Googles Gemini Live can talk to you, but I wouldnt call the human-sounding AI chatbot a stimulating conversationalist. Despite that, Google wants you toat the very leastimagine Gemini Live as a true companion. As the companys AI models grow more capable, Googles latest updates to Gemini make it seem like the bot is calling you up on your phone rather than you chatting with a cloud-based AI model. Late last week, Google updated its Gemini 2.0 Flash model and made it available to anyone using the Gemini app, so paying for a subscription is unnecessary. There seems to be a hidden update amid those changes, as evidenced by 9to5Google, which found that the company had changed Gemini Live notifications to make themappear far more human than before. Previously, when you exited the Gemini Live on Android while running it in the background, this would appear as a simple notification with a button for users to End Live mode. On the new version of the app, Gemini Live appears as a call, with the option to Hang Up or put the AI on Hold. If youre running the app from the lock screen, youll instead see a notification for Live with Gemini and a note the AI is Listening.Its a small change, but it helps exemplify how Google will position its AI in 2025. Gemini Live can talk with users, and recently, it gained the ability to understand uploaded photo or video content. Eventually, Google wants to add vision capabilities from GoogleDeepMinds Project Astra assistant. With these extra capabilities, Gemini Live will need to operate in the background without butting up against you using the phone like usual. Google is also updating its current Gemini 2.0 to include several smaller and larger AI models for different use cases. In a Wednesday blog post, the company showed off its new experimental version of Gemini 2.0 Pro, claiming it is its most powerful user-end model yet. Gemini 2.0 Pro is mostly there for coders and programmers, and it should be available in the app to anybody who pays for Gemini Advanced. If any coders want to use more AI to get themselves out of a job efficiently, heres a new option for you.One question is whether or not Googles latest model is as good as it claims. However, the company says it beats Gemini 2.0 Flash in most benchmarks save for one that checked its ability to provide factually correct responses given documents and diverse user requests. On the other side is Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite, which Google claims has the exact power requirements but far more accurate answers than Gemini 1.5 Flash. The new models arrived after OpenAI showedthe publicitso3 reasoning model. Last week, the company debuted its miniature o3-mini reasoning model. Samsungs Galaxy S25 phonesbig launch feature was cross-app capabilities with Gemini. With a long press of the power button, you can perform simple actions like turning a text message into a calendar invite hands-free. However, inGizmodos own tests, the AI features were far more mundane. The AI is less capable of handling more complex tasks. If youre spending time checking the AIs work, you may as well just perform the task yourself.Google will save its best mobile AI features for later this year, closer to Google I/O 2025 and the anticipated release of the Pixel 10. Compared to the so-so capabilities of Samsungs phones, Google will be looking to wow audiences with AI capabilities. Well have to wait and see if all this effort and hype was worth the trouble.

Apartment Moscou / minuit architectesSave this picture! BCDF studioArchitects: minuit architectesAreaArea of this architecture projectArea:105 mYearCompletion year of this architecture project Year: 2022 PhotographsPhotographs:BCDF studio Lead Architects: Joseph Vincent, Flix Borel, Alinor Bolelli, Maxime Eon More SpecsLess SpecsSave this picture!Text description provided by the architects. This apartment, located on the 5th floor of a Haussmannian building in the 8th arrondissement, originally followed a classic layout of the time, with rooms arranged in succession along the faades and connected by a long interior corridor.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The new design choice eliminates boundaries between living spaces, which now flow seamlessly around a cylindrical storage unit.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!A long inhabited wall highlights the apartment's cross-through aspect, connecting the courtyard and street faades while delineating the separation between the 'day' and 'night' areas.Save this picture!Project gallerySee allShow lessProject locationAddress:rue de Moscou, Paris, FranceLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this officeminuit architectesOfficeMaterialsWoodSteelMaterials and TagsPublished on February 05, 2025Cite: "Apartment Moscou / minuit architectes" 05 Feb 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1026322/apartment-moscou-minuit-architectes&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Architecture and Coloniality: Brazilian Modernism in Critical PerspectiveSave this picture!Braslia. Image Joana FranaBrazilian modern architecture is often celebrated as a landmark of innovation and national identity, projecting the country onto the international stage with iconic works and a distinctive aesthetic. However, recent research and publications have highlighted its deep entanglement with colonial narratives, both in its influences and its social impact. Although modernism emerged as an attempt to break away from European academic traditions, it remained dependent on foreign references and incorporated strategies of domination that echoed colonial logic.The idea that Brazils modernization and national identity formation are deeply tied to the countrys colonial past found one of its strongest ideological expressions in modernist architecture. However, this perspectivegaining traction in recent debatesstill faces resistance, mainly because it challenges a hegemonic narrative: that of a national identity built on concepts such as tropical civilization, racial democracy, and a distinctly Brazilian modernism. This narrative, widely