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Apple včera vydal druhou betaverzi macOS 26 Tahoe. • Na základě zpětné vazby změnil design ikonky Finderu a obnovil její původní barvy. • Umožňuje též vypnout průhlednost horního řádku nabídek pro lepší čitelnost.

Gotta keep 'em separated so the marketers and snoops can't come out and play

Psylo, which bills itself as a new kind of private web browser, debuted last Tuesday in Apple's App Store, one day ahead of a report warning about the widespread use of browser fingerprinting for ad tracking and targeting.…

Varianta koronaviru NB.1.8.1 se rychle šíří, vakcíny jsou proti ní účinné • Závažnost onemocnění se nezvyšuje, ale hrozí imunitní mezera • Prevence a očkování zůstávají důležité pro ochranu populace

Grafická architektura UDNA, která zastřeší herní grafické karty i výpočetní akcelerátory, bude pohánět i příští generaci konzolí Xbox a Playstation…

Byla vydána verze 2.2.0 programovacího jazyka Kotlin (Wikipedie, GitHub). Ke zhlédnutí jsou videozáznamy přednášek z konference KotlinConf 2025.

Chinese crew built 1,000+ device network that runs on home devices then targets critical infrastructure

A stealthy, ongoing campaign to gain long-term access to networks bears all the markings of intrusions conducted by China’s ‘Typhoon’ crews and has infected at least 1,000 devices, primarily in the US and South East, according to SecurityScorecard's Strike threat intel analysts. And it uses a phony certificate purportedly signed by the Los Angeles police department to try and gain access to critical infrastructure.…

The Russian state-sponsored threat group APT28 is using Signal chats to target government targets in Ukraine with two previously undocumented malware families named BeardShell and SlimAgent. [...]

Jak je to se zdravotním pojištěním, pokud chcete vyrazit o prázdninách na brigádu do zahraničí? Pravidla se liší podle toho, kam a na jak dlouho jedete.

Jednou z vlastností platformy IBM PC byl naprostý chaos vládnoucí grafickém subsystému. Existuje zde však stabilní prvek: textové režimy. Dnes si řekneme, jak se možnosti rozšířily s příchodem karet SVGA.

Běží to již nějakou dobu a poběží to podle současných podmínek už jen do konce roku 2025. O čem je řeč? No přece o 50tisícové dotaci na vzdělání pro každého českého občana.

Procesory Nova Lake, které Intel vydá pro desktop i notebooky a jejichž premiéra se chystá na příští rok, jsou paralelně připravované pro 2nm linky TSMC i vlastní továrny Intelu s procesem 18A…

Průmysl potřebuje vodík kvůli dekarbonizaci, ale výroba vodíku je sama o sobě velmi energeticky náročná. Má-li zezelenat, je nutné nahradit tradiční elektrolýzu vodíku důmyslnějšími procesy. Zajímavým kandidátem je „beam-down“ solární reaktor, který pohání výrobu vodíku termosolárním žárem, nasbíraným velkou soustavou zrcadel.

Microsoft is laying the groundwork for Windows 11 to morph into a genAI-driven OS.

The company on Monday announced a critical AI technology that will make it possible to run generative AI (genAI) agents on Windows without Internet connectivity.

Microsoft’s small language model, called Mu, is designed to respond to natural language queries within the Windows OS, the company said in a blog post Monday. Mu takes advantage of the neural processing units (NPUs) of Copilot PCs, Vivek Pradeep, vice president and distinguished engineer for Windows Applied Sciences, said in the post.

Three chip makers — Intel, AMD and Qualcomm — provide NPUs in Copilot PCs prebuilt with Windows 11.

Mu already powers an agent that handles queries in the Settings menus in a preview version of Windows 11 available to early adopters with Copilot+ PCs. The feature is available in the Windows 11 preview version 26200.5651 that shipped  June 13. 

The model provides a better understanding and context of queries, and “has been designed to operate efficiently, delivering high performance while running locally,” Pradeep wrote.

Microsoft is aggressively pushing genAI features into the core of Windows 11 and Microsoft 365. The company introduced a new developer stack called Windows ML 2.0 last month for developers to make AI features accessible in software applications.

The company is also developing feature- or application-specific AI models for Microsoft 365 applications.

The 330-million parameter Mu model is designed to reduce AI computing cycles so it can run locally on Windows 11 PCs.  Laptops have limited hardware and battery life and need a cloud service for AI.

“This involved adjusting model architecture and parameter shapes to better fit the hardware’s parallelism and memory limits,” Pradeep wrote.

The model also generates high-quality responses with a better understanding of queries. Microsoft fine-tuned a custom Mu model for the Settings menu that could respond to ambiguous user queries on system settings. For example, the model can handle queries that do not specify whether to raise brightness on a main or secondary monitor.

The Mu encoder-decoder model breaks down large queries into a more compact representation of information, which is then used to generate responses. That’s different from large language models (LLMs), which are only decoder models and require all of the text to generate responses.

“By separating the input tokens from output tokens, Mu’s one-time encoding greatly reduces computation and memory overhead,” Pradeep said.

The encoder–decoder approach was significantly faster than LLMs such as Microsoft’s Phi-3.5, which is a decoder-only model. “When comparing Mu to a similarly fine-tuned Phi-3.5-mini, we found that Mu is nearly comparable in performance despite being one-tenth of the size,” Pradeep said.

