MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google rolled out early versions of Gemini 2.5 earlier this year. Marking a significant improvement over the 2.0 branch. For the first time, Google's chatbot felt competitive with the likes of ChatGPT, but it's been "experimental" and later "preview" since then. At I/O 2025, Google announced general availability for Gemini 2.5, and these models will soon be integrated with Chrome. There's also a fancy new subscription plan to get the most from Google's AI. You probably won't like the pricing, though.

Gemini 2.5 goes gold

Even though Gemini 2.5 was revealed a few months ago, the older 2.0 Flash has been the default model all this time. Now that 2.5 is finally ready, the 2.5 Flash model will be swapped in as the new default. This model has built-in simulated reasoning, so its outputs are much more reliable than 2.0 Flash.

Google says the release version of 2.5 Flash is better at reasoning, coding, and multimodality, but it uses 20–30 percent fewer tokens than the preview version. This edition is now live in Vertex AI, AI Studio, and the Gemini app. It will be made the default model in early June.

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Google is constantly making changes to its search rankings, but not all updates are equal. Every few months, the company bundles up changes into a larger "core update." These updates make rapid and profound changes to search, so website operators watch them closely.

The March 2024 update was unique. It was one of Google's largest core updates ever, and it took over a month to fully roll out. Nothing has felt quite the same since. Whether the update was good or bad depends on who you ask—and maybe who you are.

It's common for websites to see traffic changes after a core update, but the impact of the March 2024 update marked a seismic shift. Google says the update aimed to address spam and AI-generated content in a meaningful way. Still, many publishers say they saw clicks on legitimate sites evaporate, while others have had to cope with unprecedented volatility in their traffic. Because Google owns almost the entire search market, changes in its algorithm can move the Internet itself.

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The rapid expansion of generative AI has changed the way Google and other tech giants design products, but most of the AI features you've used are running on remote servers with a ton of processing power. Your phone has a lot less power, but Google appears poised to give developers some important new mobile AI tools. At I/O next week, Google will likely announce a new set of APIs to let developers leverage the capabilities of Gemini Nano for on-device AI.

Google has quietly published documentation on big new AI features for developers. According to Android Authority, an update to the ML Kit SDK will add API support for on-device generative AI features via Gemini Nano. It's built on AI Core, similar to the experimental Edge AI SDK, but it plugs into an existing model with a set of predefined features that should be easy for developers to implement.

Google says ML Kit’s GenAI APIs will enable apps to do summarization, proofreading, rewriting, and image description without sending data to the cloud. However, Gemini Nano doesn't have as much power as the cloud-based version, so expect some limitations. For example, Google notes that summaries can only have a maximum of three bullet points, and image descriptions will only be available in English. The quality of outputs could also vary based on the version of Gemini Nano on a phone. The standard version (Gemini Nano XS) is about 100MB in size, but Gemini Nano XXS as seen on the Pixel 9a is a quarter of the size. It's text-only and has a much smaller context window.

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For phone nerds who've been around the block a few times, the original Motorola Razr is undeniably iconic. The era of foldables has allowed Motorola to resurrect the Razr in an appropriately flexible form, and after a few generations of refinement, the 2025 Razrs are spectacular pieces of hardware. They look great, they're fun to use, and they just about disappear in your pocket.

The new Razrs also have enormous foldable OLEDs, along with external displays that are just large enough to be useful. Moto has upped its design game, offering various Pantone shades with interesting materials and textures to make the phones more distinctive, but Motorola's take on mobile AI could use some work, as could its long-term support policy. Still, these might be the coolest phones you can get right now.

An elegant tactile experience

Many phone buyers couldn't care less about how a phone's body looks or feels—they'll just slap it in a case and never look at it again. Foldables tend not to fit as well in cases, so the physical design of the Razrs is important. The good news is that Motorola has refined the foldable formula with an updated hinge and some very interesting material choices.

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Google's DeepMind research division claims its newest AI agent marks a significant step toward using the technology to tackle big problems in math and science. The system, known as AlphaEvolve, is based on the company's Gemini large language models (LLMs), with the addition of an "evolutionary" approach that evaluates and improves algorithms across a range of use cases.

AlphaEvolve is essentially an AI coding agent, but it goes deeper than a standard Gemini chatbot. When you talk to Gemini, there is always a risk of hallucination, where the AI makes up details due to the non-deterministic nature of the underlying technology. AlphaEvolve uses an interesting approach to increase its accuracy when handling complex algorithmic problems.

According to DeepMind, this AI uses an automatic evaluation system. When a researcher interacts with AlphaEvolve, they input a problem along with possible solutions and avenues to explore. The model generates multiple possible solutions, using the efficient Gemini Flash and the more detail-oriented Gemini Pro, and then each solution is analyzed by the evaluator. An evolutionary framework allows AlphaEvolve to focus on the best solution and improve upon it.