disseminated through art, architecture, and cultural media, has played a central role in shaping Brazils image on the global stage for decades.Save this picture!The 1943 Brazil Builds exhibition at MoMA, for instance, cemented the international recognition of Brazilian modernist architecture, portraying the countrys built environment not just at that moment but as far back as the mid-17th century. Reflecting the collaboration between the Brazilian and U.S. governments, the exhibition sought to present Brazil as a nation where citizenship prevailed over racial prejudice. However, it included architectural structures that had originally served as instruments of the necropolitical system of slavery in colonial Brazil. These buildings, seemingly stripped of their historical context, were rebranded as aesthetic references for tropical modernism. Related Article Earth as Ancestral and Future Technology: An Interview With Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares, Curators of the Brazil Pavilion and Winners of the Golden Lion at the 2023 Venice Biennale The parallel between colonial and modern architecture in Brazil emerged in the early 20th century when national identity became a central concernnot only in visual arts and literature but also in architecture. At the time, it was widely believed that the national spirit was reflected in European colonial architecture. However, this revivalism was imbued with colonialist concepts, such as ideas linked to white supremacy.One of the leading figures of Brazilian modern architecture, architect and urban planner Lcio Costa, viewed the creation of modern and independent national art as being intertwined with colonial heritage rather than opposed to it. For him, the colonial was a key element to be revitalized as the foundation of Brazilian modernity. As a civil servant at the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Service (SPHAN), Costa published several articles asserting that "the ingenious technique of colonial architecturemud reinforced with woodhas something in common with our reinforced concrete," and that "just as the furniture of modern European avant-garde masters was light, simple, and stable, so too was Jesuit colonial furniture, designed according to human proportions, just like their buildings."Save this picture!Costa did not shy away from making direct comparisons between modern and colonial architecture. Persisting in this parallel, he elaborated a historiography of Brazilian modern architecture in his 1951 text Depoimento de um Arquiteto Carioca, stating that the transition to modernity was shaped by two "fundamental" factors: the abolition of slavery and the industrial revolution. As Paulo Tavares, architect and co-curator of the award-winning Brazilian Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale, points out in his book Was Lcio Costa Racist?, Costas obsession with synthesizing the colonial and the modern led him to draw an analogy between Le Corbusiers "machine for living" and the Brazilian slave system:The Brazilian machine for living, during the Colonial and Imperial periods, depended on this mixture of things, animals, and peoplethat is, the enslaved. [...] They made everything workthere was a Black person for everything. [...] The Black person was the sewage system; the running water in the bedroom, hot and cold; the light switch and doorbell; the one who patched leaks and lifted heavy glass panes, who washed clothes automatically and fanned the air like a ventilator.Within this context, the attempt to define, differentiate, or even merge modernity and tradition led to dominant ideas about the much-coveted modern national identityideas that continue to be perpetuated today, often without critical reflection. Even the very conception of Brasliadescribed by Paulo Tavares as a "colonial capital"reflects colonial thinking, despite being internationally recognized as a model of modernist urban planning. The construction of Braslia, starting with the Pilot Plan, was presented as a territorial conquest, symbolizing a fresh start for Brazilian identity and modernity. By placing the new capital at the heart of Brazils then-uninhabited interior, Costa conceived it as "a pioneering gesture, in the tradition of colonial expansion." This symbolism is embedded in the Plano Piloto itself, whose spatial configuration materializes a colonial-Christian crossa design that Costa justified in his own words: "a drawing born from the primary gesture of someone marking a place or claiming it: two axes crossing at a right angle, the very sign of the cross." This gesture carries significant violence in multiple ways. While narratives often obscure this colonial character, they emerge clearly at timespresented positively and tied to modernization. This explains how the colonial cross came to be interpreted as an airplane heading toward progress, reinforcing the deep connection between coloniality and modernity.Save this picture!Despite the contradictions in the history of Brazilian modern architecture, it is essential to recognize that modernism, as a cultural and political movement, aimed to transcend national and racial divisionsit aspired to be international and universal. However, in Brazil, these ideals clashed with colonial and racialized perspectives, which, while exemplified by Lcio Costas thinking, must be understood within a broader cultural and historical contextone in which he was not an exception. Regardless, although Costas ideas cannot be judged solely through the lens of the present, we cannot ignore the fact that his vision of Brazilian architecture and national culture was built on specific foundations. The challenge lies in engaging critically with this legacynot only preserving its strengths but also exposing its contradictions, ensuring that its influence on the present is both conscious and reflective.Save this picture!This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: 100 Years of Modernism. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.Image gallerySee allShow lessAbout this authorCamilla GhisleniAuthorCite: Ghisleni, Camilla. "Architecture and Coloniality: Brazilian Modernism in Critical Perspective " [Arquitetura e Colonialidade: O Modernismo Brasileiro em Perspectiva Crtica] 05 Feb 2025. ArchDaily. (Trans. Simes, Diogo) Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1026345/architecture-and-coloniality-brazilian-modernism-in-critical-perspective&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

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In an increasingly digitizing world, on the tail-ends of a public health crisis which has strained the publics mental health, remote therapy may be here to stay. But is it an adequate substitute for in-person therapy? The research says it is certainly a great option to have but not the only one.Virtual Therapy EffectivenessHow useful therapy can be is subjective from person-to-person, and virtual therapy is no exception. For pure effectiveness, I would say its something we call non-inferior, says Laura Murray, senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Indeed, a study in 2022 tracking patients preferences of mental health treatments for 16 months over the course of the pandemic found that getting more exposure over time to care online increased preferences and satisfaction for virtual therapy. Researchers also found that similarly to face-to-face treatments, online therapy was nearly as effective in reducing university students psychological distress such as depression and anxiety. Where virtual therapy gains an edge on in-person treatments is the fact that it eases the problem of distance and access notoriously big obstacles in preventing people from getting the help they need. Patients in rural areas without healthcare infrastructure or who cant physically move around, for example, benefit from accessing psychotherapy from their own homes. Challenges of Virtual TherapyBut situating healthcare in the virtual world comes with a myriad of complicating factors. One 2022 study in the journal Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process and Outcome, for instance, found some group therapy patients noted changes in the relationship dynamics between themselves, their therapists, and with one another.Murray, who is also a clinical psychologist, adds anecdotally that almost every provider she works with finds virtual treatments more challenging. Looking and talking to someone in a small box on a computer screen removes the many crucial bodily cues and non-verbal tells that come naturally when sitting in front of someone.Plus, concerns about data security and privacy regarding sensitive information comprise a notable concern as documented in a Nature article. Under certain insurance plans, not even digital therapy could be covered, and not every person is technologically savvy enough to make the change smoothly.I think telehealth is fascinating and interesting and so good that we have it, Murray says. I also dont want the pendulum to shift so thats all we should offer. Because I would say, when I look at the literature, its about a 50-50 split of who its good for and who its not good for.What Would Make Mental Healthcare More Effective?The problem for professionals like Murray, then, isnt whether therapy, especially long-term treatments, is more effective over the computer or inside a therapists office. Murray believes the bigger issue is the quality and method of treatment in the first place. When people say theyre in therapy, they may not typically have an endpoint to their treatment in mind. Theyre just always there, and thats a model a lot of us are really pushing to get out of: Its expensive, its not helpful, it means youre not getting quality care unless you just want to talk to someone, she says. But most people dont have the insurance or the money or the ability to just hang out with someone.Murray specializes in researching evidence-based treatments, which are defined as methods utilizing the best and most current research in combination with clinical expertise to make decisions on patient care. Most evidence-based practices, which typically have undergone at least two randomized clinical trials, are short-term, so they dont go on indefinitely.When we do studies of an evidence-based treatment, and we deliver it in-person or [via] telehealth, theres no difference in time length, Murray says. I dont think its the telehealth factor or the timeline. I think its that most people are not getting evidence-based services.Evidence-Based Treatments Evidence-based practices began gaining attention during the 1990s and have over time made their way into the mental healthcare industry as well. But progress of integrating them into care has been slow, and the pandemic further revealed those discrepancies. Research has shown that training professionals in evidence-based protocols enhances their skills, clinical prowess, and general awareness of the industry, but its costly and time-consuming to make the shift.To implement evidence-based care in psychotherapy, Murray says the field of mental healthcare is increasingly shifting toward a new method: transdiagnostic systems of care.Transdiagnostic care promotes a more universal way of approaching mental health. Essentially, it allows professionals to treat psychiatric issues without needing to cleanly categorize something that isnt inherently neat. Read More: How to Improve Your Mental HealthThe Future of TelehealthRemote therapy is ultimately here to stay, given the access it can provide to patients who were previously shut out from healthcare. By offering a more flexible work environment, it could also plug some holes in the workforce shortage crisis providers are currently facing.But Murray argues it wont be the key to finding industry solutions in the long run. Remotes only as good as how many bodies you have. Everyones like, remote is the answer. Not if you dont have 20 extra providers who are actually going to do this work, she says. While Murray and other experts are pushing for the broader adoption of evidence-based treatments, that field also has its own kinks to work out. Ultimately, integrating one form of practice does not necessarily mean doing away with the other entirely. Psychotherapies may employ more existential and humanistic models of care, for example, while many evidence-based practices focus on the cognitive and behavioral. One consensus that experts seem to arrive at is that the efficacy of any kind of therapy, whether its deemed as empirically backed or happens face-to-face versus video call, depends on what the patient first and foremost hopes for.If your outcome is, I really enjoyed it. It calmed me. It helped me feel less anxious, maybe you get some impact, Murray says. Its really important to look at what people are wanting to get out of this.