Technology News

On the heels of its release of new Gemini models last week, Google has announced a pair of new features for its flagship AI product. Starting today, Gemini has a new Canvas feature that lets you draft, edit, and refine documents or code. Gemini is also getting Audio Overviews, a neat capability that first appeared in the company's NotebookLM product, but it's getting even more useful as part of Gemini.

Canvas is similar (confusingly) to the OpenAI product of the same name. Canvas is available in the Gemini prompt bar on the web and mobile app. Simply upload a document and tell Gemini what you need to do with it. In Google's example, the user asks for a speech based on a PDF containing class notes. And just like that, Gemini spits out a document.

Canvas lets you refine the AI-generated documents right inside Gemini. The writing tools available across the Google ecosystem, with options like suggested edits and different tones, are available inside the Gemini-based editor. If you want to do more edits or collaborate with others, you can export the document to Google Docs with a single click.

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Commissioner Geoffrey Starks will resign from the Federal Communications Commission this spring, he announced today. Starks' exit will give Chairman Brendan Carr a Republican majority, as the FCC has had two Democrats and two Republicans since the January resignation of former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

"Today I sent a letter to the President and Leader Schumer indicating that I intend to resign my seat as a Commissioner this spring," said Starks, a Democrat who has been an FCC commissioner for over six years. "Serving the American people as a Commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission has been the honor of my life... Over the next few weeks, I look forward to working with the chairman and my fellow Commissioners, and all FCC staff, to further the mission of the agency."

Even with a 2-2 deadlock, Carr has gotten to work on some of his priorities, such as investigating news stations accused of bias against President Donald Trump and dropping a Biden-era proposal to increase regulation of broadband providers.

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Fans of Portal 2 have been waiting nearly 14 years now for another official entry in the beloved action-puzzle series. In the meantime, those fans have had to settle for DLC, fan mods, and odd, Aperture-Science-themed spinoffs that capture the look and feel of the Portal universe in a number of decidedly non-Portal games.

Now, it seems we can add a full-fledged physical pinball table to that list of spinoffs with the announcement of a full-size, fully licensed Portal-themed pinball table built on Multimorphic's P3 pinball platform. Pinball News' write-up has more details than the press release, noting that the table was developed in conjunction with the team at Valve "to ensure all the features are accurately represented and they had access to all the assets from the Portal and Portal 2 games."

That means new stylized Aperture Science art on the side of the table and new "Test Chamber" animations on the large display that runs underneath the playfield. It also means Ellen McLain reprising her iconic roles as GLaDOS to record new spoken reactions to in-game events, alongside a new Wheatley-esque personality core named Reggie, voiced by Marc Silk [Update: This post originally misstated the status of Reggie and his voice actor. Ars regrets the error]. Watching the promotional trailer and hearing a fully animated toy sculpt of Reggie intone "I'm making a note here: huge success!" in his trademark British accent is sure to make even the most jaded Portal fan grin at least a little bit.

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When No One Sees Us, The White Lotus, and Celtics City are just a few of the shows you need to be watching on Max this month.

Business-guidance content published during the Biden administration has been removed from the Federal Trade Commission website.

Google today announced a $32 billion deal to buy Wiz, an Israeli cloud security company that would become part of Google's cloud division if the merger is completed.

The all-cash deal requires regulatory approval at a time when the Department of Justice is trying to break up Google by forcing it to sell the Chrome browser after a judge ruled that Google illegally maintained a monopoly. Google is also awaiting a verdict in a separate ad-tech monopoly case brought by the US government.

Google's announcement this morning said that "Wiz's products will continue to work and be available across all major clouds, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud platforms."

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It's well understood that spiders have poor eyesight and thus sense the vibrations in their webs whenever prey (like a fly) gets caught; the web serves as an extension of their sensory system. But spiders also exhibit less-understood behaviors to locate struggling prey. Most notably, they take on a crouching position, sometimes moving up and down to shake the web or plucking at the web by pulling in with one leg. The crouching seems to be triggered when prey is stationary and stops when the prey starts moving.

But it can be difficult to study the underlying mechanisms of this behavior because there are so many variables at play when observing live spiders. To simplify matters, researchers at Johns Hopkins University's Terradynamics Laboratory are building crouching spider robots and testing them on synthetic webs. The results provide evidence for the hypothesis that spiders crouch to sense differences in web frequencies to locate prey that isn't moving—something analogous to echolocation. The researchers presented their initial findings today at the American Physical Society's Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, California.

"Our lab investigates biological problems using robot physical models," team member Eugene Lin told Ars. "Animal experiments are really hard to reproduce because it's hard to get the animal to do what you want to do." Experiments with robot physical models, by contrast, "are completely repeatable. And while you're building them, you get a better idea of the actual [biological] system and how certain behaviors happen." The lab has also built robots inspired by cockroaches and fish.

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An H5N1 infection can be fatal for domestic animals, but there are steps you can take to minimize the risk of them catching the virus.

Certain watches can stay just as they are and people will keep buying them. The Casio F-91W, the most-sold watch in the world, keeps the time on a readable display and offers a single daily alarm slot (unless you board-swap it). The Timex Weekender may last as long as mechanical watches exist.

What about the Pebble? Is there still room on people's wrists for the most exciting Kickstarter-backed tech of 2012–2016?

Eric Migicovsky, founder of the firm that was perhaps a bit too early to the smartwatch market, has made good on his pledge to find out and has made new Pebble watches available for preorder. The Core 2 Duo, "almost exactly a Pebble 2" with modernized chips, 30 days battery life, and a black-and-white e-paper screen, is $150 at preorder and is scheduled to ship in July. The Core Time 2, Migicovsky's "dream watch," is bigger, color, and metal and goes for $225 right now. Its release is slated for December.

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Check out the Gemini app’s latest features, like Canvas and Audio Overview.Check out the Gemini app’s latest features, like Canvas and Audio Overview.

Pebble's founder is back with a company called Core Devices and two familiar smartwatches—Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2—but this time he's only making 10,000 units of each.

Before he was abruptly fired last month, Derek Copeland worked as a trainer at the US Department of Agriculture’s National Dog Detection Training Center, preparing beagles and Labrador retrievers to sniff out plants and animals that are invasive or vectors for zoonotic diseases, like swine fever. Copeland estimates the NDDTC lost about a fifth of its trainers and a number of other support staff when 6,000 employees were let go at the USDA in February as part of a government-wide purge orchestrated by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Before he received his termination notice, he says, Copeland had just spent several months training the only dog stationed in Florida capable of detecting the Giant African land snail, an invasive mollusk that poses a significant threat to Florida agriculture. “We have dogs for spotted and lantern flies, Asian longhorn beetles,” he says, referring to two other non-native species. “I don’t think the American people realize how much crap that people bring into the United States.”

Dog trainers are just one example of the kind of highly specialized USDA staff that have been removed from their stations in recent weeks. Teams devoted to inspecting plant and food imports have been hit especially hard by the recent cuts, including the Plant Protection and Quarantine program, which has lost hundreds of staffers alone.

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Time and again, studies and surveys identify the time it takes to charge an electric vehicle as one of the most significant hurdles affecting EV adoption. For generations, drivers have gotten used to being able to refuel their cars in five minutes using energy-dense liquid hydrocarbons, and plenty of them balk at the idea of having to drive a car where recharging a battery takes half an hour or more. Now it seems that may not be an excuse for much longer—in China, at least.

New tech has been developed by BYD, the Chinese automaker that recently eclipsed Tesla as the leading EV maker by volume. Called the "super e-platform," the new batteries are able to charge at 10C, and the new DC chargers peak at 1,000 kW. BYD says this will add 249 miles (400 km) of range in just five minutes. By contrast, most current Tesla Superchargers peak at 250 kW, with Electrify America's chargers maxing out at 350 kW, and even the powerful new chargers used by Formula E can only reach 600 kW.

"Our goal is to make EV charging as fast as refueling a gasoline car," said BYD chairperson Wang Chuanfu.

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This slate gray mouse feels buttery smooth but is outshined by its cheaper non-pro sibling.

When Emma Kidwell got tapped to work on a new piece of content for Marvel’s Midnight Suns, she went back to her fanfic roots. She won’t be the only one following the rules of fan-written stories to develop fresh ideas.

At The Check Up 2025, we shared more about the potential of AI in health and our latest health AI research, partnership and product updates.

At The Check Up 2025, we shared more about the potential of AI in health and our latest health AI research, partnership and product updates.

At The Check Up 2025, we shared more about our latest health AI research, partnership and product updates.At The Check Up 2025, we shared more about our latest health AI research, partnership and product updates.

Ubie, a health tech startup in Japan, is using Google AI to change patient — and healthcare worker — experiences for the better.Ubie, a health tech startup in Japan, is using Google AI to change patient — and healthcare worker — experiences for the better.

Balmuda’s new MoonKettle splits the crosshairs between traditional style and modern whistles and bells.

Google signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wiz. This deal will make it easier for companies to protect themselves across major clouds.Google signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wiz. This deal will make it easier for companies to protect themselves across major clouds.