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GEPA optimizes LLMs without costly reinforcement learning

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and Databricks have introduced a new AI optimization method called GEPA that significantly outperforms traditional reinforcement learning (RL) techniques for adapting large language models (LLMs) to specialized tasks. GEPA removes the popular paradigm of learning

Countrywide natural experiment links built environment to physical activity

Study design We conducted a countrywide, prospective, longitudinal physical activity study of US residents that evaluated their physical activity levels within the context of the walkability of their built environments before and after relocation (‘participants’). We leveraged the naturally occurring physical activity data that was captured by a health app on participants’ phones to compare each person’s physical activity levels before and after they relocated to a different area within the USA

Google Wallet is about to make adding passes effortless: Here’s how it’ll work (APK teardown)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google Wallet is getting ready to launch a new feature that’ll automatically scan and add eligible passes from your photos. We have managed to get the feature working in the latest version of the app. Wallet won’t just blindly add every pass or ticket in finds in your image gallery; it’ll let you review and approve the selected items. In September last year, we spotted hints of a new Google Wallet feature that could make it much easier to find and st

Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator

Walkie-Textie Wireless Communicator The Walkie-Textie is a simple handheld device with a 12-key keypad and OLED display that allows you to send and receive text messages using the LoRa wireless protocol. It's ideal for situations where there's no mobile signal, such as when you're camping or hiking in a remote area, when you don't want the cost of a mobile network, or for children to have fun without running up a bill: The Walkie-Textie is a handheld device that allows you to send text message

Cisco patches critical security hole in Firewall Management Center - act now

Olemedia/iStock/Getty Images Plus via Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways Cisco's Secure Firewall Management Center security hole is as bad as they get. There is no mitigation and no workaround. Patch immediately. So far, no confirmed active exploits have been confirmed. Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. Do you use Cisco's Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software? If your company operates a serious network usi

Apple’s Wallet app just made Amazon returns easy, and more is coming

A recent Amazon rollout brought support for adding Amazon return codes to Apple’s Wallet app—and another Amazon-Wallet improvement is coming soon in iOS 26. Amazon return codes can now be saved in Apple Wallet One of Amazon’s greatest strengths has long been the convenience of making and receiving purchases. Running low on something? With the Amazon app on iPhone, you can order more in a few quick taps and get fast delivery. The company has gradually made the experience of returning purchases

Narwal’s New S30 Series Improves on Wet-Dry Vacuuming with AI Dirt Detection and Self-Cleaning

Together with robot vacuums that can mop, wet-dry vacuums are becoming a common tool for saving time and effort when cleaning your home. As the name suggests, wet-dry vacuums like the Dyson Submarine V15s -- one of our top cordless picks -- can vacuum dirt and debris from carpets while also wet-mopping hard floors with a cleaning solution. The S30 and S30 Pro, first announced at CES 2025, are two of the latest wet-dry vacuums from Narwal and they improve on the previous generation, the S20 and S

These smashing Galaxy Z Flip 7 cover screen wallpapers make clever use of the cameras

Reddit user whassupbun TL;DR Some people have created exciting cover screen wallpapers for the Galaxy Z Flip 7. These wallpapers incorporate the dual cameras on the Galaxy Z Flip 7. You can download these wallpapers and apply them to your Galaxy Z Flip 7 for free. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 marks a huge upgrade over the last generation. Its new design makes it slimmer, while also increasing the real estate for both the inner and the outer screens, the latter of which now occupies almost the

The Narwal Flow is the closest I’ve seen a robot vacuum get to being perfect

Narwal Flow If you're considering a robot vacuum purchase purely based on its ability to leave floors of all types as clean as possible, the Narwal Flow is the best bot you can get. AI-powered navigation, EdgeReach Technology, and anti-tangle brushes clean carpets and hard floors all the way to the edges and into the corners with zero fuss. The multi-function base station, with self-cleaning and drying functions, also makes it a breeze to use. Today, I looked at my floor and noticed it looked e

Google Wallet has a new shortcut UI, but I’m not sure it’s an upgrade

TL;DR Google Wallet has gained a new UI when you activate it via a double-tap of the power button. This UI features a transparent design and an animation showing you how to tap your phone. Unfortunately, this UI change means you can no longer launch the full app with a double-tap. Android 16 on Pixel phones lets you double-tap the power button to activate Google Wallet. That’s a welcome change as the gesture was previously restricted to launching the camera. Now, a new UI is rolling out for t

Funky new wallpaper to welcome the latest Apple Store

Apple has today previewed its latest retail store ahead of its opening on Saturday. As usual, the company has created a funky new wallpaper to celebrate the opening, and made it available for download. The store design mirrors what we have seen in other recent mall openings: a curved frontage with lots of glass, blurring the boundary between interior and exterior … Qianhai Yifang City Apple store The latest store is in Shenzhen, which is coincidentally home to a lot of Apple suppliers. Apple

