Google garnered quite a bit of backlash when it previously suggested the Pixel 8 wouldn’t get Gemini Nano, thus disallowing its base smartphone from on-device AI features. However, it recently went back on that decision, saying that it would actually bring AI features to the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8a after all. Now, reports indicate that Gemini Nano may soon be rolling out to the Pixel 8. The AI features themselves don't seem to be available just yet, but the option to enable them is, so it's a good idea to lay that groundwork now before the features actually roll out.
While many updates to your device might automatically have new features enabled by default, the Pixel 8's Gemini Nano features need to be enabled. That’s because the features that Nano will offer weren’t technically activated on the device’s chip just yet. To get around this, Google has now added a toggle that will turn on Gemini, but you’ll have to access the Android AICore features on your phone to set it up.
How to activate Gemini on Pixel 8
To activate Gemini on Pixel 8, you’ll first need to enable developer settings. To do this, navigate to Settings > AboutPhone and find the build number in the list (it’s down near the bottom).
Tap the build number seven times. You should see a popup saying that developer mode has been enabled.
To activate Gemini on Pixel 8, navigate to Settings > System > Developeroptions > AICoreSettings.
If you have the toggle available on your phone, it should appear as an option in the list that reads Enableon-deviceGeminifeatures.
Tap the toggle to turn it on, and boom, you’ve activated Gemini features.
So what does that do exactly? Unfortunately, right now, it doesn’t really do anything. Google hasn’t released any of the on-device Gemini features to the Pixel 8, so we’ll need to wait for Google to add them to the device in a future Android Feature Drop—speaking of, Google just dropped eight new features in May’s feature drop.
Until the Gemini features actually release, this toggle doesn’t appear to do anything. But, having it enabled will prepare your device for any future feature releases ahead of time.
This week, security research group Zscaler reported they had discovered over 90 malicious Android apps available on the Play Store. The apps had been installed more than 5.5 million times collectively, and many were part of the ongoing Anatsa malware campaign, which has targeted more than 650 apps tied to financial institutions.
As of February of 2024, Anatsa infected at least 150,000 devices via several decoy apps, many of which are marketed as productivity software. While we don't know the identities of most of the apps involved in this latest attack, we do know about two: PDF Reader & File Manager, as well as QR Reader & File Manager. At the time of Zscaler’s investigation, the two apps had garnered over 70,000 installs between them.
How these malicious apps infect your phone
Despite Google’s review process for apps applying to the Play Store, malware campaigns like Anatsa are sneaky, and can utilize a multi-stage payload loading mechanism to help them evade these reviews. In other words, the app masquerade as legitimate, and only start a stealthy infection once installed on the user's device.
You might think you're downloading a PDF reader, but once installed and opened, the "dropper" app will connect to a C2 server and retrieve the configurations and essential strings that it needs. It will then download a DEX file containing the malicious code and activate it on your device. From there, the Anatsa payload URL is downloaded through a configuration file, and that DEX file installs the malware payload, completing the process and infecting your phone.
Luckily, all identified apps have been removed from the Play Store, and their developers have been banned. However, that won't delete these apps from your smartphone if you downloaded them. If you have either of these two apps on your phone, uninstall them immediately. You should also change the passcodes of any banking apps that you might have used on your phone to avoid your accounts being accessed by the threat actors behind Anatsa.
How to avoid malware apps
While malicious developers can be tricky with their attacks, there are some tips you can follow to determine if an app on the Play Store is legitimate. The first is to really pay attention to the app's listing: Look at its name, the description, and its images: Does everything match with the service the developers are advertising? Is the copy well written, or is it riddled with mistakes? The less professional the page appears, the more likely it is to be a fake.
Only download apps from publishers you can trust. This is especially true if you’re downloading a popular app, as malware apps sometimes impersonate high-profile apps on phones and other devices. Double-check the developer behind the app to make sure they're who they purport to be.
You should also check the requirements and permissions that the app asks for. Anything that asks for accessibility should usually be avoided, as this is one of the main ways that malware groups bypass the security parameters placed on many newer devices. Other permissions to look out for include apps asking for access to your contact list and SMS. If a PDF reader wants your contacts, that's a big red flag.
Read through the reviews for the app, as well. Watch out for apps that don't have many ratings, or ones where all the reviews seem suspiciously positive.
The app's support email address can also be telling. Many malware apps will have a random Gmail account (or other free email account) tied to their support email. While not every app will have a professional email listed for support, you can usually tell if something might be sketchy based on the information that the group provides.
Unfortunately, there’s no surefire way to avoid malware apps unless you don’t install apps at all. But, if you’re mindful of the apps that you’re installing and pay attention to the permissions, developer, and other important information, you can usually pick up on whether or not an app is sketchy.
OpenAI continues to expand the options available to free ChatGPT users. The company started by making its newest model, GPT-4o, generally free to all users—though there are limitations unless you pay—and now it has expanded the accessibility of major 4o features by removing the paywalls on file uploads, vision (which can use your camera for input), and GPTs (or custom chatbots). Browse, data analysis, and memory, also formerly paywalled features, were already available to free users in a similarly limited capacity.
OpenAI has been clear about its plans to expand the offerings that its free users can take advantage of since it first revealed GPT-4o a few weeks back, and it has made good on those promises so far. With these changes, it makes paying for ChatGPT Plus even less important for many, which is surprisingly a good thing for OpenAI. More users means more usage testing—something that will only help improve the models running ChatGPT.
There will, of course, still be usage limits on the free version of ChatGPT. Once you reach those limits, you’ll be kicked back to GPT 3.5, as OpenAI hasn’t made GPT 4 or GPT 4 Turbo accessible in the free tier. Despite that, some paid users are not exactly happy with the change, with many wondering what the point of ChatGPT Plus is supposed to be now.
ChatGPT Plus subscribers still get access to the ability to make their own GPTs, and based on everything we know so far, Plus users are the only ones who will get 4o's upcoming voice-activated mode, though that could certainly change in the future.
Giving more people access to ChatGPT’s best features brings the chatbot in line with one of its biggest competitors, Claude, which allows free users access to the latest version of its AI model (albeit it through a less powerful version of that model).
Everyday laptops are everywhere, all at once. No, really. If you’re looking for a laptop that can tackle your everyday tasks—whether that’s work or personal business—then you have a lot of options to pick from. But not all of them are good or even really worth it, so it can be hard to find the best one for your needs. Enter the new Asus Vivobook S16 OLED, a 16-inch laptop designed to be your everyday device, whether you’re a student, businessperson, or just looking for a solid all-around machine to browse the web and take care of your daily projects.
I’ve been using the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED as my daily driver for the past two weeks, and like most of Asus’ newer laptops, I’ve been really impressed with what it can do. It’s sleek, weighs in at just over 3 pounds (roughly the same weight as my normal daily driver, a MacBook Air 15-inch), and it offers a ton of performance, not to mention that brilliant 3.2K, 120Hz OLED display, which really just makes things pop.
Specs and performance
Credit: Joshua Hawkins
There are a few different variations of the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED, including Intel models, but the version that Asus sent me included an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS chip (which includes Radeon 780M Graphics), 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. It’s a solid configuration that didn’t leave me wanting for more. the Ryzen 9 8945HS is a fantastic processor, especially for everyday tasks, and the integrated graphics are more than enough for basic work and personal usage, plus some light gaming on the side.
Anecdotally, performance as a whole was always snappy, and I never felt like the laptop was being bogged down, even when I had multiple Chrome tabs open, as well as the different Office applications needed to do my daily work. I even tried running a few games (Hades and other lightweight indies) on the system and found that they played fairly well, considering the lack of a discreet graphics card. Of course, if you really want to play games on your laptop, I recommend picking up a gaming laptop — perhaps the Asus Zephyrus G16, which I previously reviewed. I had to make a lot of sacrifices to get Red Dead Redemption 2 to run, and even then it frequently dipped below 30 fps.
I didn’t put the laptop through the normal slew of benchmarks that I’d use for a high-end gaming laptop, but I did try to bog it down with different apps like Photoshop, Premiere, and even After Effects running simultaneously. The Vivobook S16 OLED handled it all like a champ without any major slowdowns, and it was even able to export a 3-minute test video at 4K in just over an hour and twenty minutes. Depending on the video you’re exporting, of course, that rendering and exporting time may differ.
Here’s a look at the different ports the Vivobook S16 OLED offers:
1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C for display / power delivery
2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
1x USB 4.0 Gen 3 Type-C for display / power delivery
1x HDMI 2.1 TMDS
1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack
Micro SD card reader
The Vivobook S16 OLED is also one of the first Asus laptops to include the Copilot button, which you can mostly ignore if you don’t care about using Microsoft’s entry-level AI features. If you do use it, there aren’t any of the nifty AI additions that Microsoft showed off for its Copilot+ PCs, but the Vivobook S16 OLED doesn’t need AI to make it stand out from other competitors. It’s just a solid laptop through and through, but more importantly, it's sleek.
Looks and feel
It's so light you can easily hold it in one hand.Credit: Joshua Hawkins
Perhaps one of my favorite things about the Vivobook S16 OLED is the fact that Asus hasn’t gone out of its way to make this device stand out. It’s pretty simple as far as laptops go, with a slick all-metal body and a simple logo printed across the lid.
It’s a very understated design compared to the other Asus offerings I’ve checked out this year, and that really called to my love for minimalism and simplicity. That all-metal body also means an extremely lightweight and thin design, which feels great to carry around despite the laptop sporting a large, 16-inch display.
The trackpad and keyboard are solid, too, with the trackpad expanding up a good bit of the actual body of the laptop, giving you plenty of room to work. The keyboard and trackpad are both Ergosense, which means they’re designed to give you optimal ergonomics without sacrificing any of the benefits you’d get from a high-end typing and trackpad experience.
The backlit chiclet keyboard feels good to type on — almost as good as my MacBook Air's — and the addition of the numpad is handy, though it does feel a bit cramped. Using the laptop on your lap, a countertop, or anywhere you might need to take your work from is easy thanks to the lighter weight of the laptop (3.31 pounds), too.
Fitting so many keys onto the laptop without taking up an enormous amount of room is no easy feat, but Asus has put together a decent combination of keys to give you all the necessities.
Display and battery life
The OLED display shines in both bright and dark environments.Credit: Joshua Hawkins
If you’re working on a laptop, then you want to have plenty of room to do everything you need to do on it. The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED doesn’t want for screen space, as its large, 16-inch, 3.2K (3,200 x 2,000) Lumina OLED display provides a striking color balance with a beautifully large canvas that gives you plenty of room for juggling apps. The peak brightness of 600 nits is also enough for multiple types of work environments, and I never found myself worrying too much about glare.
The addition, the side-mounted HDMI connector and display capable USB-C ports mean you can also expand your display if needed, giving you even more room to be productive. I found that this display is easily one of the best I’ve seen on a laptop this year, and it made working and watching movies very enjoyable. The colors in movies like Dune: Part Two popped, from the bright sandy desert vistas to the darker cavern scenes. I also tried playing a few lower-end games on the machine, and it did a surprisingly good job of handling itself, so long as I was willing to go to a much lower resolution than the native 3,200 x 2,000.
With such a beautiful display attached and a powerful chip like the Ryzen 9 8945HS, you might not expect more than a few hours of battery life from the Vivobook S16 OLED. During my testing, I was often able to go the entire workday—and some into the evening—without having to plug in the laptop. That's roughly eight to nine hours, depending on the day. It also comes equipped with various Asus software to help manage the battery and keep it at peak health, so you won’t have to worry about overcharging it if you follow the instructions on the notifications that pop up.
The bottom line
The Asus Vivobook S16 OLED is a great all-around laptop for work, personal projects, and school. It’s lightweight design makes it a great option for people who travel a lot, or if you just have to commute to work every day and want an easy-to-carry laptop.
The powerful AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS and integrated graphics in the model I got were more than enough for anything you might throw at it during your normal day-to-day (but don’t expect it to hold up to high-end gaming). The configuration of the Asus Vivobook S16 OLED I tested is available now on Asus' website for $999.
With big exclusives like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Helldivers 2 already out, it’s almost time to see what PlayStation has in store for the rest of the year. Sony has officially announced when it next State of Play livestream will take place, and it’s coming a lot sooner than you might expect.
Sony took to X (formerly Twitter) and the PlayStation Blog to share that the next State of Play will premiere tomorrow, Thursday, May 30. The event will kick off at 3 p.m. PT (6 p.m. ET / 11 p.m. BST). The show is expected to last more than 30 minutes, though Sony hasn't shared an exact event timeline. However, the PlayStation parent company said that it will showcase updates for 14 different PlayStation 5 and PlayStation VR2 titles, including PlayStation Studios games set for release this year.
You can tune into the latest State of Play on PlayStation’s YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok channels, respectively. It is unclear exactly what PlayStation will highlight with its time slot, though there have been rumors and leaks about a new Astro Bot game. It’s also possible we could learn more about the PlayStation 5 Pro, which has generated a ton of rumors these past few months.
Considering that PlayStation recently appointed two new CEOs, Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, this State of Play will hopefully give us some idea of the company’s strategy for the rest of the year. In the comments section for the State of Play announcement, fans are expressing hopes for new information regarding Insomniac's Wolverine game as well as PS VR2 support for PC.
Make sure to tune into the event tomorrow, especially if you’re excited about anything that PlayStation has in the works. I’ll certainly be watching to see what Sony has in store for gamers in 2024.
YouTube has been steadily trying out ways to stop ad blockers from working on its site. From big pop-ups shaming your ad blocker use to actually blocking videos, the Google-owned website has been pushing out new measures to try to curb the use of third-party apps such as AdBlock Plus. Now, it seems YouTube has taken another drastic step in this war, by skipping to the end of videos for some users with ad blockers installed.
On Monday, Reddit user u/SDHD4K posted a video of YouTube's latest attempt to thwart ad blockers, demonstrating how the video they chose to watch simply skips to the end with Adblock Plus enabled. Other comments in the thread confirmed the issue was happening on their end, too, while others claimed YouTube was muting videos when their ad blocker was enabled. Some comments in the Reddit thread dismissed the problem, saying that the AdBlock Plus team will likely have the issue fixed in a matter of hours.
If this latest YouTube change sounds annoying, that’s kind of the point. The company wants to make the experience of using ad blockers so annoying that you’ll disable them, and choose to either deal with the ads or pay for Premium. Fortunately for those who don’t want to sit through long, un-skippable ads to watch a short video, there are some alternatives out there.
Based on the user complaints here, most of these issues seem to be directed at programs like AdBlock or AdBlock Plus (no relation). Users running alternatives such as uBlock Origin have reported no issues at all. Some users have been swapping from AdBlock or even installing browsers like Brave—which has a built-in ad blocker—to help avoid these issues. It isn’t a foolproof plan by any means, but if you’re running into this problem, then you might want to try swapping things up and seeing where it gets you. It is possible this issue could also be an unintended behavior on YouTube’s part, but without any official word from the site, that one is hard to prove.
The release of iOS 17.5 brought with it a somewhat troubling bug, as many users reported old, deleted photos resurfacing—some from more than ten years after they were deleted. While Apple has resolved this bug in iOS 17.5.1, many are still curious to know what caused the issue in the first place.
While there were rumblings that it could be tied to issues with iCloud’s photos backups themselves, Apple has confirmed to 9to5Mac that the issue did not originate from iCloud. Instead, the tech company says that the resurfacing photos were caused by a corrupt database entry that existed on affected phones' file systems.
But how does that work, especially since many of us aren’t using the same devices that we were more than five years ago? Apple says that the issue could have transferred to newer devices through device-to-device transfers, restoring from an iCloud backup, or restoring from a backup on the device itself.
To better understand the issue and how it was fixed, security researchers with Synactiv took a deeper look at the issue by reverse-engineering the update to iOS 17.5.1 to see what changed. According to their report, iOS 17.5 appears to have added a migration routine that scans and re-imports photos from the filesystem. Apple deleted this routine in the update to iOS 17.5.1, as it seems to be the cause behind why old files were re-indexed on the local file system and moved back to the active photo galleries.
Synactiv told The Verge that the the photos appear to have been lying around on affected file systems, and that “based on the code” they were picked up by the migration routine. Unfortunately, the security researchers say that there isn’t really any way to conclude how the photos remained on the file systems in the first place.
Another possible cause that Synactiv pointed to, though, was a Reddit comment noting how sometimes your device saves files to both the Files app and your Photos app. So, if you only deleted images in your Photos app, the image would still be on your device and stored in Files.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to say for sure whether or not the issue boils down to the image being saved in two places or Apple’s “corrupt database entry,” explanation. The issue is now resolved, so long as you update to iOS 17.5.1. If you were one of the few who had older photos resurfacing, you’ll need to delete the photos yourself, as the update won’t remove them automatically.
According to Google’s support documents, the new feature will allow users to “securely” share copies of their saved passwords with members of their family group.
This means you’ll need to have a family group—or create one—to use this feature. You won't be able to share to any old Google account. If you’re already part of a family group and you use Google Password Manager for Android, you should now see a new “share” button next to your passwords, although Android Authority reports that this might not be the case on desktop quite yet.
I can also confirm that neither of my computers have been able to access the feature, and neither has my iPhone. However, PCs and iOS should eventually get access to it through their respective Chrome apps.
Sharing passwords has always been a really tricky thing, especially since text messages and emails aren’t very secure. Having a password sharing option available right in Google Password Manager will undoubtedly make the free password manager even more appealing for users that already trust Google with their information.
Other password managers, like 1Password, LastPass, Bitwarden, and even the relative newcomer Proton Pass, also offer password-sharing functionality, although like Google's reliance on family groups, they all come with their own limitations.
Hopefully, Google will expand on this feature in the future—perhaps with something like LastPass’s one-time-password feature, which allows you to share a password with someone without actually giving them the password. That one-time password also expires after a certain amount of time, to help keep your account secure.
Keep an eye out for the new sharing functionality in your Google Password Manager over the coming days. It should be available as part of May’s Google Play Services update v24.20.
The clipboard is a really handy feature that you’ll find in most types of smart tech these days—from tablets to smartphones and even Windows PCs and Macs. The clipboard allows you to store multiple objects for pasting, but it doesn't always get formatting right. That's where Microsoft's new AI-powered system, which can adjust formatting for you and even alter the content you paste, comes into play.
The new feature is called Advanced Paste, and it’s only available as part of the customization-friendly PowerToys app. You can do a few different things through its menu, which can be summoned via Windows key + Shift + V. While the headlining feature is AI-powered formatting help, some other examples include using AI to summarize your copied text, translating it, generating code based on it, or even stylizing or transforming it. For instance, you could copy-and-paste this paragraph and ask Advanced Paste to rewrite it in a Shakespearean voice, without needing to go to Copilot or ChatGPT first.
There's also ways to use Advanced Paste without AI. While it can't rewrite your copied text for you, you can still format text on your own be simply selecting between plain text, JSON, and Markdown from a dropdown menu.
If you’re interested in giving Advanced Paste a spin, there are a few steps you'll need to go through first. For AI features, you'll also need to open your wallet. Here’s everything you need to do to get started.
How to try Advanced Paste in Windows
To get started, download and install Microsoft PowerToys. There are a number of ways to do this, including using the official GitHub page, the Microsoft Learn page for PowerToys, or just by visiting the Microsoft Store page for the app. Make sure to install at least version 0.8.0.1, as this is the first to offer Advanced Paste. It is also worth noting that PowerToys enables a lot of other advanced features—check here for our favorites.
After installing PowerToys, activate Advanced Paste. It should be visible on the first page of options, though if you don’t see it, the search bar should be able to find it. Once enabled, you can start using Advanced Paste immediately by pressing Windows key + Shift + V to bring up the menu. But if you really want to take full advantage of the system's AI-powered features, you’ll have to pay for and enable them first.
How to enable AI features in Advanced Paste
This is where things get a bit more confusing, as you’ll need to purchase OpenAI tokens and set up an API key in order to actually make use of Advanced Paste's AI capabilities.
After signing into your OpenAI account, click the Create New Secret Key option and then name it something like “Windows Advanced Paste.” This will let you keep track of which API keys are using your tokens, just in case you ever notice any unusual usage.
After creating the key, copy it and return to PowerToys. Find Advanced Paste and then click the Enable button next to Enable Paste with AI. Paste in your API key and click Save.
At this point, you’re ready to start using Advanced Paste with its AI features enabled.
Last week, Google dropped the second beta for Android 15, giving us our first public look at new features like App Pairs and Private Space. But the tech giant also snuck in another update for Pixel phones, bringing back a useful volume feature that has been missing since 2021.
The feature in question allows you to fully control the volume of Google Home speaker groups consisting of Google products while casting. So, if you have Google speakers connected to your Pixel via Google Home, the volume menu will allow you to adjust each speaker's output without needing to be in the app you're casting content from. Google actually removed this functionality back in 2021 in response to a lawsuit from Sonos.
Fast forward a couple of years, and a judge in California overturned the verdict favoring Sonos. At that time, Google immediately re-enabled the option to add Nest speakers, Chromecast devices, and Nest displays to multiple speaker groups in Google Home. It was a bit of a homecoming for users with multiple speakers within the Google ecosystem. However, one feature was still missing: the ability to control those speaker groups even when not in a specific media app.
As Android Authority explains, before Android 15 Beta 2, casting to a speaker group with Nest or Google Home devices on your Pixel device required you to remain in the app that you were casting from. So, if you were sending music from Spotify to one or more Google speakers, you'd need to remain in that app, without opening any others, to be able to control the volume of your speakers from the volume rocker on the side of the phone. If you opened any other app, you'd have to re-open the app that you were casting from to control the speaker group. A bit inconvenient, no?
Other phones have been able to take advantage of full speaker group volume control before the new beta, as the feature has been baked into the Android AOSP (the base level of Android that manufacturers build their own versions off of) for years. Finally, Google's flagship phone is back on track.
Bad actors are using malware disguised as credible software (such as 1Password, Bartender 5, and Pixelmator Pro) to infect Windows and macOS computers. The malware is being distributed through exploits hosted on both GitHub and FileZilla to efficiently infect the target computers.
