The Wire · Google
Gemini, DeepMind, and Google's AI across cloud and devices — the releases and research that matter to builders.
Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, the largest open-weight model yet: a 2.8-trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts (16 of 896 experts active), 1M-token context, native vision, Kimi Delta Attention and Attention Residuals, in K3 Max and K3 Swarm variants. Moonshot's own benchmarks show K3 beating Anthropic's Opus 4.8, while independent Artificial Analysis scores it clearing Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 but losing to Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol; it lists at $3/$15 per million tokens, roughly half Opus's cost per task. Ask it who it is and it says "I am Claude" — the tell of the distillation Anthropic documented in February (3.4M exchanges from Moonshot, 16M across three Chinese labs via 24,000 fake accounts). Also: Mira Murati's Thinking Machines ships its first model, the 975B open-weight Inkling; an autonomous AI agent breaches Hugging Face and is caught with the open-weight GLM 5.2; and NotebookLM becomes Gemini Notebook with a sandboxed cloud computer in every notebook.
288 points, 146 comments on HN
Read full story →Firefox releases will soon get even closer together – but not ESR ones, which remain annual, with the next one due out soon. The change was announced last week on the [email protected] mailing list by Mozilla’s director of engineering Sylvestre Ledru: “We are planning to move Firefox Desktop and Android from a 4-week release cadence to a 2-week release cadence starting in September 2026. “This will be an experiment… This does not mean that all work needs to ship twice as fast. Work that is not ready should not be rushed, and features can still take the time they need to bake. “The current target is to release Firefox 155 on September 1, 2026, instead of September 15 … “We will closely monitor how this change works in practice and adjust if needed.” The change is already visible in the upcoming Firefox Release Calendar. At the time of writing, it shows the current four-week cadence for Firefox 153 and 154, with Firefox 155 brought forward to September 1. From then on, it lists releases at roughly two-week intervals. This isn’t unprecedented. The last time Mozilla did it was over a decade ago. Google announced a very similar change for Chrome back in March, and The Register reported on it going to six-weekly releases in 2010 and then four-weekly ones in 2021. Brace for the impact of the next ESR In the meantime, Firefox 153 is nearly here: at the time of writing, it’s scheduled for Tuesday, July 21. Right now, the release notes are blank, but the beta release notes are more forthcoming. You can look forward to further improvements to PDF editing. Version 153 will be able to merge multiple PDF documents into one by a simple drag-and-drop in the PDF sidebar, and insert images into PDFs as new pages. It will also improve highlighting text in PDFs. The new version can generate QR codes for sharing web pages offline, such as in printed documents. It can verify and display the EU’s new Qualified Website Authentication Certificates, or QWACs for short. These are part
Read full story →This week, San Francisco’s attorney general, David Chiu, sent cease-and-desist letters, demanding that Apple and Google remove 13 so-called nudification apps from their app stores, Wired reported. Nudification apps can make it trivially easy to transform ordinary photos of real people into explicit images. The harmful AI tools allow bad actors to remove clothing, change a person’s features, place them in sexualized positions, and swap victims’ faces onto other people’s naked bodies. Chiu's letter warned that app stores were violating "California’s laws that prohibit supporting services that create deepfake pornography," Wired reported. Read full article Comments
Read full story →The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that Google may not be able to claim intermediary liability protection for YouTube content it reviews as part of a commercial partnership with a creator. The case stems from a €750,000 fine imposed on Google Ireland by Italy's communications regulator in 2022 over YouTube videos promoting online gambling. Before entering the revenue-sharing agreement, under which Google placed pre-roll ads on the creator's videos, the company reviewed the channel's content. The regulator argued that this examination undermined Google's claim that it acted as a neutral intermediary exempt from liability. Google appealed against the fine, and the case was referred to the CJEU. The court rejected Mountain View's reading of the liability exemption, leaving Italy's Council of State to decide the dispute. The exemption still applies where "the service provider has neither knowledge of nor control over the