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Engadget
13-05-2025
- Engadget
Google I/O 2025: What to expect including Gemini AI, Android 16 updates, Android XR and more
In just a week, Google's annual developer conference will kick off on May 20. The event is probably the most important on the company's calendar, offering a glimpse at everything it has been working on over the past year. From the rumors and even information Google has trickled out, I/O 2025 should be one of the more exciting tech keynotes in recent memory. Plus, for the first time, Google has spun out a dedicated Android showcase planned a whole week earlier. That just happened today (May 13), and you can check out everything that was announced at the Android Show or go to our liveblog to get a feel for how things played out. Now that the Android Show is over, it's time to look ahead to I/O, where the focus will almost definitely be about AI. We've gathered the most credible reports and leaks to put together this roundup of what to expect, and though most of the Android-related announcements have been made, it's still possible that Google shares more details about its mobile platform next week. If you'd like to tune in from home and follow along as Google makes its announcements, check out our article on how to watch the Google I/O 2025 keynote. We'll also be liveblogging the event, so you can just come to Engadget for the breaking news. Some of my favorite I/O moments involved watching Dave Burke take to the Shoreline stage to talk about the latest updates for Android. But for the past couple of years, Android hasn't had much of a spotlight at Google's annual developer conference. That's about to change, with the company's dedicated showcase during today's Android Show: I/O Edition. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. — Android (@Android) April 28, 2025 The presentation featured Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat, who took over for Burke in 2024. We saw Samat and his colleagues show off the new Material 3 Expressive design, and what we learned confirmed some of the features that were previously leaked, like the "Ongoing notifications" bar. Material 3 Expressive is also coming to Wear OS 6, and the company is expanding the reach of Gemini by bringing it to its smartwatch platform, Android Auto and Google TV. Android 16 will also come with new scam-detection features and a refined Find Hub that will see support for satellite connectivity later in the year. Speaking of timing, Google has already confirmed the new operating system will arrive sometime before the second half of the year. Though it did not release a stable build of Android 16 today, Samat shared during the show that Android 16 (or at least part of it) is coming next month to Pixel devices. And though the company did cover some new features coming to Android XR, senior director for Android Product and UX Guemmy Kim said during the presentation that "we'll share more on Android XR at I/O next week." It clearly seems like more is still to come, and not just for Android XR. We didn't get confirmation on the Android Authority report that Google could add a more robust photo picker, with support for cloud storage solutions. That doesn't mean it won't be in Android 16, it might just be something the company didn't get to mention in its 30-minute showcase. Plus, Google has been releasing new Android features in a quarterly cadence lately, rather than wait till an annual update window to make updates available. It's possible we see more added to Android 16 as the year progresses. One of the best places to get an idea for what's to come in Android 16 is in its beta version, which has already been available to developers and is currently in its fourth iteration. For example, we learned in March that Android 16 will bring Auracast support, which could make it easier to listen to and switch between multiple Bluetooth devices. This could also enable people to receive Bluetooth audio on hearing aids they have paired with their phones or tablets. Remember Google Glass? No? How about Daydream? Maybe Cardboard? After sending (at least) three XR projects to the graveyard, you would think even Google would say enough is enough. Instead, the company is preparing to release Android XR after previewing the platform at the end of last year. This time around, the company says the power of its Gemini AI models will make things different. We know Google is working with Samsung on a headset codenamed Project Moohan. Last fall, Samsung hinted that the device could arrive sometime this year. Whether Google and Samsung demo Project Moohan at I/O, I imagine the search giant will have more to say about Android XR and the ecosystem partners it has worked to bring to its side for the initiative. This falls in line with what Kim said about more on Android XR being shared at I/O. If Google felt the need to split off Android into its own showcase, we're likely to get more AI-related announcements at I/O than ever before. The company hasn't provided many hints about what we can expect on that front, but if I had to guess, features like AI Overviews and AI Mode are likely to get substantive updates. I suspect Google will also have something to say about Project Mariner, the web-surfing agent it demoed at I/O 2024. Either way, Google is an AI company now, and every I/O moving forward will reflect that. Speaking of AI, Project Astra was one of the more impressive demos Google showed off at I/O 2024. The technology made the most of the latest multi-modal capabilities of Google's Gemini models to offer something we hadn't seen before from the company. It's a voice assistant with advanced image recognition features that allows it to converse about the things it sees. Google envisions Project Astra