Google takes on OpenAI with Gemini Live

In this week's Made by Google, there were all-new products in store for its biggest hardware event: the company revealed its new lineup of Pixel 9 smartphones the $1,799 Pixel 9 Fold Pro advanced photo editing tools powered by artificial intelligence, and new Pixel Buds Pro 2 headphones that feature Gemini AI. The company also announced Gemini Live, a colloquial voice assistant of artificial intelligence to compete with the advanced OpenAI vocal regime, though there was a number of hiccups in the Live Demo.

Epic Games launched their competitive App Mail store in the European Union. It starts with games like Fortnite, Rocket League, Sideswipe, and Fall Guys Ready, working with the developers to help launch your games in the Epic Games store in the future. Fortnite returned to iOS four years after Apple pulled the game from its app store, following protracted legal fights and regulatory changes at the behest of EU law on digital markets. X launched the Beta Grok-2 and Grok-2 with improved reasoning. Based on the new GROK AI model, users of X are now capable of generating images; however, it is currently accessible only to the Premium network and only by Premium + users. But Grek's generators don't seem to be limited to making images of political figures, as similar products are, and its ease of use means many users are using it.

Will AI change art as we know it? Modern AI models make great demos, but will they really change the way movies and TV shows are made? A panel of experts discussed at SIGGRAPH how generative AI and other systems can change media creation today. Filmmakers and VFX experts believe that the potential utility of these tools could work with a film in the short term but fundamentally alter the nature of the medium in long-term perspectives.

Pour one out for Crowd Tangle: Journalists, researchers, and politicians are all mourning the momentous decision by Meta, owner of Facebook, to shut off access to Crowd Tangle, a tracking tool they used for monitoring the spread of misinformation on Facebook and Instagram. Critics say its substitutes are less accessible and have fewer features, leaving many to wonder why the company abandoned a useful tool just three months before a contentious U.S. election that is already under threat from AI and disinformation.