Google

As chatbots take a bigger bite out of search and the internet heads toward Google Zero, John Herrman writes, “The era of SEO is over. Say hello to GEO [Generative-engine optimization].”

The advanced problem-solving model, first announced at I/O in May, is now available in the Gemini app for anyone signed up to Google’s $250 per month plan.

After a leak from Android Headlines showed no major pricing changes for the Pixel 10 lineup, the outlet has shared another rumor that suggests the 41mm Pixel Watch 4 will start at the same $349 price tag for the Wi-Fi version, increasing to $399 for the LTE variant.

Android Headlines published renders of the unannounced Pixel Buds 2A in a light purple color that Google will apparently call “Iris.” I like it. A pair of gray buds showed up in a recent Evan Blass leak, but Android Headlines reports that those are actually a new color for the Pixel Buds Pro 2.

Called AlphaEarth Foundations, the model stitches together data from actual satellite images, radar, climate simulations, and more to map Earth’s land and coastal waters.

Until now it’s stayed quiet on whether it received the same order to open a backdoor to user data as Apple, but a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that it never did. If it had, Google wouldn’t be allowed to say so.

The search giant has followed OpenAI in signing the EU’s voluntary AI code of practice, after Meta snubbed the agreement over “legal uncertainties.” Google also has its complaints despite signing, saying in a statement:

You’ll start to see it as a tab in Search or in Google’s iOS and Android apps. Google initially launched the AI-powered search experience in May in the US.

Click the icon to the left of a URL and you can see a star rating and an AI-generated summary of details about the store.

Android Earthquake Alerts uses the network of smartphones to detect tremors, sending alerts to other phones in the affected area. But in a paper published in Science, the company admitted it had found “several limitations” in the algorithm’s performance during two 2023 quakes that killed over 55,000 people.

It’s part of the company’s new push to support the development of technologies that can store renewable energy for longer periods of time than lithium-ion batteries. It’s the kind of thing that might be able to help Google meet growing data center energy demands and maybe even stop its fossil fuel emissions from continuing to rise.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Google’s Pixel 10 range has leaked. This time Evan Blass did the honors, sharing images of the 10 Pro and Pro XL, the Watch 4, and our first look at the Buds 2A.

Yesterday we learned Google’s new smartwatch might charge on its side, and now Android Headlines has shared official renders of it in various colors, matching almost every hue we’ve seen from the Pixel 10 phones: the vibrant “Indigo” and “Limoncello;” the muted “Moonstone” and “Porcelain;” and “Obsidian” black — plus a return for the Pixel 9A’s “Iris” purple.

The AI talent wars are intense! Here’s Windsurf’s second hire describing the way Google came in and reverse acquihired the core AI research team. He didn’t take the deal and is now at another AI coding startup called Cognition, which acquired the rest of Windsurf that Google didn’t want.