Google I/O meant a lot of changes for the Google Play Store and developers, though two small changes will mean users see more relevant information in apps and media with “Topics” and a Collections expansion.
more…At the basis of all Android 16 QPR1 design shifts, the Settings app carries the most colorful change. The new app gets new icon colors throughout, adding a little bit of life to the options haven.
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Editions is the name of a new game publishing label launched by Lost in Cult, the same company known for making gorgeous books about video games, like Outer Wilds: Design Works. The new label’s aim is to preserve indie games, including some that haven’t been released on physical media before, and to celebrate their artistic contributions to the medium by including plenty of extra goodies. Notably, Lost in Cult is working with DoesItPlay? to validate its titles before they’re released. The group specializes in game preservation, ensuring that games can be run from the physical media they’re stored on without the need for a download or an internet connection.
The focus on elegantly preserving these titles is similar to what we’ve seen from Limited Run Games, while Editions’ focus on indie games reminds me of the Criterion Collection’s approach. Each game included in the Editions lineup will come with a fold-out poster, a sticker, a numbered authenticity card, a 40-page essay and developer interview, and gorgeous cover art, along with the game itself. The first three games to launch under the label include Immortality, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, and Thank Goodness You’re Here. Editions plans to announce a new game every month, starting in July.
Each of the three games is available to preorder through the Lost in Cult site starting at £59.99, with the option to choose between Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 editions when applicable. PS5 owners can opt to buy the entire first run of Editions games at a discounted price, containing Immortality and Thank Goodness You’re Here, and they’ll get a third (as of yet, unannounced) Editions title when it launches in July. Lost in Cult is asking for patience with shipments, which may take up to six months. But if they’re as good as the books, the wait will be worth it.
The Trump administration is working to limit access to covid booster shots by creating more regulatory hoops for companies developing vaccines for “healthy persons.” The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it’s only prioritizing covid vaccine approvals for adults older than 65 and others over the age of 6 months who have at least one “risk factor” for a severe case of covid-19.
“The FDA will approve vaccines for high-risk persons and, at the same time, demand robust, gold-standard data on persons at low risk,” FDA officials write in commentary laying out their plans in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
The move comes as notorious antivax crusader Robert F. Kennedy reshapes the US Department of Health and Human Services, recently pushing out the FDA’s top vaccine official and thousands of other federal health workers. Some public health experts are already voicing skepticism over whether the FDA’s new guidance for covid boosters will reap any benefits.
“This is overly restrictive and will deny many people who want to be vaccinated a vaccine.”
“This is overly restrictive and will deny many people who want to be vaccinated a vaccine,” Anna Durbin, director of the Center for Immunization Research at Johns Hopkins University, said in an email to the New York Times.
“The only thing that can come of this will make vaccines less insurable and less available,” Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist, virologist, and professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Associated Press.
The FDA says it will require more data from additional clinical trials before approvals can be granted for covid-19 vaccines being developed for people not considered to be at heightened risk from severe sickness. It says 100 to 200 million Americans will still have annual access to covid vaccines after its policy change. That would be less than 60 percent of the US population.
Last week, the agency approved the Novavax covid-19 vaccine for only older adults and people at higher risk from the disease.
“We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had Covid-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose,” the NEJM commentary says.
But previous CDC studies have shown that getting a booster can help prevent mild to moderate cases of covid up to six months after getting the shot regardless of whether a person is at higher risk or not, Offit tells The Associated Press. And even if someone does get sick, being vaccinated can make the illness shorter and less severe and reduce the risk of developing long covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rate of covid-19-associated hospitalizations was 71.2 per 100,000 people during the 2024–25 season, according to the CDC — although hospitals haven’t been required to report covid-related hospital admissions to HHS since May of last year. Vaccines are an important safeguard for people with a weakened immune system. The FDA’s new directive raises questions about whether people considered healthy will be able to get vaccinated if they want to protect someone close to them who’s at greater risk.
In the NEJM article, the FDA notes that covid booster uptake has been low in the US, with less than a quarter of people getting the shot each year. “There may even be a ripple effect: public trust in vaccination in general has declined,” it says.
Kennedy, meanwhile, has a long history of spreading disinformation about vaccines, advocacy for which he has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and profited from during the covid pandemic.
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Peter Marks, former director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) that regulates vaccines, wrote in a resignation letter in March.
Nate Carter, vp, global sales, agency and identity, Dun & Bradstreet
Marketers today are operating in the aftermath of a fundamental shift. The signals that once powered precise targeting are disappearing. Regulatory crackdowns, shifts in consumer behavior and changes among major ad platforms have all converged to create a fragmented, foggy view of the customer journey.
Even Google’s announcement that it will not introduce a separate consent prompt for third-party cookies in Chrome changes very little. The reliability of third-party cookies for cross-channel consumer understanding has always been limited. These days, given the deprecation of cookies in other browsers and the rise of so many inherently cookieless environments, the collective signal thrown off by third-party cookies has never been weaker.
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Android 16 QPR1 has launched, and the new redesign changes what the Recents menu looks like on all devices, with a new layout for larger displays and drop-down options.
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Google just announced a new AI mode for shopping with two big new features. The AI Mode will give users the option to try clothes on virtually, and if it’s a fit, the AI model will buy them for you.
more…Today, Fortune revealed its 2025 list of the Most Powerful Women in Business, and Apple’s SVP of Retail + People, Deirdre O’Brien, has once again secured her spot.
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Under the control of anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration is unilaterally terminating universal access to seasonal COVID-19 vaccines; Instead, only people who are age 65 years and older and people with underlying conditions that put them at risk of severe COVID-19 will have access to seasonal boosters moving forward.
