By Deepti Pathak ASUS has expanded its AI PC lineup in India with the launch of new Zenbook and…
The post ASUS Launches New Zenbook and Vivobook AI PCs in India With Ryzen AI Processors appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

More than 1,000 Google employees have signed an open letter urging the company to sever its business ties with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), according to CNBC.

In the letter, the employees condemn what they describe as escalating violence linked to federal immigration operations and refer to several high-profile deaths in the US. They write that they are concerned about how the company’s technology can be used by authorities. According to the letter, Google Cloud is used in connection with CBP’s surveillance system, and the company’s technology supports solutions used by ICE.

The employees demanded that management disclose all contracts and collaborations with the authorities and terminate them. In addition, the signatories want an internal information meeting about the company’s agreements with the US Department of Homeland Security and military actors. They also call for concrete protective measures for employees, including expanded opportunities for remote work and support in immigration matters.

Google did not immediately comment on the letter.

Source:: Computer World

By Shikhar Mehrotra A leak reveals Sony WF-1000XM6 earbuds with a faster QN3e chip, improved ANC, new drivers, spatial audio, and LE Audio, ahead of their February 2026 launch.
The post Sony leak hypes improved noise cancellation in the upcoming WF-1000XM6 earbuds appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

While competitors face increasing component coats and shrinking demand, Apple’s spring 2026 collection seemingly strikes a far more optimistic note. Apple is broadening its market, while others contract, and right now appears focused on delivering faster, better products at mid-range prices.

The company is on the cusp of introducing new Macs, tablets, and smartphones aimed directly at the market segment its competitors dominate, capitalizing on their woes by applying additional pricing pressure. All these devices will run all the artificial intelligence you want them to run, while remaining resolutely the systems that already lead in any user satisfaction survey you want to name. 

What’s coming?

Most of what Apple has planned has already been discussed; those plans include the first iteration of much improved Siri and Apple Intelligence services, supported by the tactical partnership with Google Gemini. And also:

The iPhone 17e: Replacing the iPhone 16e, the $599 smartphone will carry an A19 chip along with Apple’s own networking and 5G chips. It will boast the same 6.1-in. display and 48 megapixel camera as the current model and will have MagSafe support. Given the positive reception to the base iPhone 17, the budget-friendly model should be popular as it delivers a lot of phone for the price. It’s expected to appear later this month.

A new entry-level iPad equipped with the A18 chip — and an M4-powered iPad Air. This brings AI to the entry-level model for the first time; both will be available as an optional 5G-capable device thanks to Apple’s own 5G chip. 

Pro Macs: Apple isn’t just about the mid-range; it’s about to apply pressure at the high-end, too, with new MacBook Pro models equipped with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. These are expected to instantly bump Apple’s existing M5 MacBook to third place in the processor performance charts, which Apple now dominates in this price range. 

And another thing

What do you do when you sell the best PCs for most people’s needs? You work toward making those solutions available to even more people, and Apple has a plan to do just that coming down the pipe with its low-cost A-series MacBook model. 

Scheduled for later this year, the latter will deliver so much value for its price that it will put even more pressure on competitors in the mid-range. It will effectively be the ultimate mass-market AI PC — even as big competitors such as Dell quietly withdraw from promoting their products on the back of that emerging market.

Apple is also future proof, because as well as running its own AI solutions, its hardware can also support third-party services, including running AI services on device.

What happens next?

Apple is extending its reach across a much broader market than ever before. It’s doing so through a highly focused strategy of vertical integration, expanding its space across the supply chain through a pricing push enabled by its strategic investments in proprietary component manufacturing innovation.

The company’s decision to focus on making its own high-value processors and other silicon chips inside its hardware has enabled it to scale down costs, letting it reach for mid-priced markets while still offering products worthy of its name. So, while competitors must feed an array of high-value component suppliers (as well as themselves), Apple feeds a smaller number of mouths, replacing some of the most valuable pieces with its own proprietary designs now made on its behalf by contract manufacturers. 

This focus gives Apple far more business flexibility, particularly in current market conditions where component costs reach for the skies. Apple might have to pay more to its manufacturing partners, but other vendors must also pay more for those high-value chips.

