🎨 Google Nano Banana 2 tops benchmarks at half price 🎨
Google's upgraded image generator cuts costs while claiming top performance rankings.

Google has released Nano Banana 2, a major upgrade to its viral image generation model built on Gemini 3.1 Flash. The new model delivers enhanced resolution up to 4K, improved multi-character consistency, better text rendering, and real-time web search integration. The pricing shift matters for developers: at roughly 7 cents per image, it undercuts competitors by nearly 2x while achieving significantly faster generation speeds. Nano Banana 2 has claimed the No.1 spot on both Artificial Analysis and LM Arena benchmarks, outperforming Nano Banana Pro and GPT Image 1.5. The model is now integrated as the default image generator across Gemini and Google's entire tool ecosystem.

🛡️ Anthropic CEO refuses Pentagon demand to weaken Claude 🛡️
Dario Amodei stands firm on AI safety as $200M defense contract hangs in balance.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has publicly refused the Department of Defense's request to remove safety guardrails from Claude models, specifically declining to support mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons without human oversight. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly delivered an ultimatum: agree to remove safeguards, face contract termination with a supply chain risk label, or forced compliance via the Defense Production Act. The $200M contract hangs in the balance as Anthropic offers to help the DoD transition to another provider. This standoff signals growing tension between AI safety commitments and military applications, with the Pentagon signing a deal with xAI to deploy Grok in classified systems as an alternative.

🚪 xAI Co-founder Toby Pohlen exits 🚪
Seventh of twelve original co-founders departs as executive turnover accelerates.

Toby Pohlen, co-founder of xAI and head of Macrohard (the company's AI agent software division), is leaving the startup. His departure marks the seventh of 12 original xAI co-founders to exit in less than three years, signaling potential internal instability at Elon Musk's AI venture. The news comes shortly after xAI's merger with SpaceX earlier this month, with SpaceX reportedly planning to go public in what is expected to be the largest IPO in history. The ongoing executive turnover raises questions about xAI's stability and strategic direction, particularly as it competes for major contracts including the recently announced Pentagon deal for Grok deployment.

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🎙️ OpenAI upgrades Realtime API with prompting guide 🎙️

OpenAI has announced general availability of its Realtime API alongside gpt-realtime, a new speech-to-speech model featuring improved instruction following, enhanced tool use, better voice quality, and reduced latency. The rollout includes a comprehensive prompting guide specifically designed for realtime voice systems, giving developers production-ready tools for building conversational AI applications. OpenAI also released gpt-realtime-1.5, positioning itself to compete more aggressively in the voice AI space.

📱 Google Expands AI Edge Gallery to iOS 📱

Google has expanded its AI Edge Gallery showcase app to iOS, demonstrating on-device AI capabilities including two agentic experiences: Mobile Actions and Tiny Garden. The integration highlights FunctionGemma, Google's efficient 270M-parameter model that translates natural language directly into function calls without cloud connectivity. This rollout underscores Google's push toward privacy-preserving edge AI deployment on consumer hardware.