Today: 8 February 2026
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AI in Overdrive: Weekend of Breakthroughs, Big Tech Moves & Dire Warnings (July 27–28, 2025)

AI in Overdrive: Weekend of Breakthroughs, Big Tech Moves & Dire Warnings (July 27–28, 2025)

On July 27–28, 2025, the White House unveiled an AI Action Plan calling for open-source and open-weight AI models to be freely available worldwide and for regulatory hurdles to be slashed to accelerate innovation. During the July 27–28 weekend, President Trump signed executive orders to expedite AI infrastructure projects and require federally funded AI to maintain political neutrality. At WAIC in Shanghai on July 28, 2025, Premier Li Qiang announced plans for a new international AI cooperation organization to jointly develop and govern AI and urged a global governance framework with broad consensus. The Model-Chip Ecosystem Alliance linked Huawei, Biren,
28 July 2025
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AI in Business: How Artificial Intelligence Is Revolutionizing Every Industry

AI in Business: How Artificial Intelligence Is Revolutionizing Every Industry

78% of companies now use AI in at least one business function, and 83% say AI is a top strategic priority. The global AI market is about $390 billion today and is forecast to reach $1.8 trillion by 2030. By mid-2025, 71% of companies regularly use generative AI, up from 65% six months earlier. Netflix reportedly derives about $1 billion annually from AI-driven personalized recommendations. AI-driven forecasting in operations can lift revenue by 3–4% through shorter lead times and fewer stockouts. Yahoo Japan mandated daily generative AI use for all employees in July 2025, with a goal to double productivity
28 July 2025
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AI vs. the Fakes: Inside the 2025 Race to Spot ChatGPT, Deepfakes and More

AI vs. the Fakes: Inside the 2025 Race to Spot ChatGPT, Deepfakes and More

GPTZero, created by a Princeton student in early 2023, was among the first famous AI text detectors and highlights AI-written sentences with color-coding and an “AI probability” score. OpenAI discontinued its AI-written text detector in 2023 after finding a low rate of accuracy. In a Washington Post test, Turnitin’s AI detector got over half the essays at least partly wrong and flagged 8% of a student’s original essay as AI. The European Union’s AI Act of 2024 requires AI-generated content to be disclosed, with providers mandated to watermark or clearly indicate AI origin starting in 2026. Google announced SynthID in
27 July 2025
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Ultimate AI Showdown: Best Tools, Apps, and Websites of 2025 Revealed

Ultimate AI Showdown: Best Tools, Apps, and Websites of 2025 Revealed

ChatGPT Enterprise offers unlimited, faster GPT-4 access, a 32K-token context window, and data-privacy controls for organizations. Claude 2 can ingest up to 100,000 tokens in context; Claude Pro costs $20/month; Claude API pricing is $0.008 per 1K input tokens and $0.032 per 1K output tokens. Google Gemini is a family of models (Gemini Pro and Gemini Ultra) with DeepThink-style reasoning and tools like Mariner, announced at Google I/O 2025; access is limited and Google introduced a $30/month Google AI Ultra consumer add-on in research preview. Mistral 7B released in late 2023 as a 7B-parameter open model; by 2025, plans include
27 July 2025
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AI Assistant Showdown: ChatGPT vs Siri vs Alexa – Inside the 2025 Personal AI Revolution

AI Assistant Showdown: ChatGPT vs Siri vs Alexa – Inside the 2025 Personal AI Revolution

Siri debuted in 2011 on the iPhone 4S as the first widely used voice assistant. Alexa launched in 2014 with the Echo, popularizing voice-controlled smart home devices. ChatGPT, built on GPT-4, launched in late 2022 and reached 100 million users by January 2023. Google introduced Gemini in 2024 as a major overhaul of its AI assistant, with multi-turn reasoning and deep Android integration, and by July 2025 Gemini could proactively interface with apps like Gmail and WhatsApp. Microsoft rolled out 365 Copilot and Windows Copilot in 2023, embedding GPT-powered copilots in Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Windows, with 365 Copilot
27 July 2025
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Minecraft’s AI Revolution: From Smart Creepers to GPT-4 Agents

Minecraft’s AI Revolution: From Smart Creepers to GPT-4 Agents

In 2016, Microsoft Research launched Project Malmo, an open-source AI experimentation platform built on top of Minecraft. Around NeurIPS 2019, MineRL released an OpenAI Gym interface for Minecraft with a large dataset of human gameplay and the flagship ‘Obtain Diamond’ task. In 2022, OpenAI trained a Video PreTraining (VPT) model on 70,000 hours of YouTube Minecraft videos, enabling the agent to craft wooden and stone tools and a diamond pickaxe after 24,000 actions. Baritone is an open-source Minecraft bot with advanced pathfinding, using an A-like search and reportedly 30× faster path calculation than its predecessor. In early 2025, Ryan Boulds
27 July 2025
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Augmented AI Revolution: How Human-AI Collaboration is Reshaping 2025

