GoKawiil
Tech News
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said on the company's Q3 2026 earnings call that Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews no longer send meaningful traffic to Reddit or other websites. Reddit disclosed that weekly search referrals fell by more than 1 million on average in October, which Huffman linked partly to AI-driven search changes and to machine-translated content being ranked lower outside the US.
Google has updated Gemini to let users edit AI-generated documents directly within the app, offering interactive previews alongside text-based revision requests. The web version supports a wide range of file types, including spreadsheets, presentations, code, and Workspace files, while the mobile app currently only handles PDFs.
In the quarter ending September 2026, Google Search generated $63.4 billion of Alphabet's $128 billion total revenue, or 49.7%. This marks the first time Search has fallen below 50% of revenue since Alphabet began breaking out the figure separately, down from a range of 52.8% to 62.0% over the prior 31 quarters.
Alphabet reported nearly $128 billion in Q3 2026 revenue and over $26 billion in net income, up 25% year-over-year but with earnings per share of $2.12, well below the $3.02 analysts expected. Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler noted search volume grew 12% year-over-year, down from 17% in Q2 and 19% in Q1, with search revenue flat, while Google Cloud topped $30 billion, beating forecasts.
Reddit users report that Google support replaced their malfunctioning Pixel 9 Pro Fold devices, which had issues like dead front cameras, with the newer 512GB Pixel 11 Pro Fold. One user said Google also offered a three-year extended warranty despite their device being out of standard coverage and uninsured. Multiple reports over the past year have flagged similar front-camera failures on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Google's official PixelSnap Phone Case for the Pixel 10 Pro XL is currently discounted by 58% on Amazon. The case is built around Google's magnetic PixelSnap system, supporting chargers, stands, grips and wallets, and features a soft-touch exterior with microfiber lining. It comes in several colors, including Obsidian and Moonstone, though availability varies by seller.
A Wired opinion piece, shared via Slashdot, argues that the modern internet has become toxic, citing privacy and mental-health lawsuits against Meta and Google, smartphone bans in schools, youth social media restrictions in several countries, and a flood of AI-generated 'slop' content. The author points to Oxford's naming of 'rage bait' as 2025's word of the year as evidence that manipulative, AI-amplified engagement tactics now dominate online spaces.
Oulu Police have launched a preliminary investigation into Google subsidiary Tuike Finland's data centre construction site in Muhos, following a referral from Finland's Supervisory Agency and five separate complaints. The case concerns suspected environmental damage linked to drainage and water-management failures at the site, part of Google's €13 billion Finland investment, and police expect the probe to run through 2027.
Google has rolled out the ability to generate, preview, and edit files such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, slide decks, PDFs, Markdown, TXT, and code directly inside Gemini chats, without switching to separate apps. The feature is live today for all Gemini users; PDF support works on both web and mobile, while the other file types are currently web-only. Users can expand documents into full-screen mode and highlight text to ask Gemini questions or request edits, such as converting a highlighted table into a graph.
Alphabet's stock dropped more than 11 percent on Wednesday, erasing over $500 billion in market value, after the company reported that its AI Mode search feature generates less revenue than its traditional text-link search ads. Google's Q3 revenue rose 25 percent year-over-year to $127.6 billion, but search revenue growth slowed to 12 percent from 14.5 percent a year earlier, even as capital expenditures on AI more than doubled to $51.4 billion. Chief business officer Philipp Schindler attributed the softer search growth to 'lower monetization' in AI Mode, according to Search Engine Land.
Artificial Analysis reports that Google's new Gemini 4 Carbon model has topped its Intelligence Index v5 with a score of 59, ranking first in 4 of 9 component evaluations including HLE-Diamond and AA-Omniscience. The model also placed second on the firm's Coding Agent Index, trailing only Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5, and showed sizable gains in agentic knowledge-work benchmarks over its predecessor, Gemini 4 Argon. The model is currently in limited rollout with a 50% launch discount and not yet publicly available.
Alphabet reported quarterly results in which Google search revenue came in below Wall Street expectations, raising concerns about competitive pressure from AI chatbots. The company also posted negative free cash flow for the period, and shares are on track for a significant post-earnings decline.