The camera feature in the @Gemini_Notebook mobile app is so transformative for on-the-go research. I was up in the Sierras working on a new project, and I just took photos of everything, like this museum display. Then I asked for a detailed report of all the info in the image. The text below is what I got back. (I fact-checked it myself and it was 99% accurate -- and some of the text it transcribed is so blurry in the image that it was hard for me to read it.) Next step is to generate documents like this for all the photos I took, and then ask Notebook to highlight all the information that adds something new to the existing knowledge base of sources I've already collected, or is particularly relevant to my latest writing and outline for the project. Truly magical. Mariposa Museum Exhibit Reference: Mariposa in 1859 & Gold Rush Era This reference document consolidates all text, photographic captions, historical statistics, newspaper clippings, and exhibit overlays displayed on the Mariposa Museum exhibit panel regarding Mariposa during and after the Gold Rush. 1. Exhibit Overview & Key Headlines Main Title: "THIS WAS MARIPOSA IN 1859 – ONLY 10 YEARS AFTER THE GOLD RUSH BEGAN." Historical Context Sub-headline: "PORTIONS OF THE TOWN HAD BEEN REBUILT AFTER THE FIRE OF 1858.. & PARTS OF IT WERE DOOMED TO BE DESTROYED IN 1866" Display Overview: The exhibit centers on a large 1850s panoramic photograph of Mariposa, annotated with street names, landmark locations, and population statistics, flanked by contemporary hotel advertisements, fire reports, medical artifacts, and photographs of civic buildings. 2. Demographic & Real Estate Statistics (1850s vs. Present) MetricHistorical Value (1850s Gold Rush Peak)Modern Value Town Population~3,000 residents~1,800 estimated Entire Mariposa Diggings Area~15,000 residents— Commercial Establishments15 to 20 stores & saloons, plus hotels— Town Lot Prices00 to 00 per lot— 3. Background Photograph & Civic Infrastructure Background Photo Date: Taken in the 1850s, capturing the rapid growth of the settlement following the initial gold strike. 1854 Mariposa County Courthouse: Shown in the background panorama prior to the construction of its iconic clock tower. A separate framed photograph depicts the completed white wood-frame courthouse with a white picket fence and clock tower. Clock Tower History: The clock mechanism was imported from England and is an 8-day, manually wound instrument. It remains operational today, maintained by the Mariposa Public Works Department. Annotated Overlay Locations on Panorama: 1854 Courthouse: Located at the upper edge of town on Jones Street. Jones Street & Bullion Street: Upper residential and civic thoroughfares. Charles Street (Main Street): Primary commercial artery running through the center of the valley floor. Schlageter Hotel Site: Positioned along Main Street. Mariposa Creek: Flowing along the foreground basin of the town diggings. 4. The Fire of 1866: Mariposa's Second Great Conflagration Below is the complete transcript of the Mariposa Gazette report featured on the panel regarding the disaster of August 25, 1866 (following the earlier destructive fire of 1858): Article Text: "FIRE! MARIPOSA'S SECOND GREAT FIRE" A few minutes after 6 p.m. on Saturday, August 25, 1866 Mariposa was again ruined by a disastrous fire (first in 1858). According to the Gazette (the building was damaged but not destroyed), the fire was believed to have started when "a recently imported printer stepped inside the Free Press office and lighted a cigar. The match had evidently been dropped carelessly amongst the papers on the floor. The Free Press office was located near the corner of Main and 7th Streets and by ten minutes the fire had spread through two blocks. The fire crossed Main Street to the Odd Fellows building and the Methodist Church and soon the buildings on the block between 6th and 7th Streets were burning like so much chaff." Seven full blocks, except for four fire-proof buildings, were totally destroyed. "In one hour about 60 buildings and 77,000 worth of property were destroyed." By early Monday morning the men were clearing away debris and by press time the following Saturday, the Gazette reported that several temporary business structures had already been erected and were open for business. Inventory of Buildings Destroyed in the 1866 Fire: Residential & Civic: 14 Dwellings, 1 Church, 1 Odd Fellows and Masons Hall. Media & Printing: 1 Newspaper Office (Free Press), 1 Newspaper Depot. Hospitality & Retail: 3 Hotels, 5 Retail Stores, 1 Saddlery Shop, 9 Liquor Saloons (several equipped with billiard tables). Services & Trades: 2 Livery Stables, 3 Law Offices, 1 Drug Store, 3 Blacksmith Shops, 2 Carpenter Shops, 2 Shoemaker Shops, 1 Tailor Shop, 2 Butchering Establishments. Outbuildings: Numerous outhouses, private stables, and auxiliary structures. 5. Commercial Hotels & Lodging Gallison Hotel (1887 Advertisement) Location: Main Street, Mariposa (center of business district, opposite Odd Fellows' Hall). Proprietor: Winslow Gallison. Management: Mrs. Gallison individually superintended all internal departments of the hotel. Amenities: Newly furnished rooms, first-class table dining. Mariposa Hotel (1887 Card) Location: Corner of Main and Fifth Streets. Proprietor: Charles A. Schlageter. Target Market: Accommodated general travelers as well as Yosemite tourists on short notice. Amenities: Family rooms, well-lighted parlors, good table, and bath facilities. The Schlageter Hotel Date Built: Built in the 1850s. Architecture: Prominent two-story wooden structure featuring full upper and lower covered verandas. 6. Medical Artifacts & 19th-Century Therapeutics Old Mariposa Hospital A framed historical photograph depicts a two-story wood-frame hospital building with a prominent front porch and side wing (annotated "from Chic Allingham"). Dr. D. Jayne's Family Medicines (1880 Display Broadside) 1. Jayne's Specific for Tape-Worm Diagnosis: Describes tapeworm infections as widespread, noting that discharging white or yellowish segments ("resembling gourd seeds") is the only positive diagnostic proof. Pricing & Ordering: .00 per dose, shipped nationwide via mail from 242 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Usage Instructions: Dissolve powder in a pint of boiling water, drink in three equal hourly doses on an empty stomach. Follow with Cathartic medicines if bowels do not operate in three hours. 2. Dr. D. Jayne's Sanative Pills Formulation: Concentrated, sugar-coated pills. Sold in 50-pill boxes (-bash.25) or 15-pill specimen packets (-bash.10). Prescribed Ailments: Advertised for liver complaints, gout, jaundice, dyspepsia, rheumatism, kidney affections, fevers, nervousness, skin diseases, melancholy, sick headache, and costiveness (constipation). 3. Exhibit Commentary Note A small museum card mounted below the broadside reads: "A man advertises for 'a competent person to undertake the sale of a new medicine' and adds innocently 'It will prove profitable to the undertaker.'"

If you haven't had a chance yet to check out the new Expert Intelligence feature in @Gemini_Notebook, here is your chance. Use code "EXPERTINTELLIGENCE" to get a free download of my book "Thinking in Bets" to add to your Gemini LLM Notebook Knowledge Library.

"Expert intelligence" - new feature of Gemini that allows buyers of an ebook to apply the knowledge in the book to their own projects. In this case, the advice in my writing style manual, The Sense of Style, is applied to a draft of the user's writing. I checked it out and it's really good -- the advice is very close to what I would have said.

Every Expert Intelligence notebook we feature includes a note from the author and extra sources curated by them. Here's @AnnieDuke explaining how exploring her fascinating book Thinking In Bets in @Gemini_Notebook can help you make smarter decisions.

This week at @Gemini_Notebook, we're featuring two notebooks built around a pair of recent popular advice books, starting with @ericries' instant classic, The Lean Startup. Add Eric's book to any notebook, and it's like having him as your personal coach.

I've added @sapinker's Sense of Style to all my notebooks with writing projects, asking for a Pinker edit with each draft. I don't always agree with every suggestion but it's invariably productive and stimulating advice. Plus if you're in the US, you can get a free copy of the book, which you can both read and use as an on-demand editor in @Gemini_Notebook. There are twenty other great titles in the promotion as well, though it's a limited time offer, and you can only choose one book. (And yes, Google is paying for the books so authors/publishers will be compensated!) Full list and details here:

Every Expert Intelligence notebook we feature includes a note from the author and extra sources curated by them. Here's @AnnieDuke explaining how exploring her fascinating book Thinking In Bets in @Gemini_Notebook can help you make smarter decisions.

This week at @Gemini_Notebook, we're featuring two notebooks built around a pair of recent popular advice books, starting with @ericries' instant classic, The Lean Startup. Add Eric's book to any notebook, and it's like having him as your personal coach.

The power of Expert Intelligence in @Gemini_Notebook: Add The Sense of Style by @sapinker to a notebook with a draft you're writing. Ask for feedback based on Pinker's ideas. It's the opposite of AI slop: personalized advice based on human expertise, facilitated by AI. And what I love about this is that I'm getting actionable suggestions here AND Notebook is serving as a guide to Pinker's underlying philosophy of writing. So I'm learning deeper principles as I improve my draft. And of course everything in the Notebook response points directly back to specific passages in Pinker (and my own draft) with citations. We have a Featured Notebook curated by Steven Pinker available here, but if you purchase the book, you can add it to any notebook you want. (And read it in its entirely in Notebook or the Google Play Books reader.)

