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Knowledge workers will be most affected

Microsoft researchers have found that people get the most use of AI for writing and knowledge work, but they offer some comfort to worried white-collar workers, saying that their jobs may only change rather than go away completely.…

Chinese IT giant's CloudMatrix 384 promises GB200-beating perf, if you ignore power and the price tag

Analysis Nvidia has the green light to resume shipments of its H20 GPUs to China, but while the chip may be plentiful, bit barn operators in the region now have far more capable alternatives at their disposal.…

skam240 writes: President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday proposed revoking a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule would rescind a 2009 declaration that determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The "endangerment finding" is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet.

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Strict regulations, lack of funding, and hallucinations remain hurdles to implementation

US federal government agencies have identified a surge in AI use cases over the past year. But rolling them out? That's where things slow down, thanks to funding gaps, compute shortages, outdated policies, and a workforce still playing catch-up.…

New malware, even better social engineering chops

The FBI and a host of international cyber and law enforcement agencies on Tuesday warned that Scattered Spider extortionists have changed their tactics and are now breaking into victims' networks using savvier social engineering techniques, searching for organizations' Snowflake database credentials, and deploying a handful of new ransomware variants, most recently DragonForce.  …

Opera will file a complaint against Microsoft to Brazilian antitrust authority CADE on Tuesday, alleging the tech giant gives its Edge browser an unfair advantage over competitors. Opera claims Microsoft pre-installs Edge as the default browser across Windows devices and prevents rivals from competing on product merits. The company's general counsel Aaron McParlan said Microsoft locks browsers like Opera out of preinstallation opportunities and frustrates users' ability to download alternative browsers. Opera, which says it is Brazil's third-most popular PC browser, wants CADE to investigate Microsoft and demand concessions to ensure fair competition.

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Vibe coding is right out, say most respondents in Stack Overflow survey

According to a new survey of worldwide software developers released on Tuesday, nearly all respondents are incorporating AI tools into their coding practices — but they're not necessarily all that happy about it.…

Google has admitted its earthquake early warning system failed to accurately alert people during Turkey's deadly quake of 2023. From a report: Ten million people within 98 miles of the epicentre could have been sent Google's highest level alert -- giving up to 35 seconds of warning to find safety. Instead, only 469 "Take Action" warnings were sent out for the first 7.8 magnitude quake. Google told the BBC half a million people were sent a lower level warning, which is designed for "light shaking", and does not alert users in the same prominent way. The tech giant previously told the BBC the system had "performed well" after an investigation in 2023. The alerts system is available in just under 100 countries -- and is described by Google as a "global safety net" often operating in countries with no other warning system. Google's system, named Android Earthquake Alerts (AEA), is run by the Silicon Valley firm - not individual countries.

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Auterion CEO explains how autonomy will change the face of warfare

interview The war in Ukraine is increasingly becoming a battle of drones, and defense software firm Auterion has just won a $50 million Pentagon contract to supply 33,000 AI-powered “strike kits” that aim to augment Ukrainian UAVs and push them to the front lines.…

Apple has lost its fourth AI researcher in a month to Meta [non-paywalled source], marking the latest setback to the iPhone maker's AI efforts. From a report: Bowen Zhang, a key multimodal AI researcher at Apple, left the company on Friday and is set to join Meta's recently formed superintelligence team, according to people familiar with the matter. Zhang was part of the Apple foundation models group, or AFM, which built the core technology behind the company's AI platform. Meta previously lured away the leader of the team, Ruoming Pang, with a compensation package valued at more than $200 million, Bloomberg News has reported. Two other researchers from that group -- Tom Gunter and Mark Lee -- also recently joined Meta. AFM is made up of several dozen engineers and researchers across Cupertino, California, and New York. In response to the job offers from Meta and others, Apple has been marginally increasing the pay of its AFM staffers, whether or not they've threatened to leave, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the moves are private. Still, the pay levels pale in comparison with those of rivals.

