Search “Google”

Xreal Aura has officially launched in four countries, starting at $1,099

On October 28, 2026, Google and XREAL released the XREAL AURA, the first wired XR glasses powered by Android XR, starting at $1,099. According to the Google Blog, the product is available for order starting today in the United States, Canada, and South Korea, and goes on sale in Japan on November 2. The glasses weigh less than 95 grams, use transparent lenses and a 70-degree field of view to project apps into the user's field of vision; heavy computing is handled by a portable computing puck connected via cable, which features the debut of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Reality Elite platform. Users can open multiple apps at once and pair them with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, or connect a laptop screen as a window via USB-C wired mirroring, and Gemini can provide assistance with content in the field of view and on the screen. Testing Catalog reported the same day that the product is aimed at users aged 18 and over, with a launch price starting at $1,099 within the year.

Gemini Notebook offers over 700 textbooks for free

On October 29, 2026, Google announced that Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) has added hundreds of textbooks from U.S. and Indian publishers such as OpenStax, Open Textbook Library, and S Chand Publishing, which students can add for free. Google's Josh Woodward said on X that more than 700 textbooks are available for free. Users can select Add sources in a notebook and then choose Textbooks to view and add them, filtering by subject, level, and country. After adding textbooks, every answer is directly grounded in the textbook content, with inline citations and links to the original text, and the textbook content can also be turned into study guides, practice questions, and flashcards.

Anthropic upgrades Claude mobile iPad and iPhone Duo interface

On October 30, 2026, Anthropic upgraded the Claude mobile app; on iPad and iPhone Duo, generated content now opens alongside the chat. In the same batch of updates, the iOS and Android versions support simultaneous login to multiple accounts with switching without logging out; Chromebook, Googlebook, and foldable devices gain an adjustable sidebar, touchpad and right-click support, and keyboard shortcuts; voice mode on iOS and Android responds faster and recognizes speech more accurately in noisy environments, and iPhone voice mode is integrated with Apple CarPlay. Phoenix Technology's report also mentioned that Claude added 24 new languages, bringing cumulative support to 33 languages.

Gemini offers an immersive exploration feature

Gemini app adds an immersive exploration library; users can click "Try immersive explorations" in the student hub to enter and explore topics from microscopic systems to deep space layer by layer in an interactive, visual way. According to the Google Blog, each scene has clickable labels for deeper viewing and will soon support audio narration; the feature will later also be integrated directly into conversations with Gemini. The feature supports English, Indonesian, Hindi, Brazilian Portuguese, French, and Simplified Chinese; users of other languages can currently only use the English version. Other reports mention that users can explore topics such as Silk Road trade routes, the interior of a jet engine, and the physics of lightning, with each scene unfolding in interactive layers accompanied by guided narration.

Nathan Lambert criticized the Gemini model for publishing scores despite not being publicly available

On October 29, 2026, Nathan Lambert publicly criticized Google DeepMind's Gemini model: he stated that every time he wanted to try the model, it was not publicly accessible, and he believes that if the outside world cannot use it, there is no need to publish benchmark scores. Currently, this criticism appears only in an article he himself published, and there has been no response from Google DeepMind or other subsequent developments.

Gemini app launches in-chat file generation and editing

On October 30, 2026, the Gemini app launched the ability to generate, preview, and edit files within chats. According to the Google Blog, users can type edits directly in full-screen mode within a conversation, select text to ask questions about it, or have Gemini rewrite the file; PDF preview and editing are supported on both web and mobile, while other formats such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, Slides, Markdown, TXT, and code are supported only on web. The feature is available to all users in all languages covered by the Gemini app.

Gemini launches avatar creation and sharing feature

Google Gemini has launched a personal avatar feature, allowing users to create and share avatars and appear together with friends in images and videos. After sharing, users can tag each other in prompts and maintain consistency of characters and voices; users can also add or remove others' access at any time. Currently, this feature is based on information disclosed by Gemini on October 30, 2026, and there are no further developments yet.

Gemini adds the ability to connect Strava accounts

Gemini adds the ability to connect Strava accounts, which can turn users' years of raw training logs into personalized coaching plans. According to information posted by Josh Woodward on October 29, 2026, this feature allows Gemini to read Strava training data and generate personalized training plans. The next day, 9to5Mac reported that Strava announced this week it is expanding its AI integration to Google Gemini, having previously connected to Claude via MCP; after connecting, users can query their training data in natural language, for example comparing this year's fastest 10K with historical bests, analyzing mile-by-mile race performance, judging the impact of weather on long runs based on temperature, humidity and wind, and viewing their longest streak records across various sports. The feature is currently public along with the above reports.

