Author: Tor Fosheim

Google launches Gemini 3, blows out benchmarks and is less sycophantic

Picture: Google
Apart from blowing up the benchmarks, Gemini 3 takes pride in telling you «what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear.»

— Like the generations before it, Gemini 3 is once again advancing the state of the art, says CEO Sundar Pichai on their launch page, and adds: — In this new chapter, we’ll continue to push the frontiers of intelligence, agents, and personalization to make AI truly helpful for everyone.

Debuting in preview across all of Google’s services, including AI Mode on their front page, the new model is «another big step on the path toward AGI,» Google says.

Continue reading “Google launches Gemini 3, blows out benchmarks and is less sycophantic”

xAI launches Grok 4.1; faster and less likely to hallucinate

(Picture: generated)
In stealthily rolling out the latest Grok iteration, xAI found ~65% of users preferred the new bot, which also currently tops the leaderboard for Lmarena – text with about ten points.

— Our 4.1 model is exceptionally capable in creative, emotional, and collaborative interactions, xAI writes on their launch page, and adds:

— It is more perceptive to nuanced intent, compelling to speak with, and coherent in personality, while fully retaining the razor-sharp intelligence and reliability of its predecessors.

This is pursuant to the launch of GPT-5.1 last week; labs are working a lot more on personality for their bots, and want their chatbots to be good at actually chatting.

In addition, the new bot boasts of far lower hallucinations, dropping from 12% for Grok 4 to 4.22% for 4.1, and should also be a lot faster.

The Verge notes that the bot seems to carry on the laissez-faire rules of its predecessors, opening up to NSFW use cases, although it hasn’t gone full mecha-Hitler yet.

Read more: xAI’s launch page, note on The Verge.

Jeff Bezos enters the AI space with startup raising $6.2 billion

Project Prometheus will work on AI engineering for computers, cars and spacecraft.
Jeff Bezos funds his own AI startup to the tune of billions of dollars. (Picture: Daniel Oberhaus, 2019, CC BY 2.0)
The founder of Amazon and world’s third richest man is returning to managing a new company: Project Prometheus, where he will be co-CEO, writes The New York Times.

Although he hasn’t actually managed anything since 2021, he has invested heavily into the new startup, making it one of the best funded startups in the space, and netting it more cash than many raise over their lifetimes.

The company will focus on AI engineering for computer manufacturing, cars and spacecraft, the NYT says.

Joining Bezos in running the startup will be Vik Bajaj, a physicist and chemist also known for his work with Sergey Brin at Google’s X, their unit for experiments, and for running the health-tech company Verily, founded out of the unit.

The new company reportedly already has 100 employees, with many coming from established AI labs at Meta, DeepMind and OpenAI, the paper writes.

Read more: New York Times, Reuters, The Verge, Ars Technica

Google invests $40 billion in Texas data centers

Google will invest $40 billion on three data centers in Texas, along with an energy buildout of some 6 gigawatts and a new solar plant.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sundar Pichai announcing the news. (Picture: Google)
Google joins the big players in building out staggering AI capabilities, with a new data center in Armstrong and two in Haskell County, near Abilene, hooked up to a solar and battery plant.

— This investment will create thousands of jobs, provide skills training to college students and electrical apprentices, and accelerate energy affordability initiatives throughout Texas, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said, according to Reuters.

The investments will be made through 2027, but Google says nothing of when they will come online.

They will also bring new funding for the power grid to support 6 gigawatts of «new energy generation and capacity» and will support some 1,700 new electrical apprenticeships with Google support.

This makes Texas the second largest data center state in the USA, after Virginia, notes the Texas Tribune.

— They say that everything is bigger in Texas — and that certainly applies to the golden opportunity with AI, Pichai said.

Read more: Google’s blog, writeups on Reuters, Texas Tribune.

OpenAI says disabling em-dashes in ChatGPT finally possible

The em-dash (double-sized dash: —) was a notorious haunt and irritation for power users of ChatGPT, and even explicit instructions to not use it would often result in a reply using em-dashes.

It was also a good hint that the text might be produced by the AI chatbot.

So, while not an earth-shattering development, this little, cosmetic change will surely be welcomed by many.

Read more: Ars Technica and TechCrunch both wax poetic, sarcastically about the «new feature.» See also discussion on r/ChatGPT and r/Singularity.

Google brings its vast shopping data to AI Mode, complete with checkout

Will AI Mode revolutionize shopping for the AI age? Google is already making bets.
You can now find just the right product and comparison shop in AI Mode. (Picture: Google)
Google already has a massive database of some 50 billion product listings, that you might have tapped into when shopping for products using Google Search.

Now that data is being combined with AI Mode, giving you granular detail in natural language conversations to find just the right product.

People have been wondering about how to crack monetizable shopping features for a long time, and Google has been teasing ads in AI products for a while. This might be a first step.

A better way to shop?
The new feature will give you «rich visuals and the details you need,» and you can dig into the results or bring up products side by side for comparison.

Continue reading “Google brings its vast shopping data to AI Mode, complete with checkout”

Google DeepMind unveils SIMA 2 — a self-improving 3D navigator agent

The old SIMA was good at following instructions, but the second version now has access to Gemini models and can explore 3D worlds on its own, with zero advance training.

That’s great for video games, where it can think and perform complex reasoning around its goals.

Learning from concepts
It can also learn across games, taking cues from «mining» in one game and transferring it to «harvesting» in another, meaning it can iterate and get better over time.

Continue reading “Google DeepMind unveils SIMA 2 — a self-improving 3D navigator agent”

Nano Banana arrives in Google Photos

Nono Bana has arrived in Google Photos, letting you conversationally edit your picutres.
You can now use natural language editing of your Google Photos, and get instant results — thanks to Nano Banana. (Picture: Google)
Google has announced a whole slew of AI features for the Photos app — bringing it up to date with their latest «conversational» image generator.

You can now ask the app to remove sunglasses in photos or fix a smile, but it can also respond to names you have tagged in your pictures, such as «make Engel smile.»

«Help me edit»
You can use the «Help me edit»-button in the editor and simply describe the style you want your pics to be in, from a Renaissance portrait to a picture from a children’s story book.

Continue reading “Nano Banana arrives in Google Photos”

OpenAI launches GPT-5.1 in Instant and Thinking modes

OpenAI is launching "warmer and more emphatic" GPT-5.1.
OpenAI have stopped posting benchmarks for their new models, but they should do better in AIME 2025 and Codeforces. (Picture: OpenAI)
Available for paid tiers today, GPT-5.1 Instant will become the new default model in ChatGPT.

OpenAI are uncharacteristically not posting any benchmarks on their launch page, simply describing both models as «more capable and useful,» and «more intelligent.»

Both models are also supposed to be «warmer and more emphatic.»

People want friendly bots
— We heard clearly from users that great AI should not only be smart, but also enjoyable to talk to, OpenAI writes.

Continue reading “OpenAI launches GPT-5.1 in Instant and Thinking modes”

Microsoft forms «superintelligence» team, aims for human-centric AGI

Microsoft will start making in-house AI models to compete on the frontier level
The software behemoth is going all in on AGI, after a new agreement with OpenAI finally lets them. (Picture: generated)
No longer hampered by their agreement with OpenAI on AI models, Microsoft’s AI Chief, Mustafa Suleyman, plans to join the race for Artificial General Intelligence.

Before OpenAI’s reorganization, Microsoft could not pursue its own frontier models — relying instead on other people’s tech.

This is now gone, and Suleyman wants to build a «world-class, frontier-grade research capability in-house,» Business Insider writes.

He says Microsoft is making major investments in compute, expanding its chip development and is optimizing its infrastructure for AI:

— It’s the number one priority for us to make sure this is the most performant infrastructure in the world, he said in an earlier meeting.

Read the full story at Business Insider.

Google launches Private AI Compute, a secure way to use cloud AI

Google's new cloud program will offer the same privacy as on-device computation.
Expanding from on-device AI, Google’s new tech will provide the same level of privacy. (Picture: Google)
Similar to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, Google’s solution is to enhance apps on your phone, Chromebook or whatever else you are using, with extra power from Gemini in the cloud.

Most of Google’s AI features are handled on-device, but they are seeing the need for more computing power to move «from completing simple requests to AI that can anticipate your needs with tailored suggestions or handle tasks for you at just the right moment.»

The connections between the device and servers are encrypted, and the data transmitted is not available to anyone’s prying eyes — not even Google’s.

The new tech is not getting a wide rollout, and most AI queries will still be on-device. The only feature to use it is the Magic Cue in Android, and the Recorder app, that will be able to summarize transcripts in «a wide range of languages.»

This is foundational technology for Google, and they will be rolling out features across their services in short order, saying «This is just the beginning.»

Read more: Google’s launch page, writeups on The Verge and 9to5Google.

Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine join Elevenlabs podcast cloning

Elevenlabs has cloned lots of celebrity voices and made them available for podcasts or other projects.
(Picture: Elevenlabs)
Adding to a slew of celebrities available for voice cloning, the two actors have taken different paths.

For McConaughey the goal was simply to make his popular podcast «Lyrics of Livin’» available in Spanish — without having to speak a word of the language.

Michael Caine, on the other hand, is properly cloning his voice and making it available for creators who want a famous bard for their projects, saying that «technology is just the medium. This is humanity — amplified.»

McConaughey has also invested an undisclosed sum in Elevenlabs, having worked with them since 2022.

The «ElevenLabs Iconic Marketplace» seems not for everyone; there is the ability to use lots of celeb voices, from Alan Turing to John Wayne, but not for a fixed price off the shelf.

Read more: Variety was first with the news, writeup on Mashable, and check out the marketplace.

OpenAI poaches Intel’s AI chief

Sachin Katti is leaving Intel for openai.
Sachin Katti is a big win for OpenAI’s infrastructure buildout. (Picture: x.com)
Sachin Katti, the Chief Technology and AI Officer of Intel, is joining OpenAI to oversee their infrastructure expansion, according to Reuters and others.

The departure seems amicable, with Intel thanking him for his contributions and wishing him good luck ahead — while noting that their AI efforts will now be led by CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

Intel have struggled with developing proper AI infrastructure products to rival the likes of Nvidia, and while they do produce chips for Copilot PCs, they are not making inroads in data centers.

The main focus for Katti at OpenAI will be «designing and building our compute infrastructure» to power their AGI research, writes Greg Brockman on x.com.

Read more: Twitter announcement, Reuters, Communications Today

Wikipedia touts human advantage in AI era, asks for attribution, money

Wikipedia asking for attribution on AI use, and for scrapers to use their paid service.
Human traffic to Wikipedia is down a little, but it might be helped with proper citations from AI bots. (Picture: Wikipedia)
Wikipedia’s volunteer editor army is indispensable to AI, they write in a blog post, and without it, AI would surely devolve into model collapse.

— Generative AI tools may be able to synthesize or summarize existing knowledge, but they cannot engage in the process of discussion, debate, and consensus that Wikipedia’s volunteer editors undertake every day, they say.

AI comes with some challenges, with TechCrunch reporting that AI scraping of the site is way up, and human traffic is down by 8%.

To counter this, Wikimedia is asking for two things; citations for authors, and paid AI scraping with the Wikimedia Enterprise platform.

Citations are important for humans and «maintains a virtuous cycle that continues those human contributions that create the training data that these new technologies rely on.»

Read more: Wikimedia’s blog post, summary by TechCrunch.

OpenAI estimated to lose daily $15 million on Sora videos

Video is more expensive than text, and OpenAI is currently bleeding money on free Sora 2 generations.
Sora 2 generations are bleeding money for OpenAI, and they say they will reduce the number of free «gens.» (Picture: generated)
There are no official figures on just how much the free Sora service costs, but Forbes has done the math.

It works out by putting a price of $1.30 per video from GPU costs, multiplying it to an estimated 4.5 million users and then presuming that about 25% on average generate ten videos per day.

$15 million per day works out to a cool $5.4 billion annual bill.

That’s a lot of money, and Bill Peebles, head of Sora, recently said that «eventually we will need to bring the free gens down to accommodate growth (we won’t have enough gpus to do it otherwise!), but we’ll be transparent as it happens.»

Read the full story on Forbes