By Hisan Kidwai The Apple event wrapped up last week, and pre-orders for the iPhone 17 series, which includes…
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Nearly half of full-time US workers (45%) are staying in their current roles because switching jobs right now feels too risky, according to a new report.

Among these “job huggers,” 95% cite concerns about the job market as the main reason for staying put, according to a new survey by online resume creation site Resume Builder.

Resume Builder surveyed 2,221 full-time US workers in August 2025 and found that nearly half (48%) describe the job market as not very good, and 19% believe it’s terrible. About 34% believe it’s just okay, and less than 1% think it’s good.

An evaluation of a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report also showed a significant cooling in technology worker hiring and other jobs. While employers are still hiring, they’re doing so more selectively, focusing on key areas amid uncertainty, BLS data revealed.

The ‘wait and see’ approach in past months has shifted to targeted growth: invest where it counts and hold elsewhere, according to Ger Doyle, North American regional president at global staffing firm ManpowerGroup.

“Still, the broader labor market is cooling. Fewer job openings, softer wage growth, and longer job searches are signs of a slowdown,” he said. “The hiring momentum that kicked off the year has been tempered by uncertainty.”

In August, 247,000 new tech jobs were added across industries, but sector-specific tech firms cut 2,311 roles. The tech unemployment rate nudged up from 2.9% in July to 3%, with 6.9 million employed in core tech roles, according to the nonprofit trade association CompTIA.

One problem with BLS data is that the federal agency has made significant downward revisions to its unemployment data over the past year. Last week, the BLS revealed it overstated hiring by 911,000 jobs for the year ending in March — the biggest preliminary revision since 2000.

Victor Janulaitis, CEO of IT management consulting firm Janco Associates, called into question the validity of BLS data, saying it is “suspect.”

“Adjustments at those levels of magnitude are not acceptable from any organization. It can only be due to poor data capture, poor infrastructure, incompetence, or political gerrymandering,” he said.

Slow hiring and and fear of AI fuel job hugging

A fear of AI is also influencing workers’ decisions to stay put, according to Resume Builder’s study. Seventy-seven percent of job huggers are either very (30%) or somewhat concerned (47%) that AI will make it harder to get a job in the future.

“The combination of a soft job market, economic uncertainty, and the impact of tariffs has slowed hiring, leaving many workers reluctant to make a move,” said Resume Builder’s Chief Career Advisor Stacie Haller. “Added to this is the growing fear that AI could displace jobs.”

Online job search platform Indeed performed its own survey of job seekers and found that 52% indicated tech talent had been reassigned due to AI adoption and only 17% are actively looking for work, down 17% from last year.

Indeed’s survey also found:

26% report tech talent was let go or laid off because of AI.

33% feel they’re not receiving enough training on AI.

35% are concerned that AI may be able to take over their role (that jumps to 38% among Gen Z respondents).

28% believe AI will increase workplace stress.

“Hiring has largely stalled as the labor market remains stagnant. The quits rate — often a signal of workers’ confidence in finding new jobs—has been flat for months. Together, these trends point to a sluggish market despite low unemployment. Employers appear to be holding onto current staff amid uncertainty, but they are not adding new positions. In turn, employees have taken the hint, staying put rather than seeking new opportunities,” said Indeed economist Allison Shrivastava.

Still, it’s hard to pin the slowdown directly on AI, but its impact is clear: coding jobs are shrinking while demand grows for engineers focused on advanced tech and AI innovation, according to Shrivastava. Fading confidence is slowing the labor market: fewer workers are switching jobs, wage growth is weaker, and the post-pandemic boost in worker power has mostly disappeared, according to Shrivastava.

“For most other industries, however, AI has yet to make a significant impact. Fears of replacement are real, but the quits rate was already falling before ChatGPT’s release, and job growth has been weak across most sectors outside healthcare,” Shrivastava said. “In short, even if workers wanted to move, there are fewer opportunities to move to.”

Chris Graham, executive vice president of Workforce and Community Education at National University in San Diego, agreed that AI isn’t eliminating most jobs—”it’s transforming them. While some roles may disappear, many will evolve or emerge. Success depends on how AI is implemented and how well workers adapt through upskilling and continuous learning, he said.

Employees are embracing job security and predictability in light of the current economic uncertainty. Many are asking themselves, “why change the course if everything is okay right now?” Graham said.

“Job hugging is reducing career mobility in the labor market and is encouraging companies to focus on internal development and retention strategies,” Graham said. “As organizations experience higher retention numbers, they are seeing greater value in investing in upskilling and employee engagement to keep their existing employees satisfied.

If conditions were to improve, many would seek out better opportunities, Haller said. More than eight in 10 (84%) of those surveyed said they’d look for better pay, 60% better benefits, and 57% growth opportunities. Additionally, 47% would seek out remote or flexible work, 38% better management, and 23% an improved office culture.

