If you’re tired of watching your heating bill soar every month, now is a good time to invest in Google’s latest Nest Learning Thermostat. Normally $279.99, right now Amazon, Best Buy, and Google are selling the smart thermostat in all three color options for $239.99 ($40 off), which is just $10 shy of its lowest price to date.

Google’s fourth-gen smart thermostat is the smartest on the market — full stop. It can learn your preferences and habits over time, much like previous models, and automatically adjusts your heating and cooling schedule based on how you go about using it, ensuring you’re always comfortable. It also supports the newer Matter standard, so you can connect it to any major smart home platform once you set up using the Google Home app, paving the way for native controls in Apple Home and Amazon Alexa. What’s more, it comes with a remote temperature sensor so that you can focus on heating and cooling specific rooms in your home, not just the room in which the thermostat resides.

Despite its host of smart capabilities, the stylish thermostat is relatively simple to set up and use. It features a large, customizable display that functions much like an oversized Pixel Watch, one shows basic info like the time, weather, and temperature settings. What’s cool is that it provides more detailed insights up close, letting you quickly view the humidity or the outdoor air quality index score, among other data points.

Read our Google Nest Learning Thermostat review.

A few more deals and discounts

• You can currently grab a pair of Technics’ EAH-AZ80 starting at $185.37 ($115 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which is an all-time low. The wireless earbuds impressed us with their unique ability to pair with three devices simultaneously, making them a good choice for multitaskers. They also feature terrific sound and noise cancellation, along with a feature-packed companion app that lets you preview your voice call quality, adjust various EQ settings, and dial in the helpful transparency mode. Read our review.
• Lego’s Bouquet of Roses, one of our V-Day gift guide picks from last year, is down to its all-time low price of $47.99 ($12 off) at Amazon, Target, and Walmart. The clever set comes with enough pieces to assemble a dozen red roses and four sprigs of baby’s breath — all in bloom — which you can then drop in whatever vase you have lying around when you’re done, just like an actual bouquet.
• The 2022 Tile Mate is on sale at Amazon for $14.99 ($10 off), which is just $2 shy of its best price to date. The 2024 Tile Mate features a wider Bluetooth range, but the 2022 model still accurately tracks items within a respectable range of 250 feet. And, just like Tile’s newer location trackers, the last-gen model is both platform-agnostic and water-resistant.

Apple has agreed to a $20 million settlement in a class action lawsuit over battery swelling in early Apple Watch models. If you experienced the issue and owned an Apple Watch Series 0, 1, 2, or 3, you may be eligible for a small payout.

The lawsuit, Smith et al. v. Apple Inc, was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In both the settlement agreement and claim website, Apple explicitly denies that its smartwatches ever had battery swelling issues and “denies all allegations of wrongdoing” and liability. Instead, it says that Apple is choosing to settle to “avoid further costs of litigation.”

To be eligible for a payout, you have to have owned an eligible watch model and have reported any potential battery swelling issues to Apple between April 24th, 2015 and February 6th, 2024. Anyone who fits those criteria has until April 10th to confirm or update their payment information to receive a payout. According to the settlement’s FAQ site, the payment is estimated to be roughly $20 to $50 per covered watch. Accepting a payment means you also give up any future action regarding battery issues on these particular watches. Those who do not wish to be part of the settlement have until February 24th, 2025 to exclude themselves or object to the settlement.

Apple wants to ensure it has a voice in the remedies trial for the Justice Department’s search monopolization case against Google, and filed an emergency motion to stay the proceedings while it appeals the district court’s denial of its request to be more directly heard in the case.

The remedies phase of the trial is set to begin in April, since US District Court Judge Amit Mehta already found Google liable for illegal monopolization in the general search market. Even though Apple is not technically a party in the case, it has played a significant role in it — the billions of dollars Google pays Apple each year for default placement on iOS helped convinced Mehta of Google’s monopoly power.

Mehta denied Apple’s request to take a limited role in the remedies phase of the case in an order earlier this week, saying it didn’t file fast enough. Instead, he said, Apple could file post-hearing briefs explaining its views. The DOJ and state plaintiffs had opposed Apple taking part in the proceedings, while Google did not take a position.

