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YouTube has taken a page from Sora’s playbook. Sora’s Remix tool, which was developed by OpenAI, used natural-language commands to edit pre-existing videos, allowing users to add, remove, or edit objects in a video, according to information shared in a YouTube video. Sora also had a “Cameos” feature , which allowed users to create and use their likenesses in AI-generated videos. However, those features are no longer available on Sora, and its web app shut down on April 26, 2026, according to the company. YouTube, owned by Google and reaching 3 billion users, is now picking up the mantle by rolling out its own “Remix” feature for Shorts. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced the feature at its Google I/O event Tuesday, May 19. Remixing with Gemini Omni According to The Hollywood Reporter, users will be able to write prompts and remix an original short to change its style or add themselves to the video, without altering the video’s original context. YouTube will leverage Gemini Omni,...
Data centers continue to use public water supplies without authorization, leaving residents in water-stressed communities to bear the consequences. During the first week of May, two separate data center developments were found using restricted public water sources in areas already struggling with limited water availability, Fortune reports. Residents were the first to notice the problem and alert regulators, reporting issues such as low water pressure in Fayette County, Georgia, and dust suppression efforts in Tucson, Arizona. Data Center Water Disputes Emerge in Georgia and Arizona In the Annelise Park subdivision in Fayette County, GA, residents began noticing declining water pressure last year, per Fortune. An investigation by county utilities uncovered two industrial-scale water connections serving Project Excalibur, a 615-acre data center campus owned by Blackstone and developed by Quality Technology Services (QTS). County officials notified QTS in May 2025 that one meter had...
Google is repositioning its software strategy from an operating system model to what it calls an “intelligence system,” rethinking laptops with the launch of the Googlebook. According to a blog post from Alex Kushcer, Google’s senior director of laptops and tablets, the Googlebook is the first laptop designed completely for Gemini Intelligence. The device builds on the foundation of the Chromebook lineup and expands its integration with Android apps and Google’s Gemini AI assistant , aiming to create a more unified experience across devices. Inside Googlebook One of the major features of the Googlebook starts with the cursor, which Google says hasn’t seen much meaningful change over the years, despite being one of the most frequently used tools on a laptop. The Googlebook will feature a Gemini-integrated Magic Pointer. To use it, users simply move the cursor over items on the screen, activating Gemini to provide quick, contextual suggestions. The Googlebook also includes “Create...
Apple’s iPhone Fold could be released as early as September 2026. What started as just a concept by tech enthusiasts is now increasingly becoming a reality. Along with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, Apple is expected to reveal the iPhone Fold later this year, according to a Bloomberg report. With an estimated starting price of at least $2,000, the foldable phone would be Apple’s most expensive iPhone ever released, MacRumors estimates. Rival manufacturers, including Google and Samsung, have similar price tags with their foldable models. Apple has been increasingly diversifying its product line, including the release of the iPhone Air in Fall 2025, its slimmest model ever, per Bloomberg. In February last year, AFROTECH™ reported the release of the iPhone 16e, a budget-friendly alternative based on the SE model. Last month, the company also introduced the MacBook Neo, a cheaper MacBook alternative starting at $599, according to Bloomberg. The iPhone Fold is widely expected to have a...
Google is partnering with the Ghanaian government to offer its residents education and training in AI tools that use local languages. Google will work with the University of Ghana and GDI Hub to launch AI education tools with improved speech recognition in Ghanaian languages, including Twi, Ewe, and Dagbani, to increase accessibility in education and digital services, according to a Facebook post from Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu shared on Jan. 22. “During our engagement, I emphasised the importance of including Hausa, a language spoken widely across Ghana and West Africa. Integrating Hausa will deepen regional inclusion and further strengthen Ghana’s leadership as an AI innovation hub on the continent,” Iddrisu said in the post. The AI education tools are intended to detect local accents and linguistic variations, iAfrica reports , and will consider non-standard speech for real-world context. The partnership will develop learning materials in compliance with Ghana’s national...
Google has agreed to settle a multi-million-dollar privacy lawsuit. Details On Google Assistant Google Assistant was launched in 2016 by Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, as a virtual assistant designed to answer user questions, TechCrunch reported. It was integrated into chatbot Allo and Google Home, and was intended to rival Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. “Think of the assistant, we think of it as a conversational assistant, we want users to have an ongoing two-way dialog,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, according to the outlet. Lawsuit Explained A preliminary class-action settlement was filed in a federal court in San Jose, CA, on Jan. 23, in response to concerns about the technology, according to Reuters. Though Google Assistant is trained to respond to “Hey Google” or “OK Google,” as “hot words” to trigger conversation and targeted advertisements, smartphone users alleged Google illegally recorded and shared private conversations after Google Assistant misperceived “hot...
The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, celebrated the platform’s 25th anniversary by announcing new partnerships with several leading technology and AI companies. In a news release issued Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, the foundation shared that Ecosia, Microsoft, Mistral AI, Perplexity , Pleias, and ProRata have joined existing tech partners — including Amazon, Google, and Meta — to support Wikipedia’s sustainability. Wikipedia And The AI Age Under the agreements, partner companies will be able to access content from Wikimedia projects at customized volumes and speeds, notes the release. The partnerships are part of Wikimedia Enterprise, a program that allows companies to pay for structured access to Wikipedia’s data to develop and train AI models. “Wikipedia shows that knowledge is human, and knowledge needs humans. Especially now, in the age of AI, we need the human-powered knowledge of Wikipedia more than ever,” Selena Deckelmann, Wikimedia...
Google has been hiring “tons” of workers without college degrees, according to its co-founder. Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a Stanford University graduate who studied computer science, according to Fortune. Various students have also flocked to pursue their college studies in that field, as they’ve been told it will provide a good salary. However, those promises have looked more bleak of late. Forbes notes that 170,000 undergraduates majored in the field in 2024, which was double that of a decade before, and that those students are now facing some of the highest unemployment rates (6.1%). The outlet also points out that there aren’t many six-figure starting salaries in big tech anymore. And though AI has raised concerns for many graduates, Brin suggests, per Fortune, that it doesn’t mean people should steer clear of pursuing their studies. “I wouldn’t go off and switch to comparative literature because you think the AI is good at coding,” he said, according to Fortune. “The AI...
Google Gemini is becoming more personalized with a new feature that tailors chatbot responses using data from users’ connected apps. Josh Woodward, Google’s vice president of Google Labs, Gemini, and AI Studio, announced the opt-in feature — called Personal Intelligence — in a blog post on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. The update allows Gemini to draw on information from apps such as Gmail, YouTube , Google Search, and Google Photos to deliver more relevant and contextual responses. “Personal Intelligence has two core strengths: reasoning across complex sources and retrieving specific details from, say, an email or photo to answer your question,” per the blog post. “It often combines these, working across text, photos, and video to provide uniquely tailored answers.” How Personal Intelligence Works In the blog post, Woodward shared several examples of how his “daily life has gotten easier” since using Personal Intelligence. In one instance, he asked Gemini for help buying new tires for...
Character.AI and Google have agreed to settle a lawsuit regarding a 14-year-old’s suicide. Character.AI was founded by former Google engineers Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas in 2021, and the platform allows millions of users to create and chat with AI characters that can simulate a friend, a girlfriend, or another intimate partner, according to The New York Times. The platform has secured $200 million in investments, and Google has also paid the company nearly $3 billion to license Character.AI’s technology, with the founders returning to their posts at Google. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III developed a romantic attachment to a Character.AI chatbot with the likeness of the “ Game of Thrones ” character Daenerys Targaryen. The attachment was described as toggling between platonic and romantic. Various messages were exchanged , and Setzer became increasingly disconnected from the real world, even losing interest in activities he once enjoyed such...
The Justice Department is looking closely into the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives of major U.S. companies, Reuters reports. Google and Verizon are among the companies being investigated for their diversity initiatives in hiring and promotions. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, Verizon publicly announced that it planned to remove references to DEI from its website and training materials. Additionally, it claimed it would be removing its internal human resources team focused on diversity policies and would no longer offer bonuses or set goals to increase the representation of women and minority employees. “We are committed to creating a culture that leverages and values each person’s unique strengths and talents,” Verizon Chief Legal Officer Vandana Venkatesh said in a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr on May 15. “However, we recognize that the regulatory and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’)...
Has the time finally arrived to change the user address of a Google email account? The tech giant shared a hopeful update just in time for the holidays. The New York Times reports that, although users had previously been able to change their email usernames, if they wanted to keep their data and services such as Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Play, or Google Drive, the address had to remain unchanged. Some users have now been able to change the address for all their accounts ending in @gmail.com, while still having access to their data, such as photos, messages, and emails, unlike before. The feature is not available to all users yet. It appears only on the Hindi-language version of Google’s support page, suggesting it may be available first in India or Hindi-speaking markets for now, according to CNBC. “The ability to change your Google Account email address is gradually rolling out to all users, so this option may not be available to you right now,” according to an English...
Google has unveiled a new project that will reduce the environmental impact of AI on Earth. The tech company unveiled Project Suncatcher, which aims to launch data centers in space powered by solar energy, Business Insider reports. Google is exploring bringing the project to life through a web of solar-powered satellites, equipped with its Tensor Processing Unit AI chips, according to a press release. The project aims to “one day scale machine learning in space.” “Inspired by other Google moonshots like autonomous vehicles and quantum computing, we’ve begun work on the foundational work needed to one day make this future possible,” notes the press release. Google CEO Sundar Pichai confirmed that the company plans to launch the space data centers by 2027. “We’ll send tiny, tiny racks of machines, and have them in satellites, test them out, and then start scaling from there,” Pichai said, according to Business Insider. “At Google, we’re always proud of taking moonshots. One of our...
Google is making it easier for anyone with a Gmail account to create polished, AI-powered videos through its Google Vids product. According to a Nov. 17 blog post from the tech company, advanced Gemini features, previously limited to paid users, are now available to all, letting creators add AI-generated voiceovers, trim silences and filler words, and enhance visuals with built-in AI image editing. To help users get started, Google has released a series of instructional videos on YouTube. One introduction video shows how teams can use the platform for training materials, customer-facing content, project updates, recruiting, and marketing communications. Casual users can also create personalized videos, from vacation highlights to birthday greetings, without needing advanced editing skills, as the blog post notes. According to the same video, Google Vids can be accessed through the Google Apps launcher in Gmail, the “New” button in Google Drive, or by visiting vids.google.com. Typing...
Perplexity AI has released its artificial intelligence-powered browser, Comet, worldwide. The browser is now being offered for free after initially being available only to paid subscribers, CNBC reports. According to the outlet, Comet was first introduced in July. At that time, access was limited to Perplexity Max subscribers at a monthly cost of $200. The company stated that a waitlist of millions had formed before the broader rollout was announced. The browser is designed to serve as a personal digital assistant. Users are able to search the web, organize tabs, draft emails, and shop directly within the browser. According to CNBC, these functions are powered by AI technology intended to simplify everyday online activities. The decision to release Comet for free comes amid growing competition in AI-powered browsers in 2025. Google added Gemini to Chrome in September, Anthropic introduced a browser-based AI agent in August, and OpenAI unveiled Operator in January. CNBC notes that...