The AI assistant had its personality stripped in pursuit of a more consistent experience. Copilot is getting yet another visual overhaul as Microsoft reconsiders its approach to AI across Windows and its various apps. The new changes are focused on the version of Copilot accessible in Microsoft 365, and visually streamline the AI assistant to using it more consistent across apps like Word, PowerPoint and Excel. The most striking difference in Copilot's new look is how little color it has. You can still get Copilot to produce full-color outputs and it will reference other apps by their colorful app icons.

Amid ongoing economic anxieties, BLK and other companies are giving away basic essentials to appeal to the public. While Gen Z catches a lot of flack for being single, or even antisocial, there's a brutal economic reality underscoring why some people aren't going out: They simply don't have the disposable income . Dating apps, already struggling to maintain user bases due to enshittification and a lack of quality matches, are contending with this affordability crisis. In a dystopian sign of the times, BLK, the app for Black singles, announced on Wednesday that it is giving away free gas in an attempt to incentivize people to go on dates. As part of the promotion, BLK is providing $500 gas gift cards to 10 people who download the app and tag three friends in the campaign post across its social channels.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG . Are bank text codes enough to protect you? You have a credit freeze; it still isn't enough Turning 65? Month-by-month plan to protect yourself China's AI growth is about'economic and political leverage,' Rep Hinson says Expert warns'red-green-green alliance' helping China gain AI edge AI's impact on jobs, economy debated as youth express growing fears Jury dismisses Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman China does not'innovate,' they'replicate': Former DHS spokeswoman Trump to press Xi to'open up' China as tech CEOs join key summit Kurt CyberGuy Knutsson lays out how to limit what health apps used by insurance companies can track about you, the user.

AI Tools Are Transforming Muslim Worship. Tarique Kazi used to recite the Quran to his mother. Kazi is a 32-year-old Houston-based Muslim and teacher of hifdh--the Islamic practice of memorizing the Quran in order to deepen faith. For Kazi, the hours he spent with his mother studying the sacred text were among his most cherished. "It was the most beautiful thing that I always looked forward to my mom giving me feedback, telling me how I did," he tells TIME.

We audit alignment-induced shifts in residual-stream activations of three open-weight instruction-tuned LLMs (Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct, Gemma-2-9B-it, Qwen-2.5-7B-Instruct) using the effective rank of the alignment modification matrix on safety-relevant inputs, rho_eps := rank_eps(M_Ds)/d, which formalizes the single-refusal-direction observation of Arditi et al. (2024) as a continuous quantity. The paper has three contributions. (1) Confound-controlled measurement: a four-variant decomposition (M_naive, M_template, M_aligned, M_DiD) separates chat-template formatting, alignment-stage shift, and the refusal-mediating direction, and recovers the Arditi refusal direction on M_DiD at |cos| in {0.77, 0.86, 0.50} (Llama/Gemma/Qwen); chat-template-controlled rho_eps is {0.0029, 0.0048, 0.0044}, and the centered SVD residual is 4-7x larger. (2) Constructive calibration on a 3-layer MLP across rho_eps in {0.008, 0.17, 0.33, 0.40} exhibits a sweet-spot vs. brittle distinction: mild rank-maximization (lambda=5) buys ablation robustness, while strong regularization at the same nominal rho_eps (lambda=50) does not. rho_eps is a diagnostic for fragility, not a target whose mechanical inflation buys robustness. (3) Limits of rank-based diagnostics: (a) not safety-specific (LRH baseline is 2-3x the safety value); (b) SVD principal ordering does not match causal ordering (Llama u_2 inert despite ranking second; cumulative ablation non-monotone at k=5); (c) the spectral-gap hypothesis required to upgrade the O(rho_eps * d) achievability bound to a matching Mirsky-route lower bound fails empirically (1/90 Llama layer-reference pairs, 0/36 MLP combinations) and structurally (kappa_lb <= 2/(eps * r)). The matching lower bound remains an open problem.

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. Installing the latest software unlocks new iPhone features. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. The major refreshes that Apple gives its software each year get a lot of attention-- you can read our round-up of new iOS 26 and macOS 26 features --but there are also plenty of minor updates that appear during the rest of the year as well. These minor updates don't often include big changes that will significantly affect how you use your devices, but they regularly feature small improvements and tweaks that are well worth knowing about.

