Industry
Microsoft is putting Copilot on a productivity leash
PCWorld reports that Microsoft is enhancing Copilot with new user controls, including read-only options and the ability to lock the AI assistant to specific document sections. Microsoft is expanding Copilot's prompt box with contextually aware suggestions for Word and PowerPoint, while unifying commercial and consumer versions under single leadership. These updates aim to make AI assistance more helpful and less overwhelming for productivity tasks, with features currently being tested internally before reaching consumers. Google made headlines a short time ago for a plan to expand its Gemini prompt box as it combines AI and search. Microsoft is taking a different tack: it's also dynamically expanding its prompt box, but with an eye towards improving its productivity apps instead. Right now, Microsoft's efforts are traversing the outer reaches of its productivity solar system, being tested internally with a few targeted corporate partners, Fast Company reports .
Kelsey Pfendler is trying to become the youngest woman to row solo from California to Hawaii
Pfendler has already faced blisters, brutal winds, and lost freshwater in the first week of her over 2,400 mile journey. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Kelsey Pfendler will share updates along the way via social media. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .
The 6 Billion Chinese Startup Trying to Build Hands for Every Robot
LinkerBot makes dexterous robotic hands for as little as $600. It wants to become the standard for humanoids and automated factories--and eventually replace human labor altogether. If you could buy a humanoid robot for less than a smartphone, would you? Would you buy several robots to handle cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and even your job? This is the pitch being made by Zhou Yong, the 40-year-old founder and chief technology officer of LinkerBot, one of China's leading manufacturers of dexterous humanoid hands.
Weekly quiz: Which tennis star dazzled the French Open with an 'Eiffel Tower' dress?
Weekly quiz: Which tennis star dazzled the French Open with an'Eiffel Tower' dress? This week, more details about the Married At First Sight UK scandal came to light, former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell admitted embezzling more than ยฃ400,000 from the party, and almost 90 drones crashed into Sydney's Darling Harbour when a light show went wrong . But how much attention did you pay to what else happened in the world over the past seven days? Try last week's quiz, or have a go at something from the archives . Paris'punishingly hot' as Western Europe hit by heatwave Timelapse footage shows'giant cave' inflating on Paris bridge The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Pigeons use their livers to sense Earth's magnetic field
Pigeons use their livers to sense Earth's magnetic field Special immune cells may be one piece of their internal compass. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. The homing pigeons in this study were trained to fly 12.4 miles back to their aviary. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .
CNN sues Perplexity, alleging unlawful distribution of copyrighted content
The complaint, filed on Thursday, said that Perplexity unlawfully copied thousands of CNN stories, videos and images to power its products and distribute "identical or substantially similar" competing content. CNN is asking for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and a court order blocking Perplexity from violating its intellectual property rights. "CNN's lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity, a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits," the Warner Bros-owned news company said in a statement. Anthropic was the first AI company to settle one of these cases last year, agreeing to pay $1.5bn to resolve a class action lawsuit from a group of authors. Perplexity is also facing lawsuits from The New York Times, Reddit and Dow Jones, among others.
Ojai is Waymo's new driverless vehicle
The pale blue vans have begun picking up passengers in California and Arizona. Waymo has begun offering rides in its brand-new Ojai robotaxi to passengers in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Trips will be free for a limited time. The Ojai is a big step for Waymo. This is the company's first purpose-built robotaxi.
Latvia parliament approves new gov't after drone dispute toppled coalition
Latvia parliament approves new gov't after drone dispute toppled coalition Latvia's parliament has approved a new coalition government that will lead the European Union and NATO member country in the coming months after its predecessor collapsed following an argument over its handling of stray drones suspected to be from Ukraine. By a margin of 66 deputies in the 100-seat assembly, lawmakers on Thursday confirmed 47-year-old centrist Andris Kulbergs as prime minister, who will lead the Baltic nation of more than 1.8 million people until parliamentary elections on October 3. She quit after Defence Minister Andris Spruds, a member of the Progressives Party, was forced to resign over the government's handling of multiple incidents involving stray drones suspected to be from Ukraine crossing into Latvian territory. Silina accused the minister of not deploying anti-drone defences fast enough to parry two wayward Ukraine attack drones, which are thought to have been knocked off course by Russian jamming. At the time, she said Spruds had lost her trust and that of the public.
The Pentagon Knew Enemies Could Track Troops' Phones for Years. Now They Are
The US military has long known that cheap fixes could stop location data from exposing its troops. It adopted almost none--and now says adversaries are using the data to target soldiers during a war. For nearly a decade, the Pentagon was warned--by its own contractors, analysts, and intelligence agencies--that anyone with a credit card could buy a map of where American troops sleep, work, and store nuclear weapons. Now the bill has come due in a war zone. A newly disclosed letter shows the warnings went unheeded: US Central Command now confirms it has received "multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil US personnel in theater"--the first official acknowledgment that the data-broker economy is being used to hunt American forces in the Middle East.