News/Google
Google’s New Pixel 9 Pro XL Pushes AI Boundaries
Pixel 9 Pro XL: Google's next flagship unveiled: Leaks and rumors have provided a comprehensive look at Google's upcoming Pixel 9 Pro XL, showcasing impressive hardware specifications and innovative AI-driven features. Pricing and availability: The Pixel 9 Pro XL is expected to enter the premium smartphone market with a starting price of $1,099 for the 128GB model. Google is set to officially unveil the Pixel 9 series on August 13, giving consumers a complete picture of the new lineup. While the 128GB model is confirmed, there are indications that a 1TB storage option may also be available for users requiring...
read Aug 8, 2024Google’s Upcoming Pixel 9 Will Have Major AI Upgrades
Google's Pixel 9 lineup: A RAM boost for AI readiness: The upcoming Google Pixel 9 smartphones are set to receive a significant upgrade in RAM, preparing the devices for advanced AI features while offering benefits to all users. The base Pixel 9 model is rumored to come with 12GB of RAM, a 50% increase from the 8GB in the Pixel 8. The Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL variants may feature 16GB of RAM, up from 12GB in the Pixel 8 Pro. This RAM boost is expected to benefit all users, regardless of their engagement with AI features, enhancing...
read Aug 7, 2024Google’s New Pixel Weather App Promises AI-Powered Forecasts
The new Pixel Weather app, currently available for manual sideload, offers a comprehensive suite of weather-related features and is expected to officially launch with the Pixel 9 before rolling out to other Pixel devices via the Play Store. Key features and functionality: The native Pixel Weather app provides users with real-time weather information and forecasts for their current and saved locations, along with customizable notifications and interactive weather cards. Users can receive timely precipitation notifications and daily weather forecast updates to stay informed about changing conditions. The app allows for rearrangeable weather cards, giving users the flexibility to prioritize the...
read Aug 7, 2024Can Google Translate and Google Gemini Coexist?
The translation landscape at Google: Google currently offers two distinct translation services - its traditional Google Translate and the newer AI-powered Gemini chatbot - each with its own strengths and potential for future development. Google Translate, a longstanding service, recently expanded its capabilities by adding support for 110 new languages, leveraging the company's PaLM 2 AI model. The Gemini AI chatbot, part of Google's broader artificial intelligence initiatives, has demonstrated impressive translation abilities, often producing more fluent and natural-sounding results compared to Google Translate. The coexistence of these two services raises questions about their future integration and the potential evolution...
read Aug 7, 2024Google Has Been Earning Ad Revenue on Non-Consensual Deepfakes
The big picture: Google has been caught accepting payment to promote AI applications that generate nonconsensual deepfake nudes, contradicting its recently announced policies to combat explicit fake content in search results. Uncovering the issue: 404 Media's investigative reporting revealed that Google's search engine was displaying paid advertisements for NSFW AI image generators and similar tools when users searched for terms like "undress apps" and "best deepfake nudes." The discovery highlights a significant discrepancy between Google's stated policies and its actual practices in managing AI-related content. This revelation comes shortly after Google announced expanded policies aimed at addressing non-consensual explicit fake...
read Aug 7, 2024Gemini AI May Come to Personal Gmail Accounts on Android
Gemini expands to personal Gmail accounts on Android: Google's AI assistant Gemini is reportedly becoming available to non-Workspace users on Android devices, potentially broadening its reach to a wider user base. Android expert Mishaal Rahman has observed Gemini appearing for users with personal Gmail accounts on Android, suggesting a significant expansion of the AI tool's availability. Users may need to close and reopen their Gmail app to access the new Gemini features, indicating a gradual rollout process. This development marks a shift from Gemini's previous limited availability, which required either a Google AI premium subscription or a Workspace account. Gemini's...
read Aug 5, 2024Your Google Earbuds May Soon Come with Gemini’s AI Powers
Google's AI assistant Gemini may soon expand beyond smartphones and tablets to audio devices, potentially changing how users interact with their earbuds and headphones. Gemini's potential expansion to audio devices: Recent code findings in the Google app suggest that the tech giant is preparing to bring its advanced AI assistant to earbuds and headphones. Strings discovered in Google app version 15.31 explicitly mention "Gemini on earbuds" and "Your new AI assistant is on headphones", hinting at the integration of Gemini with audio devices. This move could significantly enhance the capabilities of Google's audio accessories, potentially offering more advanced voice commands,...
read Aug 5, 2024AI-Powered Review Summaries are Coming to Google Play Store
Google Play Store's AI-powered review summaries are set to expand, potentially changing how users interact with app reviews and make download decisions. This development comes as part of Google's broader push to integrate AI across its services, particularly within the Play Store ecosystem. AI integration in Play Store expands: Google is preparing to introduce AI-generated review summaries directly in app listings, building upon existing AI features in searches and "App highlights" sections. The new feature aims to condense popular opinions from user reviews into a single, AI-generated voice, providing a quick overview of app feedback. Text strings labeling information as...