But “in this environment, the need for stability outweighs the desire for higher pay, better benefits, or long-term growth,” Haller said. “For many, it has become less about pursuing opportunities and more about protecting the job they have.”

Despite this caution, over half of workers still browse job listings, and some are applying or interviewing. But most won’t feel ready to switch jobs for at least a year — often longer, according to the survey data.

Korn Ferry, a global firm that helps companies find and recruit top-level executives, also said “job hugging” has increased at “an alarming rate.”

Most employees plan to stay in their jobs for the next six months, according to the Eagle Hill Retention Index, and perceive the job market as treacherous. Their sense of outside opportunities available to them has plummeted to its lowest level since the index began in 2023, according to Korn Ferry. And employees staying put is not necessarily good news.

“Firms run the risk of becoming comfortable perches from which workers can jump when the time’s right,” Matt Bohn, senior client partner at Korn Ferry, said in a blog post.

However, experts say employees staying put isn’t all bad — it can actually help the bottom line. Less pressure to raise salaries and lower turnover means big savings on hiring and training, according to Korn Ferry senior client partner Tom McMullen.

With fewer people jumping ship, companies can invest in growing talent from within and can have a long-tenured workforce and build capacities within it, Korn Ferry said.

 “It’s great to have a long-tenured workforce and build capacities within it,” Korn Ferry said.

Source:: Computer World

By Hisan Kidwai The NYT’s Spelling Bee is a super fun word-hunting game where you have to guess as…
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By Lucas Spreiter Founders’ takes is a new series featuring expert insights from tech leaders transforming industries with artificial intelligence. In this edition, Lucas Spreiter, founder of German startup Venta AI, shares his vision of AI employees. Artificial intelligence is about to enable the most dramatic shift of the century: the transition from human labour to AI labour. In the coming years, businesses won’t just use AI as a tool — they’ll employ AI as real colleagues, handling critical workflows end-to-end. That shift is inevitable. The real question is: whose employees will we be hiring? If Europe doesn’t catch up with the US and…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai Inspired by Wordle, Spotle is a fun puzzle game where, instead of words, you use your…
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By Hisan Kidwai Wordle is the super fun game from the NYT, where you put your vocabulary to the…
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By Hisan Kidwai The NYT’s Spelling Bee is a super fun word-hunting game where you have to guess as…
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By Hisan Kidwai Wordle is the super fun game from the NYT, where you put your vocabulary to the…
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Microsoft released 86 patches this week with updates for Office, Windows, and SQL Server. But there were no zero-days, so there’s no “patch now” recommendation from the Readiness team this month. This is an incredible sign of success for the Microsoft update group. 

To reinforce this fact, we have patches for Microsoft’s browser platform that have (perhaps for the first time) been rated at a much lower “moderate” security rating (as opposed to critical or important). More detail has been added to September’s testing recommendations, given the reduced urgency (and therefore extra time) to deploy this months’ patches. 

To help navigate these changes, Readiness has crafted a helpful infographic detailing the risks of deploying updates to each platform. (More information about recent Patch Tuesday releases is available here.)

Known issues

Microsoft reported an edge case affecting hot patched devices that have the September 2025 Hotpatch update (KB5065306) or the September 2025 security update (KB5065432). These devices might experience failures with PowerShell Direct (PSDirect) connections when the host and guest virtual machines (VMs) are both not fully updated. (Microsoft is investigating the problem.) A major issue with last month’s update caused some of our clients unwarranted UAC prompts on MSI Installer package repair. That’s been resolved now and our testing confirmed thatMSI Installer repairs work as intended. Thank you (Microsoft) for the quick fix.

Major revisions and mitigations

The following revisions to previous Microsoft updates require administrator attention and possibly additional actions on top of this month’s release:

CVE-2025-48807: Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. To comprehensively address this vulnerability, Microsoft released September 2025 security updates for Windows Server 2016, Windows 11, and newer x64-based editions of Windows 10.

CVE-2025-21293: Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability: To comprehensively address CVE-2025-21293, Microsoft has released security update KB5065426 for Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11 systems. Customers who install Microsoft (in-memory) HotPatch updates should install KB5065474 to be protected.

CVE-2025-49734: PowerShell Direct Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. Microsoft updated its “affected products” table, as PowerShell 7.4 and now 7.5 are affected. Additional information can be found in this GitHub posting.

Also, this month Microsoft made two “information only” changes to how two vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-29833 and CVE-2025-29954) were addressed in August.

Windows lifecycle and enforcement updates

Microsoft did not publish any enforcement updates. However, Secure Boot certificates used by most Windows devices will be set to expire by Microsoft starting in June 2026. To avoid disruption, review Microsoft’s guidance and update these certificates in advance. 

Each month, Readiness analyzes the newest Patch Tuesday updates and provides detailed, actionable testing guidance. This guidance is based on assessing a large app portfolio and a comprehensive analysis of the Microsoft patches and their potential impact on Windows platforms and application deployments.

This month’s updates require focused testing across network infrastructure, graphics subsystems, and authentication components. There are significant updates to core networking protocols, DirectX graphics functionality, and Bluetooth connectivity that demand immediate validation. These updates affect both client and server environments, with particular attention needed for organizations using Routing and Remote Access Services (RRAS) and those with complex Bluetooth device management requirements.

Network infrastructure and connectivity

Microsoft updated core network communication components, including socket handling and IPv6 functionality. These low-level network changes can significantly affect enterprise connectivity and require comprehensive validation across different network scenarios:

Send and receive packets over the network using both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols.

Test large file transfers over IPv6 networks to validate performance and stability.

Validate various network traffic conditions, including file transmission, remote desktop connections, and web browsing.

Test messaging applications like Microsoft Teams or Skype with connect/disconnect/reconnect cycles.

Graphics, DirectX and Application Guard

This month sees substantial updates to graphics subsystems and security isolation components that require testing to ensure graphics applications render correctly without screen corruption or performance degradation:

Validate the critical updates for DirectX functionality and Windows Defender Application Guard.

Execute applications and UWP apps that use DirectComposition functionality to ensure there’s no flickering or display anomalies.

Test DirectX API usage on Hyper-V guests with GPU-PV enabled across multi-threaded scenarios.

Validate Windows Defender Application Guard functionality with Office apps and Microsoft Edge.

Authentication and Directory Services

Critical updates to authentication components require thorough testing of domain and workstation authentication scenarios:

Use NTLM and Kerberos protocols to authenticate users on both workstation-joined and domain-joined machines.

Exercise the LogonUserEx API from client applications to ensure programmatic authentication works correctly.

Test secondary logon (RunAs) scenarios across different user contexts.

Validate CredSSP (Credential Security Support Provider) functionality.

Test Active Directory components including Active Directory Certificate Services and LDAP operations.

Bluetooth device management

This month’s updates to Bluetooth require device pairing and management testing that includes:

Simultaneous Device Management: Pair and unpair multiple Bluetooth devices (earbuds, keyboards, speakers) simultaneously viaSwiftPair or Settings to stress-test concurrent operations.

Multiple Adapter Support: Connect both internal and external Bluetooth adapters and test device pairing using each adapter independently.

PIN and Consent Flow: Use Bluetooth keyboards requiring PIN entry, test pairing with correct and incorrect PINs, and verify graceful error handling and retry mechanisms.

Monitor for UI hangs, pairing failures, or stale device entries during intensive Bluetooth operations.

Routing and Remote Access Services (RRAS)

Significant updates to RRAS components require comprehensive testing for organizations using routing and remote access functionality:

Perform configuration and viewing operations using the Routing and Remote Access management console for both local and remote installations.

Test different property pages (DHCP, NAT, RIP, IGMP, and BOOTP) to ensure they display correct information for valid configurations.

Ensure that invalid configurations are handled correctly by showing appropriate error dialogs or preventing access to misconfigured sections.

Exercise remote RRAS server management tasks to ensure remote administration capabilities remain functional.

HTTP services and web infrastructure

Updates to core HTTP handling components require validation of modern web protocols and caching mechanisms:

Enable Branch Cache and configure HTTP server applications to cache responses.

Send HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 requests to validate next-generation protocol support.

Ensure request-response cycles complete without system crashes or bug-checks.

Filesystem and storage operations

Core filesystem components that got patches and updates affecting file operations and virtual disk management will require the following tests:

Use PowerShell’s Mount-DiskImage cmdlet to attach VHD files to NTFS volumes.

Test App Silos functionality with applications that perform filesystem access.

Additional app testing

Privacy and capability management components require testing to ensure user privacy controls work correctly:

Validate that privacy permission changes take effect immediately and persist across system reboot.

Validate VPN connection scenarios across different VPN providers and protocols.

Test applications using XAML UI frameworks including Microsoft Photos and modern UWP applications.

Verify Remote PowerShell functionality using Invoke-Command and New-PSSession cmdlets.

This month’s updates emphasize network reliability, graphics performance and security isolation. Organizations should prioritize testing in network-intensive environments and those with complex authentication requirements. Pay particular attention to Bluetooth device management if your environment relies heavily on wireless peripherals, and ensure RRAS functionality is thoroughly validated before deploying to production routing infrastructure.

