Wimbledon's use of AI-powered electronic line-calling has sparked backlash from players who say the system made several incorrect calls, affecting match outcomes and creating accessibility issues. "This is the first year the prestigious tennis tournament, which is still ongoing, replaced human line judges, who determine if a ball is in or out, with an electronic line calling system (ELC)," notes TechCrunch. From the report: British tennis star Emma Raducanu called out the technology for missing a ball that her opponent hit out, but instead had to be played as if it were in. On a television replay, the ball indeed looked out, the Telegraph reported. Jack Draper, the British No. 1, also said he felt some line calls were wrong, saying he did not think the AI technology was "100 percent accurate."

Player Ben Shelton had to speed up his match after being told that the new AI line system was about to stop working because of the dimming sunlight. Elsewhere, players said they couldn't hear the new automated speaker system, with one deaf player saying that without the human hand signals from the line judges, she was unable to tell when she won a point or not.

The technology also met a blip at a key point during a match this weekend between British player Sonay Kartal and the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, where a ball went out, but the technology failed to make the call. The umpire had to step in to stop the rally and told the players to replay the point because the ELC failed to track the point. Wimbledon later apologized, saying it was a "human error," and that the technology was accidentally shut off during the match. It also adjusted the technology so that, ideally, the mistake could not be repeated.

Debbie Jevans, chair of the All England Club, the organization that hosts Wimbledon, hit back at Raducanu and Draper, saying, "When we did have linesmen, we were constantly asked why we didn't have electronic line calling because it's more accurate than the rest of the tour."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/07/2254236/tennis-players-criticize-ai-technology-used-by-wimbledon?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Trey had struggled with alcoholism for 15 years, eventually drinking heavily each night before quitting in December. But staying sober was a struggle for the 36-year-old first responder from Atlanta, who did not wish to use his real name due to professional concerns.
Then he discovered Alterd, an AI-powered journaling app that invites users to "explore new dimensions" geared towards psychedelics and cannabis consumers, meditators, and alcohol drinkers. In April, using the app as a tripsitter -- a term for someone who soberly watches over another while they trip on psychedelics to provide reassurance and support -- he took a huge dose of 700 micrograms of LSD. (A typicalrecreational doseis considered to be 100 micrograms.) "I went from craving compulsions to feeling true freedom and not needing or wanting alcohol," he says.

He recently asked the app's "chat with your mind" function how he had become more wise through all his AI-assisted psychedelic trips. It responded: "I trust my own guidance now, not just external rules or what others think. I'm more creative, less trapped by fear, and I actually live by my values, not just talk about them. The way I see, reflect, and act in the world is clearer and more grounded every day." "It's almost like your own self that you're communicating with," says Trey, adding he's tripped with his AI chatbot about a dozen times since April. "It's like your best friend. It's kind of crazy." The article mentions several different chatbot tools and AI systems that are being used for psychedelic therapy.

ChatGPT: "Already, many millions of people are using ChatGPT on a daily basis, and the developments may have helped democratize access to psychotherapy-style guidance, albeit in a dubious Silicon Valley style with advice that is often flush with untruths," reports Wired. The general-purpose AI chatbot is being used for emotional support, intention-setting, and even real-time guidance during psychedelic trips. While not designed for therapy, it has been used informally as a trip companion, offering customized music playlists, safety reminders, and existential reflections. Experts caution that its lack of emotional nuance and clinical oversight poses significant risks during altered states.

Alterd: Alterd is a personalized AI journal app that serves as a reflective tool by analyzing a user's entries, moods, and behavior patterns. Its "mind chat" function acts like a digital subconscious, offering supportive insights while gently confronting negative habits like substance use. Users credit it with deepening self-awareness and maintaining sobriety, particularly in the context of psychedelic-assisted growth.

Mindbloom's AI Copilot: Integrated into Mindbloom's at-home ketamine therapy program, the AI copilot helps clients set pretrip intentions, process post-trip emotions, and stay grounded between sessions. It generates custom reflections and visual art based on voice journals, aiming to enhance the therapeutic journey even outside of human-guided sessions. The company plans to evolve the tool into a real-time, intelligent assistant capable of interacting more dynamically with users.

Orb AI/Shaman Concepts (Speculative): Conceptual "orb" interfaces imagine an AI-powered, shaman-like robot facilitating various aspects of psychedelic therapy, from intake to trip navigation. While still speculative, such designs hint at a future where AI plays a central, embodied role in guiding altered states. These ideas raise provocative ethical and safety questions about replacing human presence with machines in deeply vulnerable psychological contexts.

AI in Virtual Reality and Brain Modulation Systems: Researchers are exploring how AI could coordinate immersive virtual reality environments and brain-modulating devices to enhance psychedelic therapy. These systems would respond to real-time emotional and physiological signals, using haptic suits and VR to deepen and personalize the psychedelic experience. Though still in the conceptual phase, this approach represents the fusion of biotech, immersive tech, and AI in pursuit of therapeutic transformation.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/07/2232250/people-are-using-ai-chatbots-to-guide-their-psychedelic-trips?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A team of U.S. and German researchers analyzed over 15 million biomedical papers and found that AI-generated content has subtly infiltrated academic writing, with telltale stylistic shifts -- such as a rise in flowery verbs and adjectives. "Their investigation revealed that since the emergence of LLMs there has been a corresponding increase in the frequency of certain stylist word choices within the academic literature," reports Phys.Org. "These data suggest that at least 13.5% of the papers published in 2024 were written with some amount of LLM processing." From the report: The researchers modeled their investigation on prior COVID-19 public-health research, which was able to infer COVID-19's impact on mortality by comparing excess deaths before and after the pandemic. By applying the same before-and-after approach, the new study analyzed patterns of excess word use prior to the emergence of LLMs and after. The researchers found that after the release of LLMs, there was a significant shift away from the excess use of "content words" to an excess use of "stylistic and flowery" word choices, such as "showcasing," "pivotal," and "grappling."