Along with the popularity and reputation Apple has already built, its ability to broaden its market by tight control of manufacturing gives the company a brand-new economic advantage, something its looming mid-range product launches show the company is willing to exploit.

Whether through accident, design, or simple serendipity, the work Apple has been doing on silicon and supply chain management across the last 10 years means it now sits in the cat bird seat as the PC industry enters what seem to be “interesting times.” When it comes to the mid-range, Apple is ready to take a bite.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Source:: Computer World

By Paulo Vargas Moto Buds 2 Plus just surfaced in leaked renders, thanks to leaker Evan Blass on X. The images show the earbuds, a reworked charging case, and two finishes, and they also point to Bose handling sound tuning again. The buds themselves look like a familiar stem-style design, so the case is where the leak gets […] The post Moto Buds 2 Plus leak brings Bose back appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Ana-Maria Stanciuc The European Union has formally inaugurated NanoIC, a semiconductor pilot line backed by a €700 million investment under the European Chips Act. The facility aims to accelerate the development of advanced chip technologies and strengthen Europe’s position in the global semiconductor landscape. Situated at the research hub imec in Leuven, NanoIC is designed as an open pilot line where companies, research institutes, and startups can prototype and test cutting-edge components before commercial deployment. Unlike traditional closed fabs, the facility offers access to beyond-2-nanometre system-on-chip (SoC) technologies, early-stage process design kits, and advanced toolsets that bridge the gap between laboratory research…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Deepti Pathak OPPO has just expanded it’s Reno 15-series lineup with the all-new Reno 15C. With it, the…
The post OPPO Reno 15C Now Available in India: Price, Offers, and Key Specs appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Ana-Maria Stanciuc Everyone knows Super Bowl commercials are expensive, bombastic, and designed to be talked about. What we didn’texpect was an AI startup using the biggest ad stage of the year to throw shade at a rival’s advertising strategy. That’s exactly what Anthropic has done. The company bought Super Bowl airtime to broadcast a simple message: “Ads are coming to AI, but not to Claude.” Its ads depict a chatbot spitting product pitches mid-conversation, ending with a clear contrast to its own ad-free promise. Even ads these days aren’t what they used to be. Video: Can I get a six pack quickly?, uploaded…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

It’s for real this time: After nearly 20 years, there will soon be no more Exchange Web Services (EWS) in Microsoft Exchange Online.

The API will be disabled by default on October 1, 2026, and will be completely shut down on April 1, 2027, with “no exceptions.” Organizations must have switched to Microsoft Graph by then. However, admins can give themselves a little more wiggle room if they change a configure setting and create allow lists in EWS — but they must do so by the end of August 2026, or they’ll lose access to EWS on the cutoff date.

It’s important to note that this retirement process only applies to Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online. EWS will continue to function as usual in on-premises Exchange Server environments.

“Microsoft wants everyone to use Graph, which is better for them, and theoretically for you,” said Jeremy Roberts, senior director for research and content at Info-Tech Research Group.

EWS “has been on the chopping block for ages,” he noted. “They announced that it would get no feature updates in 2018, so the writing really should have been on the wall a long time ago.”

A phased disablement plan

EWS is a legacy cross-platform API for app development that provides access to mailbox items such as email addresses, contacts, and calendars in Exchange Online and post-2007 on-premises versions of Exchange Server. It’s popular with system integrators connecting to in-house apps like Outlook, as well as with third parties.

The API has been deprecated for nearly a decade and has received no functionality updates for eight years. Microsoft announced its retirement in 2023, warning that it would be fully disabled in Exchange Online in October 2026. It further confirmed in 2025 that Microsoft 365 and Office 365 F1 and F2 license types would be prevented from using EWS beginning March 1, 2026.

The tech giant calls this final retirement process a “phased, admin controllable disablement plan.”

“EWS was built nearly 20 years ago, and while it served the ecosystem well, it no longer aligns with today’s security, scale, or reliability requirements,” Microsoft notes.

In its stead, users must switch to Microsoft Graph, an API platform that allows developers to integrate with critical Microsoft products like Microsoft 365, Windows, and Azure. It also supports connectivity between Windows and other platforms like iOS and Android. Graph was released in November 2015 as Office 365 Unified API.