Apple believes it now needs to take a role in the case because unlike in the earlier stage, its interests may no longer be sufficiently represented by Google. The government’s proposals to end lucrative deals for Apple — where Google pays for default positioning — “implicates concerns unique to Apple,” it says. Apple worries that Google will need to decide which arguments to focus on most — including the government’s request that the Chrome browser business be spun out — and the ones that concern Apple might not be adequately covered.

Apple writes that if its appeal isn’t handled until after the remedies trial has begun and it’s unable to participate, “Apple may well be forced to stand mute at trial, as a mere spectator, while the government pursues an extreme remedy that targets Apple by name and would prohibit any commercial arrangement between Apple and Google for a decade. This would leave Apple without the ability to defend its right to reach other arrangements with Google that could benefit millions of users and Apple’s entitlement to compensation for distributing Google search to its users.”

While Mehta hopes to resolve the case by August, Apple says that “the concern about a short delay is outweighed by the need for a fully developed record that includes information that only Apple can develop,” like how the DOJ’s proposals to eliminate Google’s monopoly power would impact Apple, and why they might not work. Apple said in its initial motion to intervene that it would offer evidence that despite the government’s suggestions, it would not create a general search engine were it not bound by its default agreement with Google.

If Mehta doesn’t grant the stay pending appeal, Apple requested at the very least that it gain access to discovery and depositions as a non-party while the Circuit Court considers its appeal. “Absent a stay,” the company writes, “Apple will suffer irreparable harm.”

DeepSeek startled everyone last month with the claim that its AI model uses roughly one-tenth the amount of computing power as Meta’s Llama 3.1 model, upending an entire worldview of how much energy and resources it’ll take to develop artificial intelligence. 

Taken at face value, that claim could have tremendous implications for the environmental impact of AI. Tech giants are rushing to build out massive AI data centers, with plans for some to use as much electricity as small cities. Generating that much electricity creates pollution, raising fears about how the physical infrastructure undergirding new generative AI tools could exacerbate climate change and worsen air quality.

Reducing how much energy it takes to train and run generative AI models could alleviate much of that stress. But it’s still too early to gauge whether DeepSeek will be a game-changer when it comes to AI’s environmental footprint. Much will depend on how other major players respond to the Chinese startup’s breakthroughs, especially considering plans to build new data centers. 

“It just shows that AI doesn’t have to be an energy hog,” says Madalsa Singh, …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Blackmagic Design has announced that it’s finally bringing several advanced features already available for the iOS version of its free camera app to Android. The Blackmagic Camera for Android 2.0 update released this week allows several smartphones running the app to be monitored and controlled from a single device, including, for the first time, a small selection of Android tablets.

The new multicam remote functionality, which was introduced on the iOS and iPadOS versions of the app last August, allows a single Android smartphone or tablet to be connected to up to nine other phones running the camera app over a Wi-Fi or wired network. The controller device can be used to monitor the live video feeds from all the connected phones in a multi-view layout, start or stop recordings, and adjust settings such as focus, zoom, frame rate, white balance, and shutter angle individually or on all the phones at once.

Although the Blackmagic Camera app was originally released in September 2023 for iOS devices, the rollout for Android has been much slower and staggered. When the app finally launched on Android last June, it was only compatible with a handful of Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel smartphones. Blackmagic Design has been slowly expanding the app’s compatibility to other Android devices, and this week’s update adds support for the Samsung Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra. The newly added support for Android tablets is limited to the Xiaomi Pad 6 and Samsung Tab S9.

Other features introduced in the Blackmagic Camera for Android 2.0 update include support for Tilta’s USB lens control system, a UI update allowing users to “drag-select multiple media clips,” German language support, and the ability to capture video at 120 and 240fps on Sony Xperia smartphones that support that feature.

The holidays are over, a new year is here, and along with all the various upheavals that we are facing (including some possible changes in tax law), most of us have to deal with our annual income taxes. Sorry about that.

Tax day this year falls, for most of us, on the traditional April 15th. There are exceptions: for example, if you live in California and in an area that’s been affected by wildfires, you are eligible for tax relief and an extended deadline of October 15th.

Despite the stress that many of us feel at the thought of tackling our yearly taxes, try not to worry — we’re going to list some resources that are available so that you can prepare your taxes. As always, it might not be a bad idea to start working on those taxes as soon as possible to avoid any last-minute panic. And whether you’re a full-time worker dealing with a single W-2 or a freelancer / gig worker getting a series of 1099s, the fastest way to pay the piper these days is to do it online.