By manually assigning parts of speech to each excess word, the authors determined that before 2024, 79.2% of excess word choices were nouns. During 2024 there was a clearly identifiable shift. 66% of excess word choices were verbs and 14% were adjectives. The team also identified notable differences in LLM usage between research fields, countries, and venues.
The findings have been published in the journal Science Advances.

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Arizona has activated one of its largest grid battery storage projects to help meet peak summer energy demand. Electrek reports: Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, just brought its 1,200 MWh Papago Storage facility in Maricopa County into commercial operation. The big grid battery is now supplying stored electricity to Arizona Public Service (APS), the state's largest utility, in time for peak air-conditioning season. Papago is the first of three Recurrent projects with APS. Together, they'll provide 1,800 MWh of storage and 150 MW of solar power. That's enough to run about 72,000 homes for four hours and provide year-round solar for another 24,000 homes.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/0143252/arizona-brings-a-huge-grid-battery-online-ahead-of-peak-demand?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The herbicide ingredient used to replace glyphosate in Roundup and other weedkiller products can kill gut bacteria and damage organs in multiple ways, new research shows. The ingredient, diquat, is widely employed in the US as a weedkiller in vineyards and orchards, and is increasingly sprayed elsewhere as the use of controversial herbicide substances such as glyphosate and paraquat drops in the US. But the new piece of data suggests diquat is more toxic than glyphosate, and the substance is banned over its risks in the UK, EU, China and many other countries. Still, the EPA has resisted calls for a ban, and Roundup formulas with the ingredient hit the shelves last year. [...]

Diquat is also thought to be a neurotoxin, carcinogen and linked to Parkinson's disease. An October analysis of EPA data by the Friends of the Earth non-profit found it is about 200 times more toxic than glyphosate in terms of chronic exposure. [...] The new review of scientific literature in part focuses on the multiple ways in which diquat damages organs and gut bacteria, including by reducing the level of proteins that are key pieces of the gut lining. The weakening can allow toxins and pathogens to move from the stomach into the bloodstream, and trigger inflammation in the intestines and throughout the body. Meanwhile, diquat can inhibit the production of beneficial bacteria that maintain the gut lining. Damage to the lining also inhibits the absorption of nutrients and energy metabolism, the authors said.

The research further scrutinizes how the substance harms the kidneys, lungs and liver. Diquat "causes irreversible structural and functional damage to the kidneys" because it can destroy kidney cells' membranes and interfere with cell signals. The effects on the liver are similar, and the ingredient causes the production of proteins that inflame the organ. Meanwhile, it seems to attack the lungs by triggering inflammation that damages the organ's tissue. More broadly, the inflammation caused by diquat may cause multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, a scenario in which organ systems begin to fail. The authors note that many of the studies are on rodents and more research on low, long-term exposure is needed. The report notes that the EPA is not reviewing the chemical, "and even non-profits that push for tighter pesticide regulations have largely focused their attention elsewhere."

"[T]hat was in part because U.S. pesticide regulations are so weak that advocates are tied up with battles over ingredients like glyphosate, paraquat and chlorpyrifos -- substances that are banned elsewhere but still widely used here. Diquat is 'overshadowed' by those ingredients."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/0152223/weedkiller-ingredient-widely-used-in-us-can-damage-organs-and-gut-bacteria-research-shows?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic will announce Tuesday the launch of a $22.5 million AI training center for members of the American Federation of Teachers, according to details inadvertently published early on a publicly accessible YouTube livestream. The National Academy for AI Instruction will be based in New York City and aims to equip kindergarten through 12th grade instructors with "the tools and confidence to bring AI into the classroom in a way that supports learning and opportunity for all students."

The initiative will provide free AI training and curriculum to teachers in the second-largest US teachers' union, which represents about 1.8 million workers including K-12 teachers, school nurses and college staff. The academy builds on Microsoft's December 2023 partnership with the AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization that includes the American Federation of Teachers.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/1237220/microsoft-openai-and-a-us-teachers-union-are-hatching-a-plan-to-bring-ai-into-the-classroom?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Google is implementing a change that will enable its Gemini AI engine to interact with third-party apps, such as WhatsApp, even when users previously configured their devices to block such interactions. ArsTechnica: Users who don't want their previous settings to be overridden may have to take action. An email Google sent recently informing users of the change linked to a notification page that said that "human reviewers (including service providers) read, annotate, and process" the data Gemini accesses.

The email provides no useful guidance for preventing the changes from taking effect. The email said users can block the apps that Gemini interacts with, but even in those cases, data is stored for 72 hours. The email never explains how users can fully extricate Gemini from their Android devices and seems to contradict itself on how or whether this is even possible.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/1255232/unless-users-take-action-android-will-let-gemini-access-third-party-apps?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

X said Tuesday it is "deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India" after the Indian government ordered the platform to block 2,355 accounts on July 3, including two Reuters news agency handles. The social media company said the order came under India's Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, with non-compliance risking criminal liability.

The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action within one hour without providing justification, X said. After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock the Reuters accounts.

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An impostor pretending to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted foreign ministers, a U.S. governor and a member of Congress by sending them voice and text messages that mimic Rubio's voice and writing style using AI-powered software, Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing a senior U.S. official and a State Department cable. From the report: U.S. authorities do not know who is behind the string of impersonation attempts but they believe the culprit was probably attempting to manipulate powerful government officials "with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts," according to a cable sent by Rubio's office to State Department employees.

Using both text messaging and the encrypted messaging app Signal, which the Trump administration uses extensively, the impostor "contacted at least five non-Department individuals, including three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a U.S. member of Congress," said the cable, dated July 3. The impersonation campaign began in mid-June when the impostor created a Signal account using the display name "Marco.Rubio@state.gov" to contact unsuspecting foreign and domestic diplomats and politicians, said the cable.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/1537230/a-marco-rubio-impostor-is-using-ai-voice-to-call-high-level-officials?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

SUSE has unveiled a new support package aimed at customers concerned about data sovereignty. From a report: Called "SUSE Sovereign Premium Support," the service geo-pins support to a given region rather than adopting the traditional follow-the-sun model, where support comes from whatever region is online. The latter approach could break sovereignty regulations or policies, as it might involve transferring data out of a region. Ensuring that support is available from a specific region is therefore crucial, particularly for European customers.

SUSE CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen told The Register: "Digital sovereignty has become a really hot topic in the last half year, and specifically in Europe, where companies feel an increasing need to get things done in-house, in-country, or in-region within Europe, with less dependency on non-European vendors and supply chains and people."

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The Georgia Court of Appeals has overturned a trial court's order after finding it relied on court cases that do not exist, apparently generated by AI. The appellate court vacated the ruling in a divorce case involving Nimat Shahid's challenge to a divorce order granted to her husband Sufyan Esaam in July 2022.

"We are troubled by the citation of bogus cases in the trial court's order," the appeals court stated in its decision, which directs the lower court to revisit Shahid's petition. The court noted the errant citations appear to have been "drafted using generative AI" and were included in an order prepared by attorney Diana Lynch.

Lynch repeated the fabricated citations in her appeals briefs and expanded upon them after Shahid had challenged the fictitious cases. The appeals court found Lynch's briefs contained "11 bogus case citations out of 15 total, one of which was in support of a frivolous request for attorney fees." The court fined Lynch $2,500 for filing the frivolous motion.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/172256/georgia-court-throws-out-earlier-ruling-that-relied-on-fake-cases-made-up-by-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft and OpenAI are locked in acrimonious negotiations partly because they cannot agree on what artificial general intelligence means, despite having written the term into a contract worth over $13 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

One definition reportedly agreed upon by the companies sets the AGI threshold at when AI generates $100 billion in profits. Under their partnership agreement, OpenAI can limit Microsoft's access to future technology once it achieves AGI. OpenAI executives believe they are close to declaring AGI, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called using AGI as a self-proclaimed milestone "nonsensical benchmark hacking" on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast in February.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/1757219/what-is-agi-nobody-agrees-and-its-tearing-microsoft-and-openai-apart?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a blog post: Version 140 of the Thunderbird mail client has been released. Notable features include "dark message mode" to adapt message content to dark mode, the ability to easily transfer desktop settings to the mobile Thunderbird client, experimental support for Microsoft Exchange, as well as global controls for message threading and sort order.

Thunderbird 140 is an extended-support release (ESR) which will be supported for 12 months. However, the Thunderbird project is trying to encourage users to adopt the Release channel for monthly updates instead. The project is staggering upgrades to 140 for existing Thunderbird users in order to catch any significant bugs before they are widely deployed, but users can upgrade manually via the Help > About menu. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/1831203/thunderbird-140-released?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Napster has returned with an AI-powered reinvention, launching a platform of specialized chatbots and holographic avatars. The former dot-com music file-sharing pioneer now offers dozens of "AI companions" trained as experts in fields from therapy to business strategy, plus the View device for 3D holographic video chats, FastCompany reports.

Infinite Reality acquired Napster for $207 million in March and rebranded itself under the nostalgic name. The platform charges $19 monthly or $199 bundled with hardware, marking Napster's latest attempt at relevance after previous owners tried VR concerts and crypto ventures.

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Corporate employees of Amazon have been asked to volunteer their time to the company's warehouses to assist with grocery delivery as it heads into its annual discount spree known as Prime Day. From a report: In a Slack message reviewed by the Guardian that went to thousands of white-collar workers in the New York City area from engineers to marketers, an Amazon area manager called for corporate "volunteers to help us out with Prime Day to deliver to customers on our biggest days yet." It is not clear how many took up the offer.

The ask came the day before Prime Day kicks off. The manager said volunteers are "needed" to work Tuesday through Friday this week, in two-hour shifts between 10am and 6pm in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the company operates a warehouse as part of its grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh. Corporate employees seconded to the warehouse would be tasked with picking items, preparing carts and bags of groceries for delivery, packing boxes on receiving carts, and working to "boost morale with distribution of snacks," though they would be allowed to step into a conference room to take meetings and calls, according to the message. The manager noted such an effort would help "connect" warehouse and corporate teams. Further reading: Amazon Prime Day Spending Down 14% in Early Hours From 2024.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/202255/amazon-asks-corporate-workers-to-volunteer-help-with-grocery-deliveries-as-prime-day-frenzy-approaches?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Activision removed "Call of Duty: WWII" from Microsoft Store and Game Pass after hackers exploited a security vulnerability that allowed them to compromise players' computers, TechCrunch reported Tuesday, citing a source. The gaming giant took the 2017 first-person shooter offline last week while investigating what it initially described only as "reports of an issue."

Players posted on social media claiming their systems had been hacked while playing the game. The vulnerability was a remote code execution exploit that enables attackers to install malware and take control of victims' devices. The Microsoft Store and Game Pass versions contained an unpatched security flaw that had been fixed in other versions of the game.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2021225/activision-took-down-call-of-duty-game-after-pc-players-hacked?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The U.N. Human Rights Council passed a motion on climate change and human rights by consensus Tuesday after the Marshall Islands withdrew a divisive amendment calling for states to recommit to a fossil fuel phase-out. The motion calls on countries "to contribute to the global efforts" against climate change and follows the council's 2021 recognition of access to a clean and healthy environment as a fundamental right.

Oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had voiced opposition to the original fossil fuel phrasing during negotiations. Instead, the final motion referenced "the imperative of defossilizing our economies" in a footnote, allowing passage without a vote where the outcome had been uncertain.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The Linux Foundation announced at the Open Source Summit in Denver that it will now host the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol. Initially developed by Google and now supported by more than 100 leading technology companies, A2A is a crucial new open standard for secure and interoperable communication between AI agents. In his keynote presentation, Mike Smith, a Google staff software engineer, told the conference that the A2A protocol has evolved to make it easier to add custom extensions to the core specification. Additionally, the A2A community is working on making it easier to assign unique identities to AI agents, thereby improving governance and security.

The A2A protocol is designed to solve one of AI's most pressing challenges: enabling autonomous agents -- software entities capable of independent action and decision-making -- to discover each other, securely exchange information, and collaborate across disparate platforms, vendors, and frameworks. Under the hood, A2A does this work by creating an AgentCard. An AgentCard is a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) metadata document that describes its purpose and provides instructions on how to access it via a web URL. A2A also leverages widely adopted web standards, such as HTTP, JSON-RPC, and Server-Sent Events (SSE), to ensure broad compatibility and ease of integration. By providing a standardized, vendor-neutral communication layer, A2A breaks down the silos that have historically limited the potential of multi-agent systems.

For security, A2A comes with enterprise-grade authentication and authorization built in, including support for JSON Web Tokens (JWTs), OpenID Connect (OIDC), and Transport Layer Security (TLS). This approach ensures that only authorized agents can participate in workflows, protecting sensitive data and agent identities. While the security foundations are in place, developers at the conference acknowledged that integrating them, particularly authenticating agents, will be a hard slog. Antje Barth, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) principal developer advocate for generative AI, explained what the adoption of A2A will mean for IT professionals: "Say you want to book a train ride to Copenhagen, then a hotel there, and look maybe for a fancy restaurant, right? You have inputs and individual tasks, and A2A adds more agents to this conversation, with one agent specializing in hotel bookings, another in restaurants, and so on. A2A enables agents to communicate with each other, hand off tasks, and finally brings the feedback to the end user."

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said: "By joining the Linux Foundation, A2A is ensuring the long-term neutrality, collaboration, and governance that will unlock the next era of agent-to-agent powered productivity." Zemlin expects A2A to become a cornerstone for building interoperable, multi-agent AI systems.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2122224/linux-foundation-adopts-a2a-protocol-to-help-solve-one-of-ais-most-pressing-challenges?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Intel is laying off over 500 employees in Oregon as part of a broader restructuring plan expected to impact about 20% of its workforce. Bloomberg reports: The Oregon job reduction will hit facilities in Aloha and Hillsboro starting on July 15, Intel said in a regulatory filing. The layoffs are expected to eliminate about 529 employees on a permanent basis. The latest disclosure follows an announcement in California, where 107 employees were let go at Intel's Santa Clara headquarters.

Under new Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan, Intel embarked on a plan in April to slash jobs and reduce operating expenses. The company hasn't given a total figure for the cuts, but a person familiar with the matter has put the amount at more than a fifth of staff. In a statement, Intel said it was making the Oregon cuts to become "a leaner, faster and more efficient company."

"Removing organizational complexity and empowering our engineers will enable us to better serve the needs of our customers and strengthen our execution," the company said. "We are making these decisions based on careful consideration of what's needed to position our business for the future, and we will treat people with care and respect as we complete this important work."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2211200/intel-cuts-over-500-jobs-in-oregon-as-part-of-layoff-plan?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Apple is making a high-level leadership change that could significantly shape its future behind the scenes. The company has announced that longtime executive Jeff Williams will step down from his role as Chief Operating Officer later this month. His successor will be Sabih Khan, Apple's Senior Vice President of Operations and a key player in the company's global supply chain strategy. Williams isn't leaving Apple entirely just yet. He'll continue working closely with CEO Tim Cook for the rest of the year, overseeing Apple Watch and health initiatives, as well as leading the company's industrial design team until his retirement. After that, Apple's design team will report directly to Cook.

Khan's promotion is part of what Apple describes as a long-planned transition. Cook praised Khan as a "brilliant strategist" who helped Apple reduce its carbon footprint by over 60 percent, expand domestic manufacturing, and remain agile during global supply chain challenges. Khan has been with Apple for 30 years and took on a more prominent executive role in 2019. He has quietly helped the company build one of the most influential supply chains in the world.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2124250/apple-taps-sabih-khan-as-new-coo-as-jeff-williams-plans-retirement?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Meta has acquired a $3.5 billion stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, "a deal that increases the U.S. tech giant's financial commitment to the fast-growing smart glasses industry," reports Bloomberg. From the report: Meta's investment in the eyewear giant deepens the relationship between the two companies, which have partnered over the past several years to develop AI-powered smart glasses. Meta currently sells a pair of Ray-Ban glasses, first debuted in 2021, with built-in cameras and an AI assistant. Last month, it launched separate Oakley-branded glasses with EssilorLuxottica. EssilorLuxottica Chief Executive Officer Francesco Milleri said last year that Meta was interested in taking a stake the company, but that plan hadn't materialized until now.

