The next version of Windows will become "more ambient, pervasive, and multi-modal" as AI transforms how users interact with computers, Microsoft's Windows chief Pavan Davuluri said in a company video. Davuluri, Corporate Vice President and head of Windows, said that voice will emerge as a primary input method alongside keyboard and mouse, with the operating system gaining context awareness to understand screen content and user intent through natural language. Windows interfaces, he said, will appear fundamentally different within five years as the platform becomes increasingly agentic. The transformation will rely on both local processing power and cloud computing capabilities to deliver seamless experiences where users can speak to their computers while simultaneously typing or inking.

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Top fintech and crypto executives urged the Trump administration to block US banks from charging fees for access to customer data, levies that strike at the heart of their business models. From a report: Klarna, Robinhood and crypto exchange Gemini were among a long list of companies, investors and lobbying groups that signed a letter sent Wednesday to President Donald Trump, arguing that the proposed fees would "cripple" innovation and "may cause small businesses and financial tools to shut down entirely." JPMorgan Chase has told fintechs and the data aggregators they rely on that the bank's customer account information will no longer be accessible without a charge. JPMorgan, the biggest US bank, views the data aggregators as freeloaders of sorts who access data without paying and then charge their fintech clients for it. PNC Financial Services is considering charging similar fees. "We urge you to use the full power of your office and the broader administration to prevent the largest institutions from raising new barriers to financial freedom," they said in the letter. "We cannot allow the most powerful, entrenched banks to close the door on a more open and modern financial system."

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BrianFagioli writes: Lenovo is starting its fiscal year with a major win, delivering record-breaking PC sales and claiming dominance in the AI PC space. For the first quarter of its 2025/26 fiscal year, the company reported $18.8 billion in revenue, which is 22 percent higher than the same period last year. Profit came in at $505 million, more than double the figure from a year ago. The standout performer was Lenovo's PC and smart devices division. It posted its fastest growth in 15 quarters and secured a record 24.6 percent global market share. More than 30 percent of Lenovo's PCs shipped in the quarter were AI PCs, giving it the top position in the Windows AI PC segment with a 31 percent market share. This leadership is an important talking point for Lenovo as it continues to market AI features as a key reason for buyers to upgrade.

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Igor Babuschkin, co-founder of xAI, has left the company to start Babuschkin Ventures, a VC firm focused on AI safety and humanity-advancing startups. TechCrunch reports: Babuschkin led engineering teams at xAI and helped build the startup into one of Silicon Valley's leading AI model developers just a few years after it was founded. "Today was my last day at xAI, the company that I helped start with Elon Musk in 2023," Babuschkin wrote in the post. "I still remember the day I first met Elon, we talked for hours about AI and what the future might hold. We both felt that a new AI company with a different kind of mission was needed." Babuschkin is leaving xAI to launch his own venture capital firm, Babuschkin Ventures, which he says will support AI safety research and back startups that "advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of our universe." The xAI co-founder says he was inspired to start the firm after a dinner with Max Tegmark, the founder of the Future of Life Institute, in which they discussed how AI systems could be built safely to encourage the flourishing of future generations. In his post, Babuschkin says his parents immigrated to the U.S. from Russia in pursuit of a better life for their children. Prior to co-founding xAI, Babuschkin was part of a research team at Google DeepMind that pioneered AlphaStar in 2019, a breakthrough AI system that could defeat top-ranked players at the video game StarCraft. Babuschkin also worked as a researcher at OpenAI in the years before it released ChatGPT. In his post, Babuschkin details some of the challenges he and Musk faced in building up xAI. He notes that industry veterans called xAI's goal of building its Memphis, Tennessee supercomputer in just three months "impossible." [...] Nevertheless, Babuschkin says he's already looking back fondly on his time at xAI, and "feels like a proud parent, driving away after sending their kid away to college." "I learned 2 priceless lessons from Elon: #1 be fearless in rolling up your sleeves to personally dig into technical problems, #2 have a maniacal sense of urgency," said Babuschkin.

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Data brokers are required by California law to provide ways for consumers to request their data be deleted. But good luck finding them. From a report: More than 30 of the companies, which collect and sell consumers' personal information, hid their deletion instructions from Google, according to a review by The Markup and CalMatters of hundreds of broker websites. This creates one more obstacle for consumers who want to delete their data. Many of the pages containing the instructions, listed in an official state registry, use code to tell search engines to remove the page entirely from search results. Popular tools like Google and Bing respect the code by excluding pages when responding to users. Data brokers nationwide must register in California under the state's Consumer Privacy Act, which allows Californians to request that their information be removed, that it not be sold, or that they get access to it. After reviewing the websites of all 499 data brokers registered with the state, we found 35 had code to stop certain pages from showing up in searches.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: India's blueprint for displacing China as the world's electronics workshop contains a rather extraordinary feature: the entire Indian edifice requires Chinese companies to supply the technical architecture, manufacturing know-how and operational templates that would make such displacement theoretically possible. Let's start with Dixon Technologies, India's flagship domestic electronics manufacturer. The company has systematically built indigenous capability through a growing constellation of Chinese partnerships: Longcheer provides the design intelligence, Kunshan Q-Tech delivers camera module expertise, Chongqing Yuhai supplies precision-molded components and HKC brings display technology. This pattern of structured dependence has become the organizing principle of India's electronics manufacturing push. [...] The current architecture sees Chinese companies retain control of the critical knowledge while their Indian partners provide labour arbitrage and regulatory navigation. Under this arrangement, India isn't constructing an alternative to Chinese manufacturing so much as establishing Chinese manufacturing's most elaborate subsidiary operation, underwritten by Indian taxpayers and marketed as national renewal. Many countries, but most importantly India and Vietnam, have worked hard in recent years to attract businesses that decided to diversify away from China, a strategy analysts have dubbed as "China Plus One."

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Russian authorities are "partially" restricting calls in messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp, the latest step in an effort to tighten control over the internet. From a report: In a statement, government media and internet regulator Roskomnadzor justified the measure as necessary for fighting crime, saying that "according to law enforcement agencies and numerous appeals from citizens, foreign messengers Telegram and WhatsApp have become the main voice services used to deceive and extort money, and to involve Russian citizens in sabotage and terrorist activities."

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Andreas found this in a rather large, rather ugly production code base.

private static void LogView(object o) { try { ArrayList al = (ArrayList)o; int pageId = (int)al[0]; int userId = (int)al[1]; // ... snipped: Executing a stored procedure that stores the values in the database } catch (Exception) { } }

This function accepts an object of any type, except no, it doesn't, it expect that object to be an ArrayList. It then assumes the array list will then store values in a specific order. Note that they're not using a generic ArrayList here, nor could they- it (potentially) needs to hold a mix of types.

What they've done here is replace a parameter list with an ArrayList, giving up compile time type checking for surprising runtime exceptions. And why?

"Well," the culprit explained when Andreas asked about this, "the underlying database may change. And then the function would need to take different parameters. But that could break existing code, so this allows us to add parameters without ever having to change existing code."

"Have you heard of optional arguments?" Andreas asked.

"No, all of our arguments are required. We'll just default the ones that the caller doesn't supply."

And yes, this particular pattern shows up all through the code base. It's "more flexible this way."

.comment { border: none; } [Advertisement] Keep all your packages and Docker containers in one place, scan for vulnerabilities, and control who can access different feeds. ProGet installs in minutes and has a powerful free version with a lot of great features that you can upgrade when ready.Learn more.

