Enlarge / Someone really likes Google Chrome. (credit: Isaac Bowen / Flickr)

Google Chrome will be shutting down its older, more capable extension system, Manifest V2, in favor of exclusively using the more limited Manifest V3. The deeply controversial Manifest V3 system was announced in 2019, and the full switch has been delayed a million times, but now Google says it's really going to make the transition: As previously announced, the phase-out of older Chrome extensions is starting next week.

Google Chrome has been working toward a plan for a new, more limited extension system for a while now. Google says it created "Manifest V3" extensions with the goal of "improving the security, privacy, performance, and trustworthiness of the extension ecosystem."

Other groups don't agree with Google's description, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which called Manifest V3 "deceitful and threatening" back when it was first announced in 2019, saying the new system "will restrict the capabilities of web extensions—especially those that are designed to monitor, modify, and compute alongside the conversation your browser has with the websites you visit." It has a whole article out detailing how Manifest V3 won't help security.

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Earlier this month, Google Cloud experienced one of its biggest blunders ever when UniSuper, a $135 billion Australian pension fund, had its Google Cloud account wiped out due to some kind of mistake on Google's end. At the time, UniSuper indicated it had lost everything it had stored with Google, even its backups, and that caused two weeks of downtime for its 647,000 members. There were joint statements from the Google Cloud CEO and UniSuper CEO on the matter, a lot of apologies, and presumably a lot of worried customers who wondered if their retirement fund had disappeared.

In the immediate aftermath, the explanation we got was that "the disruption arose from an unprecedented sequence of events whereby an inadvertent misconfiguration during provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud services ultimately resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription." Two weeks later, Google Cloud's internal review of the problem is finished, and the company has a blog post up detailing what happened.

Google has a "TL;DR" at the top of the post, and it sounds like a Google employee got an input wrong.

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  Whether you want to call it "Google Business Messaging" or "Google Business Profile Chat," the chat buttons in Google Maps and Search are going away. [credit: Google ]

Google is killing off a messaging service! This one is the odd "Google Business Messaging" service—basically an instant messaging client that is built into Google Maps. If you looked up a participating business in Google Maps or Google Search on a phone, the main row of buttons in the place card would read something like "Call," "Chat," "Directions," and "Website." That "Chat" button is the service we're talking about. It would launch a full messaging interface inside the Google Maps app, and businesses were expected to use it for customer service purposes. Google's deeply dysfunctional messaging strategy might lead people to joke about a theoretical "Google Maps Messaging" service, but it already exists and has existed for years, and now it's being shut down.

Search Engine Land's Barry Schwartz was the first to spot the shutdown emails being sent out to participating businesses. Google has two different support articles up for a shutdown of both "Google Business Profile Chat" and "Google Business Messages," which appear to just be the same thing with different names. On July 15, 2024, the ability to start a new chat will be disabled, and on July 31, 2024, both services will be shut down. Google is letting businesses download past chat conversations via Google Takeout.

Google's Maps messaging service was Google Messaging Service No. 16 in our giant History of Google Messaging article. The feature has undergone many changes, so it's a bit hard to follow. The Google Maps Messaging button launched in 2017, when it would have been called "Google My Business Chat." This wasn't quite its own service yet—the messaging button would either launch your SMS app or boot into another dead Google messaging product, Google Allo!

Enlarge (credit: Samsung)

IFixit and Samsung were once leading the charge in device repair, but iFixit says it's ending its repair partnership with Samsung because it feels Samsung just isn't participating in good faith. iFixit says the two companies "have not been able to deliver" on the promise of a viable repair ecosystem, so it would rather shut the project down than continue. The repair site says "flashy press releases and ambitious initiatives don’t mean much without follow-through."

iFixit's Scott Head explains: "As we tried to build this ecosystem we consistently faced obstacles that made us doubt Samsung’s commitment to making repair more accessible. We couldn’t get parts to local repair shops at prices and quantities that made business sense. The part prices were so costly that many consumers opted to replace their devices rather than repair them. And the design of Samsung’s Galaxy devices remained frustratingly glued together, forcing us to sell batteries and screens in pre-glued bundles that increased the cost."

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  Samsung's screen replacement parts usually require buying the display, battery, phone frame, and buttons, which is a big waste. [credit: iFixit ]

A good example of Samsung's parts bundling is this Galaxy S22 Ultra "screen" part for $233. The screen is the most common part to break, but rather than just sell a screen, Samsung makes you buy the screen, a new phone frame, a battery, and new side buttons and switches. As we said when this was announced, that's like half of the total parts in an entire phone. This isn't a perfect metric, but the Samsung/iFixit parts store only offers three parts for the S22 Ultra, while the Pixel 8 Pro store has 10 parts, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max store has 23 parts.

