Lachy Groom backs Airbound in $8.65M seed round as it launches pilot in Bengaluru.

• TechCrunch
• 4 gün, 11 saat, 22 dakika

Along with a more appealing tile interface than the Pixel Watch 4.

• Android Authority
• 4 gün, 11 saat, 30 dakika

TL;DR: Get a lifetime license to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for just $14.97 (MSRP: $199). Still running Windows 10 and pretending everything’s fine? No shame — we’ve all hit “Remind me later” more times than we care to admit. However, if you’re still running Windows 10, your Microsoft support just ended. With this deal, you can finally make the jump to Windows 11 Pro for just $14.97 . That’s a full-fledged, professional-grade operating system for the price of two fancy lattes. First of all, Windows 11 Pro is smooth. Like, way smoother than its predecessors. The redesigned interface is clean, centered, and customizable, which is great for focus and flow. Plus, it comes with features that make multitasking feel like second nature: snap layouts, virtual desktops, and lightning-fast search tools. You get enterprise-grade features like BitLocker encryption, Windows Hello biometric login, and TPM 2.0 compatibility — all designed to protect your work, files, and peace of mind . And Windows Copilot is now baked in, meaning you can ask for help, automate tasks, summarize web pages, or even brainstorm new ideas, all from your desktop. If you’re a developer, creative, remote worker, or small business owner, Windows 11 Pro is an upgrade that can give you a serious productivity boost. Don’t miss upgrading to Windows 11 Pro while it’s on sale for just $14.97 (MSRP: $199) through October 19. Microsoft Windows 11 Pro See Deal StackSocial prices subject to change.

• PCWorld
• 4 gün, 11 saat, 42 dakika

Executives say they’re ready for climate disruption, but data reveal a costly gap between confidence and capability — and a business world mistaking plans for resilience.

• Forbes Tech
• 4 gün, 16 saat, 12 dakika

What does the public think about therapists adopting AI into their practices? It's a great question. Using similar work, I explore existing perceptions and future views.

• Forbes Tech
• 4 gün, 16 saat, 27 dakika

Cybersecurity researchers have identified several malicious packages across npm, Python, and Ruby ecosystems that leverage Discord as a command-and-control (C2) channel to transmit stolen data to actor-controlled webhooks. Webhooks on Discord are a way to post messages to channels in the platform without requiring a bot user or authentication, making them an attractive mechanism for attackers to

• The Hacker News
• 4 gün, 7 saat, 3 dakika

The post How online casino platforms are transforming Android mobile gaming experiences appeared first on Android Headlines .

• Android Headlines
• 4 gün, 12 saat, 36 dakika

This was the last flight of SpaceX's second-gen Starship design. Version 3 arrives next year.

• Ars Technica
• 4 gün, 12 saat, 37 dakika

Broadcom said Tuesday that it has already begun sampling the first Wi-Fi 8 silicon to select partners, as a precursor for rolling out the first Wi-Fi 8 consumer hardware at a future date. Broadcom actually announced four different designs — the BCM6718 for the residential access point market, the BCM43109 for mobile handsets, plus the BCM43840 and BCM43820 for enterprise APs — that it will sell as chips as well as license as intellectual property. The sampling process has already begun, Broadcom said. Wi-Fi 7 is already well established in both PCs and handsets across the world. That Wi-Fi 7 technology, launched in 2023 , is still being worked on: Intel’s Panther Lake laptop processor , for example, includes Wi-Fi 7 Release 2 support, which works toward better communication between your PC and the access point to reduce latency and increase the overall performance. That’s the whole point behind Wi-Fi 8 , which broke cover in late 2024 and is set to be formally adopted probably by late 2028. That’s never stopped wireless chip vendors, however, which tend to put as much as they know of the specification into silicon as soon as they can to start landing design wins with customers just as soon as possible. It’s probably not a coincidence that the latest Wi-Fi 7 standards are transitioning into the overarching guidelines behind Wi-Fi 8: To improve the quality and reliability of Wi-Fi 8 wireless connections, rather than just improve performance. Wi-Fi 8 still can transmit data at up to a hypothetical, optimized speed of 23Gbps, according to rival Mediatek, but Wi-Fi 8’s most important technologies are essentially all qualitative, focusing on ultra-high reliability. Broadcom cited key features which included inter-AP coordination, which allows APs to target signal beams at devices to improve connectivity; and multiple ways of avoiding congestion. Wi-Fi 8 is also designed to extend the range of Wi-Fi, though Broadcom didn’t cite specifics. Broadcom said that the increasing ubiquity of AI, and the constant, high-bandwidth streams of data back and forth between devices and the cloud, necessitate Wi-Fi 8. In an interesting twist, each of Broadcom’s Wi-Fi 8 chips includes a hardware-accelerated telemetry engine, which “collects real-time data on network performance, device behavior, and environmental conditions, serving as a critical input for AI models.” Broadcom said that the telemetry engine can be used for optimizing the quality of the Wi-Fi expercience, or running “predictive maintenance” or to strengthen security. Broadcom’s BCM6718 for residential access points includes a 4-stream radio, packet scheduler, and telemetry engine, along with advanced eco modes and digital pre-distortion to reduce power. Broadcom also promises “full compliance” with IEEE 802.11bn and the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Wi-Fi 8 specifications. The company didn’t announce a radio specifically for PC, though the BCM43109 chip for handsets includes a two-stream Wi-Fi radio instead. It will also include Bluetooth capabilities as well as low-range WPAN, including ZigBee Pro. It, too, promises IEEE 802.11bn and Wi-Fi 8 compliance.