read Aug 3, 2024Google’s Tensor G4 Raises Questions About Pixel 9 AI Capabilities
The upcoming Google Pixel 9's processor, the Tensor G4, is reportedly a minor upgrade from its predecessor, raising questions about Google's strategy for feature distribution across Pixel generations. Tensor G4's limited improvements: The Pixel 9's processor is expected to be the smallest change in the series to date, with little to no upgrade in its AI capabilities: The Tensor G4 reportedly features the same third-generation TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) as the Tensor G3, running at identical clock speeds. Google reportedly missed deadlines for a more powerful custom chipset, which will now be delayed until the Pixel 10. The CPU and...
read Aug 3, 2024AI-Powered Google Wallet Wants to Digitize Your Entire Life
Google Wallet's new "Everything else" feature is transforming the way users can digitize and store various documents and cards, offering a significant leap in convenience and accessibility for digital pass management. Innovative AI-powered digitization: Google Wallet has introduced a new feature that allows users to convert virtually any physical document or card into a digital pass: The new "Everything else" option utilizes AI technology to analyze and categorize a wide range of documents through the device's camera. Users can easily access this feature by tapping the "Add to Wallet" button and selecting "Everything else" in the Google Wallet app. The...
read Aug 3, 2024Early Users of Google’s Imagen 3 Say It’s on Par with Midjourney
Google's Imagen 3 demonstrates significant advancements in AI-generated imagery, offering improved detail, lighting, and prompt understanding compared to its predecessors. Key features and improvements: Imagen 3 showcases several notable upgrades that enhance the quality and versatility of the generated images: Higher-quality images across various styles, including photorealism, oil paintings, and graphic art Better understanding of natural language prompts and complex camera angles Improved text rendering capabilities, allowing for accurate representation of text within images Fewer artifacts and richer detail compared to previous generations of Imagen and other company models Testing Imagen 3's capabilities: Tom's Guide, which got early access to...
read Aug 3, 2024Google Pulls Controversial Gemini AI Ad from Olympics Coverage
Advertising Misstep: Google has decided to withdraw its "Dear Sydney" Gemini AI advertisement from the 2024 Paris Olympics broadcast following intense public backlash: The ad featured a father using the Gemini AI assistant to help his daughter write a fan letter to track and field star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Critics argued that the commercial celebrated the worst aspects of AI-powered tools, particularly in the context of personal communication and creativity. Google's attempt to showcase Gemini's capabilities to a skeptical public appears to have backfired, with many viewers finding the ad's premise problematic. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgtHJKn0Mck[/embed] Corporate Response: Google, a major sponsor of the...
read Aug 3, 2024Google’s AI Comeback: Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemma 2 Top AI Leaderboards
Google's remarkable AI comeback: Google has made a stunning comeback in the AI race, overcoming recent setbacks and showcasing remarkable advancements with the unveiling of Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemma 2. From AI blunders to breakthrough: Google's AI journey over the past year has been marked by high-profile missteps, raising doubts about its ability to compete in the rapidly evolving AI landscape: The Bard chatbot provided incorrect information about the James Webb Space Telescope during its first live demo, wiping $100 billion off Alphabet's market value in a single day. The Gemini image generation feature faced criticism for historical inaccuracies...
read Aug 3, 2024What Google’s Deal with Character.AI Means for Innovation and the AI Landscape
Google's acquisition of Character.AI's leadership and core research team marks another significant move in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, reshaping the competitive dynamics and raising questions about the future of AI innovation. Key details of the acquisition: Google has hired back the co-founders and core research team of Character.AI, a prominent AI startup, in a surprising move that reshapes the AI competitive landscape: Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, co-founders of Character.AI who left Google in 2021, are returning to work at Google DeepMind along with their research team of about 30 people. The deal is structured as an "agreement"...
read Aug 2, 2024Google Strikes Licensing Deal with Character AI, Poaches Top Execs for DeepMind
Google strikes licensing deal with Character AI and poaches top executives for DeepMind: Google and AI avatar company Character AI have entered into a licensing agreement that will provide Character AI with increased funding in exchange for access to its large language model (LLM) technology: The deal allows Character AI to focus on developing personalized AI products for users worldwide, leveraging Google's LLMs while continuing to invest in its own post-training capabilities. Character AI's founding team, Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, along with some members of its research team, will join Google, with Shazeer specifically joining the DeepMind team....
read Aug 2, 2024Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro Outperforms GPT-4o and Claude-3 in AI Benchmark
Google's experimental AI model takes the lead in benchmarks: Google's Gemini 1.5 Pro, an experimental AI model, has surpassed OpenAI's GPT-4o and Anthropic's Claude-3 in the widely recognized LMSYS Chatbot Arena benchmark, signaling a potential shift in the competitive landscape of generative AI. Benchmark results and implications: The latest version of Gemini 1.5 Pro has achieved a higher overall competency score compared to its rivals, suggesting superior capabilities: Gemini 1.5 Pro (experimental version 0801) scored 1,300, while GPT-4o and Claude-3 scored 1,286 and 1,271, respectively. This significant improvement indicates that Google's latest model may possess greater overall capabilities than its...
