Google – Page 5

Google releases Gemini 3 Flash, promising improved intelligence and efficiency

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Gemini 3, generative ai, Google, search / Rejus Almole / December 17, 2025

Google began its transition to Gemini 3 a few weeks ago with the launch of the Pro model, and the arrival of Gemini 3 Flash kicks it into high gear. The new, faster Gemini 3 model is coming to the Gemini app and search, and developers will be able to access it immediately via the Gemini API, Vertex AI, AI Studio, and Antigravity. Google’s bigger gen AI model is also picking up steam, with both Gemini 3 Pro and its image component (Nano Banana Pro) expanding in search.

This may come as a shock, but Google says Gemini 3 Flash is faster and more capable than its previous base model. As usual, Google has a raft of benchmark numbers that show modest improvements for the new model. It bests the old 2.5 Flash in basic academic and reasoning tests like GPQA Diamond and MMMU Pro (where it even beats 3 Pro). It gets a larger boost in Humanity’s Last Exam (HLE), which tests advanced domain-specific knowledge. Gemini 3 Flash has tripled the old models’ score in HLE, landing at 33.7 percent without tool use. That’s just a few points behind the Gemini 3 Pro model.

Google is talking up Gemini 3 Flash’s coding skills, and the provided benchmarks seem to back that talk up. Over the past year, Google has mostly pushed its Pro models as the best for generating code, but 3 Flash has done a lot of catching up. In the popular SWE-Bench Verified test, Gemini 3 Flash has gained almost 20 points on the 2.5 branch.

The new model is also a lot less likely to get general-knowledge questions wrong. In the Simple QA Verified test, Gemini 3 Flash scored 68.7 percent, which is only a little below Gemini 3 Pro. The last Flash model scored just 28.1 percent on that test. At least as far as the evaluation scores go, Gemini 3 Flash performs much closer to Google’s Pro model versus the older 2.5 family. At the same time, it’s considerably more efficient, according to Google.

One of Gemini 3 Pro’s defining advances was its ability to generate interactive simulations and multimodal content. Gemini 3 Flash reportedly retains that underlying capability. Gemini 3 Flash offers better performance than Gemini 2.5 Pro did, but it runs workloads three times faster. It’s also a lot cheaper than the Pro models if you’re paying per token. One million input tokens for 3 Flash will run devs $0.50, and a million output tokens will cost $3. However, that’s an increase compared to Gemini 2.5 Flash input and output at $0.30 and $2.50, respectively. The Pro model’s tokens are $2 (1M input) and $12 (1M output).

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Senators count the shady ways data centers pass energy costs on to Americans

AI, ai data centers, Amazon, data center coalition, data centers, Google, Meta, microsoft, Policy / Paul Patrick / December 16, 2025

Senators demand Big Tech pay upfront for data center spikes in electricity bills.

Senators launched a probe Tuesday demanding that tech companies explain exactly how they plan to prevent data center projects from increasing electricity bills in communities where prices are already skyrocketing.

In letters to seven AI firms, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) cited a study estimating that “electricity prices have increased by as much as 267 percent in the past five years” in “areas located near significant data center activity.”

Prices increase, senators noted, when utility companies build out extra infrastructure to meet data centers’ energy demands—which can amount to one customer suddenly consuming as much power as an entire city. They also increase when demand for local power outweighs supply. In some cases, residents are blindsided by higher bills, not even realizing a data center project was approved, because tech companies seem intent on dodging backlash and frequently do not allow terms of deals to be publicly disclosed.

AI firms “ask public officials to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) preventing them from sharing information with their constituents, operate through what appear to be shell companies to mask the real owner of the data center, and require that landowners sign NDAs as part of the land sale while telling them only that a ‘Fortune 100 company’ is planning an ‘industrial development’ seemingly in an attempt to hide the very existence of the data center,” senators wrote.

States like Virginia with the highest concentration of data centers could see average electricity prices increase by another 25 percent by 2030, senators noted. But price increases aren’t limited to the states allegedly striking shady deals with tech companies and greenlighting data center projects, they said. “Interconnected and interstate power grids can lead to a data center built in one state raising costs for residents of a neighboring state,” senators reported.

