A Technology blog focusing on portable devices.
. I have a Culture, Politic and Religion Blog @ Opinion.
I have a Jazz Blog @ Jazz. I have a Human Rights Blog @ Law.
“Google announced Gemini Omni, a multimodal AI video creation tool that can generate videos from text, images, and existing videos. Omni features advanced editing capabilities, allowing users to modify or replace elements within videos. The tool will be integrated into the Gemini app, Google Flow, and YouTube Shorts, with a watermark indicating AI-generated content.
Gemini Omni will transform the way you edit videos.
Google/Screenshot by Blake Stimac
Google announced its latest AI product, Gemini Omni, during its I/O conference on Tuesday. Unlike existing text-to-video products such as Veo, Omni can take in virtually any input to create realistic, lifelike videos.
Built on Gemini modeling architecture, Omni is a true multimodal input and output system, allowing you to create videos from text, images and existing videos. At launch, you'll be able to create videos with the aforementioned inputs, but image; text generations will be available in a future update.
With Gemini at its core, Omni can process and interpret multiple types of inputs to produce a consistent, sophisticated final product. Omni builds on Google's existing products by integrating Gemini Intelligence.
The rise of AI-created videos comes at a paradoxical time as companies such as Google make incredible advances with the technology, while social media feeds become more filled with AI slop. Google considers Omni the "next big step" toward building AI that can model and simulate the real world. It's a world model with advanced reasoning, capable of generating videos grounded in the world we know today. Omni demonstrates advanced physics capabilities, enabling it to create realistic video outputs. Here's what's coming in Gemini Omni from Google I/O.
Powerful (and scary) editing capabilities
As with its powerful video generation, Omni also has advanced video editing capabilities. If you create a video with Omni, you can feed it back into the tool, make impressive changes with just a prompt or incorporate additional media. You can even upload your own videos and change or swap out individual elements, allowing for a new way to edit videos that has essentially never been available before.
That ability to fully replace elements in a person's video could lead to some dark outcomes, making Omni's advanced editing abilities as alarming as they are impressive. But Google has built-in guardrails. First, any output from Omni will automatically include Google's SynthID watermark, so you know that what you're viewing has been altered in some way by AI. This is a big deal, as Omni essentially lets you change how reality is perceived.
Multiple access points
People will be able to play with Gemini Omni in a variety of ways. It's a prominent feature within the newly redesigned Gemini app, where you can add built-in templates to your camera roll with a single click. Additionally, you'll be able to create a custom avatar that looks and sounds like you and add it to videos.
For some paid subscribers, Omni will be available on Google Flow and YouTube Shorts, starting on Tuesday. Omni will roll out to developers and enterprise customers via APIs in the coming weeks, allowing for custom integrations.
Omni Flash and Omni Pro
Like most Gemini models, Omni will be split into Flash and Pro versions, though the former will be available initially. Google is working on an even more powerful model, Omni Pro, which will become available in the future.”
“Google is releasing three new smart glasses products this year, including a prototype dual-display set and wireless AI glasses made with Samsung, Gentle Monster, and Warby Parker. These glasses feature advanced AI capabilities, such as language translation and AI-generated widgets, and are designed to integrate seamlessly with existing phone apps and services. While Google acknowledges privacy concerns surrounding smart glasses, they are working on measures like bystander LED indicators and fraud detection to address these issues.
Samsung, Google, Gentle Monster, Warby Parker and Xreal are going some wild Gemini places. But how will they address the growing privacy concerns?
Google and Samsung's glasses, left, and Google and Xreal's Project Aura, right, are two parts of a new wave of Gemini-powered tech arriving this fall.
Scott Stein/CNET
I found myself facing a wall, talking to a smiling molecule that emerged from a vase. I had pinched my fingers over the very real vase, and now a very unreal molecule floated in front of me, googly eyes blinking, as it told me about its properties in ceramic material. This whole chat, AI-generated via Gemini, emerged as a hovering 3D graphic on glasses I was wearing. They were plugged into a phone-sized device running an app that was apparently coded on the fly in just days.
This advanced AR glasses setup, known as Project Aura, is just one of three Google glasses products coming this year. And there's more -- also on deck are wireless AI glasses made with Samsung, Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, slated for the fall, ready to compete with Meta's Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. I spent time with all of them, and even a prototype dual-display set of wireless glasses, at Google's Mountain View campus. Back in December, I'd done a demo as well, but my latest deep dive showed me more, and better, things that all of these glasses can do. I was wowed.
Will Google help make smart glasses feel more everyday and useful? Or solve how offputting and potentially threatening their cameras and AI tech make some people feel? My latest set of demos at Google's campus, part of Google's AI-centric I/O developer conference, convinced me that they could be the best smart glasses out there. They could even help redefine what smart glasses can be. And they're the first glasses I've seen that really feel ready to work with the apps and services we have on phones already.
In 2026 we've seen a flood of smart glasses, a category of product that most people don't wear and many are increasingly wary of. But Google's Gemini-powered glasses could change what's possible more than nearly any other glasses I've seen so far. The reason, clearly, is the AI and software under the hood -- and what Google's doing to lay groundwork for where Apple is reportedly heading too. That's even clearer to me now after meeting again with Google's head of XR, Shahram Izadi, and Samsung's Jay Kim, head of that company's MX customer experience division.
These are prototype glasses, with custom prescription inserts added for the demo, but these Samsung/Google glasses are lightweight and still have a display in one lens.
Scott Stein/CNET
Google's glasses look ready to one-up Meta on AI smarts
I test-drove multiple versions of the smart glasses that Google and Samsung are releasing later this year. What I saw were still prototype models, but their more watch- and phone-connected features have more AI skills than Meta's latest glasses. But they still don't have prices yet, or even an official name.
Called "Intelligent Eyewear" for now, the glasses will be given product names later on by Warby Parker, Gentle Monster and Samsung when they're released this fall, according to Izadi, who spoke with me at Google's headquarters.
Watch this: The Future of Smart Glasses Is Coming This Fall
The glasses will all have cameras, microphones and embedded speakers like Meta's line of smart glasses, and also will come in display-free and single-display versions. The always-on Gemini Live mode on these glasses could follow me around a room and describe plants or tell me how to play a board game. I've seen these tricks before. But Google's advantage over Meta is how these AI tools relay back to apps already on phones, like Google Keep and Google Calendar. Or appear on watches.
My room experiences using Gemini Live on the glasses, saved as a record in Google Keep on a connected phone.
Scott Stein/CNET
A translation demo I tried showed how automatic language recognition could identify French or Portuguese, spoken by people in the room with me. I saw on-screen captions in the display-enabled glasses, and audio translation relayed at a slight delay, tone-matched to speaking cadence and perceived speaker gender.
The glasses can also show AI-generated widgets that can work like mini apps to show quick-glance information like weather, scrollable in a stack.
One of the Warby Parker glasses designs, which I didn't get to try on, is coming this fall.
Google
Lightweight, in multiple designs
These glasses feel lighter-weight than Meta's Ray-Ban Displays: At 49 grams, they felt close to the heft of display-free Meta Ray-Bans. The two Warby Parker and Gentle Monster designs weren't something I got to try yet, but the prototype pair I wore is meant to represent a similar size and comfort, and they felt good despite having a single display inside one lens. They're definitely smaller than the equivalent, larger pair of display-enabled Ray-Ban Displays.
The Gentle Monster frames have a distinctive look.
Google
The Warby Parker and Gentle Monster designs look fun, though, at least in photos. Warby's rounded edges look good, with a frame that still seems somewhat thick. The oval-shaped Gentle Monster frames are definitely going for a different look, and I'm curious how much more other design types flex. There will be more, Izadi and Kim confirmed.
The prototypes I wore again, meanwhile, look more like Ray-Bans: generic and black-framed but functional.
