Gemini 3.6 Is Google Buying Time in the AI Race

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Google, Artificial Intelligence,

Every few weeks, one of the big AI labs drops a new model and asks you to care. Google's latest ask is Gemini 3.6, and the honest pitch is sitting right there in the release: it is cheaper to run than the last one. That is it. That is the headline feature.

Which is not nothing, if you are the person paying the bill. Google calls 3.6 its workhorse model, the one meant to balance quality against cost, and it does deliver real savings there: up to 65% fewer output tokens than 3.5 Flash in some cases, and about 17% fewer overall. Tokens are how these models get billed, so fewer tokens means a smaller invoice for the companies wiring Gemini into their apps. For everyone else, it is the kind of improvement you feel in a spreadsheet, not in a conversation.

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Apple Upgrade Subscription Sounds Great, Until You See What It Leaves Out

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Editorial,

Apple has a plan for the fact that its gear keeps getting more expensive: let you pay for it a little at a time. Next week the company rolls out Apple Upgrade, a monthly subscription that turns a big one-time hit into a manageable line item on your card. It sounds great. Then you read the fine print, and the catch lands on exactly the people the whole thing was supposed to help.

Here is the setup. Apple's prices have crept up lately, driven in large part by the cost of the memory that all this AI ambition demands, and more increases are expected this fall alongside new iPhone and Apple Watch models. There are even new "Ultra" tiers on the way, an iPhone Ultra and a MacBook Ultra, for people who want to spend more than they already were. Spreading that cost over monthly payments is a genuinely sensible idea. Financing a phone is nothing new, but having Apple do it directly, at the register and online, makes the sticker shock easier to swallow.

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The People Making Xbox Games Reportedly Hate Game Pass

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Microsoft, Video Games,

Xbox Game Pass has always had one obvious pitch: pay a monthly fee, and a giant library of games, including brand-new ones on day one, is just there. For players, that is close to a miracle. For the people who actually make those games, it may be closer to a slow-motion disaster.

According to a new report, that tension is not a rumor floating around the internet anymore. It is coming from inside the house. Xbox studio leadership reportedly detests Game Pass, and the reason is deceptively simple: they think it is teaching an entire generation of players that a $70 game should feel free.

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Netflix Would Rather You Not Count How Much Everyone’s Watching

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Editorial, Home Entertainment,

Here is a good rule of thumb for reading any company's earnings: watch what it stops telling you. Netflix just told investors it will scale back its "What We Watched" engagement reports from twice a year to once a year, starting in early 2027. The official reason is that it wants everyone to focus on the numbers that pay the bills, revenue and operating profit, instead of getting distracted by hours watched.

That is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. It is also, conveniently, the kind of thing you say right when the viewing numbers get a little less flattering. Netflix racked up more than 97 billion hours of viewing in the first half of 2026, up about 2% from a year ago. Growth, yes. Blistering growth, no. And when the line stops going up and to the right as fast as it used to, publishing it half as often starts to look less like a focus decision and more like a mercy.

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China’s Kimi K3 Just Took the Top Coding Spot, and You Can Download It

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Software, Artificial Intelligence,

For a couple of years now, the story about Chinese AI has been that it is close, impressive, and always a step or two behind the American frontier. That story just got harder to tell. Moonshot AI, the Beijing startup behind the Kimi chatbot, has released Kimi K3, and it did not quietly match the leaders. It walked into the Frontend Code Arena, a public leaderboard where models compete head to head on building working interfaces, and finished first. Ahead of Claude. Ahead of GPT. At the very top.

Here is the part that should make you sit up: this is not a locked API you rent from a company an ocean away. Kimi K3 is open-weight, which means the full model is going out to anyone who wants it. Moonshot says the complete weights land on July 27, and at 2.8 trillion parameters, K3 is the largest openly released model the world has seen. You could, in theory, download the same thing that just beat everyone at coding and run it yourself.

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Anthropic Wants States to Regulate AI Harder, Not Softer

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Artificial Intelligence,

Here is a sentence you do not read often: an AI company is asking the government to regulate it more, not less. That is roughly what Anthropic has spent the last few weeks doing, and it is worth paying attention to, because the usual script for a company this size is to lobby for the softest possible rules and call it a day.

Anthropic's pitch, laid out around the middle of July, is that the patchwork of state AI laws now taking shape should get tougher over time, not get flattened into one gentle national standard. The company wants frontier developers, the outfits building the most capable models, to face independent safety audits, real security requirements, and actual government authority to step in when something looks dangerous. "Transparency and self-reporting, we don't believe are sufficient anymore," Cesar Fernandez, Anthropic's head of U.S. state and local government relations, told reporters. Coming from a company that would have to live under those rules, that is a striking thing to say out loud.

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Universal Sued Nintendo Over Donkey Kong. And It Backfired. (Video)

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Editorial, Video Games, Videos,

Picture the year 1983. You walk into a video arcade during its absolute golden era, the air thick with cheap pizza and ozone, that wild geometric carpet under your feet, the whole room a chaotic symphony of beeps and bloops. Arcades were printing money. But behind all that noise, a genuinely bizarre legal brawl was brewing, and it pitted a Hollywood titan, Universal Studios, against an underdog Japanese company that got its start back in 1889 making playing cards.

That company was Nintendo, the game was Donkey Kong, and Universal was convinced Nintendo's smash hit infringed on its trademark for King Kong. It's a David-versus-Goliath story played out in federal court, and it did not end the way Universal expected.

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Black Lives Matter w/ Guest Sara Dietschy

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Cameras, Smartphones, Editorial, Features, PC / Laptop,

This week, we reflect on the uprising that we’re seeing in the USA and across the world as people fight for change in how the lives of black and brown people in America and are viewed and valued. Andru shares his 24-hour fight with YouTube to get a video that would help protesters stay safe. Our guest, Sara Dietschy joins us and gives her unique perspective on the new Sony ZV1 handheld camera, which is targeted at vloggers.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW

• Subscribe to Geared Up!
• How to Police-Proof Your Smartphone
• Sara Dietschy's Sony ZV-1 Review
• Sara Dietschy on YouTube
• Geared Up on YouTube
• Jon Rettinger on YouTube
• Andru Edwards on YouTube

SPONSOR: National Car Rental - skip the line with the Emerald Club. Go National. Go Like a Pro.

Listen to the episode in the player above or subscribe to Geared Up in your favorite podcast app to listen on the go!

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Technology Access Foundation Students Visit Capital One to Talk Tech Careers

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Editorial, Misc. Tech,

As I waited in the lobby at Capital One in Seattle, a group of well-dressed, inquisitive 13-year-olds arrived - joking, laughing, all while keeping their voices down in order to mind their manners. I eavesdropped a bit to get a sense for what they were feeling, and it was a mixture of excitement and nervousness. They were here at Capital One to learn about what it takes to succeed in a career in the fast-growing world of tech.

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Google Pixel vs. Nexus 6P: Which is the Better Android Smartphone?

Posted by Kevin Nether Categories: Smartphones, Editorial, Handhelds, Product Reviews,

The Pixel and the Nexus are like brothers from another mother. On the one hand, you've got Google's best from last year and on the other, Google's best from this year. But how does the Nexus 6P stack up against the Pixel, one year later? Let's find out.

If you look at design, they're pretty far apart. The 6P's metal build with a visor up top is definitely premium but so is the Pixel's metal and glass combination. Their size comes down to personal preference but you can pick up the Pixel over the Pixel XL if size matters to you.

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