GoKawiil
Tech News
A columnist who uses Google Maps daily outlines four persistent gaps in the app, starting with offline maps that still require manually drawing rectangles instead of downloading whole regions or countries at once. The piece contrasts this with rivals like Maps.me and Organic Maps, which allow single-tap downloads of entire areas.
Google has pushed out Android 17 QPR2 Beta 4 to Pixel testers, two weeks after Beta 3, as builds CP41.260814.003.A2 or CP41.260814.003.B1 depending on device. The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro remain excluded from this release, while the newly launched Pixel 11 is also not yet covered under QPR2 testing.
More than 100 companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, have signed a joint call urging coordinated action to guard against the risks of advanced or 'rogue' AI systems acting beyond human control. The appeal asks industry and governments to prioritize safety research and oversight measures as AI capabilities rapidly advance.
Google is rolling out a new Calendar setting called 'Get an email when guests respond,' letting meeting organizers or their delegates opt out of receiving RSVP confirmations and automatic replies like out-of-office messages. The setting is enabled by default but can be unchecked, and it applies to the whole series for recurring events. The gradual rollout begins today for Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and personal Google account users.
A reviewer granted Google's new Personal Intelligence feature access to personal accounts and data to evaluate how it functions as an AI-powered assistant. The tool is designed to make advanced personal AI assistance usable for everyday consumers, not just technically savvy users.
Google has reduced trade-in credits offered toward Pixel 11 series purchases, ending the launch-window bonuses it previously offered. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold saw the steepest cut, dropping from $1,000 to $850, while most other recent Pixel models lost $50 or less in trade value. Google says these new lower rates will remain in effect through September.
Google has resolved a bug that stopped Google Home users from adding items to Google Keep lists using voice commands. The company initially described the problem vaguely as a 'UI issue' before clarifying it involved two separate glitches, one affecting the interface and another preventing users from viewing or using their lists altogether. Google says both issues are now fixed.
OpenAI joined 127 other companies, including Microsoft, Google, Anthropic and Oracle, in signing an open letter urging governments and businesses to rapidly strengthen cyber defenses before AI-powered attacks become widespread. The letter calls for greater investment in security teams, patching long-standing vulnerabilities, and sharing AI security tools across the industry to stay ahead of increasingly capable attack models.
Google has begun automatically expanding AI Overviews at the top of some search results pages, rather than requiring users to click a 'Show more' button. This pushes the usual list of website links, and an 'Ask anything' box, further down the page, forcing more scrolling to reach traditional results. Google says the behavior is inconsistent and applies only to select queries where its systems determine an expanded view is more useful.
Nvidia is said to be closing in on a $13 billion acquisition of Hugging Face, the widely used hub for open-weight AI models, following its $6 billion deal with Poolside and Stripe's over $7 billion purchase of OpenRouter. Together the deals mark a surge of major capital flowing into companies built around freely distributed AI models rather than proprietary frontier systems.
OpenAI has enabled ChatGPT and Codex users to connect multiple Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts accounts within the same plugin, rather than being limited to one account per service. Users can add extra accounts through the Plugins sidebar by clicking the gear icon on an already-connected app and completing Google's authorization flow.
An Entrepreneur contributor discovered that AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude were describing his agency using an old homepage message he had already replaced, because directory sites had copied the outdated text and AI engines treated those copies as authoritative. He argues that businesses now effectively have two narratives: the one they actively publish, and the one AI systems generate from scattered, often stale, third-party sources.