Google search boss says AI isn’t killing search clicks

Liz Reid says Google’s data shows AI is generating consistent clicks and better experiences.

Google has often bristled at the implication that its obsession with AI search is harming web traffic, and now search head Liz Reid has penned a blog post on the topic. According to Reid, clicks aren't declining, AI is driving more searches, and everything is fine on the Internet. But despite the optimistic tone, the post stops short of providing any actual data to back up those claims.

This statement feels like a direct response to a recent Pew Research Center analysis that showed searches with AI Overviews resulted in lower click-through rates. Google objected to the conclusions and methodology of that study, and the new blog post expands on its rationale.

The banner claim in this post is that Google is not sending fewer clicks to websites. According to Reid, "total organic click volume" has remained "relatively stable year-over-year." Meanwhile, Google is seeing more searches on its end, which is the most important metric for the company. Google's blog also notes (fairly) that the web is unfathomably vast, and it's common for trends to shift.

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NASA’s new chief has radically rewritten the rules for private space stations

“Certain players are going to have to do a harder pivot.”

About five years from now, a modified Dragon spacecraft will begin to fire its Draco thrusters, pushing the International Space Station out of its orbit and sending the largest object humans have built in space inexorably to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

And then what?

China's Tiangong Space Station will still be going strong. NASA, however, faces a serious risk of losing its foothold in low-Earth orbit. Space agency leaders have long recognized this and nearly half a decade ago awarded about $500 million to four different companies to begin working on "commercial" space stations to fill the void.

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Cockatoos know 30 distinct dance moves

Ten of 21 known cockatoo species exhibit dance behavior, and one bird executed 17 unique moves.

Snowball the dancing cockatoo gets down with his bad self to the Backstreet Boys.

In 2008, a YouTube video featuring an Eleanora cockatoo named Snowball dancing to the beat of the Backstreet Boys went viral. His killer moves stunned scientists, since the ability to synchronize body movements to music was believed to be a uniquely human activity. Nor is Snowball an isolated case. Griffi the Dancing Cockatoo has his own YouTube channel, for example, and a recent TikTok video showed two sister cockatoos engaging in a dance-off to Earth, Wind & Fire's "September." But it's Snowball who holds the Guinness World Record for most dance moves performed by a bird.

Snowball's record might be in jeopardy, however. A new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE investigated dancing behavior in several parrot species and identified 30 distinct dance moves that the birds executed—17 of which had never been observed scientifically before and were performed by just one bird. So dancing in cockatoos and other parrot species seems to be much more complex and varied than previously thought. It's still unclear why parrots in captivity love to dance so much, but encouraging such behavior could help birds like these thrive in an environment they often find challenging.

Researchers at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Australia scoured YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok for video footage of dancing birds, particularly cockatoos. For videos to be selected for inclusion in the study, they had to meet several criteria: They had to show a cockatoo in a domestic setting where music was being played at the same time the bird was dancing (videos where music had been added to the footage were omitted); the bird must demonstrate at least two different dance moves; and the camera angle had to provide a good view of the dancing bird. And each video had to feature a different bird.

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Nvidia warns of “disaster” if it has to put kill switch and backdoor in chips

Nvidia denies China accusation of kill switch but worries US will require one.

Nvidia said there are no backdoors or kill switches in its chips, denying an accusation from the Chinese government. The company also urged policymakers to reject proposals for backdoors and kill switches.

"There are no back doors in NVIDIA chips. No kill switches. No spyware. That's not how trustworthy systems are built—and never will be," Nvidia Chief Security Officer David Reber Jr. wrote in a blog post yesterday.

The Cyberspace Administration of China last week said it held a meeting with Nvidia over "serious security issues" in the company's chips and claimed that US AI experts "revealed that Nvidia's computing chips have location tracking and can remotely shut down the technology."

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CM5 MINIMA is a tiny $65 Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier board with M.2, Ethernet, and HDMI

The credit card-sized Raspberry Pi Model B line of computers may be small, at just 85 x 56mm. But the Raspberry Compute Module 5 is even smaller, measuring just 55 x 40mm. Unfortunately this tiny computer-on-a-module isn’t much use on its own, be…

The credit card-sized Raspberry Pi Model B line of computers may be small, at just 85 x 56mm. But the Raspberry Compute Module 5 is even smaller, measuring just 55 x 40mm. Unfortunately this tiny computer-on-a-module isn’t much use on its own, because it lacks the full-sized ports you’d need to connect a power source, […]

The post CM5 MINIMA is a tiny $65 Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier board with M.2, Ethernet, and HDMI appeared first on Liliputing.

Researchers design “promptware” attack with Google Calendar to turn Gemini evil

The team behind the research has worked with Google to mitigate the attack, but what comes next?

Generative AI systems have proliferated across the technology industry over the last several years to such a degree that it can be hard to avoid using them. Google and other big names in AI spend a lot of time talking about AI safety, but the ever-evolving capabilities of AI have also led to a changing landscape of malware threats—or as researchers from Tel Aviv University would say, "promptware." Using simple calendar appointments, this team managed to trick Gemini into manipulating Google smart home devices, which may be the first example of an AI attack having real-world effects.

Gemini has the barest of agentic capabilities by virtue of its connection to the wider Google app ecosystem. It can access your calendar, call on Assistant smart home devices, send messages, and more. That makes it an appealing target for malicious actors looking to cause havoc or steal data. The researchers used Gemini's web of connectivity to perform what's known as an indirect prompt injection attack, in which malicious actions are given to an AI bot by someone other than the user. And it worked startlingly well.

The promptware attack begins with a calendar appointment containing a description that is actually a set of malicious instructions. The hack happens when the user asks Gemini to summarize their schedule, causing the robot to process the poisoned calendar event. Here's an example of one of those prompts.

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Empörung über Trumps “Geschenk”-Aussage: Europa habe digitale Dienstleistungen nicht …

Der Vorsitzende der Jungen Union kritisiert, dass Ursula von der Leyen im Zoll-Deal mit Trump “digitale Dienstleistungen” nicht als Hebel gegen den US-Präsidenten benutzt hat. (EU, Politik)

Der Vorsitzende der Jungen Union kritisiert, dass Ursula von der Leyen im Zoll-Deal mit Trump "digitale Dienstleistungen" nicht als Hebel gegen den US-Präsidenten benutzt hat. (EU, Politik)

Trump’s trade and environment policies are a disaster for carmakers

Falling operating margins, revised sales estimates, and scaled-back forecasts.

An ill wind blows through the automotive industry. Yesterday, after the market closed, Rivian reported its results for the second quarter of 2025, and they weren't great. Unlike the last two quarters, Rivian did not make a gross profit, and it's estimating it will have a larger loss this year than first predicted. A day earlier, it was Lucid's turn: The Saudi-backed EV startup also missed analyst estimates for the quarter, and Lucid says it will build fewer cars this year than originally planned.

"We delivered solid performance despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop, thanks to the adaptability and focus of our team in navigating a dynamic environment," said Taoufiq Boussaid in an elegant bit of business-speak that elides the true horror of the situation.

In both cases, the reasons for these underwhelming performances were the same: US government policies. Since taking office in January, President Trump and the Republican Party have been hard at work tearing up environmental regulations and overturning policies meant to encourage EV adoption, as well fomenting a global trade war through the imposition of irrational and costly tariffs.

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