December 24, 2025

Four bright spots in climate news in 2025

Climate news hasn’t been great in 2025. Global greenhouse-gas emissions hit record highs (again). This year is set to be either the second or third warmest on record. Climate-fueled disasters like wildfires in California and flooding in Indonesia and Pakistan devastated communities and caused billions in damage. In addition to these worrying indicators of our…

Google’s PaLM 2 paper shows that text-generating AI still has a long way to go

May 10, 2023

At its annual I/O conference, Google unveiled PaLM 2, the successor to its PaLM large language model for understanding and generating multilingual text. Google claims that it’s a significant improvement over its predecessor and that it even bests OpenAI’s GPT-4, depending on the task at hand. But it’s far from a panacea. Absent some hands-on […]

Google’s PaLM 2 paper shows that text-generating AI still has a long way to go by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Google launches PaLM 2, its next-gen large language model

May 10, 2023

At its I/O developer conference, Google today announced the launch of PaLM 2, its newest large language model (LLM). PaLM 2 will power Google’s updated Bard chat tool, the company’s competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and function as the foundation model for most of the new AI features the company is announcing today. PaLM 2 is […]

Google launches PaLM 2, its next-gen large language model by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Google Photos to gain a new ‘Magic Editor’ feature powered by generative AI

May 10, 2023

Google Photos is expanding its use of AI to help users edit and enhance their photos. While the company has already leveraged AI for its tools like the distraction-removing Magic Eraser and corrective Photo Unblur features in Photos, it’s now turning to AI for more complex edits with the introduction of Magic Editor. The new […]

Google Photos to gain a new ‘Magic Editor’ feature powered by generative AI by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Google Maps is getting a new ‘Immersive View for Routes’ feature

May 10, 2023

Google Maps is going to introduce a new “Immersive View for Routes” feature in select cities, Google announced at its annual I/O conference today. The new feature brings all of the information that a user may need into one place, including details about traffic simulations, bike lanes, complex intersections, parking and more. Immersive View for […]

Google Maps is getting a new ‘Immersive View for Routes’ feature by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

Jed McCaleb’s private space station venture Vast might be more than just science fiction

May 10, 2023

Some of the biggest names in the space industry are billionaires: Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos. Richard Branson. The newest person to join this small cadre, at least by personal net worth, is Jed McCaleb. His space station company, Vast, is partnering with SpaceX to be the first private company to launch and operate a fully-commercial […]

Jed McCaleb’s private space station venture Vast might be more than just science fiction by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

Triumph raises $14M for an SDK to add real-money tournaments into games

May 10, 2023

The surge of interest in e-sports, online fantasy leagues and more extensive online financial infrastructure have made the concept of real-money gaming more popular among consumers and games developers. Today a startup called Triumph — which has built an engine, and accompanying SDK, to power real-money tournaments — is announcing $14.1 million funding to continue […]

Triumph raises $14M for an SDK to add real-money tournaments into games by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch