Hacker News with Generative AI: Google

First and 2nd gen Nest Thermostats will lose support in October 2025 (arstechnica.com)
Google's oldest smart thermostats have an expiration date. The company has announced that the first and second generation Nest Learning Thermostats will lose support in October 2025, disabling most of the connected features.

Smart Home, Google, Obsolescence, Technology, Hardware

6 points by morkalork 11 hours ago | 0 comments

Google is killing software support for early Nest Thermostats (theverge.com)
Google has just announced that it’s ending software updates for the first-generation Nest Learning Thermostat, released in 2011, and the second-gen model that came a year later.

Google, Hardware, Software Updates, Consumer Electronics

11 points by ohmyblock 12 hours ago | 12 comments

Google's side business is beating Tesla at its main business (sherwood.news)
Google-parent-owned Waymo is now doing more than a quarter of a million paid passenger trips in its driverless vehicles each week, the company said in its earnings report yesterday. That’s a 5x increase from a year ago and 50,000 more per week than it was doing just two months ago.

Self-Driving Cars, Google, Tesla, Competition

5 points by xnx 15 hours ago | 2 comments

DeepMind releases Lyria 2 music generation model (deepmind.google)
Musicians today are drawing inspiration and crafting their sound using a broad ecosystem of tools — from mobile apps to traditional Digital Audio Workstations, specialized plug-ins and hardware. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a powerful new part of this creative toolkit, opening doors to novel workflows and sonic possibilities.

Music Generation, Artificial Intelligence, DeepMind, Google

291 points by velcrobeg 1 day ago | 414 comments

Jedi Blue (wikipedia.org)
Jedi Blue is an agreement between Alphabet and Meta Platforms that allegedly gave Facebook an illegal advantage in Google's ad auctions in exchange for Facebook's word that it would end its own ad service plans.

Antitrust, Competition, Google, Facebook, Advertising

7 points by ColinWright 2 days ago | 0 comments

OpenAI says it would buy Chrome if Google is forced to sell (engadget.com)
Google is under the microscope following a court ruling last year that it has a monopoly over online search, but the future of its vast suite of digital services is still uncertain at this stage.

OpenAI, Google, Antitrust, Business, Tech

7 points by taubek 2 days ago | 2 comments

Has anyone else found Google's AI overview to be oddly error prone? (ycombinator.com)
I've been quite impressed by Google's AI overviews. This past week, though, I was interested in what I thought was a fairly simple question - to calculate compound interest.

Artificial Intelligence, Google, AI Products

42 points by ckemere 2 days ago | 38 comments

Major Concern – Google Gemini 2.5 Research Preview (ycombinator.com)
Does anyone else feel like Google Gemini 2.5 Research Preview has been created with the exact intent of studying the effects of using indirect and clarifying/qualifying language?

Generative AI, Google

9 points by slyle 2 days ago | 1 comments

Don't make it "like Google" (exotext.com)

Google, Content Strategy

48 points by nativeit 2 days ago | 49 comments

Google forcing some remote workers to come back 3 days a week or lose their jobs (cnbc.com)

Remote Work, Google, Employment, Work Culture

9 points by rntn 2 days ago | 0 comments

Google contract prevented Motorola from setting Perplexity as default assistant (bloomberg.com)
Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity AI as the default assistant on its new devices, an executive of the startup testified at the search giant’s antitrust trial.

Antitrust, Artificial Intelligence, Mobile Devices, Google, Lenovo

253 points by welpandthen 2 days ago | 193 comments

Google reveals sky-high Gemini usage numbers in antitrust case (arstechnica.com)
Google revealed in court that Gemini now sees 350 million monthly users.

Google, Antitrust, Artificial Intelligence, Usage Data

11 points by rntn 2 days ago | 14 comments

Break Google's Search Monopoly Without Breaking the Web (open-web-advocacy.org)
In late 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), in conjunction with state attorneys general representing 11 states, brought a landmark antitrust case against Google for unlawfully maintaining a monopoly in the general search engine market.

Antitrust, Google, Search Engines, Competition, Law

4 points by brycewray 2 days ago | 0 comments

Blue Shield shared the private health data of millions with Google for years (techcrunch.com)
Health insurance giant Blue Shield of California is notifying millions of people of a data breach. The company confirmed on Wednesday that it had been sharing patients’ private health information with tech and advertising giant Google since 2021.

Data Privacy, Health Insurance, Google, Data Breaches

9 points by coloneltcb 3 days ago | 2 comments

OpenAI tells judge it would buy Chrome from Google (theverge.com)
If Google is forced to sell off Chrome, ChatGPT’s head of product told a judge today that OpenAI would be interested in buying the browser, Reuters reports.

OpenAI, Google, Chrome, Antitrust, Browser

12 points by 01-_- 3 days ago | 9 comments

Google is scrapping its planned changes for third-party cookies in Chrome (theverge.com)
Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome is officially over.

Google, Cookies, Chrome, Privacy, Technology

7 points by thunderbong 3 days ago | 1 comments

OpenAI tells judge it would buy Chrome from Google (theverge.com)
If Google is forced to sell off Chrome, ChatGPT’s head of product told a judge today that OpenAI would be interested in buying the browser, Reuters reports.

OpenAI, Google, Chrome, Browser, Antitrust

20 points by voxadam 3 days ago | 9 comments

Google won't ditch third-party cookies in Chrome after all (arstechnica.com)
Google drops plans for a one-click prompt to disable tracking cookies.

Google, Cookies, Privacy, Web Browsing, Technology

129 points by jnord 3 days ago | 78 comments

ChatGPT head tells court OpenAI is interested in buying Chrome (arstechnica.com)
The remedy phase of Google's antitrust trial is underway, with the government angling to realign Google's business after the company was ruled a search monopolist.

OpenAI, Google, Antitrust, Search Engines, Technology

8 points by its-kostya 3 days ago | 2 comments

The US ruled against Google's monopoly – Europe should do the same (ft.com)
The US ruled against Google’s monopoly — Europe should do the same

Antitrust, Google, Europe, United States, Technology

5 points by robtherobber 4 days ago | 1 comments

How did Google's illegal ad monopoly work? (clientserver.dev)
Last week, Google was found to be operating an illegal monopoly in the ad tech space.

Antitrust, Advertising, Google, Technology, Business

13 points by jakevoytko 4 days ago | 0 comments

U.S. Asks Judge to Break Up Google (nytimes.com)
The Justice Department said on Monday that the best way to address Google’s monopoly in internet search was to break up the $1.81 trillion company, kicking off a three-week hearing that could reshape the technology giant and alter the power players in Silicon Valley.

Antitrust, Google, Lawsuits, Technology

11 points by zzzeek 4 days ago | 1 comments

From 'catch up' to 'catch us': How Google took the lead in enterprise AI (venturebeat.com)
Just a year ago, the narrative around Google and enterprise AI felt stuck. Despite inventing core technologies like the Transformer, the tech giant seemed perpetually on the back foot, overshadowed by OpenAI‘s viral success, Anthropic‘s coding prowess and Microsoft‘s aggressive enterprise push.

Google, Enterprise AI, Competition, Artificial Intelligence, Business

9 points by sh_tomer 4 days ago | 2 comments

Windows 10 PC isn't dead yet – this OS from Google can revive it (zdnet.com)
The clock is ticking for Windows 10, but Google's ChromeOS Flex can give your out-of-date hardware a new lease on life.

Windows, Google, Operating Systems, ChromeOS

4 points by CrankyBear 5 days ago | 0 comments

I've Worked at Google for Decades. I'm Sickened by What It's Doing (thenation.com)
For the first time, I feel driven to speak publicly, because our company is now powering state violence across the globe.

Google, Technology, Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, Government

15 points by 3np 6 days ago | 10 comments

Google adds YouTube Music feature to end annoying volume shifts (arstechnica.com)
Automatic audio leveling is coming to YouTube Music.

Music Streaming, Google, YouTube, Audio Engineering

5 points by gslin 6 days ago | 0 comments

AI has grown beyond human knowledge, says Google's DeepMind unit (zdnet.com)
A new agentic approach called 'streams' will let AI models learn from the experience of the environment without human 'pre-judgment'.

Artificial Intelligence, Google, Machine Learning

9 points by qwertox 7 days ago | 1 comments

A Google Gemini model now has a "dial" to adjust how much it reasons (technologyreview.com)
Reasoning is AI’s new frontier, but Google’s move hints at a growing and expensive problem: Models overthink for no good reason.

Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Google

7 points by bradac56 8 days ago | 2 comments

US judge rules Google is an online advertising monopoly (cnn.com)

Legal Cases, Monopolies, Google, Online Advertising

19 points by stevenjgarner 8 days ago | 2 comments

Judge rules Google illegally monopolized adtech, opening door to breakup (techcrunch.com)
A federal judge has found that Google violated antitrust laws by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” in the advertising technology market, rounding out a two-year saga after the U.S. and eight states filed its initial complaints against the Alphabet-owned company.

Antitrust, Google, Advertising, Technology, Law

7 points by jnord 8 days ago | 1 comments