The malware gives the group behind the operation, which originates from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), access to elevated privileges on the infected computers. This allows them to turn off the security functionality and infect the computer with even more malware. While some of this malware will focus on gathering personal information, many of them can also target crypto wallets and banking software.
It also appears that the threat actors may be hosting the files in places beyond just GitHub and FileZilla, with fake application websites also sending redirects to payloads hosted on both Dropbox and Bitbucket. Cybersecurity firm Insikt Group says that the malware appears to be tied to a campaign that has been running since at least August 2023, which was designed to deliver malware including Lumma, RedLine, Vidar, Rhadamanthys, DarkComet RAT, and DanaBot.
This development is only one part of the ongoing news about these types of malware, including Activator, which is still a “very active threat,” according to The Hacker News. That one can disable the notification center on macOS while also launching multiple stages of Python scripts designed to be malicious and persistent.
This type of malware has, up to this point, been mostly distributed through SEO poisoning campaigns and malvertising (malware advertising). Because of the spread of this malware all across the internet, it is highly recommended that you avoid clicking on advertisements and sponsored results in web searches and on websites with third-party ads, as ad poisoning campaigns have been a popular method for spreading in the past, as well.
Google has officially moved Android 15 into its second beta, bringing with it a slew of new things for developers and early Android 15 users to check out. Now that the beta has been available for over a month, more devices are starting to gain access to the first version, giving users beyond the Pixel family a chance to check out the latest changes to the operating system.
Android 15, of course, is the next version of Google's mobile OS, and it continues to offer new AI features for Android users to take advantage of. Android 15 beta 2 is only available on select Pixel devices at the start, with the list of supported devices including:
Beyond Pixel devices, there are other third-party Android phones that support the Android 15 beta. However, keep in mind that the version of the beta available is also dependent on what the manufacturer of these devices has readied for them. Most of these devices are for international users, and cannot be used in the United States:
HONOR Magic 6 Pro: BVL-N49 8.0.0.148(C431E4R2P2), 8.0.0.152(C636E2R2P2) or higher
HONOR Magic V2: VER-N49 8.0.0.105(C431E2R2P2), 8.0.0.105(C636E2R2P2) or higher
vivo X100
iQOO 12
Lenovo Tab Extreme
Nothing Phone (2a)
OnePlus 12
OnePlus Open
Oppo Find N3
Realme 12 Pro+ 5G
Sharp AQUOS sense8
TECNO Camon 30 Pro
Xiaomi 14
Xiaomi 13T Pro
Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4
Android 15 has been available in the Android Developer Preview since February, but Google recently opened the virtual floodgates to get early adopters involved, too. New features debuted in Android 15 beta 1 include an edge-to-edge display mode for apps by default, which should make it easier for developers to create apps to show content behind the system bars.
Google is also upgrading the NFC experience on Android 15 to provide a more seamless and reliable experience for tap to pay. A big change, too, makes it easier to archive and unarchive apps, which should help with cleaning up your Android device, though it will still require some input from developers. You can get a look at all the Android 15 features we know about so far, but most of them seem to be aligned with making the operating system more efficient for users.
New Android 15 beta 2 features
With the release of beta 2, Google rolled out some new features to Android 15: Following changes to foreground services, battery life should be more efficient when running apps. Google has also increased support for page sizes to 16KB, which should allow for lower app launch times, faster camera launch, and reduced power draw during launch. The company is also modernizing how the Android system accesses the GPU to provide a more efficient pipeline for those functionalities that rely on your smartphone's GPU.
There are also some great new privacy features this year, including private space, which allows users to create a separate space to house certain apps. Private space requires additional authentication to access, which makes it a secure way to store those apps that contain sensitive information, such as your banking apps. Larger screen multitasking also makes its first debut in the second beta for Android 15: You can now save your favorite split-screen app setups and access them at any time. Transitions from full-screen to picture-in-picture mode should also be smoother.
Widgets are also getting a bit of a facelift in Android 15 beta 2, with Google adding support for richer widget previews, as well as generated previews: That way, you can actually see what the widget looks like before adding it to your home screen. Speaking of previews, predictive back, the feature that shows you a preview of which app or service you're swiping back to, is also fully rolling out with this beta.
In addition, there are new data types for Health Connect, which offer a more centralized way for users to control access to their fitness and health data. Google is also extending the "choose how you're addressed" system setting, which it originally debuted to French users. This will allow users to decide if they want to be addressed as masculine, feminine, or neutral.
Other behind-the-scenes changes include some fixes to help avoid clipped text in some languages, as well as a new Japanese Hentaigana font, a CJK variable font, and options to enable richer vibrations for notifications. The latter gives Android users a way to distinguish between different notifications based on the vibrations their phone users.
Beta releases are expected to continue throughout the rest of May and June, and Google says it hopes to reach platform stability by the end of June. The target would be a fall release for Android 15, which is also when we expect to see the latest Pixel devices hit the market, based on past releases. Of course, Google is still keeping the full list of new Android features close to the chest, and we don't expect to learn about everything the tech giant has in store until it reveals its next lineup of smartphones later this year. But if you're interested in testing out the latest version of Android, you can download Android 15 beta 1 and beta 2 right now, on applicable devices.
Just remember, beta software is unfinished and in-testing, which means you could encounter bugs and glitches. Don't install the Android beta on your main smartphone unless you're okay assuming those risks.
AI chatbots are more popular than ever, and there are plenty of solid options out there to choose from beyond OpenAI's ChatGPT. One particularly strong competitor is Google's Gemini AI, which used to be called Google Bard. This AI chatbot pulls information from the internet and runs off the latest Gemini language model created by Google.