Augmented AI Revolution: How Human-AI Collaboration is Reshaping 2025

1955: John McCarthy coined “artificial intelligence” as a term while early thinkers debated augmenting human intelligence. 1960: J.C.R. Licklider outlined “man-computer symbiosis” in which humans and computers cooperate to solve problems. 1962: Douglas Engelbart published a framework for augmenting human intellect to increase problem-solving capability. 1990: Steve Jobs described computers as a “bicycle for our minds,” illustrating how technology multiplies human capability. 2019: Stanford University launched the Institute for Human-Centered AI to focus research on AI that improves the human condition. 2020: Amazon Web Services announced “Amazon Augmented AI” to manage workflows that involve AI plus human reviewers via Mechanical
27 July 2025
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AI vs Data Science: Shocking Differences, Surprising Overlaps, and the 2025 Showdown

AI vs Data Science: Shocking Differences, Surprising Overlaps, and the 2025 Showdown

In 2024, 78% of organizations reported using some form of AI, up from 55% in 2023, according to Stanford’s AI Index. Stanford’s 2025 AI Index notes that the inference cost for running models at GPT‑3.5 level fell about 280× from late 2022 to late 2024, enabling cheaper deployment. The European Union’s AI Act entered into force in August 2024, banning systems posing an unacceptable risk and requiring high‑risk AI to disclose AI‑generated content and publish summaries of copyrighted training data, with full compliance by 2026. JPMorgan’s COiN (Contract Intelligence) AI system reviews legal documents and has reduced the time lawyers
27 July 2025
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The 2025 Google Cloud AI Revolution: New Services, Strengths, and Surprising Developments

The 2025 Google Cloud AI Revolution: New Services, Strengths, and Surprising Developments

Vertex AI is Google’s unified platform for developing, training, and deploying machine learning models at scale, integrating data preparation, pipelines, MLOps, and model monitoring with AutoML. Gemini is Google’s multimodal foundation family for text, code, and images, with Gemini 2.5 “Flash” announced in 2025 as a smaller, cost-efficient variant, plus Lyria for music and Imagen for images and Veo for video. Vertex AI Model Garden lets customers deploy Google’s own models or popular open-source models on Google Cloud. Google Cloud’s AI hardware includes Cloud TPU v5e for training and the upcoming 7th‑generation TPU named “Ironwood” for inference, with TPU v5e
27 July 2025
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AI vs. Robotics Revolution: How Smart Algorithms and Machines Are Reshaping 2025

AI vs. Robotics Revolution: How Smart Algorithms and Machines Are Reshaping 2025

In 1961, the first industrial robot, Unimate, was installed on a General Motors assembly line. From 1966 to 1972, Stanford Research Institute’s Shakey became the first mobile robot to reason about its actions using AI. In 1973, Kawasaki introduced the first robot arm with six electromechanical axes. In 1981, IBM introduced a robotic arm controlled by a microcomputer. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. In 2002, iRobot released the Roomba, the first widely adopted consumer robot. In 2012, AlexNet achieved a breakthrough in image recognition, signaling the deep learning renaissance. In 2016, Google’s DeepMind AlphaGo
27 July 2025
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GPT-5 vs Gemini: Inside 2025’s High-Stakes Frontier AI Showdown

GPT-5 vs Gemini: Inside 2025’s High-Stakes Frontier AI Showdown

Gemini Ultra achieved 90.0% on the MMLU benchmark, the first AI to exceed human expert performance. GPT-4 Omni (GPT-4o) was introduced by 2025, handling text, images, and audio with about 232 ms response times and powering the free ChatGPT tier in mid-2025. Claude Opus 4 is billed as the world’s best coding model, achieving 72–73% on coding benchmarks and enabling extended tool use. Claude Sonnet 4 emphasizes efficiency and reliability with improved instruction-following and memory through local-file storage for long-term recall. Meta released LLaMA 4 in April 2025, featuring a Mixture-of-Experts design and reportedly over 400 billion parameters. Gemini 1.0
27 July 2025
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AI Art Revolution: How Free AI Painting Generators Are Transforming Creativity in 2025

AI Art Revolution: How Free AI Painting Generators Are Transforming Creativity in 2025