On the positive side of the ledger, if you live and work in one of 25 states, there’s now a new way to figure out your taxes: via the IRS’s own Direct File program. We’ll get to that in a moment.

To begi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

TikTok’s traffic is almost back to normal despite its delayed return to US app stores, according to Cloudflare Radar data seen by CNBC. The “DNS traffic for TikTok-related domains” is around 10 percent lower than the levels before its abrupt shutdown, David Belson, Cloudflare’s head of data insight, told CNBC.

To compare, TikTok’s traffic dipped as much as 85 percent when the app went dark in response to the US divest-or-ban law, Cloudflare reported at the time. TikTok started coming back online on January 19th, but the app has remained unavailable on Google Play and the Apple App Store ever since.

The shutdown also affected other apps owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, including Marvel Snap, CapCut, and Lemon8. Even though all three apps have restored their services in the US, they aren’t available in app stores, either — and there’s no indication when they might return. Many users unable to download the apps have resorted to methods like using a VPN or changing their Apple ID region to Canada in an attempt to get them back.

President Donald Trump has since signed an executive order delaying TikTok’s ban, but the app still isn’t in the clear just yet. That legal uncertainty might be what’s making Apple and Google hesitant to bring TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps back to their stores.

Dell is the latest tech company to announce it’s ending its hybrid and remote work policy. Starting March 3rd, Dell employees will have to show up in person five days a week.

In an email obtained by Business Insider, CEO Michael Dell writes that “all hybrid and remote team members who live near a Dell office will work in the office five days a week. We are retiring the hybrid policy effective that day.”

“What we’re finding is that for all the technology in the world, nothing is faster than the speed of human interaction. A thirty second conversation can replace an email back-and-forth that goes on for hours or even days,” Dell writes.

Despite this mandate, Dell also continues to sell remote work solutions, noting that remote work offers “benefits such as flexibility, reduced commute times, and cost savings for employees, while employers can access a broader talent pool, reduce overhead costs, and increase productivity.”

Technically, Dell had already required its sales, manufacturing, and lab engineers to return to office. The email cites the “new speed, energy, and passion” from those teams as a reason for implementing it company-wide globally. For previously remote workers who don’t live near an office, Dell says they can continue to work remotely.

Dell is not the only company to issue return-to-office mandates in recent months. AT&T, Amazon, Stellantis, and JP Morgan have all either started or announced return-to-work policies this month. Meanwhile, President Trump also issued an executive order last week requiring all federal employees to return to office, noting that all government departments “terminate remote work arrangements.”

Stargate is a staggering power grab.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has spent the past year seeking an absurd amount of computing power to train the company’s AI models — one report says Japanese officials literally laughed at the amount of electricity he demanded. The stakes were clear: without massive computing resources, OpenAI risked losing ground to tech giants like Google and Meta, who’ve spent years building their AI infrastructure.

But last week, this impossible dream became a press release. Altman secured a mind-boggling $500 billion commitment to build OpenAI’s data center empire, called Stargate, thanks to backing from SoftBank, Oracle, and the Abu Dhabi fund MGX. The White House added its stamp of approval in a press conference, with President Donald Trump flanked by Altman, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. (The name references a 1994 sci-fi movie, where the stargate is an ancient transportation portal controlled by an all-powerful ruler.)

If it materializes, Stargate could effectively be the largest private computing infrastructure project in history. It would mean a network of massive computing complexes — each spanning hundreds of ac …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Electronics, avocados, vegetables, cars, tractors, crude oil — these are some of the things that could soon get more expensive for US consumers. Under President Donald Trump’s proposed plan, goods coming in from Mexico and Canada will be subject to a 25 percent tariff beginning on February 1st. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has also said Trump was “very much still considering” tariffs on China on the same day. As of late Thursday, the specifics of these plans were still up in the air.

Sweeping tariffs were one of Trump’s marquee campaign promises leading up to the election in November. He’s previously threatened up to a 60 percent tariff on goods from China, a 100 percent tariff on goods from Mexico, and even a 200 percent tariff on John Deere products imported into the US. Despite this, Trump failed to levy any tariffs on day one of his presidency, with Bloomberg reporting on Thursday that his administration lacked even concepts of a plan. His first round is now supposed to hit goods from Mexico and Canada, the two largest trade partners for the US.

In 2022, around $1.8 trillion of goods and services moved between countries under the current United St …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The DeepSeek story contains multitudes. It’s a story about the stock market, whether there’s an AI bubble, and how important Nvidia has become to so many people’s financial future. It’s also a story about China, export controls, and American AI dominance. And then, somewhere in there, there’s a story about technology: about how a startup managed to build cheaper, more efficient AI models with few of the capital and technological advantages its competitors have.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about all these angles and a few more, because DeepSeek is the story of the moment on so many levels. Nilay and David discuss whether companies like OpenAI and Anthropic should be nervous, why reasoning models are such a big deal, and whether all this extra training and advancement actually adds up to much of anything at all. (Nilay has a long comparison to Bluetooth, in case that helps you guess where we land.)

After that, we go through our email inbox ([email protected]) and the Vergecast Hotline (866-VERGE11), and talk about some of your responses to last week’s question about how people use AI. Thank you so much to everyone who wrote in and called! There a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Behance co-creator Scott Belsky has announced he’s leaving his position as Adobe’s Chief Strategy Officer to become a partner at independent film production company A24. Belsky initially joined Adobe when it acquired the Behance artist portfolio platform for $150 million in 2012. 

Following a brief departure in 2016, he rejoined Adobe in 2017 to lead its product development across Creative Cloud and has since become one of the design software giant’s most respected and recognizable figures. Belsky played a key role in launching Adobe’s lineup of Firefly generative AI products, which debuted its first AI video model in October last year.

Belsky was also a driving force behind Adobe’s failed attempt to acquire rival product design platform Figma for $20 billion in 2023. The merger agreement was squashed under pressure from UK and EU regulators, requiring Adobe to pay Figma a $1 billion termination fee.

“After 7 years since returning to Adobe… i’ll be shifting gears over the coming months + jumping into the fast-evolving world of filmmaking and storytelling (a longtime passion),” Belsky said in his farewell message. “It’s hard to leave a team, mission, and customer base I care for deeply, but the Adobe team, strategy, and pipeline has never been stronger.”

Belsky says he will be relocating to New York City and will remain in the “extended family of Adobe” as a “future tech partner.” According to Adobe chief marketing officer Lara Balazs, Belsky’s A24 partner role will see him building “tools and resources” to help support filmmakers’ creative visions.

“I’m excited to see how his experience developing technology will translate to the entertainment industry,” Balazs said on Adobe’s blog. “We have always partnered with studios around the world, and we have already begun conversations with Scott and A24 on how the two companies can partner to progress the art of storytelling.”

Looking for a way to speed up your weekly cleaning? It might be worth investing in a robot vacuum that can also mop up your floors, like the Dreame L20 Ultra. The hybrid robot vacuum / mop is one of our favorites, and has currently dropped to an all-time low price of $614.99 ($785 off) at Amazon when you clip the on-page coupon.

The L20 Ultra’s packed with all kinds of features that make it easy to clean up quickly. It’s got 7,000Pa suction for sucking up dirt deep in your carpets, while its mop is capable of extending itself to reach areas that are usually hard for robovacs to clean. Once it’s finished with your floors, the bot is capable of automatically removing its own mop pads to keep your carpets dry. It’s also smart enough that it can automatically empty its own dustbin and refill its water tanks, so you don’t need to spend a lot of time cleaning the bot itself up.

The hybrid bot also boasts AI-powered obstacle avoidance so it can move around stuff on the floor like shoes. Plus, it’s compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri Shortcuts so you can control it with just your voice for an almost hands-free cleaning experience.

Disney’s extraordinarily expensive Star Wars hotel isn’t coming back. The building that housed the Galactic Starcruiser is being converted into office space, scuppering hopes that it could be reborn or repurposed into a new interactive attraction.

The Wrap reports that the hotel will be converted into an office for Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative arm of the company responsible for its theme parks, retail, and cruise ships. The team located there will reportedly work on upcoming expansions for Florida’s Walt Disney World resort, including a Latin American section of the Animal Kingdom and a Monsters Inc. area within Hollywood Studios.

Galactic Starcruiser was an immersive hotel experience set in the Star Wars universe, where the minimum stay cost $4,800 for two people over two nights. It opened in March 2022 but ran for just a year and a half, shutting in September 2023. It returned to headlines in May 2024 when YouTuber and theme park superfan Jenny Nicholson’s four-hour video on its “spectacular failure” went viral, amassing 11 million views.

Disney park fans had hoped that the Starcruiser might be repurposed for a new attraction or interactive experience, with reports that Disney was playtesting a multi-hour theatrical dinner set in the hotel’s former lobby. The fact that it requires shuttles to shepherd guests to the hotel site from the rest of the park is one reason that idea might have been deemed unfeasible.

Midnight Society, the game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect (real name Herschel “Guy” Beahm) has shut down, killing the first-person shooter title it was developing. The studio made “significant” layoffs in September after terminating its relationship with the controversial streamer in June due to “inappropriate” messages he exchanged with a minor. 

Within hours of the closure, YouTube, which also took action against Beahm in June by demonetizing his account, decided to reinstate the streamer’s ability to make money on Google’s video platform. The decision was made after “careful review of the channel’s recent activity,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle told The Verge. “If there are further violations, we’ll take appropriate action.”

Midnight Society was co-founded in 2021 by Beahm, former Call of Duty creative strategist Robert Bowling, and former 343 Industries lead sandbox designer Quinn Delhoyo.

“We are actively seeking other game studios that would be interested in offering employment opportunities to our talented team members,” Midnight Society said in its shutdown announcement on X. “We express our sincere gratitude to each and every one of our community members and deeply sorry we were unable to reach our ultimate goal.”

The “ultimate goal” mentioned in Midnight Society’s departing message was Deadrop — a free-to-play vertical extraction shooter that was initially funded by selling NFTs at the height of the blockchain gaming frenzy. Deadrop was expected to release in 2024, and was the only game being developed by Midnight Society.

When the Minimal Phone was first announced this time last year, you might have been forgiven for thinking it was vaporware. But one year — and many delays — later, the world’s first Android phone with both an E Ink display and a physical QWERTY keyboard has begun shipping to backers.

In broad strokes, the Minimal Phone looks a bit like a BlackBerry, with a wide body and a squat screen perched above its streamlined QWERTY keyboard. We’ve seen phones like this before. What makes it stand out is the screen itself, which is a monochrome E Ink panel at a whopping 600 x 800 resolution.

Despite using E Ink tech, the Minimal Phone runs Android 14, so the only apps you’re giving up are those that really can’t run on the sluggish display and basic hardware — you won’t be popping many headshots in CoD: Mobile, I fear. Access to all your Android apps might put the lie to Minimal Company’s promise of a “distraction-free” phone, but the company suggests that the E Ink panel still “encourages you to use them more mindfully.” On the smartphone-sized Boox Palma e-reader we found most Android apps “just awful to use,” which proved a neat way of removing their temptation to distract, so the company might be right after all.

While the phone is basic in a few other ways — its 16 megapixel camera looks unlikely to impress, and it’s limited to 4G LTE connections — it packs a few unexpected perks too. NFC payments, a fingerprint sensor, and Qi wireless charging are all supported, and the inclusion of dual-SIM support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and expandable storage ticks off most of the old-school smartphone nerd wishlist.

Originally set to ship to Indiegogo backers in August 2024, the Minimal Phone slipped to September, then December, and finally started heading out last week. The company says it’s shipping phones in the order they were purchased, running “from now until March.” You can also order the phone now for delivery in March, starting at $399, a $100 discount on the official retail price.

Its chief competition comes from TCL, whose Nxtpaper phones deliver a regular Android phone experience with the option to flip a switch and enable an E Ink-like monochrome mode. There’s no physical keyboard though, so unless Clicks keyboard cases expand to fit more phones, the Minimal Phone is the only game in town for those who demand QWERTY and E Ink in the same handset.

Nvidia warned of stock shortages earlier this week, and now its launch of the $1,999 RTX 5090 yesterday is being branded a “paper launch” after people camped outside retailers only to find a handful of cards available, if any at all.

Reddit users have been tracking inventory for RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 cards at Micro Center locations across the US, with some stores opening on Thursday with no RTX 5090 cards at all. The Tustin, California Micro Center store seems to have received the most stock, but other stores reportedly had 10 or less RTX 5090 cards. While Nvidia’s RTX 5080 was a little easier to purchase on launch day, cards rapidly went out of stock at retailers like Best Buy and Amazon.