one day providing a truly useful artificial assistant. However, after seeing an in-person demo of Astra, the Engadget crew felt the tech needed a lot more work. Given the splash Project Astra made last year, there's a good chance we could get an update on it at I/O 2025. According to a report from The Information , Google might be planning to unveil its own take on Pinterest next week. That characterization is courtesy of The Information, but based on the features described in the article, Engadget team members found it more reminiscent of Cosmos instead. Cosmos is a pared-down version of Pinterest, letting people save and curate anything they see on the internet. It also allows you to share your saved pages with others. Google's version, meanwhile, will reportedly show image results based on your queries, and you can save the pictures in different folders based on your own preferences. So say you're putting together a lookbook based on Jennie from Blackpink. You can search for her outfits and save your favorites in a folder you can title "Lewks," perhaps. Whether this is simply built into Search or exists as a standalone product is unclear, and we'll have to wait till I/O to see whether the report was accurate and what the feature really is like. Last year, Wear OS didn't get a mention during the company's main keynote, but Google did preview Wear OS 5 during the developer sessions that followed. The company only began rolling out Wear OS 5.1 to Pixel devices in March. This year, we've already learned at the Android Show that Wear OS 6 is coming, with Material 3 Expressive gracing its interface. Will we learn more at I/O next week? It's unclear, but it wouldn't be a shock if that was all the air time Wear OS gets this year. Since 2023, Google has offered NotebookLM on desktop. The note-taking app uses machine learning for features like automated summaries. Based on App Store and Google Play listings, the company is getting ready to release a mobile version of the service on the first day of I/O 2025. Google has a terrible track record when it comes to preventing leaks within its internal ranks, so the likelihood the company could surprise us is low. Still, Google could announce something we don't expect. As always, your best bet is to visit Engadget on May 20 and 21. We'll have all the latest from Google then along with our liveblog and analysis. Update, May 5 2025, 7:08PM ET: This story has been updated to include details on a leaked blog post discussing "Material 3 Expressive." Update, May 6 2025, 5:29PM ET: This story has been updated to include details on the Android 16 beta, as well as Auracast support. Update, May 8 2025, 3:20PM ET: This story has been updated to include details on how to watch the Android Show and the Google I/O keynote, as well as tweak the intro for freshness. Update, May 13 2025, 3:22PM ET: This story has been updated to include all the announcements from the Android Show and a new report from The Information about a possible image search feature debuting at I/O. The intro was also edited to accurately reflect what has happened since the last time this article was updated. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Times
Start-up bank has a radical idea: thinking inside the box
Dave Burke is starting a new high street bank in an attempt to disrupt the banking status quo of branches closing and services moving online. This is an ambitious project, considering that it is hard to open any high street business, let alone one that requires a notoriously tricky-to-obtain banking licence. One of the few to have done so in recent years, Metrobank, has struggled, to put it mildly. His project, NW Mutual, however, is different, aimed squarely at consumers outside London in Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, Manchester and Cheshire, and purposefully modest. It wants to take only 2 per cent of current accounts in this region and 5 per cent of business accounts, ultimately opening 60 branches. If its licence application goes well it hopes
Engadget
06-05-2025
- Engadget
Google I/O 2025: What to expect over the next two weeks on Android 16, Android XR and Gemini
In about two weeks, Google's annual developer conference will kick off on May 20. The event is probably the most important on the company's calendar, offering a glimpse at everything it has been working on over the past year. Judging from rumors and information Google has trickled out, I/O 2025 should be one of the more exciting tech keynotes in recent memory. Plus, for the first time, Google has spun out a dedicated Android showcase planned a whole week earlier. If you want to know what to expect from the company later this month, read on. In years past, some of my favorite I/O moments involved watching Dave Burke take to the Shoreline stage to talk about the latest updates for Android. But for the past couple of years, Android hasn't had much of a spotlight at Google's annual developer conference. That's about to change, with the company hosting a dedicated showcase that will air a week before I/O proper. Scheduled for May 13, Google says it has "so many things to share" during the Android Show: I/O Edition. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. — Android (@Android) April 28, 2025 The presentation will feature Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat, who took over for Burke in 2024. As for what to expect from Samat and company, a preview of Android 16 is an obvious bet. Google has already confirmed the new operating system will arrive sometime before the second half of the year. As such, it may even release a stable build of Android 16 that same day. One feature Google could announce for Android 16 is Live Activities-like "Ongoing notifications". Per Android Authority , Google could also add a more robust photo picker, with support for cloud storage solutions. We've also seen lots of hints at an upcoming design change to the platform, reportedly called Material 3 Expressive. The most damning (or credible) indication that this is real is the recent self-leak by Google, which was caught by 9to5Google and remains archived and visible on the Wayback Machine. This leaked blog post discusses the research behind Material 3 Expressive and how the visual overhaul led to action elements standing out more and greater responsiveness on the users' part. According to the post, "When participants were asked to 'Send the email' in the app, their eyes saw the button 4x faster in the expressive design." One of the best places to get an idea for what's to come in Android 16 is in its beta version, which has already been available to developers and is currently in its fourth iteration. For example, we learned in March that Android 16 will bring Auracast support, which could make it easier to listen to and switch between multiple Bluetooth devices. This could also enable people to receive Bluetooth audio on hearing aids they have paired with their phones or tablets. Remember Google Glass? No, how about Daydream? Maybe Cardboard? After sending (at least) three XR projects to the graveyard, you would think even Google would say enough is enough. Instead, the company is preparing to release Android XR after previewing the platform at the end of last year. This time around, the company says the power of its Gemini AI models will make things different. We know Google is working with Samsung on a headset codenamed Project Moohan. Last fall, Samsung hinted that the device could arrive sometime this year. Whether Google and Samsung demo Project Moohan at I/O, I imagine the search giant will have more to say about Android XR and the ecosystem partners it has worked to bring to its side for the initiative. If Google felt the need to split off Android into its own showcase, we're likely to get more AI-related announcements at I/O than ever before. The company hasn't provided many hints about what we can expect on that front, but if I had to guess, features like AI Overviews and AI Mode are likely to get substantive updates. I suspect Google will also have something to say about Project Mariner, the web-surfing agent it demoed at I/O 2024. Either way, Google is an AI company now, and every I/O moving forward will reflect that. Speaking of AI, Project Astra was one of the more impressive demos Google showed off at I/O 2024. The technology made the most of the latest multi-modal capabilities of Google's Gemini models to offer something we hadn't seen before from the company. It's a voice assistant with advanced image recognition features that allows it to converse about the things it sees. Google envisions Project Astra one day providing a truly useful artificial assistant. However, after seeing an in-person demo of Astra, the Engadget crew felt the tech needed a lot more work. Given the splash Project Astra made last year, there's a good chance we could get an update on it at I/O 2025. Last year, Wear OS didn't get a mention during the company's main keynote, but Google did preview Wear OS 5 during the developer sessions that followed. The company only began rolling out Wear OS 5.1 to Pixel devices in March. Given that, you might expect Google wouldn't have much new to share, but the official Wear OS X account told fans to watch the Android Show for updates. Since 2023, Google has offered NotebookLM on desktop. The note-taking app uses machine learning for features like automated summaries. Based on App Store and Google Play listings, the company is getting ready to release a mobile version of the service on the first day of I/O 2025. Google has a terrible track record when it comes to preventing leaks within its internal ranks, so the likelihood the company could surprise us is low. Still, Google could announce something we don't expect. As always, your best bet is to visit Engadget on May 20 and 21. We'll have all the latest from Google then along with our liveblog and analysis. Update, May 5 2025, 7:08PM ET: This story has been updated to include details on a leaked blog post discussing "Material 3 Expressive." Update, May 6 2025, 5:29PM ET: This story has been updated to include details on the Android 16 beta, as well as Auracast support.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘At rock bottom.' Ohio pharmacy leader says Walgreens sale might be a good sign
(Stock photo) Alarms in Ohio and beyond went up Thursday when pharmacy retailer Walgreens announced that it was selling itself to the private equity firm Sycamore Partners. The nation's second-largest pharmacy chain was already in the process of closing thousands of underperforming stores, adding to mass closures in Ohio and nationwide. Private equity firms are known for buying distressed companies, selling off the valuable pieces and walking away from the rest. So what's to keep Sycamore Partners from selling profitable Walgreens stores in wealthy areas and closing those in poorer, underserved ones, some observers asked. Ohio pharmacy leader says recent mass closures are a warning But an Ohio pharmacy leader who last year warned that Walgreens' struggles had dire implications for public health on Friday said its sale to a private equity firm might actually be a good sign. Dave Burke, a pharmacist, former state senator, and executive director of the Ohio Pharmacists Association, said Walgreens' draconian actions are likely to push through federal reforms for which momentum has been building for months. 'I think the regulatory environment around (pharmacy benefit managers) is going to change completely in the next 12 months, which is as long as it's going to make this transaction go through,' Burke said. 