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Google accidentally showed off its big Android design refresh last week, but now Material 3 Expressive is official. Google says the new interface will begin with Android OS, but it will eventually expand across the full Google app ecosystem, bringing a more lively vibe to Gmail, Google Photos, and more.

Material 3 Expressive won't be entirely unfamiliar—it shares some basic design elements with the Material You system Google launched four years ago. Material 3 Expressive is a bolder take on the same aesthetic, featuring "springy" animations, brighter colors, and new shapes.

As we learned from Google's slipup, Material 3 Expressive is the result of numerous user studies, which included more than 18,000 participants. Google explored how people parse information on their phone, finding design themes that supposedly support quicker and easier interactions. Often, that seems to result in making certain UI elements larger and easier to spot. Google claims people can find these important buttons four times faster than they can with older Material You interfaces.

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Samsung released its Galaxy S25 series earlier this year to generally favorable reviews. It also teased the perplexingly thin S25 Edge, and now that phone is a reality. You can preorder Samsung's thinnest smartphone-ever today, but you should know what you're getting into. This $1,099 smartphone is incredibly slim, at just 5.8 mm, but it also steps down in the camera department and packs an anemic battery that may struggle to last all day.

This is a big, flat phone featuring a 120 Hz 6.7-inch OLED at 1440×3120. Like the S25 Ultra, it has a titanium frame with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the back. The front has Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 for improved scratch protection. There's almost no bezel around the display—in fact, there's almost no phone around the display. The body is only 5.8 mm thick, a substantial reduction from the similarly sized S25+ at 7.3 mm. That's really this phone's claim to fame: It's really thin. Everything else (and we do mean everything) is secondary to that.

Cramming premium camera modules into a smartphone is an engineering challenge even when you're not trying to make the phone as slim as possible. Similar to foldables, there just isn't enough space in the S25 Edge for a full suite of Samsung cameras. Therefore, this phone only has two rear camera modules: a 200 MP primary shooter that appears identical to the S25 Ultra's and a meager 12 MP ultrawide. There's a 12 MP selfie camera on the front as well. There is no telephoto lens at all, which you get even on the base model S25.

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Last year, United States District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google violated antitrust law by illegally maintaining a monopoly in search. Now, Google and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have had their say in the remedy phase of the trial, which wraps up today. It will determine the consequences for Google's actions, potentially changing the landscape for search as we rocket into the AI era, whether we like it or not.

The remedy trial featured over 20 witnesses, including representatives from some of the most important technology firms in the world. Their statements about the past, present, and future of search moved markets, but what does the testimony mean for Google?

Everybody wants Chrome

One of the DOJ's proposed remedies is to force Google to divest Chrome and the open source Chromium project. Google has been adamant both in and out of the courtroom that it is the only company that can properly run Chrome. It says selling Chrome would negatively impact privacy and security because Google's technology is deeply embedded in the browser. And regardless, Google Chrome would be too expensive for anyone to buy.

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The antitrust trial targeting Google's search business is heading into the home stretch, and the outcome could forever alter Google—and the web itself. The company is scrambling to protect its search empire, but perhaps market forces could pull the rug out from under Google before the government can. Apple SVP of Services Eddie Cue suggested in his testimony on Wednesday that Google's search traffic might be falling. Not so fast, says Google.

In an unusual move, Google issued a statement late in the day after Cue's testimony to dispute the implication that it may already be losing its monopoly. During questioning by DOJ attorney Adam Severt, Cue expressed concern about losing the Google search deal, which is a major source of revenue for Apple. This contract, along with a similar one for Firefox, gives Google default search placement in exchange for a boatload of cash. The DOJ contends that is anticompetitive, and its proposed remedies call for banning Google from such deals.

Surprisingly, Cue noted in his testimony that search volume in Safari fell for the first time ever in April. Since Google is the default search provider, that implies fewer Google searches. Apple devices are popular, and a drop in Google searches there could be a bad sign for the company's future competitiveness. Google's statement on this comes off as a bit defensive.

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There is no product category that better embodies the XKCD take on standards than smart home. With an ocean of connectivity options and incompatible standards, taming this mess has been challenging, but Matter could finally have a shot at making things a little less frustrating. The latest version of the standard has launched, offering multiple ways to streamline the usually aggravating setup process.

The first public release of Matter was in late 2022, but compatible systems didn't get support until the following year. Now, there are Matter-certified devices like smart bulbs and sensors that will talk to Apple, Google, Amazon, and other smart home platforms. Matter 1.4.1 includes support for multi-device QR codes, NFC connection, and integrated terms and conditions—all of these have the potential to eliminate some very real smart home headaches.

