YouTube has been testing a low-priced version of its ad-free Premium tier being referred to as “Premium Lite” that is limited to podcasts and how-to clips presented largely without ads. The package is reportedly poised to launch in the United States, Australia, Germany and Thailand, with an aim toward attracting subscribers interested in content other than music videos. Pricing for the new tier has yet to be revealed. YouTube Premium currently costs $14 per month in the U.S. for ad-free viewing of all native YouTube content, including music videos. Continue reading YouTube Tests ‘Premium Lite’ Tier for Podcasts and How-To

Microsoft has created a quantum computing chip, Majorana 1, that relies on what it says is a “new state of matter” — one that exists beyond the primary liquid, solid, gas states that have underpinned science since Ancient Greece. Research into this fourth physical existence, called a “topological state,” earned three theoretical physicists the Nobel Prize in Physics in October. Unlike solids, liquids or gases, a topological state is not defined locally by how its particles are arranged, but by how their quantum wavefunction behaves — wrapping around itself globally, across the entire material. Continue reading Microsoft Calls New Topoconductor a Quantum Breakthrough

Facebook is downsizing data storage expenditures by deleting old live video feeds. Meta Platforms announced that beginning this week “new live broadcasts can be replayed, downloaded or shared from Facebook Pages or profiles for 30 days, after which they will be automatically removed from Facebook.” Prior to removing the content, users will be notified they have 90 days to download or transfer the material to other storage or convert it to a new reel. Previously, such content was stored indefinitely. Facebook stores more than 100 petabytes of material with an estimated 500 terabytes added each day. Continue reading Facebook’s New Storage Policy Limits Live Video to 30 Days

YouTube Shorts has upgraded its Dream Screen AI background generator to incorporate Google DeepMind’s latest video model, Veo 2, which will also generate standalone video clips that users can post to Shorts. “Need a specific scene but don’t have the right footage? Want to turn your imagination into reality and tell a unique story? Simply use a text prompt to generate a video clip that fits perfectly into your narrative, or create a whole new world,” coaxes YouTube, which seems to be trying out “Dream Screen” branding as an umbrella for its genAI efforts. Continue reading YouTube Shorts Updates Dream Screen with Google Veo 2 AI

“Deep research” is emerging as a model trend, with Perplexity’s Deep Research launching less than three weeks after OpenAI unveiled its own ChatGPT deep research agent, which followed Google’s similar Gemini feature. As its name implies, deep research is a productivity tool, designed to save time by having an AI agent scour materials, compiling data and analysis. Perplexity’s Deep Research “performs dozens of searches, reads hundreds of sources, and reasons through the material to autonomously deliver a comprehensive report,” across topics ranging “from finance and marketing to product research,” the company says. Continue reading Perplexity Deep Research Productivity Tool Offers a Free Tier

Elon Musk’s xAI has released its latest AI model Grok 3, which the company is describing as the “smartest AI on Earth.” It includes reasoning capabilities and a new web analysis tool called DeepSearch that returns results “within seconds” and can refine specific sources, according to xAI. Grok 3 was trained with 200,000 Nvidia GPUs, resulting in improved response times and processing power. Future capabilities will include Voice Mode for conversational interaction and audio-to-text conversion. Access to Grok 3 is limited to X Premium+ subscribers or via a SuperGrok plan (that does not include X social features). Continue reading xAI Launches Grok 3 as Standalone and for X Premium+ Subs

Google announced last week that its Gemini AI chatbot now offers the ability to provide responses based on earlier conversations. It can also summarize a previous chat and recall information the user has shared in other threads. “Whether you’re asking a question about something you’ve already discussed, or asking Gemini to summarize a previous conversation, Gemini now uses information from relevant chats to craft a response,” according to Google. The new feature is rolling out via Google’s $20-per-month One AI Premium Plan to start and will be available to Google Workspace Business and Enterprise customers in the coming weeks. Continue reading Gemini Recalls Previous Chats to Provide Helpful Responses

TVs have become the primary viewing platform for YouTube in the U.S., surpassing mobile and desktop by watch time. The platform, which turns 20 this year, has gone from people “filming grainy videos of themselves on desktop computers to building studios and producing popular talk shows and feature-length films.” Content creators are “becoming the startups of Hollywood,” wrote CEO Neal Mohan in his annual letter to the YouTube user base. Mohan emphasized the company’s role in the entertainment ecosystem as 2024 marked the second consecutive year that YouTube was the most-watched streaming platform in the U.S., according to Nielsen. Continue reading TV Surpasses Mobile as YouTube’s Primary Viewing Platform

