Speaking of Amazon Prime, Amazon is axing the program that lets Prime members share their free shipping perk with people outside their household. The Verge: In an update to its support page, Amazon says it will cut off Prime benefit sharing on October 1st, 2025, prompting invitees who don't live with the account holder to sign up for their own subscription at a discounted $14.99 rate for an entire year (and then $14.99 per month after that). Instead, Amazon is replacing this program with Amazon Family, which lets account holders share Prime benefits -- but only with people they live with. Amazon says everyone in a "Family" must live at the same primary residential address, defined as "the address you consider to be your home and where you spend the majority of your time."

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Developer Hugo Tunius, writing in a blog post: Sideloading has been a hot topic for the last decade. Most recently, Google has announced further restrictions on the practice in Android. Many hundreds of comment threads have discussed these changes over the years. One point in particular is always made: "I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own." I agree entirely with this point, but within the context of this discussion it's moot. When Google restricts your ability to install certain applications they aren't constraining what you can do with the hardware you own, they are constraining what you can do using the software they provide with said hardware. It's through this control of the operating system that Google is exerting control, not at the hardware layer. You often don't have full access to the hardware either and building new operating systems to run on mobile hardware is impossible, or at least much harder than it should be. This is a separate, and I think more fruitful, point to make. Apple is a better case study than Google here. Apple's success with iOS partially derives from the tight integration of hardware and software. An iPhone without iOS is a very different product to what we understand an iPhone to be. Forcing Apple to change core tenets of iOS by legislative means would undermine what made the iPhone successful.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The United States is on the precipice of a historic, if dubious, achievement. If current trends hold, 2025 could be the first year on record in which the US population actually shrinks. The math is straightforward. Population growth has two sources: natural increase (births minus deaths) and net immigration (arrivals minus departures). Last year, births outnumbered deaths by 519,000 people. That means any decline in net immigration in excess of half a million could push the U.S. into population decline. A recent analysis of Census data by the Pew Research Center found that between January and June, the US foreign-born population fell for the first time in decades by more than one million. While some economists have questioned the report, a separate analysis by the American Enterprise Institute predicted that net migration in 2025 could be as low as negative 525,000. In either case, annual population growth this year could easily turn negative.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon doubled its Prime Day discount sales to four days this year and touted blowout numbers days after the event. But by one critical metric, it missed the mark. Sign-ups in the U.S. failed to meet last year's total and even the company's own target, according to internal company data reviewed by Reuters. The world's largest online retailer registered 5.4 million U.S. sign-ups over the 21-day run-up to Prime Day and its four-day sales event from July 8 to July 11. That was around 116,000 fewer than for the same period a year earlier and 106,000 below the company's own goal, a roughly 2% decline in both metrics.

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Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou has overtaken Tokyo-Yokohama to become the world's top cluster for innovation, the United Nations said Monday. From a report: The UN's World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said the Chinese cluster had leapfrogged its Japanese rival in its 2025 Global Innovation Index. The change at the top of the world's 100 leading innovation clusters was down to WIPO broadening the criteria to include venture capital investments to formulate the annual rankings. The UN agency dealing with patenting and innovation previously only used patent filing and scientific publishing data to identify local concentrations of world-leading innovation activity. "Venture capital investment activity helps capture how scientific and technological knowledge translates into start-up creation and, ultimately, new goods and services in the marketplace," WIPO said. The agency said Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou and Tokyo-Yokohama "make a massive contribution to global scientific publications and patenting outputs", together accounting for nearly one in five patent applications filed globally.

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Ellis knew she needed a walk after she hurried off of Zoom at the end of the meeting to avoid sobbing in front of the group.

She'd just been attending a free online seminar regarding safe job hunting on the Internet. Having been searching since the end of January, Ellis had already picked up plenty of first-hand experience with the modern job market, one rejection at a time. She thought she'd attend the seminar just to see if there were any additional things she wasn't aware of. The seminar had gone well, good information presented in a clear and engaging way. But by the end of it, Ellis was feeling bleak. Goodness gracious, she'd already been slogging through months of this. Hundreds of job applications with nothing to show for it. All of the scams out there, all of the bad actors preying on people desperate for their and their loved ones' survival!

Ellis' childhood had been plagued with anxiety and depression. It was only as an adult that she'd learned any tricks for coping with them. These tricks had helped her avoid spiraling into full-on depression for the past several years. One such trick was to stop and notice whenever those first feelings hit. Recognize them, feel them, and then respond constructively.