Each month, we break down the update cycle into product families (as defined by Microsoft) with the following basic groupings: 

Browsers (Microsoft IE and Edge) 

Microsoft Windows (both desktop and server) 

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server 

Microsoft Developer Tools (Visual Studio and .NET)

Adobe (if you get this far) 

Browsers

Microsoft published five internal updates (rated moderate) to its browser platform and four updates to the Chromium engine CVE-2025-9864, CVE-2025-9865, CVE-2025-9866 and CVE-2025-9867). These low-profile changes can be added to your standard release calendar.

Microsoft Windows

The following areas have been updated with seven critical patches and 29 rated important. The  critical patches update vulnerabilities found in the following features within the Windows platform:

Graphics, Win32 (GRFX) and GDI and Kernel drivers

Windows NTLM authentication

Windows Imaging (Windows sub-system)

Unusually, and given the absence of reports of public disclosure or exploits, the Readiness team recommends a standard release schedule for Windows. There is plenty to test, so use this extra time to our advantage.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft released two critical updates to the Microsoft platform (CVE-2025-54910 and CVE-2025-53799) that address vulnerabilities in Office (not specific to Word or Excel). There are also 15 patches rated important. None of these issues include preview pane attacks and can be added to your standard update release cycle.

Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server

Microsoft published two updates rated important (CVE-2025-47997 and CVE-2024-21907). Neither SQL patch is reported as publicly disclosed or as exploited in the wild. As there are no Microsoft Exchange updates, add these SQL Server patches to your standard server update schedule. It goes without saying that the SQL Server patches will require a reboot.

Developer Tools

There were no updates to Microsoft developer tools and platforms (Visual Studio and Microsoft .NET) this cycle.

Adobe (and third-party updates)

Microsoft released a single update for third-party products. The Newtonsoft vulnerability (CVE-2024-21907) addresses a mishandling of exceptional conditions vulnerability in Newtonsoft.Json before version 13.0.1. Crafted data that is passed to the JsonConvert.DeserializeObject method could trigger a StackOverflow exception, resulting in denial of service. Since there are no Adobe updates from Microsoft this month, I continue to promise to retire this section —maybe.

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak Apple has now opened official pre-orders for the much-awaited iPhone 17 in India from September 12….
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By David von Rosen Startups love hiring big business leaders into advisory and C-suite roles. These hires solve a common issue: as startups grow and look to compete with incumbents, they need some corporate talent to see them over the line.  But big, established businesses have a different common issue. They’re too big, too established, and being outcompeted by the very companies that are hiring their talent.  Right now, it’s the hare and the tortoise — but slow and steady isn’t winning the race this time.  Established businesses need to take a page out of the startup playbook and hire for the C-suite from…This story continues at The Next Web

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By Deepti Pathak OnePlus has just launched AI PlayLab, a brand-new app designed to give users a taste of…
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By Fossbytes Dev Because of IFA 2025, laptops are now lighter, thinner, smarter, and more adaptable than ever before….
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Republican Senator Ted Cruz has introduced a bill that would create a federal “regulatory sandbox” for AI, giving companies the ability to apply for temporary exemptions from certain rules as they develop and test new technologies.

“A regulatory sandbox — a policy mechanism recommended by the AI Action Plan — will give entrepreneurs room to breathe, build, and compete within a defined space bounded by guardrails for safety and accountability,” Cruz said, according to a statement.

If passed, the bill would allow AI users or developers to identify regulations they view as burdensome and request a waiver or modification.

The government could grant such exemptions for up to two years through a written agreement requiring participants to outline how they would mitigate health and consumer risks.

Easing compliance

The proposal comes after repeated calls from major AI firms, including OpenAI, Alphabet’s Google, and Meta, to reduce regulatory barriers that they argue slow down innovation.

Analysts say Cruz’s bill could help alleviate compliance bottlenecks in heavily regulated sectors like healthcare and finance, creating new opportunities for AI adoption.

“By lowering barriers to experimentation, the bill may give US firms a competitive boost, particularly in collaborations with AI implementation partners such as IT services providers,” said Deepak Kumar, founder analyst at B&M NXT. “This could strengthen US enterprises’ global positioning against rivals like China in AI innovation and deployment.”

For CIOs, this could mean ensuring compliance teams are ready to use sandbox exemptions for pilot projects, while still planning ahead to meet sector-specific regulations once the waivers expire.

Challenge of overlapping regulations

States across the US are already advancing their own AI laws, creating what many in the tech industry see as a fragmented regulatory landscape.

California, for instance, has moved to restrict AI-generated or manipulated content in political advertising, particularly during elections. Colorado has passed a law to prevent AI-driven discrimination in employment, housing, and finance, though its rollout has been postponed.

Earlier this year, tech giants, including Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, had backed a moratorium on state-level AI rules. In March, OpenAI had even suggested to “create a sandbox for American start-ups and provide participating companies with liability protections, including preemption from state-based regulations that focus on frontier model security.”

That push lost momentum in July, when the Senate overwhelmingly rejected President Trump’s proposal for a 10-year ban on state AI regulation.

Cruz said in his statement that the proposed framework aims to “prevent a patchwork of burdensome AI regulation, including often-conflicting state AI regulations.” However, there was no mention of plans to override them. “State rules would definitely complicate matters for enterprises even with a federal AI regulatory sandbox in place,” said Keith Prabhu, founder and CEO of Confidis. “Enterprises would still have to navigate them, which could be counterproductive to the sandbox’s goal of encouraging rapid AI innovation.”

Source:: Computer World

By Hisan Kidwai Hunty Zombies is an all-new survival Roblox game, where you have to fight off hordes of…
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By Fossbytes Dev A larger 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR screen with 120 Hz ProMotion and a maximum brightness of…
The post Test – 7 Biggest iPhone 17 Upgrades You’ll Notice on Day One appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Atlassian is shutting down its data center product line and forcing all remaining customers to migrate to the cloud by March 2029, in a move that will affect thousands of enterprises still running the collaboration software on-premises.

The Australian software maker will stop selling new data center subscriptions to new customers by March 30, 2026, and end all data center license sales by March 30, 2028. Existing licenses will expire and become read-only on March 28, 2029, the company said in a statement.

The decision comes as Atlassian pushes harder into AI-powered collaboration tools that it says cannot be delivered effectively through on-premises deployments. With only about 1% of its customer base still on data center products, the company appears ready to sacrifice that remaining segment to focus entirely on cloud revenue.

Atlassian defends strategy as customer-focused

Atlassian said the decision reflects the company’s core philosophy. “The decision to EOL Data Center products is core to Atlassian’s value of ‘Don’t F&#k the Customer’ – something that guides every decision we make,” an Atlassian spokesperson said.

The company cited two key factors driving the timeline: “customer readiness for cloud within the timeframe” and “the value we can provide to customers in the cloud that far outweighs that in a data center.” The spokesperson said the company believes “this is ultimately the right destination for customers,” while acknowledging that “some of our customers are at different stages of this journey.”

When asked about extended support options, the Atlassian spokesperson said the company is “committed to offering extended maintenance for certain Data Center customers by exception after March 28, 2029, ensuring customers have the flexibility and support they need for a successful transformation.” However, the company provided no details about qualification criteria or pricing, with the spokesperson directing concerned customers to “reach out to their Atlassian representative or contact Atlassian online.”

AI features drive cloud-only strategy

Atlassian is betting that enterprise customers will accept the forced migration in exchange for AI capabilities that require cloud infrastructure. The company’s Rovo AI assistant, enterprise-wide search functionality, and what it calls the “Teamwork Graph” for connecting data across applications are all cloud-dependent features.

“By moving to the Atlassian Cloud Platform, our customers will immediately get access to world-class enterprise search, across Atlassian and third-party apps,” the company said in its announcement. Cloud customers can also “bring on Rovo as an AI teammate” and “break data silos that exist in data center products.”

Compressed timeline raises enterprise concerns

Industry analysts question whether the three-year timeline is realistic for large enterprises accustomed to longer technology lifecycles.

“On paper, three years may look workable, but in reality, this is compressed for global enterprises used to five- to seven-year lifecycles,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. “Microsoft and Oracle typically softened such transitions with extended support tails and hybrid options. Atlassian has been more uncompromising.”

Gogia said the strategy reflects operational priorities as much as innovation. “Atlassian no longer wants to split engineering across three delivery models,” he said. “The company’s cloud business is richer in margin, simpler to support, and easier to modernise.”

However, the economics tilt differently for customers. “Average cloud licensing costs 28% higher than data center equivalents, without accounting for add-ons like Atlassian Access,” Gogia said.

Enterprise migration challenges

The forced transition creates particular stress for the most complex customers. Gogia noted that while Atlassian highlights that three-quarters of its most complex accounts are already moving to cloud, “the quarter that remain are precisely those where migration is least feasible.”

These include banks, healthcare providers, defense contractors, and public agencies where compliance and workflow interdependencies make abrupt transitions hazardous. Migration barriers fall into three categories, according to Gogia: technical challenges where complex customizations cannot be lifted and shifted without re-engineering; legal issues surrounding data residency and audit regimes; and organizational constraints related to retraining thousands of staff within a three-year timeframe.

“For many CIOs, the deeper concern is that Atlassian’s corporate calendar, not their regulatory reality, is setting the agenda,” Gogia said.

Competitive implications

The sunset decision carries strategic risks. “Forced transitions rarely create goodwill: they often push CIOs to dust off vendor scorecards and ask whether alternatives might provide better long-term leverage,” Gogia warned.

The timing coincides with intensifying competition from Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, and ServiceNow, all offering bundled ecosystems that combine collaboration, productivity, and development tools. According to Gogia, Amadeus has already signaled this shift by choosing GitHub and ServiceNow rather than following Atlassian to the cloud.

“Atlassian could tighten revenue in the near term, but in the eyes of enterprise buyers, its positioning risks shrinking from platform to tool,” Gogia said.

To address migration challenges, Atlassian has built support programs scaled to customer size, offering self-service tools for smaller organizations and white-glove “Solution Design Acceleration” for the largest enterprises, the statement added. The company is also offering special consideration for Bitbucket customers with dual licensing options. The success of Atlassian’s strategy will depend on whether promised AI capabilities and operational benefits justify the disruption and costs of mandatory migration for enterprise customers who have resisted moving to the cloud.

More Atlassian news:

Atlassian moves toward bundling on collaboration tools

Atlassian gathers its apps into collections to bolster productivity

Atlassian Rovo brings AI smarts to enterprise search

Source:: Computer World

Microsoft is reportedly preparing to integrate Anthropic’s AI models into Office 365, marking a shift from its longstanding reliance on OpenAI technology.

The addition would bring Anthropic’s capabilities into productivity tools such as Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, expanding the range of AI options available to customers, according to a report from The Information.

The move reflects Microsoft’s broader strategy of diversifying its AI stack. Alongside its multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI, the company is building its own models and incorporating offerings from other providers, including DeepSeek, on the Azure cloud.

The report added that developers testing AI features for Office 365 found that Anthropic’s models outperformed OpenAI in certain areas, including automating financial tasks in Excel and creating presentation-ready slides in PowerPoint from user prompts.

To gain access to Anthropic’s technology, Microsoft will reportedly work through Amazon Web Services, which holds a major stake in Anthropic.

The shift underscores a broader move toward multi-vendor strategies in AI, echoing the path enterprises took with cloud computing. The risk of being locked into one vendor is a concern that could influence how companies evaluate and deploy AI in critical applications.

AI choices, costs, and control

Analysts say Microsoft’s plan is notable for enterprises, as Anthropic’s Claude is emerging as a premium offering, particularly in software development.

“LLM API prices are falling generation on generation across most model families of comparable size, but Anthropic has been able to command substantially higher prices for Claude APIs, and especially for Claude Code,” said Alexander Harrowell, principal analyst for advanced computing at Omdia.

Excel already supports programming through formulas, VBA, and, more recently, Python via an external cloud service. Microsoft’s plan may even involve Claude Code generating Python scripts that are then executed in Excel’s Python environment, Harrowell added.

For enterprises, the larger implication is choice. By blending multiple models, Microsoft reduces reliance on a single provider while giving customers the ability to match tools to specific tasks.

“For enterprises, this confirms they need not depend on a single model,” said Pareekh Jain, CEO at Pareekh Consulting. “Just like they embraced multi-cloud strategies to avoid lock-in, they will increasingly adopt multi-model AI strategies. Competitors like Google and Oracle may also take this route, competing in some layers while cooperating in others.”

AI supply chains across rivals

Microsoft will reportedly pay AWS to access Anthropic’s models, a move that may be invisible to end users but carries implications for cost and infrastructure strategy.

“The downside, of course, is the margin stacking that results,” Harrowell said. “AWS is not the cheapest LLM API provider, and their margin is layered on top of Anthropic’s. Microsoft will want to bring it on-platform as soon as they understand it and have the capacity. They seem to be buying capacity in every direction at the moment, with the deal with Nebius possibly reflecting delays in the Maia AI-ASICs.”

This means that delays in Microsoft’s Maia AI-ASICs, which underpin Azure’s AI capacity, may be forcing the company to rely on AWS to run Anthropic’s models.

However, this kind of cooperation between competitors is not unusual for the tech sector, according to Sharath Srinivasamurthy, research vice president at IDC. For instance, Apple sources display panels from Samsung despite being direct competitors in the smartphone market.

“Cross-license patents, sharing of supply chains, and integrating each other’s services are common in the industry,” Srinivasamurthy said. “These examples [of the likes of Apple and Samsung] highlight how competitive interdependencies have long existed in the tech industry, supported by well-defined commercial and legal frameworks.”

Such arrangements underline a reality that carries direct implications for enterprises. “For CIOs, this signals both a hedge against single-partner risk and an acknowledgment that no one provider can meet the full spectrum of enterprise AI needs,” said Ishi Thakur, analyst at Everest Group.