Under fire for supposedly only pretending to care about keeping neighbors’ costs low were Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Equinix, Digital Realty, and CoreWeave. Senators accused firms of paying “lip service,” claiming that they would do everything in their power to avoid increasing residential electricity costs, while actively lobbying to pass billions in costs on to their neighbors.

For example, Amazon publicly claimed it would “make sure” it would cover costs so they wouldn’t be passed on. But it’s also a member of an industry lobbying group, the Data Center Coalition, that “has opposed state regulatory decisions requiring data center companies to pay a higher percentage of costs upfront,” senators wrote. And Google made similar statements, despite having an executive who opposed a regulatory solution that would set data centers into their own “rate class”—and therefore responsible for grid improvement costs that could not be passed on to other customers—on the grounds that it was supposedly “discriminatory.”

“The current, socialized model of electricity ratepaying,” senators explained—where costs are shared across all users—”was not designed for an era where just one customer requires the same amount of electricity as some of the largest cities in America.”

Particularly problematic, senators emphasized, were reports that tech firms were getting discounts on energy costs as utility companies competed for their business, while prices went up for their neighbors.

Ars contacted all firms targeted by lawmakers. Four did not respond. Microsoft and Meta declined to comment. Digital Realty told Ars that it “looks forward to working with all elected officials to continue to invest in the digital infrastructure required to support America’s leadership in technology, which underpins modern life and creates high-paying jobs.”

Regulatory pressure likely to increase as bills go up

Senators are likely exploring whether to pass legislation that would help combat price increases that they say cause average Americans to struggle to keep the lights on. They’ve asked tech companies to respond to their biggest questions about data center projects by January 12, 2026.

Among their top questions, senators wanted to know about firms’ internal projections looking forward with data center projects. That includes sharing their projected energy use through 2030, as well as the “impact of your AI data centers on regional utility costs.” Companies are also expected to explain how “internal projections of data center energy consumption” justify any “opposition to the creation of a distinct data center rate class.”

Additionally, senators asked firms to outline steps they’ve taken to prevent passing on costs to neighbors and details of any impact studies companies have conducted.

Likely to raise the most eyebrows, however, would be answers to questions about “tax deductions or other financial incentives” tech firms have received from city and state governments. Those numbers would be interesting to compare with other information senators demanded that companies share, detailing how much they’ve spent on lobbying and advocacy for data centers. Senators appear keen to know how much tech companies are paying to avoid covering a proportionate amount of infrastructure costs.

“To protect consumers, data centers must pay a greater share of the costs upfront for future energy usage and updates to the electrical grid provided specifically to accommodate data centers’ energy needs,” senators wrote.

Requiring upfront payment is especially critical, senators noted, since some tech firms have abandoned data center projects, leaving local customers to bear the costs of infrastructure changes without utility companies ever generating any revenue. Communities must also consider that AI firms’ projected energy demand could severely dip if enterprise demand for AI falls short of expectations, AI capabilities “plateau” and trigger widespread indifference, AI companies shift strategies “away from scaling computer power,” or chip companies “find innovative ways to make AI more energy-efficient.”

“If data centers end up providing less business to the utility companies than anticipated, consumers could be left with massive electricity bills as utility companies recoup billions in new infrastructure costs, with nothing to show for it,” senators wrote.

Already, Utah, Oregon, and Ohio have passed laws “creating a separate class of utility customer for data centers which includes basic financial safeguards such as upfront payments and longer contract length,” senators noted, and Virginia is notably weighing a similar law.

At least one study, The New York Times noted, suggested that data centers may have recently helped reduce electricity costs by spreading the costs of upgrades over more customers, but those outcomes varied by state and could not account for future AI demand.

“It remains unclear whether broader, sustained load growth will increase long-run average costs and prices,” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers concluded. “In some cases, spikes in load growth can result in significant, near-term retail price increase.”

Until companies prove they’re paying their fair share, senators expect electricity bills to keep climbing, particularly in vulnerable areas. That will likely only increase pressure for regulators to intervene, the director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program, Ari Peskoe, suggested in September.

“The utility business model is all about spreading costs of system expansion to everyone, because we all benefit from a reliable, robust electricity system,” Peskoe said. “But when it’s a single consumer that is using so much energy—basically that of an entire city—and when that new city happens to be owned by the wealthiest corporations in the world, I think it’s time to look at the fundamental assumptions of utility regulation and make sure that these facilities are really paying for all of the infrastructure costs to connect them to the system and to power them.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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UK to “encourage” Apple and Google to put nudity-blocking systems on phones

age verification, Apple, Google, Policy, UK / Tim Belzer / December 15, 2025

The push for device-level blocking comes after the UK implemented the Online Safety Act, a law requiring porn platforms and social media firms to verify users’ ages before letting them view adult content. The law can’t fully prevent minors from viewing porn, as many people use VPN services to get around the UK age checks. Government officials may view device-level detection of nudity as a solution to that problem, but such systems would raise concerns about user rights and the accuracy of the nudity detection.

Age-verification battles in multiple countries

Apple and Google both provide optional tools that let parents control what content their children can access. The companies could object to mandates on privacy grounds, as they have in other venues.

When Texas enacted an age-verification law for app stores, Apple and Google said they would comply but warned of risks to user privacy. A lobby group that represents Apple, Google, and other tech firms then sued Texas in an attempt to prevent the law from taking effect, saying it “imposes a broad censorship regime on the entire universe of mobile apps.”

There’s another age-verification battle in Australia, where the government decided to ban social media for users under 16. Companies said they would comply, although Reddit sued Australia on Friday in a bid to overturn the law.

Apple this year also fought a UK demand that it create a backdoor for government security officials to access encrypted data. The Trump administration claimed it convinced the UK to drop its demand, but the UK is reportedly still seeking an Apple backdoor.

In another case, the image-sharing website Imgur blocked access for UK users starting in September while facing an investigation over its age-verification practices.

Apple faced a backlash in 2021 over potential privacy violations when it announced a plan to have iPhones scan photos for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Apple ultimately dropped the plan.

UK to “encourage” Apple and Google to put nudity-blocking systems on phones Read More »

Google will end dark web reports that alerted users to leaked data

dark web, data leaks, Google, privacy, Security, Tech / Mike M. / December 15, 2025

As Google admits in the email alert, its dark web scans didn’t offer much help. “Feedback showed that it did not provide helpful next steps,” Google said of the service. Here’s the full text of the email.

With other types of personal data alerts provided by the company, it has the power to do something. For example, you can have Google remove pages from search that list your personal data. Google doesn’t run anything on the dark web, though, so all it can do is remind you that your data is being passed around in one of the shadier corners of the Internet.

The shutdown begins on January 15, when Google will stop conducting new scans for user data on the dark web. Past data will no longer be available as of February 16, 2026. Google says it will delete all past reports at that time. However, users can remove their monitoring profile earlier in the account settings. This change does not impact any of Google’s other privacy reports.

The good news is that the best ways to protect your personal data from being shuffled around the dark web are the same ones that keep you safe on the open web. Google suggests always using two-step verification, and tools like Passkeys and Google’s password checkup can ensure you don’t accidentally reuse a compromised password. Stay safe out there.

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OpenAI built an AI coding agent and uses it to improve the agent itself

agentic AI, AI, AI agents, AI assistants, AI coding, AI development tools, AI programming, AI work, Anthropic, Biz & IT, chatbots, Claude, code agents, Codex, Dario Amodei, generative ai, GitHub Copilot, Google, GPT-5, large language models, machine learning, Mistral, Open Source, openai, Programming, sam altman, software development, vibe coding / Kris Guyer / December 12, 2025

“The vast majority of Codex is built by Codex,” OpenAI told us about its new AI coding agent.

With the popularity of AI coding tools rising among software developers, their adoption has begun to touch every aspect of the process, including the improvement of AI coding tools themselves.

In interviews with Ars Technica this week, OpenAI employees revealed the extent to which the company now relies on its own AI coding agent, Codex, to build and improve the development tool. “I think the vast majority of Codex is built by Codex, so it’s almost entirely just being used to improve itself,” said Alexander Embiricos, product lead for Codex at OpenAI, in a conversation on Tuesday.

Codex, which OpenAI launched in its modern incarnation as a research preview in May 2025, operates as a cloud-based software engineering agent that can handle tasks like writing features, fixing bugs, and proposing pull requests. The tool runs in sandboxed environments linked to a user’s code repository and can execute multiple tasks in parallel. OpenAI offers Codex through ChatGPT’s web interface, a command-line interface (CLI), and IDE extensions for VS Code, Cursor, and Windsurf.

The “Codex” name itself dates back to a 2021 OpenAI model based on GPT-3 that powered GitHub Copilot’s tab completion feature. Embiricos said the name is rumored among staff to be short for “code execution.” OpenAI wanted to connect the new agent to that earlier moment, which was crafted in part by some who have left the company.

“For many people, that model powering GitHub Copilot was the first ‘wow’ moment for AI,” Embiricos said. “It showed people the potential of what it can mean when AI is able to understand your context and what you’re trying to do and accelerate you in doing that.”

A place to enter a prompt, set parameters, and click — The interface for OpenAI’s Codex in ChatGPT. Credit: OpenAI

It’s no secret that the current command-line version of Codex bears some resemblance to Claude Code, Anthropic’s agentic coding tool that launched in February 2025. When asked whether Claude Code influenced Codex’s design, Embiricos parried the question but acknowledged the competitive dynamic. “It’s a fun market to work in because there’s lots of great ideas being thrown around,” he said. He noted that OpenAI had been building web-based Codex features internally before shipping the CLI version, which arrived after Anthropic’s tool.

OpenAI’s customers apparently love the command line version, though. Embiricos said Codex usage among external developers jumped 20 times after OpenAI shipped the interactive CLI extension alongside GPT-5 in August 2025. On September 15, OpenAI released GPT-5 Codex, a specialized version of GPT-5 optimized for agentic coding, which further accelerated adoption.

It hasn’t just been the outside world that has embraced the tool. Embiricos said the vast majority of OpenAI’s engineers now use Codex regularly. The company uses the same open-source version of the CLI that external developers can freely download, suggest additions to, and modify themselves. “I really love this about our team,” Embiricos said. “The version of Codex that we use is literally the open source repo. We don’t have a different repo that features go in.”

The recursive nature of Codex development extends beyond simple code generation. Embiricos described scenarios where Codex monitors its own training runs and processes user feedback to “decide” what to build next. “We have places where we’ll ask Codex to look at the feedback and then decide what to do,” he said. “Codex is writing a lot of the research harness for its own training runs, and we’re experimenting with having Codex monitoring its own training runs.” OpenAI employees can also submit a ticket to Codex through project management tools like Linear, assigning it tasks the same way they would assign work to a human colleague.

This kind of recursive loop, of using tools to build better tools, has deep roots in computing history. Engineers designed the first integrated circuits by hand on vellum and paper in the 1960s, then fabricated physical chips from those drawings. Those chips powered the computers that ran the first electronic design automation (EDA) software, which in turn enabled engineers to design circuits far too complex for any human to draft manually. Modern processors contain billions of transistors arranged in patterns that exist only because software made them possible. OpenAI’s use of Codex to build Codex seems to follow the same pattern: each generation of the tool creates capabilities that feed into the next.

But describing what Codex actually does presents something of a linguistic challenge. At Ars Technica, we try to reduce anthropomorphism when discussing AI models as much as possible while also describing what these systems do using analogies that make sense to general readers. People can talk to Codex like a human, so it feels natural to use human terms to describe interacting with it, even though it is not a person and simulates human personality through statistical modeling.

The system runs many processes autonomously, addresses feedback, spins off and manages child processes, and produces code that ships in real products. OpenAI employees call it a “teammate” and assign it tasks through the same tools they use for human colleagues. Whether the tasks Codex handles constitute “decisions” or sophisticated conditional logic smuggled through a neural network depends on definitions that computer scientists and philosophers continue to debate. What we can say is that a semi-autonomous feedback loop exists: Codex produces code under human direction, that code becomes part of Codex, and the next version of Codex produces different code as a result.

Building faster with “AI teammates”

According to our interviews, the most dramatic example of Codex’s internal impact came from OpenAI’s development of the Sora Android app. According to Embiricos, the development tool allowed the company to create the app in record time.

“The Sora Android app was shipped by four engineers from scratch,” Embiricos told Ars. “It took 18 days to build, and then we shipped it to the app store in 28 days total,” he said. The engineers already had the iOS app and server-side components to work from, so they focused on building the Android client. They used Codex to help plan the architecture, generate sub-plans for different components, and implement those components.