'As a national company, Walgreens became not the canary in the coal mine, but the sentinel moment for Washington, D.C. to actually realize that this is a broken system, not a bad company, not a bad store, not a bad manager, but a broken system. They're going to fix it. You can't allow this to continue.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Declining retail pharmacy numbers is a public health concern because unlike mail-order, they are places where you can quickly get your medicine and vaccines, for instance, when a child has an earache or a bad rash, and waiting for the medicine to show up at the mailbox is impractical. Also, experts have noted, in medically underserved places, the pharmacy can provide the rare chance to talk to a medical professional about chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes. Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are drug middlemen that represent insurers in drug transactions. For most of the past decade, they've been accused of driving pharmacies out of business. The biggest three PBMs handle nearly 80% of insured transactions and each is part of a Fortune 15 health conglomerate — UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health and Cigna-Express Scripts. Each of those companies owns a top-10 health insurer, and their PBMs represent those insurers as well as others in drug transactions. The companies also own mail-order pharmacies and CVS owns the nation's largest retail chain. Critics say that the conglomerates' dominance in so many different areas is rife with conflicts and anticompetitive practices have forced up the price of drugs — and forced pharmacies out of business. Feds allege sweeping scheme to raise customer costs for insulin The big PBMs decide which drugs are covered by insurance and which have the smallest or no copayments. That gives drugmakers great incentive to pay the middlemen ever-growing rebates fees to get their products on lists of covered drugs. Academic research has shown that drugmakers raise list prices as they raise rebates. And the Federal Trade Commission has accused the PBMs of in some cases refusing to cover cheaper medicines as they chase bigger rebates. On the pharmacy side, PBMs control access to so many patients that pharmacies not owned by those companies say they have no real choice about signing whatever deals the PBMs put forward. That means agreeing to opaque reimbursement systems under which pharmacies often lose money, they say. As the middlemen have gained greater control over the marketplace, the number of Ohio pharmacies has dwindled. An alarming trend: Ohio pharmacy closures spike, openings lag The big-three PBMs have gone from controlling just under half of the national marketplace in 2010 to nearly 80% in 2023. Meanwhile, the number of retail pharmacies in Ohio has dropped from 2,219 in 2015 to 1,869 last year, according to a data tool launched last month by the Ohio Board of Pharmacy. That's the first time in recent memory that Ohio has had fewer than 2,000 pharmacies, and it comes despite modest population growth. The news that Walgreens is selling out to private equity in a $10 billion deal could mean even fewer pharmacies in Ohio. 'Most private equity companies don't do things for the long run,' Burke said. 'Is this going to be a hatchet job — a turnaround evaluation where they sell? Or do they want to turn Walgreens around as a long-term investment and then sell it?' Despite private equity's reputation, the pharmacy leader said he suspects the latter. Ohio and other states have been trying for nearly a decade to enact reforms of their own. But because of the PBMs' national footprint, any effective reforms must come at the federal level, the industry's critics have said. In recent months, sweeping reforms have been gaining steam. The U.S. House of Representatives in December nearly passed the most sweeping federal PBM reforms yet as part of a deal to keep the government open. With then-President-elect Trump expressing support, the reforms made it into what seemed like the final funding deal. Pharmacists bemoan loss of prescription drug middleman reforms from government spending package But then billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy tanked it by claiming it spent too much. Despite their expected savings, the PBM reforms didn't make their way into the massive spending plan that passed with Trump's backing. But the bipartisan push for the reforms continues. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost last month led a bipartisan group of 39 state attorneys general in urging Congress to pass three reform bills pending before it. One would delink PBM charges from drug prices, thereby removing any incentive to favor more expensive drugs over cheaper ones. Another would require that PBMs serving Medicare Part D only charge flat fees set forth in a written agreement, and that aren't related to drug prices or rebates. Ohio Atty Gen. Dave Yost and 38 other AGs call on Congress to crack down on pharmacy middlemen The third, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act, is intended to shine a light into all manner of health transactions, including hospitalization. For drugs, it would require disclosure of what drugs are dispensed, what their net prices are and patients' out-of-pocket costs. Burke said there's a consensus to rein in the middlemen. 'I've spoken to folks in our congressional delegation,' he said. 'They're asking the right questions. Here in Ohio, freshman legislators don't have to be taught what a PBM is anymore, and I guess that's what's happening in Washington, D.C. This is a trainwreck you can't turn away from. People are going to have to fix it.' He added that Walgreens' private-equity suitors appear see the same thing as they look into the future. 'Even if you strip (a better-performing pharmacy) out, who's going to buy it?' he asked. Viewed through that lens, Burke said he thinks the Walgreens sale is actually good news. 'Probably one of the best things that happened in pharmacy was Walgreens saying, 'We just can't take it anymore,'' he said. 'I think we're at a point of inflection. It's slow-moving, but I think we're there. If I were (part of the private equity group) I would probably buy Walgreens as well because we are at rock bottom. If this goes any lower, I don't know where people get their prescriptions. We have a health crisis at that point.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Associated Press
