Pinterest is giving its Chrome browser extension an artificial intelligence upgrade.
The plug-in now comes bundled with the platform’s visual search tool, essentially allowing users to scan online images to find similar items. Best of all, the entire AI-powered process will take place on the site you’re on, meaning you don’t have to leave the web page you’re browsing to find related ideas and products.
Building upon its visual search tools, Pinterest added more complex object-recognition to create its visual discovery system. The tech doesn’t just recognize what’s in an image, but provides a diverse set of results by tapping into the 100 billion ideas housed on the platform. For example, if you take a photo of a blueberry, it will offer recipes that include the fruit, beauty ideas, and tips for growing your own blueberries.
The machine learning system currently powers recommendation and ecommerce features on the platform, including Instant Ideas and Shop the Look. It is also an integral part of Pinterest Lens (currently in beta), which lets users snap photos of objects to find similar items.
Users can access visual search for the web by downloading the Pinterest browser plug-in for Chrome. Once it’s installed, you’ll notice both the previously available save button and the new magnifying glass icon that indicates the discovery tool when you hover over an image online — clicking it will surface related items and ideas. You can also zoom in, as you would with visual search on Pinterest, to pinpoint specific objects, products, patterns or colors in the image. Additionally, to search for items pertaining to the entire web page, just right-click the background and choose “search.”
Aside from its benefits for users, expanding the tool’s reach could also help improve the machine learning system itself. The deep learning AI requires more data to help it to recognize and contextualize a wider array of images. Whereas Pinterest users have been using the tech to scan photos and objects on the site since late 2015, setting it loose on the entirety of the web will only boost its capabilities.
Pinterest visual search for the web is now available to Chrome users globally. The company promises to bring the update to its plug-ins for other browsers soon.
Discord is trying to push more visibility on the internet for some of its biggest communities, and there's a good chance your messages could end up in a Google Search. The platform is preparing to make conversations from certain public servers searchable on the web, so there's a privacy setting you might want to check before the rollout begins.
According to Discord's official announcement, the changes will roll out in two stages. Starting November 16, qualifying servers will have public web pages featuring automated summaries of conversations. By mid-December, individual messages from eligible public channels could also appear word-for-word in Google and other search engines.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?