Google added two new models to the Gemini API today: Nano Banana 2 Lite (image generation) and Gemini Omni Flash (video generation + editing). Neither is the Gemini 3.5 Pro release people have been waiting for, so it's easy to miss. Here's what's actually in them. TL;DR Nano Banana 2 Lite: gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image = text-to-image in ~4s, $0.034/1K images Gemini Omni Flash: gemini-omni-flash-preview = video gen + conversational editing, $0.10/sec Both are built to be chained: generate an image fast, then animate it into video Neither model is positioned as a quality upgrade = both are cost/speed plays Nano Banana 2 Lite Model ID: gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image Text-to-image output in about 4 seconds $0.034 per 1K-resolution image Positioned as the direct replacement for the original Nano Banana ( gemini-2.5-flash-image ) - if you're on that model, this is a drop-in upgrade Available in Google AI Studio, Gemini API, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and consumer surfaces (Search AI Mode, Gemini app, Photos, NotebookLM, Flow, Google Ads) Gemini Omni Flash Model ID: gemini-omni-flash-preview Public preview in Google AI Studio and the Gemini API Conversational editing - refine a generated video using plain-language instructions instead of re-prompting from zero Multimodal referencing - combine text, image, and video inputs to keep a scene consistent $0.10 per second of video output (same rate as Veo 3.1 Fast) Known limitations right now Generations capped at 10 seconds No audio reference uploads yet No scene extension yet Video references under 3 seconds are accepted by the API schema but not correctly processed yet Character consistency across scene changes/pans still has rough edges Google says longer durations are coming. The part worth paying attention to: chaining them Generate an image with Nano Banana 2 Lite (fast, cheap) Pass that image as a reference into Omni Flash Omni Flash animates it into a video Both models are optimized for throughput and cost, not for to

At the beginning of June I started a “ Claude withdrawal ” challenge. The plan was to run MiniMax 3 for a month, to see if I can get the same level of quality, but at 5x less the price. Until then, Claude Code was my main driver, with MiniMax on the backup, for when I was running out of quota, or sometimes for code review. The monthly bill for Claude was $100 on the Max plan, whereas for MiniMax I would pay $20 for the Token plan. All in all, it seemed like an interesting experiment. Then, half way through the challenge, Grok came into the picture. I got a very interesting offer at $35 for 3 months, then $35/month. But Grok has something neither Claude, nor MiniMax can give me out of the shelf: video and image generations. The only unknown was if switching from Claude Code to Grok will still maintain the same coding power. So I instantly took the offer, and did whatever I had to do to understand if this was the right path. And here comes the “whatever I had to do”, in plain technical terms. Switching from Claude Code to Grok – the Actual Steps The switch itself was interesting because I didn’t want to lose the Claude Code interface. I like the harness. The way it works with my codebase, the commands, the flow. So I used a helper called cliproxyapi . It’s a small proxy that sits between the Claude Code client and whatever model you point it at. You run it locally, tell it to forward requests to Grok’s API instead of Anthropic’s. Then you launch Claude Code the same way you always do, but it talks to Grok under the hood. Here’s how it goes in practice. Step 1: Install the proxy. I used brew to install it, I’m on a Mac, and also because I wanted to have it started as a service. Step 2: Set two environment variables. One is the target API base URL, for Grok that’s something like https://api.x.ai . The other is your API key. "env" : { "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL" : "http://localhost:8317" , "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" : "cliproxy-local-key" } , Notice how we use “cliproxy-local-key”, be

I spent the last while building the HMRC integration for TapTax , a Making Tax Digital (MTD) app for UK sole traders. MTD is the UK government's programme that pushes tax filing out of paper and spreadsheets and into software talking directly to HMRC's APIs. I have integrated with a fair few third-party APIs. Stripe, Plaid-style banking, the usual. HMRC is its own animal. Some of it is genuinely well designed, some of it caught me completely off guard, and a couple of things cost me a full day each before the penny dropped. So here are the five things that surprised me most. Each one is the surprise, then the fix, with a short snippet from our actual TypeScript backend. Not tax advice, just engineering notes from someone who has now stepped on the rakes so you do not have to. 1. The API version lives in the Accept header, and getting it wrong is a 406 Most APIs version in the URL: /v2/thing . HMRC versions through content negotiation. You ask for a version in the Accept header, like application/vnd.hmrc.5.0+json , and if you ask for a version that endpoint does not serve, you get a 406 Not Acceptable . No helpful "did you mean v3" message. Just 406. The part that bit me: different endpoints are on completely different versions at the same time. Obligations is on v3.0, the self-employment cumulative summary is on v5.0, calculations are on v8.0, ITSA status is on v2.0. There is no single "current" version to pin. The fix was to make the version a required argument on the request wrapper so you can never forget it, and set it per call: // src/services/hmrcApi.ts const headers = { Authorization : `Bearer ${ accessToken } ` , Accept : `application/vnd.hmrc. ${ apiVersion } +json` , // e.g. "5.0" ... hmrcConfig . getFraudHeaders ( req ), }; One more trap: versions get withdrawn. Obligations used to answer on v2.0; that now returns a 404, not a 406, so it looks like a missing resource rather than a stale version. When an HMRC call 404s, check the version before you go hunt

The video game disc is dead, and Sony's been planning to kill it for some time, according to a report out of Austria. The man who leads Sony's discmaking operations, Sony DADC president Dietmar Tanzer, told ORF Salzburg that the company's Thalgau plant produces 600,000 discs every day, half of which are for PlayStation. But […]

Terminal-based AI agents have evolved considerably over the past few months, and several changes are significant enough that developers relying on these tools should be aware of them. Most notably, Google has begun retiring Gemini CLI for individual users in favor of Antigravity CLI — a closed-source successor that has drawn some pushback from the community that built out Gemini CLI's open-source ecosystem. Meanwhile, Claude Code has moved to the Opus 4.8 and Fable 5 models with a 1M-token context window, and OpenClaw, the open-source "always-on" agent, has grown into one of the most-starred projects on GitHub — alongside a documented CVE worth knowing about before deployment. I've just published an updated, fact-checked comparison covering: What actually changed with Gemini CLI's retirement, and what it means if you have scripts or CI/CD pipelines depending on it Claude Code's current model lineup, context window, and new Dynamic Workflows feature OpenClaw's architecture, extensibility via ClawHub, and the security considerations that come with deep system access A full feature-comparison table (cost, context window, open-source status, setup complexity) A practical case study walking through how all three tools can work together on a real project Would be curious to hear which of these you're using day-to-day, and whether the Gemini → Antigravity transition has affected your workflow. Full article here: Devlycan - Technology & Programming Insights Devlycan - Technology, programming, AI, lifestyle, and future trends—simple insights for the new digital generation. devlycan.com