• PCWorld
• 4 gün, 12 saat, 41 dakika

Visa is introducing a new security framework designed to solve one of the thorniest problems emerging in artificial intelligence-powered commerce: how retailers can tell the difference between legitimate AI shopping assistants and the malicious bots that plague their websites. The payments giant unveiled its Trusted Agent Protocol on Tuesday, establishing what it describes as foundational infrastructure for "agentic commerce" — a term for the rapidly growing practice of consumers delegating shopping tasks to AI agents that can search products, compare prices, and complete purchases autonomously. The protocol enables merchants to cryptographically verify that an AI agent browsing their site is authorized and trustworthy, rather than a bot designed to scrape pricing data, test stolen credit cards, or carry out other fraudulent activities. The launch comes as AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail websites has exploded by more than 4,700% over the past year, according to data from Adobe cited by Visa. That dramatic surge has created an acute challenge for merchants whose existing bot detection systems — designed to block automated traffic — now risk accidentally blocking legitimate AI shoppers along with bad actors. "Merchants need additional tools that provide them with greater insight and transparency into agentic commerce activities to ensure they can participate safely," said Rubail Birwadker, Visa's Global Head of Growth, in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. "Without common standards, potential risks include ecosystem fragmentation and the proliferation of closed loop models." The stakes are substantial. While 85% of shoppers who have used AI to shop report improved experiences, merchants face the prospect of either turning away legitimate AI-powered customers or exposing themselves to sophisticated bot attacks. Visa's own data shows the company prevented $40 billion in fraudulent activity between October 2022 and September 2023, nearly double the previous year, much of it involving AI-powered enumeration attacks where bots systematically test combinations of card numbers until finding valid credentials. Inside the cryptographic handshake: How Visa verifies AI shopping agents Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol operates through what Birwadker describes as a "cryptographic trust handshake" between merchants and approved AI agents. The system works in three steps: First, AI agents must be approved and onboarded through Visa's Intelligent Commerce program, where they undergo vetting to meet trust and reliability standards. Each approved agent receives a unique digital signature key — essentially a cryptographic credential that proves its identity. When an approved agent visits a merchant's website, it creates a digital signature using its key and transmits three categories of information: Agent Intent (indicating the agent is trusted and intends to retrieve product details or make a purchase), Consumer Recognition (data showing whether the underlying consumer has an existing account with the merchant), and Payment Information (optional payment data to support checkout). Merchants or their infrastructure providers, such as content delivery networks, then validate these digital signatures against Visa's registry of approved agents. "Upon proper validation of these fields, the merchant can confirm the signature is a trusted agent," Birwadker explained. Crucially, Visa designed the protocol to require minimal changes to existing merchant infrastructure. Built on the HTTP Message Signature standard and aligned with Web Both Auth , the protocol works with existing web infrastructure without requiring merchants to overhaul their checkout pages. "This is no-code functionality," Birwadker emphasized, though merchants may need to integrate with Visa's Developer Center to access the verification system. The race for AI commerce standards: Visa faces competition from Google, OpenAI, and Stripe Visa developed the protocol in collaboration with Cloudflare , the web infrastructure and security company that already provides bot management services to millions of websites. The partnership reflects Visa's recognition that solving bot verification requires cooperation across the entire web stack, not just the payments layer. "Trusted Agent Protocol supplements traditional bot management by providing merchants insights that enable agentic commerce," Birwadker said. "Agents are providing additional context they otherwise would not, including what it intends to do, who the underlying consumer is, and payment information." The