Microsoft says Graph has reached “near-complete feature parity” for the “vast majority” of EWS use cases. The company’s own apps have been migrated to the API or are “nearing completion,” and many third-party vendors have made the switch or are “actively doing so.”

“Retiring EWS lets us reduce legacy surface area, simplify platform behavior, and deliver a more consistent, modern experience for everyone,” Microsoft notes.

To “focus minds” on EWS’ retirement, the company may perform “temporary scream tests,” a late-stage decommissioning technique where systems are briefly turned off to “expose hidden dependencies” and see if any users report issues or make complaints.

The company says it will also keep admins informed via Message Center notifications on a monthly basis, providing “tenant-specific” reminders and usage summaries.

Still using EWS in Microsoft Exchange? Take action now

So what should admins do now? “Ideally, nothing,” said Info-Tech’s Roberts, as they should have already moved over to Graph.

However, those who use third-party services or have built in-house email integrations that rely on EWS will have to migrate, he noted, adding, “you could experience some disruption.”

This is a good reminder that cloud services are managed at scale for the benefit of the provider, Roberts said, and this is part of Microsoft’s push to eliminate technical debt. “In this case, eight years is a long time,” he said. “Sysadmins should pay attention, understand where vendors are going, and mitigate with proactive updates.”

Microsoft’s plan is to disable EWS tenant-by-tenant using the EWSEnabled property, a setting in Exchange Online that essentially works as an on-off switch to control access to EWS. The property supports three values: “true” (access allowed), “false” (access denied), and “null” (the default setting today). On October 1, 2026, null values will automatically change to false, meaning EWS will be blocked for all apps.

“If you want to keep EWS blocked, you can simply leave it that way,” Microsoft explains.

However, those still requiring access to EWS can re-enable the service by setting EWSEnabled to “true” and creating AppID allow lists, a new feature set to arrive in “early 2026” that will only allow specified apps to access EWS. These tasks must be completed by the end of August 2026 if the tenant wishes to be excluded from the automatic October 1 EWS block.

Beginning in September, Microsoft says it will pre-populate allow lists for customers who have not created their own, based on each tenant’s usage patterns. On October 1, if EWSEnabled has not been set to “true,” EWS will be blocked for all apps.

Admins will still be able to toggle EWSEnabled  to “true” at this point, “but note that there will be a service interruption in this case,” Microsoft warns.

Alternatively, customers can toggle EWSEnabled back to null via Exchange Online PowerShell. Allow lists will essentially be ignored with this setting, and there will be no EWS restrictions until the final deprecation in 2027. Then, regardless of the setting, EWS will cease to function.

This is really the end, Microsoft emphasizes. Customers are advised to evaluate their environment, talk with application owners, and plan their move to Microsoft Graph. “Early action avoids last‑minute surprises and gives you the smoothest possible transition path,” the company says.

Source:: Computer World

UiPath has acquired agentic AI developer WorkFusion to expand and strengthen its portfolio of AI-powered industry solutions.

The deal will add WorkFusion’s offerings to UiPath’s portfolio of products for the financial services and banking industries. By using WorkFusion’s pre-built library of AI agents, UiPath said, customers will be able save time on the most labor-intensive aspects of financial crime prevention.

In its announcement, UiPath said the acquired software would be coupled with its agentic automation and orchestration platform, to help automate intricate workflows and analyze complex patterns. UiPath has a long history in business process automation, working in the field before the arrival of agentic AI.

“Financial institutions need intelligent solutions to combat sophisticated financial crimes and navigate evolving compliance requirements,” said Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath.

The addition of WorkFusion’s purpose-built AI agents to the UiPath platform, he said, “expands our portfolio of agentic AI solutions for these industries, extending our ability to deliver comprehensive business orchestration and automation solutions to our customers. We’re delivering a powerful set of AI-powered solutions capable of automating and orchestrating critical compliance processes and workflows while working alongside people to deliver impact.”

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.