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:National Library of Medicine. Virtual Behavioral Health Treatment Satisfaction and Outcomes Across TimeNational Library of Medicine. The transition to online psychotherapy during the pandemic: a qualitative study on patients perspectivesThe American Journal of Psychiatry. Psychotherapy at a DistanceThe American Journal of Psychotherapy. Enhancing Quality of Care Through Evidence-Based Practice: Training and Supervision ExperiencesNational Library of Medicine. Evidence-Based Psychotherapy: Advantages and Challenges

With its glaciers and sub-zero temperatures, Antarctica hardly seems like a place of refuge. However, the now icy continent might have been just that for the early ancestors of todays living waterbirdsespecially after an asteroid slammed into the Earth. A newly described fossil indicates that an early relative of ducks and geese called Vegavis iaai lived in Antarctica the same time that Tyrannosaurus rex was stomping around North America. The fossil is described in a study published February 5 in the journal Nature and shows that the continent was a key location in bird evolution. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.After a dinosaur-killing asteroid struck the Earth near the Yucatn Peninsula in present day Mexico about 66 million years ago, about 75 percent of species on Earth eventually went extinct. However, Antarctica may have been somewhat protected because of its distance from the impact site. Fossil evidence suggests that the landmass had a temperate climate with lush vegetation, so it could have been the perfect location for the earliest members of the avian group that now includes geese and ducks.The fossil in this new study was collected in 2011 during an expedition by the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project. It is a nearly complete Vegavis iaai skull, one of the earliest known birds dating back to the latest part of the Cretaceous Period (roughly 69.2 to 68.4 million years ago). The authors generated a near-complete three-dimensional reconstruction of the new skull to study its anatomy. They found that Vegavis has a long, pointed beak and a brain shape that is considered unique among all of the known birds previously discovered from the Mesozoic Erawhich includes the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods. During the Mesozoic, non-avian dinosaurs and an eclectic collection of early birds such as Archaeopteryx flew in different parts of the Earth. Vegavis long beak and brain shape place itDigital reconstruction of the Late Cretaceous (~69 million years old) crown bird Vegavis iaai that was completed following high-resolution micro-computed tomography of a fossil-bearing concretion discovered on Vega Island, Antarctic Peninsula. CREDIT: Joseph Groenke (Ohio University) and Christopher Torres (University of the Pacific), 2025. Vegavis was first reported 20 years ago by study co-author Julia Clarke from The University of Texas at Austin and several colleagues. Initially, it was proposed as an early member of modern birds within the waterfowl group. However, modern birds are very rare in the fossil record from before the end-Cretaceous extinction, and more recent studies have shed some doubt on where Vegavis should be on the bird evolutionary tree.Few birds are as likely to start as many arguments among paleontologists as Vegavis, Christopher Torres, a study co-author and paleontologist at the University of the Pacific, said in a statement. This new fossil is going to help resolve a lot of those arguments. Chief among them: where is Vegavis perched in the bird tree of life?A pair of Vegavis iaai, the earliest known modern bird at 69 million years ago, foraging for fish and other animals in the Late Cretaceous ocean off the coast of the Antarctic PeninsulaCREDIT: Andrew McAfee (Carnegie Museum of Natural History), 2025. The nearly complete skull detailed in this new study puts some of that skepticism to rest. It shows several traits including the shape of the brain and beak bones that are consistent with that of modern birds, and waterfowl specifically. One of the main differences between modern waterflow is that Vegavis skull has traces of powerful jaw muscles that were useful for overcoming water resistance while diving to snatch fish.Additionally, the skull features and other parts of its skeleton suggest that Vegavis used its feet for underwater propulsion while pursuing fish and other prey. This feeding strategy is more like what gerbes and loons use.[ Related: All living birds share an iridescent ancestor. ]The known birds discovered in other parts of the planet from the late Cretaceous Period are barely recognizable by modern bird standards. Additionally, most of the sites that preserve delicate bird fossils from the Cretaceous yield specimens that are so incomplete that scientists can only get hints at their identity.This fossil underscores that Antarctica has much to tell us about the earliest stages of modern bird evolution, study co-author and Ohio University paleontologist Patrick OConnor said in a statement. And those few places with any substantial fossil record of Late Cretaceous birds, like Madagascar and Argentina, reveal an aviary of bizarre, now-extinct species with teeth and long bony tails, only distantly related to modern birds. Something very different seems to have been happening in the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere, specifically in Antarctica.