protocol arrives as multiple technology giants race to establish competing standards for AI commerce. Google recently introduced its Agent Protocol for Payments (AP2) , while OpenAI and Stripe have discussed their own approaches to enabling AI agents to make purchases. Microsoft, Shopify, Adyen, Ant International, Checkout.com, Cybersource, Elavon, Fiserv, Nuvei, and Worldpay provided feedback during Trusted Agent Protocol's development, according to Visa. When asked how Visa's protocol relates to these competing efforts, Birwadker struck a collaborative tone. "Both Google's AP2 and Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol are working toward the same goal of building trust in agent-initiated payments," he said. "We are engaged with Google, OpenAI, and Stripe and are looking to create compatibility across the ecosystem." Visa says it is working with global standards bodies including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) , OpenID Foundation , and EMVCo to ensure the protocol can eventually become interoperable with other emerging standards. "While these specifications apply to the Visa network in this initial phase, enabling agents to safely and securely act on a consumer's behalf requires an open, ecosystem-wide approach," Birwadker noted. Who pays when AI agents go rogue? Unanswered questions about liability and authorization The protocol raises important questions about authorization and liability when AI agents make purchases on behalf of consumers. If an agent completes an unauthorized transaction — perhaps misunderstanding a user's intent or exceeding its delegated authority — who bears responsibility? Birwadker emphasized that the protocol helps merchants "leverage this information to enable experiences tied to existing consumer relationships and more secure checkout," but he did not provide specific details about how disputes would be handled when agents make unauthorized purchases. Visa's existing fraud protection and chargeback systems would presumably apply, though the company has not yet published detailed guidance on agent-initiated transaction disputes. The protocol also places Visa in the position of gatekeeper for the emerging agentic commerce ecosystem. Because Visa determines which AI agents get approved for the Intelligent Commerce program and receive cryptographic credentials, the company effectively controls which agents merchants can easily trust. "Agents are approved and onboarded through the Visa Intelligent Commerce program, ensuring they meet our standards for trust and reliability," Birwadker said, though he did not detail the specific criteria agents must meet or whether Visa charges fees for approval. This gatekeeping role could prove contentious, particularly if Visa's approval process favors large technology companies over startups, or if the company faces pressure to block agents from competitors or politically controversial entities. Visa declined to provide details about how many agents it has approved so far or how long the vetting process typically takes. Visa's legal battles and the long road to merchant adoption The protocol launch comes at a complex moment for Visa, which continues to navigate significant legal and regulatory challenges even as its core business remains robust. The company's latest earnings report for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 showed a 10% increase in net revenues to $9.2 billion, driven by resilient consumer spending and strong growth in cross-border transaction volume. For the full fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, Visa processed 289 billion transactions, with a total payments volume of $15.2 trillion. However, the company's legal headwinds have intensified. In July 2025, a federal judge rejected a landmark $30 billion settlement that Visa and Mastercard had reached with merchants over long-disputed credit card swipe fees, sending the parties back to the negotiating table and extending the long-running legal battle. Simultaneously, Visa remains under investigation by the Department of Justice over its rules for routing debit card transactions, with regulators scrutinizing whether the company's practices unlawfully limit merchant choice and stifle competition. These domestic challenges are mirrored abroad, where European regulators have continued their own antitrust investigations into the fee structures of both Visa and its primary competitor, Mastercard. Against this backdrop of regulatory pressure, Birwadker acknowledged that adoption of the Trusted Agent Protocol will take time. "As agentic commerce continues to rise, we recognize that consumer trust is still in