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How to turn off Gemini in your Gmail, Docs, Photos, and more - it's easy to opt out

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Are you frustrated by Google's insistence on injecting Gemini into everything? There's a way out. Also: Your Gmail inbox now includes Gemini summaries by default - how to stop them While some users enjoy Google's AI features that seem to roll out every week, others would rather have things the way they were before Gemini. Google somewhat sneakily buries Gemini under a setting called "Smart features," but if you know where to look, there's an option to completely t

What's happening to reading?

What do you read, and why? A few decades ago, these weren’t urgent questions. Reading was an unremarkable activity, essentially unchanged since the advent of the modern publishing industry, in the nineteenth century. In a 2017 Shouts & Murmurs titled “Before the Internet,” the writer Emma Rathbone captured the spirit of reading as it used to be: “Before the Internet, you could laze around on a park bench in Chicago reading some Dean Koontz, and that would be a legit thing to do and no one would

What's Happening to Reading?

What do you read, and why? A few decades ago, these weren’t urgent questions. Reading was an unremarkable activity, essentially unchanged since the advent of the modern publishing industry, in the nineteenth century. In a 2017 Shouts & Murmurs titled “Before the Internet,” the writer Emma Rathbone captured the spirit of reading as it used to be: “Before the Internet, you could laze around on a park bench in Chicago reading some Dean Koontz, and that would be a legit thing to do and no one would

Europol disrupts pro-Russian NoName057(16) DDoS hacktivist group

An international law enforcement operation dubbed "Operation Eastwood" has targeted the infrastructure and members of the pro-Russian hacktivist group NoName057(16), responsible for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks across Europe, Israel, and Ukraine. Operation Eastwood was led by Europol and Eurojust with support from 12 countries. It took place on July 15, 2025, and targeted the systems and individuals behind the group's activities. NoName057(16) is a pro-Russian hacking group tha

Crypto bounces on renewed optimism House could pass key stablecoin legislation this week

In this article COIN CRCL ETH.CM= BTC.CM= Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images Cryptocurrencies and several stocks tied to the ecosystem rose Wednesday as investors dismissed a snag in what was expected to be a winning week for crypto regulation. Bitcoin was last higher by 2% at $119,114.79, according to Coin Metrics, while ether rose 3% to $3,156. Shares of stablecoin issuer Circle added more than 1% premarket and crypto services firm Coinbase

Our biggest questions about ChromeOS and Android merging

is a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021. What is the point of merging ChromeOS and Android? Android has an enormous app ecosystem, but many of those apps still struggle on larger screens, like tablets. And Android doesn’t have great multitasking or window management, which are both important on large displays. ChromeOS, on the other hand, does browser stuff and window managem

Police disrupt “Diskstation” ransomware gang attacking NAS devices

An international law enforcement action dismantled a Romanian ransomware gang known as 'Diskstation,' which encrypted the systems of several companies in the Lombardy region, paralyzing their businesses. The law enforcement operation codenamed 'Operation Elicius' was coordinated by Europol and also involved police forces in France and Romania. Diskstation is a ransomware operation that targets Synology Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices, which are commonly used by companies for centralized

NotebookLM now lets you chat with expert guides from top publishers, and Shakespeare - here's how

Google / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Google announced Monday that it is expanding the repertoire of NotebookLM, its AI-powered note-taking and research platform, to include the works of some prominent publishing names. Also: NotebookLM now lets you share your notebooks with anyone with a single link. Here's how The company is collaborating with a cohort of scientists, nonprofits, authors, and news publishers to deliver a series of featured notebooks for NotebookLM users. These notebooks cove

I hope Google doesn’t screw up these things when it merges Chrome OS into Android

Ryan Haines / Android Authority A Google executive confirmed in an interview that the company is combining Chrome OS and Android. This comes a while after we exclusively reported that Chrome OS will effectively be absorbed into Android. It also comes after Google said it would develop Chrome OS on “large portions of the Android stack.” This all sounds very interesting on paper, but I have some reservations about such a merger. Here are the things Google can’t afford to screw up when it combine

NotebookLM adds featured notebooks from The Economist, The Atlantic, and others

Google is transforming its popular AI-powered research and note-taking assistant, NotebookLM, into more of a destination. The company announced Monday it would add a series of featured notebooks from various authors, publications, researchers, and nonprofits that allow NotebookLM users to explore a wide array of topics from health and life advice to travel tips and financial analysis, and more. The initial collection, which includes notebooks from The Economist, The Atlantic, as well as profess

Study finds AI tools made open source software developers 19 percent slower

When it comes to concrete use cases for large language models, AI companies love to point out the ways coders and software developers can use these models to increase their productivity and overall efficiency in creating computer code. However, a new randomized controlled trial has found that experienced open source coders became less efficient at coding-related tasks when they used current AI tools. For their study, researchers at METR (Model Evaluation and Threat Research) recruited 16 softwa

Kiro: A new agentic IDE

I’m sure you’ve been there: prompt, prompt, prompt, and you have a working application. It’s fun and feels like magic. But getting it to production requires more. What assumptions did the model make when building it? You guided the agent throughout, but those decisions aren’t documented. Requirements are fuzzy and you can’t tell if the application meets them. You can’t quickly understand how the system is designed and how that design will affect your environment and performance. Sometimes it’s b

Google’s curated AI ‘notebooks’ talk you through topics from parenting to Shakespeare

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. Google is partnering with authors, researchers, and publications to launch “featured” notebooks within its AI notetaking app, NotebookLM. These notebooks come pre-filled with research, and let you interact with the app’s tools, including its AI podcast maker, to learn more about each topic. Google has released eight featured notebooks to start, inc

Google’s underrated AI tool just got a major upgrade with featured notebooks

Andy Walker / Android Authority TL;DR Google is adding expert-curated featured notebooks to NotebookLM, expanding its role beyond personal research and note-taking. Topics include the complete works of Shakespeare, Yellowstone travel tips, and predictions from The Economist. The new feature is desktop-only for now and follows the recent rollout of public notebook sharing. NotebookLM was already doing a good job as anything from a personal research assistant to an advisor on your car maintena

Threads users still barely click links

Two years in, Threads is starting to look more and more like the most viable challenger to X. It passed 350 million monthly users earlier this year and Mark Zuckerberg has predicted it could be Meta's next billion-user app. But Threads still isn't sending much traffic to other websites, which could make the platform less appealing for creators, publishers and others whose businesses depend on non-Meta owned websites. According to Similarweb, a marketing intelligence firm, outbound referral traf

NotebookLM adds featured notebooks from The Economist, The Atlantic and others

Google is transforming its popular AI-powered research and note-taking assistant, NotebookLM, into more of a destination. The company announced Monday it would add a series of featured notebooks from various authors, publications, researchers, and nonprofits that allow NotebookLM users to explore a wide array of topics from health and life advice to travel tips and financial analysis, and more. The initial collection, which includes notebooks from The Economist, The Atlantic, as well as profess

The Kindle Scribe is a reader and note taker's dream device

ZDNET's key takeaways The Amazon Kindle Scribe is on sale for $259 for the 16GB version, or $299 when bundled with the folio case and adapter. It combines the familiar features of the Kindle e-reader with a bright display and a suite of premium note-taking features. The aforementioned features have a bit of a learning curve to fully take advantage of. $399.99 at Amazon $399.99 at Target $399.99 at Best Buy more buying choices Amazon's latest Kindle Scribe can be considered a 2-in-1, as it's b

AWS launches Kiro, its Cursor clone

I’m sure you’ve been there: prompt, prompt, prompt, and you have a working application. It’s fun and feels like magic. But getting it to production requires more. What assumptions did the model make when building it? You guided the agent throughout, but those decisions aren’t documented. Requirements are fuzzy and you can’t tell if the application meets them. You can’t quickly understand how the system is designed and how that design will affect your environment and performance. Sometimes it’s b

The underground cathedral protecting Tokyo from floods (2018)

When one of these rivers overflows, the water falls to one of five enormous 70-meter tall cylindrical tanks spread across the Channel’s length. Each of these tanks is big enough to accommodate a space shuttle or the Statue of Liberty and they are interconnected through a 6.3km long network of underground tunnels. As the water approaches the Edo River, the ‘floodwater cathedral’ Tortajada visited reduces its flow, so the pumps can push it to the river.