DALL·E 3, released in late 2023 and integrated into Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator, generated over 1 billion images in its first months. Craiyon (formerly DALL·E mini) launched in 2022 and has produced over 10 million images. StarryAI uses the backend Argo (powered by Stable Diffusion) and offers 1000+ stylistic presets, with a free plan of up to 25 images per day, watermarked outputs, and a daily 5-credit limit. Stable Diffusion, launched in 2022 as an open-source model, underpins tools like NightCafe, Leonardo.ai, and Hugging Face Spaces and supports user-trained custom models. In February 2025, Christie’s held a dedicated AI-generated art
27 July 2025
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Portugal’s Digital Revolution: Complete Guide to Internet Access and Satellite Services

Portugal’s Digital Revolution: Complete Guide to Internet Access and Satellite Services

By mid-2023, fixed fiber passed over 92% of Portuguese homes, with end-2023 FTTH/B connections totaling 3.24 million households versus about 1.3 million on cable. By June 2023, 5G coverage reached about 98.1% of households (low-band), and rural 5G coverage jumped to 87.5% by mid-2023 from 20% in 2022. As of June 2023, 97.6% of households had at least one fixed broadband connection, and 94.2% had access to Very High Capacity Networks (gigabit fiber or cable). The fixed broadband market is dominated by MEO (around 40%), NOS (about 35%), Vodafone (roughly 20%), and Digi/Nowo, collectively controlling about 96–97% of subscriptions. In
27 July 2025
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Venice Drone Laws Revealed: Shocking No-Fly Zones, Permit Rules & Sky-High Fines

Venice Drone Laws Revealed: Shocking No-Fly Zones, Permit Rules & Sky-High Fines

Venice’s historic center is effectively a no-fly zone that requires explicit ENAC and local authorities’ authorization, with the D-Flight map marking Venice in red as prohibited. The EU/ENAC altitude limit is 120 m (400 ft) above ground level, but in Venice’s restricted zones the practical limit without a permit is 0 m. Drones must stay away from airports and helipads, with no-fly restrictions within 5 km of an airport unless special clearance is granted. Flying near Venice Marco Polo Airport and the Lido airfield is forbidden without formal air traffic control permission. To fly in Venice, you must obtain ENAC
27 July 2025
Starlink Doubleheader, NASA Upheaval & Space Race Showdowns – Global Space News Roundup (July 26–27, 2025)

Starlink Doubleheader, NASA Upheaval & Space Race Showdowns – Global Space News Roundup (July 26–27, 2025)

SpaceX launched back-to-back Falcon 9 missions for Starlink within 24 hours: on July 26 at 5:01 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral with 28 Starlink satellites and on July 27 at 12:31 a.m. EDT from Vandenberg with 24 Starlinks, with first-stage boosters landing on droneships on their 22nd and 19th flights respectively and the company pushing its 2025 launch total to 95 flights and the Starlink fleet above 8,000 satellites. Europe’s Vega-C VV27 launched July 25 at 10:03 p.m. ET from Kourou carrying five Earth-observation satellites including MicroCarb (180 kg, 1 ppm CO2 accuracy) and four CO3D satellites built by Airbus
27 July 2025
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Space Triumphs, Gadget Shockers & Cyber Breaches – Tech Weekend Roundup (July 26–27, 2025)

Space Triumphs, Gadget Shockers & Cyber Breaches – Tech Weekend Roundup (July 26–27, 2025)

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold7, unveiled July 9, 2025, reached general availability on July 25, 2025, and stands 8.9 mm thick when folded with a 200 MP camera. Sony revived its RX1R line with the RX1R III, launched nine years after the last model and featuring a 61 MP full-frame sensor. AMD rolled out the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000 WX-series on July 23, 2025, led by the 9995WX with 96 Zen 5 cores and an $11,699 price tag. Seagate began shipping 30 TB hard disk drives using HAMR, the largest consumer HDDs on the market, at roughly $600 each. Kioxia announced
27 July 2025
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Weekend in AI: China’s Global Gambit, Tech Giants’ Moves & a “Godfather” Warning (July 26–27, 2025)

Weekend in AI: China’s Global Gambit, Tech Giants’ Moves & a “Godfather” Warning (July 26–27, 2025)

At WAIC 2025 in Shanghai, Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced plans to create a new international organization to jointly develop and govern AI, warned that AI could become an exclusive game for a few nations or companies without a global governance consensus, and unveiled a governance action plan inviting worldwide collaboration via open-source communities. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told WAIC that establishing AI rules will be a defining test of international cooperation. U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled America’s AI Action Plan to deregulate AI development, accelerate data-center and chip-fab buildouts, and expand exporting American AI to allies. DeepMind’s Aeneas AI
27 July 2025
State of Internet Access in Lebanon: From Fiber Optics to Starlink Skies