its early stages," he said. "That's why our focus through 2025 is on building foundational credibility and demonstrating real-world value." The protocol is available immediately in Visa's Developer Center and on GitHub , with agent onboarding already active and merchant integration resources available. But Birwadker declined to provide specific targets for how many merchants might adopt the protocol by the end of 2026. "Adoption is aligned with the momentum we're already seeing," he said. "The launch of our protocol marks another big step — it's not just a technical milestone, but a signal that the industry is beginning to unify." Industry analysts say merchant adoption will likely depend on how quickly agentic commerce grows as a percentage of overall e-commerce. While AI-driven traffic has surged dramatically, much of that consists of agents browsing and researching rather than completing purchases. If AI agents begin accounting for a significant share of completed transactions, merchants will face stronger incentives to adopt verification systems like Visa's protocol. From fraud detection to AI gatekeeping: Visa's $10 billion bet on artificial intelligence Visa's move reflects broader strategic bets on AI across the financial services industry. The company has invested $10 billion in technology over the past five years to reduce fraud and increase network security, with AI and machine learning central to those efforts. Visa's fraud detection system analyzes over 500 different attributes for each transaction, using AI models to assign real-time risk scores to the 300 billion annual transactions flowing through its network. "Every single one of those transactions has been processed by AI," James Mirfin, Visa's global head of risk and identity solutions, said in a July 2024 CNBC interview discussing the company's fraud prevention efforts. "If you see a new type of fraud happening, our model will see that, it will catch it, it will score those transactions as high risk and then our customers can decide not to approve those transactions." The company has also moved aggressively into new payment territories beyond its core card business. In January 2025, Visa partnered with Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) to provide the infrastructure for a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment service called the X Money Account, competing with services like Venmo and Zelle. That deal marked Visa's first major partnership in the social media payments space and reflected the company's recognition that payment flows are increasingly happening outside traditional e-commerce channels. The agentic commerce protocol represents an extension of this strategy — an attempt to ensure Visa remains central to payment flows even as the mechanics of shopping shift from direct human interaction to AI intermediation. Jack Forestell , Visa's Chief Product & Strategy Officer, framed the protocol in expansive terms: "We believe the entire payments ecosystem has a responsibility to ensure sellers trust AI agents with the same confidence they place in their most valued customers and networks." The coming battle for control of AI shopping The real test for Visa's protocol won't be technical — it will be political. As AI agents become a larger force in retail, whoever controls the verification infrastructure controls access to hundreds of billions of dollars in commerce. Visa's position as gatekeeper gives it enormous leverage, but also makes it a target. Merchants chafing under Visa's existing fee structure and facing multiple antitrust investigations may resist ceding even more power to the payments giant. Competitors like Google and OpenAI, each with their own ambitions in commerce, have little incentive to let Visa dictate standards. Regulators already scrutinizing Visa's market dominance will surely examine whether its agent approval process unfairly advantages certain players. And there's a deeper question lurking beneath the technical specifications and corporate partnerships: In an economy increasingly mediated by AI, who decides which algorithms get to spend our money? Visa is making an aggressive bid to be that arbiter, wrapping its answer in the language of security and interoperability. Whether merchants, consumers, and regulators accept that proposition will determine not just the fate of the Trusted Agent Protocol, but the structure of AI-powered commerce itself. For now, Visa is moving forward with the confidence of a company that has weathered disruption before. But in the emerging world of agentic commerce, being too trusted might prove just as dangerous as not being trusted enough.

• VentureBeat
• 4 gün, 12 saat, 42 dakika

Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg 's Mark Gurman. In his Power On newsletter , Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip. Gurman does not expect Apple to hold an event to announce these products. Instead, there will likely be a series of press releases on the Apple Newsroom website, and there might also be shorter promotional videos for each product on YouTube. Below, we have recapped rumors about each product. iPad Pro The next iPad Pro was already leaked in a pair of unboxing videos out of Russia. The videos confirmed that the device will be equipped with the M5 chip, and an increased minimum of 12GB of RAM, but no major design changes were visible. There is one minor design change: "iPad Pro" is no longer inscribed on the back of the device. It was previously rumored that the next iPad Pro models would be equipped with two front cameras , instead of one, making it easy to have video calls in both portrait and landscape orientations. However, there was no evidence of a second front camera in the unboxing videos out of Russia, so it is unclear if this rumor will pan out. Geekbench 6 results shown in one of the unboxing videos revealed the M5 chip will stick with a 9-core CPU, with three performance cores and six efficiency cores. The results showed the M5 chip will offer up to 12% faster multi-core CPU performance, and up to 36% faster GPU performance, compared to the M4 chip in the current iPad Pro. Vision Pro An updated version of the Vision Pro is also expected to be equipped with an M5 chip , although an earlier rumor said the device would receive an M4 chip . There could also be an R2 chip for improved input processing, but the report said that chip would be manufactured with TSMC's latest 2nm process, and Apple's first chips using that process are not expected to debut until the second half of next year. Apple is expected to start including a more comfortable "Dual Knit Band" head strap in the box with the updated Vision Pro, and the headset could get a Space Black color option . The device will continue to support Wi-Fi 6, rather than Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7, according to FCC documents that were erroneously made available for public viewing. It is unclear if these changes will be enough for Apple to consider the updated Vision Pro to be a second-generation model. Recent reports have indicated that Apple has suspended development of a truly next-generation Vision Pro , along with a lightweight and lower-cost "Vision Air" model, as it focuses its efforts on smart glasses. 14-inch MacBook Pro A base 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip is "ready for launch," according to Gurman. Last week, AppleInsider reported that a base MacBook Pro with an M5 chip would be released before higher-end models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which are expected to follow in early 2026. Beyond the M5 chip, no significant changes are expected. Bigger changes to the MacBook Pro are expected with the two-generations-away models, with rumored upgrades including an OLED display, touchscreen capabilities, a thinner design, built-in cellular connectivity, and M6 chips manufactured with TSMC's latest 2nm process, for even greater year-over-year performance gains. Other Products in Pipeline The following products are expected to be updated before the end of the year, but it is not clear if Apple will announce any of them this week in particular. HomePod mini availability is starting to dwindle at select Apple Store locations around the world. For example, the HomePod mini is completely out of stock in all five color options at Apple's flagship Regent Street store in London. HomePod mini: S9 chip or newer with support for next year's revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, an Apple-designed Wi-Fi chip with Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 support, improved sound quality, a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, and potentially new color options like Red . Apple TV: A faster A17 Pro chip that will support next year's revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, and an Apple-designed Wi-Fi chip with Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 support. A built-in FaceTime camera has been rumored for a future Apple TV, but it is unclear if that will arrive with the next model. AirTag: Up to 3× longer item tracking range vs. current AirTag, a more tamper-proof speaker, and "very low" battery life alerts . New models of the Pro Display XDR and Studio Display have also been rumored. This article, " What to Expect From Apple's New Products as Early as This Week " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums

• MacRumors.com
• 4 gün, 13 saat, 2 dakika

Rhitu Chatterjee / NPR : A new study of 6,554 children aged 9 to 10 found that social media users scored lower on reading, vocabulary, and memory tests two years later than non-users —  Preteens using increasing amounts of social media perform poorer in reading, vocabulary and memory tests in early adolescence compared …

• Techmeme
• 4 gün, 17 saat, 7 dakika

Manish Singh / India Dispatch : A look at quick commerce in India and China: India's ecosystem is evolving into a retail-media play, while China's is being used as a weapon in platform wars. —  Quick commerce has become a retail-media play in India and a platform weapon in China.  —  Quick commerce has crashed or sputtered in most markets that tried it.

• Techmeme
• 4 gün, 17 saat, 37 dakika

As part of Apple's goal to become carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030, the company today announced it is expanding its clean energy projects across Europe and China . By 2030, Apple said it plans to match 100% of the electricity that all customers use to power and charge their Apple devices with clean electricity, by helping to bring new wind and solar power developments online around the world. In Europe, this includes new solar and wind farms in development in Greece, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Spain, according to Apple. And in China, Apple said over 90% of its manufacturing in the country is now powered by renewable energy. Apple said its suppliers have jointly launched a new $150 million investment fund to support renewable energy infrastructure development in China. Apple also announced it has donated an undisclosed sum to Tsinghua University in Beijing, to advance environmental education and research in China. Tag: Apple Environment This article, " Apple Announces New Clean Energy Initiatives Across Europe and China " first appeared on MacRumors.com Discuss this article in our forums

• MacRumors.com
• 4 gün, 13 saat, 54 dakika

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a previously undocumented threat actor called TA585 that has been observed delivering an off-the-shelf malware called MonsterV2 via phishing campaigns. The Proofpoint Threat Research Team described the threat activity cluster as sophisticated, leveraging web injections and filtering checks as part of its attack chains. "TA585 is notable because it

• The Hacker News
• 4 gün, 8 saat, 44 dakika

The post 5 Proven Ways AI Tools Help Teams Boost Productivity in 2025 appeared first on Android Headlines .

• Android Headlines
• 4 gün, 14 saat, 19 dakika