25-02-2025
- Science
- Associated Press
Vevo Therapeutics Open Sources Tahoe-100M, the World's Largest Single-Cell Dataset, as the Inaugural Contribution to Arc Institute's New Virtual Cell Atlas
300 million single cell atlas now accessible to the scientific community comprised of Vevo's Tahoe-100M, mapping 60,000 drug-patient interactions, and Arc's AI-curated scBaseCamp 200 million cell dataset Generated using Vevo's Mosaic platform, Tahoe-100M leveraged Parse Biosciences' GigaLab for single cell sample preparation and Ultima Genomics for sequencing. PALO ALTO, Calif. and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Feb. 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- In a landmark move to advance AI-driven biological research, Arc Institute and Vevo Therapeutics announced today that they have partnered on the first release of the Arc Virtual Cell Atlas—the largest and most biologically diverse public resource for single-cell transcriptomic data across species, tissues, and experimental and perturbation conditions, starting with data from over 300 million unique cells. This data is open source and freely accessible via Arc's website as of February 25, 2025. The atlas currently includes single-cell gene expression data from two massive datasets: Vevo's Tahoe-100M, is the world's largest single-cell dataset, 50x larger than all public drug-perturbed data combined. It includes 100 million cells and maps 60,000 drug-patient interactions, measuring cellular response across 50 cancer cell lines to 1,200 drug perturbations. Tahoe-100M was generated using Vevo's Mosaic Technology, the first platform to make pan-cancer testing of drugs at single cell resolution scalable, and with support from Parse Biosciences' GigaLab leveraging its single-cell RNA sequencing capabilities. Arc's scBaseCamp is the first single-cell RNA sequencing data repository from public data to be curated and reprocessed at scale using AI agents. This gene expression data from another 200 million cells from 21 different species was sourced from public repositories and has been standardized to ensure interoperability for optimal use by machine learning models. 'What makes the Arc Virtual Cell Atlas particularly powerful is not just its scale, but that now researchers can analyze together both observational natural cell states and cells that have been deliberately perturbed by drugs or chemicals to see how they respond,' says Dave Burke ( @davey_burke) Arc Institute's Chief Technology Officer. 'We're grateful to partner with Vevo on our first release of this resource, leveraging their large-scale Tahoe-100M cell dataset, which is crucial for developing predictive models that can simulate cellular responses to perturbations, potentially reducing years of laboratory work to computational queries that take minutes.' 'Something extraordinary happened in the last few years: emergence of AI models that can predict protein structure and function,' says Nima Alidoust ( @nalidoust), Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Vevo Therapeutics. 'Our mission at Vevo is to go a huge step further: build AI models of human cells to predict how diseased cells interact with potential drug molecules.' 'These models need massive amounts of observational and drug-perturbed single-cell data, leaps beyond what is publicly available today,' says Johnny Yu, Chief Scientific Officer at Vevo. 'Our Mosaic platform overcomes this fundamental challenge; it can generate single-cell datasets such as Tahoe-100M at a scale that was not possible before.' 'We are open sourcing Tahoe-100M to help start a new movement in biological modeling that goes beyond us,' says Alidoust. 'Releasing it on Arc's Virtual Cell Atlas is the obvious choice as it aims to precisely do that.' The Arc Virtual Cell Atlas is now accessible on this portal: Arc's scBaseCamp Technical Report: About the Arc Institute The Arc Institute ( @arcinstitute) is an independent nonprofit research organization located in Palo Alto, California, that aims to accelerate scientific progress and understand the root causes of complex diseases. Arc's model gives scientists complete freedom to pursue curiosity-driven research agendas and fosters deep interdisciplinary collaboration. About Vevo Therapeutics Vevo Therapeutics is a biotechnology company using its in vivo drug discovery platform and next-generation AI models to uncover better drugs for more patients. The company's Mosaic platform is the first to make multi-patient drug screening data scalable, with single-cell precision, to better represent patient diversity in drug response. Vevo is using Mosaic to build the world's largest atlas of how drugs interact with patient cells and to train disease-relevant models of human cells for discovering novel targets and drugs undetectable by other technologies. Located in South San Francisco, CA, Vevo was founded by a team of inventors and thought leaders who have discovered drugs for 'undruggable' targets and invented novel methods in genomics, computational biology, and chemistry. Learn more at and follow us on LinkedIn and X.