It's common for retailers to offer multi-packs of devices like light bulbs or smart plugs. That can save you some money, but setting up all those devices is tedious. With Matter 1.4.1, it might be much easier thanks to multi-device QR codes. Manufacturers can now include a QR code in the package that will pair all the included devices with your smart home system when scanned.

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Google's accelerated Android release cycle will soon deliver a new version of the software, and it might look quite different from what you'd expect. Amid rumors of a major UI overhaul, Google seems to have accidentally published a blog post detailing "Material 3 Expressive," which we expect to see revealed at I/O later this month. Google quickly removed the post from its design site, but not before the Internet Archive saved it.

It has been a few years since Google introduced any major changes to its Material theming, but the design team wasn't just sitting idly this whole time. According to the leaked blog post, Google has spent the past three years working on a more emotionally engaging vision for Android design. While the original Material Design did an admirable job of leveraging colors and consistent theming, it could make apps look too similar. The answer to that, apparently, is Material 3 Expressive.

Material 3 Expressive aims to make the most important things easier to see and tap. Credit: Google

Google says this is "the most-researched update to Google’s design system, ever." The effort reportedly included 46 separate studies with hundreds of sample designs. The team showed these designs to more than 18,000 study participants to understand how the user experience would work. In these studies, the design team used a variety of metrics, including the following:

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We sometimes think of Google as a search company, but that's merely incidental—Google is really the world's biggest advertiser. That's why the antitrust case focused on Google's ad tech business could have even more lasting effects than cases focused on search or mobile apps. The court ruled against Google last month, and now both sides are lining up to present their proposed remedies in a trial later this year.

In today's hearing, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema set the beginning of that trial for September 22 of this year. Just like the search case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is aiming to hack off pieces of Google to level the playing field. Specifically, the DOJ is asking the court to force Google to sell two parts of the ad business: the ad exchange and the publisher ad server. The ad exchange is the world's largest marketplace for bidding on advertising space. The ad server, meanwhile, is a tool that publishers use to list and sell ads on their sites.

While Google lost the liability phase of the case, it won on the subject of ad networks. The court decided that the government had not proven that Google's acquisition of ad networks like DoubleClick and Admeld had harmed competition. So, Google won't have to worry about losing those parts of the business.

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After several years of escalating AI hysteria, we are all familiar with Google's desire to put Gemini in every one of its products. That can be annoying, but NotebookLM is not—this one actually works. NotebookLM, which helps you parse documents, videos, and more using Google's advanced AI models, has been available on the web since 2023, but Google recently confirmed it would finally get an Android app. You can get a look at the app now, but it's not yet available to install.

Until now, NotebookLM was only a website. You can visit it on your phone, but the interface is clunky compared to the desktop version. The arrival of the mobile app will change that. Google said it plans to release the app at Google I/O in late May, but the listing is live in the Play Store early. You can pre-register to be notified when the download is live, but you'll have to tide yourself over with the screenshots for the time being.

NotebookLM relies on the same underlying technology as Google's other chatbots and AI projects, but instead of a general purpose robot, NotebookLM is only concerned with the documents you upload. It can assimilate text files, websites, and videos, including multiple files and source types for a single agent. It has a hefty context window of 500,000 tokens and supports document uploads as large as 200MB. Google says this creates a queryable "AI expert" that can answer detailed questions and brainstorm ideas based on the source data.

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The rapid proliferation of AI chatbots has made it difficult to know which models are actually improving and which are falling behind. Traditional academic benchmarks only tell you so much, which has led many to lean on vibes-based analysis from LM Arena. However, a new study claims this popular AI ranking platform is rife with unfair practices, favoring large companies that just so happen to rank near the top of the index. The site's operators, however, say the study draws the wrong conclusions.

LM Arena was created in 2023 as a research project at the University of California, Berkeley. The pitch is simple—users feed a prompt into two unidentified AI models in the "Chatbot Arena" and evaluate the outputs to vote on the one they like more. This data is aggregated in the LM Arena leaderboard that shows which models people like the most, which can help track improvements in AI models.

Companies are paying more attention to this ranking as the AI market heats up. Google noted when it released Gemini 2.5 Pro that the model debuted at the top of the LM Arena leaderboard, where it remains to this day. Meanwhile, DeepSeek's strong performance in the Chatbot Arena earlier this year helped to catapult it to the upper echelons of the LLM race.

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Google has built an enormously successful business around the idea of putting ads in search results. Its most recent quarterly results showed the company made more than $50 billion from search ads, but what happens if AI becomes the dominant form of finding information? Google is preparing for that possibility by testing chatbot ads, but you won't see them in Google's Gemini AI—at least not yet.