The deal aligns with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's commitment to AI, which has become a top priority and major expense for the company. Smart glasses are a key part of that plan. While Meta has historically had to deliver its apps and services via smartphones created by competitors, glasses offer Meta a chance to build its own hardware and control its own distribution, Zuckerberg has said. The arrangement gives Meta the advantage of having more detailed manufacturing knowledge and global distribution networks, fundamental to turning its smart glasses into mass-market products. For EssilorLuxottica, the deal provides a deeper presence in the tech world, which would be helpful if Meta's futuristic bets pay off. Meta is also betting on the idea that people will one day work and play while wearing headsets or glasses.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://meta.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2147252/meta-invests-35-billion-in-worlds-largest-eye-wear-maker-in-ai-glasses-push?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google announced on Tuesday that it's launching a new Gmail feature that is designed to help users easily manage their subscriptions and declutter their inboxes. The new "Manage subscriptions" tool is rolling out on the web, Android, and iOS in select countries. With the new feature, users can view and manage their subscription emails in one place and quickly unsubscribe from the ones they no longer want to receive.

Users can view their active subscriptions, organized by the most frequent senders, alongside the number of emails they've sent in the past few weeks. Clicking on a sender provides a direct view of all emails from them. If a user decides to unsubscribe, Gmail will send an unsubscribe request to the sender on their behalf. "It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of subscription emails clogging your inbox: Daily deal alerts that are basically spam, weekly newsletters from blogs you no longer read, promotional emails from retailers you haven't shopped in years can quickly pile up," Chris Doan, Gmail's Director of Product, wrote in a blog post.

Users can access the new feature by clicking the navigation bar in the top-left corner of their Gmail inbox and then selecting "Manage subscriptions." [...] Google says the new feature will begin rolling out on the web starting Tuesday, with Android and iOS users starting to receive it on July 14 and July 21, respectively. It may take up to 15 days from the start of the rollout for the feature to reach every user, the company says. The Manage subscriptions feature is available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2153243/gmails-new-manage-subscriptions-tool-will-help-declutter-your-inbox?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Senators Tim Sheehy and Elizabeth Warren have introduced the bipartisan "Warrior Right to Repair Act," which would guarantee the military's right to repair its own equipment. The bill builds on a previous Army directive and has broad public support, with nearly 75% of Americans in favor, according to a PIRG poll. Engadget reports: The Department of Defense has not been immune from restrictive practices set forth by manufacturers, and much like the average consumer, has been hamstrung in its ability to repair its own equipment by clauses in its purchase agreements. According to the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), the current system leads to excessive repair and sustainment costs, and can even impede military readiness.

"When our neighbors, friends and family serve in our military, we expect them to get what they need to do their jobs as safely as possible," PIRG Federal Legislative Director Isaac Bowers wrote regarding the newly introduced bill. "Somehow, that hasn't included the materials and information they need to repair equipment they rely on. It's time we fixed that."

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alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Researchers at Princeton University, Boston University and other institutes used machine learning to predict the strategic decisions of humans in various games. Their paper, published in Nature Human Behavior, shows that a deep neural network trained on human decisions could predict the strategic choices of players with high levels of accuracy. [...] Essentially, the team suggests that people behave more rationally while playing games that they perceive as easier. In contrast, when they are playing more complex games, people's choices could be influenced by various other factors, thus the "noise" affecting their behavior would increase.

As part of their future studies, the researchers would also like to shed more light on what makes a game "complex" or "easy." This could be achieved using the context-dependent noise parameter that they integrated into their model as a signature of "perceived difficulty." "Our analysis provides a robust model comparison across a wide range of candidate models of decision-making," said [Jian-Qiao Zhu, first author of the paper]. "We now have strong evidence that introducing context-dependence into the quantal response model significantly improves its ability to capture human strategic behavior. More specifically, we identified key factors in the game matrix that shape game complexity: considerations of efficiency, the arithmetic difficulty of computing payoff differences, and the depth of reasoning required to arrive at a rational solution."

The findings gathered as part of this recent study also highlight the "lightness" with which many people approach strategic decisions, which could make them vulnerable to parties looking to sway them towards making irrational decisions. Once they gather more insight into what factors make games and decision-making scenarios more challenging for people, Zhu and his colleagues hope to start devising new behavioral science interventions aimed at prompting people to make more rational decisions.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2220223/hybrid-model-reveals-people-act-less-rationally-in-complex-games-more-predictably-in-simple-ones?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Filmmaker Peter Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct New Zealand bird called the moa. His fascination with the flightless ostrich-like bird has led to an unusual partnership with a biotech company known for its grand and controversial plans to bring back lost species. On Tuesday, Colossal Biosciences announced an effort to genetically engineer living birds to resemble the extinct South Island giant moa -- which once stood 12 feet (3.6 meters) tall -- with $15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ngai Tahu Research Centre. "The movies are my day job, and the moa are my fun thing I do," said Jackson. "Every New Zealand schoolchild has a fascination with the moa."

The moa had roamed New Zealand for 4,000 years until they became extinct around 600 years ago, mainly because of overhunting. A large skeleton brought to England in the 19th century, now on display at the Yorkshire Museum, prompted international interest in the long-necked bird. Unlike Colossal's work with dire wolves, the moa project is in very early stages. It started with a phone call about two years ago after Jackson heard about the company's efforts to "de-extinct" -- or create genetically similar animals to -- species like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf. Then Jackson put Colossal in touch with experts he'd met through his own moa bone-collecting. At that point, he'd amassed between 300 and 400 bones, he said.

