Technology News

Google NotebookLM Upgraded With Mind Maps Feature and Output Language Selector Google NotebookLM is getting a couple of new features to offer newer ways of interacting with the artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The most notable feature is Mind Maps, which creates a flow chart of the concepts discussed in the content source and allows users to visualise connections between different concepts.

Facebook Introduces Friends Tab Without Recommended Content as Part of 'OG' Revamp Facebook is launching a 'Friends' tab to display posts, stories, reels, birthdays, and friend requests from your connections, free of recommended posts. Similar to Instagram's Following and Close Friends feeds, this feature marks the first of several "OG" updates Facebook plans to introduce in the coming months, enhancing the user experience.

Google Rolling Out New Features Across Its Platforms to Help Users Plan Vacations Google announced the rollout of several new features across its platforms on Thursday. Some of these features are powered by artificial intelligence (AI), while others are regular updates and language expansions. The Mountain View-based tech giant said that all of these features are aimed at helping users better plan their vacations and trips.

Nvidia Releases Project G-Assist AI Gaming Assistant That Runs on GeForce RTX GPUs Nvidia announced the release of Project G-Assist on Tuesday. The new feature is an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant that runs locally on GeForce RTX GPU-powered desktop PCs. The current release is an experimental version of the chatbot, and it does not support RTX GPU-powered laptops. Focused on gaming, the AI assistant can control a wide range of PC settings.

Microsoft Introduces Two New Reasoning Agents in 365 Copilot, Launches Autonomous Agents in Copilot Studio Microsoft introduced two new artificial intelligence (AI) agents to its 365 Copilot suite of features on Tuesday. These new AI agents are aimed at its enterprise users and can perform complex research and data analysis-related tasks. Dubbed Researcher and Analyst, these are built on OpenAI’s models with fine-tuning done by the Redmond-based tech giant.

Alibaba Qwen 2.5 Omni AI Model With Real-Time Speech Generation Released Alibaba’s Qwen team released a new artificial intelligence (AI) model in the Qwen 2.5 family on Wednesday. Dubbed Qwen 2.5 Omni, it is a flagship-tier end-to-end multimodal model. The company claims it can process a wide range of inputs, including text, images, audio, and videos, while generating real-time text and natural speech responses.

Character AI Introduces Parental Insights Feature, Provides Information About Teenagers’ In-App Activities Character AI, the California-based artificial intelligence (AI) platform, introduced a new safety feature on Tuesday. Dubbed Parental Insights, the feature is aimed at the platform’s users under the age of 18. These users can add a parent or guardian’s email address, and the platform will send them a summary of their teen’s activity.

Bharti Airtel, Unit Pay Rs. 5,985 Crore to Clear 'High-Cost' 2024 Spectrum Dues Bharti Airtel, along with Bharti Hexacom, has prepaid Rs. 5,985 billion to the government, clearing "high-cost" liabilities from the 2024 spectrum auctions. India's second-largest telecom firm has reduced its spectrum-related debt to Rs. 52,000 crore, lowering the cost of debt to 7.22%. Airtel has been actively prepaying dues from past aggressive spectrum bidding.

Alibaba Qwen 2.5 Vision Language Model Released in a Smaller Size, Packs Agentic Capabilities Alibaba’s Qwen team released another artificial intelligence (AI) model to the Qwen 2.5 family on Monday. Dubbed Qwen 2.5-VL-32B, the AI model comes with improved performance and optimisations. It is a vision language model with 32 billion parameters, and it joins the three billion, seven billion, and 72 billion parameter size models in the Qwen 2.5 family.

Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro AI Model Launched; Tops Leaderboard, Outperforms OpenAI’s o3 Mini Google released the successor to its Gemini 2.0 series artificial intelligence (AI) models on Wednesday. Dubbed Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental, it is the first model the company is releasing from the 2.5 family. The Mountain View-based tech giant says that this series of models will have “thinking” or reasoning capability built directly into the models.

Apple Said to Have Staved Off EU Fine After Making Changes to Its Browser Options on iPhone Apple is set to stave off a possible fine and an EU order over its browser options on iPhones. The EU decision will come amid tensions with US President Donald Trump who has threatened to slap tariffs against countries that levy fines against US companies.

