Ryan Whitwam

2 days ago | extremetech.com | Jon Martindale |Ryan Whitwam

Credit: Marc Ward/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images; elements courtesy of NASA A team of researchers from Texas A&M University is developing a new 3D printed material that can release a coolant gas during spacecraft re-entry to help protect them from overheating. The technique could reduce the need for ablative materials, speeding up the recovery of reusable spacecraft.

1 week ago | arstechnica.com | Ryan Whitwam

The advertising remedy trial will begin on September 22. We sometimes think of Google as a search company, but that's merely incidental—Google is really the world's biggest advertiser. That's why the antitrust case focused on Google's ad tech business could have even more lasting effects than cases focused on search or mobile apps. The court ruled against Google last month, and now both sides are lining up to present their proposed remedies in a trial later this year.

1 week ago | arstechnica.com | Ryan Whitwam

A preview of what's to come NotebookLM is a genuinely useful AI tool, and it's coming to your phone. After several years of escalating AI hysteria, we are all familiar with Google's desire to put Gemini in every one of its products. That can be annoying, but NotebookLM is not—this one actually works.

1 week ago | arstechnica.com | Ryan Whitwam

The popular AI vibe test may not be as fair as it seems. The rapid proliferation of AI chatbots has made it difficult to know which models are actually improving and which are falling behind. Traditional academic benchmarks only tell you so much, which has led many to lean on vibes-based analysis from LM Arena. However, a new study claims this popular AI ranking platform is rife with unfair practices, favoring large companies that just so happen to rank near the top of the index.

1 week ago | arstechnica.com | Ryan Whitwam

Unsurprisingly, an advertising company is finding more places to run ads. Google has built an enormously successful business around the idea of putting ads in search results. Its most recent quarterly results showed the company made more than $50 billion from search ads, but what happens if AI becomes the dominant form of finding information? Google is preparing for that possibility by testing chatbot ads, but you won't see them in Google's Gemini AI—at least not yet.