A report from Bloomberg describes how Google began working on a plan in 2024 to adapt AdSense ads to a chatbot experience. Usually, AdSense ads appear in search results and are scattered around websites. Google ran a small test of chatbot ads late last year, partnering with select AI startups, including AI search apps iAsk and Liner.

The testing must have gone well because Google is now allowing more chatbot makers to sign up for AdSense. "AdSense for Search is available for websites that want to show relevant ads in their conversational AI experiences," said a Google spokesperson.

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) rested its case in Google's search remedy trial earlier this week, giving Google a chance to push back on the government's attempt to break up the search giant. Today is arguably Google's best chance to make the case that it should not be harshly penalized in the ongoing search antitrust case, with CEO Sundar Pichai taking the stand.

Pichai attempted to explain why Google isn't abusing its market position and why the DOJ's proposed remedies are too extreme. The issue of Chrome divestment came up, but Google's team also focused intensely on the potential effects of the DOJ's data remedies, which could force Google to share its search index and technology with other firms.

A de facto spin-off

Pichai, who chose to stand while giving testimony, took issue with the government's proposal to force Google to license search technology to other companies. The DOJ claims that Google's status as a monopolist has resulted in it accumulating a huge volume of user data on search behavior. Plus, its significant technological lead means its index of the web is much more robust than competing services.

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ChatGPT users have become frustrated with the AI model's tone, and OpenAI is taking action. After widespread mockery of the robot's relentlessly positive and complimentary output recently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirms the company will roll back the latest update to GPT-4o. So get ready for a more reserved and less sycophantic chatbot, at least for now.

GPT-4o is not a new model—OpenAI released it almost a year ago, and it remains the default when you access ChatGPT, but the company occasionally releases revised versions of existing models. As people interact with the chatbot, OpenAI gathers data on the responses people like more. Then, engineers revise the production model using a technique called reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).

Recently, however, that reinforcement learning went off the rails. The AI went from generally positive to the world's biggest suck-up. Users could present ChatGPT with completely terrible ideas or misguided claims, and it might respond, "Wow, you're a genius," and "This is on a whole different level."

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Last year was big for zero-day exploits, security threats that appear in the wild before vendors have a chance to develop patches. Through its sprawling network of services and research initiatives, Google is the first to spot many of these threats. In a new report from the Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), the company reveals it detected 75 zero-day exploits in 2024, which is a bit lower than the previous year. Unsurprisingly, a sizable chunk of them was the work of state-sponsored hackers.

According to Google, zero-day exploits are becoming increasingly easy for threat actors to develop and procure, which has led to more sophisticated attacks. While end-user devices are still regularly targeted, GTIG notes that the trend over the past few years has been for these vulnerabilities to target enterprise systems and security infrastructure. There were 98 zero-days detected in 2023 versus 75 in 2024, but Google says the overall trend in enterprise threats is increasing.

That's not to say the products you use every day are safe from sneaky hacks—a slim majority of GTIG's 2024 zero-day threats still targeted users. In fact, Google says hackers were even more interested in certain platforms last year compared to the year before.

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OnePlus undoubtedly hoped the release of its newest smartwatch had gone smoother. After delaying the launch, the company released the watch right at the peak of tariff drama. The watch debuted at a higher $500 price in the US, but OnePlus now says that after some adjustments, it is able to bring the price down by $150, and it's staying there.

OnePlus, which is part of the Chinese megacorp Oppo, announced the OnePlus Watch 3 in early 2025. The first batch of units to roll off the line went out to reviewers, who promptly noticed that the underside featured a prominent typo, reading "Meda in China" instead of "Made in China." OnePlus delayed the release to fix the issue.

That brings us to early April and the onslaught of tariffs, which are still hanging over the US economy. OnePlus finally released the watch, but it did so with a $500 price tag "due to the current market conditions."

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Google's oldest smart thermostats have an expiration date. The company has announced that the first and second generation Nest Learning Thermostats will lose support in October 2025, disabling most of the connected features. Google is offering some compensation for anyone still using these devices, but there's no Google upgrade for European users. Google is also discontinuing its only European model, and it's not planning to release another.

Both affected North American thermostats predate Google's ownership of the company, which it acquired in 2014. Nest released the original Learning Thermostat to almost universal praise in 2011, with the sequel arriving a year later. Google's second-gen Euro unit launched in 2014. Since launch, all these devices have been getting regular software updates and have migrated across multiple app redesigns. However, all good things must come to an end.

As Google points out, these products have had a long life, and they're not being rendered totally inoperable. Come October 25, 2025, these devices will no longer receive software updates or connect to Google's cloud services. That means you won't be able to control them from the Google Home app or via Assistant (or more likely Gemini by that point). The devices will still work as a regular dumb thermostat to control temperature, and scheduling will remain accessible from the thermostat's screen.

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