What is Google Gemini?
Bard, or Gemini as the company now calls it, is Google's answer to ChatGPT. It's an AI chatbot designed to respond to various queries and tasks, all while being plugged into Google's search engine and receiving frequent updates. Like most other chatbots, including ChatGPT, Gemini can answer math problems and help with writing articles and documents, as well as with most other tasks you would expect a generative AI bot to do.
What happened to Google Bard?
Credit: Google / Joshua Hawkins
Nothing happened—Google just changed the name. Bard is now Gemini, and Gemini is Google's home for all things AI. The company says it wanted to bring everything into one easy-to-follow ecosystem, which is why it felt the name change was important. You can still access Gemini through the old bard.google.com system, but it will now redirect you to gemini.google.com.
How does Gemini work?
Much like ChatGPT, Gemini is powered by a large language model (LLM) and is designed to respond with reasonable and human-like answers to your queries and requests. Previously, Gemini used Google's PaLM 2 language model, but Google has since released an update that adds Gemini 1.5 Flash and Gemini 1.5 Pro models, the search giant's most complex and capable language models yet. Running Gemini with multiple language models has allowed Google to see the bot in action in several different ways. Gemini can be accessed on any device by visiting the chatbot's website, just like ChatGPT, and is also available on Android and iPhones via the Gemini app.
Gemini is currently available to the general public. Google is still working on the AI chatbot, and hopes to continue improving it. As such, any responses, queries, or tasks submitted to Gemini can be reviewed by Google engineers to help the AI learn more from the questions that you're asking.
To start using Gemini, simply head over to gemini.google.com and sign in. Users who subscribe to Gemini Advanced can utilize the newest and most powerful versions of the AI language model. (More on that later.)
What languages does Gemini support?
Gemini 1.0 Pro currently supports over 40 languages. Google hasn't said yet if it plans to add more language support to the chatbot, but a Google support doc notes that it currently supports: Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified / Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
Gemini 1.5 Pro supports 35 languages and is available in over 150 different countries and territories. The supported languages include Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified / Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
(Note: At the time of this article's writing, Google Gemini Advanced is only optimized for English. However, Google says it should still work with any languages Gemini supports.)
What features does Gemini offer?
Like ChatGPT, Gemini can answer basic questions, help with coding, and solve complex mathematic equations. Additionally, Google added support for multimodal search in July, allowing users to input pictures as well as text into conversations. This, along with the chatbot's other capabilities, enables it to complete reverse image searches. Google can also include images in its answers, which are pulled from the search giant's online results.
Google also previously added the ability to generate images in Gemini using its Imagen model. You can take advantage of this new feature by telling the bot to "create an image." This makes the chatbot more competitive with OpenAI, which also offers image generation through DALL-E.
Yes, Google Gemini is connected to the internet and is trained on the latest and most up-to-date information found online. This is obviously a nice advantage over ChatGPT, which just added full access to the internet back in September, and only for paid users who subscribe to its GPT-4 model.
How accurate is Google Gemini?
Now that the chatbot is using Gemini 1.0 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Pro, it's expected to be one of the most accurate chatbots available on the web right now. However, past experiences with Gemini have shown that the bot is likely to hallucinate or take credit for information that it found via Google searches. This is a problem that Google has been working to fix, and the company has managed to improve the results and how they are handled.
However, like any chatbot, Gemini is still capable of creating information that is untrue or plagiarized. As such, it is always recommended you double-check any information that chatbots like Gemini provide, to ensure it is original and accurate.
Is Gemini free to use?
Gemini is currently free to use, but Google also offers a subscription-based plan that allows you to take advantage of its best AI yet, Gemini Advanced. The service is available as part of Google's new Google One AI Premium Plan, which currently runs for $19.99 a month, putting it on par with ChatGPT Plus. The advantage here, of course, is that you also get access to 2TB of storage in Google Drive, as well as access to Gemini in Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and more. This feature was previously known as Duet AI, but it has also been rounded up under the Gemini umbrella.
There's an app for that
Google also launched a dedicated Gemini mobile app for Android. iPhone users can access Gemini through the Google app on iOS. Currently, the Gemini mobile app is only available on select devices and only supports English in the U.S. However, Google plans to extend the available countries and languages the Gemini app supports in the future. Additionally, the mobile app supports many of the same functions as Google Assistant, and Google is positioning it to replace Assistant with Gemini in near future.
How does Gemini compare to ChatGPT?
Gemini is a solid competitor for ChatGPT, especially now that Gemini should return results more akin to those in GPT-4. The interface is very similar, and the functionality offered by both chatbots should handle most of the queries and tasks that you throw at either of them.
Even with Google's paid plan, Gemini is still a more accessible option, as its free models are more similar to GPT-4 than ChatGPT's free option is. That said, OpenAI is starting to roll out a version of GPT-4o to all users, even free ones, but it will have usage limits and isn't widely available yet.
For now, Gemini presents the fewest barriers to internet access, and can use Google as a search engine. When ChatGPT does connect to the internet, it utilizes Bing as a search engine instead of Google.
Google did share some information about how Gemini compares to GPT-4V, one of the latest versions of GPT-4, and said it actually achieves more accurate results in several fields. But as no trustworthy tests are yet available for how Gemini 1.5 Pro compares to GPT-4o, it's unclear exactly how the two newest models from Google and OpenAI compare when placed head to head. Google Gemini 1.5 Pro does offer a maximum context-token count of one million, so it can handle much longer context documents than ChatGPT can now. And Google isn't stopping there, as it plans to offer a Gemini version with support for two million context tokens, which it is already testing with developers.