read Aug 2, 2024Google May Integrate Spotify into Gemini AI
A recent APK teardown by Android Authority revealed that Google's Gemini AI may soon support playing music and podcasts through Spotify, providing users with an alternative to YouTube Music. Enhancing Gemini's music capabilities: The extension could significantly expand the assistant's music playback options beyond the currently available YouTube Music extension: Although still a work in progress, the Spotify extension is already accessible on some devices, allowing Gemini to process requests to play songs via Spotify and even play music in the background without launching the Spotify app. Broadening Gemini's extension ecosystem: The potential integration of Spotify highlights Google's efforts to...
read Aug 1, 2024You Can Chat with Google’s New AI-Powered Chrome Browser
Google unveils AI-powered Chrome features to enhance browsing and search experiences. Conversational history search: Chrome's new feature leverages Google's AI to help users find previously visited web pages using natural language queries: Users can ask questions like "What was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?" and Chrome will present relevant pages from their browsing history. The feature is easily accessible through the history tab and requires no additional setup, but can be turned off in settings if desired. Incognito mode browsing data will not be included in the search results, maintaining user privacy. Tab compare for easy...
read Aug 1, 2024Google Integrates Gemini into Looker and BigQuery
Google Cloud has unveiled significant updates to its database and data analytics offerings, aiming to facilitate generative AI deployments and adoption by integrating more flexibility into data usage and access. Key Takeaways: Google Cloud announces a series of updates to its Spanner, Bigtable, BigQuery, and Looker services at the Google Cloud Next event in Tokyo. The updates focus on expanding the capabilities of these offerings to better support generative AI applications and improve data analysis. Gerrit Kazmaier, GM & VP of Data Analytics at Google Cloud, emphasizes the importance of having "incredible data" to achieve "incredible AI." Enhancing Data Analytics...
read Aug 1, 2024Google Phone App to Introduce AI-powered Scam Call Detection
Key features and distinctions: The upcoming Google Phone update will differentiate between spam calls and scam calls, providing a more granular approach to identifying and handling potentially malicious callers: Users will be able to manually report calls as either spam or scam, allowing for a more targeted classification of unwanted calls. The AI-powered system, codenamed "Sharpie," will automatically detect scam calls, potentially reducing the burden on users to identify and report such calls themselves. The scam detection feature will be opt-in, giving users control over whether they want to utilize the AI-powered system or not. Evidence of upcoming release: APK...
read Aug 1, 2024Google’s Gemma 2 2B is a Small Model with Big Impact
Google's Gemma 2 2B represents a significant breakthrough in AI efficiency, offering performance on par with industry leaders despite its compact size. This development could potentially reshape the AI landscape, making advanced capabilities more accessible and deployable. Gemma 2 2B challenges the notion that bigger is better in AI: With just 2.6 billion parameters, Google's new language model achieves results comparable to or surpassing models like GPT-3.5 and Mistral 8x7B, which have around ten times more parameters. Independent testing by LMSYS saw Gemma 2 2B score 1130 in their evaluation arena, slightly outperforming GPT-3.5-Turbo-0613 (1117) and Mixtral-8x7B (1114). The model...
read Aug 1, 2024Google Pixel 9 Pro Prioritizes AI Video Boost Over Native 8K Recording
The Pixel 9 Pro is set to prioritize AI-enhanced video over native 8K recording, according to a recent leak, highlighting Google's continued focus on leveraging artificial intelligence to deliver premium features. Video Boost takes center stage: The Pixel 9 Pro will rely on Google's Video Boost feature to upscale 4K video to 8K using AI, rather than allowing users to capture 8K video directly: Despite the 50MP main lens being capable of shooting 8K video, Google has chosen to prioritize its AI-driven Video Boost feature. Video Boost, which debuted on the Pixel 8 series, enhances captured content by processing it...
read Jul 31, 2024Google to Demote Websites Harboring Deepfakes
The rapid advancement of AI technology has made it easier for individuals to create non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes, prompting Google to update its search engine algorithm and removal request process to combat this growing problem. Key Changes to Google's Approach: Google is taking proactive measures to address the issue of unwanted AI deepfakes: The removal request process for victims will be streamlined, making it easier to report and remove such content. When reported AI deepfakes are identified, Google Search will automatically filter out related search results that might appear in the future, reducing the need for repeated reporting of similar...
read Jul 31, 2024Android’s “About This Image” Feature Helps Users Quickly Combat Misinformation
The Android "Circle to Search" feature now includes an "About this image" tab to help users quickly determine the legitimacy of images, which could be particularly useful in combating misleading or out-of-context political images on social media. Key Features: Circle to Search's new "About this image" tab provides users with instant access to crucial information about an image: The tab displays an image's metadata, source, and whether a Google AI watermark is present, helping users assess its authenticity. This feature is rolling out on the latest Pixel and Samsung phones, tablets, and foldables, making it widely accessible to Android users....
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