Google rolls out major AI update with Gemini assistant

Google is rolling out ambitious updates to its artificial intelligence, including using the Gemini model as a universal assistant. NBC News' Brian Cheung examines how Google plans to use AI to turn its search engine into a chatbot, including the ability to help users try on and buy clothes. May 21, 2025

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Guardian

3 hours ago

• The Guardian

Internet users advised to change passwords after 16bn logins exposed

Internet users have been told to change their passwords and upgrade their digital security after researchers claimed to have revealed the scale of sensitive information – 16bn login records – potentially available to cybercriminals. Researchers at Cybernews, an online tech publication, said they had found 30 datasets stuffed with credentials harvested from malicious software known as 'infostealers' and leaks. The researchers said the datasets were exposed 'only briefly' but amounted to 16bn login records, with an unspecified number of overlapping records – meaning it is difficult to say definitively how many accounts or people have been exposed. Cybernews said the credentials could open access to services including Facebook, Apple and Google – although there had been no 'centralised data breach' at those companies. Bob Diachenko, the Ukrainian cybersecurity specialist behind the research, said the datasets had become temporarily available after being poorly stored on remote servers – before being removed again. Diachenko said he was able to download the files and would aim to contact individuals and companies that had been exposed. 'It will take some time of course because it is an enormous amount of data,' he said. Diachenko said the information he had seen in infostealer logs included login URLs to Apple, Facebook and Google login pages. Apple and Facebook's parent, Meta, have been contacted for comment. A Google spokesperson said the data reported by Cybernews did not stem from a Google data breach – and recommended people use tools like Google's password manager to protect their accounts. Internet users are also able to check if their email has been compromised in a data breach by using the website Cybernews said the information seen in the datasets followed a 'clear structure: URL, followed by login details and a password'. Diachenko said the data appeared to be '85% infostealers' and about 15% from historical data breaches such as a leak suffered by LinkedIn. Experts said the research underlined the need to update passwords regularly and adopt tough security measures such as multifactor authentication – or combining a password with another form of verification such as a code texted from a phone. Other recommended measures include passkeys, a password-free method championed by Google and Facebook's owner, Meta. 'While you'd be right to be startled at the huge volume of data exposed in this leak it's important to note that there is no new threat here: this data will have already likely have been in circulation,' said Peter Mackenzie, the director of incident response and readiness at the cybersecurity firm Sophos. Mackenzie said the research underlined the scale of data that can be accessed by online criminals. 'What we are understanding is the depth of information available to cybercriminals.' He added: 'It is an important reminder to everyone to take proactive steps to update passwords, use a password manager and employ multifactor authentication to avoid credential issues in the future.' Toby Lewis, the global head of threat analysis at the cybersecurity firm Darktrace, said the data flagged in the research is hard to verify but infostealers – the malware reportedly behind the data theft – are 'very much real and in use by bad actors'. He said: 'They don't access a user's account but instead scrape information from their browser cookies and metadata. If you're following good practice of using password managers, turning on two-factor authentication and checking suspicious logins, this isn't something you should be greatly worried about.' Cybernews said none of the datasets have been reported previously barring one revealed in May with 184m records. It described the datasets as a 'blueprint for mass exploitation' including 'account takeover, identity theft, and highly targeted phishing'. The researchers added: 'The only silver lining here is that all of the datasets were exposed only briefly: long enough for researchers to uncover them, but not long enough to find who was controlling vast amounts of data.' Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said the news was a reminder to carry out 'password spring cleaning'. He added: 'The fact that everything seems to be breached eventually is why there is such a big push for zero trust security measures.'

Spectator

7 hours ago

• Spectator

Is AI eating your brain?