Ultimately, it's hard to say exactly which one is better, as they both have their strengths. I'd recommend trying to complete whatever task you want to accomplish in both, and then seeing which one works best for your needs. Also, keep in mind that some of the most impressive features that Gemini and ChatGPT offer are not fully available yet. For its part, Google is working on other AI-driven systems, which it could possibly include in Gemini down the line. These include MusicLM, which uses AI to generate music, something the tech giant showed off during Google I/O 2024.
iOS 17.5 is officially out, bringing the latest security updates to all applicable iPhones. Alongside fixing some major security flaws that Apple needed to address, the update also had an unintended effect: It's bringing back deleted photos.
This iOS 17.5 bug has caused quite an uproar in the Apple community, with some raising concerns over Apple's privacy claims, and wondering if the company's software keeps old photos even after you've deleted them.
The big concern here is the possibility for not safe for work photos to unexpectedly rear their heads again: One Reddit user says that nudes (and some less compromising photos) that were deleted "years ago" reappeared in their recent images after updating their phone. You don't even need to be connected to iCloud, according to another Reddit user experiencing the issue. Locally stored photos are supposedly coming back, too.
Unfortunately, there isn't exactly a clear reason for what is happening here. Given that many of the photos are from years ago, it isn't likely to be an issue with the recently deleted settings on the iPhone, which only keeps photos for 30 days after deletion, in case you accidentally delete a photo and need to restore it.
It's possible that these reports could all come down to an indexing issue, some kind of corruption in the photo library, or, in the case of photos backed up online, a syncing issue between iCloud and local devices. Related to the latter point, it's possible that Apple made a mistake while trying to fix a syncing issue reported by users in a previous iOS 17 update.
The explanation is likely innocent, though: Deleted files are never truly gone from a device until overwritten, so it's possible the bug is simply resurfacing them instead of keeping them available to be rewritten. That might also explain a similar bug another user experienced where old voicemails came back.
For the moment, there isn't much you can do to avoid the bug if you already updated to iOS 17.5. However, holding off on the update isn't recommended, as it does address some security flaws that iPhone users will want to resolve as soon as possible. It's arguably more important to protect yourself from a Find My bug that could let a malicious app track your current location, than it is to prevent iOS from resurfacing your old deleted photos—however embarrassing that may be.
AI is a fascinating field, one that has seen a ton of advancements in recent years. In fact, OpenAI's ChatGPT has singlehandedly increased the hype around generative AI to new levels. But the days of ChatGPT being the only viable AI chatbot option are long gone. Now, others are available, including Anthropic's Claude AI, which has some key differences from the AI chatbot most people are familiar with. The question is this: Can Anthropic's version of ChatGPT stand up to the original?
What is Anthropic AI?
Anthropic is an AI startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI members. It's especially notable because the company has a much stricter set of ethics surrounding its AI than OpenAI currently does. The company includes the Amodei siblings, Daniela and Dario, who were instrumental in creating GPT-3.
The Amodei siblings, as well as others, left OpenAI and founded Anthropic to create an alternative to ChatGPT that addressed their AI safety concerns better. One way that Anthropic has differentiated itself from OpenAI is by training its AI to align with a "document of constitutional AI principles," like opposition to inhumane treatment, as well as support of freedom and privacy.
What is Claude AI?
Claude AI, or the latest version of the model, Claude 3, is Anthropic's version of ChatGPT. Like ChatGPT, Claude 3 is an AI chatbot with a special large language model (LLM) running behind it. However, it is designed by a different company, and thus offers some differences than OpenAI's current GPT model. It's probably the strongest competitor out of the various ChatGPT alternatives that have popped up, and Anthropic continues to update it with a ton of new features and limitations.
Anthropic technically offers four versions of Claude, including Claude 1, Claude 2, Claude-Instant, and the latest update, Claude 3. While each is similar in nature, the language models all offer some subtle differences in capability.
Can Claude do the same things as ChatGPT?
If you have any experience using ChatGPT, you're already well on your way to using Claude, too. The system uses a simple chat box, in which you can post queries to get responses from the system. It's as simple as it gets, and you can even copy the responses Claude offers, retry your question, or ask it to provide additional feedback. It's very similar to ChatGPT.
While Claude can do a lot of the same things that ChatGPT can, there are some limitations. Where ChatGPT now has internet access, Claude is only trained on the information that the developers at Anthropic have provided it with, which is limited to August 2023, according to the latest notes from Anthropic. As such, it cannot look beyond that scope.
Claude also cannot interpret or create images, something that you can now do in ChatGPT thanks to the introduction of DALL-E 3. The company does offer similar things to ChatGPT, including a cheaper and faster processing option—Claude-Instant—that is more premium than Claude 3. The previous update, Claude-2, is considered on-par with ChatGPT's GPT-4 model. Claude 3, on the other hand, has actually outperformed GPT-4 in a number of areas.
Of course, all of that pales in comparison to what OpenAI has made possible with the newly released GPT-4o. While all of its newest ground-breaking features haven't released just yet, OpenAI has really upped the ante, bringing full multimodal support to the AI chatbot. Now, ChatGPT will be able to respond directly to questions, you'll be able to interrupt its answers when using voice mode, and you can even capture both live video and your device's display and share them directly with the chatbot to get real-time responses.
How much does Claude cost?
Claude AI is actually free to try, though that freedom comes with some limitations, like how many questions you can ask and how much data the chatbot can process. There is a premium subscription, called Claude Pro, which will grant you additional data for just $20 a month.
Unlike ChatGPT's premium subscription, using the free version of Claude actually gives you access to Claude's latest model, though you miss out on the added data tokens and higher priority that a subscription offers.
How does Claude's free version compare to ChatGPT's?