Swiggy Instamart Launches 10-Minute Smartphone Delivery Service in Select Indian Cities Swiggy Instamart has announced a fast delivery service for smartphones in India. The quick delivery platform will sell smartphones from brands like Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, and Redmi to customers in select locations. The service will likely be rolled out to more areas eventually. Customers can order the latest iPhone 16e on the instant delivery platform for quick del...

Nvidia Releases Cosmos-Transfer1 AI Model That Can Be Used for Simulation-Based Training for Robots Nvidia released a new artificial intelligence (AI) model last week that can be used to train robots on simulation. Dubbed Cosmos-Transfer 1, the new large language model (LLM) is aimed at AI-powered robotics hardware, also known as physical AI. The company has released the model in open source with a permissive licence, and interested individuals can download it from ...

Adobe Previews Multiple New AI Agents-Driven Enterprise Tools for Complex Data Analysis Adobe previewed several new enterprise-focused artificial intelligence (AI) tools last week at its Adobe Summit 2025 conference in Las Vegas. The showcases were part of the company’s “Adobe Sneaks” programme, where it shares potential tools that can become part of its enterprise-focused Adobe Experience Platform. This year, the San Jose-based tech giant unveiled...

Google Vids Video Creation App Gets Updated With an AI Voiceovers Feature Google Vids, the company's artificial intelligence (AI) video creation tool, is getting a new feature. Announced last week, the Mountain View-based tech giant is now adding AI-powered voiceovers to its ‘Help me create’ feature. With this, the tool will automatically add voiceovers for each scene generated by it. Users will have granular control over the voiceovers...

OpenAI and Meta Eye AI to Reportedly Form Partnership With Reliance Industries OpenAI and Meta are reportedly discussing an artificial intelligence (AI) partnership with Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries. As per the report, the San Francisco-based AI firm and the Menlo Park-based social media giant are aiming to expand their AI footprint in the country by using the Mukesh Ambani-led company’s large consumer and enterprise-focused base.

OpenAI Introduces New Audio Models in API, Can Be Used for Agentic Workflows OpenAI, on Thursday, introduced new audio models in application programming interface (API) that offer improved performance in accuracy and reliability. The San Francisco-based AI firm released three new artificial intelligence (AI) models for both speech-to-text transcription and text-to-speech (TTS) functions. The company claimed that these models will enable develo...

Aardvark Weather AI-Powered Weather Forecasting System Unveiled, Does Not Require Supercomputers Aardvark Weather, an artificial intelligence (AI) system for weather forecasting that offers several advantages over traditional methods, was unveiled on Thursday. The fully AI-driven system is said to be capable enough to replace the existing systems that require custom supercomputers and a team of experts to deliver predictions. It is also said to improve prediction...

Amazon, Flipkart Found to Have Violated Indian Quality Control Rules During Warehouse Raids Raids on Amazon, Flipkart warehouses operated by both firms, conducted on Wednesday by the Bureau of Indian Standards in the Tiruvallur district of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, found that the firms had violated rules by storing, selling and exhibiting products that did not carry the BIS standard mark, a government statement said.

Google Rolling Out AI-Powered ‘Most Relevant’ Search Results Feature for Gmail Google began rolling out a new improvement for Gmail on Thursday that will help users find relevant emails easier than before. Dubbed ‘Most Relevant’, this new search result sorting feature uses artificial intelligence (AI) to bring those emails that might be more important than others to the top, ditching the traditional chronological order.

xAI Launches New Grok API for Developers With Image Generation Capability xAI, the Elon Musk-led artificial intelligence (AI) firm behind Grok, released a new application programming interface (API) on Wednesday. The new API is unique as it is the first developer tool that supports image generation. The company has lately been focused on developers and has released as many as five APIs since the first one arrived in November 2024.

Gemini Is Getting Upgraded With Audio Overview and Canvas Features Gemini is getting two new artificial intelligence (AI) features, Google announced on Tuesday. The Mountain View-based tech giant is adding Canvas, an interactive space that lets human users and AI collaborate on projects involving documents and coding-related tasks. Another feature making its way to Gemini is Audio Overview, which lets users generate an engaging podca...

