Vue lecture

Un an de Gemini et 400 Go gratuits : l’offre de Google à ne pas manquer pour la rentrée

Google remet le couvert pour la rentrée : douze mois de Gemini sont offerts aux étudiants. Le cadeau est néanmoins un peu moins intéressant que l'année dernière : les étudiants français reçoivent Google AI Plus (400 Go de stockage, environ 60 euros de valeur sur douze mois), et non plus l'abonnement AI Pro distribué en 2025.

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Google Buys All of Spirit Airlines' Data to Feed Its AI Models

Google has agreed to pay $10 million for a massive trove of anonymized Spirit Airlines data following the carrier's shutdown, including internal communications, spreadsheets, booking and frequent-flyer records, transactions, and employee information. CNN reports: Did you ever fly on Spirit Airlines? Or work there? Or send an email to someone who worked there? Then your information will soon be feeding Google's artificial intelligence model. The discount airline halted all operations in May, and it's been selling off its remaining assets through the bankruptcy process ever since. While most of that is planes, equipment, and real estate, there's other things that are valuable, too. It was disclosed late Monday that the company agreed to sell its data to Google for $10 million. That includes emails and internal communications, spreadsheets, transactions with the public including bookings and frequent flyer information as well as human resources information on its employees. The data has been stripped of anything that would allow individuals to be identified, according to the court filing. But it is still a massive amount of useful intelligence.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Quel smartphone choisir pour son ado en 2026 ? Le guide d’achat pour un premier téléphone pour la rentrée

Dès l’entrée au collège, la plupart des adolescentes et adolescents formulent le désir d’avoir leur propre smartphone. L’arrivée en sixième est en effet une étape charnière dans leur vie, mais c'est aussi à ce moment qu’ils commencent à gagner en indépendance, notamment pour leurs trajets jusqu’au collège, et un smartphone peut alors devenir un accessoire indispensable pour eux, comme pour les parents.

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Pixel 11, Navigo Annuel sur iPhone et la montée en puissance de Revolut – le récap’ tech de la semaine

Dans une semaine marquée par l'éclipse solaire et les vacances d'été, Google a été le seul géant à faire quelques annonces. Nouveaux Pixel 11, nouvelles Pixel Watch, nouveau modèle Gemini… Les autres grandes annonces tech concernent la France : Revolut a enfin obtenu sa licence bancaire et le passe Navigo annuel est disponible sur iPhone.

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Judge Orders Google To Make Rival App Store Installs Easier

A federal judge has ordered Google to remove what he called "anticompetitive friction" that makes rival Android app stores harder to find and install. The order is part of the remedies stemming from Epic's antitrust victory, which already requires Google to carry competing app stores inside Google Play and give them access to its app catalog. The Verge reports: It's been nearly three years since a jury unanimously decided that Google had an illegal monopoly over Android apps, and almost two years since Judge James Donato decided the best way of undoing that monopoly would be to crack open Android app distribution. Donato ordered Google to carry rival Android app stores inside its own Google Play Store, and to provide rivals with complete access to Google's full catalog of apps, for several years. But Epic argued that Google is still making it too difficult to install rival app stores, showing the entire courtroom a live demo of how many steps it currently takes -- and Judge Donato agreed that some of those steps were unnecessary "anticompetitive friction" and ordered Google to remove them. [...] The judge wants these changes fast. "Have it done by a week from today," he told Google. "If there's some problem with that, let me know."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Éclipse du 12 août : « mal aux yeux », « vision floue »… ces recherches explosent sur Google

Au lendemain de l’éclipse solaire du 12 août 2026, plusieurs recherches liées aux douleurs et aux troubles de la vision ont atteint des niveaux records sur Google. « Mal aux yeux », « tache yeux » ou encore « urgence ophtalmo » : les requêtes racontent l’inquiétude de certains internautes après le phénomène.

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The Pixel Tag Is Google's Answer To the AirTag

Google has unveiled the $29 Pixel Tag, its long-awaited AirTag rival that combines UWB with Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding for two forms of precision tracking. It launches November 11. The Verge reports: The Pixel Tag is a slim oblong device available in one grayish color -- Fog -- that weighs about 12g, or 0.4oz. Like the AirTag, it has no built-in hooks or clips for attaching to objects you want to track. There's a single button that will trigger a sound on your phone, for the rare occasion when you've got the Tag but have lost your main device. It also has an IP67 rating, so it should be safe from dust and rain. As for the battery, the Pixel Tag takes CR2032 coin batteries, and says one battery should last for over a year. Naturally, it'll be compatible with Google's Find Hub network, which leverages the Bluetooth capabilities of Android devices worldwide to help locate lost objects. [...] Once you're close enough to the Pixel Tag, UWB lets the Find Hub app display the distance and direction to the tracker, so long as you're using a phone with a UWB chip. Channel Sounding is a newer development that can display the exact distance, but not direction, and it will work with any phone or tablet that includes Bluetooth 6.0. The Moto Tag 2 is the only other tracker to currently support it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google dévoile les Pixel 11 et remplace son capteur le moins utilisé par… des LED

Avec les Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL et Pixel 11 Pro Fold, Google améliore la formule de l'année dernière sans grande révolution. La nouveauté de 2026 s'appelle HiLight : Google a inséré des LED colorées autour du flash pour permettre au téléphone de communiquer des informations lorsqu'il est retourné.

