SKC's Absolics unit told investors on July 27 that embedded glass substrate samples from its Covington, Georgia plant are undergoing package-level reliability testing in Taiwan, with results expected by year-end. Meanwhile Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Sumitomo Chemical's Dongwoo Fine-Chem finalized a $310 million joint venture on July 2 aiming for production in late 2027, while Intel, the technology's original champion, has pushed back its own rollout to around 2030 and shifted toward licensing patents instead.
A new Entrepreneur commentary argues that most companies underinvest in training as a strategic tool, focusing instead on sales, tech and operations while overlooking the staff who directly shape customer experience. The author says businesses that link training to standards, coaching and culture—not just task completion—build stronger consistency and retention over time.
Google has updated Gemini Notebook with an 'Expert Intelligence' feature that lets users import books bought through Google Play Books, enabling them to ask questions, generate summaries, plans, infographics, and AI podcasts based on the text. More than 100,000 titles from publishers including Penguin Random House and O'Reilly Media support the feature at launch, and Google partnered with 15 authors like Michael Pollan and Steven Pinker to build customized 'Featured Notebooks.'
CoMaps, an open-source mapping app, now supports interoperability with Gadgetbridge for smartwatch navigation and OpenVitals for tracking outdoor activities via Android's Health Connect. Gadgetbridge users from v0.93.0 onward can receive turn-by-turn directions on supported Bluetooth devices, while OpenVitals users can overlay CoMaps routes onto their live activity data. Both integrations require explicit user permission, keeping data sharing opt-in only.
An MIT ad hoc committee studying AI's effect on teaching and research has released recommendations calling for coordinated institutional change rather than piecemeal fixes. The group found that generative AI tools can already produce credible answers to most undergraduate assignments, including essays, proofs, and coding problems, and that this has coincided with declining attendance at office hours and study groups. The committee is proposing a mix of immediate actions and longer-term planning efforts to address the shift.
OpenAI has rolled out a feature within its agentic ChatGPT Work tool that lets the AI log into password-protected websites on a user's behalf. After an initial manual login, ChatGPT stores the session's cookies and reuses them for future visits, meaning it no longer needs to ask for credentials each time. The feature is limited to ChatGPT Pro and Plus subscribers and is meant to help the AI complete multi-step tasks like renewing a passport or comparing insurance costs.
Android System Intelligence (ASI) is a system component baked into Android that powers on-device smart features like Now Playing and Live Caption, and it cannot be uninstalled like a regular app, though many manufacturers let users disable it in Settings. Android Authority found in January 2026 that turning ASI off does not break core phone functions, but it does disable the AI-driven contextual features that rely on it. Google has not published a full list of what stops working per device, leaving some uncertainty for users who disable it entirely.
Companies are consuming AI tokens at explosive rates, with Google processing over 3.2 quadrillion tokens monthly—seven times last year's volume—while Uber exhausted its entire 2026 AI budget by April. Industry voices are proposing nutrition-label-style disclosures that let employees compare a prompt's computational cost against its actual value before using it.
ESET's Director of Threat Research, Jean-Ian Boutin, explained how his team's intelligence work integrates into ESET's Managed Detection and Response (MDR) offering. He outlined how combining automated detection technology with human analyst expertise gives small and midsize businesses access to proactive threat hunting capabilities they couldn't otherwise afford to build in-house.
Bill Gates published an essay urging governments to impose enforceable rules on AI, including a tax on AI token usage to fund support for displaced workers and protected 'Human Reserved' jobs like caregiving. He said tech executives privately worry about AI's disruptive pace but avoid saying so publicly, breaking from the industry's optimistic public stance.
More than 600 teams, mostly from Chinese universities and robotics firms, brought humanoid machines to Beijing's second World Humanoid Robot Games from August 22 to 26. Alongside sprint, jump and combat contests, organizers added scenario-based challenges like shelving books and making beds, scoring autonomous performances higher than remotely operated ones. Robots set records in speed and jumping, but researchers noted that everyday chores remain far tougher for machines than flashy athletic feats.
New research indicates that partnerships between animals and microbes are far older than previously thought, potentially originating alongside the first complex animal life forms. Scientists examined evidence suggesting these symbiotic relationships were already established at the dawn of animal evolution rather than emerging later.
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