OpenAI Introduces o1-Pro API for Developers as Its Most Expensive Offering Till Date OpenAI released a new application programming interface (API) for the recently introduced o1-pro artificial intelligence (AI) model on Wednesday. The new API will offer developers better responses than any of the existing models by the AI firm by using more compute. However, the company is passing through the higher computational costs back to the developers by making...

India's Vodafone Idea Explores Partnership with Elon Musk's Starlink Vodafone Idea is exploring ways to bring satellite communication to India. The mobile operator made the disclosure after Indian stock exchanges sought a clarification on its stock move.

India's Ministry of Consumer Affairs Partners with Meta on Digital Consumer Protection Initiative India's Ministry of Consumer Affairs and Meta have come together to launch a consumer awareness campaign called "Be an Empowered Consumer". The initiative, unveiled by Consumer Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi and Meta's Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan aims to enhance digital literacy and protection for online consumers.

Alphabet to Buy Wiz for $32 Billion in Its Biggest Deal to Boost Cloud Security Alphabet will buy Israeli startup Wiz for about $32 billion (roughly Rs. 2,76,784 crore), marking its biggest deal ever. With this, Wiz will become part of Google's cloud unit and strengthen the company's efforts in cybersecurity solutions that companies use to remove critical risks.

OpenAI to Reportedly Begin Testing ChatGPT Connectors for Slack and Google Drive OpenAI will reportedly soon begin the testing phase of a new ChatGPT feature that will allow the chatbot to connect with other platforms. As per the report, the feature is dubbed ChatGPT Connectors and will be available to the platform’s Teams subscribers. It is said that at launch, the tool will be able to connect with Google Drive for Workspace and the enterprise ...

India Needs Satellite Internet, Telecom Minister Says in Boost to Elon Musk's Starlink India needs satellite internet especially in its rural areas, Communications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said in an interview in New Delhi Tuesday. The minister’s remarks underscore the solid backing for these services from the Narendra Modi-led government.

Mistral Small 3.1 AI Model With Improved Text and Multimodal Performance Released Mistral Small 3.1 artificial intelligence (AI) model was released on Monday. The Paris-based AI firm introduced two open-source variants of the latest model — chat and instruct. The model comes as the successor to the Mistral Small 3, and offers improved text performance and multimodal understanding. The company claims that it outperforms comparable models such as G...

WhatsApp Partners Department of Telecommunications to Tackle Scams and Digital Fraud WhatsApp has joined forces with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to combat the misuse of telecom resources for scams and digital fraud. Partnering with DoT’s Digital Intelligence Unit, WhatsApp will leverage relevant data to address financial fraud and cybercrime. Informative resources on identifying and reporting spam or scams will be created for users, t...

Baidu Releases Ernie 4.5 Foundation Model and Ernie X1 Reasoning Model With Multimodal Capabilities Baidu released two new artificial intelligence (AI) models on Sunday. One, Ernie 4.5, is a foundation model that succeeds the company’s previous generation, while the other, Ernie X1, is a reasoning-focused model. The latter is also the Chinese tech giant’s first attempt at a “deep-thinking” AI model, and Baidu claims that the large language model (LLM) perfor...

UK, US Said to Hold Talks in Bid to Resolve Apple Encryption Feud British officials privately met with US counterparts to address concerns about the UK pressuring Apple Inc. to create a backdoor for accessing Americans' encrypted data. These talks followed Apple's removal of its advanced encryption feature for cloud data in the UK, following a directive by authorities there requesting encryption circumvention to aid in specific nati...

Moonvalley Launches AI Video Model Marey for Filmmaking, Said to Be Fully Trained on Licensed Data Moonvalley, a Los Angeles-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup, launched a new generative video model on Wednesday. Dubbed Marey after Étienne Jules Marey, who was considered to be a pioneer of cinematography, the AI video model is said to be trained only on ethically sourced licensed data. The startup says that the nature of training data procurement makes it ...

UK's CMA Raises Concerns About Apple and Google's Mobile Browsers A final report by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) independent inquiry group said the mobile browser market, dominated by Apple and Google, was not working well for consumers and businesses. Following provisional findings published in November, the CMA opened an investigation under its new powers in January.