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Alphabet’s driverless darling taps Avis to manage the fleet for 2026 debut

With Tesla horning in on its Texas territory, robotaxi outfit Waymo has decided to expand to a new city in the Lone Star state: Dallas. …

60% of American adults use AI to search for information, but far fewer have adopted the technology for workplace productivity, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. Only 37% of respondents reported using AI for work tasks, while 40% said they use it for brainstorming ideas. The survey of 1,437 adults, conducted July 10-14, reveals a significant generational gap in AI adoption. Among adults under 30, 74% use AI for information searches and 62% for generating ideas, compared to just 23% of those over 60 who use it for brainstorming. About one-third of Americans use AI for writing emails, creating or editing images, or entertainment purposes. A quarter use it for shopping, while 16% report using AI for companionship -- a figure that rises to 25% among younger adults.

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Redmond’s last mostly sane OS nears end-of-life as AI nags take over

It has been ten years since Microsoft made Windows 10 generally available. With mere months left until the plug is unceremoniously pulled on support for many versions, let's take a look at how the last decade went for the one-time flagship operating system.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Anthropic is nearing a deal to raise as much as $5 billion in a new round of funding that would value the AI startup at $170 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. Investment firm Iconiq Capital is leading the round, which is expected to total between $3 billion and $5 billion, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private information. Anthropic has also been in discussions with the Qatar Investment Authority and Singapore's sovereign fund GIC about participating in the round, the person said. The new financing would mark a significant jump in valuation for the company and cement its status as one of world's leading AI developers. Anthropic was valued at $61.5 billion in a $3.5 billion round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners earlier this year.

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Another week, another protest over budget proposals

A letter protesting the imminent demise of US research vessel and icebreaker the Nathaniel B. Palmer was this week sent to the National Science Foundation (NSF) amid proposed funding reductions.…

The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial passenger jet, faces mounting maintenance challenges as regulatory authorities issue an increasing number of safety directives. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has listed 95 airworthiness directives for the A380 since January 2020, approximately double the number issued for large Boeing aircraft during the same period. The directives address problems including leaking escape slides, cracked seals, and a ruptured landing-gear axle. A comprehensive maintenance check of the massive plane requires 60,000 hours of labor, according to aircraft repairer Lufthansa Technik. Airlines remain committed to operating the twin-deck aircraft due to limited large-capacity alternatives, with Boeing's 777X years behind schedule and Airbus unable to produce long-haul A350s quickly enough. British Airways plans to overhaul A380 cabins starting next year, while Emirates intends to keep flying the aircraft until the end of the next decade.

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Some users keen while others point out pile of unresolved bugs in core product

The open source Blender 3D editing suite may be adapted to run on Apple's iPad and other tablets, despite concern from one contributor that the team is already stretched with "thousands of bugs languishing in the tracker."…

schwit1 writes: The Apple Manufacturing Academy will be located in downtown Detroit and will be administered by Michigan State University. The academy will offer workshops on manufacturing and artificial intelligence to small and medium-sized businesses, Apple said. Trump has called for Apple to move iPhone production to the U.S. and is implementing tariffs that will likely raise the company's costs.

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Mostly minor changes under the hood – a lot of them

Over the weekend, the world's most famous Finn pushed out the latest version of the Linux kernel – and warned of upcoming disruption.…

India has overtaken China to become the top source of smartphones sold in the US, after Apple shifted to assemble more of its iPhones in the South Asian country. From a report: In the quarter through June, India was the largest manufacturer of smartphones shipped to the US for the first time, accounting for 44% of the market, according to Canalys data. Vietnam, home to much of Samsung's production, came in second. China fell from having more than 60% of all estimated shipments a year ago to just 25%. The stark change comes as Apple ramped up its production in India and smartphone makers "frontload device inventories amid tariff concerns," Canalys researchers wrote. The volume of made-in-India devices more than tripled in the past quarter from a year earlier. Apple's iPhone shipments to the US declined by 11%, reflecting distortions to its usual pattern due to unusually high shipments to stockpile units earlier in the year.

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