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Amazon is plotting a big change to its Fire tablet lineup following years of escalating gripes from consumers and app developers over the company's homegrown operating system. Reuters: As part of a project known internally as Kittyhawk, Amazon plans to release a higher-end tablet as soon as next year offering the Android operating system software for the first time, according to six people familiar with the matter. Since the Fire tablet's introduction in 2011, Amazon has used what is known as a "forked" version of Android with custom modifications that make it work like a unique operating system. [...] The first Amazon Android tablet, slated for next year, will be pricier than current models, the people said. One of them said Amazon had discussed a $400 price tag, nearly double the cost of its current higher-end $230 Fire Max 11 tablet. IPads, by comparison, range from $350 to $1,200. Reuters could not learn additional specifications for the planned Amazon tablet, such as screen size and speaker quality or memory capacity. Amazon historically has avoided using software or other products from third parties, preferring to develop the services in-house or, barring that, to acquire a competitor.

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Have a complaint? Need a benefit? Agentforce now has a bot for that

American citizens seeking help from the federal government may soon find themselves being assisted by an AI agent, if Salesforce's new public sector offering is a success.…

Abu Dhabi is gathering the DNA of Emirati newborns in a significant expansion of a national genomic sequencing project that aims to put the UAE on the cutting-edge of health care. From a report: The UAE capital has so far mapped the genomes of 68% of Emirati citizens, a spokesperson for M42, the firm running the program, told Semafor, while at-birth sequencing is being offered to parents on a voluntary basis across several hospitals, and aims to detect over 800 treatable childhood genetic conditions. Only around 1% of the world's mapped genomes are of Arab descent. The UAE is looking to address the gap while tackling public health issues and expanding personalized health care offerings.

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Dragging DNS into the modern age. And if that means fewer people need to buy IPv4, so much the better

A pair of networking researchers have proposed that the Internet Engineering Task Force define support for IPv6 as a best practice for operators of DNS resolvers – the servers that translate URLs into IP addresses – and one of them hopes adoption of the idea will accelerate the demise of IPv4.…

Rival Brave flags prompt injection vulnerability, now patched

To the surprise of no one in the security industry, processing untrusted, unvalidated input is a bad idea.…

Windows 11 users will receive significant UI refinements and AI improvements starting next month as Microsoft prepares its September feature drop followed by additional updates through fall. The update, Windows Central reports, will bring customizable lock screen widgets globally after months of European exclusivity, photo grid views in Windows Search, and a redesigned Windows Hello authentication interface. Copilot+ PCs will gain a revamped Recall application with workflow suggestions and File Explorer AI integration through Click To Do. October and November releases will introduce a larger, customizable Start menu allowing removal of the Recommended section and expanded dark mode support for legacy File Explorer dialogs.

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Performance-tuned and optimized spin seems to be winning fans

CachyOS bills itself as a Blazingly Fast & Customizable Linux distribution and that seems to be winning it friends. In the last month, it's the number one distro on the popularity chart on the widely-used DistroWatch comparison site.…

AI-powered salespeople are outperforming their human counterparts on Chinese e-commerce platforms, working around the clock without fatigue to sell products ranging from printers to wet wipes. Shanghai marketing firm PLTFRM has deployed 30 virtual avatars across Taobao and Pinduoduo using Baidu video models and DeepSeek language models. Brother's AI avatar generated $2,500 in printer sales within two hours and increased livestream revenue 30 percent. The company now checks overnight AI sales data each morning as routine. Livestreaming drives over one-third of China's e-commerce sales, with half the population shopping via broadcast in 2024. Baidu's June livestream featuring an AI version of influencer Luo Yonghao drew 13 million views and generated $7.7 million in sales. American and European companies have expressed interest, Wired reports, after PLTFRM successfully tested English-language avatars on YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook.

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Snarfing up config files for 'thousands' of devices…just for giggles, we're sure

The FBI and security researchers today warned that Russian government spies exploited a seven-year-old bug in end-of-life Cisco networking devices to snoop around in American critical infrastructure networks and collect information on industrial systems.…