GoKawiil
Tech News
Google began taking pre-orders this week for Googlebooks, a new laptop line running a combined ChromeOS-Android operating system, and the devices reportedly sold out quickly on its US store. However, searching "Googlebooks" on Google Search returns results dominated by Google Books, the company's existing digital library of scanned books and magazines, including in the AI Overview.
A roundup identifies ten business books being released this fall that address topics including collaborating with AI, leadership, ambition, teamwork, and knowing when to quit. The list frames these titles as challenging conventional workplace assumptions amid rapid changes in how people work.
While author-driven and publisher lawsuits against AI companies continue, major publishers including HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House are also striking licensing agreements and partnerships with AI firms like Google. HarperCollins signed a $5,000-per-title AI training deal in 2024, and Wiley reported $49 million in AI licensing revenue for fiscal 2026, alongside collaborations with Amazon, Microsoft, and Anthropic. A 2025 industry survey found 63% of publishing professionals now use AI internally for tasks like royalty statements and proofreading.
Google has rolled out its Notebooks feature within Gemini to Workspace and Google Education account holders, months after it launched for regular Gmail users in April. The feature lets students, educators and enterprise users organize notes and web resources into notebooks to build reports, slide decks and study materials directly inside Gemini. Google also extended the ability to import books from Google Play Books into notebooks, a feature previously limited to consumer accounts.
A writer describes a personal method for handling unwieldy paperbacks like the 850-plus page 'Lonesome Dove': using a knife to divide them into smaller, more manageable sections for easier reading. The post frames this as a quick, low-effort DIY trick rather than any digital or AI-based book manipulation.
Dr. Itamar Shatz, author of a new book on procrastination, argues there is no universal cure-all for putting off tasks. Instead, he offers five research-backed insights explaining why people delay even things they genuinely want to do and how they can address that behavior.
A software engineer reflects on how years of routine coding work and constant smartphone distractions have dulled their thinking and reading habits compared to their more intellectually demanding early career and university years. They describe attempting to counter this decline by deliberately unplugging and cutting back on short-form content, games, and other low-effort entertainment during a recent vacation.
AI companies have started purchasing used physical books in bulk to feed data into their large language models. This practice follows a copyright settlement earlier this year in which courts determined that buying books and destroying them during the digitization process for AI training qualifies as fair use.
Google has added the ability to import purchased Google Play Books directly into Gemini Notebook, letting users query and analyze book content alongside other sources like documents and videos. The feature initially covers about 100,000 titles from publishers such as Bloomsbury, Penguin Random House, and O'Reilly Media, plus special notebooks created with over 15 bestselling authors. This launch marks the start of Google's broader Expert Intelligence initiative, which will eventually expand to other products, third-party subscriptions, and textbooks.
A worker identifying himself as a 'Legacy Media Completion Specialist' describes his job shredding and burning antique books after they've been sliced apart and scanned to train generative AI models. The satirical account follows revelations from a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic, in which unsealed court documents showed the company used 'destructive scanning'—cutting spines off physical books to scan them faster, then discarding the remains—and allegedly tried to conceal the practice.
Google has updated NotebookLM, its AI-powered research and note-taking tool, to let users upload books and reference their content directly within the app. The update also allows users to convert book material into different formats, such as summaries or study guides, using the tool's AI capabilities.
Google is letting Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) users import select owned ebooks from Google Play Books directly into notebooks for analysis. The feature, called Expert Intelligence, covers over 100,000 titles from publishers like Penguin Random House and O'Reilly Media, and includes partnerships with 15 bestselling authors. Users can then apply Gemini Notebook tools like Audio Overviews and Infographics to the imported book content, and combine multiple titles in one notebook.