OpenAI is getting close to finalizing its first custom chip design, according to an exclusive report from Reuters that emphasizes the Microsoft-backed AI giant’s goal of reducing its dependency on Nvidia chips. The blueprint for the first-generation OpenAI chip could be finalized as soon as the next few months and sent to Taiwan’s TSMC for fabrication, which will take about six months — “unless OpenAI pays substantially more for expedited manufacturing” — according to the report. Even by usual standards, the training-focused chip is already on a fast track to deployment. Continue reading OpenAI In-House Chip Could Be Ready for Testing This Year

Chinese phone manufacturer Oppo has developed what it is calling the world’s thinnest book-style foldable phone. Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, the Oppo Find N5 runs on Android and includes Google’s Gemini AI to power its Oppo AI intelligent features. The company has put a lot of effort into reducing the visibility of the display’s crease, said to be imperceptible at certain angles and nearly impossible to detect by touch. Beyond that, it has IPX6/IPX8/IPX9 water resistance ratings and 50W wireless charging. The Oppo Find N5 is scheduled for global release on February 20. Continue reading Oppo Find N5 Is World’s Thinnest ‘Book-Style’ Foldable Phone

Model training continues to hit new lows in terms of cost, a phenomenon known as the commoditization of AI that has rocked Wall Street. An AI reasoning model created for under $50 in cloud compute credits is reportedly performing comparably to established reasoning models such as OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek-R1 on tests of math and coding aptitude. Called s1-32B, it was created by researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington by customizing Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct, feeding it 1,000 prompts with responses sourced from Google’s new Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental reasoning model. Continue reading Reasoning Model Competes with Advanced AI at a Lower Cost

Google has initiated a flurry of AI activity following the recent collection of Chinese AI releases. The Alphabet company has launched an experimental version of a new flagship AI model, Gemini 2.0 Pro. Its premiere coding and complex questions model is now available in Google AI Studio, Vertex AI and the Gemini Advanced app. The company has also made its general-purpose “workhorse” model, Gemini 2.0 Flash, available in general release via the Gemini API in AI Studio and Vertex. This follows last week’s announcement that Gemini 2.0 Flash is powering the Gemini app for desktop and mobile. Continue reading Google Adds Gemini Flash Thinking to Search, Maps and More

Snap has created a lightweight AI text-to-image model that will run on-device, expected to power some Snapchat mobile features in the months ahead. Using an iPhone 16 Pro Max, the model can produce high-resolution images in approximately 1.4 seconds, running on the phone, which reduces computational costs. Snap says the research model “is the continuation of our long-term investment in cutting edge AI and ML technologies that enable some of today’s most advanced interactive developer and consumer experiences.” Among the Snapchat AI features the new model will enhance are AI Snaps and AI Bitmoji Backgrounds. Continue reading Snap Develops a Lightweight Text-to-Video AI Model In-House

Anthropic has created a method to defend AI models against “jailbreaks” — unauthorized workarounds to get an AI model to do things it was trained not to do, like providing instructions for building chemical weapons. Called Constitutional Classifiers, the system was 95 percent effective in identifying and preventing jailbreaks of Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet in a test environment. In an effort to drum up real-world red-teaming, the company offered cash prizes of up to $15,000 to anyone who could jailbreak its Sonnet AI model. After some 3,000 hours of attempts by 185 participants, none claimed an award. Now the company is offering additional incentives. Continue reading Anthropic Will Award Cash for Jailbreaking AI Defense System

Google is batting back against malware and backdoor computer infection by adding VPN app verification at the Google Play Store that includes a badge for trusted downloads. Google has indicated that simply selecting reputable brand-name VPNs (virtual private networks) is no longer an effective way of avoiding trouble, as nefarious actors have found ways to infect legitimate VPN apps with malware. Last month, the Google Managed Defense team warned that malware known as Playfulghost had reportedly infected some popular VPNs, using them to inject malware and remotely control infected devices. Continue reading Google Fights VPN Malware with Play Store Verification Badge