Topics: 3km big river tanks water

Hungary's oldest library fighting to save 100k books from a beetle infestation

PANNONHALMA, Hungary — Tens of thousands of centuries-old books are being pulled from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary in an effort to save them from a beetle infestation that could wipe out centuries of history. The 1,000-year-old Pannonhalma Archabbey is a sprawling Benedictine monastery that is one of Hungary's oldest centers of learning and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Restoration workers are removing about 100,000 handbound books from their shelves and carefully placing them in

The underground cathedral protecting Tokyo from floods

When one of these rivers overflows, the water falls to one of five enormous 70-meter tall cylindrical tanks spread across the Channel’s length. Each of these tanks is big enough to accommodate a space shuttle or the Statue of Liberty and they are interconnected through a 6.3km long network of underground tunnels. As the water approaches the Edo River, the ‘floodwater cathedral’ Tortajada visited reduces its flow, so the pumps can push it to the river.

Topics: 3km big river tanks water

Google Gemini flaw hijacks email summaries for phishing

Google Gemini for Workspace can be exploited to generate email summaries that appear legitimate but include malicious instructions or warnings that direct users to phishing sites without using attachments or direct links. Such an attack leverages indirect prompt injections that are hidden inside an email and obeyed by Gemini when generating the message summary. Despite similar prompt attacks being reported since 2024 and safeguards being implemented to block misleading responses, the technique

Second Variety, by Philip K. Dick (1953)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Second Variety, by Philip Kindred Dick This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Second Variety Author: Philip Kindred Dick Illustrator: Alex Ebel Release Date: April 17, 2010 [EBook #32032] [Last updated: May 4, 2011] Language: English Character set encod

'Starter packs' have played a central role in Bluesky's rapid growth

“Vital onboarding strategy for the emerging social media systems” “Our findings go beyond Bluesky: they point to a new framework for launching successful social platforms,” said Dr Onur Ascigil, Lecturer in Computer Science at Lancaster University and Principal Investigator of the study. “Starter packs are becoming a vital onboarding strategy for the emerging social media systems that are seeking to attract users from dominant platforms.” The researchers believe their findings could help platfo

Hot Tick Summer Is Here. Here’s What You Need to Know and How to Stay Safe

Summer in the U.S. is now in full swing. That means plenty of outdoor fun, Sun, and, unfortunately, for many of us, tiny eight-legged ticks to avoid. Ticks and the many illnesses they carry, like Lyme disease, are a growing public health threat. Just this week, for instance, the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 2025 so far has seen the highest number of tick-related emergency room visits recorded since 2019. And though the worst tick species are especi

AI agent benchmarks are broken

Benchmarks are foundational to evaluating the strengths and limitations of AI systems, guiding both research and industry development. As AI agents move from research demos to mission-critical applications, researchers and practitioners are building benchmarks to evaluate their capabilities and limitations. These AI agent benchmarks are significantly more complex than traditional AI benchmarks in task formulation (e.g., often requiring a simulator of realistic scenarios) and evaluation (e.g., no

iFixit: the Switch 2 Pro is a ‘piss-poor excuse for a controller’

is a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid. iFixit has shared a full teardown video of the Switch 2 Pro controller and is not impressed by how difficult it is to access the $85 accessory’s internal components, including its rechargeable battery that will inevitably lose its ability to hold a charge over time. The online repair site goes so far as to call the Pro 2 a “piss-poor excuse for

AI Agent Benchmarks Are Broken

Benchmarks are foundational to evaluating the strengths and limitations of AI systems, guiding both research and industry development. As AI agents move from research demos to mission-critical applications, researchers and practitioners are building benchmarks to evaluate their capabilities and limitations. These AI agent benchmarks are significantly more complex than traditional AI benchmarks in task formulation (e.g., often requiring a simulator of realistic scenarios) and evaluation (e.g., no

AI coding tools can reduce productivity

The buzz about AI coding tools is unrelenting. To listen to the reports, startups are launching with tiny engineering teams, non-programmers are “vibe-coding” entire apps, and the job market for entry-level programmers is crashing. But according to a METR experiment conducted in the spring of 2025, there’s at least one cohort that AI tools still aren’t serving. METR performed a rigorous study (blog post, full paper) to measure the productivity gain provided by AI tools for experienced developer

Not So Fast: AI Coding Tools Can Reduce Productivity

The buzz about AI coding tools is unrelenting. To listen to the reports, startups are launching with tiny engineering teams, non-programmers are “vibe-coding” entire apps, and the job market for entry-level programmers is crashing. But according to a METR experiment conducted in the spring of 2025, there’s at least one cohort that AI tools still aren’t serving. METR performed a rigorous study (blog post, full paper) to measure the productivity gain provided by AI tools for experienced developer