An anonymous reader New Atlas: An engineered protein that acts like a molecular sponge has the potential to change how carbon monoxide poisoning is treated, chasing down CO molecules in the bloodstream and helping the body flush them out in just minutes, without the risk of short- or long-term health issues that come with the current frontline treatment, pure oxygen. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) were focused on a natural protein known as RcoM, found in the bacterium Paraburkholderia xenovorans. In bacteria, RcoM detects trace amounts of CO in the environment, so the engineers believed this could be harnessed to scavenge for CO molecules attached to red blood cells instead. The re-engineered protein is the basis of the therapy they call RcoM-HBD-CCC. While it's not exactly a catchy name, it possesses somewhat of a superpower when it comes to cleaning out CO. It selectively binds tightly to the poisonous CO molecules, while ignoring oxygen (O2) and other critical chemical compounds, such as blood-pressure-regulating nitric oxide (NO), in the body. [...] In mouse models, RcoM-HBD-CCC therapy was able to clear CO from the blood in minutes, with it safely flushed out of the body through urine. The engineered antidote acts like a sponge, seeking out and soaking up CO attached to red blood cells. In mice, half the CO in the bloodstream was cleared out in less than a minute, freeing the hemoglobin on the cells to once again start carrying O2. Importantly, other experimental scavenger hemoproteins haven't been able to selectively target CO, and as a result also bind to NO – so infusions of such hemoproteins can lead to a reduction of NO in the blood, tightening blood vessels and spiking blood pressure. In the study, RcoM-HBD-CCC showed it didn't have this affinity with the vital molecule. "Unlike other protein-based treatments, we found the compound caused only minimal changes in blood pressure, which was an exciting finding and raised the potential for this new molecule to have clinical applications," said study corresponding author Dr Mark T. Gladwin, Dean of UMSOM. "This has the potential to become a rapid, intravenous antidote for carbon monoxide that could be given in the emergency department or even in the field by first-responders." The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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The Pentagon is poised to cancel two nearly finished Navy and Air Force HR software projects worth over $800 million so new contracts can be awarded to other vendors, including Salesforce, Palantir, and Workday. "The reason for the unusual move: officials at those departments, who have so far put the existing projects on hold, want other firms, including Salesforce and billionaire Peter Thiel's Palantir, to have a chance to win similar projects, which could amount to a costly do-over," reports Reuters. From the report: In 2019, Accenture said it had won a contract to expand an HR platform to modernize the payroll, absence management, and other HR functions for the Air Force with Oracle software. The project, which includes other vendors and was later expanded to include Space Force, grew to cost $368 million and was scheduled for its first deployment this summer at the Air Force Academy. An April "status update" on the project conducted by the Air Force and obtained by Reuters described the project as "on track," with initial deployment scheduled for June, noting that it would end up saving the Air Force $39 million annually by allowing it to stop using an older system. But on May 30, Darlene Costello, then-Acting assistant Secretary of the Air Force, sent out a memo placing a "strategic pause" on the project for ninety days and calling for the study of alternate technical solutions, according to a copy of the memo seen by Reuters that was previously unreported. Costello, who has since retired, was reacting to pressure from other Air Force officials who wanted to steer a new HR project to SalesForce and Palantir, three sources said. [...] The Air Force said in a statement that it "is committed to reforming acquisition practices, assessing the acquisition workforce, and identifying opportunities to improve major defense acquisition programs." Space Force, which operates within the Air Force, was set to receive the Air Force's new payroll system in the coming months. But it is also pulling out of the project because officials there want to launch yet another HR platform project to be led by Workday, according to three people familiar with the matter. The service put out a small business tender on May 7 for firms to research HR platform alternatives, with the goal of selecting a company that will recommend Workday as the best option, the people said. Now the Air Force and Space Force "want to start over with vendors that do not meet their requirements, leading to significant duplication and massive costs," said John Weiler, director of the Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council, a government-chartered nonprofit group that makes recommendations to improve federal IT contracting. In 2022, the Honolulu-based Nakupuna Companies took over a 2019 project with other firms to integrate the Navy's payroll and personnel systems into one platform using Oracle software and known as "NP2". The project, which has cost about $425 million since 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office, was set to be rolled out earlier this year after receiving a positive review by independent reviewer and consulting firm Guidehouse in January, according to a copy obtained by Reuters. But the head of Navy's human resources, now retired Admiral Rick Cheeseman, sought to cancel the project according to a June 5 memo seen by Reuters, directing another official to "take appropriate contractual actions" to cancel the project. Navy leaders instead mandated yet another assessment of project, according to a memo seen by Reuters, leaving it in limbo, two sources said. Cheeseman's reason for trying to kill the project was his anger over a decision by DOGE earlier this year to cancel a $171 million contract for data services provider Pantheon Data that essentially duplicated parts of the HR project. In an email obtained by Reuters, he threatened to withhold funding from the Nakupuna-led project unless the Pantheon contract was restored. "I am beyond exasperated with how this happened," Cheeseman wrote in a May 7 email to Chief Information Officer Jane Rathbun about the contract cancellation, arguing the Pantheon contract was not "duplicative of any effort." "From where I sit, I'm content taking every dime away from NP2 in order to continue this effort," he added in the email. The pausing of NP2 was "unexpected, especially given that multiple comprehensive reviews validated the technical solution as the fastest and most affordable approach," Nakupuna said in a statement, adding it was disappointed by the change because the project was ready to deploy. The Navy said it "continues to prioritize essential personnel resources in support of efforts to strengthen military readiness through fiscal responsibility and departmental efficiency."