First, a walk. Going out where there were trees and sunshine: Ellis considered this "garbage collection" for her brain. So she stepped out the front door and started down a tree-lined path near her house, holding on to that bleak feeling. She was well aware that if she didn't address it, it would take root and grow into hopelessness, self-loathing, fear of the future. It would paralyze her, leave her curled up on the couch doing nothing. And it would all happen without any words issuing from her inner voice. That was the most insidious thing. It happened way down deep in a place where there were no words at all.

Once she returned home, Ellis forced herself to sit down with a notebook and pencil and think very hard about what was bothering her. She wrote down each sentiment:

• This job search is a hopeless, unending slog!
• No one wants to hire me. There must be something wrong with me!
• This is the most brutal job search environment I've ever dealt with. There are new scams every day. Then add AI to every aspect until I want to vomit.

This was the first step of a reframing technique she'd just read about in the book Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmonson. With the words out, it was possible to look at each statement and determine whether it was rational or irrational, constructive or harmful. Each statement could be replaced with something better.

Ellis proceeded step by step through the list.

• Yes, this will end. Everything ends.
• There's nothing wrong with me. Most businesses are swamped with applications. There's a good chance mine aren't even being looked at before they're being auto-rejected. Remember the growth mindset you learned from Carol Dweck. Each application and interview is giving me experience and making me a better candidate.
• This job market is a novel context that changes every day. That means failure is not only inevitable, it's the only way forward.

Ellis realized that her job hunt was very much like a search algorithm trying to find a path through a maze. When the algorithm encountered a dead end, did it deserve blame? Was it an occasion for shame, embarrassment, and despair? Of course not. Simply backtrack and keep going with the knowledge gained.

Yes, there was truth to the fact that this was the toughest job market Ellis had ever experienced. Therefore, taking a note from Viktor Frankl, she spent a moment reimagining the struggle in a way that made it meaningful to her. Ellis began viewing her job hunt in this dangerous market, her gradual accumulation of survival information, as an act of resistance against it. She now hoped to write all about her experience once she was on the other side, in case her advice might help even one other person in her situation save time and frustration.

While unemployed, she also had the opportunity to employ the search algorithm against entirely new mazes. Could Ellis expand her freelance writing into a sustainable gig, for instance? That would mean exploring all the different ways to be a freelance writer, something Ellis was now curious and excited to explore.

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Premium bottled water is emerging as restaurants' answer to declining alcohol consumption as establishments offer curated water menus featuring bottles priced up to $25.70. La Popote in Cheshire has introduced a seven-water selection ranging from $6.75 Peak District spring water to $25.70 Portuguese Vidago, served in wine glasses at room temperature. Water sommelier Doran Binder, who created the menu and founded Crag spring water, reports 7 million monthly social media views for water content. The movement extends beyond Britain -- over a dozen US restaurants maintain water lists, while new producers like Hampshire's Chorq plan champagne-style bottles with corks. Michael Mascha's FineWaters has certified more than 100 water sommeliers globally as demand grows for waters distinguished by mineral content ranging from 14 to 3,300 milligrams per liter of dissolved solids.

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Google denied claims Monday that it had issued a security warning to Gmail users about a major vulnerability. The company stated that recent reports claiming a broad Gmail security alert were "entirely false." Google said its email service blocks more than 99.9% of phishing and malware attempts from reaching users' inboxes.

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College students have integrated generative AI into their academic routines at an unprecedented scale as 85% report usage for coursework in the past year, according to new Inside Higher Ed survey data. The majority employ AI tools for brainstorming ideas, seeking tutoring assistance, and exam preparation rather than wholesale academic outsourcing. Only 25% admitted using AI to complete assignments entirely, while 19% generated full essays. Students overwhelmingly reject institutional policing approaches, with 53% favoring education on ethical AI use over detection software deployment. Despite widespread adoption, 35% of respondents report no change in their perception of college value, while 23% view their degrees as more valuable in the AI era.

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International tourism to the United States faces an unprecedented 8.2% decline in 2025, with the World Travel and Tourism Council projecting a $12.5 billion loss in visitor spending -- the only decline among 184 economies analyzed. Canadian visitors, traditionally comprising 28% of international arrivals, have dropped by approximately 25% through July. Seattle tour operators report 30-50% fewer Canadian customers with many explicitly citing recent tariff policies and political rhetoric as deterrents. The newly implemented $250 "visa integrity fee" for certain countries compounds existing concerns about immigration policies and National Guard deployments in major cities. Tourism Economics now projects full recovery to pre-pandemic levels won't occur until 2029, three years later than initially forecast.

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