AI News (for TTC Faculty/Staff)

(from Google Blog)

"And now we’re introducing Gemini 3, our most intelligent model, that combines all of Gemini’s capabilities together so you can bring any idea to life.

It’s state-of-the-art in reasoning, built to grasp depth and nuance — whether it’s perceiving the subtle clues in a creative idea, or peeling apart the overlapping layers of a difficult problem. Gemini 3 is also much better at figuring out the context and intent behind your request, so you get what you need with less prompting. It’s amazing to think that in just two years, AI has evolved from simply reading text and images to reading the room."

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A new era of intelligence with Gemini 3

(excerpt from Google)

“Simply put, NotebookLM is a tool for understanding things,” Steven says. Think of it as your virtual note-taking and research assistant: NotebookLM takes information, digests and analyzes it so that you can glean more from it. It’s designed for that “deeper dive” you may need to take into a topic — or multiple topics at once.”

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8 expert tips for getting started with NotebookLM

(Picture & summary created in Gemini.ai)

Goblin Tools is a collection of small, simple, AI-powered tools designed to help people manage tasks that feel overwhelming or complicated.

Its main tools include:

• Magic ToDo: Breaks down complex to-do items into smaller, manageable steps.
• Formalizer: Transforms text to adjust its tone or formality.
• Judge: Analyzes a piece of text to identify its emotional tone.
• Professor: Explains a concept or topic in simple terms.
• Estimator: Guesses the approximate time needed to complete an activity.
• Compiler: Turns a "braindump" of thoughts into a structured list of actions.

• Chef: Generates a recipe based on ingredients you provide.

   

Checkout this online tool:

Goblin Tools

[Article from Tom's Guide]

"Nano Banana, also known as Gemini 2.5 Flash, is making waves with viral trends. But it’s useful for so much more than turning kids’ art into lifelike creatures or putting yourself on the cover of your favorite magazine. Obviously, I’m obsessed and have been testing it ever since it launched.

As someone who is terrible at Photoshop, I’ve been using this multimodal AI from Google’s DeepMind to enhance new and old photos alike. I've found it surprisingly useful, and I've learned a few tricks to help it work for you."

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https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/nano-banana-isnt-just-for-viral-trends-heres-how-i-use-it-to-fix-and-everyday-photos
 

"Google is rolling out a new AI-powered experimental feature in Google Translate designed to help people practice and learn a new language, the company announced on Tuesday. Translate is also gaining new live capabilities to make it easier to communicate in real time with a person speaking a different language.

The new language practice feature is designed for both beginners starting to learn conversational skills and advanced speakers looking to brush up on their vocabulary, the company says. To do so, it creates tailored listening and speaking practice sessions that adapt to a user’s skill level and unique learning goals."

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Google Translate takes on Duolingo with new language learning tools

“Adobe is adding generative AI to Acrobat, its venerable tool for creating and managing PDF files.”

“Adobe on Tuesday launched Acrobat Studio, a subscription service that allows individuals or groups to query a series of documents, generating answers complete with citations.”

Read more:

Adobe taps AI to teach Acrobat new tricks

Are you looking to get a demonstration of various AI tools that can be used for academia?  

Andy Stapleton's YouTube channel has videos on a variety academia topics including AI tools and PhD student experience with AI.  

Some AI Tools with video demonstrations (see the YouTube channel link for all videos):

- Zotero

- NotebookLM

- Gemini (numerous videos)

- Perplexity

and more…