Google's new Gemma 4 12B model is designed to run on any laptop with 16GB of RAM

Google's new Gemma 4 12B model is designed to run on any laptop with 16GB of RAM

fivenewscrypto    juin 05, 2026   

The generative AI boom has driven the cost of memory into the stratosphere, and Google is a key part of that trend. So it's only fitting that Google should offer some less RAM-hungry local AI models. The company has announced the release of a new Gemma 4 model that fills a gap in the lineup that launched earlier this year. The new model is efficient enough that you may be able to run it on a pretty average consumer laptop.

In April, Google released four models in the Gemma 4 family, which also marked the shift to a more open Apache 2.0 license. The initial models included two mobile-optimized options (E2B and E4B) along with a pair of models for more serious work (26B Mixture of Experts and 31B Dense). That left a rather large unserved space in the middle, which is right where the new model falls.

Gemma 4 12B is considerably more capable than the mobile versions, but it won't require a $20,000 AI accelerator to run locally. Google says Gemma 4 12B is unique in that it can run on many consumer laptops without sacrificing quality. As long as you've got a computer with 16GB of system RAM or VRAM, the 12-billion-parameter model will work. That's about half the total memory footprint of Gemma 4 26B MoE, and Google claims the new model is almost as capable, at least as far as benchmarks go.

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Trump plan to test AI models has a problem—US security teams were gutted by DOGE

Trump plan to test AI models has a problem—US security teams were gutted by DOGE

fivenewscrypto    juin 04, 2026   

On Tuesday, Donald Trump finally signed his executive order expanding the government's efforts to conduct voluntary safety testing of frontier AI models. Now, critics are warning that the order may be short-sighted, offering only performative reassurances that the government is actively monitoring for AI risks, while changing very little about how and when models are deployed.

Last month, Trump abruptly canceled a signing event, where he had hoped to launch an earlier version of the EO with CEOs of leading AI firms in attendance. Invited at the last minute, several CEOs simply couldn't make the signing but still signaled support for the order. Officially, Trump claimed he postponed the event because he worried that the EO might have gone too far and had become a "blocker" impeding AI innovation. Reports indicated there was infighting in his administration as cybersecurity experts clashed with officials committed to deregulating AI.

The watered-down EO that Trump signed promises not "to stifle this innovation with overly burdensome regulation" and establishes no requirements for AI firms. Instead, it sets up a voluntary process for companies to collaborate with the government on safety reviews that Trump's EO claimed would "ensure that the best and most secure technology is deployed rapidly to confront any and all threats to our country."

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New social features further Plex’s evolution from media server business

New social features further Plex’s evolution from media server business

fivenewscrypto    juin 04, 2026   

Plex is adding new social features to the platform.

As of today, users can make and share "personalized lists on Plex of any movie, show or episode," the company said in an announcement. Later this year, users will be able to import lists from other streaming services and react to other people's lists.

This month, Plex will also launch a community forum that will allow people to "post and comment directly on any movie, show, season, or episode." Later this year, Plex will introduce "Match Scores" based on a viewer's history and past ratings to predict how much they'll like a show or movie, Plex said.

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Autonomous vehicles were supposed to cut traffic—what if they don't?

Autonomous vehicles were supposed to cut traffic—what if they don't?

fivenewscrypto    juin 04, 2026   

The age of robotaxis, long the preserve of science fiction, is now a reality, at least in a handful of American cities. It took just over a decade to get from the DARPA Grand Challenges to the start of Waymo's commercial service in California, albeit initially with a safety driver on board.

Proponents of the technology, which has attracted at least $100 billion in investment, say robotaxis will be safer than human-driven vehicles. And last year, Waymo's data showed its cars were involved in many fewer crashes than human drivers, with much lower insurance claims, although recent issues with school buses and flooded roads show the technology isn't perfect.

But safety isn't the only selling point: Autonomous vehicles are said to cut traffic. But data from Waymo's reports to the California Public Utilities Commission shows that, at least in that regard, robotaxis are no better than ride-hailing services like Lyft and Uber.

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Microsoft plans Linux tools and an RTX Spark desktop for Windows developers

Microsoft plans Linux tools and an RTX Spark desktop for Windows developers

fivenewscrypto    juin 04, 2026   

Microsoft's Build developer conference kicked off today, and as with almost everything the company has done in the last few years, Microsoft's opening keynote focused overwhelmingly on AI and other closely related technologies. There's Microsoft Scout, an OpenClaw-based "Autopilot" agent that can hook into Microsoft 365 data to perform tasks for users; several new AI models; an expanded preview of "Codename MDASH," which is a "multi-model agentic scanning system" meant to detect and fix software vulnerabilities.

A few of those announcements stood out to us as particularly interesting, either for esoteric technical reasons or because they seem like they may have some utility for those who aren't spending their every waking moment using generative AI tools. (Microsoft's recent efforts to make its flagship operating system faster, more reliable, more useful, and less annoying didn't really come up, but there have been plenty of other announcements on that front lately.)

On the hardware front, we didn't get any updates for existing Surface devices (not counting yesterday's Surface Laptop Ultra announcement), but we did get something new: the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is "a compact developer PC" built around Nvidia's new RTX Spark chip with up to 128GB of built-in memory.

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Microsoft's Project Solara is an Android OS designed for agents instead of apps

Microsoft's Project Solara is an Android OS designed for agents instead of apps

fivenewscrypto    juin 04, 2026   

Microsoft has been deeply committed to the growth of generative AI technology in recent years through its now-fragmented partnership with OpenAI. At Build 2026, the company remains all-in on AI, and it's looking toward the future with a new software platform. The new Android-based OS is called Project Solara, and Microsoft says Solara is designed to run agents instead of apps.

Project Solara is not something you'll have to worry about killing your apps anytime soon. It's limited to a few pieces of concept hardware and software that are awaiting the magical agents of the future. The vision is for Solara to run on myriad specialized devices with interfaces generated on the spot, and it's all powered by the explosive intelligence of models that Microsoft and others insist will soon exist.

According to Microsoft, Solara is a chip-to-cloud platform intended to free agents from reliance on single interfaces. Much of Microsoft's messaging around AI is speculative and self-serving, but the company rightly points out that new computing form factors have always required specialization, and that process is complex and expensive. The shift to mobile computing, for example, tripped Microsoft up multiple times as it fell behind on app availability, security, and long-term support.

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Amazon-owned Ring should pay Americans for scanning their faces, lawsuit says

Amazon-owned Ring should pay Americans for scanning their faces, lawsuit says

fivenewscrypto    juin 04, 2026   

A lawsuit against Amazon is seeking financial damages for millions of Americans whose faces may have been recorded by Ring cameras since the Familiar Faces feature was rolled out late last year.

Plaintiff Charles Sigwalt yesterday filed a class action suit that aims to represent all people in the US "who had their facial recognition data collected, retained, and otherwise used by the Familiar Faces feature created and implemented by Defendant." The lawsuit will seek "far" more than $5 million, but the $5 million figure was given in the complaint because US district courts have jurisdiction for civil actions seeking at least that amount.

"Here, there are millions of Americans who have walked by Ring cameras which have activated the Familiar Faces feature... the damages in this action far exceed $5,000,000.00 when calculating the statutory damages that may be owed to each Class member in addition to the actual damages caused by the aggregate loss of value of biometric information," the lawsuit said.

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