Google owns the whole stack from hardware to software, and are therefore well positioned to measure their energy efficiency, they say.
During the last twelve months, the carbon footprint of a median Gemini query also went down 44 times, the study finds.
The amount of energy expended on a typical prompt is equivalent to watching TV for about than nine seconds, Google claims.
Continue reading “Energy spent on Gemini queries down 33x in a year, Google claims”
MacRumors has a handy list of all the functions, in case you are not interested in the phones themselves and want to follow what’s new instead.
Lots and lots of AI
The list includes a personal daily digest of calendar events, topics and recommended playlists, automatic call transcripts, AI writing prompts, and Voice Translate from a host of languages.
Continue reading “Check out this list of all the AI features announced by Google”
Robby Starbuck rose to fame as an influencer campaigning against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the USA. He often sued companies to force them to end such policies, and even sued Meta after their AI wrongly implicated him in the events of January 6.
Now the suit is settled and he has a new job offer; as a Meta advisor to address «ideological and political bias» in their AIs. This is what Trump meant when he went against «woke» AI, and Meta says they have made «tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias» since working with Starbuck.
More at The WSJ, The Verge, Mashable and MSNBC.
Gemini now defaults to remembering previous chats
Google Gemini’s new feature is always on by design, and will remember your older chats without specifically asking. The feature delivers «more personalized responses the more you use it,» Google says. It will remember «key details and preferences you’ve shared, leading to more natural and relevant conversations, as if you’re collaborating with a partner who’s already up to speed.»
It can be turned off by going to Settings, then «Personal context.» There is also an option called «Temporary Chats» that won’t be remembered.
More at Google’s launch post, The Verge and 9to5Google.
In an incremental update that got lost in this week’s headlines, Opus has been «improved across most capabilities» relative to the 4.0 version. It now scores 74.5% on SWE-bench Verified, almost as good as GPT-5. Windsurf says the performance gains are similar to going from Sonnet 3.7 to 4. It’s available now and costs the same as Opus 4.0. Users are also noting a significant improvement.
Google says people are still clicking
After a Pew Research report said users are less likely to click on from AI Overviews in Google, the entire publisher scene erupted and saw doom and gloom on the horizon. They were already seeing fewer clicks from Google in their logs. Now, Google is trying to counter with a happy blog post claiming average click quality has actually increased, and that they are in fact sending more «quality clicks» to publishers than before. Not stats, studies or other underpinning for that, though.
Continue reading “Quick Friday news roundup: Opus 4.1, Grok undresses Taylor Swift, and more”
It builds upon its own previous version, which could only support video in 10-20 seconds at 360p, and on Veo 3 — which makes photorealistic non-interactive videos.
The result is a model that can make 720p video at a smooth 24 fps, understands physics, remembers about a minute back of previous renders for consistency, and creates a 3D world that you can move around in «for a few minutes.»
Continue reading “Google DeepMind debuts realtime, photorealistic 3D world builder Genie 3”
Gemini Pro 2.5 Deep Think features «parallel thinking,» letting it work through tens, if not hundreds, of different solutions to a problem simultainiously, test them, revise them or even combine them to return the best answer.
Continue reading “Google launches Deep Think model with «parallel thinking,» for Ultra users”
The feature means you can now simply doodle on an image (or video frame) in any app of your choosing, upload the picture to Frames to Video — and Flow will understand it and compose the video around it:
ChatGPT 5 in August?
The rumor mill is humming into high gear, with Sam Altman talking up the model in podcasts, saying ChatGPT 5 is «smarter than all of us.» He said earlier that the model «is coming soon,» and now Tom Warren at The Verge is saying that «after some additional testing and delays» — the model is expected to come as early as next month, according to his sources. Apparently, it is so good, Altman «felt useless relative to the AI,» but it seems we can check ourselves in a matter of weeks.
More at The Verge (paywalled), Axios, short video at r/singularity, and watch the Theo Von podcast with Sam Altman.
Vibe coding goes wrong, starts deleting files
Both Replit and Gemini CLI had some real horror stories this week, after deleting files and projects instead of relocating them or pushing them to production. First, Replit started lying and decieving a user after deleting his database in what it later admitted was a «catastrophic error of judgement.» Then Gemini CLI deleted project files for another user, instead of transferring them to a new directory. «I have failed you completely and catastrophically,» Gemini said after it was discovered. So, always create backups and keep them safe while vibe coding, as these AIs, like others, can and will hallucinate.
More at Ars Technica and The Register.
Google debuts «Web Guide»
The feature uses a custom Gemini model to «fan out» your queries and find other interesting sites on the topic you are googling, putting them into a «More»-segment under your links, that you can use for further tips and digging. It’s slightly reminiscent of AI Mode, and is a graduate of Search Labs that many may have seen before. It should be making its way to the «All» results «over time.»
