After a mild week of tech news, yesterday was explosive. We have the next generation model of Google’s AI, Gemini 2.0, a series of games that will interest us in 2025, the MasterClass will go with AI and, finally, AI tricks that hold the title of Apple and broken features, built in the latest update of iOS. .
That’s what I want to start with. Most of the features in iOS 18.2 are for the iPhone 15 Pro, 16 and 16 Pro only, which pack the smart chips needed to run Apple Intelligence. (Access is also limited to users in the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK at this time.)
Image Playground, available as a standalone app and through Messages, can create image suggestions based on your text commands or content in your conversations. You can use a photo from your iPhone’s camera roll as a starting point. Note Image Playground cannot generate human images that work with graphics. That is by design.
Then there’s Genmoji, to make your own custom emoji. Tap the new Genmoji button and enter a description of the character you want to make. You can even type in a contact’s name, and in context, it will ask if you want to use that person’s photos (if you have them in your photos) to generate the emoji.
Both Siri and writing tools can now call ChatGPT for help, although the devices will always ask for permission before doing so.
Anyway, back to creating an entire library of Genmoji, including… me.
— Matt Smith
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Try the lightweight Flash version of the Gemini web app.
About a week after OpenAI made its o1 model available to the public, Google is giving a preview of its next Gemini 2.0 model. The company says that 2.0 can offer native support for video and audio output. Rather than starting today’s preview by offering its most advanced version of the model, Gemini 2.0 Pro, the search giant instead kicks things off with 2.0 Flash. Starting today, the efficient (and affordable) model is available to all Gemini users. If you want to try it yourself, you can enable Gemini 2.0 from the drop-down menu in the Gemini web client.
Alongside today’s Gemini 2.0 announcement, the company also announced Deep Research, a new tool that uses Gemini 1.5 Pro’s long-form content capabilities to write reports on complex topics.
Keep reading.
It’s a beta test at the moment.
Microsoft has started beta testing to finally bring cloud streaming to Xbox consoles. Participants in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha tiers of the Xbox Insider program can start using this feature now on their Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles. There are still warnings about this feature. First, it’s limited to Game Pass Ultimate members. Second, the game needs to support cloud streaming. There is a short list of topics in the program at the moment, but it covers Baldur’s Gate 3, Balatro, Cyberpunk 2077, Animal Well, Stray and the first six Final Fantasy games.
Keep reading.
Ramseybot, share.
MasterClass expands beyond recorded video lessons to provide on-demand training from some of its famous teachers. And if you’re wondering how the company got some of the busiest people in the world to answer your questions, wonder! The AI. On Call is limited to two people at launch: former FBI agent Chris Voss and University of Berkeley neuroscientist Dr. Matt Walker. In the future, MasterClass says it will offer many more people, such as Gordon Ramsay, Mark Cuban, Bill Nye and LeVar Burton.
Keep reading.
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