ChatGPT Search no longer requires an account

This week was pretty big for OpenAI, the company has made ChatGPT Search available for all users. The service was previously locked behind a requirement: an OpenAI account

OpenAI has made ChatGPT Search available for all users, without the need for an OpenAI account. Users can now access the AI-powered search engine by visiting ChatGPT.com and entering their queries in the chat box. ChatGPT Search will present the results in a similar way to how its chatbot responds to questions, with rich snippets, brief text summaries, and an image from the link it was sourced from. Unlike ChatGPT, which is trained on a specific data set, ChatGPT Search pulls data from the internet in real-time.

While this provides a convenient way to test the search engine's capabilities, it also comes with limitations, such as the inability to view your search history. The AI-driven search engine will compete with the likes of Google Search, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Brave Search.

ChatGPT on WhatsApp now supports voice messages and images. Users can sign in to their account to access premium features available for ChatGPT Plus and Pro.

OpenAI has also introduced Deep Research for ChatGPT users, a technology capable of offering complex, in-depth research across various topics. The AI uses the latest o3 model and is trained using multi-layered neural networks to analyze patterns, make decisions by reasoning, and perform tasks like a human.

To perform an in-depth search, users will need to select “deep research” in the ChatGPT composer. However, unlike the regular ChatGPT, which answers queries instantly, Deep Research is significantly slower and could take up to 30 minutes to produce an answer. It is also not free at the moment and is available for ChatGPT Pro subscribers, with a limit of 100 queries per month.

OpenAI has acknowledged that the feature can make mistakes or misinterpret sources, and the report formatting is not perfect. The company is working on improving the feature by offering support for data visualizations, embedded images, and more advanced data sources.

Google has released Gemini 2.0 Flash for all users, making the AI model more efficient and offering better performance. The new AI-model is available via the Gemini app on mobile devices and on the web.

For advanced users, Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental is now available in the Gemini app, as well as Google AI Studio, Vertex AI. This experimental model can handle complex prompts and coding, thanks to its 2-million-token context window. It is capable of deep analysis of large data sets, understanding and reasoning.

Google has also debuted Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite, which is its most cost-efficient AI model. It has a 1-million-token context window and supports multimodal capabilities, such as generating captions for thousands of images. Google is working to add more multimodal functionalities to Gemini, including image generation and text-to-speech capabilities.

However, Google has admitted that hackers are using the AI-powered tool for cybercrime activities, such as researching vulnerabilities, drafting phishing campaigns, and gathering intelligence on defense organizations.

Google Search will soon get AI-powered features, starting with an option to ask a follow-up question, allowing users to interact with the service like an AI assistant. Other upcoming features include Project Mariner, an AI agent that can navigate a browser, click buttons and fill out forms on its own.

OpenAI is not the only one offering an in-depth research tool; Google has its own called “Gemini Deep Research”, which is designed to assist users in their academic or professional needs to generate detailed reports that contain source links, key findings, and can export content to Google Docs.

In a rather bizarre move, YouTube is testing an option to play videos at 4x playback speeds. Currently, YouTube allows users to play videos at a maximum speed of 2x the normal time. Google is also testing a feature called “Jump Ahead” to help viewers get to their preferred content quickly.

Additionally, YouTube has added an audio quality enhancement with support for 256kbps bitrate in music videos. For iOS users, they can now watch YouTube shorts in picture-in-picture mode while they multitask with other apps. Google has also enabled Smart Downloads to automate video downloads for Shorts, allowing users to watch the videos when they are offline.

Currently, YouTube 4x playback speeds are only available for Premium subscribers. It remains to be seen why this feature was designed and whether it will become popular among users. Experimental features like the ones described above are tested temporarily, before they are either removed or released for all users.

Security researchers at Kaspersky have discovered that malicious apps on the Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and third-party channels are using a new method to steal data. The new malware-strain, called SparkCat and active since April 2024, was written in the Rust programming language and had a malicious SDK.

When a user installed an infected app on their phone, it would silently install an OCR (optical character recognition) plugin on the device. The malware would then use it to scan images on the user’s phone to steal