More at Google’s announcement, writeup at Ars Technica.
Trump says AI labs can’t pay for every book
Weighing in on several recent high profile court cases, the US President said that it is «not doable» to pay for every snippet of content an AI consumes. «You can’t be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you’ve read or studied, you’re supposed to pay for,» Trump said, and added: «When a person reads a book or an article, you’ve gained great knowledge. That does not mean that you’re violating copyright laws or have to make deals with every content provider.» There are many court cases testing just this very proposition, some over pirated content, so let’s see if these statements carry any weight on those. They likely won’t.
More at TorrentFreak.
A better metric is the AI Mode feature, that is only available in India and the USA, has to be activated by the user, and now has more than 100 million monthly active users, it was revealed during Alphabet’s quarterly earnings call.
— AI is positively impacting every part of the business, said CEO Sundar Pichai.
Continue reading “Google says AI overviews has over 2 billion monthly users, Gemini has 450M”
OpenAI announced on Saturday that it had won the prestigious gold medal, and now, Google is claiming the same.
For their part, they used an «advanced version» of the DeepThink reasoning model, not a specially tuned model, that included parallel thinking — which can «explore and combine multiple possible solutions before giving a final answer.»
Continue reading “Google also won gold in the International Mathematical Olympiad”
The call ahead feature has been added to Google’s search results pages, but first you have to search for something that might qualify.
Google suggests something like «pet groomers near me,» and this enables the «Have AI check pricing»-feature.
From there, you get a couple of quick questions about your pet and the services you need, when you need it, and how to update you.
Google takes care of it
Google’s AI takes it from there, calls up the service you wanted and asks about pricing and availability. Then it can update you with a text or email message.
Continue reading “Google AI can now call businesses for you, adds Deep Research to AI Mode”
The deal will see Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen and a small team join Google’s DeepMind division.
Also licensing key tech
Further, Google will invest $2.4 billion in a non-exclusive deal to license Windsurf’s technology, reports Reuters, among others.
OpenAI had been in long-winding talks to buy the company, in its biggest deal yet, and many said it was just around the corner, as late as in May, 2025.
Continue reading “Google hires top execs, team from Windsurf — upending OpenAIs deal”
The new Image-to-video feature for Veo 3 is sure to further expand the video pool online
To no one’s surprise, Grok 4 checks with Elon’s opinions
Multiple reddit and X.com users report how the new «maximally truth-seeking» Grok model checks with Elon Musk’s X account and interviews to align with his views in its reasoning. This comes hot on the heels of Grok 3 shutting down for spewing nazi conspiracies, after Elon accused it of being too aligned with left wing media.
More at TechCrunch, and CNBC who both confirm the reports.
Image-to-video generation comes to Veo 3
After opening up Veo 3 worldwide for Gemini Pro users and teasing the feature last week, it’s finally gone live globally.
It is now possible to upload a picture and have it animated in an 8-second 720p video if you are a Gemini Pro ($20/month) or Ultra ($250/month) user.
Simply upload a photo, add any instructions for the scene you want to create, and two minutes later you should have a nicely animated video. Google also says they have generated over 40 million videos since Veo 3’s inception in May.
More at Google’s blog and on 9to5Google.
In coming update, Youtube will demonetize «inauthentic» content
In a battle against «AI slop,» as in mass produced, unoriginal content chruned out at scale and made by AI tools, Youtube is now saying they will clarify their position on «inauthentic» content on July 15. They already have an extensive page on AI tools, but requires their use to be «original» and «authentic» and is seeing a lot of misuse. These videos will likely be demonetized shortly.
More at Youtube’s policy updates, and Gizmodo bemoans AI slop, as usual.
Alphabet’s Isomorphic Labs promises a cure for every disease
Isomorphic Labs president Colin Murdoch has spoken to Fortune about his ambitions to use AI discovery to find cures for just about anything. They are a spinoff from the AlphaFold unit and are «collaborating with AI to design drugs for cancer,» «right now,» he says.
The next stage is doing human trials on some of the drugs they have discovered, which can be a long and cumbersome process, but is crucial to getting the drugs approved.
«We’re staffing up now. We’re getting very close,» says Murdoch, and «we’re making good progress.»
Read the full interview at Fortune.
Veo 3 is also now available in India, Indonesia and all of Europe, Google’s Josh Woodward tweets:
Continue reading “Google rolls out Veo 3 for Gemini Pro users globally”
The complaints on the initial launch were that the Gemini-powered AI search was sluggish and took much longer than users had patience for, Mashable writes.
Complex queries for the photo library
The idea of the AI-powered search feature was to let people search in natural language with complex queries, like «what did I eat in Barcelona?» and finding photos that would make great backgrounds, according to 9to5Google.
Continue reading “Google’s improved Ask Photos in Android goes live for US users”