Wednesday, May 20, 2026

36 articles

The Verge
1 min read

‘Solve all diseases,’ you say?

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. This week's issue is a special early edition tied to The Verge's Google I/O coverage. You can expect our next...

Simon Willison
1 min read

Quoting SpaceX S-1

We have the ability to use compute resources to support our proprietary AI applications (such as Grok 5, which is currently being trained at COLOSSUS II), while also providing access to select compute capacity to third-party customers. For example, in May 2026, we entered into Cloud Services...

The Verge
1 min read

You can now remix other people’s YouTube Shorts with AI

Google announced a new YouTube Shorts Remix feature that lets users restyle clips or even insert themselves into other people's videos using Gemini Omni. Now, at the bottom of a YouTube Short, when you click the remix icon, you'll see an option to "reimagine" it. Here, you can prompt Gemini to turn...

The Verge
1 min read

Google Search’s AI evolution includes more ads

Google's AI-powered Search era apparently also extends to its ads. Now, when you search for a product, Google's Gemini AI chatbot will surface relevant items and generate a "custom explainer" about why you should purchase a specific one. The update comes just one day after Google revealed a new...

The Verge
1 min read

If Google can’t make AI agents useful, maybe no one can

For years, tech companies have promised AI will give everyone a capable personal assistant but delivered something more like a clueless intern. Over the past six months, that has started to change, thanks largely to the viral open-source AI agent platform OpenClaw. And among the top AI labs now...

Simon Willison
1 min read

Google I/O, Gemini Spark, Antigravity

It's hard to find much to write about Google I/O this year because I have a policy of not writing about anything that I can't try out myself, and a lot of the big announcements are "coming soon". I actually prefer to write about things that are in general availability, because I've had instances in...

The Verge
1 min read

Vibe coding is coming to your phone

"There's an app for that" was the promise of the App Store from the very beginning. The app that will get your phone to do the thing you want it to? It's just a few taps away. The tagline wasn't strictly true - I'm still waiting for that one perfect grocery list app. Still, apps […]

The Verge
1 min read

It’s make or break time for AI labeling systems

We're about to find out if the systems designed to make deepfakes and AI-generated content easy to spot are actually up to snuff. SynthID and C2PA Content Credentials, two distinct technologies for invisibly tagging image, video, and audio files with information about their origins, are getting...

The Verge
1 min read

The biggest data center ever is becoming a huge problem in Utah

Utah may host one of the world's most colossal data centers, despite stark warnings from experts and fierce public backlash. Earlier this month, commissioners in Box Elder County signed off on the Stratos Project: a 40,000-acre data center stretching across the county's Hansel Valley. It's supposed...

Simon Willison
1 min read

How fast is 10 tokens per second really?

How fast is 10 tokens per second really? Neat little HTML app by Mike Veerman (source code here) which simulates LLM token output speeds from 5/second to 800/second. Useful if you see a model advertised as "30 tokens/second" and want to get a feel for what that actually looks like. Via Hacker News...