Nothing has a brand new smartphone—the Cellphone (2a) Plus—practically equivalent to the Cellphone (2a) it launched earlier this yr, however with barely beefed-up specs. It prices $399 and is out there within the US by the identical beta program. But it surely is not the brand new Android handset we discover most fascinating, it is the corporate’s new widget.
The “News Reporter” widget, accessible by default on all Nothing and CMF smartphones plus different Android and iOS units through the Nothing X app, enables you to shortly play a information bulletin summarized by synthetic intelligence. It’s learn out by the synthesized voice of Tim Holbrow, the corporate’s chief monetary officer. (Nothing is utilizing ElevenLabs’ tech for sound synthesis and output.) As quickly as you faucet the widget, you are greeted by a soothing British voice:
“Welcome to Nothing News, where the only thing we take seriously is not taking anything seriously. I’m Tim, your CFO and reluctant news reader. Today, we’re making something out of nothing, because that’s literally our job.”
The widget will begin biking by a number of information tales—you’ll be able to press and maintain the widget and faucet Edit so as to add or take away classes you are keen on, reminiscent of enterprise, leisure, tech, and sports activities. These information tales are pulled from “trusted English-language news sources” by Information API, utilizing Meta’s Llama giant language fashions for the summarization.
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You possibly can swipe down the notification bar and press the subsequent button on the media playback notification to skip a narrative, to which Holbrow will add a quip. “Not feeling that one? Let’s find another.” After I skipped fairly a number of in a row, AI Holbrow requested, “Do you even like news?”
The summaries are one minute every (roughly), and also you get eight tales per day. Each morning, the widget will refresh with a contemporary batch. Sadly, and frustratingly, the widget does not offer you a lot to go on if you wish to learn extra. There isn’t any attribution to the place it pulled the information from, and no hyperlinks are offered to learn straight from the supply.
Each smartphone firm has been touting some type of generative AI characteristic in new units this yr. Samsung has Galaxy AI; Google has its Gemini chatbot and a bevy of AI options in Pixel telephones; Motorola launched Moto AI just lately; and even OnePlus has been teasing a number of AI options in its telephones, like AI Eraser, which helps you to take away undesirable objects from pictures. Nothing launched a ChatGPT integration in its earbuds earlier this yr, and this widget is the most recent generative AI characteristic to land.