Do you remember long division? I do, vaguely – I certainly remember mastering it at school: that weird little maths shelter you built, with numbers cowering inside like fairytale children, and a wolf-number at the door, trying to eat them (I had quite a vivid imagination as a child). Then came the carnage as the wolf got in – but also a sweet satisfaction at the end. The answer! You'd completed the task with nothing but your brain, a pen, and a scrap of paper. You'd thought your way through it. You'd done something, mentally. You were a clever boy. I suspect 80 to 90 per cent of universities will close within the next ten years Could I do long division now? Honestly, I doubt it. I've lost the knack. But it doesn't matter, because decades ago we outsourced and off-brained that job to machines – pocket calculators – and now virtually every human on earth carries a calculator in their pocket, via their phones. Consequently, we've all become slightly dumber, certainly less skilled, because the machines are doing all the skilful work of boring mathematics. Long division is, of course, just one example. The same has happened to spelling, navigation, translation, even the choosing of music. Slowly, silently, frog-boilingly, we are ceding whole provinces of our minds to the machine. What's more, if a new academic study is right, this is about to get scarily and dramatically worse (if it isn't already worsening), as the latest AI models – from clever Claude Opus 4 to genius Gemini 2.5 Pro – supersede us in all cerebral departments. The recent study was done by the MIT Media Lab. The boffins in Boston apparently strapped EEG caps to a group of students and set them a task: write short essays, some using their own brains, some using Google, and some with ChatGPT. The researchers then watched what happened to their neural activity. The results were quite shocking, though not entirely surprising: the more artificial intelligence you used, the more your actual intelligence sat down for a cuppa. Those who used no tools at all lit up the EEG: they were thinking. Those using Google sparkled somewhat less. And those relying on ChatGPT? Their brains dimmed and flickered like a guttering candle in a draughty church. It gets worse still. The ChatGPT group not only produced the dullest prose – safe, oddly samey, you know the score – but they couldn't even remember what they'd written. When asked to recall their essays minutes later, 78 per cent failed. Most depressingly of all, when you took ChatGPT away, their brain activity stayed low, like a child sulking after losing its iPad. The study calls this 'cognitive offloading', which sounds sensible and practical, like a power station with a backup. What it really means is: the more you let the machine think for you, the harder it becomes to think at all. And this ain't just theory. The dulling of the mind, the lessening need for us to learn and think, is already playing out in higher education. New York Magazine's Intelligencer recently spoke to students from Columbia, Stanford, and other colleges who now routinely offload their essays and assignments to ChatGPT. They do this because professors can no longer reliably detect AI-generated work; detection tools fail to spot the fakes most of the time. One professor is quoted thus: 'massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate.' In the UK the situation's no better. A recent Guardian investigation revealed nearly 7,000 confirmed cases of AI-assisted cheating across British universities last year – more than double the previous year, and that's just the ones who got caught. One student admitted submitting an entire philosophy dissertation written by ChatGPT, then defending it in a viva without having read it. The result? Degrees are becoming meaningless, and the students themselves – bright, ambitious, intrinsically capable – are leaving education maybe less able than when they entered. The inevitable endpoint of all this, for universities, is not good. Indeed, it's terminal. Who is going to take on £80k of debt to spend three years asking AI to write essays that are then marked by overworked tutors using AI – so that no actual human does, or learns, anything? Who, in particular, is going to do this when AI means there aren't many jobs at the end, anyhow? I suspect 80 to 90 per cent of universities will close within the next ten years. The oldest and poshest might survive as finishing schools – expensive playgrounds where rich kids network and get laid. But almost no one will bother with that funny old 'education' thing – the way most people today don't bother to learn the viola, or Serbo-Croat, or Antarctic kayaking. Beyond education, the outlook is nearly as bad – and I very much include myself in that: my job, my profession, the writer. Here's a concrete example. Last week I was in the Faroe Islands, at a notorious 'beauty spot' called Trælanípa – the 'slave cliff'. It's a mighty rocky precipice at the southern end of a frigid lake, where it meets the sea. The cliff is so-called because this is the place where Vikings ritually hurled unwanted slaves to their grisly deaths. Appalled and fascinated, I realised I didn't know much about slavery in Viking societies. It's been largely romanticised away, as we idealise the noble, wandering Norsemen with their rugged individualism. Knowing they had slaves to wash their undercrackers rather spoils the myth. So I asked Claude Opus 4 to write me a 10,000-word essay on 'the history, culture and impact of slavery in Viking society.' The result – five minutes later – was not far short of gobsmacking. Claude chose an elegant title ('Chains of the North Wind'), then launched into a stylish, detailed, citation-rich essay. If I had stumbled on it in a library or online, I would have presumed it was the product of a top professional historian, in full command of the facts, taking a week or two to write. But it was written by AI. In about the time it will take you to read this piece. This means most historians are doomed (like most writers). This means no one will bother learning history in order to write history. This means we all get dumber, just as the boffins in Boston are predicting. I'd love to end on a happy note. But I'm sorry, I'm now so dim I can't think of one. So instead, I'm going to get ChatGPT to fact-check this article – as I head to the pub.