The move was laid out in a commentary article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, written by Trump administration FDA Commissioner Martin Makary and the agency's new top vaccine regulator, Vinay Prasad.
The article lays out a new framework for approving seasonal COVID-19 vaccines, as well as a rationale for the change—which was made without input from independent advisory committees for the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
© Getty | Tasos Katopodis
Google just wrapped up its big keynote at I/O 2025. As expected, it was full of AI-related announcements, ranging from updates across Google’s image and video generation models to new features in Search and Gmail.
But there were some surprises, too, like a new AI filmmaking app and an update to Project Starline. If you didn’t catch the event live, you can check out everything you missed in the roundup below.
Google has announced that it’s rolling out AI Mode, a new tab that lets you search the web using the company’s Gemini AI chatbot, to all users in the US starting this week.
Google will test new features in AI Mode this summer, such as deep search and a way to generate charts for finance and sports queries. It’s also rolling out the ability to shop in AI Mode in the “coming months.”
Project Starline, which began as a 3D video chat booth, is taking a big step forward. It’s becoming Google Beam and will soon launch inside an HP-branded device with a light field display and six cameras to create a 3D image of the person you’re chatting with on a video call.
Companies like Deloitte, Duolingo, and Salesforce have already said that they will add HP’s Google Beam devices to their offices.
Google has announced Imagen 4, the latest version of its AI text-to-image generator, which the company says is better at generating text and offers the ability to export images in more formats, like square and landscape. Its next-gen AI video generator, Veo 3, will let you generate video and sound together, while Veo 2 now comes with tools like camera controls and object removal.
In addition to updating its AI models, Google is launching a new AI filmmaking app called Flow. The tool uses Veo, Imagen, and Gemini to create eight-second AI-generated video clips based on text prompts and / or images. It also comes with scene-builder tools to stitch clips together and create longer AI videos.
The experimental Deep Think mode is meant for complex queries related to math and coding. It’s capable of considering “multiple hypotheses before responding” and will only be available to trusted testers first.
Google has also made its Gemini 2.5 Flash model available to everyone on its Gemini app and is bringing improvements to the cost-efficient model in Google AI Studio ahead of a wider rollout.
Xreal and Google are teaming up on Project Aura, a new pair of smart glasses that use the Android XR platform for mixed-reality devices. We don’t know much about the glasses just yet, but they’ll come with Gemini integration and a large field-of-view, along with what appears to be built-in cameras and microphones.
Google is also partnering with Samsung, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker to create other Android XR smart glasses, as well.
Last year we unveiled Project Astra on the #GoogleIO stage. See how it’s evolved since then — and what might be possible in the future. pic.twitter.com/ObMi7gFrrl
— Google (@Google) May 20, 2025
Project Astra could already use your phone’s camera to “see” the objects around you, but the latest prototype will let it complete tasks on your behalf, even if you don’t explicitly ask it to. The model can choose to speak based on what it’s seeing, such as pointing out a mistake on your homework.
Google is building its AI assistant into Chrome. Starting on May 21st, Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers will be able to select the Gemini button in Chrome to clarify or summarize information across webpages and navigate sites on their behalf. The feature can work with up to two tabs for now, but Google plans on adding support for more later this year.
Google is rolling out a new “AI Ultra” subscription that offers access to the company’s most advanced AI models and higher usage limits across apps like Gemini, NotebookLM, Flow, and more. The subscription also includes early access to Gemini in Chrome and Project Mariner, which can now complete up to 10 tasks at once.
Speaking of Project Astra, Google is launching Search Live, a feature that incorporates capabilities from the AI assistant. By selecting the new “Live” icon in AI Mode or Lens, you can talk back and forth with Search while showing what’s on your camera.
After making Gemini Live’s screensharing feature free for all Android users last month, Google has announced that iOS users will be able to access it for free, as well.
Google has revealed Stitch, a new AI-powered tool that can generate interfaces using selected themes and a description. You can also incorporate wireframes, rough sketches, and screenshots of other UI designs to guide Stitch’s output. The experiment is currently available on Google Labs.
Google Meet is launching a new feature that translates your speech into your conversation partner’s preferred language in near real-time. The feature only supports English and Spanish for now. It’s rolling out in beta to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.
Gmail’s smart reply feature, which uses AI to suggest replies to your emails, will now use information from your inbox and Google Drive to prewrite responses that sound more like you. The feature will also take your recipient’s tone into account, allowing it to suggest more formal responses in a conversation with your boss, for example.
Gmail’s upgraded smart replies will be available in English on the web, iOS, and Android when it launches through Google Labs in July.
Google is testing a new feature that lets you upload a full-length photo of yourself to see how shirts, pants, dresses, or skirts might look on you. It uses an AI model that “understands the human body and nuances of clothing.”
Google will also soon let you shop in AI Mode, as well as use an “agentic checkout” feature that can purchase products on your behalf.
If Chrome detects that your password’s been compromised, Google says the browser will soon be able to “generate a strong replacement” and automatically update it on supported websites. The feature launches later this year, and Google says that it will always ask for consent before changing your passwords.
Android 16 QPR1 launched during Google I/O 2025, and it brings some massive changes with Material 3 Expressive. The new design language completely redesigns Android 16’s lock screen customization options.
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Google is finally delivering an update to the At a Glance widget on Pixel devices in Android 16 QPR1, making the widget smaller, but still not allowing it to be disabled completely.
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At I/O 2025, Google provided a more thorough look at how you’ll use Android XR glasses in day-to-day life as work continues.
more…The big Material 3 Expressive redesign we’ve waiting for is here with Android 16 QPR1 Beta 1 for Pixel today
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