Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics 2 combines vision, language, and action models to control multiple types of robots, including humanoids performing tasks such as organizing shelves, tying bags, and replacing lightbulbs. "It's another milestone in our path towards really getting towards what we call like physical AGI, which means we get a robot to do anything that a human can," Carolina Parada, head of robotics at Google DeepMind, tells WIRED. From the report: Gemini Robotics 2 combines several different AI models into a single system. Taken together, they allow a robot to make sense of its surroundings and how to act in it. A vision language model (VLM), which understands images and video, can communicate with humans and reason how to perform different tasks. Two vision language action (VLA) models, trained to understand how to move in physical space, control the robot's full-body movement as well as the movements of grippers or hands. In video demonstrations shared ahead of the release, the company showed several different robots performing complex tasks autonomously using the amalgamated model. In one demo, Apptronik's Apollo 2 robot used hands from a company called Sharpa to tidy shelves. Google DeepMind trained the model to perform these tasks using a mix of human teleoperation, video examples, and simulations -- it's not yet possible for AI models to perform a wide range of complex tasks without specific training. [...] Parada says Google takes a multi-layered approach to safety, with guardrails applied on each model layer. It's also introducing ASIMOV-Agentic, a new benchmark for measuring the safety of various AI systems collaborating to control a robot. The benchmark detects whether a command will result in harmful or uncertain outcome.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is expanding its answer to Apple's age-assurance tools with Wednesday's news that it will bring its Play Signal API to users worldwide by the end of 2026. The technology, already available in Brazil, allows Android developers to identify younger users of their apps in order to provide safer, age-appropriate experiences. The expansion will initially bring the API to Australia and Canada by mid-August, before rolling out globally to all markets by the end of the year. [...] Like Apple, Google's technology allows developers to obtain a user's age range without needing to access personal information, like their date of birth. Instead, it enables parents to share their child's age range directly with apps. It also lets adults share their age when prompted by app developers as well, allowing for customized experiences. Parents won't have to manage sharing this information on an app-by-app basis, either. To make it easier, Google centralizes these controls inside its parental controls dashboard, Family Link. Once entered, any developer that chooses to incorporate age-range information can access this signal to customize their apps accordingly. Google notes, however, that the age ranges are not shared by default -- parents must opt in by entering that information. The feature joins other safety tools on Google Play, including those that let developers restrict a child's ability to discover their apps. Parents, meanwhile, can continue to use Google Play's Family Link app to manage their child's screen-time limits, approve app downloads, or set PIN-based content filters for specific apps.

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