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Published 30.06.2025.09.00.MON
Hot Tech, Cold Truths: AI Assistants, Digital Doubles, and the Price of Progress
Hey friends, Ritik here! Summer may be heating up, but this week’s tech news felt like trying to juggle hot coals, fun, frantic, and occasionally singeing my eyebrows. Google’s Gemini is gearing up to evict old-school Assistant, Tesla’s driverles s fleet is already making headlines for the wrong reasons, and Nintendo’s Switch 2 keeps smashing sales records. Meanwhile, Goo gle wants an AI clone to model my wardrobe (bare feet and all), and Vitalik Buterin just lobbed a privacy grenade at Sam Altman ’s iris-scanning dream. Grab an iced coffee and settle in; these five stories are the ones worth your screen time.
1. Gemini Prepares to Take Over Your Android Life
“A smarter helper, without feeding the data beast.”
What’s Happening: Beginning July 7th, Google will push an update that finally l ets Gemini handle core phone operations, calling, texting, WhatsApp messaging, alarms, timers, media playback, flashlight toggl es, whether or not you leave the Gemini Apps Activity switch on. Until now, turning that privacy toggle off prevented any devic e-control features; soon it will only block Google from using your conversations to fine-tune its models. Google clarified the change after an internal email leaked, reassuring users they can still revoke individual app permissions and that chats are aut omatically purged after 72 hours for security auditing. It’s an essential step before Google sunsets legacy Assistant across An droid and re-brands its stack around Gemini later this year. Functionally, the move positions Gemini as a full personal assistan t that operates on-device commands while keeping cloud training optional. Think: “Send Mom the grocery list” or “Start Spotify workout playlist” delivered privately. It also avoids requiring extra trust leaps just for basic hands-free tasks, erasing a maj or barrier to adoption for privacy-conscious users and enterprises. Expect the rollout to hit Pixels first, then Samsung and oth er OEMs in subsequent Play-Services drops through Q3.
Why it matters to you: You’ll gain hands-free convenience, calls, texts, timers without automatically surrendering chat histories for model-training. Real privacy controls make it easier to give voice comman ds at home, office, or on the go.
Why it matters to the world: Google’s shift signals that user-driven data opt-ou s can coexist with advanced AI assistants. Rivals will feel pressure to match granular privacy switches as regulators scrutinize large-scale data harvesting.
2. Death Stranding 2 Turns Kojima Weirdness into Cohesive Magic
“A Strange, Soothing Masterpiece, Kojima’s Wild Vision Finally Finds Its Home.”
What’s Happening: Hideo Kojima’s sequel drops Sam Porter Bridges into a sprawli ng, hostile Australia and fixes nearly every frustration of the 2019 original. Traversal still centers on prepping ladders, rop es, and cargo exo-skeletons, but refined physics, dynamic sandstorms, river-flooding, and earthquake events force real-time imp rovisation. Stealth-action now rivals Kojima’s MGS V: drones scout outposts, tranquilizer snipers enable non-lethal clears, and armor-variant enemies demand ammo swaps mid-mission. A 35-hour narrative intertwines sci-fi catastrophe with social-strand co-op , referencing Interstellar, Sorcerer, and Mad Max while weaving doll-puppet companions and oily skull titans. Critically, it tri ms fetch-quest repetition and adds vehicle convoys, BT turf wars, and multi-phase boss fights. Kojima’s trademark eccentricities , Reedus’s weird outlook, crash-test dummy hot springs, serve a tighter emotional arc about connection, loss, and environmental retribution. Reviewers call it the blockbuster realization of the “strand-type” concept, balancing introspection with adrenaline .
Why it matters to you: If you loved the ambition but not the tedium of the first game, this sequel’s smoother traversal and flexible combat could hook you for real. It’s weird, gorgeous, and surprisingly acc essible.
Why it matters to the world: DS2 proves big-budget studios can marry experimenta l mechanics with commercial polish, encouraging publishers to finance risk-taking narratives instead of recycling twitch-shooter formulas.
3. Tesla’s Robotaxi “Beta” Logs Wrong-Side Driving and Phantom Braking, Yet Claims a Milestone Delivery
“Autonomy demo reel or accident waiting to happen?”
What’s Happening: Just three days after Tesla opened its unsupervised robotaxi p ilot to select Austin customers, crowdsourced clips exposed a laundry list of blunders: three phantom-braking events, curb impa cts, a wrong-lane incursion, missed UPS-truck cues, and passenger drop-offs in live intersections. Texas currently mandates no p ublic incident reporting, so Reddit videos became the only accountability layer. Meanwhile, Tesla released a glossy promo of a M odel Y journeying 50 miles from Gigafactory Austin to its new owner—no safety driver, no remote operator, claiming the “first fu lly autonomous highway delivery.” The boast overlooks Waymo’s employee-only freeway runs but nonetheless showcases Tesla’s Full Self-Driving progress. Fleet size sits at roughly twenty cars, yet Elon Musk targets thousands this year and “a million” by end- 2026. Regulators authorized new permits that can be revoked if vehicles prove unsafe, injecting risk into Tesla’s scale-first st rategy.
Why it matters to you: Early riders are de-facto beta testers; until transparency improves, every trip carries unquantified risks. Potential FSD buyers should weigh subscription fees against real-world reliabi lity.
Why it matters to the world: Rapidly scaling driverless fleets without public d ata sharing could set dangerous precedents. Policymakers may need to mandate automatic incident disclosure before autonomous exp ansion snowballs.
4. Google’s Doppl App Lets an AI Clone Try On Every Outfit—Feet Included
“Virtual dressing meets uncanny valley.”
What’s Happening: Google’s experimental Doppl app lets users pair a full-body se lfie with any fashion screenshot and generates AI photos plus looping clips of their synthetic twin wearing the look. Its diffu sion model nails tops but glitches hems, turning jeans into leg-warmers or swapping socks for rogue bare feet. Mirror selfies of ten slim bodies, hinting at bias in training data. Bikini and public-figure uploads are blocked, showing deepfake guardrails. De spite quirks, Doppl leapfrogs Google’s existing catalog-based try-on by parsing arbitrary street-style images, then animating pe ace-sign poses for share-ready reels.
Why it matters to you: Preview how random Instagram fits look on you before buyi ng—potentially slashing returns and closet regret once proportion bugs are fixed.
Why it matters to the world: AI body synthesis blurs lines between convenience a nd distortion, raising new questions about consent, representation, and self-image in fashion commerce.
5. Vitalik Buterin Warns Worldcoin-Style IDs Could Kill Online Pseudonymity
“ZK proofs alone won’t save civil liberties.”
What’s Happening: Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin reviewed Sam Altman’s World iris-sc an IDs and applauded zero-knowledge tech—yet argued universal “one-per-person” credentials risk coercive deanonymization. Gover nments could force disclosure, linking every pseudonymous account to a single real-world identity. He proposes “pluralistic” sch emes—multiple attestations via social graphs, device keys, and reputation systems—to avoid biometric monocultures. Buterin urges World and similar projects to interoperate with decentralized proofs so people can still maintain separate personas for activis m, satire, or personal safety.
Why it matters to you: Mandatory eye-scan logins could tether your memes, work posts, and political rants under one name. Diverse ID choices help preserve everyday privacy and creative freedom.
Why it matters to the world: As AI bots swamp the web, proof-of-humanity soluti ons must balance authenticity with dissent protection. Buterin’s call may steer global standards toward federated, rights-respec ting identity.
My Creative Conclusion
Tech keeps pitching us miracles, hands-free phones, fashion holograms, self-driving cars, but every advance drags a sh adow: privacy trade-offs, safety gaps, warped body images, or biometric overreach. Our job as users isn’t to shun innovation; i t’s to poke, prod, and demand better guardrails. I’m excited for a future where Gemini dials Mom without oversharing my chats an d where AI tailors nail my style without shaving inches off my avatar. But I’ll keep one skeptical eyebrow raised, preferably in tact after juggling those hot coals of news, while turning each dizzying week into bite-sized clarity for you.
— Ritik Sharma Founder, RSN (Ritik Sharma Newsletter)