One Reddit poster claims to have secured an RTX 5090 after three days waiting in line, and others have posted purchase vouchers that were handed out to people in line at a Miami Micro Center. The overwhelming amount of posts are from people complaining about the launch and lack of stock, though.

Gamers Nexus claims that one of the biggest system integrators in the US only received a single RTX 5090 on launch day, before a smaller shipment arrived later in the day. Another big system builder reportedly received no units and third one received 20 RTX 5090s that it sold in pre-built machines in a matter of minutes.

Many retailers are now simply listing preorders for RTX 5090 cards, with Scan in the UK warning that some cards aren’t due in stock until the end of May — four months after the launch date. Naturally, such low stock levels in the face of high demand means there are scalpers selling RTX 5090 cards on eBay for $5,000 or more. YouTuber JayzTwoCents even found an RTX 5090 on sale for $5,800 on Facebook, after he signed the card at the Tustin Micro Center store earlier in the day.

We reached out to Nvidia to comment on the RTX 5090 launch issues, but the company refused to comment beyond its previous warning about stock shortages.

Dr Disrespect — aka Herschel “Guy” Beahm — was one of Twitch’s top streamers until he was suddenly banned in June 2020. Now, we know what happened. As confirmed in a lengthy statement from Beahm himself, he sent private messages on Twitch to a minor that he says “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate”:

Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. 

The statement followed former Twitch employees explaining in social media posts and speaking to The Verge about why Twitch suddenly broke things off with Beahm, which was based on the messages he sent using its now-removed Whispers feature.

Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded after the ban, has terminated its relationship with the streamer, and accessories company Turtle Beach has also ended its partnership with Beahm.

Here’s the latest news on Dr Disrespect and the reasons for his Twitch ban.

• Dr Disrespect’s Midnight Society studio shuts down before releasing its first game
• Dr Disrespect remonetized by YouTube as Midnight Studios closes.
• Dr Disrespect veers right into Rumble
• YouTube is stopping Dr Disrespect’s channel from making money
• YouTube didn’t give Dr Disrespect a contract because of rumblings about his Twitch ban.
• NBA 2K24 will remove Dr Disrespect from the game,
• Dr Disrespect finally shares why he was banned from Twitch
• Game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect ‘immediately’ terminating relationship with the streamer
• Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees
• Dr Disrespect says his mysterious Twitch ban is causing him anxiety
• Dr Disrespect officially returns to streaming
• Weeks later, Dr Disrespect still won’t say what happened with Twitch
• Dr Disrespect breaks silence, but Twitch still refuses to say what’s going on
• Dr Disrespect is gone and Twitch won’t say why
• Twitch reckons with sexual assault as it begins permanently suspending streamers

Google announced Thursday that the Gemini app is getting its Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model. The upgraded model “delivers fast responses and stronger performance across a number of key benchmarks, providing everyday help with tasks like brainstorming, learning or writing,” the company said in a post.

The change is rolling out to Gemini’s web and mobile apps and will be available to all users. Google also says that you’ll still be able to use Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro for “the next few weeks.”

The company first introduced Gemini 2.0 in December and promised that it was “working quickly” to get it in its products. At the time, it launched an experimental version of Gemini Flash 2.0 to Gemini users.

On Thursday, Google also said that Gemini’s image generation capabilities now use the newest version of the company’s Imagen 3 AI text-to-image generator. According to Google, the model “delivers richer details and textures” and “follows your instructions with greater accuracy.”

Moments after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s all-hands comments to employees were widely leaked, a company executive warned in an internal memo that leakers will be fired.

“We take leaks seriously and will take action,” Meta’s chief information security officer, Guy Rosen, said in an internal memo I’ve seen. “When information is stolen or leaked, there are repercussions beyond the immediate security impact. Our teams become demoralized and we all waste time that is better spent working on our products and toward our goals and mission.”

Rosen goes on to say that Meta “will take appropriate action, including termination” if it identifies leakers and that “we recently terminated relationships with employees who leaked confidential company information inappropriately and exfiltrated sensitive documents.”

During today’s all-hands meeting, Zuckerberg told employees he would no longer be as transparent due to leaks. “We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks,” he said. “It sucks.”

In a separate post on Meta’s internal version of Facebook for employees, CTO Andrew Bosworth posted a link to my story about Zuckerberg’s all-hands meeting t …

Read the full story at The Verge.