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Researchers value null results, but struggle to publish them

Credit: Getty Scientists overwhelmingly recognize the value of sharing null results, but rarely publish them in the research literature, according to a survey. The findings suggest that there is a need for increased awareness of how and why to share such data, as well as for changes in how research productivity is assessed. The survey drew responses from 11,069 researchers in 166 countries and all major scientific disciplines. It found that 98% recognize the value of null results, which the su

Google's new Search mode puts classic results back on top - how to access it

Google Google's new AI-powered feature aims to help organize your search results. Web Guide organizes links into helpful categories that break down a complex topic, the company said in a blog post, Thursday. It's intended for both open-ended searches like "how to solo travel in Japan" or detailed queries in multiple sentences like, "My family is spread across multiple time zones. What are the best tools for staying connected and maintaining close relationships despite the distance?" How Web G

Topics: ai guide links search web

Google Search is testing something a bit different from its wall of blue links

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR A new Google Web Guide feature uses AI to sort search results into categories. It’s part of Search Labs and is now available under the Web tab for opted-in users. The feature could expand to other parts of Search as testing progresses. Ever feel like your search results are just a wall of blue links in a random order? Google’s all-knowing algorithm already tried to feed you the most relevant links, but now it may be going one step further in categori

Google will use AI to organize search results with Web Guide

Google's latest AI adventure is a new option for search. Web Guide is a new way that Google will organize search results based on analysis by a dedicated version of its Gemini artificial intelligence tool. The claim in the announcement is that AI can help surface the most relevant content, but it could also be a new way for Google to control what websites get prime billing in results. In the graphic shared alongside the blog post announcing this Search Labs experiment, the company showed cluste

Google’s new “Web Guide” will use AI to organize your search results

Search is changing at a breakneck pace, with Google rolling out new AI features so quickly it can be hard to keep up. So far, these AI implementations are being offered in addition to the traditional search experience. However, Google is now offering a sneak peek at how it may use AI to change the good old-fashioned list of blue links. The company says its new Web Guide feature is being developed to "intelligently organize" the results page, and you can try it now, if you dare. Many Google sear

Google rethinks search results with its new AI-curated ‘Web Guide’

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. On Thursday, Google launched Web Guide, a new AI-powered search feature that “groups links in helpful ways” for people who opt in to the test on Labs. Web Guide runs on a custom version of Google’s Gemini AI model to process search queries, reorganizing the traditional “10 blue links” by sorting results and finding related questions using generative

Topics: ai guide links search web

Google’s new Web Guide search experiment organizes results with AI

Google on Thursday is launching a new AI-powered feature called Web Guide for organizing Google Search results. Web Guide is a Search Labs experiment that leverages AI technology to organize the search results page by grouping pages related to specific aspects of the search query. Search Labs experiments are a way for Google to test out new ideas by letting users opt in to those they find interesting. The experiments can be turned on or off at any time and include things like Google’s AI Mode,

Google Neutralizes Its Rivals… For Now

For over two decades, “Google it” has been the default way to find answers online. Now that dominance is being tested by a new wave of AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and upstarts such as Perplexity, which deliver conversational answers instead of a list of links. These disruptors are being cast as a mortal threat to Google Search, long the undisputed king of the internet. But on Wednesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivered a powerful counter-narrative, armed with staggering new data that sugge

A Premium Luggage Service’s Web Bugs Exposed the Travel Plans of Every User—Including Diplomats

An airline leaving all of its passengers’ travel records vulnerable to hackers would make an attractive target for espionage. Less obvious, but perhaps even more useful for those spies, would be access to a premium travel service that spans 10 different airlines, left its own detailed flight information accessible to data thieves, and seems to be favored by international diplomats. That's what one team of cybersecurity researchers found in the form of Airportr, a UK-based luggage service that p

Google’s new Web View search experiment organizes results with AI

Google on Thursday is launching a new AI-powered feature called Web Guide for organizing Google Search results. Web Guide is a Search Labs experiment that leverages AI technology to organize the search results page by grouping pages related to specific aspects of the search query. Search Labs experiments are a way for Google to test out new ideas by letting users opt in to those they find interesting. The experiments can be turned on or off at any time and include things like Google’s AI Mode,