Photos taken on the Samsung/Google glasses relayed instantly to the connected phone and smartwatch. WearOS watches could act as glasses viewfinders.
Scott Stein/CNET
Connecting with watches as well as phones
Photos I took on the glasses popped up moments later on a Pixel Watch worn by one of Google's team, showing off how a WearOS smartwatch could be a connected camera viewfinder. I tried taking a photo of the room with the glasses and adding Nano Banana effects: a David Lynch vibe and 1930s cartoon characters eating sushi. The image was updated in under a minute on the glasses, and it also popped up on the watch and the phone.
Nano Banana's Lynch-with-cartoon-with-sushi AI reinvention of a photo taken with the glasses. It showed up in-glasses, and on the phone shortly after.
Scott Stein/CNET
The glasses have a touchpad in one arm, which works with angle and double taps and swipes (single tap-hold for Gemini, double finger swipe for volume), and a camera shutter button on the top of one arm. They could also be controlled to some degree with a watch, although I didn't get to try that. Watch gestures would help, especially since Google doesn't have anything like Meta's neural band yet.
Dual displays are coming, too
Google's also working on dual-display glasses, which might not come until at least 2027. The prototypes I demoed again were notably heavier, and while I also tried this demo last year, this time the quality looked better for playing a Spider-Man clip converted to 3D by YouTube, and playing back 3D models that I could move with tilts and turns of my head, almost like augmented reality. Scrolling widgets moved by in 3D too.
The dual-display model is still being finessed, and Izadi and Kim acknowledged that there's no release timeframe yet. It's next on deck: maybe next year or the year after. But Izadi expects dual, single and no-display glasses to be on sale together down the road, likely at a range of prices.
AI privacy measures? Unknown
Samsung's and Google's teams admit that the world of wearables is a challenge to figure out and that public apprehension about face tech and camera-enabled glasses is something that still needs to be figured out. Meta's already faced multiple privacy problems and has muddy lines on its AI privacy policies. Google plans to go into more details on data privacy on its glasses at a fall event, says Izadi.
"We've been doing a lot of thinking from the very beginning with these kinds of devices. Given the privacy aspects, you have to design with privacy in mind from the very, very beginning and leverage some of the standards that have been set in the AI world," says Izadi, who adds that a bystander LED indicator, fraud detection for AI and other features are part of the glasses.
But expect the privacy rules for Gemini to work much like Gemini already does on phones, although glasses will have more situations where they could run in a live, always-on mode. Izadi says some of the challenge is "user education" but that when it comes to privacy "we do need to raise the bar, for sure."
"I think market expectation is higher on us," Samsung's Kim adds. "We're studying a lot. We've been thinking about it for a long time, from the beginning."
The prototype glasses I tried run the same experiences as the upcoming Warby Parker and Gentle Monster models.
Scott Stein/CNET
Prescriptions shouldn't be a problem
I did my demos of all these glasses using custom inserts matched to my heavily myopic prescription, but Google and Samsung are confident that their range of all-day smart glasses with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster will support prescription ranges including my own, even in display-enabled models.
"We are really going deep there," says Izadi. "This is where some of the partnerships with the eyewear companies have been really important." Izadi points to the display-enabled Even Realities G2 glasses that I've worn using my prescription as "existence proof" that they can be made.
I hope so, because I plan to test out Google's glasses as my everyday pair. Unlike Meta's prescription support-limited Ray-Ban Displays, it looks like that could actually happen.
Google Health? Possible at some point
Google's new Fitbit Air and Gemini-powered health coach, which I'm test driving now, already had me thinking about how fitness and health could be a part of the next wave of glasses. Izadi acknowledges that the glasses could access data like this and interconnect, just not right away.
Kim points to the triangulation between rings and watches and glasses and phone.
"Everything will come together in a way to support each other," he says, but also adds "You don't want to overwhelm the consumer, it has to be very natural and fit into your body."