Those gains are crucial for on-device and real-time applications. “Managing the extensive array of Windows settings posed its own challenges, particularly with overlapping functionalities,” Pradeep said.

The response time was under 500 milliseconds, which aligned with “goals for a responsive and reliable agent in Settings that scaled to hundreds of settings,” Pradeep said.

Microsoft has many genAI technologies that include OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its latest homegrown Phi 4 model, which can generate images, video and text.

Plus 'low-level' hacktivist attempts

The US Department of Homeland Security has warned American businesses to guard their networks against Iranian government-sponsored cyberattacks along with "low-level" digital intrusions by pro-Iran hacktivists.…

Už jste do péče o bílé zuby zapojili i modrozubku? Chytré kartáčky s Bluetooth sledují, kolik času věnujete ústní hygieně. Díky senzorům také poznají, jestli si zuby čistíte správně. Řeknou také, kdy je třeba vyměnit hlavici. A ještě z této rutiny dělají zábavu či hru. Máte doma takový? Vyšší ...

Vybrali jsme nejlepší navigační aplikace pro Android a iOS • Využijí je řidiči, cyklisté i chodci • Většinu aplikací lze používat zdarma

Danny Boyle a Alex Garland se vrátili k filmu, který mezi milovníky hororu a sci-fi platí za výborný počin, a rovnou zahájili celou novou sérii ze známého ponurého světa. Do 28 let poté (28 Years After) se pustili se stejnou vervou a energií jako před 19 lety do svého zombie hitu.

A new mobile crypto-stealing malware called SparkKitty was found in apps on Google Play and the Apple App Store, targeting Android and iOS devices. [...]

In a world loaded with existential challenge, it should not surprise anyone that Apple faces its own crisis. It should do what any cornered animal will always do and fight hard and dirty to regain freedom. That’s why it’s of concern to once again learn this weekend that Apple is “considering” acquisitions in the generative AI (genAI) space, because by this time in the fight, I want that chatter to be about acquisitions that have been made. 

Look, anyone can consider making a purchase and then come up with a dozen reasons not to go through with it. That’s not hard at all, it’s the inevitable articulation of small-C conservatism, which tends to favor stasis over change. My concern is that Apple’s own growth mindset might have been replaced by a more conservative approach, which means that the company becomes really good at finding reasons not to do things, and less good at identifying when it really should do something.

No can’t be the default

Apple’s history is packed with conflict between good ideas the company rejected and brilliant ideas it chose to move forward with. It is arguable that some of the ideas the company has looked at historically are only now becoming viable devices. (I’m thinking of the speculated HomePod as an idea of that kind.) Apple executives have frequently discussed how the company is just as proud of the things it doesn’t do as of those it does. It’s a company instinctively good at saying “No” — until it finds a good reason to say “Yes.”

The problem is that when it comes to genAI, it still feels like there’s a lot of creative mileage to be had from injecting some creative chaos into the R&D crib. To achieve that, it seems necessary that Apple find the spleen to take a few risks on the M&A journey. 

The company can’t simply wander down to the genAI development shops and find reasons not to purchase things; it needs to pick up all the shiniest things it comes across, using whatever financial muscle it takes to ensure they end up in Apple’s hold rather than elsewhere. 

Why must it do this? Because genAI isn’t finished yet. 

The genAI evolution continues

Sure, Apple’s widely disclosed challenges with Siri mean it is motivated to try new approaches to push that project ahead, but the truth is that no one — not even OpenAI — really has genAI that is anything other than a hint of what this tech is likely to be able to accomplish in a decade or two. We are still early in the AI race, and that means today’s winners can still lose and those at the back of the pack have an opportunity to get ahead. 

So, it makes sense for Apple to take a few expensive risks, rather than staying inside the safe zone. Does Perplexity have a few tools that could boost Apple Intelligence? Then grab them. Are there others in AI with tools that could help make Siri smart and hardware products sing? 

Bring them in. Take risks. Get hungry, be foolish. Make it happen.

It is also worth thinking about retention at this point. 

Keep them keen

Several pieces by Mark Gurman in recent years tell us that in many cases, people Apple has hired on the purchase of their companies have subsequently jumped ship, as they did not find their happiness. If that is the case, that’s a problem that needs to be fixed; it suggests at least some of the assumptions the company has concerning how it works with its employees must be challenged, and new ways found to ensure acquired staffers actually want to stick around. 

Apple has tried stock options to boost retention. That’s not enough. Money helps, but as Maslow says, agency and empowerment are more important. Steve Jobs understood this, saying during his last D: All Things Digital interview in 2010, “If you want to hire great people and have them stay working for you, [you] have to let them make a lot of decisions and you have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy…. The best ideas have to win — otherwise good people don’t want to stay.” 

I’m not saying Apple has become hierarchical, though I look with suspicion at work-from-home mandates and opposition to employee unionization as hints that hierarchy exists in some parts of the company. What I am saying is that if the old M.O. isn’t working, and if the important new recruits the company needs to tackle genAI don’t want to stick around, then something’s got to change. And if that means a lot more collaboration and empowerment and a few internal changes in approach, that’s a small price to pay in contrast to the global opportunity to lead the AI-driven tech future on a planet seemingly owned by billionaires and technocrats.

Sometimes you got to play your hunches — how else are you going to find what you love?

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