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Google CEO Sundar Pichai | Bloomberg via Getty Images Today, the European Union ordered Google to give its AI rivals greater access to Android, the open-source operating system that powers billions of devices worldwide. The demand is hardly surprising . It may look like a defeat on paper for Google, which has spent years resisting exactly this kind of access, but it is a regulatory win. It's also a sign that Google may have outmaneuvered Apple by playing Brussels' regulatory game far more shrewdly. In one of two decisions handed down on Thursday, the European Commission - the EU's executive arm and the principal enforcer of the bloc's competition rules - said Google must give rival AI assistan … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/966588/eu-dma-ai-android-siri-ai

Google is giving its AI note-taking app a new name. The company announced on Thursday that NotebookLM is becoming Gemini Notebook, but will remain a standalone app even as it integrates more deeply across Gemini and Google Search. Google first revealed Gemini Notebook - then called Project Tailwind - in May 2023 before widely releasing the app just months later . Over the past few years, Google has been adding new features to the app to help organize and make sense of your notes, such as the ability to summarize them as AI podcasts , narrated slideshows , and TikTok-style clips . It recently started letting users connect their notebooks to the … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/966112/google-gemini-notebook-notebooklm

Lucid Motors found itself in a tough bind this week, fending off bankruptcy rumors and watching its stock price plunge as a result. The company quickly denied the report, calling it "completely false" and pointing to its available free cash flow as evidence that it has enough runway to operate into next year. But despite the swift response, the damage was widespread. The panic immediately bled into competing automakers, pulling down shares of Rivian and Polestar as investors speculated about the long-term survival of EV-only companies in the face of slowing consumer demand and whiplash policy shifts. And it cast a harsh light on the precari … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/transportation/965924/lucids-bankruptcy-rumor-is-a-bad-sign-for-the-ev-future

OpenAI is finally releasing some hardware. No, it isn't the mysterious AI-powered device the company is developing with former Apple designer Jony Ive , a project already tangled up in a messy lawsuit . Instead, it's a product designed to be used with its coding platform, Codex. The device, a square-shaped block of buttons called Codex Micro, is a collaboration between the AI company and keyboard maker Work Louder. OpenAI said it is a limited-run collaboration that will give users more ways to monitor and manage their agents. The pad closely resembles Work Louder's Creator Micro 2 , and marketing images show what appears to be an identical … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/965901/openai-hardware-codex-micro-launch

Google is announcing a big change to the Google Images homepage in honor of the platform's 25th anniversary this week. Instead of a mostly blank page with a search bar, the homepage will soon show you a bunch of images that it thinks you might like before you even start searching. The company says the new "browseable" homepage features a "dynamic, immersive gallery of images from across the web - updated in real time and intelligently tailored to your unique interests." Based on images Google has shared, the layout reminds me of platforms like Pinterest and Imgur that stuff a lot of images in one place for you to scroll through. You'll also … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/965138/google-images-homepage-ai-overviews-search-nano-banana

Golden Gate’s public beta should be at parity with the third developer beta, which is pretty stable. The macOS 27 Golden Gate public beta is here , and anyone with an M-series Mac now has easier access to test-drive Apple's latest changes - including a more subdued Liquid Glass aesthetic. That's reason enough to be at least a little excited for macOS 27 (particularly if you're on Tahoe and disliking all the transparency). But there are other things that make trying out this beta a little more appealing than usual. There was a rumor earlier this year that this new macOS would focus on performance optimizations, bug fixes, and a bunch of small quality-of-life improvements, rather than being a major overhaul. And aside from dialing down Liquid … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/964701/apple-macos-27-golden-gate-public-beta-impressions-liquid-glass-siri-ai