Best of blog.google on Kiwi News
Most upvoted by Kiwi News readers
11 stories from blog.google have been shared on Kiwi News since 5 May 2023, with 34 upvotes and 5 comments in total. The latest was shared on 15 August 2025. They are listed below, most upvoted first.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Gemini CLI: your open-source AI agent
Google has introduced Gemini CLI, a free and open-source AI agent that brings Gemini directly into developers' terminals. Users who log in with a personal Google account receive a free Gemini Code Assist license that provides access to Gemini 2.5 Pro and its 1 million token context window. During the preview, the free tier offers 60 model requests per minute and 1,000 requests per day at no charge. The tool is released under the Apache 2.0 license, and it integrates with Gemini Code Assist in VS Code, where agent mode is available at no additional cost through the Insiders channel.
- Meet Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip
Google announced Willow, its latest quantum chip, which its post says demonstrates error correction and performance that paves the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer. Willow reduced errors exponentially as qubits were scaled up across 3x3, 5x5 and 7x7 grids, cutting the error rate in half each time, a result the article calls "below threshold" and says was published today in Nature. On the random circuit sampling benchmark, the article says Willow completed a computation in under five minutes that it estimates would take one of today's fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years.
- Introducing Gemini: Google’s largest and most capable AI model
Google announced Gemini 1.0, which it describes as its most capable and general AI model yet, optimized in three sizes: Ultra, Pro and Nano. Demis Hassabis, CEO and Co-Founder of Google DeepMind, wrote that Gemini was built from the ground up to be multimodal, understanding text, code, audio, image and video. The article states that Gemini Ultra exceeds state-of-the-art results on 30 of 32 widely used academic benchmarks, and that it scored 90.0% on MMLU, making it the first model to outperform human experts on that test. The company also says it trained Gemini on its Cloud TPU v4 and v5e chips and announced the Cloud TPU v5p system.
- Google Wallet uses zk proofs to handle age confirmation
Google announced updates letting users prove age and identity from their phone using digital ID passes in Google Wallet. It added zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology to verify age without making the age linkable back to a person's identity, and it will open source that technology to other wallets and online services. U.K. residents with U.K. passports will soon be able to create ID passes, with Rail Delivery Group as launch partner for Railcard eligibility checks. Residents of Arkansas, Montana, Puerto Rico and West Virginia will be able to save government-issued digital IDs, and Google Wallet will expand to 50 more countries.
- How Passkeys work: A Google security expert explains
Google is letting users sign up for passkeys through a "skip password when possible" prompt in their Google account, as part of a joint effort with Apple and Microsoft to support a FIDO Alliance sign-in standard. In a Q&A, Google Security expert Christiaan Brand explains that passkeys are FIDO credentials stored on a user's phone or computer, unlocked with a fingerprint, face scan or screen lock PIN. He says passkeys will replace passwords and the extra protections built around them, and that the server never learns the passkey itself. Brand also says a thief who finds a lost phone cannot use its passkey, because biometrics stay on the device.
- Google Registry launches new .meme top level domain
Google Registry has launched the .meme top-level domain, which is now available for registration during an Early Access Period. The launch features six partner sites, including Know Your Meme, Tenor and Grumpy Cat, plus four cat-themed websites. Starting today, .meme domains can be registered for an additional one-time fee that decreases on a daily schedule until December 5. On December 5 at 16:00 UTC, they will be publicly available at a base annual price through registrars.
- Flight Deals is our new, AI-powered flight search tool
Google has launched Flight Deals, a beta AI-powered search tool within Google Flights that finds the cheapest trips for travelers who are flexible about dates, destinations and filters. Users describe the trip they want in conversational language, such as a week-long winter trip to a city with great food, nonstop only, and the tool uses Google's AI to identify matching destinations and shows up-to-date options from hundreds of airlines and booking sites using real-time Google Flights data. Flight Deals rolls out over the next week in the U.S., Canada and India, with no opt-in required, and the original Google Flights remains available, now with an option to exclude basic economy fares for trips in the U.S. and Canada.
- NotebookLM goes global with Slides support and better ways to fact-check
Google Labs has expanded NotebookLM, its AI-powered research and writing assistant, to over 200 countries and territories, using the upgraded Gemini 1.5 Pro model. The update adds support for Google Slides and web URLs as sources, along with inline citations that link directly to supporting passages so users can fact-check responses. It also lets users ask questions about images, charts and diagrams in their sources. Product Manager Raiza Martin describes uses ranging from author Walter Isaacson analyzing Marie Curie's journals to Palm Bay resident Thomas Gaume running a hyperlocal newsletter.
- A new way to discover places with generative AI in Maps
Google is launching an early access experiment that uses generative AI to help users discover places in Maps, rolling out this week to select Local Guides in the U.S. Users describe what they want in natural language, and Google's large-language models analyze Maps information about more than 250 million places along with insights from over 300 million contributors to suggest where to go. Results are grouped into categories with photo carousels and review summaries, and follow-up questions such as "How about lunch?" or "What about options for kids?" refine the suggestions. Google says Local Guides' feedback will help shape the feature before it reaches everyone over time.
- An update on Canada’s Bill C-18 and our Search and News products
Google's president of global affairs, Kent Walker, said in a November 29 update that the company is working with the Government of Canada through the exemption process for Bill C-18, the Online News Act, after the government committed to address Google's core concerns. Google thanked Minister of Canadian Heritage Pascale St-Onge for engaging in productive meetings. In its original June 29 post, Google said the law would force it to remove links to Canadian news from Search, News and Discover and make its Google News Showcase product untenable in Canada, citing uncapped financial liability. Google said it links to Canadian news publications more than 3.6 billion times a year at no charge, valued at $250 million CAD annually.
- The beginning of the end of the password
Google has begun rolling out passkeys across Google Accounts on all major platforms, as a simpler and more secure alternative to passwords, according to Sriram Karra, Group Product Manager for Google Identity and Engagement. Passkeys let users sign in with a fingerprint, face scan or screen lock PIN, and they are resistant to online attacks such as phishing, which the article presents as making them more secure than SMS one-time codes. Docusign, Kayak, PayPal, Shopify and Yahoo! Japan have already deployed passkey sign-in, and Google Workspace administrators will soon be able to enable passkeys for their end users. Passwords and 2-Step Verification will continue to work alongside passkeys.