By Paulo Vargas Nike and Apple’s Powerbeats Pro 2 combine bold design with fitness tracking, long battery life, and workout-ready durability, aiming to replace multiple devices with a single, high-performance pair of earbuds.
The post Nike and Apple made an uber-flashy Power Beats Pro 2 Ultimate earbuds appeared first on Digital Trends.

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By Hisan Kidwai Cybersecurity in 2026 is one of the most pressing issues since everything we interact with is…
The post HP Study Finds Many Indian SMBs Still Ignore Printer Security Risks appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Shikhar Mehrotra Apple brings smarter software and premium materials. Sony brings longer battery, hi-res wireless audio, and $100 in savings. Which flagship headphone actually deserves your money?
The post AirPods Max 2 vs. Sony WH-1000XM6: Should you get the $549 or $449 flagship headphone? appeared first on Digital Trends.

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By Ana-Maria Stanciuc The 2026 AWS Pioneers cohort spans healthcare, climate, and conflict zones, and lands alongside a stark warning that Europe risks losing its best innovators if the regulatory environment doesn’t change. Amazon Web Services announced today the second annual cohort of its Pioneers Project: twelve European companies using AI and cloud infrastructure to tackle problems that […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

In the few short weeks since OpenClaw became the biggest story in agentic AI, it has been dogged by concerns that it is not secure enough to be safely let loose in enterprises.

This week at the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference (GTC) conference, CEO Jensen Huang announced what he believes is the answer: NemoClaw.

Built in consultation with OpenClaw’s creator, Peter Steinberger, NemoClaw is based on Nvidia Agent Toolkit, part of the broader NeMo ecosystem for building AI agents.

The security innovation is Nvidia OpenShell, a new security and policy enforcement guardrail that integrates with the OpenClaw command line.

The company decided to build NemoClaw after realizing that what Steinberger had created in OpenClaw was an agentic “operating system,” Huang said. “It is no different to how Windows made it possible to create personal computers. Now OpenClaw has made it possible for us to create personal agents,” he added.

Huang compared OpenClaw’s significance to that of the arrival of Linux and HTML in the 1990s, noting that it has given the AI industry exactly what it needed to accelerate agentic AI.

“Every company in the world today needs to have an OpenClaw strategy,” he said. “This is the new computer. Post-OpenClaw, post-agentic […] every SaaS company will become an agentic-as-a-service company.”

Security sandbox

Last year, the release of Chinese company DeepSeek’s super-efficient R1 model suggested that big AI might not be the only available future. This year, thanks to the work of a single developer, Steinberger, it’s the turn of agentic AI.

Until recently, the assumption was that this year’s autonomous agents would be chatbot front ends connecting most of the time to cloud platforms such as Microsoft AutoGen, Google Vertex AI, or OpenAI’s Assistants API.

The rapid ascent of OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot and Moltbot) in early 2026 has shown that agentic, or ‘edge,’ AI represents an alternative model in which agentic processing happens on local devices such as PCs.

OpenClaw’s ascent was so rapid that by mid-February, only weeks after it became widely known, Steinberger was hired by OpenAI, and OpenClaw became an internal open-source project.

At the same time, OpenClaw’s security shortcomings were generating plenty of negative headlines, with researchers finding security flaws galore, including ways in which a device running it could be compromised remotely.

NemoClaw’s answer is to isolate OpenClaw using the OpenShell runtime. This contains several security layers, including kernel-level sandboxing and a “privacy router” that monitors OpenClaw’s behavior and communication with other systems. For example, if it detects OpenClaw sending sensitive data somewhere it shouldn’t, it steps in to block the action.

This is central to mitigating the security issues that might otherwise hold back the deployment of OpenClaw, or third-party “claws”, in enterprises. It’s also the layer researchers will doubtlessly soon be poring over for CVE-level weaknesses.