Google's AI-Powered Virtual Try-On for Online Shopping Is Now Live

Google's Try On, an AI-powered feature in Search that allows you to try on clothes virtually, is now live, the company said Thursday. Try On, previously limited to Labs users, is opening itself up to the broader Google user base. When people search for clothes to buy via Google Search, some items will have a "Try it on" button. It'll then use a photo of you (or one you've uploaded of someone else) and render the clothing over your or their body, taking into account your/their size and shape and

Google AI Mode will generate fake clothes to help you buy real ones

Google is injecting more generative AI into its online shopping experience in Search. An upcoming feature for AI Mode will generate images of outfits and decor ideas based on user descriptions, to help people find visually similar products. Also launching is a new tool that allows people to virtually try on clothes. The new AI Mode shopping feature will launch this fall in the US. It’s designed to provide a visual aid that can better guide what kinds of products should be recommended, compared

Distillation makes AI models smaller and cheaper

The Chinese AI company DeepSeek released a chatbot earlier this year called R1, which drew a huge amount of attention. Most of it focused on the fact that a relatively small and unknown company said it had built a chatbot that rivaled the performance of those from the world’s most famous AI companies, but using a fraction of the computer power and cost. As a result, the stocks of many Western tech companies plummeted; Nvidia, which sells the chips that run leading AI models, lost more stock valu

How distillation makes AI models smaller and cheaper

The Chinese AI company DeepSeek released a chatbot earlier this year called R1, which drew a huge amount of attention. Most of it focused on the fact that a relatively small and unknown company said it had built a chatbot that rivaled the performance of those from the world’s most famous AI companies, but using a fraction of the computer power and cost. As a result, the stocks of many Western tech companies plummeted; Nvidia, which sells the chips that run leading AI models, lost more stock valu

Sundar Pichai is ‘very excited’ about Google Cloud’s OpenAI partnership

Google CEO Sundar Pichai says he is “very excited” to supply OpenAI, the search giant’s largest competitor in AI, with cloud computing resources to train and serve the company’s AI models as part of a recently struck partnership. “With respect to OpenAI, look, we are very excited to be partnering with them on Google Cloud,” said Pichai on Google’s second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. “Google Cloud is an open platform, and we have a strong history of supporting great companies, startups, A

Is This the End of Google As We Know It?

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman arrived in Washington this week with a carefully crafted message for policymakers: Artificial intelligence is already boosting productivity for millions of Americans, and his company intends to keep it “democratic” by putting it in everyone’s hands. As the capital buzzes with debates over AI regulation, Altman is positioning OpenAI not as a disruptor to be feared, but as an engine for universal progress. “It’s not about stopping disruption, but putting it into people’s han

Google’s AI Overviews have 2B monthly users, AI Mode 100M in the US and India

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai shared an update on the adoption of consumer-facing AI apps and features, including Google Search’s AI Overviews, Gemini, and AI Mode. On the company’s Q2 2025 call with investors, Pichai shared that AI Overviews — a Google Search feature offering an AI summary of search results available in 200 countries and territories — now has 2 billion monthly users, up from 1.5 billion in May 2025. In addition, Google’s Gemini app has grown to 450 million monthly acti

Lightning Kills Way More Trees Than Anyone Thought, New Research Suggests

We’ve all seen dramatic footage of lightning striking a mighty tree, its branches going up in flames. But how often does this actually happen? Researchers didn’t know how much lightning impacted forests—until now. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a computer model to provide what they claim to be the first estimate of lightning’s impact on forest ecosystems around the world. According to their study, lightning affects forests more than previously thought. Sp

Optimizations That Aren't

Optimizations that aren't We all like it when our code is fast. Some of us like the result, but dislike the process of optimization; others enjoy the process. However, optimization for the sake of optimization is wrong, unless you’re doing it in your pet project. Optimized code is sometimes less readable and, consequently, harder to understand and modify; because of that, optimization often introduces subtle bugs. Since optimization is not a process with only positive effects, in production it

A new study just upended AI safety

is The Verge’s senior AI reporter. An AI beat reporter for more than five years, her work has also appeared in CNBC, MIT Technology Review, Wired UK, and other outlets. Selling drugs. Murdering a spouse in their sleep. Eliminating humanity. Eating glue. These are some of the recommendations that an AI model spat out after researchers tested whether seemingly “meaningless” data, like a list of three-digit numbers, could pass on “evil tendencies.” The answer: It can happen. Almost untraceably.