The power of Expert Intelligence in @Gemini_Notebook: Add The Sense of Style by @sapinker to a notebook with a draft you're writing. Ask for feedback based on Pinker's ideas. It's the opposite of AI slop: personalized advice based on human expertise, facilitated by AI. And what I love about this is that I'm getting actionable suggestions here AND Notebook is serving as a guide to Pinker's underlying philosophy of writing. So I'm learning deeper principles as I improve my draft. And of course everything in the Notebook response points directly back to specific passages in Pinker (and my own draft) with citations. We have a Featured Notebook curated by Steven Pinker available here, but if you purchase the book, you can add it to any notebook you want. (And read it in its entirely in Notebook or the Google Play Books reader.)

Google shipped a books feature on Wednesday that is more useful than a books feature. Expert Intelligence lets you pull an ebook you already own from Google Play Books into a Gemini Notebook as a grounded source, so you can question it and get answers cited back to the page. Over 100,000 titles at launch, including catalogs from Penguin Random House, Macmillan, O'Reilly and Bloomsbury. What makes it useful for a business is that the book sits in the same notebook as your own sources. Your invoices, your call transcripts, your SOPs, your one-on-one notes. Six ways I'd use that this week: - Load a pricing book with your last twelve months of invoices and ask where your rates contradict the author's own rules. You get chapter citations next to your real numbers. - Put a sales methodology book next to twenty call transcripts and ask which objections you're handling badly, and what the book says to do instead. - Combine a management book with your onboarding docs, generate an Audio Overview, and hand a new hire something to listen to in week one that's grounded in how your business runs. - Drop an operations book in with your current process folder and ask what your fulfillment steps are missing. - Generate a quiz off a book you want your team to know cold and use it as the check after they read it. - Put a positioning book together with your last three sales pages and your competitors' pages, then ask where your message overlaps theirs. Two constraints. You have to own the book through Play Books, and eligibility shows under a Tools badge on the book's detail page. Share the notebook and your collaborators get asked to buy their own copy. The roadmap line is the one I'd circle. Google says third-party subscriptions, business research reports and textbooks are coming next, plus the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search. Every industry report you buy and never finish becomes something you can question against your own numbers. Most business books get read once and then sit there. This is the first version of one I can hand my own P&L to. Google's announcement:

Expert Intelligence: a new way for you to engage with books. Buy the e-book from Google, and you can use Google Notebook to apply the expertise and advice in the book to the project you're working on. The Sense of Style is one of 7 books they're featuring during their launch, and the app will apply my writing advice to your drafts as you write them. @google

Kind of thrilling as an author to see that "Use with @Gemini_Notebook" option on the @GooglePlay bookstore page for one of my books. (Most of mine are now available as part of Expert Intelligence.) This is going to open up entirely new ways for readers to experience my work.

We are so encouraged by the response to Expert Intelligence from authors and publishers. Books (and other published knowledge) should thrive in the age of language models. And we're eager to bring EI to other Google surfaces soon beyond @Gemini_Notebook. So much more to do!

🎉 I am excited to share that "Thinking In Bets" has been selected as one of the first books to go live with Google's new Expert Intelligence feature for trusted sources with @Gemini_Notebook. Add Thinking in Bets to your trusted sources now:

Here's the official blog post announcing the new Expert Intelligence framework bringing published books and more to @Gemini_Notebook (and soon other surfaces across @Google.) It includes info about the free book giveaway we are doing for US users as well.

With the Expert Intelligence launch in @Gemini_Notebook today, you have one free ebook from a selection, including Lean Startup by @ericries. The "Build Products People Actually Want" Notebook by Eric gives you a great feel for how Expert Intelligence can be used, and is turbo charged when you add his book to it. It starts with a note from him, to you, and I wanted to share…. Try it out:

After working closely with publishers (including @penguindrandom & @BloomsburyPub) and a dream team of leading authors, we're launching a Google-wide program bringing trusted sources (starting with books) to @Gemini_Notebook and more: Expert Intelligence.

So excited for the Expert Intelligence launch today! It's a significant partnership with many of the world's leading publishers and an incredible new way to understand complex topics in Gemini Notebook!