🤝 Meta partners with Midjourney on image and video technology 🤝
Social media giant licenses startup's aesthetic technology for future products

Meta has announced a strategic partnership with Midjourney to license the startup's AI image and video generation technology, according to Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. The collaboration involves technical cooperation between research teams to integrate Midjourney's capabilities into Meta's future AI models and products. The licensing agreement represents Meta's latest move to compete with industry leaders like OpenAI's Sora and Google's Veo. Midjourney remains independent with no investors, making this partnership particularly notable in the consolidating AI landscape.

🎬 Google adds Drive shortcut to AI video editor Vids 🎬
Workspace users can now launch clips directly into AI-powered video tool

Google is making video editing more accessible by adding a "Open in Vids" button to Drive, allowing Workspace users to launch clips directly into its AI-powered video editing tool. Users can now trim footage, add music, text, and transitions with AI assistance, while Vids can also generate scripts and assemble videos from text prompts. The update signals tighter integration of Vids into Google's Workspace suite, positioning the platform not just as a file system, but as a creative studio powered by Gemini AI.

🇨🇳 Alibaba launches Qoder IDE with Quest Mode for autonomous coding 🇨🇳
Free Cursor competitor features agentic workflows and context engineering

Alibaba has released Qoder, a free (during preview) agentic AI IDE that rivals Cursor and Windsurf with identical chat interfaces and agent workflows. The platform features Quest Mode for asynchronous coding where developers write specifications and delegate tasks to AI, plus Repo Wiki that auto-generates project documentation. Built on context engineering principles, Qoder deeply understands codebase architecture and builds persistent memory of past interactions. The tool is completely free during public preview with a Pro tier launching soon.

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🍌 Google’s “nano-banana” lands on LMArena, seen as the Photoshop killer 🍌

A mysterious AI image model called "nano-banana" has been generating buzz on LMArena for outperforming established competitors in user comparisons. Industry observers suspect Google's involvement based on the company's historical use of "nano" branding and recent cryptic social media activity from executives involving banana references. Google has not officially acknowledged any connection to the model.

🍎 Apple in talks with Google to improve Siri with Gemini AI 🍎

Apple has entered discussions with Google about using Gemini AI to power a revamped Siri, according to Bloomberg reports. The potential partnership would mark a significant shift for Apple's virtual assistant strategy, leveraging Google's advanced AI capabilities to enhance Siri's conversational abilities and compete more effectively with ChatGPT and other AI assistants in the rapidly evolving voice AI market.