Despite OpenAI’s claims of success with Codex in house, it’s worth noting that independent research has shown mixed results for AI coding productivity. A METR study published in July found that experienced open source developers were actually 19 percent slower when using AI tools on complex, mature codebases—though the researchers noted AI may perform better on simpler projects.

Ed Bayes, a designer on the Codex team, described how the tool has changed his own workflow. Bayes said Codex now integrates with project management tools like Linear and communication platforms like Slack, allowing team members to assign coding tasks directly to the AI agent. “You can add Codex, and you can basically assign issues to Codex now,” Bayes told Ars. “Codex is literally a teammate in your workspace.”

This integration means that when someone posts feedback in a Slack channel, they can tag Codex and ask it to fix the issue. The agent will create a pull request, and team members can review and iterate on the changes through the same thread. “It’s basically approximating this kind of coworker and showing up wherever you work,” Bayes said.

For Bayes, who works on the visual design and interaction patterns for Codex’s interfaces, the tool has enabled him to contribute code directly rather than handing off specifications to engineers. “It kind of gives you more leverage. It enables you to work across the stack and basically be able to do more things,” he said. He noted that designers at OpenAI now prototype features by building them directly, using Codex to handle the implementation details.

The command line version of OpenAI codex running in a macOS terminal window. Credit: Benj Edwards

OpenAI’s approach treats Codex as what Bayes called “a junior developer” that the company hopes will graduate into a senior developer over time. “If you were onboarding a junior developer, how would you onboard them? You give them a Slack account, you give them a Linear account,” Bayes said. “It’s not just this tool that you go to in the terminal, but it’s something that comes to you as well and sits within your team.”

Given this teammate approach, will there be anything left for humans to do? When asked, Embiricos drew a distinction between “vibe coding,” where developers accept AI-generated code without close review, and what AI researcher Simon Willison calls “vibe engineering,” where humans stay in the loop. “We see a lot more vibe engineering in our code base,” he said. “You ask Codex to work on that, maybe you even ask for a plan first. Go back and forth, iterate on the plan, and then you’re in the loop with the model and carefully reviewing its code.”

He added that vibe coding still has its place for prototypes and throwaway tools. “I think vibe coding is great,” he said. “Now you have discretion as a human about how much attention you wanna pay to the code.”

Looking ahead

Over the past year, “monolithic” large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4.5 have apparently become something of a dead end in terms of frontier benchmarking progress as AI companies pivot to simulated reasoning models and also agentic systems built from multiple AI models running in parallel. We asked Embiricos whether agents like Codex represent the best path forward for squeezing utility out of existing LLM technology.

He dismissed concerns that AI capabilities have plateaued. “I think we’re very far from plateauing,” he said. “If you look at the velocity on the research team here, we’ve been shipping models almost every week or every other week.” He pointed to recent improvements where GPT-5-Codex reportedly completes tasks 30 percent faster than its predecessor at the same intelligence level. During testing, the company has seen the model work independently for 24 hours on complex tasks.

OpenAI faces competition from multiple directions in the AI coding market. Anthropic’s Claude Code and Google’s Gemini CLI offer similar terminal-based agentic coding experiences. This week, Mistral AI released Devstral 2 alongside a CLI tool called Mistral Vibe. Meanwhile, startups like Cursor have built dedicated IDEs around AI coding, reportedly reaching $300 million in annualized revenue.

Given the well-known issues with confabulation in AI models when people attempt to use them as factual resources, could it be that coding has become the killer app for LLMs? We wondered if OpenAI has noticed that coding seems to be a clear business use case for today’s AI models with less hazard than, say, using AI language models for writing or as emotional companions.

“We have absolutely noticed that coding is both a place where agents are gonna get good really fast and there’s a lot of economic value,” Embiricos said. “We feel like it’s very mission-aligned to focus on Codex. We get to provide a lot of value to developers. Also, developers build things for other people, so we’re kind of intrinsically scaling through them.”

But will tools like Codex threaten software developer jobs? Bayes acknowledged concerns but said Codex has not reduced headcount at OpenAI, and “there’s always a human in the loop because the human can actually read the code.” Similarly, the two men don’t project a future where Codex runs by itself without some form of human oversight. They feel the tool is an amplifier of human potential rather than a replacement for it.

The practical implications of agents like Codex extend beyond OpenAI’s walls. Embiricos said the company’s long-term vision involves making coding agents useful to people who have no programming experience. “All humanity is not gonna open an IDE or even know what a terminal is,” he said. “We’re building a coding agent right now that’s just for software engineers, but we think of the shape of what we’re building as really something that will be useful to be a more general agent.”

This article was updated on December 12, 2025 at 6: 50 PM to mention the METR study.

Benj Edwards is Ars Technica’s Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site’s dedicated AI beat in 2022. He’s also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC.

OpenAI built an AI coding agent and uses it to improve the agent itself Read More »

Google Translate expands live translation to all earbuds on Android

AI, Apps, Artificial Intelligence, Gemini, Google / Mike M. / December 12, 2025

Gemini text translation — Translate can now use Gemini to interpret the meaning of a phrase rather than simply translating each word. Credit: Google

Regardless of whether you’re using live translate or just checking a single phrase, Google claims the Gemini-powered upgrade will serve you well. Google Translate is now apparently better at understanding the nuance of languages, with an awareness of idioms and local slang. Google uses the example of “stealing my thunder,” which wouldn’t make a lick of sense when translated literally into other languages. The new translation model, which is also available in the search-based translation interface, supports over 70 languages.

Google also debuted language-learning features earlier this year, borrowing a page from educational apps like Duolingo. You can tell the app your skill level with a language, as well as whether you need help with travel-oriented conversations or more everyday interactions. The app uses this to create tailored listening and speaking exercises.

AI Translate learning — The Translate app’s learning tools are getting better. Credit: Google

With this big update, Translate will be more of a stickler about your pronunciation. Google promises more feedback and tips based on your spoken replies in the learning modules. The app will also now keep track of how often you complete language practice, showing your daily streak in the app.

If “number go up” will help you learn more, then this update is for you. Practice mode is also launching in almost 20 new countries, including Germany, India, Sweden, and Taiwan.

Google Translate expands live translation to all earbuds on Android Read More »

OpenAI releases GPT-5.2 after “code red” Google threat alert

agentic AI, AI, AI assistants, AI benchmarks, AI coding, Biz & IT, chatgpt, Gemini 3, Google, Google Gemini, GPT-5, GPT-5.2, large language models, machine learning, openai, sam altman / Mike M. / December 11, 2025

On Thursday, OpenAI released GPT-5.2, its newest family of AI models for ChatGPT, in three versions called Instant, Thinking, and Pro. The release follows CEO Sam Altman’s internal “code red” memo earlier this month, which directed company resources toward improving ChatGPT in response to competitive pressure from Google’s Gemini 3 AI model.

“We designed 5.2 to unlock even more economic value for people,” Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s chief product officer, said during a press briefing with journalists on Thursday. “It’s better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long context, using tools and then linking complex, multi-step projects.”

As with previous versions of GPT-5, the three model tiers serve different purposes: Instant handles faster tasks like writing and translation; Thinking spits out simulated reasoning “thinking” text in an attempt to tackle more complex work like coding and math; and Pro spits out even more simulated reasoning text with the goal of delivering the highest-accuracy performance for difficult problems.

A chart of GPT-5.2 benchmark results taken from OpenAI's website. — A chart of GPT-5.2 Thinking benchmark results comparing it to its predecessor, taken from OpenAI’s website. Credit: OpenAI

GPT-5.2 features a 400,000-token context window, allowing it to process hundreds of documents at once, and a knowledge cutoff date of August 31, 2025.

GPT-5.2 is rolling out to paid ChatGPT subscribers starting Thursday, with API access available to developers. Pricing in the API runs $1.75 per million input tokens for the standard model, a 40 percent increase over GPT-5.1. OpenAI says the older GPT-5.1 will remain available in ChatGPT for paid users for three months under a legacy models dropdown.

Playing catch-up with Google

The release follows a tricky month for OpenAI. In early December, Altman issued an internal “code red” directive after Google’s Gemini 3 model topped multiple AI benchmarks and gained market share. The memo called for delaying other initiatives, including advertising plans for ChatGPT, to focus on improving the chatbot’s core experience.

The stakes for OpenAI are substantial. The company has made commitments totaling $1.4 trillion for AI infrastructure buildouts over the next several years, bets it made when it had a more obvious technology lead among AI companies. Google’s Gemini app now has more than 650 million monthly active users, while OpenAI reports 800 million weekly active users for ChatGPT.

OpenAI releases GPT-5.2 after “code red” Google threat alert Read More »

Disney says Google AI infringes copyright “on a massive scale”

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Disney, Google / Rejus Almole / December 11, 2025

While Disney wants its characters out of Google AI generally, the letter specifically cited the AI tools in YouTube. Google has started adding its Veo AI video model to YouTube, allowing creators to more easily create and publish videos. That seems to be a greater concern for Disney than image models like Nano Banana.

Google has said little about Disney’s warning—a warning Google must have known was coming. A Google spokesperson has issued the following brief statement on the mater.

“We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney, and will continue to engage with them,” Google says. “More generally, we use public data from the open web to build our AI and have built additional innovative copyright controls like Google-extended and Content ID for YouTube, which give sites and copyright holders control over their content.”

Perhaps this is previewing Google’s argument in a theoretical lawsuit. That copyrighted Disney content was all over the open internet, so is it really Google’s fault it ended up baked into the AI?

Content silos for AI

The generative AI boom has treated copyright as a mere suggestion as companies race to gobble up training data and remix it as “new” content. A cavalcade of companies, including The New York Times and Getty Images, have sued over how their material has been used and replicated by AI. Disney itself threatened a lawsuit against Character.AI earlier this year, leading to the removal of Disney content from the service.

Google isn’t Character.AI, though. It’s probably no coincidence that Disney is challenging Google at the same time it is entering into a content deal with OpenAI. Disney has invested $1 billion in the AI firm and agreed to a three-year licensing deal that officially brings Disney characters to OpenAI’s Sora video app. The specifics of that arrangement are still subject to negotiations.

Disney says Google AI infringes copyright “on a massive scale” Read More »

Google is reviving wearable gesture controls, but only for the Pixel Watch 4

Google, smartwatches, Tech / Tim Belzer / December 9, 2025

Long ago, Google’s Android-powered wearables had hands-free navigation gestures. Those fell by the wayside as Google shredded its wearable strategy over and over, but gestures are back, baby. The Pixel Watch 4 is getting an update that adds several gestures, one of which is straight out of the Apple playbook.

When the update hits devices, the Pixel Watch 4 will gain a double pinch gesture like the Apple Watch has. By tapping your thumb and forefinger together, you can answer or end calls, pause timers, and more. The watch will also prompt you at times when you can use the tap gesture to control things.

In previous incarnations of Google-powered watches, a quick wrist turn gesture would scroll through lists. In the new gesture system, that motion dismisses what’s on the screen. For example, you can clear a notification from the screen or dismiss an incoming call. Pixel Watch 4 owners will also enjoy this one when the update arrives.

And what about the Pixel Watch 3? That device won’t get gesture support at this time. There’s no reason it shouldn’t get the same features as the latest wearable, though. The Pixel Watch 3 has a very similar Arm chip, and it has the same orientation sensors as the new watch. The Pixel Watch 4’s main innovation is a revamped case design that allows for repairability, which was not supported on the Pixel Watch 3 and earlier.

Google is reviving wearable gesture controls, but only for the Pixel Watch 4 Read More »

OpenAI CEO declares “code red” as Gemini gains 200 million users in 3 months

AI, AI assistants, AI competition, Biz & IT, chatbots, chatgpt, Gemini, Gemini 3, Google, Google Gemini, GPT-5, large language models, machine learning, Marc Benioff, openai, sam altman, simulated reasoning, SR model, Sundar Pichai, vibemark, vibemarking / Kris Guyer / December 2, 2025

In addition to buzz about Gemini on social media, Google is quickly catching up to ChatGPT in user numbers. ChatGPT has more than 800 million weekly users, according to OpenAI, while Google’s Gemini app has grown from 450 million monthly active users in July to 650 million in October, according to Business Insider.

Financial stakes run high

Not everyone views OpenAI’s “code red” as a genuine alarm. Reuters columnist Robert Cyran wrote on Tuesday that OpenAI’s announcement added “to the impression that OpenAI is trying to do too much at once with technology that still requires a great deal of development and funding.” On the same day Altman’s memo circulated, OpenAI announced an ownership stake in a Thrive Capital venture and a collaboration with Accenture. “The only thing bigger than the company’s attention deficit is its appetite for capital,” Cyran wrote.

In fact, OpenAI faces an unusual competitive disadvantage: Unlike Google, which subsidizes its AI ventures through search advertising revenue, OpenAI does not turn a profit and relies on fundraising to survive. According to The Information, the company, now valued at around $500 billion, has committed more than $1 trillion in financial obligations to cloud computing providers and chipmakers that supply the computing power needed to train and run its AI models.

But the tech industry never stands still, and things can change quickly. Altman’s memo also reportedly stated that OpenAI plans to release a new simulated reasoning model next week that may beat Gemini 3 in internal evaluations. In AI, the back-and-forth cycle of one-upmanship is expected to continue as long as the dollars keep flowing.

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Google announces second Android 16 release of 2025 is heading to Pixels

AI, android, android 16, Google, Google Pixel, smartphones, Tech / Mike M. / December 2, 2025

Material 3 Expressive came to Pixels earlier this year but not as part of the first Android 16 upgrade—Google’s relationship with Android versions is complicated these days. Regardless, Material 3 will get a bit more cohesive on Pixels following this update. Google will now apply Material theming to all icons on your device automatically, replacing legacy colored icons with theme-friendly versions. Similarly, dark mode will be supported across more apps, even if the devs haven’t added support. Google is also adding a few more icon shape options if you want to jazz up your home screen.

By way of functional changes, Google has added a more intuitive way of managing parental controls—you can just use the managed device directly. Parents will be able to set a PIN code for accessing features like screen time, app usage, and so on without grabbing a different device. If you want more options or control, the new on-device settings will also help you configure Google Family Link.

Android for all

No Pixel? No problem. Google has also bundled up a collection of app and system updates that will begin rolling out today for all supported Android devices.

Chrome for Android is getting an update with tab pinning, mirroring a feature that has been in the desktop version since time immemorial. The Google Messages app is also taking care of some low-hanging fruit. When you’re invited to a group chat by a new number, the app will display group information and a one-tap option to leave and report the chat as spam.

Google’s official dialer app comes on Pixels, but it’s also in the Play Store for anyone to download. If you and your contacts use Google Dialer, you’ll soon be able to place calls with a “reason.” You can flag a call as “Urgent” to indicate to the recipient that they shouldn’t send you to voicemail. The urgent label will also remain in the call history if they miss the call.

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Netflix quietly drops support for casting to most TVs

Apps, Google, google cast, netflix, smart tvs, streaming video, Tech / Kris Guyer / December 1, 2025

Have you been trying to cast Stranger Things from your phone, only to find that your TV isn’t cooperating? It’s not the TV—Netflix is to blame for this one, and it’s intentional. The streaming app has recently updated its support for Google Cast to disable the feature in most situations. You’ll need to pay for one of the company’s more expensive plans, and even then, Netflix will only cast to older TVs and streaming dongles.

The Google Cast system began appearing in apps shortly after the original Chromecast launched in 2013. Since then, Netflix users have been able to start video streams on TVs and streaming boxes from the mobile app. That was vital for streaming targets without their own remote or on-screen interface, but times change.

Today, Google has moved beyond the remote-free Chromecast experience, and most TVs have their own standalone Netflix apps. Netflix itself is also allergic to anything that would allow people to share passwords or watch in a new place. Over the last couple of weeks, Netflix updated its app to remove most casting options, mirroring a change in 2019 to kill Apple AirPlay.

The company’s support site (spotted by Android Authority) now clarifies that casting is only supported in a narrow set of circumstances. First, you need to be paying for one of the ad-free service tiers, which start at $18 per month. Those on the $8 ad-supported plan won’t have casting support.

Even then, Casting only appears for devices without a remote, like the earlier generations of Google Chromecasts, as well as some older TVs with Cast built in. For example, anyone still rocking Google’s 3rd Gen Chromecast from 2018 can cast video in Netflix, but those with the 2020 Chromecast dongle (which has a remote and a full Android OS) will have to use the TV app. Essentially, anything running Android/Google TV or a smart TV with a full Netflix app will force you to log in before you can watch anything.

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