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In July, Mistral, which publishes its own AI models, published a self-evaluation of the environmental impact of training and querying its model in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced, the amount of water consumed, and the amount of material consumed. Google took a slightly different approach, publishing the amount of power and water a Gemini query consumes, as well as how much CO2 it produces.
Of course, there are caveats: Each report was self-generated, and not performed by an outside auditor. Also, training a model consumes vastly more resources than inferencing, or the day-to-day tasks users assign a chatbot each time they query it. Still, the reports provide some context for how much AI taxes the environment, even though they exclude the effects of AI training and inferencing by OpenAI and other competitors.
On Thursday, Google said its estimate for the resources consumed by a "median" Gemini query consumes 0.24Wh of energy and 0.26 milliliters (five drops) of water, and generates the equivalent of 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide — the equivalent of 9 seconds of watching TV. Mistral's report slightly differed: For a "Le Chat" response generating a page of text (400 tokens), Mistral consumes 50 milliliters of water, produces the equivalent of 1.14 grams of carbon dioxide, and consumes the equivalent of 0.2 milligrams of non-renewable resources.
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Physically, the phones haven't much changed, but that's fine by me
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Here's what you missed at Google's big event that included new phones, watches, earbuds, Gemini AI features and numerous celebrity cameos.
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After all, Google's been slowly but steadily discontinuing older smart products (the Nest Protect, the Nest x Yale Lock) while leaving their replacements to third parties. At time same time, its aging line of Nest smart speakers and displays has been languishing.
But Google has previously hinted that new Google Home smart devices are on tap for later this year, and during the company's big Made by Google event today, we may have gotten a glimpse of one.
During some pre-recorded banter between Milwaukee Bucks player Giannis Antetokounmpo and F1 driver Lando Norris, the camera panned over to reveal a small, slightly squished sphere with a gray exterior and a telltale light ring encircling its narrow base.
That sphere was clearly a smart speaker housing Gemini, with Norris chatting with the assistant in its Gemini Live mode.
The speaker only appeared in passing and was never mentioned directly during the presentation, but it seems likely to be the first new Google smart speaker since the Nest Audio debuted in 2020. I hesitate to call it a new Nest speaker, as I'm not entirely sure Google will stick with the Nest branding in this new age of Gemini. (That's just a guess on my part.)
Speaking of Gemini, note that Alexa-like light ring replacing
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We got some playtime with the new Pixel 10, 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL, and the 10 Pro Fold.
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