Source:: Computer World

By Ana-Maria Stanciuc UiPath, the Romanian unicorn, has agreed to buy WorkFusion, bringing a specialist in AI agents for financial-crime compliance into its fold as part of a broader push into agentic automation for the banking sector. The deal closed in UiPath’s first quarter of fiscal 2027; financial terms were not disclosed. WorkFusion’s software focuses on repetitive and resource-intensive parts of compliance work, from customer screening and anti-money-laundering (AML) checks to know-your-customer (KYC) investigations. “Financial institutions need intelligent solutions to combat sophisticated financial crimes and navigate evolving compliance requirements,” said Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath. Those capabilities now sit alongside UiPath’s existing automation…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Pranob Mehrotra SpaceX is reportedly exploring a mobile device that would tap directly into its Starlink satellite network, but Elon Musk has denied the plans.
The post SpaceX may be exploring a Starlink phone, though Elon Musk says otherwise appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Ana-Maria Stanciuc It is just the beginning of 2026, and things are happening even faster than last year. Not only in technology, but also in regulations, laws, and in how we deal with all the information around us. As a person born in the 90s, social media was once an unknown land for me, a place that felt genuine in the beginning. It still had dangers, but it seemed less risky, or maybe our parents’ rules were stricter. I don’t want to go down the psychological path here, but I want to look at where we are headed with so much risk,…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Paulo Vargas AirTag 2 can still be turned into a quieter tracker in minutes, leaving its most obvious anti-stalking warning easier to bypass than many buyers would expect.
The post If you buy AirTag 2, your biggest safety feature is still easy to bypass appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Omair Khaliq Sultan Smart glasses are finally moving past the “cool demo, never used” phase. The best versions are the ones that fit into normal life: you put them on, you get hands-free audio, you can grab quick photos or video without pulling out your phone, and you move on. The Oakley Meta HSTN smart AI glasses are […] The post Smart glasses that feel wearable all day get a $70 price drop appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

Less than a week after Anthropic released 11 open-source plugins that enable Claude Cowork to execute a series of automated processes in areas ranging from customer support to IT operations, OpenAI responded Thursday with a similar platform it calls Frontier.  

It said that its offering “gives agents the same skills people need to succeed at work: shared context, onboarding, hands-on learning with feedback and clear permissions and boundaries. That’s how teams move beyond isolated use cases to AI coworkers that work across the business.”

Frontier works with existing systems, the announcement said, allowing customers to integrate their applications using open standards, which takes away the need to replatform. The new AI coworkers are accessible through “any interface, not trapped behind a single UI or application.”

It added that a number of existing customers, including Cisco, T-Mobile, and Argentinian financial institution BBVA are piloting Frontier, and HP, Intuit, State Farm, Thermo Fisher, and Uber are early adopters.

Frontier viewed as a logical next step

Jason Andersen, VP and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said he is not surprised at the mainstream world’s excitement about Anthropic and OpenAI entering the space, noting, “they have already shown themselves to be disruptors and are now positioning themselves more directly in the SaaS and enterprise productivity space.”

The problem, he said, is that many of the platforms that the AI pure plays are trying to disrupt have embedded similar agentic technologies, so customers have already been exposed to toolsets like these in Microsoft Office, SAP, Slack, and other products that also offer integration and out of the box agents. He wondered what OpenAI and Anthropic can offer to displace incumbents that already have similar products.

He pointed out that the real question all of these incumbents, and the AI vendors, will need to ask themselves if they want to remain relevant in the future is how they will not only augment, but also leverage agents to transform the customer value proposition.

Thomas Randall, a research director at Info-Tech Research Group, said that OpenAI still remains the most popular model provider for enterprise AI deployments, and Frontier is the logical next step in ensuring its models can integrate across enterprise tools and management.

However, he pointed out, “this step is not market-leading, and OpenAI is starting to lose some of its first-mover advantage.” He noted that OpenAI’s competitors, such as Anthropic, have been much more proactive with agentic automation across business workflows; Anthropic’s Claude has especially gained traction among developers.

“Moreover,” he said, “large SaaS platforms that touch multiple departments in an organization, such as ServiceNow and Salesforce, are embedding their [own] AI agents across these integrated workflows, too — from supply chain to sales.”