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Google's $15 Billion India Data Center Project Battles Water, Wildlife Concerns

Google's $15 billion data-center project in Visakhapatnam is facing protests and legal challenges over fears that it will worsen local water shortages and disturb wildlife near the Kambalakonda sanctuary. Google says the campus will use advanced air cooling and comply with Indian law, while state officials deny that residential or rural water supplies will be tapped. Reuters reports: The southern state of Andhra Pradesh, governed by an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has hailed the project as historic and transformational, has denied allegations that the project was fast-tracked without weighing risks to water supplies and wildlife. But the growing opposition could become an early test for Google's biggest-ever India investment, which is facing several legal challenges over its impact on water supplies and proximity to a wildlife sanctuary that is home to leopards and pangolins. In recent weeks, activists and children have marched in Visakhapatnam city, holding banners saying "We cannot drink DATA" and painting handcuffs on the Google logo, social media posts show. On Sunday, Reuters attended a public gathering where activists chalked out plans for holding door-to-door awareness campaigns and beach protests in coming days. "Development should not be at the cost of livelihood of the people," Raja Rama Mohan Roy, founder of non-profit Green Visakha said at the event where he presented statistics on Visakhapatnam's stressed water supply and demand. The government says the city receives 410 million liters of water a day from its reservoirs and rivers, against a requirement of 480 million. Rationing of water supplies is common in the city with a population of 2.5 million people. [...] The state's top court on Monday asked the government to defend against allegations leveled by activist group Jal Biradari (Water Community), which says the project will strain water availability by putting stress on a nearby reservoir. The Andhra Pradesh High Court will next hear the public interest litigation on August 24.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Journée noire pour l’IA chez Google : Demis Hassabis n’est plus à la tête de DeepMind

Considéré comme l’un des architectes de l’intelligence artificielle moderne, Demis Hassabis était devenu le visage de Google dans la révolution des LLM. Le prix Nobel de chimie abandonne la direction opérationnelle de Google DeepMind et va se consacrer à la recherche scientifique et à l’AGI dans un nouveau poste taillé sur mesure. Wall Street a sanctionné l’annonce, tombée le même jour que le départ de Jeff Dean après 27 ans chez Google : l’action Alphabet a perdu 4,05 %.

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Google Overhauls AI Leadership As DeepMind CEO Steps Aside

Google is reshuffling its AI leadership as Demis Hassabis steps away from day-to-day management of DeepMind to become chairman and Alphabet's chief scientist, while CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu takes operational control. Meanwhile, longtime chief scientist Jeff Dean and several prominent researchers are leaving to launch their own company. Axios reports: Hassabis will add the title of chief scientist for Google parent company Alphabet and also continue to lead Isomorphic Labs, the company's AI drug discovery spinoff. Koray Kavukcuoglu, the current chief technology officer of Google DeepMind will serve as senior VP of the unit, reporting to CEO Sundar Pichai. Dean, a 27-year Google veteran is starting Discovery Loop, an independent publicity benefit corporation in which Google will be an investor and cloud provider. Joining him in that effort are Google senior fellow Sanjay Ghemawat as well as Oriol Vinyals, a DeepMind VP and Quoc Le, a Google Brain co-founder. [...] In an interview with The New York Times, Dean indicated that leaving Google, a public company, gives him more leeway to focus on scientific discoveries associated with AI as well. "We might make decisions that are not necessarily in the company's purist financial interests," he told NYT. "I've been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand," Hassabis wrote. "It's critical that we collectively get the next steps right to ensure this all goes well for humanity and we usher in an incredible new age of discovery and wonder." "With this backdrop, I've decided that now is the right time for me to hand over my day-to-day operational responsibilities at GDM, so that I have the time and space to focus on the big picture and help influence what is to come to the best of my ability"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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L’IA est incapable de produire quelque chose de nouveau, et c’est un chercheur de Google DeepMind qui le dit

Les intelligences artificielles génèrent des images, écrivent du code et résolvent des problèmes complexes. Mais produisent-elles réellement quelque chose de nouveau ? Pour Tom Zahavy, chercheur chez Google DeepMind, les modèles actuels restent incapables du « saut » intellectuel qui permet de formuler une idée sans précédent.

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