Tune into live broadcasts from your Windows desktop with Trdo, a free and open-source application. I may be old-fashioned, but I prefer actual radio stations to Spotify's algorithms. The best human DJs find music I'd never seek out, and that even the best recommendation system would never point out to me. Even better: If you're good at finding community and public radio stations that appeal to your tastes, there are no commercials. I've found several of my favorite bands in the past few years listening to radio stations like KEXP, Indie XFM, and the various stations offered by SomaFM . It's simple to listen to such stations in your browser, but leaving a tab open just for the radio annoys me.

Trump's stunning Georgia silence gifts America's'most endangered Democrat' Jon Ossoff a vital lifeline Ugly behind-the-scenes reality of Blake Lively's'paradise' compound: Unpaid workers, a $2MILLION debt... and humiliating new question she and Ryan Reynolds must now face Hidden warning signs you are taking the WRONG dose of Ozempic: Doctor sounds alarm over dangerous mistake... and reveals four lifestyle tweaks to avoid horror side effects'Beloved' college basketball player tragically killed in hit-and-run accident Inside Meryl Streep's very secret relationship with Martin Short: Friends finally reveal how pair bonded through trauma... incredible measures they take to hide the truth... and why there is'no doubt they are in love' Trumpworld's new eyebrow-raising addiction that even health boss RFK Jr admits to using daily Young American women in the crosshairs of dark network: They flirt and flatter, watching every move... then they strike The Chicks' Natalie Maines delivers foul-mouthed Trump rant 23 years after famously slamming George W. Bush Fast-food chain struggles under California's soaring minimum wage as frightened staff abandon crime-ridden locations Middle-aged male school board member faces criminal charges after flirting with teenage girl at public meeting: 'God, you're hot' Michelle Obama says same'anger' that led to husband's presidential victory is fueling Trump's MAGA movement: 'Those folks are drowning' Hero Amazon delivery driver jumps to woman's defense and saved her life during horror hammer attack at her home San Diego mosque shooters hated EVERYONE, according to manifesto being combed by FBI after massacre, as killer teen's $1m home is raided by cops Why Taylor Swift has cut out Travis Kelce's father ahead of wedding: He'cannot be trusted', say insiders... as'f***ed up' Blake Lively drama and preposterous demands leak out Spotify's 20th anniversary logo sparks a new'discomorphism' trend - here's how you can give ANY logo the disco ball treatment Spotify's disco ball logo has sparked a new trend online, which users are calling'discomorphism'. The logo was released to celebrate Spotify's 20th anniversary, and features a green, glittering disco ball. The change didn't go down well with many users - including one who called it the'biggest downgrade in history'. However, others were so inspired that they have created a new Discomorphism app . The app, which is the brainchild of Lovable, uses AI to give the disco ball treatment to any logo.

Google's Gemini Spark is an agentic AI assistant Google's Gemini Spark is an agentic AI assistant The AI agent is rolling out to testers this week. Google has announced a 24/7 personal AI agent called Gemini Spark at this year's I/O developer conference. The company says Spark transforms Gemini from a standard AI assistant to an active partner that actually perform tasks for you. Spark is powered by Gemini 3.5 and is deeply integrated with Google Workspace apps, including Gmail, Docs and Slides. You can teach it to perform various tasks, such as creating a list of critical deadlines in your Gmail and sending it to you, or writing up a summary of ongoing updates in lengthy email threads.

Google's always-running, data-hungry AI agent is designed to spend your money and send your emails. Gemini Spark is Google's take on a steroided-out assistant agent that knows everything about you, announced as part of the company's updates to its Gemini chatbot app at this year's I/O developer conference . Software companies have been talking up AI agents for some time now, but I wasn't impressed until I tried Anthropic's Claude Cowork in January. I sat back as the bot organized the scattered screenshots littering my desktop into labeled folders without a single click, and felt convinced that this might be a turning point for how people interact with their computers. Many other early adopters in San Francisco experienced similar moments when they set up the mega-viral OpenClaw bot earlier this year, not just to help complete a few tasks but to run their whole online lives.