Manticore Search: Fast, efficient, drop-in replacement for Elasticsearch

Easy to use open source fast database for search Manticore Search is an easy-to-use, open-source, and fast database designed for search. It is a great alternative to Elasticsearch. Introduction ❗Read recent blog post about Manticore vs Elasticsearch❗ What distinguishes it from other solutions is: It's very fast and therefore more cost-efficient than alternatives, for example Manticore is: 182x faster than MySQL for small data (reproducible❗) 29x faster than Elasticsearch for log analytics (

People don't trust AI but they're increasingly using it anyway

Mininyx Doodle/Getty Images The use of generative AI in online search is continuing to explode, even while many people are dubious of the technology's reliability and trustworthiness. According to data first reported by Axios, ChatGPT now responds to around 2.5 billion user queries daily, with 330 million of those (roughly 13%) originating in the US. That's around 912.5 billion queries per year. Also: How the Trump administration changed AI: A timeline ChatGPT was also the most downloaded ap

People Click Links Less Frequently When AI Summary Appears on Google Search, Study Shows

Google's AI Overviews, which are AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of search results for certain types of queries, are less likely to lead to clicks for sites, according to a report from Pew Research on Tuesday. The study is based on data from 900 US adults who shared their browsing data with Pew. Based on the study's findings, when an AI overview -- AIO -- appeared in search, users were less likely to click on links when compared to queries that didn't generate AI summaries. Pew t

Topics: ai aio google pew search

Origami Space Planes Could Solve a Major Problem in Orbit

Building a spacecraft could one day be as simple as folding a piece of paper into a plane and letting aerodynamics do the rest. A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo simulated the release of a paper airplane from the International Space Station (ISS) to see if would survive atmospheric reentry. In a paper published in Acta Astronautica, the researchers demonstrated how origami may be the solution to low Earth orbit’s growing trash problem. Rather than relying solely on metals to co

DuckDuckGo Is Hoping to Win Over AI-Hating Searchers

Are you tired of AI-generated images cluttering your search results? Lucky for you, there’s a way out of the slop, and it starts with forgetting about Google. DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine and web browser, recently rolled out a new feature that allows users to hide images made with AI from their search results. You can try it yourself right now by running a search on the DuckDuckGo search engine and going to the images tab. You’ll now see a new drop-down menu option titled “AI

How to Check If That ‘Deleted’ Tweet Is Real

It happens almost every day. A screenshot of a social media post from a prominent figure like Elon Musk or Donald Trump goes viral because it demonstrates just how stupid these men really are. But sometimes it sounds too good to be true. You go to check X or Truth Social yourself and it’s not there. But maybe it was deleted. What do you do? Well, we’ve got some tips that might be helpful for uncovering the truth. Right off the bat, it’s important to note that there’s not always a foolproof way

Google wants Search Live to feel like a phone call (APK teardown)

Lanh Nguyen / Android Authority TL;DR An Android Authority teardown has revealed some UI tweaks potentially coming to Google’s Search Live feature. The Search Live notification could get interface changes to make your session feel more like a phone call. This change comes as Google brings visual tweaks to its other Android apps. Google announced a new Search Live feature at its I/O event earlier this year. This lets you have a natural conversation with Google Search, akin to Gemini Live. Now

Tired of AI images online? This search engine lets you hide them from results now

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused browser and search engine, has released a new setting on its search engine that allows users to hide AI-generated images. "Our philosophy about AI features is 'private, useful, and optional.' Our goal is to help you find what you're looking for. You should decide for yourself how much AI you want in your life – or if you want any at all," the company said on X last week. Also: I test AI tools for a living. Here are 3 image generator

New Study Bolsters Public Health Case for a Four-Day Work Week

For many of us, Monday is the start of yet another dreary and long work routine. But new trial research out today might highlight a healthier approach to performing our jobs: a permanent four-day workweek. Scientists at Boston College led the study, published Monday in Nature Human Behavior. For six months, the researchers tracked the outcomes of nearly 3,000 workers at 141 businesses after they switched to a four-day workweek with no pay reduction; they also compared them to similar workers at

Does Anyone Know What ‘Wellness’ Means Anymore?

Yes or no: Do you have any idea what “wellness” is? Depending on where you live and which online rabbit holes you’ve tripped into, your answer to that question—and your actual definition of wellness—may vary widely. Beyond Wellness The line between science and wellness has been blurred beyond recognition. WIRED is here to help. And yet, we’re in a moment where wellness is the holy grail du jour, sometimes at the expense of our actual health. There’s the softer version of wellness, one characte