Dear readers, this Earth Day week, it's worth taking a moment to think about what you can do to explore and appreciate the works around you.
This week there are updates from YouTube, Beehiiv, Edits, Threads, Google Photos and more. Announcements at Google Cloud Next suggested that the future is Agentic AI. Plus group live chat is where community is at (at least on Threads and X).
Celebrating Earth Day
OnEBoard’s Bob Danley shared how regular folks can participate in observing nature and the world around us.
Google: Celebrating Earth Day 2026: How Technology and Collaboration Are Protecting Our Planet (Google Earth, Satellite Imagery and more)
Flickr: Earth Day. Every Day
This week's top updates
- Google Cloud Next: Workspace Intelligence and AI Agents
- YouTube adds timestamped link sharing from the mobile app and kills Clips
- YouTube limits push notifications to engaged users
- YouTube expands likeness detection to the entertainment industry
- YouTube fans can give Gifts on mobile landscape livestreams replacing Super Stickers.
- Edits mobile video app is one year old and has new features coming.
- Google Vids least you create branded avatars
- Google Photos adds subtle face airbrushing and changing the angle of portraits.
- Beehiiv now lets paid accounts host paid webinars on the the platform.
- Threads launched event Live Chat for Communities.
- X is shutting down its Communities and encourages group chats instead.
- Bluesky now lets you post higher resolution photos
- Plus more updates for YouTube, Twitch, StreamYard, ReStream, Instagram, Meta Accounts and more.
Google Cloud Next: Agents Everywhere
This week was Google Cloud Next, Google’s annual conference setting Cloud and Workspace to Enterprise Customers. As usual there are plenty of updates for everyone. This year's focus: AI Agents
The big picture from CEO Sundar Pichai
Workspace Intelligence is the theme for Workspace apps like Docs, Drive, Gmail, Sheets and Chat. If you use Google's productivity suite, check out what's coming at the link.
Everything announced at Cloud Next 2026
YouTube and Video
YouTube now lets you “Share at Timestamp” on mobile. Following the link opens the video at the timestamp. This was previously only an option on desktop.
YouTube is also killing Clips, which YouTube started publicly testing in January 2021.
- Clips let you select and share an up-to-60-second segment of a video, adding your own description.
- You can find the Clips you created from YouTube videos, or that fans created from your videos, at https://www.youtube.com/feed/clips
- Existing Clips will remain available, but you won't be about to create new ones.
- If you want to repurpose Clips, they can be Remixed into Shorts from the Clip page.
- What's the alternative:
- Share a video link at the timestamp the segment begins. This is now available on mobile.
- Create Video Clips from your own long form videos in YouTube Studio. AI suggestions are available for Podcast videos in English in the US and Canada.
- Video Clips for Shorts and auto-suggestions for clippable moments will roll out later this year.
YouTube likeness detection is expanding to the entertainment industry, including talent agencies, management companies, and the celebrities they represent (it's not clear if celebrities between agents qualify). This detects visual face matches, and it's meant to detect AI generated deep fakes. This is also available to creators in the YouTube Partner Program, even if you aren't a celebrity.
Subscribers who enable all notifications from your YouTube channel won't actually get all notifications unless they actually watch your channel or click on the notifications.
- No engagement for about a month means you will stop getting mobile push notifications.
- The notification will still be in your YouTube inbox.
- YouTube tested this and found this resulted in fewer people turning off push notifications entirely.
- It's also unlikely to cause a drop in views as many channels don't get a significant number of views from notifications in the first place.
YouTube Monetization update: Gifts replace Super Stickers on landscape live streams and premieres on mobile. Previously Gifts were only available in vertical streams
- You must enable Gifts (not available in all locations)
- Gifts are not available on desktop
- Viewers buy Jewels, Jewels buy Gifts, and Gifts come with Rubies that help the creator earn.
YouTube viewer update: “With Voice Boost, you can now amplify vocals and reduce background sounds to make spoken dialogue clearer in the videos you’re watching.”
YouTube Live update: “YouTube fans can now earn Experience Points (XP) for their watch time and Super Chat replies during vertical live streams, which helps Creators easily spot their most active community members.”
Twitch is recruiting streamers with a following on other platforms for fast-tracked Twitch Partner status.
StreamYard now lets you pop out the live chat into a smaller window.
