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Google released a 30-second Pixel 10 ad today that mocks Apple's year-long delay in delivering promised AI improvements to Siri on iPhone 16 devices. The ad suggests users could "just change your phone" if they purchased a device for a feature that's been "coming soon for a full year."

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Major cloud storage providers maintain unclear policies about deleting user data after subscription cancellations, Wired reports, with deletion timelines ranging from six months to indefinite preservation. Apple reserves the right to delete iCloud backups after 180 days of device inactivity but does not specify what happens to general file storage. Google may delete content after users exceed free storage limits for extended periods, though files remain safe for two years after cancellation. Microsoft may delete OneDrive files after six months of non-payment, while Dropbox preserves files indefinitely without expiration dates. All providers revert users to limited free storage tiers upon cancellation with Apple and Microsoft offering 5GB, Google providing 15GB, and Dropbox allowing 2GB.

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The payroll growth we thought we experienced in May and June? Gone, like tears in the rain

The US IT jobs market hasn't exactly been robust thus far in 2025, and downward revisions to May and June's Bureau of Labor Statistics data mean IT jobs lost in July are part of an even deeper sector slowdown than previously believed.…

Delta Air Lines has walked back previous statements about individualized pricing after lawmakers questioned the airline's AI-assisted dynamic pricing model. In November, Delta president Glen Hauenstein told investors the company would have pricing "available on that flight, on that time, to you, the individual." Responding to senators' concerns in July, EVP Peter Carter now states Delta has never used, is not testing, and does not plan to use individualized pricing based on personal data. Carter describes the AI technology, developed by Fetcherr, as a decision-support tool that uses aggregated data to assist analysts rather than target individual customers with personalized fares.

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Microsoft announced last month that Chinese state-sponsored hackers exploited vulnerabilities in SharePoint to breach hundreds of companies and government agencies, including the National Nuclear Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security. The company omitted that SharePoint support is handled by China-based engineers who have maintained the software for years. ProPublica reviewed screenshots of Microsoft's internal systems showing China-based employees recently fixing bugs for SharePoint "OnPrem," the version targeted in the attacks. Microsoft told the publication that the China-based team operates under U.S. supervision and the company is relocating this work.

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Instrument works fine. Now, about those transistors

NASA's Europa Clipper probe checked out its radar as the spacecraft hurtled past Mars on the way to Jupiter's moon Europa.…

AI startup Perplexity is deploying undeclared web crawlers that masquerade as regular Chrome browsers to access content from websites that have explicitly blocked its official bots, according to a Cloudflare report published Monday. When Perplexity's declared crawlers encounter robots.txt restrictions or network blocks, the company switches to a generic Mozilla user agent that impersonates "Chrome/124.0.0.0 Safari/537.36" running on macOS, the web infrastructure firm reported. Cloudflare engineers tested the behavior by creating new domains with robots.txt files prohibiting all automated access. Despite the restrictions, Perplexity provided detailed information about the protected content when queried, while the stealth crawler generated 3-6 million daily requests across tens of thousands of domains. The undeclared crawler rotated through multiple IP addresses and network providers to evade detection.

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Fujifilm has raised prices on cameras and lenses across its lineup, with price hikes reaching into the hundreds of dollars. From a report: Among the hikes is an increase to the price of Fuji's ultra-popular X100VI from $1,599 to $1,799. The capable X-T5 has gone from $1,699 to $1,899. And the already very expensive GFX100 II has gone from $7,499 to $8,299 -- an $800 increase. Increases to lens prices appear to be somewhat more modest, with bumps in the $50 to $150 range.

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Devs told to exercise 'extreme caution' with emails disguised as account update prompts

Mozilla is warning of an ongoing phishing campaign targeting developers of Firefox add-ons.…

The management consulting industry is facing potential disruption as AI companies enter the advisory business and traditional firms struggle to maintain growth. McKinsey, approaching its 100th anniversary, reduced its workforce by 5,000 employees since late 2023 while its revenue growth slowed to 2% in 2024. Boston Consulting Group closed the gap significantly, growing 10% and reducing McKinsey's revenue advantage from more than double in 2012 to just one-fifth larger today. Technology companies including Palantir and OpenAI now offer consulting-like services to help businesses implement AI models, with Palantir's revenue growing 39% year-over-year. The shift threatens consulting's core business model, as clients may eventually question paying premium fees when AI can perform much of the analytical work traditionally done by human consultants.

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'Hyper-masculine' first-person shooter fandoms are prime targets

Researchers from Anglia Ruskin University have sounded the alarm on "gaming-adjacent platforms" including Discord, Twitch, and Steam being used as "digital playgrounds" to funnel new recruits into far-right and other extremist ideologies – with a focus on those showing interest in "hyper-masculine gaming titles."…

With just over two months left, enterprises look to Extended Security Updates as a stay of execution

Windows 11 is maintaining its lead over Windows 10, but millions of PCs are still running Microsoft's legacy operating system with less than three months until support ends.…

Let US and China compete in the AI development arms race, says former Brit PM's non-profit org

Britain should not try to compete with America and China in the race to build cutting-edge AI models and focus instead on widespread AI adoption, but even this will require a boost local compute capacity.…

Desktop project's in-house distro is impressively ambitious, but nowhere near ready

The former "Project Banana" now has a more sober name, albeit one a bit trickier to search for.…

The Associated Press investigates whether tech industry layoffs are really being caused by AI. Their conclusion? "The reality is more complicated..." "We're kind of in this period where the tech job market is weak, but other areas of the job market have also cooled at a similar pace," said Brendon Bernard, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. "Tech job postings have actually evolved pretty similarly to the rest of the economy, including relative to job postings where there really isn't that much exposure to AI...." Tech hiring has particularly plunged in AI hubs such as the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as Boston and Seattle, according to Indeed. But in looking more closely at which tech workers were least likely to get hired, Indeed found the deepest impact on entry-level jobs in the tech industry, with those with at least five years of experience faring better. The hiring declines were sharpest in entry-level tech industry jobs that involve marketing, administrative assistance and human resources, which all involve tasks that overlap with the strength of the latest generative AI tools that can help create documents and images... Microsoft, which is staking its future on AI in the workplace, has also had its own researchers look into the jobs most vulnerable to the current strengths of AI technology. At the top of the list are knowledge work jobs such as language interpreters or translators, as well as historians, passenger attendants, sales representatives, writers and customer service representatives, according to Microsoft's working paper. On the other end, leading in work more immune to AI changes were phlebotomists, or healthcare workers who draw blood, followed by nursing assistants, workers who remove hazardous materials, painters and embalmers.

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Blue Origin and Amazon's Kuiper satellite program are an arm's length apart

In the beginning there was Jeff Bezos. He created Amazon in 1994 and became filthy rich in the decades that followed, reaching a net worth exceeding $241 billion in 2025.…

Founder miffed over prosecutors holding onto its Bitcoin

The founder of a German mobile phone repair and insurance biz has begun insolvency proceedings for some operations in his company after struggling financially following a costly ransomware attack in 2023.…

If it’s not on-prem, it’s on the menu

Opinion The details of cloud data regionalization are rarely the stuff of great drama. When they’ve reached the level of an exe admitting to the Senate that a foreign power can help itself to that nations data, no matter where it lives, things get interesting.…

But its ok claims Brit government, no personal data stored 'unless absolutely necessary'

The UK government has reported that an additional five million age checks are being made daily as UK-based internet users seek to access age-restricted sites following the implementation of the Online Safety Act."…

Canonical lays off one of its old hands – a longstanding FOSS developer – after nearly two decades

Till Kamppeter, the lead developer of the OpenPrinting subsystem for Linux, has been laid off by Canonical after 19 years.…