Enlarge / The now-normal "AI" results versus the old-school "Web" results. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Google)

If you're tired of Google's AI Overview extracting all value from the web while also telling people to eat glue or run with scissors, you can turn it off—sort of. Google has been telling people its AI box at the top of search results is the future, and you can't turn it off, but that ignores how Google search works: A lot of options are powered by URL parameters. That means you can turn off AI search with this one simple trick! (Sorry.)

Our method for killing AI search is defaulting to the new "web" search filter, which Google recently launched as a way to search the web without Google's alpha-quality AI junk. It's actually pretty nice, showing only the traditional 10 blue links, giving you a clean (well, other than the ads), uncluttered results page that looks like it's from 2011. Sadly, Google's UI doesn't have a way to make "web" search the default, and switching to it means digging through the "more" options drop-down after you do a search, so it's a few clicks deep.

Check out the URL after you do a search, and you'll see a mile-long URL full of esoteric tracking information and mode information. We'll put each search result URL parameter on a new line so the URL is somewhat readable:

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  Ads in AI Overview. They're below the fold in this example. [credit: Google ]

Google's AI Overview is a complete transformation of what Google Search is, changing from a product that searches the web to show relevant links, to a place that scrapes the web of information and shows it directly to users. Google is not done making changes, though, and next for AI Overview is ads! We're all so excited.

The Google Ads & Commerce blog shows what this will look like, with ads landing at the bottom of the AI Overview box. The overview box was already a massive, screen-filling box, and ads make it even longer, pushing what's left of the web results even further down the page. Google's demo shows the ads at the bottom of the overview box, and you have to scroll down to see them.

Google's ad placement will surely be changed and tweaked a million times in the future, and Google mentions that "in early testing, we’ve heard that people find the ads appearing above and below the AI-generated overview helpful." Leaving aside the unique perspective that ads are "helpful," there's your confirmation of the usual above-the-fold ad placement.

Enlarge / The Humane AI Pin. It has a magnetic back, so it sticks to your clothing like a name tag. (credit: Humane)

The wearable startup Humane, makers of the bizarre Humane AI Pin, is already looking for the exit. Bloomberg reports the company is seeking a sale after its first and only product launch was a big flop. Despite seemingly having nothing else in the pipeline and the AI Pin being dead on arrival, Bloomberg reports the company is "seeking a price of between $750 million and $1 billion in a sale." Humane was founded by two ex-Apple employees, Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, in 2018 and has raised $230 million from some big-name investors like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The Humane AI Pin immediately seemed like an idea that only made sense in a VC pitch room. The device is a wearable voice command box and camera that you magnetically clip onto a shirt, sort of like a Star Trek communicator. It wanted to replace your smartphone yet had no traditional display, and the company bragged in the launch video: "We don't do apps." That means you're left with mostly voice commands for whatever the voice command system can process. You could press on the front and ask a question. The camera could also be involved in a "what's this thing?" capacity.

While there was no onboard display, it did have a one-color 720p laser projection system that would project onto your hand. The UI looked just like a smartwatch, and you controlled it with the same hand you're using as a projection screen. You could tilt your palm around to select something and tap your fingers together to confirm, all the while distorting and moving the "display" being projected onto your hand. The smartwatch-like UI raises the question: "Why not just wear a smartwatch instead?" Then you'd have real apps, a real display, a less-weird form factor, better input, and better voice commands, and it would probably cost less. Oh, yeah, about that price: The Humane AI Pin was $700 plus a $24-a-month subscription fee, while an Apple Watch Series 9 is $400.

Enlarge / The Nest Audio. (credit: Google)

It's unclear how much life is left in the 4-year-old Nest Audio or 8-year-old Google Home speakers, but Google is at least bringing back a feature it stripped away from users after losing a legal case. In 2022, Google lost a patent case brought by Sonos, and rather than pay a licensing fee, Google reached into customer homes and removed the ability to control speaker volume as a group. Some of Sonos' patent wins were thrown out in October 2023, and now Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman reports that the feature is back in Android 15 Beta 2.

Google's "group speaker volume" feature is a fairly simple idea. Several Google Home/Nest Audio speakers can work together to seamlessly play music throughout your entire house, using onboard microphones to fix tricky multi-speaker issues like syncing the audio delay. When you're casting from your phone to a bunch of speakers, it would make sense that you want them all at the same volume instead of one being screaming loud and one being very quiet. While casting, the phone's volume button would control a unified volume bar for all active speakers. When Google killed the feature, the only option for controlling speaker volume from your phone became opening the app and adjusting a slider for each speaker.

Sonos and Google's history with connected speakers has been a contentious one. Sonos' side of the story is that Google got an inside look at its operations in 2013 as part of a sales pitch to bring Google Play Music support to Sonos speakers. Three years later, Google launched its first smart speaker. Sonos claims Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker line. Google says it developed its smart speaker features independently of Sonos, and for some of Sonos' patents, it had the features shipped to consumers years before Sonos filed for a patent. Some of Sonos' patents were overturned because they were filed in 2019, after everyone had already released all of this smart speaker stuff to market.

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  The Unitree G1, with karate kick action! [credit: Unitree ]

Does anyone want to buy a humanoid robot for $16,000? The latest product from Unitree hopes that you will: Meet the Unitree G1, a "Humanoid agent AI avatar," aka a robot. If you haven't heard of Unitree, it's sort of the go-to "budget Chinese option" in the robot space. You're going to have to deal with company promotional materials that are just barely written in English, but you get some impressive bang-for-your-buck robots. You may have seen the Spot-knockoff Unitree Go2, a $1,600 robot dog that various resellers have equipped with a flamethrower or just straight-up military rifles.

Unitree's promo video shows some impressive capabilities for such a cheap robot. It can stand up on its own from a flat-on-the-floor position. Just like the recent Boston Dynamics Atlas video, the G1 stands up in probably the strangest way possible. While lying face-up on the floor, the G1 brings its knees up, puts its feet flat on the floor, and then pushes up on the feet to form a tripod with the head still on the ground. From there, it uses a limbo-like move to lean its knees forward, bringing up its head and torso with all core strength.

The G1 is a budget robot, so the walk cycle is kind of primitive. It walks, stands, and "runs" in a permanent half-squat with its legs forward and knees bent all the time. The balance looks great though—at one point a person shows up and roughs up the robot a bit, kicking it in the back and punching it in the chest. In both cases, it absorbs the abuse with just a step back or two and keeps on trucking.

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Buried under the news from Google I/O this week is one of Google Cloud's biggest blunders ever: Google's Amazon Web Services competitor accidentally deleted a giant customer account for no reason. UniSuper, an Australian pension fund that manages $135 billion worth of funds and has 647,000 members, had its entire account wiped out at Google Cloud, including all its backups that were stored on the service. UniSuper thankfully had some backups with a different provider and was able to recover its data, but according to UniSuper's incident log, downtime started May 2, and a full restoration of services didn't happen until May 15.

UniSuper's website is now full of must-read admin nightmare fuel about how this all happened. First is a wild page posted on May 8 titled "A joint statement from UniSuper CEO Peter Chun, and Google Cloud CEO, Thomas Kurian." This statement reads, "Google Cloud CEO, Thomas Kurian has confirmed that the disruption arose from an unprecedented sequence of events whereby an inadvertent misconfiguration during provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud services ultimately resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription. This is an isolated, ‘one-of-a-kind occurrence’ that has never before occurred with any of Google Cloud’s clients globally. This should not have happened. Google Cloud has identified the events that led to this disruption and taken measures to ensure this does not happen again."

In the next section, titled "Why did the outage last so long?" the joint statement says, "UniSuper had duplication in two geographies as a protection against outages and loss. However, when the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription occurred, it caused deletion across both of these geographies." Every cloud service keeps full backups, which you would presume are meant for worst-case scenarios. Imagine some hacker takes over your server or the building your data is inside of collapses, or something like that. But no, the actual worst-case scenario is "Google deletes your account," which means all those backups are gone, too. Google Cloud is supposed to have safeguards that don't allow account deletion, but none of them worked apparently, and the only option was a restore from a separate cloud provider (shoutout to the hero at UniSuper who chose a multi-cloud solution).

Enlarge / Google continues to change what it means to be the "Google" search engine. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Google I/O has come and gone, and with it came an almost exclusive focus on AI. Part of the show was an announcement for Google Search that was so huge it was almost hard to believe: the AI-powered "Search Generative Experience (SGE)" that the company had been trialing for months is rolling out to everyone in the US. The feature, renamed "AI Overview," is here now, and it feels like the biggest change to Google Search ever. The top of many results (especially questions) are now dominated by an AI box that scrapes the web and gives you a sometimes-correct summary without needing to click on a single result.

AI Overview is a bit different from the SGE trials that were happening. First is that AI Overview is a lot faster than SGE. For some popular queries, it seems like Google is caching the AI answer, which should help with the high cost of running generative AI. For queries with cached overviews, you'll see the AI box load instantly, right along with the initial search results pop-in. SGE responses would come in word by word, like they are being typed by a person. When you aren't getting a cached result, you'll see a blank AI overview box that loads with the search page, which will say "searching" while it loads for a second or two. Other times, Google will try loading an AI Overview and fail, with the message "An AI overview is not available for this search." (As if anyone asked.)

When Google decides you have an AI-appropriate query, it now takes a lot of scrolling to see web results. Google scrolls infinitely, so there are no "pages" anymore, but let's consider a "page" to be a full browser viewport height: The first page is an AI overview that takes up half the screen and then another answer box extracted from some website. Page two is a "People also ask" box suggesting other queries, then one search result, then a box for videos. Page three is the bottom half of the video box, then a "Discussions and forums" section with Reddit and Quora posts. It's not until page four and miles of scrolling that we get the traditional 10 blue links. This list isn't even counting an ad block, which would appear first normally. I've yet to see an ad block and AI overview at the same time, but I'm sure that's coming. Despite pushing AI Overviews live into production for everyone on the most premium spot on the Google Search page, Google still notes that "Generative AI is experimental."

Enlarge / The San Francisco 49ers' star quarterback Brock Purdy celebrates during a blowout 35-7 win over the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers. (credit: Getty Images/Thearon W. Henderson)

Hey, football fans! You're already watching the NFL on CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, ESPN, ESPN Plus, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, NFL Network, and YouTube TV, right? Well, get ready for one more: Netflix! The biggest streaming provider that wasn't showing NFL games is now jumping into the pile. The NFL and Netflix have signed a three-year deal that will put exclusive Christmas games on the streaming service.

The first Netflix Christmas games will be this season, on December 25, 2024, (that's a Wednesday, by the way). Netflix will get two Christmas games this year, Chiefs at Steelers and Ravens at Texans, with exact times to be announced later tonight at the NFL's live schedule unveiling extravaganza (even the schedule release is an event now). The NFL says 2025 and 2026 will see "at least one" game on the service each Christmas. The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In the quickly changing landscape of TV, the NFL has long been one of the few things left that is still appointment television. Of the top 100 highest-rated US TV broadcasts in 2023, 93 percent of them were NFL games. In the hyper-fragmented world of streaming, landing a few exclusive NFL games is a great way to hook people into your service. NBC's exclusive Peacock playoff game brought in 23 million viewers last year. And even if that was a bit low by NFL standards, NBC called it "the most streamed event ever in US history" and "a milestone moment in media and sports history." You might think NFL fans would immediately cancel after the final kneel-down, but one study showed a shocking 71 percent of users that signed up for the NFL game were still on Peacock seven weeks later.

Enlarge / The Android 15 logo. This is "Android V," if you can't tell from the logo. (credit: Google)

Google's I/O conference is still happening, and while the big keynote was yesterday, major Android beta releases have apparently been downgraded to Day 2 of the show. Google really seems to want to be primarily an AI company now. Android already had some AI news yesterday, but now that the code-red requirements have been met, we have actual OS news.

One of the big features in this release is "Private Space," which Google says is a place where users can "keep sensitive apps away from prying eyes, under an additional layer of authentication." First, there's a new hidden-by-default portion of the app drawer that can hold these sensitive apps, and revealing that part of the app drawer requires a second round of lock-screen authentication, which can be different from the main phone lock screen.

Just like "Work" apps, the apps in this section run on a separate profile. To the system, they are run by a separate "user" with separate data, which your non-private apps won't be able to see. Interestingly, Google says, "When private space is locked by the user, the profile is paused, i.e., the apps are no longer active," so apps in a locked Private Space won't be able to show notifications unless you go through the second lock screen.

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  The "ask this PDF" feature.

Google's "code red" demands that AI be part of every single Google product and that includes Android. At Google I/O, the company announced a "multi-year journey to reimagine Android with AI at the core" but only demoed a few minor AI enhancements.

Gemini can soon be brought up via the power button as an overlay panel, where it will have access to whatever's on your screen. The demo involved opening a PDF in Android's PDF reader, summarizing it, and answering questions based on the content. You can do something similar with a YouTube video. The demo also showed generating images based on a text prompt and then sending those images in a text message. Another demo involved Gemini understanding a chat log and suggesting future actions.

Talkback, Android's system for low-vision users, will soon be able to use AI to describe images that lack descriptive text.

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  AI in Gmail summarizes recent emails. [credit: Google ]

Google's Gemini AI often just feels like a chatbot built into a text-input field, but you can really start to do special things when you give it access to a ton of data. Gemini in Gmail will soon be able to search through your entire backlog of emails and show a summary in a sidebar.

That's simple to describe but solves a huge problem with email: even searching brings up a list of email subjects, and you have to click-through to each one just to read it. Having an AI sift through a bunch of emails and provide a summary sounds like a huge time saver and something you can't do with any other interface.

Google's one-minute demo of this feature showed a big blue Gemini button at the top right of the Gmail web app. Tapping it opens the normal chatbot sidebar you can type in. Asking for a summary of emails from a certain contact will get you a bullet-point list of what has been happening, with a list of "sources" at the bottom that will jump you right to a certain email. In the last second of the demo, the user types, "Reply saying I want to volunteer for the parent's group event," hits "enter," and then the chatbot instantly sends an email. We thought it was interesting that the demo never showed a confirmation step, but a Google rep contacted us later to say the production version would show you the message before sending it.

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  The Pixel 8a and its speedy 120 Hz display. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]

SPECS AT A GLANCE: Pixel 8a
SCREEN	6.1-inch, 120 Hz, 2400×1080 OLED
OS	Android 14
CPU	Google Tensor G3 One 3.0 GHz Cortex-X3 core Four 2.45 GHz Cortex-A715 cores Four 2.15 GHz Cortex-A510 Cores
GPU	ARM Mali-G715
RAM	8GB
STORAGE	128GB, UFS 3.1
BATTERY	4492 mAh
NETWORKING	Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, NFC
PORTS	USB Type-C 3.1 Gen 1 with 18 W USB-PD 3.0 charging
CAMERA	64MP main camera, 13 MP Ultrawide, 13 MP front camera
SIZE	152.1×72.7×8.9 mm
WEIGHT	188 g
STARTING PRICE	$499.99
OTHER PERKS	IP67 dust and water resistance, eSIM, in-screen fingerprint reader, 5 W wireless charging

Somehow, Google's midrange phone just keeps getting better. The Pixel 8a improves on many things over the Pixel 7a—it has a better display, a longer support cycle, and the usual yearly CPU upgrades, all at the same $499 price as last year. Who could complain? The Pixel A series was already the best bargain in smartphones, and there's now very little difference between it and a flagship-class device.

Year over year, the 6.1-inch, 2400×1080 display is being upgraded from 90 Hz to 120 Hz, giving you essentially the same experience you'd get on the "flagship" Pixels. The SoC is the same processor you'd get in the Pixel 9, a Google Tensor G3. That's a 4 nm chip with one Arm Cortex X3, four Cortex A715 cores, four Cortex A510 cores, and a Mali G715 GPU.

Previously, the 120 Hz display was the primary thing A-series owners were missing out on compared to the more expensive Pixels, so its addition is a huge deal. Any comparison between the "midrange" Pixel 8a and the "flagship" 6.2-inch Pixel 8 will now just be splitting hairs. The flagship gets an extra 0.1 inches of display, 2 percent more battery, and Wi-Fi 6E instead of Wi-Fi 7. The cameras are technically newer, but since they all run the same image-stacking software, the images look very similar. Are those things worth an extra $200? No, they are not.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

OpenAI is eventually coming for the most popular website on the Internet: Google Search. A Reuters report claimed that the company behind ChatGPT is planning to launch a search engine as early as this Monday, but OpenAI denied that Monday would be the day.

The company recently confirmed it's holding a livestream event on Monday, though, but an OpenAI rep told Ars that "Despite reports, we’re not launching a search product or GPT-5 on Monday." Either way, Monday is an interesting time for an OpenAI livestream. That's the day before Google's biggest show of the year, Google I/O, where Google will primarily want to show off its AI prowess and convince people that it is not being left in the dust by OpenAI. Google seeing its biggest search competition in years and suddenly having to face down "OpenAI's Google Killer" would have definitely cast a shadow over the show.

OpenAI has been inching toward a search engine for a while now. It has been working with Microsoft with a "Bing Chat" generative-AI search engine in Microsoft's search engine. Earlier this week, The Verge reported that "OpenAI has been aggressively trying to poach Google employees" for an upstart search team. "Search.chatgpt.com" is already being set up on OpenAI's server, so it's all falling into place.