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Google Archive

Archives for April 2026

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Google’s Preferred Sources feature is now available in more languages.

Launched last year, Preferred Sources allows you to customize the outlets you see the most often in Google Search’s “top stories” section. Now, this feature is available in “all supported languages globally,” according to Google.

Preferred Sources in French.
Preferred Sources in French.
Image: Google
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
YouTube’s picture-in-picture mode is rolling out to all users globally.

Users in the US have been able to shrink YouTube videos while they access other apps for some time now, but now Google is expanding the feature to more regions in the coming months. It’s only available for long-form, non-music content on Android and iOS.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Google defends allowing US military use of AI for classified operations.

The Financial Times reports Alphabet’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, responded to employee opposition to the deal Google signed with the Pentagon in a memo on Tuesday, saying, “Staying engaged with governments, including on national security, will help democracies benefit from responsible technologies.”

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Now Google Gemini will create spreadsheets, PDFs and other files if you ask.

Users can now generate and download files directly in Gemini without needing work-arounds like telling it to export to Google Docs first. Google says the feature is available to all Gemini users and is ready to create files in Workspace apps (Drive / Docs / Sheets) or “.pdf, .docx, .xlsx, .csv, LaTeX, Plain Text (TXT), Rich Text Format (RTF) and Markdown (MD).”

A screenshot of Google Gemini generating a PDF file
Screenshot: Google / The Verge
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Google and Kickstarter are giving small companies $10,000 crowdfunding pledges.

Their new Next Wave Fund will reward select entrepreneurs and small businesses (with fewer than 20 full-time employees) with a $10,000 pledge towards a crowdfunded technology or digital gaming-focused project. Recipients will also receive guidance from Kickstarter, training from Google, and “opportunities for marketing exposure and promotion.”

The logo of Google and Kickstarter’s Next Wave Fund.
Image: Kickstarter
Nilay Patel
Nilay Patel
Inside the AI ad boom at Google and Meta.

All the ad people I know keep saying “the content is the targeting” lately, and now I know why: Google and Meta are using AI to flip the online ad model upside down. Big dive in the NYT:

But the real business breakthroughs have come from targeting. It used to be that an advertiser would say, for example, “I want to target women in New York between the ages of 24 and 35.” Now it’s the opposite: Meta and Google are using A.I. to recommend customers the brands should be going after.