Nothing Phone (2a) Plus With AI News Widget: Specs, Prices, Availability

Nothing has a caller smartphone—the Phone (2a) Plus—nearly identical to the Phone (2a) it released earlier this year, but with somewhat beefed-up specs. It costs $399 and is disposable successful the US done the aforesaid beta program. But it isn't the caller Android handset we find astir interesting, it's the company's caller widget.

The “News Reporter” widget, disposable by default connected each Nothing and CMF smartphones positive different Android and iOS devices via the Nothing X app, lets you rapidly play a quality bulletin summarized by artificial intelligence. It is work retired by the synthesized dependable of Tim Holbrow, the company's main fiscal officer. (Nothing is utilizing ElevenLabs' tech for dependable synthesis and output.) As soon arsenic you pat the widget, you're greeted by a soothing British voice:

"Welcome to Nothing News, wherever the lone happening we instrumentality earnestly is not taking thing seriously. I'm Tim, your CFO and reluctant quality reader. Today, we're making thing retired of nothing, due to the fact that that's virtually our job.”

The widget volition commencement cycling done a enactment of quality stories—you tin property and clasp the widget and pat Edit to adhd oregon region categories you're funny in, specified arsenic business, entertainment, tech, and sports. These quality stories are pulled from “trusted English-language quality sources” done News API, utilizing Meta's Llama ample connection models for the summarization.

You tin swipe down the notification barroom and property the adjacent fastener connected the media playback notification to skip a story, to which Holbrow volition adhd a quip. "Not feeling that one? Let's find another." After I skipped rather a fewer successful a row, AI Holbrow asked, “Do you adjacent similar news?”

The summaries are 1 infinitesimal each (roughly), and you get 8 stories per day. Every morning, the widget volition refresh with a caller batch. Unfortunately, and frustratingly, the widget doesn't springiness you overmuch to spell connected if you privation to work more. There's nary attribution to wherever it pulled the quality from, and nary links are provided to work straight from the source.

Every smartphone institution has been touting immoderate benignant of generative AI diagnostic successful caller devices this year. Samsung has Galaxy AI; Google has its Gemini chatbot and a bevy of AI features in Pixel phones; Motorola introduced Moto AI recently; and adjacent OnePlus has been teasing a fewer AI features successful its phones, similar AI Eraser, which lets you region unwanted objects from photos. Nothing introduced a ChatGPT integration successful its earbuds earlier this year, and this widget is the latest generative AI diagnostic to land.