State of Internet Access in Lebanon: From Fiber Optics to Starlink Skies

Lebanon was the first Arab country to introduce the internet in the 1990s, and began offering DSL broadband in 2006. Ogero launched a 40-month national fiber rollout in mid-2018, with about 35% completion by the end of 2019 and a target to reach most households by 2022, slowed by the crisis. By 2025, Lebanon’s fixed broadband speed ranked 142nd worldwide, with median speeds rising to about 12.8 Mbps in January 2025 from ~8 Mbps in 2023. 5G has not been deployed commercially in Lebanon as of 2025, while 4G coverage exists in major cities and the government plans to shut
26 July 2025
Bitcoin Whale Dumps $9B, Altcoins Whipsaw, NFTs Boom and Regulators Swoop – Crypto News Roundup (July 25–26, 2025)

Bitcoin Whale Dumps $9B, Altcoins Whipsaw, NFTs Boom and Regulators Swoop – Crypto News Roundup (July 25–26, 2025)

Galaxy Digital completed the off-market sale of 80,000 BTC for about $9 billion for a Satoshi-era whale, prompting Bitcoin’s dip under $115,000 before rebounding above $117,000. Ethereum hovered near $3,704 after a July surge of nearly 50%, with US spot ETH ETFs attracting $4.6 billion of inflows in the past two weeks and BlackRock’s ETH fund reaching $10 billion in assets. XRP spiked to $3.60 (its highest since 2021) following Ripple’s partial court victory, then fell more than 14% to around $3 as 50 million XRP moved to exchanges. Dogecoin and Solana each fell about 5% in 24 hours, and
26 July 2025
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Starlink Outage, New Launches and Space Alliances – Major Space Developments (July 25–26, 2025)

Starlink Outage, New Launches and Space Alliances – Major Space Developments (July 25–26, 2025)

On July 25, 2025, Russia’s Roscosmos launched a Soyuz-2.1b from Vostochny with two Ionosfera-M satellites into polar orbit as part of the Ionozond program, and deployed 18 secondary payloads (17 Russian CubeSats and Iran’s Nahid-2). Europe’s Vega-C rocket lifted off from Kourou on July 25, 2025, delivering MicroCarb and four CO3D satellites into orbit, with MicroCarb mapping global CO₂ sources and sinks to within 1 ppm accuracy and CO3D producing ~50 cm land-surface resolution. SpaceX launched 28 Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 booster (tail number B1078) from Cape Canaveral on July 26, 2025, marking the booster’s 22nd mission and
26 July 2025
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Stock Market Today

Schwab stock (SCHW) closes near a 52-week high — insider selling and next week’s data loom

Schwab stock (SCHW) closes near a 52-week high — insider selling and next week’s data loom

8 February 2026
New York, February 7, 2026, 18:08 EST — Market closed. Shares of The Charles Schwab Corporation ended Friday up about 3% at $105.08, snapping back with the broader market after a shaky stretch for risk assets. U.S. markets are closed for the weekend and reopen on Monday. A regulatory filing on Thursday showed Schwab co-chairman Walter W. Bettinger exercised stock options and sold 257,410 shares over Feb. 3–4 at weighted-average prices a touch above $104, mostly through a family trust. The transactions landed as the stock hovered near its recent highs, a detail traders tend to notice when momentum names
KLA stock price jumps 8% as chip rebound lifts KLAC — what to know before Monday

KLA stock price jumps 8% as chip rebound lifts KLAC — what to know before Monday

8 February 2026
KLA Corp shares surged 8.4% to $1,442.95 Friday, leading gains in chip-equipment stocks after Amazon announced a major increase in capital spending. About 1.6 million KLA shares traded as the PHLX semiconductor index rose 5.7%. KLA’s board declared a $1.90 quarterly dividend, payable March 3 to holders as of Feb. 17. Applied Materials and Lam Research also rallied sharply into the close.
CBA share price: Commonwealth Bank stock steadies after ASX selloff as earnings loom

CBA share price: Commonwealth Bank stock steadies after ASX selloff as earnings loom

8 February 2026
Commonwealth Bank of Australia closed Friday down 0.23% at A$158.91, outperforming a 2.03% drop in the S&P/ASX 200. Investors await CBA’s half-year results on Feb. 11 and commentary from CEO Matt Comyn. The Reserve Bank’s recent cash-rate hike to 3.85% and upcoming mortgage repricing are in focus. CBA flagged A$68 million in provisions and A$53 million in non-recurring income items.
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