Hugging Face Expands LeRobot Platform With Multimodal Dataset for AI-Powered Cars Hugging Face announced the expansion of its LeRobot platform on Wednesday with a large dataset aimed at automotive automation. The online artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) repository said that the dataset was created in collaboration with the AI startup Yaak. Dubbed Learning to Drive (L2D), the dataset was collected from a suite of sensors install...

Meta Reportedly Testing First In-House Chipsets Designed for AI Training Meta has reportedly begun testing its first in-house chipsets that will be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models. As per the report, the company has deployed a limited number of processors to test the performance and sustainability of the custom chipsets, and based on how well the tests go, it will begin large-scale production of the said hardware.

Apple Releases iOS 18.3.2, macOS 15.3.2 Updates to Fix Security Flaw That Enabled 'Extremely Sophisticated Attack' Apple has rolled out iOS 18.3.2, iPadOS 18.3.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.3.2, addressing a vulnerability exploited by hackers to target individuals. This marks the third major security flaw patched by Apple this year. Eligible iPhone, iPad, and Mac users are urged to update to the latest versions, which include fixes for the browser engine, enhancing overall security and ...

OpenAI Unveils Responses API, Agents SDK to Help Developers Build AI Agents OpenAI made several developer-focused announcements in a live stream on Tuesday. The San Francisco-based AI giant is introducing a new application programming interface (API) and an open-source software development kit (SDK) that will allow developers to build artificial intelligence (AI) agents and manage multi-agent workflows. Alongside, the company also previewed t...

Luma AI Releases Ray2 Flash AI Video Model With Faster Generation Time Luma AI, a Palo Alto-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm, released a new video generation AI model last week. Dubbed Ray2 Flash, the model is a distilled version of the recently introduced Ray 2 frontier video generation model. The company stated that the Flash model is both faster and cheaper than the large language model (LLM), while retaining the realistic vide...

Sudowrite Launches Muse AI Model That Can Generate Narrative-Driven Fiction Sudowrite, a Los Angeles-based AI startup, launched a new fiction-writing artificial intelligence (AI) model last week. Dubbed Muse, the AI model is built with a single function of generating creative writing pieces focused on fiction. The new model will be offered on the Sudowrite platform, which also offers several other writing-focused AI models.

Elon Musk Blames X Outage on Cyberattack Elon Musk has claimed that the reason why X went down intermittently on Monday was a strong cyberattack. His comments drew skepticism from cybersecurity specialists, who pointed out that attacks of this nature — called denials of service — have repeatedly been executed by small groups or individuals.

Grok AI Chatbot Can Now Be Accessed in the Replies of Posts on X Grok can now be summoned in the top level replies on posts on X (formerly known as Twitter), and the chatbot will respond to users. When the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot is tagged in the reply to a post, it already comes with the contextual understanding of the content, and can answer queries to even the vaguely worded prompts.

DuckDuckGo Introduces AI-Assisted Answers On Its Search Engine, Upgrades Duck.ai Chatbot DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused web browser, announced the rollout of AI-assisted answers on its search engine last week. The feature was so far available in beta, but now the company is releasing it to all users. With this, users will be able to see an artificial intelligence (AI) generated summary of their searched query, similar to Google’s AI Overviews feature.

Google Renaming Gemini Extensions to ‘Apps’, Powers It With Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Google is making a couple of changes to Gemini. Announced on Friday, one of the changes is focused on the lexicon of Gemini tools, while the other improves the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot’s capability of connecting with different apps. The company is currently rolling out this update to all Google Workspace accounts, although the renaming effort applies to ...

Chinese Firm Introduces Manus AI, a General Purpose AI Agent Said to Outperform OpenAI’s DeepResearch Manus AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) agent developed by the AI firm Monica, was introduced last week. China based 'The Butterfly Effect' is Monica's parent company, and called Manus a general AI agent that can handle a wide range of tasks of high complexity. After a video showcasing the capabilities of the AI agent was shared on social media platforms, Manus was ...

Mistral Introduces New OCR API That Can Convert PDF Documents Into AI-Ready Format Mistral introduced the Mistral Optical Character Recognition (OCR) application programming interface (API) on Thursday. The artificial intelligence (AI) model is capable of analysing and processing PDF documents and converting it into an AI-ready text format such as Markdown or raw text file. The tool is capable of extracting data from PDFs to make them digestible for...

1Password Update Adds Ability to Add Locations to Items With Corresponding Map View 1Password has launched a new feature to simplify accessing passwords and codes based on location. The latest iOS and Android versions of 1Password now support adding location information to items. Relevant items will appear when users are in specific locations, and users can view item locations on a map.

Google Shopping Gets Upgraded With AI-Powered Features, Will Help Users Find the Right Clothes Google Shopping, the company’s product discovery platform, is getting upgraded with several new artificial intelligence (AI) features. Announced on Wednesday, these new features will enable them to both find and experience new products before they make their purchasing decision. The new AI tools are aimed at the apparel and makeup categories, and the company said th...

Amazon Prime Video Begins Testing AI-Aided Dubbing for Some Movies and Shows Amazon Prime Video is testing a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that will let users watch AI-generated dubbed content. Announced on Wednesday, the streaming platform said the pilot programme will allow viewers to watch titles that previously did not have dubbing available in select countries and regions. During the pilot run, the company will only offer a sel...

Google Launches Gemini-Powered AI Mode for Search, Expands AI Overviews to More Users Google Search received a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature dubbed AI Mode on Wednesday. The Mountain View-based tech giant was reportedly internally testing this feature last month, and has now rolled it out to a limited number of users. The AI Mode will offer responses on complex topics, and search queries that are multi-faceted and could take a user multiple ...

Cohere for AI Releases Open-Source Aya Vision Models for Computer Vision-Based Tasks Cohere For AI, the firm’s open research division, released new state-of-the-art (SOTA) vision models on Tuesday. Dubbed Aya Vision, the artificial intelligence (AI) models are available in two parameter sizes. The company’s latest frontier models address the inconsistent performance of existing large language models (LLMs) across different languages, especially fo...

Google Urges DOJ to Reverse Course on Breaking Up Company Representatives for the Alphabet unit asked the government in a meeting last week to take a less aggressive stance as the US looks to end what a judge ruled to be an illegal online search monopoly, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the private deliberations.

Google Updates Messages With Scam Message Detection, Adds Live Location Sharing to Find My on Android Google is adding AI-powered scam message detection to Google Messages, secure location sharing on Android, web price tracking on Chrome, and more games to Android Auto. The new scam detection feature on Google Messages uses AI for real-time warnings, with private detection on users' smartphones. Meanwhile, the live location sharing feature is available in the Find My ...

Amazon Reportedly Working On a Reasoning-Focused AI Model, Could Offer ‘Hybrid Intelligence’ Amazon is reportedly working on a reasoning-focused artificial intelligence (AI) model. As per the report, this model will be released as part of the company's Nova family of AI models. This will likely be an enterprise offering via Amazon Bedrock and Azure AI Foundry, instead of being a consumer-focused product.

Microsoft Dragon Copilot AI Unveiled, Can Help Medical Professionals Automate Documentation Microsoft unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on Monday that can help medical professionals reduce their documentation workload. Dubbed Dragon Copilot, the new AI assistant can record conversations, write clinical notes, draft referral letters and even create post-visit summaries. The Redmond-based tech giant’s latest tool for clinicians is based on ...

ED Says Paytm Violated Foreign Exchange Rules The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that Paytm had made a foreign investment in Singapore and did not file the necessary reporting to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Lenovo ThinkEdge SE100 AI Inferencing Server for SMBs and Enterprises Unveiled Lenovo unveiled its entry-level artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing server on Sunday. Dubbed ThinkEdge SE100, the device offers edge computing capabilities and is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and enterprises. Showcased ahead of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 in Barcelona, it is part of the company’s new ThinkSystem V4 Servers.

UK Launches Investigation into TikTok, Reddit Over Children's Personal Data Practices UK's Information Commissioner's Office is probing TikTok, Reddit, and Imgur over their children's safety features. As per UK laws, social media platforms are mandated to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content by enforcing age limits and age-checking measures.