will debut at the Sundance Institute’s Story Forum, a panel that focuses on tools and technologies in support of storytelling.