$ cat google/week/2026-09-14.log
the week in review · Sep 14 – Sep 20, 2026
JAX 0.11.2 adds minmax and log2, drops NumPy 2.1
By RepoJournal · composed from the cited sources · human-reviewed weekly · methodology
python-genai 2.24.0 lands credential and retrieval APIs for gaos, and Spanner fixes a transaction lock leak on failed inline begin.
JAX v0.11.2 google/jax
Beyond the deprecation, this release makes log2 a first-class primitive: jnp.log2 now lowers through jax.lax.log2_p instead of a composite, and jnp.minmax returns both the minimum and maximum of an array, matching NumPy 2.3+. If you are pinned to NumPy 2.1 you need to move before taking the bump.
C++-side support for batched_copy_to_host_async. google/jax
The new batched_copy_to_host_async API copies multiple multi-device arrays to the host in a single call. C++ changes were split into a separate CL specifically to keep the JAX/jaxlib integration easier with respect to versioning, so the host-side plumbing will land on its own schedule.
[pallas:mgpu] Deprecated `pl.program_id` in Pallas MGPU kernels google/jax
pl.program_id is deprecated in Pallas MGPU kernels, with no removal window stated yet. Since pl.num_programs is always resolved statically in Pallas MGPU, there is no lowering rule to preserve: audit MGPU kernels for program_id and use the static count instead.
Support accumulation (`ref_addupdate`) on indexed `ReshapeTransform` views during state discharge, and explicitly reject unsupported view combinations. google/jax
ref_addupdate now works on views composed of ReshapeTransform and indexing.NDIndexer by forward-reshaping the buffer into the indexer domain before accumulating. Unsupported view combinations are explicitly rejected rather than silently mis-accumulating, so previously passing code may now fail loudly.
Fix jnp.sinc gradient and higher-order derivative accuracy near zero google/jax
sinc now evaluates a Taylor series in (pi*x)^2 for |pi*x| < 1 and the direct quotient elsewhere, with degree adapting to the input dtype: 6 terms for float32, 10 for float64. Gradients and higher-order derivatives near zero change value, so re-baseline any tests that pin sinc output close to the origin.
feat(spanner): auth login support for Spanner Omni endpoints (#18273) googleapis/google-cloud-python
Spanner Omni endpoints gain auth login support in the Python client, adding OPAQUE cryptography logic alongside auto-generated proto files. Anything vendoring the omni proto package should regenerate against the new sources.
fix(bigtable): Added rst_stream exception handling for ReadRows. googleapis/google-cloud-python
ReadRows now maps INTERNAL errors whose messages reference an rst_stream error to UNAVAILABLE, per the documented guidance. Retry logic keyed on UNAVAILABLE will start catching these instead of failing outright.
feat(firestore): add BSONInt32 support googleapis/google-cloud-python
BSONInt32 lets you store explicit 32-bit signed integers in Firestore documents according to the official BSON specification, via a new container class in the Python SDK. Relevant if you round-trip documents with other BSON-speaking clients.
$ ls google/week/ # the briefings behind this review
Keep up with Google in about 3 minutes: what actually shipped — the commits, pull requests, releases, and security advisories that matter.
fair warning: these emails are deeply technical. diffs, version numbers, CVEs, benchmark deltas. if that's not your idea of a good read, this isn't your newsletter.
Folds into your digest — weekly by default, monthly if you prefer. Unsubscribe in one click.