ReStream lets you easily share analytics, recordings and live chat transcripts with an (optionally) passcode-protected link.
Web Publishers
Beehiiv launched Webinars. You can host live events with up to 10,000 participants, sell tickets, and you stream from Beehiv (with screen sharing, chat and video recording).
- You can easily create a landing page on your Beehiiv website.
- Selling digital products (like Webinars) requires a paid plan.
Beehiiv also introduced metered paywalls (so people can read a few articles for free each month) and paid subscription trials.
Editing Tools
The Edits mobile video editing app is one year old. It's free and doesn't add a watermark, although there are special creators and analytics for Instagram Reels. They have shipped 130+ new features since the launch. What's coming:
- upgrades for captions (including bilingual captions), advanced color adjustments, speed curves.
- making most tools customizable
- pinning your favorite tools
- getting more insights about your Instagram followers
- create more complex templates with overlays, keyframes, and video effects
Google Vids now lets you upload your brand logo, and then uses the power of Nano Banana 2 to create a branded AI avatar. See the link for an example. You can save the branded avatar to retain brand consistency. If you didn't have a Workspace account, this is available to personal accounts with an AI Pro or Ultra subscription.
TikTok paused it's experimental Meme Remixer, that let users use AI to edit frames from other's videos. It's currently evaluating user feedback.
Google Photos added a digital airbrushing Touch-up Tool.
- Requires Android 9+ and 4GB+ RAM.
- Options for adjusting faces include heal blemishes, smooth, under eyes, irises, whiten teeth, eyebrows and lips. You can adjust the intensity of the change.
- John Nack, who lead the launch of Google Photos more than a decade ago, notes a lesson learned was that “cosmetic stuff can be welcome, but only as opt-in, not as AI-imposed judgement of your appearance.”
Google Photos Auto Frame can now adjust your photo angle. It can interpret photos as a 3D scene, and “keeps what was originally visible and intelligently generates previously hidden content”. It can also reduce distortions of near objects taken with a wide angle lens.
Social Media
Threads is making it easy to quote post. When you compose a post you can click the Quote icon, which brings you to a list of all your Posts, Likes and Saves for easy quote posting.
Threads launched Live Chats. These are public time-limited public group chats that you can host, join or watch. Up to 150 people can join, and thousands can follow. They are starting with creators in the NBA Threads community, to talk about the basketball playoffs.
Threads topic communities are apparently still growing, and the place for public “niche conversations”. Live Chats live within Communities.
Meta’s Accounts Center is being updated to the new Meta Account over the next year. It will show all your accounts and devices. It's meant to help you easily manage your account security and settings for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads, Meta AI, AI glasses, and Meta Quest headsets (and optionally WhatsApp). It should not change your daily experience with Meta products.
Instagram has a new Snapchat like app called Instants. Friends can view shared photos once, and they disappear after 24 hours. The images are also viewable in the Instagram app.
Instagram has designed a new interface for Insights stats. The same data is there, with new Reels stats including share rate and skip rate.
Better photos on Bluesky: Bluesky increased the maximum image resolution to 4000 x 4000 and maximum file size to 2 MB. And if you post multiple images they now display in a carousel.
X launched custom timelines, which are personalized feeds based on particular topics you are interested in. They can be pinned for easy access in the app.
X is shutting down Communities “due to declining usage” and apparently loads of spam. They are being replaced by XChat group chats and custom timelines. Group chats can currently have 350 members, but that will eventually expand to 1000.
More AI Updates
Adobe Firefly “expands AI video and image editing with studio-quality audio, advanced color controls and precision image adjustments.”
Adobe Firefly AI Assistant (previously Project Moonlight) over time learns your preferred tools and aesthetics. Click the link to join the beta waitlist. “With Firefly AI Assistant, you describe the outcome you want and the assistant orchestrates and executes the steps behind the scenes, connecting creative logic and best-in-class tools across Adobe’s creative apps. You no longer have to map the process. You can start from the outcome.”
Spotify is now available inside Claude, to help you get music and podcast suggestions. You can also see where your Spotify is playing.
Microsoft has launched Copilot's agentic capabilities in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Brett Weinstein: Flickr: The First and Last Great Photo Platform
Interesting Read
PetaPixel: Antigravity Is Preserving Historical Sites in 3D Using its 360° Drone
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