He noted, “the question for enterprises will be: which provider will become your standardized orchestration platform for AI workflows? Will it be OpenAI? Or, more likely, will it be a platform such as ServiceNow, which may leverage OpenAI models but already forms the backbone of much of the enterprise technology stack?”

Arun Chandrasekaran, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, observed that OpenAI’s Frontier AI platform signifies an increased focus on enterprise clients. “The vendor wants to expand its footprint beyond models and ChatGPT and become a platform for architecting, orchestrating and governing AI and agents,” he said, pointing out that the most immediate benefit for AI leaders is quicker time to value for organizations already invested in OpenAI’s products. However, “this is predicated on OpenAI delivering a cohesive AI platform with robust governance controls and deep integration into enterprise workflows.”

There are risks in making a large platform bet on OpenAI, he added, including outsized dependency on a single strategic supplier in a fast-changing AI landscape, and significant upfront investment with uncertain payoff.

A place for both platforms in the enterprise

However, Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, sees a place for both OpenAI Frontier and Claude Cowork in the enterprise: “They’re not variations of a single idea. These are two fundamentally different products solving completely different problems inside the enterprise.”

Frontier, he said, “is all about orchestration. Think of it as the control layer, the connective tissue that makes a fleet of AI agents usable, governable and, most importantly, dependable. It gives these agents structure. They’re not just tools; each agent has identity, purpose, permissions, and memory. Everything is logged, measured, and controlled. That’s how you go from pilots to production at scale.”

Claude Cowork is different, said Gogia. He described it as “a doer. It’s local, fast, and self-contained. It acts like a highly skilled junior team member that can take on end-to-end work when equipped with the right plugins. Those plugins give it role-specific intelligence. … But Cowork operates in a silo. Each instance runs on its own; there’s no shared state, no centralized policy, and no cross-agent awareness. That’s fine at small scale, but it gets messy fast when you try to run 20 or 50 of them across an organization”

Therefore, he said, the two platforms are not in conflict, they’re complementary. “Cowork handles task-level automation. Frontier handles coordination, governance, and scale. … Deploying them together is where the real power lies.”

He said he views Frontier as a signal of real change in enterprise AI: “[It] is OpenAI stepping squarely into the enterprise infrastructure world. It’s a platform to run and manage AI across your business the way you run and manage applications or services.”

That platform, said Gogia, “addresses a real bottleneck we’ve been watching for the past year. Enterprises aren’t struggling with AI models. They’re struggling with deploying agents reliably, safely, and consistently. Everyone’s got an AI pilot somewhere, but few can say those agents are integrated into the business. That’s the velocity gap — and Frontier is meant to close it.”

Source:: Computer World

By Omair Khaliq Sultan The best earbud deals aren’t just cheap, they’re “why is this so fully loaded?” cheap. That’s the vibe here. Nothing Ear (a) is currently $58.99, down from $109.00 for a 46% discount, and it’s marked as a limited-time deal. For anyone who wants modern features like active noise cancelling, long battery life, and the ability […] The post This limited-time price drop makes Nothing Ear (a) a standout value appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

Many companies and organizations have in recent years cut back on the number of employees dedicated to support issues, believing that AI solutions can handle this task for more efficiently.

But Gartner Research is now saying demand for support from real people is likely to increase as early as next year — because customers prefer talking with humans.

“AI is simply not mature enough to completely replace the expertise, empathy, and judgment that humans offer,” said Emily Potosky of Gartner in a statement. “Relying solely on AI at this point is premature and could lead to unintended consequences.”

Gartner expects that half of the companies that have invested in AI support will recruit human staff in the coming year, thought it might be necessary to change the titles of those who are rehired.

Source:: Computer World

By Hisan Kidwai HP and Redington have just announced the inauguration of a new Centre of Excellence (CoE) in…
The post HP & Redington Launch Digital Printing Centre of Excellence in Chennai appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Omair Khaliq Sultan You no longer need an engineering degree to print a Baby Yoda. A few years ago, 3D printing was a hobby defined by troubleshooting: leveling beds with sheets of paper, unclogging nozzles, and tightening belts. In 2026, the technology has finally matured into an “appliance” phase. Modern beginner printers now calibrate themselves. They use sensors […] The post Beginner 3D printers: the “it just works” era is finally here appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends