Google's AI detection website is now available

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Google's AI detection website is now available. More on that coming up, but first. Spam calls should be a bygone concern, but unfortunately, there's still a plague many of us deal with. Services like Truecaller have helped with caller identification and spam filtering for years. But since Android and iOS have gotten great at handling spam calls on their own, you don't need to rely on a third-party app, much less pay a subscription, to avoid unwanted callers. In addition to functions on your phone, your carrier may offer its own spam-protecting features. Depending on the company, these might be enabled by default. If not, check your online account or the carrier's app for a spam protection toggle. Head to engadget.com and check out the latest from Anan Ahmed on how to help stop spam calls on iPhone and Android.

And if you're willing to pay for them, there's a lot to like about the AirPods Max. You get a dose of high-end design with deep iOS integration and smart features like personalized spatial audio, adaptive EQ, live translation, adaptive audio, and conversation awareness. There's also lossless audio over USB-C if you're into that sort of thing, but it's more common on spec sheets these days. Of course, the main drawback with the AirPods Max has always been the price. At $549, the headphones rank among the most expensive sets we've reviewed. But if you're willing to give up some features, namely the tools that can only be used with Apple devices, you can save a significant sum without sacrificing too much performance. Read Billy Steele's entire review of the Apple AirPods Max right now at engadget.com.

Google is making SynthID Detector its web tool for identifying AI-created and AI-edited content available to everyone. The web-based tool is able to flag images, video, and audio clips created with AI tools from Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Kakao.

It's free to use, but does require users to log in with a Google, OpenAI, or Apple account. The website will also be one of the first AI detection tools that will be able to identify images created with Apple's AI features, like Image Playground. Google says support for images created and edited with Apple Intelligences coming soon. Google has been working on SynthID Detector for more than a year and previously made versions of it available to journalists and other media professionals. Now, anyone can visit synthid.com to check whether a piece of content has a SynthID watermark. The company has other methods for detecting SynthID watermarks and C2PA content credentials, including its circle-to-search feature and the Gemini app itself. But creating a dedicated website for detection makes these capabilities a bit easier to access, especially for people not already using Google's AI tools. As with all AI detection features, there are some limitations. SynthID Detector can't detect all AI-generated content, since many companies rely on different standards for watermarking. Watermarks can also be stripped away from content in some situations, and Google's website doesn't distinguish between content that was entirely AI-created and content that was merely edited with it. So it won't provide specific details about how a particular piece of content was created or which aspects might be synthetic. While SynthID Detector is a step in the right direction, verifying AI-generated content is still far from foolproof. AI detection tools like SynthID Detector rely on a patchwork of different standards, so there's no such thing as a universal checker. Meta, for example, has been experimenting with its own web tool, which can identify images created or edited with its latest Muse image models, but not those from other companies or even its own prior models. But it does seem likely Google will get more companies to sign on to SynthID over time. The company previously said that 11 labs had committed to adding support for the watermarks. On its website, Google notes that it's continuously working on extending our partnerships to allow detecting more generated media.