Videos

Google’s shiny new AI assistant takes over your Chrome browser to do stuff like book flights, fill out forms and do your shopping. Sounds a little scary knowing how much Gemini has screwed up, but it’ll be handy if it works. It can’t fill out credit card or billing info, fyi. Watch it in action here.

Amazon is dropping six new AI models. Reel turns simple text prompts into short videos. Here’s a little snippet. I’m impressed! For now, three text-generation models are live for certain developers. The rest drop for me and you to try early next year.

A stock fireplace illustration frames looping archival video of the blasting RS-25 engines that launched the Artemis I rocket to the moon on Nov. 16, 2022. The illustration includes stone tiling, a pillow and a basket of firewood, and it contains elements generated with AI. NASA added two framed pictures; one shows an archival image of the Orion capsule flying through space, and the other shows the Artemis logo. The audio features the roar of the rockets at a low level, with the addition of the sounds of a crackling wood fire.

🔊 Swiss Army knife for sound: That’s what Nvidia is calling Fugatto, its new AI audio generator. People are, of course, creating bizarre sounds from text prompts, like turning the sound of a train into a string orchestra. Its creators think it could spark new music genres like the electric guitar did. What do you think?

A Texas father sold his dream car to pay for his newborn son’s diapers. This year, for his dad’s 65th birthday, his son surprised him with a restored version of the same 1967 Chevrolet Camaro — right down to its color (blue with white stripes). The video will melt your heart.

I hope you’re ready for Zuck’s “Get Low” cover. Heads-up: The lyrics are pretty explicit. In case you love it, they also dropped it on Spotify under the artist name “Z-Pain.” Does anyone have a Tylenol? I need a Z-Painkiller after listening to that.

😲 The No. 1 show on Netflix right now is “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” It dives into the true story of two brothers convicted of murdering their parents in 1996. They said a lifetime of abuse drove them to it; prosecutors argued it was all about inheriting the family fortune.

🧽 Window washing 2.0: Cleaning high-rise windows is risky work, but a spider-like AI robot is about to change that. Named after those gravity-defying mountain goats, Ibex only needs a button press to get to work. It climbs buildings, using cameras and sensors to scan surfaces, dodge window frames and leave no spot untouched. The robots are already in Texas, so don’t be surprised if they pop up everywhere soon.

🎻 Keep calm and cello on: A Swedish composer put together a symphony with a robot cellist playing in sync with humans. But there’s good news: Afterward, the composer said, “It will be impossible to replace all human musicians with robots.” Watch the video — it’s really something.