Google brings Gemini-powered search history and Lens to Chrome desktop

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Image Credits: Google

Google Thursday said that it is introducing new Gemini-powered features for Chrome’s desktop version, including Lens for desktop, tab compare for shopping assistance, and natural language integration for search history.

Years after introducing and evolving Google Lens on mobile, the feature is finally coming to desktop. Rolling out to users across the world in the coming days, Lens will live in the address bar, as well as the three-dot menu. After clicking, you can select a part of a page and ask more questions to get search results.

You can also tap on objects, such as someone’s backpack in a picture, and ask questions through multi-search to find a similar item in different colors or brands. Depending on the question you ask, you might also get AI Overviews in answers.

In addition to searching for shoppable items, users can also find out how much sunlight a plant needs, for example, or get help understanding a math equation.

Image Credits: Google

Google is also introducing a new feature called Tab Compare to aid shopping. In the coming weeks, Chrome will offer an AI-powered summary of similar items you might be searching across different tabs. For instance, if you are searching for a new Bluetooth speaker, the feature will show details such as product specs, features, price and ratings in one place, even when you’re looking at these details across different pages.

A tab in Chrome comparing the price, user reviews and other specs of three different portable speakers.
Image Credits: Google

One of the most useful updates of this lot is the ability to search your browsing history through natural language queries. Sometimes you don’t remember what page you visited apart from a few details. The company is rolling out AI-powered history search in the coming weeks as an opt-in feature for U.S. users.

Shortcut for “Search History” in the Chrome address bar with the input “what was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?. The drop down results provide the URL to the correct website “Emerald City Cones”.
Image Credits: Google

An example of a natural language query is, “What was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?” Google uses a combination of URL, title, and contents of the page to show search results.

The company said that it doesn’t use this data to train Gemini and won’t surface any information from the incognito session. Google currently can’t process AI-powered search history locally, however, so it uses cloud capacity to return results.

In January, the company introduced AI-powered features such as a writing assistant, tab organizer, and theme creator. In May, it rolled out a way to mention Gemini and ask the chatbot questions directly from the address bar.

Google brings Gemini-powered search history and Lens to Chrome desktop

by with No Comment Tech

Image Credits: Google

Google Thursday said that it is introducing new Gemini-powered features for Chrome’s desktop version, including Lens for desktop, tab compare for shopping assistance, and natural language integration for search history.

Years after introducing and evolving Google Lens on mobile, the feature is finally coming to desktop. Rolling out to users across the world in the coming days, Lens will live in the address bar, as well as the three-dot menu. After clicking, you can select a part of a page and ask more questions to get search results.

You can also tap on objects, such as someone’s backpack in a picture, and ask questions through multi-search to find a similar item in different colors or brands. Depending on the question you ask, you might also get AI Overviews in answers.

In addition to searching for shoppable items, users can also find out how much sunlight a plant needs, for example, or get help understanding a math equation.

Image Credits: Google

Google is also introducing a new feature called Tab Compare to aid shopping. In the coming weeks, Chrome will offer an AI-powered summary of similar items you might be searching across different tabs. For instance, if you are searching for a new Bluetooth speaker, the feature will show details such as product specs, features, price and ratings in one place, even when you’re looking at these details across different pages.

A tab in Chrome comparing the price, user reviews and other specs of three different portable speakers.
Image Credits: Google

One of the most useful updates of this lot is the ability to search your browsing history through natural language queries. Sometimes, you don’t remember what page you visited apart from a few details. The company is rolling out AI-powered history search in the coming weeks as an opt-in feature for U.S. users.

Shortcut for “Search History” in the Chrome address bar with the input “what was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?. The drop down results provide the URL to the correct website “Emerald City Cones”.
Image Credits: Google

An example of a natural language query is, “What was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?” Google uses a combination of URL, title, and contents of the page to show search results.

The company said that it doesn’t use this data to train Gemini and won’t surface any information from the incognito session. Google currently can’t process AI-powered search history locally, however, so it uses cloud capacity to return results.

In January, the company introduced AI-powered features such as a writing assistant, tab organizer, and theme creator. In May, it rolled out a way to mention Gemini and ask the chatbot questions directly from the address bar.

Intuitive Machines Odysseus

Intuitive Machines makes history by landing the first commercial spacecraft on the moon

by with No Comment Tech

Intuitive Machines Odysseus

Image Credits: Intuitive Machines (opens in a new window)

Intuitive Machines has landed a spacecraft on the lunar surface, in a historic first for a private company.

Flight controllers confirmed the landing at 5:23 p.m. CST, though the exact condition of the spacecraft is unclear as engineers work to refine their signal with the lander.

“What we can confirm without a doubt is that our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting,” mission director and Intuitive Machines CTO Tim Crain said. “So congratulations IM team, we’ll see how much more we can get from that.”

“Houston, Odysseus has found its new home,” he added.

“What an outstanding effort,” CEO Steve Altemus said after the landing. “I know this was a nail biter but we are on the surface and we are transmitting. Welcome to the moon.”

The company managed to pull off the landing even with the spacecraft’s laser range finders — which determine essential variables like altitude and horizontal velocity — being broken. Instead, the lander leveraged one of the onboard payloads, NASA’s laser and doppler lidar sensors, to guide the spacecraft to the lunar surface.

This is the first time America has put hardware on the moon in nearly 50 years. The spacecraft’s landing site — just outside the rim of a crater called Malapert-A — is also the closest any lander has gotten to the lunar south pole. The south pole has emerged as a region of major interest to both commercial companies and NASA; the space agency has been eyeing the area as a possible location to establish a sustained human presence on the moon as part of its Artemis program.

It’s certainly an extraordinarily positive beginning for Houston-based Intuitive Machines, one of just a few companies in the world that’s focused on providing services on and around the moon. Along with lunar landers, the company is also developing technologies related to mobility, power and data services for the moon. The company’s betting that lunar market activity — which exists at a very small scale today, and is primarily driven by NASA funding — will only grow in the coming years.

This mission is itself the result of a NASA contract awarded under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The CLPS program is designed to kickstart commercial development of landers to deliver scientific and research payloads to the moon’s surface. All in all, Intuitive Machines’ contract is worth a little less than $118 million.

“As of our third planned mission, we’re seeing more and more non-CLPS payloads from both domestic and international companies and institutions,” Josh Marshall, communications director of Intuitive Machines, said.

Intuitive Machines’ victory comes shortly after another CLPS awardee, Astrobotic, failed to put its lander on the moon. That mission was cut short very shortly after launch due to a catastrophic propulsion leak.

Rewatch the landing here: