分类： google

Google Maps has launched a new feature that scans users’ screenshots to identify locations and add them to a private list. The feature is designed to help users find frequently taken screenshots more quickly. According to Google’s blog, the feature has been launched in the iOS app and was announced as early as a month ago. Instead of using location data or image recognition, it uses Google’s in-house Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) technology to scan text in screenshots for names of places mentioned. This is a limited but initial attempt at a more powerful version. In the “You” tab of the Google Maps app, users can find new private lists. As soon as you update to the latest version, users will see a private list labeled “Screenshots”, as well as tutorials for using the feature. This “Screenshots” folder will display the latest screenshots containing the names of the locations. Users can click the “Review” button to see the locations detected by Google. If it is confirmed that it is correct, you can choose to save, otherwise you can choose not to save. The app will display the saved locations on the map. In addition, users can also authorize Google to automatically scan all screenshots to detect locations, or add images manually. However, considering Google’s controversy over user privacy, the idea of allowing companies to scan my screenshot library and record location information is very disturbing to me. This kind of location data may be sent to Google’s servers, processed, sold, and used to build user profiles, which is at the heart of Google’s business model. In addition to privacy concerns, I’m also wondering how much utility such a feature brings. On iOS, users can long-press any text to look up online, including addresses and place names, which means that information on screenshot locations can already be easily and quickly obtained without relying on Google Maps updates. Still, this doesn’t prevent other users from possibly finding this new feature useful. If you want to try it out, make sure to download the latest version of Google Maps on the iOS, which will also be updated to Android devices in the future.

Google recently announced a major adjustment plan aimed at optimizing the search experience for users worldwide. According to this plan, Google will gradually guide all search users to switch to its main domain, google.com, instead of using URLs with country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) in the coming months.
Specifically, regardless of whether user r previously accessed Google search through google.co.uk in the UK, google.com.br in Brazil, or specific domains in other countries, the system will automatically redirect them to a unified google.com domain. This change means that global users of Google search will face a more unified and simplified interface.
What changes will occur to the search experience when Google unifies its global search domain name as google.com?
Google stated that the core purpose of this adjustment is to simplify the operation process and ensure that users around the world can obtain consistent and high-quality search results. In the past, Google used country specific top-level domains mainly to provide localized search results, that is, to provide content related to the country/region based on the domain name visited by the user. However, since 2017, Google has been able to automatically adjust search results based on users’ geographic location, allowing users to have a personalized search experience regardless of which domain they access.
Google further emphasizes that although this update will change the domain names that users see in the browser address bar, it will not have any impact on the normal operation of the search function. Meanwhile, Google’s responsibilities and obligations under legal frameworks around the world will remain unchanged. This adjustment aims to provide users with a smoother and more consistent search experience without worrying about differences caused by different domain names.

Google’s flagship AI products ushered in a major update.

On Wednesday, Alphabet’s Google announced that it was testing a new artificial intelligence search mode called “AI Mode”. This new feature allows users to ask more complex multi-part questions and integrate multiple query results to provide more coherent and in-depth answers.

Photo Source: Video Screenshot

Unlike traditional keyword search, AI Mode can run multiple related searches at the same time in the background, predict subtopics that users may be interested in, and generate comprehensive and integrated answers. According to Robby Stein, vice president of Google Search Products, this function will run on independent tabs outside the main search page, which is especially suitable for handling complex queries, beyond the limitations of traditional search engines.

AI Mode is based on Google’s latest flagship AI model, Gemini 2.0, and has the ability to process text, images and videos. Early test data shows that the length of users’ queries in AI mode is twice that of ordinary searches.

Photo Source: Video Screenshot

It is worth noting that AI Mode will first be open to paid users who subscribe to Google AI packages. This move marks a subtle change in Google’s search business model – Google search has long been provided free of charge.

The launch of AI Mode is against the background of Google’s increased investment in the field of AI search. Last year, Google introduced generative AI into search engines and launched the “AI Overviews” function, enabling AI to answer some user queries directly at the top of the search results. According to the analysis, the test of AI Mode is an important step for Google to maintain the competitiveness of the search engine market and meet the challenges of emerging enterprises such as OpenAI.

However, Google’s in-depth exploration in the direction of AI search has also aroused the concerns of online content creators. Many websites rely on Google search to divert traffic, and AI directly provides answers that may reduce the need for users to click on the original web page, which will affect website traffic.

On Wednesday, Google’s stock price fell by nearly 1% and rose by more than 1.5%.

Since the beginning of 2025, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has continued to develop rapidly. At present, several technology companies around the world are competing to release the latest version of their artificial intelligence models. These models have faster answering ability, stronger multimodal ability, and enhanced reasoning and generation ability, which will bring users a more intelligent user experience and inject new momentum into all walks of life.

On the evening of February 17, local time, xAI, a well-known American entrepreneur Elon Musk, officially released the latest artificial intelligence model Grok 3, which introduces advanced functions including image analysis and questions and answers to support various functions on the social media platform X. Musk said that Grok 3 uses a large data center with about 200,000 GPUs for training, and its computing power is 10 times that of the previous generation version of Grok 2.

On February 5, Google announced the launch of optimized versions of a number of “Gemini 2.0” series models, including the “Gemini 2.0 Lightning” model and the economic and experimental versions of the model, all of which will provide multi-modal input and text output. According to Google’s official blog, this update further enhances the ability of the “Gemini 2.0” series models in multi-modal reasoning, coding performance and processing complex tips, and improves cost-effectiveness.

OpenAI launched the “Research Preview Version” of the GPT-4.5 AI model on February 28, claiming that the interaction is more natural, the knowledge base is broader, the user’s intentions are better understood, and the “emotional intelligence” is higher.

OpenAI announced today that it has launched GPT-4.5 to ChatGPT Plus users earlier than expected.

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