At its Unpacked event in July, Samsung is going to get into more glasses details and reveal more Gentle Monster and Warby Parker designs, so we may learn more on the fitness front there. But it's clear that Samsung and Google are going to make it happen. Meta's fitness focus with its glasses and Garmin, and the whole outdoors lifestyle pitch of glasses, makes it an obvious fit.
Xreal's Project Aura supports hand tracking, and it works just like it does on VR headsets to pinch, scroll and control apps.
Scott Stein/CNET
Project Aura: A pocket-size Gemini computer plus glasses
Now let's get back to that talking molecule demo that stunned me, which came courtesy of Google and Xreal's Project Aura, one of the most fascinating products I've seen in a while. It's not the first time I've tried it, but as Aura readies to launch later this year, this new batch of demos reminded me what amazed me back in December. In many ways, this glasses-plus-processor-puck combo delivers what a VR headset can do, and possibly more, in a little package that also works with your phone, laptop or Steam Deck.
It doesn't work with your phone directly. Instead, it has a processor puck that runs Android XR and Android apps, relaying this to glasses. It's very much a living model of what Meta's Project Orion prototype AR glasses were going for two years ago when I tried them, but with hardware available now, and with hand tracking via cameras instead of using a gestural neural band like Meta has.
Anyone who's ever tried a pair of display-enabled tethered glasses, like those that Xreal or Viture or TCL sell, might know how good these "headphones for your eyes" can look. Project Aura is better, extending the field of view of its microOLED displays to 70 degrees, effectively enough to fill the glasses and not feel like you're missing too much.
Project Aura comes with its own travel case. The processor puck it uses is about the size of a phone.
Scott Stein/CNET
Aura, as I said last year, can do all the things Samsung's 6-month-old Galaxy XR mixed reality headset can do -- but in a smaller package. The phone-sized processor puck has a touchpad surface and fingerprint ID button, and runs all the Android apps and VR/AR-enabled experiences that Galaxy XR does. The glasses have cameras and depth sensors that can enable hand tracking, pinching and scrolling apps and playing VR games.
But this little package can also run a lot of AI-intensive things. Gemini Live can run in conjunction with any app, but you can also plug in other devices via USB-C/DisplayPort. Connecting a Steam Deck meant I could play Hollow Knight on the glasses on the big screen, but also open a YouTube window and drag it next to the game in any position, watching run-throughs. It can support five apps open at once, or have Gemini Live watch my Steam Deck gameplay and give playthrough advice. I could connect an iPhone or a MacBook or any other device and layer it with Gemini Live analysis, too.
The Xreal Project Aura glasses with my prescription inserts. They look and function a lot like Xreal's other glasses, with a whole extra dose of Gemini and Android XR and hand tracking.
Scott Stein/CNET
Aura as a road to AI coding for XR?
What really wowed me was seeing an app vibe-coded with Google tools that ran right in Aura via WebXR, demonstrating how Aura could potentially be used to AI code and preview 3D experiences that I've never seen done before. One app I tried, a 3D drawing experience called 3D Paint -- I used my fingers to sketch in the air like the old VR app Tilt Brush -- was was vibe-coded in Chrome on Project Aura using Gemini Canvas. Apparently it took minutes to do.
Two other apps -- a Gemini music experience called Gemini Melody where I sketched lines in the air and had Gemini turn them into musical tones and interactive music tracks, and that talking molecule experience, called Gemini Molecule -- were standalone XR apps made in a week, coded using Google Antigravity and Gemini APIs. They're all demos of what sorts of AI-powered XR apps could be made and tested with Project Aura. If this is as easy to do as Google makes it seem, Project Aura could transform the VR/AR landscape in wild ways. It makes me want to try to vibe code.
Samsung and Google glasses on my eyes, Xreal Project Aura perched on my head. When will these concepts converge?
Scott Stein/CNET
Aura shows where glasses and phones could head next
Aura will go on sale as an actual product later this year, but at an unknown price. I expect it might be a more expensive product than I'd like, but it's also truly a shrunken-down set of some of the same pieces that Vision Pro and Galaxy XR were aiming for, in a form I'm more likely to use on the go. It's part dev kit, part portable VR replacement and preview of where AR glasses that connect with our phones could eventually evolve.