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After over 130 years in business, Kodak has warned it may not survive. From a report: The Rochester, New York-based Eastman Kodak Co. offered a bleak picture of its financials in earnings reports and filings, tracking a second quarter loss and sending shares tumbling in early trading Tuesday, Aug. 12. The iconic brand said in Monday, Aug. 11 government filings that there is "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to continue, as it faces more than $470 million in debt and slashes its pension plan in an attempt to remain afloat. "Kodak has debt coming due within twelve months and does not have committed financing or available liquidity to meet such debt obligations if they were to become due in accordance with their current terms," the company said in its filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. [...] In its most recent earnings report, Kodak said its consolidated revenues were $263 million at the end of the quarter on June 30, a decrease of $4 million since the same period last year. Gross profit decreased 12% compared to last year's second quarter end, Kodak disclosed, and its cash balance sits at $155 million, marking a loss of just under 23% since the end of December. Jim Continenza, Kodak's Executive Chairman and CEO, said tariffs have not had a "material impact" on its businesses, noting the domestic production of many of its products such as printing plates, film, inkjet presses and inks and pharmaceutical ingredients. Kodak's chief financial officer David Bullwinkle said in the company's Aug. 11 statement it plans to focus on its advanced chemicals and materials sector moving forward, and said the cut to its retirement program is going toward paying down its debt. He said the company expects to "have a clear understanding" by Friday, Aug. 15 of how it will meet its debt obligations. "For the second half of the year, we will continue to focus on reducing costs today and converting our investments into long-term growth," Bullwinkle said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google is rolling out an update for Gemini that will allow the AI chatbot to "remember" your past conversations without prompting. With the setting turned on, Gemini will automatically recall your "key details and preferences" and use them to personalize its output. This expands upon an update that Google introduced last year, which lets you ask Gemini to "remember" your personal preferences and interests. Now, Gemini won't need prompting to recall this information. As an example, Google says if you've used Gemini to get ideas for a YouTube channel surrounding Japanese culture in the past, then AI chatbot might suggest creating content about trying Japanese food if you ask it to suggest new video ideas in the future. [...] Google will turn on this feature by default, but you can disable it by heading to your settings in the Gemini app and selecting Personal Context. From there, toggle off the Your past chats with Gemini option. Google will roll out this feature to its Gemini 2.5 Pro model in "select countries" starting today, before eventually bringing it to more locations and its Gemini 2.5 Flash model. Google will also rename its "Gemini Apps Activity" setting to "Keep Activity," which will use "a sample" of your file and photo uploads to Gemini to "help improve Google services for everyone" starting on September 2nd. If you've disabled the previous setting, the new "Keep Activity" setting will be disabled too. There's also a new "temporary chats" feature in Gemini to preserve privacy. "Temporary chats won't appear in your recent chats or your Keep Activity setting," notes The Verge. "Gemini also won't use these chats to personalize future conversations, nor will Google use them to train its AI models. Google will only save these conversations for 72 hours."

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New York Attorney General Letitia James has sued Zelle's parent company, Early Warning Services, alleging it knowingly enabled over $1 billion in fraud from 2017 to 2023 by failing to implement basic safeguards. CNBC reports: "EWS knew from the beginning that key features of the Zelle network made it uniquely susceptible to fraud, and yet it failed to adopt basic safeguards to address these glaring flaws or enforce any meaningful anti-fraud rules on its partner banks," James' office said in the release. The lawsuit alleges that Zelle became a "hub for fraudulent activity" because the registration process lacked verification steps and that EWS and its partner banks knew "for years" that fraud was spreading and did not take actionable steps to resolve it, according to the press release. James is seeking restitution and damages, in addition to a court order mandating that Zelle puts anti-fraud measures in place. "No one should be left to fend for themselves after falling victim to a scam," James said in the release. "I look forward to getting justice for the New Yorkers who suffered because of Zelle's security failures." A Zelle spokesperson called the lawsuit a "political stunt to generate press" and a "copycat" of the CFPB lawsuit, which was dropped in March. "Despite the Attorney General's assertions, they did not conduct an investigation of Zelle," the spokesperson said. "Had they conducted an investigation, they would have learned that more than 99.95 percent of all Zelle transactions are completed without any report of scam or fraud -- which leads the industry."