Source:: Computer World

By Vivian Acquah Startup wisdom is a new TNW series offering practical lessons from experts who’ve helped build great companies. This week, Vivian Acquah, a certified inclusion strategist, workshop facilitator, and founder of Amplify DEI, shares her tips on ending meeting hangovers. So, you’re a leader. Your leadership involves managing a team while having both a defined direction and multiple essential goals that need completion. Your goal is to plan effectively and empower your team to achieve high performance. The truth is that team leadership extends beyond goal achievement. Leaders must handle the complex interpersonal situations that emerge when working with people. The speed…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

“Design has always been fundamental to who we are and what we do,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Tuesday, offering a short summary of the products soon to come: new AirPods, updated Apple Watch, and, of course, iPhones. In truth, design was indeed a primary theme across Apple’s 2025 fall launch, which featured multiple voiceovers provided by the company’s design teams.

Most of the pre-event speculation turned out to be correct. Apple fans were treated to the astonishingly thin iPhone Air; AirPods Pro with health features and live translation; and 5G across the much-revised Apple Watch range. 

In the background

iPhones remained the star of the event, with a new camera design (the so-called “forged plateau”), a slew of new process technologies, a wave of Apple Silicon — including the seriously impressive A19 chips, and a new pricing scale. But what Apple has really achieved is to further differentiate the products it offers, which should both boost each individual model while also opening new opportunities to make each one of its smartphones even more unique and diversified in future.

What the iPhone range costs

Price matters, particularly as Apple fights its competitors while also handling the fallout from tariffs and a political will to turn away from China. With that in mind, the company has done incredibly well. 

It is also worth noting the extent to which Apple spoke up for some of the advanced materials and manufacturing processes it introduced; those must be seen as signs of what’s to come as the company continues to work toward building up its US business by focusing on building things that cannot be made elsewhere. Apple achieved a great deal during the keynote when measured by that subtext.

As to price: The iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17 Pro all now start with 256GB of storage, making them even more performant and certainly tuned up enough to handle the next generation of generative AI tasks. The starting prices across the range become:

iPhone 16e: $599.

iPhone 17: $799.

iPhone Air: $999.

iPhone 17 Pro: $1,099.

iPhone 17 Pro Max: $1,199.

There’s more information about the new phones below, but first let’s take a quick glance at what else the company unveiled.

AirPods Pro 3, the next generation

Introduced by a short ad that nodded in a big way toward the insanely successful ‘Silhouette’ series of iPod ads (remember them?), Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3 bring in far more effective noise cancellation, health features, and a Live Translation feature that really should make these things indispensable for anyone handling multilingual meetings. Live Translation in AirPods will translate every word you hear, with the ANC reducing the volume of what the person says so you can hear the translation. Two or more users can communicate in multipole languages thanks to this. 

The new acoustic architecture also delivers a better audio response, with a wider sound stage and vocal clarity. Active Noise Cancellation is now twice as good as before and four times more effective than the first-generation version.

There’s more for fitness, too. As well as being more sweat-resistant, the company also introduced heart rate sensors during fitness sessions; it all works with on-device AI to track heart rate, calories, step counts and more. Despite doing so much more, you can expect six- to eight-hours of battery life on a single charge. Price remains unchanged at $249; preorder today for deliver beginning Sept. 19.

Apple Watch gets heart health and 5G

Accompanied by the now customary but nevertheless remarkable customer stories explaining how using the Watch literally saved their lives, the new Apple Watch range features 5G support. 

Many improvements feature in the Apple Watch Series 11 (starting at $399), including use of new materials science to make the device even more resilient than before. It has a new S10 chip for an always-on display and gesture controls and provides a comprehensive collection of new health features, including new heart health and sleep tools. Available in 150 countries this month, the big heart health improvement is a tool to track high blood pressure/hypertension; the watch uses AI to identify patterns of hypertension, based on an extensive research study. There’s also 5G cellular connectivity, more durable glass, and the watch charges twice as fast as before.

The 5G Apple Watch SE3 ($249) uses theS10 chip, boasts an always-on display, and gesture control through double tap. It adds wrist temperatures sensing and includes a small speaker for music or podcast playback when you leave your Bluetooth headphones behind. It also charges twice as fast as before.

Then we come to Apple Watch Ultra, the $799 aspirational model much beloved by athletes, action heroes, and those who want to look like they might be one of those people. With thinner borders for more display space and a brighter screen, this model offers all of the improvements carried by the other products in the new range but adds a noteworthy 42 hours of battery life. You also get satellite connectivity for Emergency SOS, Messages via Satellite, and Find My.

Four new iPhones, a variety of new technologies

The technologies Apple has wrapped inside this year’s phones include:

The Forged Plateau

Gone is the traditional camera bump on iPhones. It has been replaced by the forged plateau, a highly designed and highly tooled solution that has been created to hold some of the most significant components, leaving room for even more battery. The antennas are integrated around the perimeter for the highest-performing antenna system. 

Ceramic Shield

Apple’s latest display innovation is Ceramic Shield 2 glass with 3× better scratch resistance and reduced glare. It makes the phones it is used in more resilient and capable of handling most of what you may throw at them.

The A19 and A19 pro chips

The 3nm A19 chip delivers:

A 16-core Neural engine for power efficient AI

A 6-core CPU

A 5-core GPU

The 3nm A19 Pro, boosted by Apple’s vapor chamber, provides:

A 16-core Neural engine for power efficient AI

A 6-core CPU

A 6-core GPU.

The Pro chip promises “MacBook Pro level performance on a smartphone,” according to Apple.

iPhone 17 — the basics

Equipped with that A19 chip, the 6.3-in. Super Retina XDR display on iPhone 17 has an adaptive refresh rate of 120Hz. It boasts the Ceramic Shield and a new N1 wireless chip, with support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread. It’s also eSIM-only in some markets.

iPhone users took over 500 billion selfies last year, so Apple has improved the front camera in the iPhone with a much larger, square sensor. The rear camera system has a 48 MP Fusion Main camera with an integrated optical-quality 2× Telephoto — essentially two cameras in one. It also has a 48 MP Fusion Ultra-Wide camera, offering up to 4× the resolution of the previous generation, ideal for wide-angle and macro shots. Expect all-day battery life with up to 30 hours of video playback and the capacity to charge the device to 50% in 20 minutes using an optional 40W power adaptor. 

As expected, Apple has raised the entry level storage to 256GB. Available in black, lavender, mist blue, sage and white, the iPhone 17 can be pre-ordered on Sept. 12 and will be available a week later. In a rare historical comparison, no doubt designed to accelerate upgrades a little, Apple says this phone is twice as fast as an iPhone 13.

iPhone Air in brief

Replacing the iPhone Plus, the iPhone Air is a great illustration of the extent to which Apple’s work on processor technology has allowed it to push new design boundaries; the thinnest iPhone ever is crafted using space-grade titanium for durability. Powered by the A19 Pro chip, the Air also uses Apple’s N1 processor, which means Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thread are supported.

It features a 6.5-in. ProMotion display with 120 Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, matching the brightness of the iPhone 17. It’s highly resilient – Apple says it exceeds its bend-strength requirements” and calls it “more-durable” than any previous iPhone. The dual rear camera has a 48MP main sensor and 12MP telephoto lens. You also get the 18MP Center Stage front camera introduced with iPhone 17.

With a device so thin, you might expect very limited battery life. That’s not the case, as despite the size, Apple says you’ll get a full day on a single charge. (And it sells an equally thin $99 battery pack if you want a little more.) Available in five colors, prices start at $999 for the 256 GB model; the iPhone Air is eSIM-only and ships Sept. 19.

iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max

Introducing the Pro devices, Apple said the focus was to redefine the pro range through performance, usability, and capability. MacBook Pro performance in a device you can pop in your pocket suggests Apple achieved all three targets. But one aspect of the design is likely to generate the most interest: the new cooling system.

That’s because the Pro range gets the vapors — an Apple-designed vapor chamber to enhance heat dissipation and performance. Deionized water is sealed inside the vapor chamber, which then moves heat away from the powerful A19 Pro chip, allowing it to operate at even higher performance levels. The heat is carried into the forged aluminium unibody, where it is distributed evenly through the system. You end up with a device that is extremely powerful and cool to the touch.

We’ll wait to find out what these promises mean in real life, but Apple did say the new Pro phones offer 40% better sustained performance than iPhone 16 Pro. And the company made a particular point of mentioning how this makes these smartphones champions for AI.

Other specifications: the 6.3-in. (Pro) and 6.9-in. (Pro Max) have always-on Super Retina XDR displays, providing ProMotion up to 120 Hz, 3,000 nits peak brightness, and twice the outdoor contrast. You do, of course, get Apple’s N1 chip, and triple 48 MP Fusion rear cameras: Main, Ultra-Wide, and an all-new Telephoto lens, for up to 8× optical-quality zoom (4× at 100 mm, 8× at 200 mm). These will take fantastic photos and videos. (You also get ProRes RAW for video, so there’s that.) The 18MP front camera delivers the same benefits also offered in the iPhone 17.

There are many reasons to believe these models will maintain the model’s track record of being the most popular iPhone sold, even with the arrival of the iPhone Air. These models also promise the longest battery life in any iPhone — up to 39 hours of video.

So were iPhone users wowed? I believe so.

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Source:: Computer World