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Tech News
Android Authority ran a reader poll after reviewing Google's Tensor G6 chip inside the Pixel 11, which improves AI and efficiency-focused tasks but falls behind rivals in gaming and raw performance. Of over 2,800 respondents, 34.3% said they'd prefer more raw power, 30.5% valued efficiency instead, and only 15.7% felt the chip strikes a good balance between the two.
New research and workplace analysis argue that the standard eight-hour workday does not translate into eight hours of genuinely productive effort, as constant notifications, emails and meetings crowd out meaningful tasks. The piece contends that not all work hours carry equal value, and that rising expectations for output—now amplified by AI tools—mask how little of the workday is actually spent on high-value activity.
A roundup drawing on input from industry experts outlines 16 workplace skills that are becoming more important as AI tools become more common in businesses. The list spans communication, critical thinking, leadership and adaptability, areas the experts say depend on human judgment that AI cannot replicate.
More than 200 employees at the Wikimedia Foundation voted 158-14 to join the Communications Workers of America, with results tallied by the National Labor Relations Board. The unionizing group spans software engineering, finance and communications roles across the roughly 700-person, largely remote nonprofit behind Wikipedia.
A study published in Microbiology Spectrum tested the long-held belief that Bunsen burners create protective convection currents that clear bacteria from lab benches. Researchers led by microbiologist Hannah Gavin used a visible strain of bacteria, Gordonia rubripertincta, to show the burners did not reduce contamination and in some cases spread it further across surfaces.
A woman who received a gene-edited pig kidney transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital last November has now gone 285 days without needing dialysis, breaking the previous 271-day record set by Tim Andrews. The kidney was engineered by eGenesis using Crispr gene editing to remove pig genes that trigger immune rejection and add human genes, and she is the fifth patient to receive one of the company's kidneys.
Security personnel working at San Francisco offices of major AI firms, represented by SEIU-United Service Workers West, voted this week to authorize a strike. The vote gives union leadership the go-ahead to call a walkout if labor negotiations with contractors fail to produce an acceptable deal.
Signify has partnered with Nanoleaf to let Nanoleaf Shapes panels—Hexagons, Triangles, and Mini Triangles—integrate into the Philips Hue ecosystem. The integration requires a new Philips Hue Wall Light Module, priced at $39.99 separately or bundled into starter kits starting at $199.99 in select markets.
Market Street, once San Francisco's bustling commercial core, has become a largely deserted stretch lined with boarded-up storefronts and a barren, car-free roadway used mainly by buses. The decline followed the city's 2019 decision to ban private vehicles from the street, compounded by a wave of pandemic-era crime and looting and the mass shift to remote work that emptied downtown offices. Because San Francisco's downtown is zoned mostly for offices rather than housing, the pandemic-driven exodus left the area far emptier than mixed-use downtowns common in Europe and Asia.
More workers are tapping their 401(k) accounts through loans or hardship withdrawals, even as retirement balances climb to record levels amid rising savings rates. The trend reflects the strain of inflation pushing some savers to dip into retirement funds despite overall growth in their accounts.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the company will shrink its workforce by about 10%, or roughly 3,300 employees, marking its biggest round of job cuts since the pandemic. The move focuses heavily on middle management roles, part of a broader corporate trend of flattening organizational structures.
Joe Drygas, Vice President of AT&T's Global Enterprise Business, describes how he rose through the company over 25 years by treating each new role as requiring a reinvented version of himself, comparing the approach to how elite athletes adapt their training as their roles evolve. He also credits deliberate scheduling of personal routines, like workouts and sleep, with reducing uncertainty and improving his leadership clarity.