information which is transmitted or stored." However, in this instance, Google was aware of the content. The court held that the exemption "does not apply" to a platform operator that agreed commercial terms with a channel where the operator "carried out an examination of the content of that channel," including its main theme, its most-viewed or newest videos, or the associated metadata. In effect, the ruling limits Google's ability to rely on its "intermediary service provider" defense when it has reviewed a channel as part of a commercial partnership. In those circumstances, the platform may be unable to claim the liability exemption for the content at issue. This doesn't mean Google is liable for everything on YouTube, but the megacorp needs to be more careful with channels where it has commercial deals that come with a level of content review and specific knowledge that can forfeit intermediary status. A Google spokesperson said: "We are disappointed by the CJEU's decision, which we will need further clarity on. We will rai
Europe wasted no time using its landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA) to try and rein in Big Tech. Companies like Apple, Meta, and Google have faced steep fines and orders to modify their business practices since the law came into force in 2024. And the hits keep on coming for Big Tech in Europe. After several months of consideration, the European Commission has announced new DMA measures that will force Google to support interoperability and competition in the European Union, and Google is not happy about it. The new "specification measures" cover two elements of Google's business: Android phones and search. Both changes could theoretically increase competition and give users more choices, but Google claims they will undermine privacy and security. But as a "gatekeeper" under the DMA, Google has no choice but to comply. As the European Commission points out in its announcement, these decisions are legally binding. On Android, Google will have to open up access to competing AI platforms. Currently, Google's Gemini gets preferential access to the system. Gemini is preloaded on all Google-certified Android phones and can wake up in response to the "Hey Google" hot word. Google's AI also includes system and app automation features, screen content access, and more. Read full article Comments
Google is adding personalized AI avatars to Vids that let users create videos starring a digital version of themselves, alongside Gemini Omni-powered tools for generating and editing videos from prompts and reference images.
AI-generated slop code has been a plague for some open-source projects, namely but not only Gentoo Linux, Curl, and Ghostty, limiting or outright banning LLM-created contributions. And yet, just like both the models themselves get better and the people using them become more considerate, the landscape may be changing. Linus Torvalds, Linux's creator and kernel manager, has seemingly taken an accepting stance of AI-assisted tooling. In a long comment on the Linux kernel mailing list, Torvalds spelled it out fairly clearly: "I realize that some people really dislike AI, but this is an area where I'm willing to absolutely put my foot down [...] Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it. Or just walk away." This discussion came regarding the usage of Sashiko , an opt-in (per-mailing-list) and apparently quite effective multi-stage code review tool that analyzes kernel patches. The project page says the tool can find 53.6% of bugs on proposed patches, and argues that that metric already puts it above human level, as the patches in question already supposedly went through human review. The false positive rate "is harder to measure," being pinned "within 20%." Crucially, Sashiko only comments on patches, and does not take action by itself. Developer Laurent Pinchart suggested that Sashiko's output be triaged before comments were sent out to patch authors, basing the notion on the Software Freedom Conservancy's guidelines on AI-generated code . Google's Roman Gushchin, one of Sashiko's creators, pointed out that doing that would undermine the utility of the tool, and that Pinchart's position was quite anti-LLM — a sentiment echoed by Linus Torvalds in his reply. Torvalds put it clearly: "AI is a tool, just like other tools we use. And it's clearly a useful one. It may not have been that 'clearly' even just a year ago, but it's no longer in question today," a statement that reflects his cha
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 […]
In this installment of our ongoing quantum computing roadmaps, we turn to the area that has arguably made the most significant technical strides in 2025 and early 2026: neutral atom quantum computing. Be sure to familiarize yourself with part one , which covered superconducting qubits – through IBM and Google – and trapped-ion qubits, through IonQ and Quantinuum. Part two examined quantum photonics through Xanadu's continuous-variable approach and PsiQuantum's silicon-photonic architecture. Like its predecessors, this is a technology and roadmap analysis rather than a technical deep-dive. We'll give you enough context to understand why neutral atoms have recently captured the attention of both the scientific community and major industry players, then look at what three of its key companies – QuEra, Atom Computing, and Pasqal – are building and planning. What is Neutral Atom Quantum Computing? Where superconducting qubits build their quantum systems from engineered Josephson junctions on chips, and trapped ions use electromagnetic fields to suspend individual atoms in vacuum, neutral atom quantum computing uses tightly focused laser beams – called optical tweezers – to trap individual neutral atoms in precisely controlled spatial arrangements. Each trapped atom acts as a qubit: information is encoded in the atom's internal electronic states, and operations between qubits are performed by briefly exciting atoms into what are known as Rydberg states (the neutral atom mechanism for two-qubit logic gates). These are high-energy orbitals where electrons sit far from the nucleus, enabling long-range interactions between neighboring atoms when triggered. Switching a Rydberg excitation on and off is, in functional terms, the quantum analog of a logic gate – laser on, interaction happens; laser off, atoms return to isolated, quiet stability. The atoms are laser-cooled to microkelvin temperatures during operation, but unlike superconducting systems – which require the entire c
Spelled out in big colorful letters that even Google can understand, the EU is now requiring the Chocolate Factory to share search data with competitors while enhancing Android AI interoperability for bots other than Gemini. Needless to say, the company would like to find a way to disable this default. The European Commission (EC) announced a pair of specification decisions on Thursday. The first covers AI vendors' ability to integrate into Google's mobile OS, and the other forces Google to give search data to other search engines in order to “rebalance the playing field," as the EC put it. The specification proceeding, the Commission said, isn’t a noncompliance decision and doesn’t attempt to determine whether Google has been flouting its obligations as a Digital Markets Act gatekeeper (i.e., it’s big enough that it controls access to markets for smaller firms). It only wanted to make sure both parties were clear on what the EC actually wants Google to do to lessen its monopolistic hold on search and its control over the operating system on the majority of the world’s smartphones. Gemini gets pried loose from Android “Currently, on Android phones, competitors' AI assistants only have restricted access to key functionalities,” the EC said. “Today's decision will ensure that users can activate their preferred AI assistant.” Specifically, Google will be required to give third-party AI providers extensive access to Android-powered devices, including allowing them to be voice-activated in place of Gemini, and to take actions in apps on user’s behalf. Google cried foul, as it has when faced with practically any EU decision spanking it for unfair competition. “Today's decisions risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans,” Google and Alphabet president of global affairs Kent Walker said in a statement. More specifically to the AI portion of the decision, Walker said the EC’s ruling is unnecessary, as AI assistants "already safely acces
Roblox is about to let people make games with AI right inside its mobile app, which could make a platform that's already filled with content of questionable quality feel even more overloaded. The company has embraced AI with open arms, including a preview of an ambitious take on AI world models similar to Google's Project […]
<figure><div><img src="https://imgproxy.divecdn.com/lk5GyGtD0vEAeT-zPZN-8DuqXkG2A-ZawKEFVlM2JwU/g:ce/rs:fill:1600:900:1/Z3M6Ly9kaXZlc2l0ZS1zdG9yYWdlL2RpdmVpbWFnZS9Hb29nbGVfZGF0YV9jZW50ZXIuanBn.webp"/></div></figure><p>With a target completion date of 2029, the project is expected to deliver 2.5 GW of generation and 2.9 GWh of battery storage to the regional grid, the tech giant said.</p>
With this new update, Google is expanding AI Mode beyond answering questions and into completing tasks across the apps they use regularly.
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 […]
Drawing on more than a decade spent helping build some of the world's most influential AI systems, including research that later informed the development of ChatGPT, Andrew Dai explains why he believes visual AI is one of the next major frontiers in artificial intelligence.
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