Like ChatGPT, Claude offers a free version. Both are solid options to try out the AI chatbots, but if you plan to use them extensively, it's definitely worth looking at the more premium subscription plans that they offer.
While Claude gives you access to its more advanced Claude 3 in the free version, it does come with severe limits. You can't process PDFs larger than 10 megabytes, for instance, and its usage limits can vary depending on the current load. Anthropic hasn't shared an exact limit or even a range that you can expect, but CNBC estimates it's about five summaries every four hours. At the end of the day, it depends on how many people are using the system when you are. The nice thing about Claude 3 is that it brings in a ton of new features you can try out in Claude's free version, including multilingual capabilities, vision and image processing, as well as easier to steer prompting.
ChatGPT used to limit free users to GPT-3.5, locking them to the older and thus less reliable model. That, however, has changed with the release of GPT-4o, which introduces limited usage rates for free ChatGPT accounts. OpenAI hasn't shared specifics on how limited GPT-4o is with the free version, but it does give you access to all the improvements the system offers, until you eventually run out of usage and get bumped back down to GPT-3.5.
Still, that does mean you can technically use GPT-4o without paying a single cent. However, there are some limitations in place if the service is extremely busy, and you may see your requests taking much longer or even returned if usage is high. It's also possible that your free ChatGPT account may not even be available during certain times of high activity, as OpenAI sometimes limits access to free accounts to help mitigate high server usage.
It's also important to note that ChatGPT 3.5 is more likely to hallucinate than GPT-4 and the newer GPT-4o does, so it's important to double-check all the information that it provides. (That said, you should always double-check important information generated by AI.) The free version of ChatGPT also now has access to the GPT Store: Here, you can make use of various GPTs, which personalize the chatbot to respond to your questions and queries in different ways. Claude doesn't currently offer any kind of system like this, so you'll have to word your prompts correctly to get the most out of it.
Claude Pro vs. ChatGPT Plus: How much is a subscription?
If you're planning to use Claude or ChatGPT extensively, it might be worth upgrading to one of the currently available monthly plans. Both Anthropic and OpenAI offer subscription plans, so how do you decide which one to purchase? Here's how they stack up against each other.
Claude Pro costs $20 a month. Unlike ChatGPT Plus (which gives you access to OpenAI's GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo model), Claude already offers its latest and greatest model in the free and limited plan. As such, subscribing for $20 a month will simply reward you with at least five times the usage of the free service, making it easier to send longer messages and have longer conversations before the context tokens on the AI run out (context tokens determine how much information the AI can understand when it responds), as well as increasing the length of files that you can attach. Claude Pro will also get you faster response times and higher availability and priority when demand is high.
On the other hand, ChatGPT Plus seems to offer a bit more for that $20 subscription, as it nets you GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo, OpenAI's most complex and successful language models. These models are capable of far more than the free systems available in ChatGPT without a subscription. Subscribing to ChatGPT Plus will also get you faster response times, priority access when demand for the chatbot is high, and access to the newest features, such as DALL-E 3's image creation option.
Is Claude AI more accurate than ChatGPT?
Accuracy is an area that AI language models, such as those that run Claude and ChatGPT, still struggle with. While these models can be accurate and are trained on terabytes of data, they have been known to "hallucinate" and create their own facts and data.
My own experience has shown that Claude tends to be more factually accurate when summarizing things than ChatGPT, but that's based on a very small subset of data. And Claude's data is extremely outdated if you're looking to discuss recent happenings. It also doesn't have open access to the internet, so you're more limited in the possible ways that it can hallucinate or pull from bad sources, which is a blessing and a curse, as it locks you out of the good sources, too.
No matter which service you go with, they're both going to have problems, and you'll want to double-check any information that ChatGPT or Claude provides you with to ensure it isn't plagiarized from something else—or just entirely made up.
Is Claude better than ChatGPT?
There are some places where Claude is better than ChatGPT, though Claude 3 reportedly outperforms ChatGPT's latest models based on Anthropic's data. The biggest difference, for starters, is that Claude offers a much safer approach to the use of AI, with more restrictions placed upon its language models that ChatGPT just doesn't offer. This includes more restrictive ethics, though ChatGPT has continued to evolve how it approaches the ethics of AI as a whole.
Claude also offers longer context token limits than ChatGPT currently does. Tokens are broken-down pieces of text the AI can understand (OpenAI says one token is roughly four characters of text.) Claude offers 200,000 tokens for Claude 3, while GPT-4 tops out at 32,000 in some plans, which may be useful for those who want to have longer conversations before they have to worry about the AI model losing track of what they are talking about. This increased size in context tokens means that Claude is much better at analyzing large files, which is something to keep in mind if you plan to use it for that sort of thing.
However, there are also several areas that ChatGPT comes ahead. Access to the internet is a big one: Having open access to the internet means ChatGPT is always up-to-date on the latest information on the web. It also means the bot is susceptible to more false information, though, so there's definitely a trade-off. With the introduction of GPT-4o's upcoming features like voice mode, ChatGPT will be able to respond to your queries in real-time: If Claude has plans for a similar feature set, it hasn't entertained it publicly just yet.
OpenAI has also made it easy to create your own custom GPTs using its API and language models, something that, as I noted above, Claude doesn't support just yet. In addition. ChatGPT gives you in-chat image creation thanks to DALL-E 3, which is actually impressive for AI image generation.
Ultimately, Claude and ChatGPT are both great AI chatbots that offer a ton of usability for those looking to dip their toes in the AI game. If you want the latest, cutting-edge, though, the trophy currently goes to ChatGPT, as the things you're able to do with GPT-4o open entirely new doors that Claude isn't trying to open just yet.
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