Google and the UK will steer planes around contrails over the Atlantic
Google and the UK will steer planes around contrails over the Atlantic

The UK government and Google are launching a trial to steer aircraft around climate-warming contrails. Google announced Operation Blue Skies on Tuesday. It is the first such effort across an entire ocean airspace. AI forecasts will predict where contra…

Google plans to end Pixel production in China by 2027
Google plans to end Pixel production in China by 2027

Google has told suppliers it plans to move all Pixel production out of China from 2027, according to Nikkei Asia. That covers phones, smartwatches and wireless earbuds. Lauly Li reported the plan on 18 August, citing the ongoing tensions between Washin…

YouTube view counts will rise on 24 August, and creator earnings will not
YouTube view counts will rise on 24 August, and creator earnings will not

From 24 August, YouTube counts a view the moment a video starts playing. No minimum watch time, across long-form, Shorts and live, everywhere. The YouTube view count will go up. Nobody will watch more. Nobody will earn more. What the rule was, and nobo…

Google’s Pet Memory forgot who my cats are
Google’s Pet Memory forgot who my cats are

One of the best things my smart home does is help me care for my pets, and security cameras are particularly useful for keeping track of my many critters. But the barrage of notifications they send often means I miss important ones. So, when Google announced its new Pet Memory feature for Gemini for Home, […]

Google picked and paid for the firm anonymising the Spirit Airlines data
Google picked and paid for the firm anonymising the Spirit Airlines data

Google has agreed to pay $10mn for what a dead airline knew. A judge considers the sale on Wednesday morning. Reuters reported the price on Monday. Every account of the deal rests on one word. The data is deidentified, so nobody need worry. The Spirit …

GitHub disputes Wiz’s claim that Copilot Autofix wrote a Snowflake flaw
GitHub disputes Wiz’s claim that Copilot Autofix wrote a Snowflake flaw

A security company said on Monday that an AI wrote a critical flaw into Snowflake’s code, and that another AI found it and broke in. The second half holds up. The first half came apart in about eight hours. What is left is still worth your attention. I…

AI automation startup Relay shuts down, staff joins Google’s Chrome team

Relay, which offered businesses workflow automation, will stop operating next month. Its CEO and some of its staff plan to get to work on Google Chrome next.

YouTube will now count a view as soon as a video starts playing

The change comes a year after YouTube applied the same approach to counting views on Shorts videos.

Google’s best new camera feature is only for the Pixel 11 series
Google’s best new camera feature is only for the Pixel 11 series

Arguably the coolest new photo feature for the Pixel 11 lineup is Google’s new Camera Looks, which process image data differently at the sensor level to produce photos that don’t have that “smartphone” look. The result is new styles like “Digi,” which mimics the style of photos taken by older digital cameras. But to use […]

You can now turn off Google Gemini’s visible watermarks
You can now turn off Google Gemini’s visible watermarks

Google will now allow you to remove visible watermarks from the images, videos, and music made with AI tools. With the update, you can toggle off a new “Media watermark” setting in Gemini and Google’s AI video generator, Flow. When toggled off, Google will remove the “sparkle” watermark that appears in the bottom-right corner of […]