Google

Google is using Anthropic’s Claude to improve its Gemini AI

AI /

Contractors working to improve Google’s Gemini AI are comparing its answers against outputs produced by Anthropic’s competitor model Claude, according to internal correspondence seen by TechCrunch.  Google would not say, when reached by TechCrunch for comment, if it had obtained permission for its use of Claude in testing against Gemini. As tech companies race to […]

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An investigation finds that Google Maps fails users in the West Bank 

Transportation /

A Wired investigation found that Google Maps can be near impossible to use in the West Bank, especially since the start of the war. Users told the publication that the navigation app would direct them into walls, fail to account for time-consuming checkpoints, or steer them onto restricted roads leading to Israeli settlements, which can

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Google pushes back against DOJ’s ‘interventionist’ remedies in antitrust case

Government & Policy /

Google has offered up its own proposal in a recent antitrust case that saw the US Department of Justice argue that Google must sell its Chrome browser. US District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, with the DOJ then proposing a number

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YouTube says it will start cracking down on videos with clickbait titles in India

Media & Entertainment /

A lot of YouTube videos have flashy, misleading titles and thumbnails, such as “BREAKING NEWS” or “The president steps down,” to bait the user into watching the video, which has non-related content. YouTube said Wednesday that it is now cracking down on such videos — especially if videos with topics breaking news or current events

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The DOJ wants a Perplexity executive to testify in its Google antitrust case

Startups /

A U.S. court ruled in August that Google has a search monopoly, and while Google appeals, the Justice Department is figuring out what kind of potential penalties to impose — like breaking off Chrome.  As part of this process, the DOJ wants to call on a specific witness, according to a recent court filing: Dmitry

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Google joins $90M investment into Cassava to bolster Africa’s digital infrastructure

Fundraising /

With cloud spend continuing to surge, tech companies are scrambling to meet demand for the necessary infrastructure, with the growing need for AI compute only adding fuel to the fire. By way of example, Microsoft and BlackRock have created a $30 billion fund to support new data centers and energy infrastructure for the burgeoning AI

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Google says customers can use its AI in ‘high-risk’ domains, so long as there’s human supervision

Government & Policy /

Google has changed its terms to clarify that customers can deploy its generative AI tools to make “automated decisions” in “high-risk” domains, like healthcare, so long as there’s a human in the loop. According to the company’s updated Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy, published on Tuesday, customers may use Google’s generative AI to make “automated

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Code Assist, Google’s enterprise-focused coding assistant, gets third-party tools

Enterprise /

Google on Tuesday announced support for third-party tools in Gemini Code Assist, its enterprise-focused AI code completion service. Code Assist launched in April as a rebrand of a similar service Google offered under its now-defunct Duet AI branding. Available through plug-ins for popular dev environments like VS Code and JetBrains, Code Assist is powered by Google’s Gemini

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Google experiments with a new image generator that remixes three images into one creation

AI /

Google Labs, Google’s experimental arm, is testing a new image generator called Whisk. This tool allows people to prompt with images instead of text, allowing them to remix a photo by altering the subject, scene, and style. Whisk uses Google’s image-generation model, Imagen 3, to combine three images: one for the subject, another for the

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