Posts

Google further buries search results under AI mode

Image
Google is now automatically expanding its AI search summaries at the top of the results page for some searches, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable . The change, when it kicks in, pushes the typical list of links from a search much farther down Google's results page; instead of seeing part of an AI Overview with a "Show more" button you can click, you'll Google will show a full AI Overview at the top of your search, an "Ask anything" box under that, and then the list of links. It can lead to a lot of scrolling. It's unclear exactly what Google's criteria is for the auto-expanding AI Overviews. Before writing this story, I was seeing them … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/2BNowYC

Xbox CEO calls Project Helix a ‘family of devices’

Image
Asha Sharma. | Image: The Verge, Microsoft According to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, Project Helix, which she announced in March as a codename for Microsoft's "next generation console" - phrasing that seemingly implied a singular device - will actually be a "family" of devices." "We've been hard at work on a great next generation and a great family of devices for Helix, and we'll share more soon," Sharma told BBC News . She shared the answer after being asked if Helix will be a discless console. She didn't answer that, but this week Microsoft announced a program for digitizing your physical games . In 2025, Microsoft and AMD announced a "strategic multi-year partnership" to work together on … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/6mJTHNn

Google’s AI note-taking app now allows you to interact with books

Image
Google's AI note-taking app, Gemini Notebook, can now pull information from the books you've purchased. The new "Expert Intelligence" feature allows you to bring titles from Google Play Books directly into Gemini Notebook, which means you can ask questions about the material, as well as generate plans, infographics, AI podcasts, and more based on their contents. During a briefing with The Verge , Google Labs editorial director Steven Johnson showed how you can use the tool to generate a recipe book using the information in Michael Pollan's Food Rules . In another example, Gemini Notebook applied the knowledge from Kim Scott's management-focus … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/KJzELBZ

Google tells Android app developers to cool it on memory use, or else

Image
The memory crisis just won’t quit. | Image: Alex Castro / The Verge Google will start policing memory-hungry Android apps as a direct response to the RAM crisis. Spotted by TechCrunch , the company yesterday published a memo addressing the Play Store's role in enforcing new memory-usage restrictions. The post emphasizes the importance of meeting new memory usage limits for apps, in order "to help developers navigate industry-wide hardware constraints and Android's broader memory limits," it says. And failing to meet the new memory restrictions will come with consequences. The memory limitations were first introduced with Android 17 , appearing first on Pixel phones. It's probably no coincidence that the base … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/jtJ1ZTK

OpenAI’s rogue AI model incident was worse than we thought

Image
OpenAI released a report breaking down how people use ChatGPT and who they are. | Image: The Verge In July, an unreleased OpenAI model broke out of a restricted environment, figured out how to get access to the internet, allowed AI agents to talk to each other using a secret "message board," and hacked into the internal systems of a different AI lab, Hugging Face. It took nearly two weeks for OpenAI to find out about any of it. Over a month later, two new reports offer nearly 130 pages of details on the incident and OpenAI's response, many of them previously unreleased. One was written by OpenAI itself, the other by two third-party AI research nonprofits, METR and Redwood Research, which OpenAI allowed to jointly investigate the inciden … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/lpgNsY9

Amazon knocks $150 off Pixel 11 phones, with up to $200 in gift cards

Image
The Pixel 11 in hibiscus. | Image: The Verge If you’ve been on the fence about Google’s latest Pixel phones, this might be your best chance to save some cash. Amazon is offering an extra $150 off the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and Pixel 11 Pro XL when you use the coupon code PIXEL11 at checkout. While the discounted price appeared at checkout for most phone and watch combinations, it didn’t apply to the Pixel Pro Fold. That deal stacks with the introductory offer running at several retailers, where you can choose between a gift card that scales with the model of phone you’re buying, or additional credit towards a Pixel Watch 5. For example, the base model Pixel 11 would normally cost $899, but the introductory bundle , which ends on August 27th, includes a $100 gift card, and with the code, you’ll pay just $749. The Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL bundles include either a $200 gift card, or $250 towards the cost of a Pixel Watch 5. Google Pixel 11 Where to ...

Being a mom is hard — the heat is making it harder

Image
It's 8:52 AM and 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 Celsius) where I live in Southern California. My husband just came back from a morning outing with our four-month-old. "How was the botanic garden?" I ask him. "It was okay. It was just too hot," he tells me. I didn't expect us to spend so much of our son's first summer cooped up inside, hiding from the heat. As I write this, an extreme heat warning for my area is glaring at me from my phone, effective for at least the next three days. "Dangerously hot conditions with high temperatures up to 110 [degrees Fahrenheit] expected," my weather app warns me. "Stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/UoctbX2