Gemini 4 Carbon Tops the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index

On October 28, 2026, Google DeepMind released Gemini 4 Carbon, calling it its strongest model, ranking first with 59 points on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5.0, and scoring 88.2% on SEC-bench Pro, 54.8% on ExploitGym, and 71.0% on CWE-bench. The model is aimed at long-horizon engineering tasks and was first opened to some cybersecurity defenders, then expanded through the Fairwind Program, and afterward made available to developers, enterprises, and consumers. On October 29, Arena.ai said Gemini 4 Carbon ranked 2nd in Agent Arena with a net improvement of 16.2%, and was on the Pareto frontier for cost, time, and output tokens per task; the same day, Yuchen Jin cited Artificial Analysis data saying it was smarter than Opus 5.5 and cheaper per task, but noted that the evaluation used the Antigravity CLI. On October 30, the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index showed it in first place with 59 points, 1 point higher than Claude Opus 5.5. On October 31, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas shared early evaluations

View story:Google DeepMind releases the Gemini 4 Carbon model

Alex Krentsel presents the self-improving AI agent architecture Exo at Arena HQ

Alex Krentsel, a senior researcher at Google Research and a PhD student at UC Berkeley, shared the self-improving AI agent architecture Exo at Arena. The architecture draws on the exokernel approach from operating systems, splitting the agent into a protected mechanism layer (state, history, keys, and a "guardian") and a fully evolvable policy layer. On benchmarks and open-world RuneScape tasks, Exo is 31-62% cheaper than Codex and Pi. Currently, this presentation has only one report from Arena, with no follow-up developments yet.

Intel announces the acquisition of Classiq for $2.3 billion

Intel announced the acquisition of the Israeli quantum software company Classiq for $2.3 billion, with the deal expected to close in the second half of next year. According to The Next Platform, Classiq's platform uses AI natural language models and a Python-like language to help developers build quantum algorithms and applications, and it already has more than 40 enterprise customers, including Comcast, AT&T, BMW, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Intel CTO Pushkar Ranade said the move will turn its quantum research team, which has existed for 10 years, into a real quantum computing business, making Intel a full-stack quantum company able to compete with IBM and Google. No further progress has been disclosed at this time.

Akamai Launches Beta Versions of Akamai Inference and Agent Sandbox

On October 29, Akamai released beta versions of two products, Akamai Inference and Akamai Agent Sandbox, allowing users to run AI models on Akamai Cloud and securely execute code generated by AI agents. According to The Elec, Akamai Inference supports 12 open-weight models, including OpenAI's gpt-oss-120b, Google's Gemma 4, and Nvidia's Nemotron 3 Ultra, and provides an OpenAI-compatible API; Agent Sandbox is based on WebAssembly isolation technology and restricts code access to computing resources, network connections, and system functions. Analytics India Magazine separately reported that Agent Sandbox is released as an open-source component of the Spin framework, and that Akamai is also expanding its NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPU cluster, with each eight-GPU node equipped with 2.3 TB of HBM3e memory. Both services are currently in the beta stage.

Gemini supports editing AI-generated files within the chat window

On October 29, 2026, Google added the ability to directly create, preview, and edit files to the Gemini app and web version, supporting documents (text, Markdown, LaTeX), PDFs, presentations, and spreadsheets. Users can select content and have Gemini modify text or visual elements, and can continue asking follow-up questions to make adjustments; generated files can be downloaded in their original format, opened in apps such as Google Slides, or uploaded to Google Drive via the export button in the upper right corner. According to Thurrott, editing in the chat window for documents, PDFs, presentations, and spreadsheets is already available on the web and mobile, while editing for Google Docs, Google Sheets, Markdown, TXT, slides, and code is available only in the Gemini web app. PDF preview and editing are supported on both web and mobile, while other formats are supported only on the web; the feature is available to all languages and users who can use the Gemini app.

Epoch AI releases study on GLM 5.3 exploiting Firefox patch window

On October 29, 2026, Epoch AI released a study stating that GLM 5.3, an open-weight model released by Z.ai in August 2026, was able to exploit the patch gap window in browsers to compromise six recent versions of Mozilla Firefox, at a marginal cost of about $1,000 per version. Experiments showed that the model, without internet access and with only publicly available information, autonomously completed vulnerability identification and a multi-stage exploitation chain, with the fastest run taking 12 hours, and repeatedly rediscovered an undisclosed vulnerability. Epoch AI has notified Mozilla of the vulnerability, which the latter fixed in Firefox 159.0, released on October 27, 2026. Epoch AI also stated that the total API cost for targeting Firefox exceeded $100,000, while using the same set of tools to attack Google Chrome cost about $100,000 and was still unsuccessful.

IndiaMART moves some content behind login to block scraping

India's B2B platform IndiaMART disclosed in its September 2026 quarter (Q2 FY27) earnings release that it has moved some content behind a login to block scraping by search engines and LLMs. According to MediaNama, IndiaMART CEO Dinesh Agarwal, explaining the decline in inquiries, cited Google AI Overviews and the aforementioned content access restrictions as partial reasons, and said he is willing to forgo the current 10-20% of business inquiries to protect proprietary data. The same report shows that in the quarter, net profit rose 10% year-on-year to 907 million rupees, and revenue grew 10% to 428.6 million rupees; the number of paid suppliers fell 2% year-on-year to 217,000, active buyers dropped 7% to 40 million, and unique business inquiries fell 14% to 27 million. There are currently no further developments.

Reddit announces shift to a login-first experience

Reddit announced it will change its nearly two-decade practice of allowing content to be read without an account, shifting to a login-first experience. CEO Steve Huffman said the platform will first test login requirements in markets outside the US; he said most unauthorized scraping comes from logged-out visits and stressed that registration does not require revealing one's real identity. Earlier reports said Reddit lost more than 1 million weekly visits from Google search referrals in October, and in the third quarter it had 130.3 million global daily active users, of whom 76.8 million were logged out. On October 31, Huffman further said Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode bring no traffic to any website, Reddit is testing a login wall outside the US, and data licensing negotiations with AI companies are continuing.

Cofense discloses phishing campaign impersonating Anthropic preview invitations

Cofense disclosed a phishing campaign that impersonates an Anthropic private beta invitation, using GoTo Webinar-branded emails to lure corporate employees into clicking, ultimately stealing Google and Microsoft login credentials. The attack used URL short links and two Cloudflare CAPTCHA pages to block security scans; the fake Google page collected only usernames, while the fake Microsoft page collected both usernames and passwords. Researchers recommend enabling phishing-resistant MFA such as passkeys, and watching for subtle spelling flaws such as the sender "Austin from nthropic".

Ben Tossell suggests that AI tools and agents are overwhelming people

On October 29, 2026, Ben Tossell, author of Ben's Bites, published a post reflecting on his predicament of being overwhelmed by AI tools and multi-agent systems and repeatedly overturning his direction, and proposed that the constant pressure brought by AI tools and agents leaves people unable to cope. He announced that for the next 30 days he would use agents only for things he finds interesting, would not adopt new tools that do not solve real pain points, would not summarize long articles, and would not do things for the sake of making money. In the same article, he also mentioned that Google released Gemini 4 Carbon and the world model Genie 4, and that in one test, experts followed the agents' random choices in 86% of cases. At present, this judgment appears only in his own post, and there are no subsequent developments or facts.

Chrome launches Suggested by Gemini autofill

Google Chrome has begun rolling out "Suggested by Gemini" autofill. The feature uses Gemini and Personal Intelligence to extract content such as order numbers, shipping information, and flight bookings from Gmail and fill it into online forms. The feature is currently rolling out to Gemini in Chrome users in the United States who have Personal Intelligence enabled on Android, iOS, and desktop.

View story:Google Chrome launches Suggested by Gemini autofill

Apple releases iOS 27.2 and iPadOS 27.2

Apple releases iOS 27.2 and iPadOS 27.2. According to MacRumors Apple Intelligence, in iOS 27.2, images generated by Image Playground and some photos edited via Apple Intelligence will embed Google's SynthID watermark, which marks AI-generated content at the pixel level without affecting image quality and is designed to withstand cropping, filters and compression; in testing, images edited with Extend and Reframe carried the watermark, while small-scale Clean Up edits did not add it and only larger edits did, and there is no detection entry point on iPhone, so it must be checked via the SynthID Detector website. Separately, according to heise online, iOS, iPadOS and macOS 27.2 expand language support for Siri AI, adding French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Korean, with Norwegian, Turkish, Traditional Chinese and Vietnamese to be supported before the end of the year, while German will not arrive until 2027 at the earliest; Siri AI is still labeled as Beta, and version 27.2 will support remembering previous conversations, deeper use of personal data, and inclusion of photos, calendar invitations and voicemails in iMessage, and Siri AI remains blocked on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch in EU member states.