What you need to know

• Google’s August roundup for Gemini Drops details the latest updates for the AI, such as “Guided Learning” for students.
• This is a step-by-step guided learning experience that students can use to gain a little more understanding for complex topics.
• Other updates include Gemini’s storybook update for full AI-illustrated stories for kids, “personal context” in the Gemini app, and Temporary Chats.

After introducing it in July, Google’s back once again with its Gemini Drops, and August has a lot going on.

Earlier today (Aug 13), Google highlighted its August edition of Gemini Drops, detailing everything new that’s been announced and still on the way to users. One of its major updates is “Guided Learning” for students, which they can use to ask for step-by-step help with Gemini. Students looking to study with a little more depth (and assistance) can provide Gemini with all the details they can before, and let the AI break it down in a more digestible fashion.

Google states in today’s post that Gemini will also create “images, diagrams, videos, and interactive quizzes” to further enhance a student’s learning experience.

Elsewhere, Google is highlighting its newest Storybook update for Gemini. Parents can now create illustrated and AI-voiced storybooks for their kids using their own photos, their child’s drawings, and more. The company states that parents can tell Gemin to create a specific story based on a photo, and tell the AI their child’s age and interests to help create a short storybook they might enjoy.

This storybook feature is available for users globally on computers and mobile devices.

From Fun & Intuitive to new Gemini intelligence

There is an update that concerns Gemini Ultra subscribers this month, and that’s the AI’s “Deep Thinking” upgrade. As Google states, Deep Thinking enables the AI to understand and provide better answers for users with complex math and coding problems. The company states Deep Thinking upgrades Gemini’s “reasoning,” likely making the answers it returns more comprehensive.

A big Gemini update just started rolling out this week, which Google briefly mentions, and that involves “personal context.” Essentially, the personal context feature enables Gemini to remember and callback to previous chats you’ve had with it. These older chats will help it remember key details about you automatically without you needing to repeat yourself. If you’ve previously asked Gemini for a recipe, but said you were allergic to a specific seasoning, the next time you look for inspiration, Gemini will (ideally) keep that allergy in mind.

Of course, the AI can still mess up, so it’s always worth keeping an eye out for that. Additionally, “Temporary Chats” arrive, giving users a little more privacy when asking questions that you don’t want Gemini to remember. Temporary Chats were announced on August 13, but Google states this will take some time to reach more users, so it might take a few weeks.

Google first introduced Gemini Drops in July, where it creates a complete roundup of the latest updates for the AI.

At Kraken, we are committed to building a secure and reliable platform for our clients. Over the past few years, we have significantly strengthened our global compliance framework. We invest deeply in the people, processes and systems that keep our platform safe.

We recently reached an important milestone on that journey. This concludes a multi-year effort to strengthen the sanctions compliance program across the board. This achievement reflects not only the continued engagement with regulators (such as finalizing commitments over the past few years), but also the continued advances in Kraken’s approach to risk, surveillance and operational excellence.

As part of ongoing work with US regulators, Kraken recently completed its third final certification of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) (OFAC).

Companywide efforts towards common goals

What began as an initiative to enhance sanctions control is a comprehensive effort to build one of the industry’s most robust, scalable and future compliance programs.

What Kraken will enhance compliance:

• GEOIP Firewall and VPN Screening
  A sophisticated tool that actively restricts unauthorized access based on geographical and network indicators.
• A comprehensive screening
  End-to-end product, client, and transaction-level screening ensures real-time risk detection.
• Over 100 Embedded Internal Controls
  Automatic checks and balances built into every tier of Kraken’s infrastructure.
• Upgraded policies, procedures, and processes
  An overview redesign of how compliance is approached across teams and workflows.
• Strict risk assessment, auditing, training
  Regular assessments and company-wide education to sharply align our defenses.
• Sanctions are controlled at all layers
  Overall protection measures integrated throughout Kraken’s architecture.
• Regulatory benchmarks and licensing expansions
  Tools and standards that allow for smoother licensing, and faster time to market globally.
• Active engagement with regulatory authorities
  Open and constructive dialogue that helps shape thoughtful and effective regulations.
• Strengthening due diligence for investors, M&As and product launches
  Strategic compliance is integrated into the way we grow.

All of these upgrades are a step towards our bigger goal. It is to make Kraken the most trusted and secure venue for code. Together, these features help protect clients, strengthen trust and strengthen Kraken’s role as a responsible industry leader.

Built for scale designed for reliability

Strong compliance is not just a risk reduction, but a strategic advantage. With these improvements, Kraken is ideally positioned below:

• Expand our business to new countries and expand with new products
• Promote stronger banking relationships
• Navigate the regulatory environment with confidence
• Mitigate audit and operational risks
• Supports faster and safer growth across the market

The compliance infrastructure we build is scalable, resilient, dynamic, and designed to not only meet today’s demands, but also predict tomorrow’s demands. We are proud of how far we have come and are even more excited about where we are heading. Because at Kraken, we don’t just build responsibly. It’s how we can lead the way, create a safer industrial ecosystem and accelerate the adoption of crypto.

June 25th, 2025 – London, United Kingdom

GSR, crypto’s capital markets partner, today announced a major upgrade to its systematic over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform, expanding foreign exchange (FX) capabilities, improving execution quality, and broadening access to hundreds of digital assets.

The upgraded platform introduces both a new user interface (UI) and an enhanced API, giving clients flexible access to GSR’s liquidity across more than 200 digital assets and 25 fiat currencies. This development reflects GSR’s mission to help founders and institutions scale with confidence by providing institutional-grade liquidity solutions that meet the demands of a rapidly evolving market.

This upgrade further strengthens GSR’s position as the bridge between traditional finance and cryptocurrency markets. 

“This is a meaningful step forward in GSR’s commitment to making digital asset trading infrastructure truly institutional,” said Jakob Palmstierna, President, GSR. “With systematic OTC accessible through both our API and UI, we’re enabling clients to engage with markets faster, more transparently, and with greater precision.”

Key highlights of the upgrade include:

Tighter, More Competitive Pricing:

The upgraded platform delivers improved pricing across major crypto pairs, leveraging proprietary algorithms and liquidity from GSR’s global network of counterparties.

Institutional FX Integration:

Clients now benefit from seamless crypto-to-fiat and fiat-to-fiat execution across more than 25 fiat currencies, with pricing aligned with traditional FX prime brokerage standards. Support includes large trade sizes, up to $100 million per trade or the equivalent in other currencies, with direct access to tier-one FX liquidity.

Unmatched Breadth of Assets:

Clients in approved jurisdictions can access hundreds of digital assets, including altcoins, stablecoins, and emerging tokens, across all trading combinations through both GSR’s precision-built UI and robust API. This seamless access to over 200 assets makes it one of the most comprehensive OTC offerings in the industry.

“This addition to our product offering reinforces our commitment to delivering institutional-grade trading solutions across the digital asset spectrum,” said Kunal Mehta, Head of Trading, GSR. “By combining deep liquidity, best-in-class FX capabilities, and extensive asset coverage, we’re enabling our clients to trade smarter, faster, and more globally.”

With over a decade of specialized expertise in digital assets, GSR delivers more than just execution; we offer deep market insight, strategic guidance, and tailored infrastructure to support growth at every stage.

About GSR

GSR is crypto’s capital markets partner, delivering market making services, institutional-grade OTC trading, and venture backing to founders and institutions. With more than a decade of experience, we provide strategic guidance, market intelligence, and access to a global network to help teams scale. Users can visit www.gsr.io for more information, including the General Terms of Business of Business, relevant disclosures, and GSR’s trading terms.

Contact

Haley Malanga
GSR
haley.malanga@gsr.io

Kitely, a leading OpenSim grid, has announced a significant upgrade to its virtual world hosting service, implementing an enhanced version of OpenSim 0.9.2.2. This update comes on the heels of a recent system-wide upgrade that doubled world performance.

According to an announcement earlier this week, the new version of OpenSim includes hundreds of proprietary stability and performance improvements developed by the company over the years. One of the most notable enhancements is faster world startup times, which should improve user experience across the grid, and better compatibility with scripts imported from Second Life.

The most significant feature in OpenSim 0.9.2.2 is the transition from XEngine to YEngine for the scripting system. This change brings both benefits and challenges.

“YEngine is designed to more closely follow the LSL script syntax,” said Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP R&D, in the announcement. “This makes it easier to port scripts that were designed for Second Life into OpenSim.” However, he warned that this change may cause some scripts that worked on XEngine to break, requiring users to fix, replace, or remove affected scripts from their Kitely worlds.

The switch to YEngine has also reset all scripts to their initial state.

“That’s because the state files where OpenSim stores script state have changed their format, and YEngine can’t use state files that were created by XEngine,” Hurvitz said.  As a result, users who have scripts needing configuration after being rezzed will need to reconfigure them.

It’s important to note that the transition to the new script engine requires the system to recompile all scripts in each world. According to Hurvitz, “This happens the first time each world is entered following today’s update. This means that each world will take longer than usual to start the first time anyone enters it after this update.”

However, Hurvitz said that this is a one-time delay, and subsequent entries to the world will be faster due to the scripts already being compiled.

This latest upgrade follows Kitely’s recent system-wide enhancement that doubled world performance, demonstrating the company’s ongoing commitment to improving its service without increasing costs to users.

Kitely, which opened to the public in March 2011, is one of the longest-running and most innovative OpenSim grids. With its unique on-demand region system and the popular Kitely Market, the grid is a significant player in the virtual world ecosystem.

For more information about the script changes and how they might affect users’ worlds, Kitely recommends checking the OpenSimulator wiki entry on YEngine.

Hypergrid Business editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist. During the day, Maria Korolov is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@hypergridbusiness.com. Her first virtual world novella, Krim Times, made the Amazon best-seller list in its category. Her second novella, The Lost King of Krim, is out now. She is also the publisher of MetaStellar, a new online magazine of speculative fiction.

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