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Pebble has unveiled the final design of its rebooted Pebble Time 2 smartwatch, featuring a stainless steel body, color accents, knurled buttons, a flat glass display, customizable RGB backlight, and a built-in compass. 9to5Google reports: In a new episode of his podcast "Tick Talk," original Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky discusses the progress being made on the revival. This time around, the main topic is Pebble Time 2 and its "final design," which sees a considerable redesign compared to what was shown off earlier this year. The new look has some added curves, color accents, knurled buttons, and a stunning overall look. It'll be available in black and silver colors, as opposed to the black and white previously shown off. In between the metal portions of the build, a polycarbonate layer will allow the radios to work properly, while also adding a blue or red accent to the design. Apparently, there are four total color options on the table, but they're not final just yet. Anyone who has placed a pre-order will get the choice of what color they want. The new Pebble Time 2 will be made from stainless steel, in particular the same steel material that the original Pebble Steel was built from. It also has transitioned to a flat glass panel versus the curved finish that was used on prior Pebble watches, lessening reflections. The backlight on this model is also more advanced, with an RGB LED that allows the user to control the backlight color so it's not always "blue-ish." Migicovsky says that this will allow the color temperature to change through the day. The Pebble Time 2 is available to pre-order for $225.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: [O]ver in the UK, a single-motor version of the Polestar 3 just set a world record for the farthest drive in an electric car on a single charge. Three "professional efficiency drivers," Sam Clarke, Kevin Booker, and Richard Parker, drove 581.3 miles (935.4 km), taking 22 hours and 57 minutes to complete the task. That's an efficiency of 5.1 miles/kWh (12.1 kWh/100 km) -- more than 40 percent better than I saw in day-to-day driving in the twin-motor version. "We are very proud to say we have a world record holder in the Polestar family! This official Guinness World Record for range is another proof point that Polestar 3 is setting new standards. We will continue to push the boundaries of technology and electric performance," said Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO. The report notes that the Polestar 3 was "entirely standard, on stock tires," and averaged a speed of less than 25 mph (40 km/h).

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Apple is plotting its AI comeback with an ambitious slate of new devices, including robots, a lifelike version of Siri, a smart speaker with a display and home-security cameras, according to Bloomberg. From the report: A tabletop robot that serves as a virtual companion, targeted for 2027, is the centerpiece of the AI strategy, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The smart speaker with a display, meanwhile, is slated to arrive next year, part of a push into entry-level smart-home products. Home security is seen as another big growth opportunity. New cameras will anchor an Apple security system that can automate household functions. The approach should help make Apple's product ecosystem stickier with consumers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the initiatives haven't been announced.

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A countrywide study of smartphone users who relocated between US cities found that moving to more walkable environments increased daily walking by 1,100 steps on average. Stanford University researchers analyzed 248,266 days of step data from 5,424 users of the Azumio Argus smartphone app who relocated 7,447 times among 1,609 cities between March 2013 and February 2016. Participants who moved from cities at the 25th percentile of walkability to those at the 75th percentile sustained the increased activity levels for at least three months after relocation. The additional steps consisted predominantly of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, with large walkability increases of 49-80 points associated with about one hour per week more of such activity. The study found that 42.5% of participants met national physical activity guidelines for moderate-to-vigorous activity after moving to highly walkable locations, compared to 21.5% before relocation. Computer simulations based on the data suggest that increasing all US cities to the walkability level of Chicago or Philadelphia could result in 36 million more Americans meeting aerobic physical activity guidelines.

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Samsung has finally launched a TV featuring the company's new Micro RGB backlight technology. From a report: The 115-inch TV is first launching in South Korea for over $32,000, according to SamMobile, but Samsung says it's coming to the US next, followed by a wider global rollout with more size options. Samsung's Micro RGB technology is being positioned as an upgrade to Mini LED backlights that employ an array of tiny white or blue LEDs behind a TV's LCD panel. Micro RGB backlights instead use an ultra-fine pattern of individually controlled red, green and blue LEDs that are each less than than 100um in size. The new backlight is powered by Samsung's Micro RGB AI engine, which the company says "analyzes each frame in real time and automatically optimizes color output for a more lifelike and immersive picture." The technology allows for improved color accuracy and better contrast by precisely controlling the intensity of the individual LEDs, and Samsung says it can even boost the color in dull scenes, making them appear more vivid and immersive.

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Young listeners are accelerating audio and video consumption, with an Economist/YouGov poll finding 31% of Americans aged 18-29 using faster-than-1x playback versus 8% among those 45 and older, as Apple, Spotify, newspapers' audio, Netflix, and YouTube expand speed controls, including YouTube's 4x for premium users. YouTube reports more than 900 years saved per day from fast playback; a meta-analysis led by University of Waterloo researchers finds minimal test-score change up to 1.5x and declines near or past 2x.

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Microsoft has made "Pull Print" for Universal Print generally available, letting users authenticate at any registered printer to release queued jobs and reducing the chance that confidential pages sit unattended. The feature, also called "Universal Print Anywhere," supports two modes: direct print and secure release via QR codes that users scan with a phone camera or the Microsoft 365 app. Admins must register devices, enable secure release, and affix printed QR codes. Microsoft plans badge-based release.

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