The Cross Heads

Google steps into “extended reality” once again with Android XR

Citing “years of investment in AI, AR, and VR,” Google is stepping into the augmented reality market once more with Android XR. It’s an operating system that Google says will power future headsets and glasses that “transform how you watch, work, and explore.” The first version you’ll see is Project Moohan, a mixed-reality headset built […]

December 12, 2024 | android, android xr, Apple, extended reality, Google, Google Glass, Tech, VR, XR | No comments

YouTube TV is hiking prices again after denying “erroneous” report days ago

YouTube TV, now one of the country’s leading cable (or cable-ish) television providers, is starting to act like it. The service told customers in an email this morning that prices are going up in the new year, from $73 per month for the Base Plan to $83 on January 13, 2025—just days after suggesting that […]

December 12, 2024 | Google, Tech, youtube TV | No comments

Google goes “agentic” with Gemini 2.0’s ambitious AI agent features

On Wednesday, Google unveiled Gemini 2.0, the next generation of its AI-model family, starting with an experimental release called Gemini 2.0 Flash. The model family can generate text, images, and speech while processing multiple types of input including text, images, audio, and video. It’s similar to multimodal AI models like GPT-4o, which powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT. […]

December 11, 2024 | agentic AI, AI, AI agents, Biz & IT, ChatGPT, chatgtp, Gemini 2.0, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Google, Google Gemini, large language models, machine learning, openai, Project Astra | No comments

Report: Google told FTC Microsoft’s OpenAI deal is killing AI competition

Google reportedly wants the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to end Microsoft’s exclusive cloud deal with OpenAI that requires anyone wanting access to OpenAI’s models to go through Microsoft’s servers. Someone “directly involved” in Google’s effort told The Information that Google’s request came after the FTC began broadly probing how Microsoft’s cloud computing business practices […]

December 11, 2024 | ai industry, AI models, Antitrust law, Artificial Intelligence, federal trade commission, FTC, Google, large language models, LLMs, microsoft, openai, Policy | No comments

Chatbots urged teen to self-harm, suggested murdering parents, lawsuit says

A loss could lead to heavy fines for Character Technologies and possibly Google, as the families have asked for punitive damages. They also seek money to cover their families’ past and future medical expenses, mental pain and suffering, impairment to perform everyday activities, and loss of enjoyment of life. C.AI bots accused of grooming, inciting […]

December 10, 2024 | Artificial Intelligence, Character.AI, chatbots, child safety, companion bots, generative ai, Google, Policy | No comments

Google gets an error-corrected quantum bit to be stable for an hour

(In addition to a standard surface code, Google includes a few qubits that handle a phenomenon called “leakage,” where a qubit ends up in a higher-energy state, instead of the two low-energy states defined as zero and one.) The key result is that going from a distance of three to a distance of five more […]

December 9, 2024 | Computer science, Google, logical qubits, Physics, quantum computing, quantum error correction, quantum mechanics, Science | No comments

New website shows you how much Google AI can learn from your photos

Software engineer Vishnu Mohandas decided he would quit Google in more ways than one when he learned that the tech giant had briefly helped the US military develop AI to study drone footage. In 2020 he left his job working on Google Assistant and also stopped backing up all of his images to Google Photos. […]

December 3, 2024 | AI, Google, LLMs, syndication | No comments

Google’s plan to keep AI out of search trial remedies isn’t going very well

Additionally, the DOJ wants Mehta to stop Google from any potential self-preferencing, such as making an AI product mandatory on Android devices Google controls or preventing a rival from distribution on Android devices. The government seems very concerned that Google may use its ownership of Android to play games in the emerging AI sector. They’ve […]

November 27, 2024 | AI, ai search, Antitrust law, copilot, generative ai, Google, google search, google search monopoly, microsoft, Policy, search engines | No comments

DOJ wraps up ad tech trial: Google is “three times” a monopolist

One of the fastest monopoly trials on record wound down Monday, as US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema heard closing arguments on Google’s alleged monopoly in a case over the company’s ad tech. Department of Justice lawyer Aaron Teitelbaum kicked things off by telling Brinkema that Google “rigged” ad auctions, allegedly controlling “multiple parts” of […]

November 25, 2024 | advertising exchange, Antitrust law, Google, google ad manager, google ad tech, google adx, online advertising, Policy | No comments

The good, the bad, and the ugly behind the push for more smart displays

After a couple of years without much happening, smart displays are in the news again. Aside from smart TVs, consumer screens that connect to the Internet have never reached a mainstream audience. However, there seems to be a resurgence to make smart displays more popular. The approaches that some companies are taking are better than […]

November 22, 2024 | Amazon, Apple, Google, Monitors, Smart Home, Tech | No comments

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