3 ways Google Chrome and Wallet just made shopping a whole lot easer

Google / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET ZDNET's takeaways Google adds new features to give you more ways to pay online. See reward details for 100+ cards to find your best option. More "buy now, pay later" options, including Affirm and more. The next time you check out online with Chrome or Google Wallet, you might notice things look a little different. Google has announced several upgrades, each one designed to give you more flexibility and convenience when you shop online. 1. Support for m

'Japanese Walking' and Walking Pads Keep Trending, but Is That Actually Exercise? We Asked Fitness Experts

Whether you're using an under-desk treadmill or walking pad or going on a "hot girl walk" outdoors, it's safe to say that people are interested in walking as exercise. And now, "Japanese walking," or interval walking training, is having a moment. The Washington Post reports that Japanese walking originated from a 2007 study in Japan, which concluded that high-intensity interval walking may protect middle-aged and older people from increases in blood pressure and decreases in muscle strength and

MagSafe Monday: SUPCASE MagFlip wallet is a tank that doubles as a stand

MagSafe wallets typically aim to be super thin. The SUPCASE MagFlip takes the opposite approach and loads itself up with features. It’s all about function first, so it ends up quite a bit thicker than the typical MagSafe wallet, but it’s extremely useful. Some of my favorite gear Aqara Smart Lock U50 Upgrade your doors with Apple Home Key and the Aqara U50. MagSafe Monday: Every Monday, Bradley Chambers looks at the latest and greatest in the MagSafe and wireless charging industry to help you

macOS Tahoe 26 beta brings over a dozen new aerial screen savers to your Mac

With macOS Tahoe, Apple will be adding a bunch of new screen saver options, which you can also set as wallpapers. There are a couple new variants of the previously introduced Tahoe screen saver in beta 5, as well as around a dozen other options introduced in a previous beta that flew under the radar. As a Mac user, I’ve always really enjoyed all of the real world wallpapers built into macOS. It was a bit disappointing when macOS Monterey and Ventura didn’t include real world wallpapers to repre

You Don't Need iOS 26 to Get This Dreamy Wallpaper on Your iPhone Now

Apple's upcoming iOS 26 will introduce a wallpaper design this fall with spatial features that seem to move in accordance with your iPhone and developers and beta testers can access that wallpaper now. But you don't need to be running the iOS 26 beta to get Apple's latest wallpaper on your iPhone -- however, you'll miss out on spatial features if you're not running iOS 26. The latest wallpaper is called Here's to the Dreamers and was made to celebrate creators from Southeast Asia. "Let every gl

Wear OS users are spotting a new kind of Google Wallet pass (Update: More confirmation)

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority TL;DR Some Wear OS watches are starting to show Google Wallet photo passes with patterns like QR codes or barcodes. Standard photo-only passes still don’t appear, based on our testing. This may be an early test of limited support for scannable custom passes on smartwatches. Update: August 8, 2025 (2:15 PM ET): More confirmation of this change is coming in from the Android Authority team. Rita El Khoury shared the photos of a custom photo pass on her Pixel W

Apple releases new ‘Here’s to the Dreamers’ wallpaper for iPhone

There are few ad campaigns more memorable to longtime Apple followers than the “Think Different” series. And in coordination with an App Store feature story highlighting several modern day creative trailblazers, Apple has released a new iPhone wallpaper called “Here’s to the Dreamers.” New iPhone wallpaper available as part of ‘Here’s to the Dreamers’ creator spotlight Apple has gotten in an annual rhythm of highlighting Southeast Asian creators in various ways. Back in 2023, that happened via

Wave of 150 crypto-draining extensions hits Firefox add-on store

A malicious campaign dubbed 'GreedyBear' has snuck onto the Mozilla add-ons store, targeting Firefox users with 150 malicious extensions and stealing an estimated $1,000,000 from unsuspecting victims. The campaign, discovered and documented by Koi Security, impersonates cryptocurrency wallet extensions from well-known platforms such as MetaMask, TronLink, and Rabby. These extensions are uploaded in a benign form initially, to be accepted by Firefox, and accumulate fake positive reviews. At a

SonicWall finds no SSLVPN zero-day, links ransomware attacks to 2024 flaw

SonicWall says that recent Akira ransomware attacks exploiting Gen 7 firewalls with SSLVPN enabled are exploiting an older vulnerability rather than a zero-day flaw. The company says that the attackers are targeting CVE-2024-40766, an unauthorized access flaw fixed in August 2024. "We now have high confidence that the recent SSLVPN activity is not connected to a zero-day vulnerability," reads the update on the SonicWall bulletin published this week. "Instead, there is a significant correlatio

Narwal’s Self-Cleaning, AI-Enhanced Robot Vacuum and Mop From CES Is Finally Ready to Buy

Narwal has a pretty extensive lineup of robot vacuums, many of which we’ve tested in our roundup of the best robot vacuums. One of the latest additions to the lineup is the Narwal Flow, first announced at CES 2025. As the name suggests, the Flow is another high-end robot vacuum that focuses on mopping, but it also comes with more advanced AI navigation and the ability to self-clean and detangle itself. It’s now available for sale at $1,499 full price and $1,099 for presale. According to Narwal

Pranksters Interrupt Education Secretary Linda McMahon With Circus Music

Pranksters were able to play disruptive audio clips, including the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme and circus music, during an interview with Education Secretary Linda McMahon at the Young America’s Foundation student conference in Washington D.C., on Wednesday. And Trump supporters would like you to know that they aren’t bothered by it at all. Not one little bit. McMahon, who previously worked as a professional wrestling promoter, was appointed by Trump to dismantle the Department of Education and

There Is a 100 Percent Chance That Your Body Is Deeply Contaminated With Dangerous Substances

Image by Getty / Futurism Developments The start of this year marked more than a quarter of the way through the 21st century. And though 2025 might not be full of flying cars and robot servants, there are a few sci-fi tropes that ended up panning out: novels like George Orwell's "1984," and Phillip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" are alive and well as real-world police use expansive surveillance networks to bust criminals before they even do anything wrong, while the sex robot m

Best Tested Walking Pads (2025): Urevo, WalkingPad, Sperax

Sitting at your desk all day is literally a pain. It’s bad for your mental and physical health and slowly turns you into a hunched-over keyboard gargoyle. You could take walking breaks away from your screen, but even then you’re still spending a lot of the day on your butt. Enter: the walking pad. These tiny treadmills fit under standing desks and allow you to rack up steps while you work. It might sound far-fetched, but yes, you can exercise and be productive on your computer at the same time.

The best iPad deals you can get in August

If you know where to look, it’s surprisingly easy to save on an iPad — even outside of major sales events like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday. Here’s an insider tip: skip the Apple Store, where discounts are almost nonexistent. Instead, your best bet is to check third-party retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, which frequently offer deals on everything from the entry-level iPad to the powerhouse iPad Pro, making it possible to snag a bargain any time of the year. Apple’s tablet line

‘The Long Walk’ Wanted Mark Hamill for His ‘Star Wars’ Sequels Performance

Mark Hamill hasn’t been shy about discussing his, shall we say, dislike of Luke Skywalker’s arc in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, specifically in the movie where the character has the most prominence: The Last Jedi. He’s all but closed the door on ever returning to his most famous character, but the prolific actor has kept extremely busy with other roles, including two Mike Flanagan projects, The Fall of the House of Usher and Life of Chuck. He’s also in The Long Walk, one of the few Stephen King

SonicWall urges customers to disable SSLVPN amid reports of ransomware attacks

Enterprise security company SonicWall is urging its customers to disable a core feature of its most recent line-up of firewall devices after security researchers reported an uptick in ransomware incidents targeting SonicWall customers. In a statement this week, SonicWall said it had observed a “notable increase” of security incidents targeting its Generation 7 firewalls where customers have its VPN enabled. The company said it is “actively investigating these incidents to determine whether they

SonicWall urges admins to disable SSLVPN amid rising attacks

SonicWall has warned customers to disable SSLVPN services due to ransomware gangs potentially exploiting an unknown security vulnerability in SonicWall Gen 7 firewalls to breach networks over the past few weeks. The warning comes after Arctic Wolf Labs reported on Friday that it had observed multiple Akira ransomware attacks, likely using a SonicWall zero-day vulnerability, since July 15th. "The initial access methods have not yet been confirmed in this campaign," the Arctic Wolf Labs research

Yes, you need a firewall on Linux - here's why and which to use

JuSun/Getty ZDNET's key takeaways Linux is highly secure, but you should still have a firewall. You should know if your ISP's hardware (gateway) uses a firewall. One of the easiest Linux firewalls is UFW and its GUI sidekick, GUFW. I've been using Linux for nearly 30 years. Over those years, I've experienced only one security issue (a rootkit on a server I inherited). The reason for that is Linux's heightened security. Out of the box, it includes a tight permissions system and security mech

SonicWall firewall devices hit in surge of Akira ransomware attacks

SonicWall firewall devices have been increasingly targeted since late July in a surge of Akira ransomware attacks, potentially exploiting a previously unknown security vulnerability, according to cybersecurity company Arctic Wolf. Akira emerged in March 2023 and quickly claimed many victims worldwide across various industries. Over the last two years, Akira has added over 300 organizations to its dark web leak portal and claimed responsibility for multiple high-profile victims, including Nissan