Imagine the phone-sized processing puck that Aura uses being the phone in our pockets instead. Current phones can't do it, but Aura feels like a preview of what's possible.
"No plans yet, but it's an obvious next step, I would say a logical next step," Izadi says to me of taking the Aura experience into glasses that work with our phones directly. But that might take some time.
Kim adds, "I think the phone will probably stay as a sort of central hub for many years to come," noting that phones and watches are destined to stay connected to phones down the road.
I agree. But it's clear that the capabilities of those connections are just getting started. Project Aura is going to arrive sometime later this year alongside the wireless Warby Parker and Gentle Monster glasses, but it's a more advanced preview of a full computer with Gemini… and, really, the AR glasses I've been waiting for.”
“Google announced major updates to its Gemini app, including the new Gemini 3.5 Flash AI model, which is faster and more efficient than previous models. The app will also feature a redesigned interface with smoother animations, vibrant colors, and reformatted responses with imagery and interactive elements.
Google announced some big updates for its Gemini app during its annual I/O event on Tuesday. Though you might notice the redesign first, Google is also bringing two new AI models to Gemini and is testing out an always-on AI model that can complete tasks on your behalf.
Here are all the biggest updates to Gemini announced at I/O.
Image: Google
The latest version of Google’s flagship AI model is coming to the Gemini app. Google says the new model, Gemini 3.5 Flash, is faster and more efficient than other leading AI models, while offering the ability to generate “richer, more interactive” web user interfaces and graphics. It also offers a “major leap forward” when it comes to coding useful AI agents, beating Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding and agentic benchmarks, according to Google.
This is just the first in the Gemini 3.5 family of models, as Google plans to launch 3.5 Pro next month.
Along with a new model, Google is giving its Gemini app a bit of a makeover with its “Neural Expressive” design language. The revamped app has smoother animations, more vibrant colors, new typography, and haptic feedback that occurs when you tap buttons in the app.
Google also reformatted Gemini’s responses, which will now put the most important information at the top and include imagery, interactive timelines, narrated videos, and dynamic graphics. Google is making it easier to switch from typing text in the Gemini app to the voice-enabled Gemini Live mode, too, which will soon have new regional dialects.“
“OpenAI won a lawsuit against Elon Musk, allowing it to proceed with its initial public offering. However, the company faces challenges from competitors like Anthropic and Google, who are rapidly improving their AI technologies. OpenAI also faces numerous lawsuits related to copyright infringement and wrongful death, and Musk plans to appeal the recent court decision.
A jury’s rejection of Elon Musk’s $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI was a major hurdle crossed. But the maker of ChatGPT faces a list of other problems.
Lawyers for OpenAI, who won a resounding victory on Monday, outside the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif. Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters
Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s head of strategy, celebrated with a team of lawyers in a federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, after Elon’s Musk’s $150 billion lawsuit against the artificial intelligence company was rejected by a nine-member jury in less than two hours.
But Mr. Kwon and OpenAI cannot afford to celebrate for very long.
Although the decision left OpenAI free to continue with its plans for an initial public offering as soon as this year, the company still faces a long list of other challenges as it approaches what could be one of the largest Wall Street debuts in history.
Rival A.I. companies like Anthropic and Google are rapidly improving their technologies, giving OpenAI far more competition than it faced during the first three years of the A.I. boom. Dozens of other lawsuits accuse OpenAI of everything from copyright infringement to wrongful death. And Mr. Musk has already vowed to appeal Monday’s decision.
In a lawsuit filed in 2024, Mr. Musk accused OpenAI, its chief executive, Sam Altman, and its president, Greg Brockman, of breaching the A.I. lab’s founding agreement by putting commercial gain over the public good. Mr. Musk founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 alongside Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman, before leaving in a struggle for power.