An ancient bird that swam in Antarcticas balmier waters 69 million years ago may be the earliest known waterfowl on Earth, scientists say.A newly discovered and nearly complete fossilized skull found in rocks on the Antarctic peninsula belonged to Vegavis iaai, an ancient bird previously known only from fossilized body parts and a bit of its voice box. This skull offers the best evidence yet that the enigmatic, controversial bird was closely related to modern ducks and geese, report paleontologist Christopher Torres of the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., and his colleagues in the Feb. 6 Nature.A digital reconstruction of Vegavis iaais skull highlights different elements of the creatures skull. Among its modern birdlike features are the beaks toothlessness (upper and lower beak shown in red and light blue, respectively), a small upper jaw, or maxilla (in green), and the shape of its braincase (not shown).C. Torres and J. GronkeThe skull, dated to between 69.2 and 68.4 million years old, has numerous modern birdlike features, including a toothless beak and a small upper jaw. The birds braincase was also large, with the optic lobes the brain structures that analyze visual information shifted downward, similar to their position in modern birds. Its an evolutionary shift that gives modern birds a leg up in navigation as well as hunting, providing more sensitive vision and motor coordination. V. iaai, the team suggests, was probably a pursuit hunter, diving for fish in the waters of Cretaceous Era Antarctica.Antarctica may have been a refuge for birds, including early waterfowl, to weather the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event about 66 million years ago. At left is Vegavis iaai, which lived in Antarctica a few million years before the extinction. At right, its close relative Conflicto antarcticus, which lived during the early Paleocene Epoch shortly after the extinction.C.R. Torres et al/Nature 2025Antarctica may have been a refuge for birds, including early waterfowl, to weather the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event about 66 million years ago. At left is Vegavis iaai, which lived in Antarctica a few million years before the extinction. At right, its close relative Conflicto antarcticus, which lived during the early Paleocene Epoch shortly after the extinction.C.R. Torres et al/Nature 2025Birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event. Antarctica, far from the Chicxulub asteroids impact site off the current coast of Mexicos Yucatn Peninsula, may have been a refuge for some ancestors of modern birds, allowing them to weather the ensuing environmental upheaval elsewhere around the globe.V. iaai was first described about 20 years ago, from an Antarctic fossil dating to between 66 million and 68 million years ago. Researchers suspected then that the bird was closely related to modern waterfowl like ducks and geese. One bit of evidence that this late Cretaceous bird had some modern avian traits was the remains of a syrinx, a birds voice box. The fossil contained mineralized rings of collagen that would have anchored vibrating membranes, allowing the bird to for example honk.But previous fossils of the bird didnt include much of the skull. That hampered scientists ability to assess where exactly V. iaai fits in birds family tree whether it was a primitive form with a few waterfowl-like traits, or whether it can be considered a wholly modern bird, one that lived alongside the nonavian dinosaurs.The new skull does provide rare insight into bird skull anatomy just before the extinction event, says Daniel Field, a paleontologist with the University of Cambridge who was not an author on the study. I love this fossil. Its very exciting.But it also raises more questions than it answers, Field says. Based on these findings, V. iaai may well be a very modern anseriform, the scientific term for a waterfowl, he says. But hes not convinced that the authors of the study have definitively proven their case. The skull really looks even less ducklike than might have been expected, he says. They might be looking at it a bit through teal-colored glasses.The bottom line is that these creatures lived a long time ago, and its incredibly hard to sort out the relationships of ancient birds from such scant fossil evidence. The features that the new study identifies as evidence of modernity might also be traits shared by the more primitive forms of these birds, Field says. Its important to acknowledge that uncertainty.