In New Zealand, it's legal to buy and sell moa bones found on private lands, but not on public conservation areas -- nor to export them. The first stage of the moa project will be to identify well-preserved bones from which it may be possible to extract DNA, said Colossal's chief scientist Beth Shapiro. Those DNA sequences will be compared to genomes of living bird species, including the ground-dwelling tinamou and emu, "to figure out what it is that made the moa unique compared to other birds," she said. [...] The direction of the project will be shaped by Mori scholars at the University of Canterbury's Ngi Tahu Research Centre. Ngi Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, an expert in moa bones, said the work has "really reinvigorated the interest in examining our own traditions and mythology."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2232217/peter-jackson-backs-long-shot-de-extinction-plan-starring-new-zealands-lost-moa?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Two Chinese satellites, SJ-25 and SJ-21, have reportedly completed the first autonomous high-altitude orbital docking. "Although unconfirmed, this is thought to be the first orbital refueling at such a height -- the two satellites are currently over 20,000 miles from Earth," reports ExtremeTech. From the report: Orbital refueling is an important component in keeping satellites and space stations in low Earth orbit flying, but any efforts beyond that have been merely speculative until the past few years, when serious efforts from a range of private and national entities have explored its possibilities. China may have gotten ahead of the curve with this latest docking, though, in an impressive world first that raises serious concerns for satellites from nations and entities that align themselves differently from China's goals and ambitions.

In January, a satellite designated SJ-25 was launched "for the verification of satellite fuel replenishment and life extension service technologies," according to the Chinese state-owned designer, Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (via Ars Technica). Sometime last week, it matched orbits with the SJ-21 satellite, which previously conducted space debris maneuvering tests in 2021 and has remained in a geosynchronous orbit ever since.

Last week, the two satellites matched orbits and seemingly docked together. Analysts believe the newer SJ-25 has likely proven refueling is possible even for geosynchronous satellites without the need for a manned crew to facilitate it. In an effort to prove this, two US Space Force's inspector satellites have positioned themselves in closer orbits to SJ-25 and SJ-21 for improved optics. [...] China continues to suggest these missions are part of a debris clean-up program, though it hasn't publicly made any statements about the recent alleged docking and refueling to celebrate its successes. If it doesn't, the only way we'll know if a refueling maneuver was successful is if the SJ-21 satellite unshackles from its younger sibling and performs fuel-demanding maneuvers that its previously estimated fuel levels shouldn't allow for.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2239218/chinese-satellites-complete-first-high-altitude-rendezvous-for-possible-groundbreaking-refueling?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The UK police plan to spend up to 75 million pounds ($102 million) to digitize their vast archive of VHS tapes, aiming to preserve evidence by converting analog media into digital files integrated with evidence management systems. The procurement includes both in-house solutions and outsourced services, with additional funding earmarked for converting other legacy formats like microfiche and DVDs. The Register reports: According to a tender notice published last week, Bluelight Commercial - a not-for-profit buyer that acts on behalf of the emergency services - says the police force requires either in-house technology or outsourced services to convert the arcane magnetic tape format to digital storage. The notice, which sets out procurement plans, says the framework agreement will help forces with the "conversion of analog media to digital records, including metadata for integration with a digital evidence management system."

In the first lot of the framework, Bluelight asks for in-house VHS media digitization software, hardware, and training to "enable a Police Force to convert VHS tapes to digital files." This chunk of the arrangement could be worth 50 million pounds ($68 million) for four years, excluding VAT. The second lot asks for outsourced VHS media digitization "for the provision of conversion services delivered completely by a third party with electronic files being returned securely to the customer force." The output is also set to be ingested by a digital evidence management solution. It could be worth up to 25 million pounds ($34 million) over the same period. In addition, Bluelight Commercial is looking for a provider to help with more niche media digitization, including converting microfiche, CD, DVDs to an electronic file format, in an arrangement which could be worth a total of up to 25 million pounds ($34 million).

[ Read more of this story ]( https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/220238/uk-police-dangle-102-million-to-digitize-its-vhs-tape-archives?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) are one of the most serious contenders for dark matter -- the "missing" mass supposedly constituting 85% of our universe. Given its elusiveness, dark matter tests the patience and creativity of physicists. But the latest results from LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), the South Dakota-based detector, may have brought scientists a small step closer to catching WIMPs in action. In a recent Physical Review Letters paper, scientists analyzed 280 days' worth of data from LUX-ZEPLIN, reporting the tightest ever upper limit on the interaction strength of WIMPs. The result -- a near fivefold improvement -- demonstrates how physicists are increasingly getting better at circumventing the problem that dark matter is, well, dark; the elusive stuff evades any detection method that depends on materials interacting with visible light or other types of radiation.

The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, located one mile underground in a decommissioned South Dakota gold mine, employs nearly 15,000 pounds (7 tons) of liquid xenon. The chemical element's high atomic mass and density make it potentially easier for scientists to detect any unknown particles that may pass through the detector. Also, liquid xenon is transparent, preventing any unwanted noise -- usually arising from radioactive matter around the detector -- from spoiling an experiment. "These results firmly establish that LZ is the world's most sensitive search for dark matter heavier than 10 GeV, that's about 10 times heavier than a proton," explained Scott Haselschwart, a physicist at the University of Michigan and LZ physics coordinator, in an email to Gizmodo. "To put our result in perspective: we have ruled out dark matter that would interact only once in a single kilogram of xenon every four millennia!" "LZ is the most sensitive search for WIMP dark matter to date, but we still have another two years of data to collect," Haselschwart said. "This means that a discovery of dark matter in LZ could come anytime now. We are truly looking for dark matter where no one has ever looked before and that is extremely exciting!"

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/08/2255240/record-setting-dark-matter-detector-comes-up-empty----and-thats-good-news?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Nvidia shares jumped more than 2% on Wednesday, topping a $4 trillion market cap for the first time as investors scooped stock in the tech giant building the hardware for the generative AI boom. From a report: The chipmaker is the first company to ever achieve this market value. Nvidia is the world's most valuable company, surpassing Microsoft and Apple, both of which hit the $3 trillion mark before Nvidia. Microsoft is also one of Nvidia's biggest and most important customers. The California-based company, which was founded in 1993, first passed the $2 trillion mark in February 2024, and surpassed $3 trillion in June.

Nvidia has profited heavily off of growing demand for artificial intelligence hardware and chips since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. The company has positioned itself as the decisive leader in the creating the graphics processing units that power large language models.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/149217/nvidia-hits-4-trillion-market-cap-first-company-to-do-so?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Monmouthshire schools have launched what they believe is the first countywide policy in the UK asking parents not to give smartphones to children under 14, affecting more than 9,000 students across state and private schools.

The initiative follows rising cyber-bullying reports and concerns that some children spend up to eight hours daily on devices, with students reportedly online at 2, 3, and 4 in the morning. Hugo Hutchinson, headteacher at Monmouth Comprehensive, said schools experience "much higher levels of mental health issues" linked to smartphone addiction, noting that children's time is largely spent outside school where many have unrestricted device access despite existing school bans.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1443248/teachers-urge-parents-not-to-buy-children-smartphones?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

A federal appeals court struck down a "click-to-cancel" rule that would have required companies to make cancelling services as easy as signing up. The Federal Trade Commission rule was scheduled to take effect on July 14 but was vacated by the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the Biden-era FTC failed to follow the full rulemaking process required under US law.

The FTC is required to conduct a preliminary regulatory analysis when a rule has an estimated annual economic effect of $100 million or more. The FTC initially estimated the rule would not reach that threshold, but an administrative law judge later found compliance costs would exceed $100 million. Despite this finding, the FTC did not conduct the required preliminary analysis.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/152205/court-nullifies-click-to-cancel-rule-that-required-easy-methods-of-cancellation?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Restaurants and bars face mounting financial pressure from music licensing fees as the number of Performing Rights Organizations has expanded from three dominant players to at least six nationwide. The National Restaurant Association reports members pay an average of $4,500 annually for music licenses, representing 0.5% of total sales for small establishments. Hotels have experienced even steeper increases, with one major chain seeing costs rise 200% from 2021-2025, and some properties facing 400% jumps.

The proliferation stems from streaming's revenue surge, which attracted new PROs seeking market share. Since many songs involve multiple songwriters affiliated with different organizations, venues must secure licenses from each PRO or risk lawsuits carrying penalties up to $150,000 per infringement.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/164254/restaurants-bars-say-theyre-getting-squeezed-by-rising-music-licensing-costs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Researchers analyzing DNA from 1,313 ancient humans across Eurasia found that zoonotic pathogens first appeared in human populations around 6,500 years ago, coinciding with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to livestock farming.

The genomic study, published in Nature, identified 5,486 DNA sequences from bacteria, viruses and parasites in blood remnants from bones and teeth spanning 37,000 years. Zoonotic pathogens were detected only in remains 6,500 years old or younger, peaking around 5,000 years ago when pastoralist communities from the Steppe region migrated into Europe with large herds. The plague bacterium Yersinia pestis first appears in the dataset between 5,700-5,300 years ago.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1649202/animal-diseases-leapt-to-humans-when-we-started-keeping-livestock?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft has pledged more than $4 billion in cash and technology services to train millions of people in AI use, targeting schools, community colleges, technical colleges and nonprofits. The company said it will launch Microsoft Elevate Academy to help 20 million people earn AI certificates.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company would "serve as an advocate to ensure that students in every school across the country have access to A.I. education." The announcement follows Tuesday's news that the American Federation of Teachers received $23 million from Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic for a national AI training center. Last week, dozens of companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI signed a White House pledge promising schools funding, technology and training materials for AI education.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/176219/microsoft-pledges-4-billion-for-ai-education-training-programs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Apple plans to release its first Vision Pro upgrade as early as this year, according to Bloomberg. The updated $3,499 headset will feature an M4 processor, replacing the current M2 chip, and components designed to better handle AI tasks.

The company is also developing new straps to reduce neck strain and head pain from the 1.4-pound device. The Vision Pro launched in February 2024 but has sold only hundreds of thousands of units. Apple is working on a significantly lighter redesigned model for 2027, the report added.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1731248/apple-working-on-updated-vision-pro-with-m4-chip-as-early-as-2025?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

OpenAI is close to releasing an AI-powered web browser that will challenge market-dominating Google Chrome, Reuters reported Wednesday. From the report: The browser is slated to launch in the coming weeks, three of the people said, and aims to use artificial intelligence to fundamentally change how consumers browse the web. It will give OpenAI more direct access to a cornerstone of Google's success: user data.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1818249/openai-to-release-ai-web-browser-in-challenge-to-chrome?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Western Europe sweltered through its hottest June on record last month, as "extreme" temperatures blasted the region in punishing back-to-back heatwaves, the EU climate monitor Copernicus said Wednesday. From a report: Globally, this past June was the third warmest on record, continuing a blistering heat streak in recent years as the planet warms as a result of humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases. The previous hottest June was in 2024 and the second hottest was in 2023, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said. Sweltering extremes were particularly pronounced in Europe, which is warming several times faster than the global average.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1826228/western-europe-sees-hottest-june-on-record-amid-extreme-heatwaves?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Microsoft is keen to show employees how much AI is transforming its own workplace, even as the company terminates thousands of personnel. From a report: During a presentation this week, Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff said artificial intelligence tools are boosting productivity in everything from sales and customer service to software engineering, according to a person familiar with his remarks.

Althoff said AI saved Microsoft more than $500 million last year in its call centers alone and increased both employee and customer satisfaction, according to the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter. The company is also starting to use AI to handle interactions with smaller customers, Althoff said. This effort is nascent, but already generating tens of millions of dollars, he said.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1831232/microsoft-touts-500-million-in-ai-savings-while-slashing-jobs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

AMD is warning users of a newly discovered form of side-channel attack affecting a broad range of its chips that could lead to information disclosure. Register: Akin to Meltdown and Spectre, the Transient Scheduler Attack (TSA) comprises four vulnerabilities that AMD said it discovered while looking into a Microsoft report about microarchitectural leaks.

The four bugs do not appear too venomous at face value -- two have medium-severity ratings while the other two are rated "low." However, the low-level nature of the exploit's impact has nonetheless led Trend Micro and CrowdStrike to assess the threat as "critical."

The reasons for the low severity scores are the high degree of complexity involved in a successful attack -- AMD said it could only be carried out by an attacker able to run arbitrary code on a target machine. It affects AMD processors (desktop, mobile and datacenter models), including 3rd gen and 4th gen EPYC chips -- the full list is here.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/1835230/amd-warns-of-new-meltdown-spectre-like-bugs-affecting-cpus?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: If you want a job at McDonald's today, there's a good chance you'll have to talk to Olivia. Olivia is not, in fact, a human being, but instead anAI chatbotthat screens applicants, asks for their contact information and resume, directs them to a personality test, and occasionally makes them "go insane" by repeatedly misunderstanding their most basic questions. Until last week, the platform that runs the Olivia chatbot, built by artificial intelligence software firm Paradox.ai, also suffered from absurdly basic security flaws. As a result, virtually any hacker could have accessed the records of every chat Olivia had ever had with McDonald's applicants -- including all the personal information they shared in those conversations -- with tricks as straightforward as guessing the username and password "123456."

On Wednesday, security researchers Ian Carroll and Sam Curryrevealedthat they found simple methods to hack into the backend of the AI chatbot platform on McHire.com, McDonald's website that many of its franchisees use to handle job applications. Carroll and Curry, hackers with along track record of independent security testing, discovered that simple web-based vulnerabilities -- including guessing one laughably weak password -- allowed them to access a Paradox.ai account and query the company's databases that held every McHire user's chats with Olivia. The data appears to include as many as 64 million records, including applicants' names, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Carroll says he only discovered that appalling lack of security around applicants' information because he was intrigued by McDonald's decision to subject potential new hires to an AI chatbot screener and personality test. "I just thought it was pretty uniquely dystopian compared to a normal hiring process, right? And that's what made me want to look into it more," says Carroll. "So I started applying for a job, and then after 30 minutes, we had full access to virtually every application that's ever been made to McDonald's going back years." Paradox.ai confirmed the security findings, acknowledging that only a small portion of the accessed records contained personal data. The company stated that the weak-password account ("123456") was only accessed by the researchers and no one else. To prevent future issues, Paradox is launching a bug bounty program. "We do not take this matter lightly, even though it was resolved swiftly and effectively," Paradox.ai's chief legal officer, Stephanie King, told WIRED in an interview. "We own this."

In a statement to WIRED, McDonald's agreed that Paradox.ai was to blame. "We're disappointed by this unacceptable vulnerability from a third-party provider, Paradox.ai. As soon as we learned of the issue, we mandated Paradox.ai to remediate the issue immediately, and it was resolved on the same day it was reported to us," the statement reads. "We take our commitment to cyber security seriously and will continue to hold our third-party providers accountable to meeting our standards of data protection."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/2014234/mcdonalds-ai-hiring-bot-exposed-millions-of-applicants-data-to-hackers?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

Samsung on Wednesday unveiled three new foldable smartphones at a time when the company is facing increased competition from Chinese rivals such as Honor and Oppo, reports CNBC. The company's share of the global foldable phone market slipped to 45% in 2024, down from 54% a year earlier. Today's new devices include the ultra-thin Galaxy Z Fold 7, the clamshell-style Galaxy Z Flip 7, and the more affordable Flip 7 FE. Here's a breakdown of each: The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is super thin at a thickness of 8.9 millimeters (0.35 inches) closed and only 4.2 millimeters open. It's also much lighter than its predecessor, weighing 215 grams (7.62 ounces). These stats put the phone on par with both Honor's Magic V5 and the Oppo Find N5. The new Fold device has a 6.5-inch cover screen and an 8-inch main display when opened, making it bigger than its predecessor. It's also decked out with premium new cameras, featuring a 200-megapixel main lens, as well as a 10-megapixel telephoto sensor, 12-megapixel ultra-wide and two 10-megapixel front cameras on both the cover screen and on the main display.

Samsung's new Fold generation is, nevertheless, much more limited than other devices in the market when it comes to battery capacity. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a 4,400 milliampere-hour (mAh) battery -- far less than the 6,100 mAh power pack in Honor's Magic V5's or the Oppo Find N5's 5,600 mAh battery. Samsung says its device is capable of 24 hours of video playback.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 7 is also thinner than its predecessor, coming in at 6.5 millimeters when opened flat. By contrast, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a depth of 6.9 millimeters when unfolded. The new phone has a 4.1-inch cover screen and a 6.9-inch main display. It comes with a 50-megapixel main camera and 12-megapixel ultra-wide sensor on the back and a 10-megapixel lens on the main display. It also has a bigger 4,300 mAh battery, which Samsung says supports 31 hours of video playtime on a single charge.

In addition to Flip 7, Samsung is also introducing a cheaper version of the phone, called the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, which is slightly smaller and thicker than its more premium counterpart. What about the AI features, you ask? They all include various AI-driven camera tools that can identify and suggest removal of unwanted people or objects in photos, and an audio eraser that filters out background noise in videos.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 also integrates Gemini Live, allowing users to overlay the AI assistant during live video recordings -- for instance, to receive real-time outfit suggestions.

The Z Fold 7 starts at $1,999, and the Z Flip 7 starts at $1,099. Meanwhile, the Flip 7 FE is priced at $899.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/07/09/2027259/samsung-launches-three-new-foldable-smartphones-as-it-fends-off-chinese-rivals?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.