DUBAI: Google has added Arabic support to the mobile app for Gemini, its multimodal artificial intelligence model. Users worldwide can access it for free through a dedicated app for Android devices, or from within the Google app on iOS.

An Arabic version of its latest conversational AI model, Gemini Advanced, is also now available through the app to subscribers with a Google One AI Premium plan.

“Businesses now have access to our latest Gemini model (Gemini Advanced) in Arabic to help increase their efficiency in complex and collaborative tasks,” Najeeb Jarrar, Google’s regional marketing director for the Middle East and North Africa region, told Arab News.

“With access to Gemini on mobile, we’re excited to see how people will utilize generative AI to enhance their productivity and creativity.”

The app also provides access to Gemini 1.0 Pro, a different AI model, for free, and to Gemini 1.5 Pro with a Google One AI Premium plan. The 1.5 Pro model is more capable at complex tasks such as coding, logical reasoning, following detailed and specific instructions, and collaborating on creative projects, Google said.

Users can access other Google apps and services from within the Gemini app through the use of extensions launched this year. The services provided by these extensions include access to real-time flight and hotel booking information, location-based information from Google Maps, and summaries of content from Google Docs or Gmail.

The Arabic version of Gemini, then called Bard, was launched in July last year. Google described Bard as an “AI experiment,” not a chatbot, and Jarrar said it would allow the company to explore a “new paradigm in computing.”

He told Arab News at the time: “We’re learning together how large language models can be helpful, and how to minimize poor experiences.”

Now, the Arabic capabilities have been added to the Gemini mobile app and Gemini Advanced. The AI is able to understand questions in more than 16 Arabic dialects and provide responses in modern, standard Arabic.

Google announced several new developments in its AI projects during its developer conference Google I/O 2024 this month. Arabic support for these new features is expected to be added soon.

“As we’re seeing more interest from the region, we’re committed to bringing more features in Arabic later this year,” Jarrar added.

LONDON: Labour Party bosses have blocked a candidate from standing at the upcoming UK General Election because of a handful of interactions on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, over the past 10 years.

In one case, economist and academic Faiza Shaheen “liked” a video of a TV comedy sketch about Israel by acclaimed American comedian Jon Stewart, host of satirical news program The Daily Show. In another she wrote about her own experiences with Islamophobia within the Labour party.

Shaheen said she was informed on Wednesday night that she could not stand for the party at the election, after she was called to a meeting to discuss accusations of antisemitism and other misconduct. She told the BBC’s Newsnight program on Wednesday of her shock upon receiving the email confirming her candidacy had been blocked.

“Fourteen tweets since 2014 — 10 years,” she said. “Three of those were about the Green Party, me liking my friends’ tweets before I joined the Labour Party, and one of them was about my experiences of Islamophobia in the party.

“How am I not allowed to talk about my experiences of Islamophobia and the double standards that I’ve seen.”

I’m genuinely worried for my civil liberties under a @Keir_Starmer government.

Watch this, from @faizashaheen tonight on #newsnight pic.twitter.com/Qy2suvfuvd

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) May 29, 2024

Shaheen, an academic who specializes in the study of inequality, had been presented with a list of tweets earlier in the day, including one that included a clip from The Daily Show broadcast in July 2014. In it, host Stewart, who is of Jewish heritage, starts to discuss an Israeli ground offensive during the 2014 Gaza War. He is immediately surrounded and rebuked by four of the Comedy Central show’s correspondents who, as part of the show’s satirical commentary on the issue, accuse him of being a “self-hating Jew” for questioning the actions of Israel.

Shaheen’s interaction with video on social media prompted a complaint from the Jewish Labour Movement, which is affiliated with the Labour Party.

“It was the middle of the night, if you look at the time. I was probably with the baby, breastfeeding. I don’t even remember liking that tweet,” she said during her appearance on Newsnight.

She later accused the Labour Party of waging “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying” and alleged that the party, led by Keir Starmer, has “a problem with black and brown people.”

Adding that she will challenge the party’s decision in the courts, she said: “This campaign of prejudice, bullying and spiteful behavior has finally been rewarded by Labour’s NEC (National Executive Committee) and my name has been added to the list of those not welcome in the candidate club. And it is no surprise that many of those excluded are people of color.”

Stewart reacted to the Labour Party’s action against Shaheen with a message on Twitter in which he wrote: “This is the dumbest thing the UK has done since electing Boris Johnson.”

The decision by Labour bosses to prevent Shaheen from standing in the Chingford and Woodford Green constituency in North East London comes as the party campaigns for the General Election on July 4, which many experts predict will result in a landslide victory for the party.

However, under Starmer, who became leader in 2020, the party has faced criticism on a number of issues, including its stance on the war in Gaza and its handling of internal matters.

In 2020, watchdogs ruled that the party was responsible for “unlawful” acts of antisemitic harassment and discrimination during the four-and-a-half years when Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, was party leader.