Daily Mail​

16 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

Apple and Google passwords exposed

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered what they are calling the 'mother of all breaches.' They discovered a massive collection of 30 databases containing more than 16 billion individual records, including passwords, for government accounts, Apple, Google, Facebook, Telegram and more websites. Some of the datasets had vague names like 'logins' or 'credentials,' which made it hard for the team to figure out exactly what they contained. Others, however, gave clues about where the data came from. According to the researchers, the records were most likely compiled by cybercriminals using various infostealing malware , though they noted that some data may also have been collected by so-called 'white hat' hackers. The team at Cybernews, which found the records, said the information available to the wider internet was only briefly, before being locked down, but it is not possible to determine who owned the databases. With more than 5.5 billion people worldwide using the internet, researchers warned that a staggering number of individuals likely had at least some of their accounts compromised. They are now urging users across the globe to change their passwords immediately to protect their data from falling into the hands of cybercriminals. 'The inclusion of both old and recent infostealer logs makes this data particularly dangerous for organizations lacking multi-factor authentication or credential hygiene practices,' the researchers said. Cybernews noted that its researchers identified a database of 184 million records that was previously uncovered in May, found by data breach hunter and security researcher Jeremiah Fowler. 'It barely scratches the top 20 of what the team discovered,' Cybernews explained. 'Most worryingly, researchers claim new massive datasets emerge every few weeks, signaling how prevalent infostealer malware truly is.' The database of 184 million records not only contained secure login data for millions of private citizens, but also had stolen account information connected to multiple governments around the world. While looking at a small sample of 10,000 of these stolen accounts, Fowler found 220 email addresses with .gov domains, linking them to more than 29 countries, including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, China, India, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. 'This is probably one of the weirdest ones I've found in many years,' Fowler told WIRED . 'As far as the risk factor here, this is way bigger than most of the stuff I find, because this is direct access into individual accounts. This is a cybercriminal's dream working list,' the cybersecurity expert continued. In total, Fowler discovered 47 gigabytes of data with sensitive information for accounts on various sites, including Instagram, Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal, Roblox, and Discord. The best action to take right now is to change your passwords if you use any of these platforms and also activate Two-Factor Authentication, which adds another layer of security to logging in by sending a secure code to your phone or email. The unprotected database was managed by World Host Group, a web hosting and domain name provider founded in 2019. It operates over 20 brands globally, offering cloud hosting, domain services, and technical support for businesses of all sizes. Once Fowler confirmed that the exposed information was genuine, he reported the breach to World Host Group, which shut down access to the database. Seb de Lemos, CEO of World Host Group, told WIRED: 'It appears a fraudulent user signed up and uploaded illegal content to their server.' Fowler said 'the only thing that makes sense' is that the breach was the work of a cybercriminal because there's no other way to gain that much access to information from so many servers around the world. The cybersecurity expert warned that this particular breach also poses a major national security risk. Exploiting government email accounts could allow hackers and foreign agents access to sensitive or even top-secret systems. The stolen data could also be used as part of a larger phishing campaign, using one person's hacked account to gain private information from other potential victims.