Google has revealed more details about how you'll be able to use the Duet AI assistant to help you rapidly whip up emails and documents. In Gmail, the tool builds on existing AI-powered features such as Smart Reply. Click or tap the "help me write" button and you'll have several options at your disposal. Select "write your draft" and you can detail the type of message that you'd like Duet AI to generate. The tool will be able to draw from previous messages in the thread to make the draft response more relevant, Google says.

Like many people in the early weeks of a new year, you may well be seeking ways to improve efficiencies in your company for the coming 12 months. Time wasted by office workers trawling through emails and documents could be one area for you to examine. Here's why: A recent report by McKinsey management consultants estimated that employees typically spend 28% of their working week on reading and answering emails, which works out to about 21/2 hours per day per staffer. Other studies suggest that there's an additional "interruption effect" that lasts as long as 23 minutes from the time your staffers hit the send button until they return to their original tasks. The distractions of that deluge of emails and documents aside, the environmental impact of fossil-fuel energy used in data centers and the internet to ferry emails to their digital destinations is becoming a major concern.

Sidewalk Labs, a secretive subsidiary of Alphabet, wants to radically overhaul public parking and transportation in American cities, emails and documents obtained by the Guardian reveal. Its high-tech services, which it calls "new superpowers to extend access and mobility", could make it easier to drive and park in cities and create hybrid public/private transit options that rely heavily on ride-share services such as Uber. But they might also gut traditional bus services and require cities to invest heavily in Google's own technologies, experts fear. Sidewalk is initially offering its cloud software, called Flow, to Columbus, Ohio, the winner of a recent 50m Smart City Challenge organized by the US Department of Transportation. Using public records laws, the Guardian obtained dozens of emails and documents submitted to Challenge cities by Sidewalk Labs, detailing many technologies and proposals that have not previously been made public.