After Mr. Musk left, Mr. Altman attached a commercial company to the original nonprofit and began raising billions of dollars from Microsoft. OpenAI is now valued at $730 billion.
Mr. Musk asked for a court order unraveling another move OpenAI made last year to give the for-profit company more control. On Monday, after less than two hours of deliberation, the jury said that he had not filed his suit before the expiration of a statute of limitations. It did not actually consider his claims, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed them after the jury’s decision.
If Mr. Musk had succeeded, OpenAI’s plans to go public would have been caught in limbo. But now that its plans can move ahead, OpenAI faces significant business challenges.
Though it has raised tens of billions of dollars in funding over the past several years, OpenAI remains a long way from being profitable. Investors may expect it to close the enormous gap between how much money is heading out the door and how much it is taking in.
The company’s revenues are on the rise amid the rising popularity of Codex, an OpenAI technology that is particularly good at writing computer code. And the company has a new revenue stream now that it has started to serve ads inside ChatGPT. But the competition is doing the same.
Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, outside the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., after Sam Altman and OpenAI won a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk.Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images
In November, Google ratcheted up the pressure when it released a new A.I. model called Gemini 3, saying the technology had surpassed OpenAI’s leading technology and was now the best in the world. Anthropic also started grabbing big chunks of the market with its A.I. technology, called Claude.
In just a few months, Anthropic added thousands of big business customers and more than doubled the revenue it expects to see this year to $19 billion, up from $9 billion last year. A high-profile disagreement with the Defense Department raised Anthropic’s public profile, and its smartphone app climbed to the No. 1 spot in Apple’s App Store.
Anthropic grabbed more headlines when it unveiled a new A.I. system called Claude Mythos and said the technology was too powerful to share with the general public, because hackers could use it to exploit security holes in computer networks with unusual speed. Anthropic shared the technology with only about 40 organizations, so they could use it shore up holes in common internet infrastructure.
OpenAI released its own technology designed specifically for cybersecurity. And its technologies continue to outperform most systems on the market, according to standard benchmarks. But Google is a formidable rival in the ad market. And after Anthropic’s sudden rise, OpenAI faces a battle as it tries to sell its technology to businesses.
In an effort to meet its soaring demand, Anthropic recently made a deal with Mr. Musk’s firm SpaceX to use all of the computing capacity from the rocket company’s Colossus 1 data center in Memphis.
Google and Anthropic declined to comment on the verdict in the trial.
As OpenAI fights its rivals, it also faces myriad battles in the courts.
Book authors, publishers and news organizations have sued OpenAI for copyright infringement, claiming their copyrighted works were illegally used to train its A.I. systems. Many parents and other groups have sued the company for negligence and wrongful death, claiming that ChatGPT contributed to various suicides and school shootings.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied the suit’s claims.)
And despite Monday’s decision, the company still faces a legal challenge from Mr. Musk because he and his lawyers said they would appeal.
“The judge and jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality,” Mr. Musk said in a social media post. “There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!”
Peter Molk, a law professor at the University of Florida who specializes in corporate structures, said that while Mr. Musk lost in court on Monday, there was still a chance this case could stir anger in the court of public opinion. And that, he said, could get the attention of the state attorneys general who approved the company’s new for-profit structure.
“This could raise some concerning flags that the state attorneys general could have a reason to revisit OpenAI’s structure,” he said.
Catherine Bracy, who helps lead a coalition of organizations called EyesOnOpenAI, said people should continue to question OpenAI’s restructuring as for-profit. Ms. Bracy, who was in the courtroom for much of the trial, has long complained that California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, allowed OpenAI’s restructuring to move forward.
“In light of the mounting evidence of OpenAI’s unlawful abdication of its nonprofit mission,” she said, Mr. Bonta “must revisit his agreement with OpenAI, order an independent valuation of the nonprofit’s assets and compel their transfer to a truly independent charitable entity.”
Cade Metz is a Times reporter who writes about artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality and other emerging areas of technology.
Natallie Rocha is a San Francisco-based technology reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.“
