NotebookLM users have a few new features to play around with starting this week, including a visual summary feature dubbed “Mind Map.”
For anyone who isn’t familiar with NotebookLM, it’s an AI tool from Google designed specifically for summarizing, searching, and analyzing libraries of information. The idea is that you provide it with a selection of documents and files, and it will help you interact with them using natural language.
It’s particularly useful for students and researchers who are reading lots of essays and papers, allowing them to find quotes and keep track of where they read certain information. Another popular NotebookLM feature, Audio Overviews, has just been added to Gemini too, letting users everywhere generate summaries in the style of a podcast.
Getting back to the new Mind Map feature, it organizes the information in your notebooks according to topic and displays it in an interactive mind map. This can help you navigate to information on a certain topic quickly, as well as find new connections between it and other copies.
🛳️Rolling out interactive Mindmaps in NotebookLM!
I'm so inspired by the Exploratorium here in SF – What if every notebook generated your own personal set of interactive understanding toys that help you learn through play? What if instead of text or images, Notebook could even… pic.twitter.com/fFJCGrv0kc
— Simon (@tokumin) March 19, 2025
You might be able to see which of your sources agree with each other and which don’t, as well as which topics and arguments are being covered the most. This might not sound exciting to everyone but if you’ve ever written research papers or essays — this sounds like a dream. The maps can also be downloaded and shared as images.
And for the multilingual folks out there, you can now generate content in languages other than English. This means you can upload sources in whatever language you want and have NotebookLM generate content about them in whatever language you want.
For now, this feature is text-based only, but hopefully Google is working on expanding the output languages available for Audio Overviews too. The new features will roll out over the next week and they’re available to both paid and free users.
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Two residents of Chicago have filed a lawsuit in the US over claims that robots run by Coco Robotics and Serve Robotics captured their facial and hand measurements without consent, bringing renewed attention to the food delivery robots. The cases raise a troubling question: If a robot delivers food to your door, can it also be gathering sensitive information about you?
According to a report by The Associated Press, the proposed class-action lawsuits were filed in Cook County on Oct. 9 and allege violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. The complaints claim that the robots’ cameras and LiDAR sensors captured information on customers’ faces and hands as they approached the machines to pick up their orders. Both have denied the allegations.
Nearly a month after announcing the GPT-6.1 Sol model, OpenAI unveiled GPT-6.1 Terra today. The latest addition to the family focuses on computer use, visual reasoning, coding, and professional work, while costing 50% less through the API than GPT-5.6 Terra.
OpenAI says Terra can handle everything from filling out browser forms and working inside spreadsheets to interpreting technical drawings and editing videos. The company says it can also complete computer-based tasks more than three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol.