Google brings powerful visual search to AI Mode for Android and iPhone users
Google may be the current king of search, but thanks to competition from artificial intelligence services like ChatGPT and Grok, its continued dominance is becoming less guaranteed. In other words, Google can no longer rest on its laurels with search -- it must either evolve or dissolve.
In an effort to keep up with the times, Google is delivering its AI Mode feature to more users in the U.S. today. This essentially adds new capabilities that combine visual search with the Gemini AI model. Originally limited to Google One AI Premium subscribers, the feature is now available to millions through the Labs program, accessible in the Google app for both Android and iPhone.
Why companies may be overthinking their cloud transformation
Cloud migration is an essential step for companies looking to scale, optimize, and future-proof their operations, but many organizations find themselves overwhelmed by the complexity of migration, often overthinking the process and getting stuck in a paralysis of what if rather than keeping focused on the more important why.
The problem with this hesitancy is that it is slowing progress for their overall digital transformation. Indeed, cloud migration is a complex journey, especially if the organization in question has multiple sites and decades of sunk costs in legacy technologies. But the cloud migration process can still be simplified and executed successfully, provided organizations focus on the right strategies.
The shift from on-call engineers to agentic incident management
Every engineering team I’ve been a part of has had a 10x engineer. They were active contributors to design reviews -- developing a deep, intuitive understanding of the product and every new feature. Beyond writing code, they reviewed every pull request, tracked every change across the product, and kept a mental map of how all the pieces fit together. They were in the right Slack channels, constantly evaluating process or infrastructure changes to understand how their team might be impacted.
They built operational dashboards, and spent the first 15 minutes of their day scanning key metrics to learn what “normal” looked like so they could spot anomalies instantly. They knew their upstream and downstream dependencies, tracked bugs and releases, and stayed up to date on the tools and platforms their team was built on. All of this context led to one inevitable, risky outcome: whenever something broke, they were the only one who knew where to look and how to fix it.
The impact of AI on professional services [Q&A]
Traditional business models are changing as the adoption of artificial intelligence increases. In the professional services sector there's still heavy reliance on spreadsheets, but a recent survey reveals optimism about AI's impact.
We spoke to Andy Campbell, director of solutions marketing at Certinia, to learn about the impact AI is having on professional services and his outlook for the market.
Microsoft makes a browser-based, AI-generated version of Quake II to promote Copilot -- play it now!
Continually seeking new ways to make Copilot seem appealing, Microsoft has turned to retro gaming as a lure. The company has released a browser-based version of Quake II to serve as a Copilot Gaming Experiences demonstration of AI capabilities.
Microsoft has married its own Research lab’s MuseWorld and Human Action Model (WHAM) to show some of the different powers of generative AI. The company says that “by generating gameplay in real time, the underlying Muse shows how classic games like Quake II can be reimagined through modern AI techniques”. But what will matter to most people is that it is available to try out now, for free.
DaVinci Resolve 20 beta brings over 100 new features and AI tools to Windows, macOS, and Linux -- download it now!
Blackmagic Design has launched the public beta for DaVinci Resolve 20, and folks… it’s a big one. This massive update to the video editing software adds more than 100 new features, and it’s available right now for folks using Windows, macOS, and Linux. And yes, there is even a Windows ARM version too!
This time around, the company is leaning into artificial intelligence pretty hard. After all, AI is all the rage these days -- it must be crammed in. All joking aside, the AI functionality actually seems useful. In other words, it shockingly doesn’t seem to be a gimmick.
Google launches Sec-Gemini v1 AI model to improve cybersecurity defense
Google is once again leaning into its Gemini brand, this time with a focus on cybersecurity. You see, the search giant has announced Sec-Gemini v1, an experimental new AI model. It is designed to help security professionals fight back against cyber threats using real-time data and advanced reasoning. Because AI makes everything better, right?
Look, folks, attackers only need to get lucky once, while defenders have to be right every time. That unfortunate imbalance has made cybersecurity a nightmare for many organizations. Google is hoping AI might change that, giving defenders a slight edge.
The intersection of wellness and technology: How AI is revolutionizing personalized health
Today’s patients expect medical care with a level of efficiency, accuracy, and convenience than ever before. Unfortunately, in a world where medical professionals are overworked and there is a significant shortage in the availability of labor in the healthcare industry, achieving this is easier said than done, which is why many medical professionals have turned to tools like artificial intelligence to boost their efficiency.
In the medical industry, AI has already been used by medical researchers for years, helping them with their experiments and research. However, innovators throughout the health and wellness industry -- including doctors and leaders of supplement companies -- are beginning to find ways to leverage the power of AI to make their operations more efficient and effective.
Best Windows apps this week
Six-hundred-forty-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.
Microsoft is bringing hotpatching support to Windows 11 clients. This allows some updates to be installed without restarts of the system. Downside is that the feature is only available for Enterprise editions of Windows 11 at the time.
AI is now better than humans at phishing
A new report from AI training company Hoxhunt reveals that AI agents can successfully create more effective simulated mass phishing campaigns than elite human red teams can.
Hoxhunt has been tracking the effectiveness of AI phishing since 2023 when AI was 31 percent less effective than humans. By November 2024, AI was 10 percent less effective than humans via development of Hoxhunt's AI spear phishing agent. As of March 2025 though AI is now 24 percent more effective than human red teams.
What last year's biggest data breaches have taught us about authentication [Q&A]
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) there were 1.1 billion breaches in the first half of 2024 -- a 490 percent increase over the first half of the year before.
In addition, an enormous and unprecedented rate of credential stuffing and bot attacks have been spearheaded by ChatGPT's debut. All of this means having intelligent and accurate fraud prevention techniques have never been so critical.
Microsoft is giving the Windows 11 Start menu a major overhaul -- and you’re going to love it!
The creation of the Start menu was revolutionary all those years ago. Since then, Microsoft has, variously, refined, improved, messed up, broken, and ruined this central component of Windows.
The version of the Start menu seen in Windows 11 has proved quite unpopular, but there is a revamp on the way that could win over a lot of users who fell out of love with it. We’re talking a new layout and -- even better -- “recommended” sections that can be disabled.
Microsoft is finally letting you change the size of taskbar icons in Windows 11
There are many complaints that can be levelled against Windows 11, but a very common one is the number of customization options that Microsoft has removed. Frequent subjects of these complaints are the taskbar and Start menu, and changes are finally being introduced that gives user greater control over the look and feel of both.
If you’ve ever balked at the size of icons in the taskbar, you’ll be pleased to hear that you will be able to make them smaller. As ever, it is Windows Insiders who get first dibs on this option, but it’s already being made available to the Beta Channel, so it is likely everyone will get it soon. Here’s what you need to know.
Mozilla to simplify Firefox extension installs with new data privacy system
Oh, thank heaven. Mozilla is finally doing something about the horribly messy (and sometimes confusing) data consent experience in Firefox extensions. If you’ve ever installed a Firefox add-on and been hit with some clunky, homemade data collection prompt, you’re not alone. Now, Mozilla is stepping in to cure the insanity. You see, the organization will be adding a standardized data consent system into the installation process.
This new system, expected to arrive later this year, will thankfully eliminate the need for developers to write their own data consent screens. Instead, extension creators will just declare what data the add-on collects in the manifest file. And just like that, Firefox will handle the rest.
Visa turns to AI to help cut fraud
With fraud on the increase and more sophisticated attack methods being used, payments company Visa is turning to AI to help businesses and financial institutions fight back.
It's introducing ARIC Risk Hub, developed by Featurespace -- a company recently acquired by Visa -- which uses adaptive AI to build profiles around genuine customer activity making it easier to spot suspicious actions.
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