Hardware agnostic

For enterprises wary of lock-in, the first question they will ask is what Nvidia gains from NemoClaw. NemoClaw’s OpenShell is fully open source, an attempt to turn it into the gold standard for agentic claw security.

The underlying hardware is not vendor specific either; NemoClaw is agnostic and will run on any hardware, not just Nvidia’s. However, it is still optimized for the Nvidia-specific technologies such as Nvidia Inference Microservices (NIM), even if it technically works with other microservices.

“Nvidia is doing what Nvidia always does. They are pulling the center of gravity toward their stack,” commented Zahra Timsah, CEO of AI governance platform i-GENTIC AI. “Developers will be attracted to [NemoClaw], not because it is better, but because it is faster on Nvidia hardware and easier if you are already in that ecosystem,” she said.

But it still lacks elements essential for developers: “The missing piece is not tooling. It is control. Real developers building agentic systems want observability, policy enforcement, rollback, and audit trails,” said Timsah.

“For enterprises, this [announcement] makes OpenClaw more usable from an infrastructure standpoint. It helps run agents closer to data,” she observed. “But it does not solve governance, consistency, or cross system reasoning. So, the real question is not ‘Can agents run at the edge?’ It’s ‘Can you trust what they do when no one is watching?’”

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.

Source:: Computer World

Encyclopedia Britannica and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have sued OpenAI, claiming the generative AI (genAI) firm used their encyclopedia and dictionary texts to train AI models such as ChatGPT without permission, according to Reuters.

The lawsuit alleges OpenAI copied nearly 100,000 articles from Britannica’s material and claims ChatGPT can reproduce content almost verbatim, which risks reducing online traffic to their own websites.

Britannica also accused OpenAI of trademark infringement, as the AI responses sometimes reference Britannica in a way that could give the impression the material is being used with permission. The company is now seeking financial compensation and wants the court to stop the alleged use of their material.

OpenAI disputed the allegations and argued that its models are trained on publicly available data that falls under the fair use doctrine. That is the same legal argument other genAI firms have used in the past to fight off similar allegations.

Source:: Computer World

By Krittika Owary Your next training partner could be a robot. Pongbot’s AI training robots for tennis and table tennis are taking solo training to an upgrade with smart tracking and adaptive routines, all while replicating a real competition that will keep athletes match-ready.
The post Solo training is reinvented – PONGBOT’s AI robots will get you match-ready like a 24/7 coach appeared first on Digital Trends.

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By Pranob Mehrotra Spotify is rolling out a redesigned Wear OS app with swipe-based navigation, richer visuals, and quicker access to playback controls.
The post Spotify’s Wear OS overhaul brings cleaner visuals and quicker controls to your wrist appeared first on Digital Trends.

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By Rachit Agarwal OpenAI wants to bring adult content to ChatGPT, but its own safety advisers are not on board. Here’s what’s going on and why the launch keeps getting delayed.
The post ChatGPT’s upcoming erotic chat mode risks exposing millions of kids to adult content appeared first on Digital Trends.

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By Cristian Dina Dozens of executives from European tech scaleups have backed a new venture firm built on the thesis that people who have scaled billion-dollar companies know which founders can do it again. For years, the criticism of European venture capital has been structural: too few firms willing to write large cheques, and too little operational experience […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai OPPO has just taken the covers off its new budget offering, the K14. This year, the…
The post OPPO K14 5G First Look: 7,000mAh Battery, IP69 Rating, and Dimensity 6300 appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Adarsh Verma No matter how much we don’t like and oppose it, personal data is now a commodity….
The post Best Data Broker Removal Services (2026): Which One Really Reduces Your Online Exposure? appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Zander Phelps We are not divided by accident; we are distracted on purpose. The antidote to that manipulation is to reconnect with what makes us human, often through something as simple as play. Spend five minutes scrolling, and you can feel the machinery of social media outrage at work: the pulse of outrage, the invitation to pick […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Callum Turner Artificial intelligence has become a central topic in business strategy discussions, yet many organizations continue to struggle with how to integrate it into everyday operations. Gateway Global AI, a technology company developing voice-first infrastructure, is approaching that challenge from a different angle. According to CTO Jason Trindade, the company focuses on simplifying how businesses deploy […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

The MacBook Neo might be Apple’s most disruptive Mac since the M1 Macs in 2020. For $599, it delivers a true Mac experience and is probably the best affordable laptop you can get — and it’s already coasting atop Amazon’s PC sales charts.

MacBook Neo exists to be a lower-cost machine for domestic, college, or work use. It’s built to handle everyday tasks such as web surfing, email, and word processing, all of which it does well. It is still a Mac, so it can handle more advanced tasks, such as working in iMovie, GarageBand, or even Final Cut Pro. But it will be a little slower than more powerful Macs, and some especially advanced tasks might be beyond its capabilities. (You probably won’t use a Neo for 3D modeling or database analysis, for example; if you want better Macs, Apple sells them too, albeit at higher prices.)

We can’t be purists about this, though. It is, after all, important to recognize that in the real world many people do complex computing tasks on low-spec equipment because they must. That’s why it matters that you can use a MacBook Neo to run advanced apps, too.

It’s also important to recognize that $599 is a big chunk of the money that people can’t necessarily scrape together at any time, so even though the price is right, it matters that the product delivers an experience as good as any other Mac. 

It does.

The MacBook Neo in a nutshell:

Price: $599/$699

Who is it for: Students, families, daily use

Successes: Great value, decent performance, it’s a Mac

Compromises: Limited RAM, mixed USB-C ports, 60GBps memory bandwidth

Big success in a little box

If you’ve always wanted to work with a Mac, but couldn’t justify the expense, need a Mac that doesn’t cost too much for your kids, wants something just to take on vacation, or have a limited budget, the Neo is a pretty good machine that can do almost everything you want. If you want a Mac for more complex, creative tasks — or for anything that regularly needs high-end computational power — this is likely not the system for you.

Remember, Apple managed to reach this low price by equipping the Neo with the same A18 Pro chip (6-core CPU, 5-core GPU) used in the iPhone 16 Pro. The systems include just 8GB RAM of non-upgradeable RAM and either a 256GB or 512GB SSD drive. (I tested the pricier 512GB model which also has a TouchID sensor and goes for $699.) Easy setup and use mean you’ll quickly forget what life was like without it.

This Mac points directly at the heart of the mid-range markets that sustain the PC industry at present — and delivers more power and computational ability at prices they don’t seem able to match.

Out of the box

The MacBook Neo is available in silver, blush, indigo, and citrus; I’ve worked with a silver model (provided by Apple for testing). Encased in recycled aluminium, there’s something about this model that reminds me of older MacBook Pros, which makes it a true tech story of how computing once beyond people’s reach is steadily becoming widely available.

I was immediately taken by a small detail in the internal packaging where the tag you had to pull to open everything up was emblazoned with the word, “Hello.” This was a nice welcome gesture to any new owner, while also hardening back to the first ever Macintosh to make an Apple watcher’s eyes smile. Inside the box you’ll find the Mac, a USB-C cable and, in some markets, a power brick.

Open it up, and the display springs to life, and after a few moments you’ll be set up with your new Mac system and ready to go. Everything is simple and thought out for you, and you shouldn’t encounter friction as you begin your MacBook Neo journey; it uses the same first start- routine Apple has perfected over years of Mac development. I was ready to go inside five minutes, and while it takes a little more time to repopulate all your apps and files, if you use iCloud you can pretty much get started with tasks immediately. 

Performance benchmarks

The big question most people have concerns the processor. That A18 Pro chip driving the Neo isn’t as powerful as the M-series variants inside other Macs, but it delivers plenty of horsepower. The following five benchmarks show where things stand:

M5 Mac: Single-core, 4,227, Multi-core, 17,802, (10 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores).

M4 Mac: Single-core, 3,830, Multi-core, 14,541, (8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores).

MacBook Neo: Single-core, 3, 608 Multi-core, 9,346, (6 CPU cores, 5 GPU cores).

M3 Mac: Single-core, 3,135, Multi-core, 12,042, (8 CPU cores, 10 GPU cores).

M1 Mac: Single-core, 2,386, Multi-core, 10,307, (8 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores).

A17 Pro: Single-core, 2,885, Multi-core, 7,224.

In short: faster than M1 in single-core, slower than M1 in multi-core.

What the numbers mean

It’s important to understand the difference between single- and multi-core tasks to figure out what the n umbers mean. In the simplest terms, single-core performance supports tasks like writing emails, editing documents, surfing the internet; multi-core is, well, it’s everything else, from data modelling to editing images in Pixelmator or iMovie. Those multi-core tasks also like to have multiple cores to work on (the hints in the name), so you’ll obviously have a better experience when conducting those complex tasks on high-end Macs.

Multi-core tasks also like having plenty of RAM, which is limited in this Mac. But don’t let memory or processor limitations fool you, as they don’t mean you can’t run those tasks, it’s just all going to be a little slower. That’s particularly true as memory bandwidth is just 60GBps, which means moving files, folders, or opening up large images will take much longer than you expect from an M5 MacBook Air.

Real-world use

Don’t make the mistake of seeing the processor as a huge compromise on what your Mac can do. The team behind popular professional free database tool, DuckDB, recently purchased a MacBook Neo and tested it against a rented, high-end, $490 per month Amazon cloud machine; they found the Apple laptop to be quite capable of crunching corporate-style data almost as swiftly as the Amazon system. 

I get vibes that tell me Apple could have introduced the MacBook Neo in 2025, powering it up with the A17 Pro chip. On paper, at least, a Mac powered by that processor would have achieved similar performance benchmarks to the M1 MacBook Pro. Apple didn’t do that, introducing instead a much better model with much better specs. 

I happily messed around in creative apps on the Neo and it’s quite capable. If this is the only Mac you have, you’ll still be able to do creative work — and kids, students, and many consumers will have all they need in this machine. 

What about the keyboard?

The Mac has a perfectly good full-size keyboard with keys color-matched to the body of the Mac. If you’ve been using the keyboard on another Mac, your character finger memory will be exactly the same, though you might notice you need to apply a tiny bit more pressure in use. 

Apple did make one compromise. The company is well-known for its backlit Magic Keyboards, but it looks like it decided to sacrifice this feature to hit that $599 price — the Neo’s keyboard is not backlit. The silver lining is that this Mac is perhaps the most repairable laptop Apple has made in a generation, according to iFixIt. 

What about the display and battery life?

At 13 inches, this is the smallest display you’ll find in a current Mac. It’s also among the best displays you’ll find in any laptop or Chromebook in this price range. This is a Liquid Retina display with a 2,408-x-1,506-pixel resolution. It’s a good, bright display, offering up to 500 nits of brightness (brighter than the display used in the M1 MacBook Air), though you don’t get the True Tone and P3 wide color support you find on Apple’s other notebooks.

To be fair, this probably isn’t a problem to those of us who just need a Mac for everyday tasks, though if you use your machine intensively your long-term vision health will want you to invest in that better display. Take a look and you’ll notice a thin strip of rubber running along the underside of the display,

This is a Mac you’ll use. With 16 hours of battery life, that’s enough to get you through a long flight, a day at school or college, or a day working remotely from the coffee shop. That’s good enough, of course – it’s literally the same battery life we used to expect from Intel-based Macs. But if battery life is a dealbreaker for you then a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro will give you more of what you need, at higher cost.

What about cameras and audio?

I imagine quite a lot of MacBook Neo customers will want a system they can use for videoconferencing. There is a slight compromise here, in that Apple has equipped the system with a 1080p HD camera. That’s better than the 720p camera used in M1 MacBook Air, but lacks the 12MP Center Stage camera you’ll find in the current MacBook Air. Personally, I see that as a small cost to pay, unless you really want people to be able to read the titles on your precious book collection ostentatiously situated on the shelf behind you during your Zoom chats.

The other thing you might want to do is watch movies or listen to music. The Neo isn’t intended to deliver the state of the art, amazing audio experience you’ll get in a pro Mac, but it does manage to give you a decent dual-speaker sound experience with support for Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos. These speakers are fine, but their position on either side of the front side of the system means audio might get muffled if you happen to place the Neo on a soft surface, such as a rug on your lap. That’s certainly no deal breaker, however. The systems are compatible with AirPods, Bluetooth speakers, and include a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Everything else

The Neo weighs in at 2.7 pounds. That’s precisely the same weight as the 13-inch MacBook Air, while also being slightly lighter than the M1 MacBook Air. It’s also a little thicker than the MacBook Air, though the one way other people will be able to tell which Mac you are using will be the clearly visible screws on the underside of the system.

There are other compromises I expect Apple made both to hit its target price and to make sure there are still good reasons to purchase its better-featured pro Macs (MacBook Air, MacBook Pro). These include installed memory, the speed of that memory, and the display, along with the fact the Neo only supports Wi-Fi 6E and oddly supports two different forms of USB-C on the two ports, USB-C 3 and USB-C 2.

The first port is the faster and more performant version, offering up to 5Gbps data speeds and fast-charging, while the second provides 480Mbps. It isn’t particularly clear which port is which, and I suspect we’ll see lots of people who might be using dongles to handle peripheral devices such as displays or storage media complain that things stop working. At least, we will until they figure out that the faster port is closes to the hinge, which is also the port you should use to drive displays. You can use either USB-C slot to charge your device, but in general the most used port will be the faster one.

While I understand it in terms of reducing build costs, I don’t like this decision; it seems likely to add friction to to the user experience, particularly among first-time Mac users or people who don’t really care about tech and just want stuff to work.

Buying advice

I really like this Mac, but that’s not unusual since I like most Macs. What I like about this one, however, revolves around price and the fact that what you end up with is a good machine that will do most everything you need it to do pretty well. 

There are compromises which mean that while a Neo could well be part of your workflow, more demanding or users will certainly want higher-end Macs, if only for the faster memory swap speed (essential when using macOS Tahoe). The low built-in memory and the fact you can’t upgrade it will certainly inhibit some purchases, but are unlikely to impact everyday computing tasks. For students, families, and first-timers, the MacBook Neo delivers solid performance at a great price. 

This is not the Mac for professionals, nor is it the Mac for aspirational types seeking tech bro gadget status (though I think many aspirational users will buy it because this is still one of Apple’s most disruptive products for a while).  

Watch the prices

Apple and the rest of the PC industry faces unpredictable supply, demand, and component price increases due to the war in the Middle East. If things continue to unravel, it is likely those pressures will drive PC makers (including Apple) to raise prices.

If that happens — and it may not — Apple could be forced to reluctantly (having finally found a way to make a Mac at this price point) to increase the cost. With that in mind, if the MacBook Neo sounds like the low-cost Apple notebook you’ve been waiting for, you might want to get one sooner rather than later, in case the price climbs.  

Which one should you get? I always say you should get the best Mac you can afford, but when purchasing one of these, I’d choose the $699 model I tested for the additional storage and TouchID support.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Also, now on Mastodon.

Source:: Computer World

A growing number of startup founders are raising concerns about unexpected charges incurred while experimenting with AI models through Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry platform, turning what began as an isolated complaint into a broader debate over billing transparency.

At least 20 participants in the Microsoft for Startups program have signed a Change.org petition calling on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to address what they describe as a “billing trap” inside Azure AI Foundry, arguing that the platform’s interface makes it difficult to distinguish between services covered by startup credits and third-party models that incur direct charges.

“Azure AI Foundry displays both Microsoft-native models (such as Azure OpenAI) and third-party Marketplace models (such as Anthropic Claude) in a completely unified interface — with no visual distinction, no warning, and no confirmation step before charges are incurred,” the petitioners wrote.

The petition, which goes to the extent of claiming that Microsoft had breached the founders’ trust, was drafted by Takyua Tominaga, founder of Tokyo-headquartered startup Leach, who was one of the first to report the billing issue in a detailed blog post.

In the post, Tominaga wrote that he was unaware of any billing for model use until his credit card statement arrived containing a charge of about $1,600 for the use of one of Anthropic’s models.

The founder further wrote that contacting Microsoft support about the issue via the Azure portal was an arduous task, as the portal wouldn’t let him get directly in touch or report the issue.

After he did get through to Azure Support on X via direct message, he was directed to fine print in Microsoft’s documentation that says that startup credits cannot be  used for Microsoft Azure support plans, third-party branded products, products sold through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, or products otherwise sold separately from Microsoft Azure.

When Tominaga pushed further, he wrote that he was offered a partial refund via credits worth $1,000, which he rejected, and was directed to contact Anthropic with any further refund request.

Anthropic responded to Tominaga by saying that it does not have visibility into usage through Microsoft Foundry and was unable to process a refund.

Tominaga is not alone. Riyaj Shaikh, a systems architect at EPAM Systems in Pune, said in a post on X that he had encountered a similar situation, and that attempts to resolve the billing issues appeared to bounce between the two companies, with each pointing to the other as the appropriate party to handle refunds.

In fact, Shaikh, in the same thread, pointed out that Microsoft’s own moderators are not certain about how large language models are billed as part of the Microsoft for Startups program, and pointed to a post on Microsoft Learn’s official Q&A forum.

In response to a question from a forum user, a moderator had confirmed that startup credits could be used for deploying Claude Opus 4-5 via Azure AI Foundry.

The post was later amended to indicate that startup credits don’t apply.

Shaikh said in an email that he and his team have yet to receive any refund, and have instead been bounced back and forth between Anthropic and Microsoft, with each pointing them to the other for resolution.

Bogdan Sevriukov, founder of AI-based workforce training startup Comprenders, confirmed that he, too,  was facing a similar issue over a charge of €999.60 (about $1,147).

Microsoft, which offers up to $150,000 in Azure credits to early-stage ventures through the Microsoft for Startups initiative, did not respond to an email seeking comment on the complaints and asking whether it plans to modify the way third-party AI models are presented and billed within Azure AI Foundry.

The petitioners say that relatively small design changes to Azure AI Foundry’s UI could prevent similar incidents, and are urging Microsoft to introduce clearer labeling, explicit billing warnings, and confirmation prompts before developers deploy third-party models.

These changes, they argue, would help ensure that startups experimenting with AI prototypes do not inadvertently incur unexpected charges and exhaust their budgets.

This article originally appeared on InfoWorld.

Source:: Computer World

By Pranob Mehrotra Apple has launched the AirPods Max 2 with the H2 chip, bringing improved noise cancellation, lossless audio over USB-C, and smarter listening features like Adaptive Audio and Conversation Awareness.
The post AirPods Max 2 arrive with H2 chip, better noise cancellation, and smarter audio features appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Deepti Pathak Instagram verification has become an important feature for creators, influencers, and businesses looking to build trust…
The post How To Get Verified on Instagram in 2026: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Varun Mirchandani ByteDance has reportedly delayed the launch of its viral Seedance 2.0 AI video generator following copyright disputes with Hollywood studios.
The post The hot AI video generator that got everyone talking may now take a while to arrive appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Varun Mirchandani A new Garmin Chat Connector could let users talk to AI assistants like ChatGPT about their fitness data from Garmin Connect.
The post You will soon be able to talk extensively about your Garmin health data with an AI appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends