Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman expects "human-level performance on most, if not all professional tasks" from AI, and believes most work involving "sitting down at a computer" -- accounting, legal, marketing, project management -- will be [1]fully automated within the next year or 18 months . He pointed to exponential growth in computational power and predicted that creating a new AI model will soon be as easy as "creating a podcast or writing a blog."



[1] https://fortune.com/2026/02/13/when-will-ai-kill-white-collar-office-jobs-18-months-microsoft-mustafa-suleyman/

Britain has [1]lost more than 14,000 pubs since 2009 , a decline from roughly 54,000 registered public houses and bars to under 40,000 by 2022, according to a new analysis of UK business register data by data analyst Lauren Leek. The North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands lost 25 to 30% of their stock; London saw the smallest decline.

Leek trained a random forest model on 49,840 pubs and found spatial isolation -- how far a pub stood from its nearest neighbour -- was the single strongest predictor of closure. Median nearest-neighbour distance for surviving pubs is roughly 280 metres; for closed pubs, 640 metres. Each closure pushes remaining pubs further into isolation, a dynamic Leek calls a "spatial death spiral."

Much of that isolation traces to ownership. Stonegate, Britain's largest pub company and a holding of PE firm TDR Capital, carries over $4 billion in debt from its 2019 leveraged acquisition of Ei Group. PE-backed and overseas-owned companies now control roughly a quarter to a third of all British pubs.



[1] https://laurenleek.substack.com/p/britain-lost-14000-third-places-they

Mark Fischbach, the YouTube creator known as Markiplier who has spent nearly 15 years building an audience of more than 38 million subscribers by playing indie-horror video games on camera, has pulled off something that most independent filmmakers never manage -- [1]a self-financed, self-distributed debut feature that has grossed more than $30 million domestically against a $3 million budget.

Iron Lung, a 127-minute sci-fi adaptation of a video game Fischbach wrote, directed, starred in, and edited himself, opened to $18.3 million in its first weekend and has since doubled that figure worldwide in just two weeks, nearly matching the $19.1 million debut of Send Help, a $40 million thriller from Disney-owned 20th Century Studios. Fischbach declined deals from traditional distributors and instead spent months booking theaters privately, encouraging fans to reserve tickets online; when prospective viewers found the film wasn't screening in their city, they called local cinemas to request it, eventually landing Iron Lung on more than 3,000 screens across North America -- all without a single paid media campaign.



[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/02/iron-lung-markiplier-youtuber-movie-review/686020/

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> A moderator on diyAudio set up an experiment to determine whether listeners could differentiate between audio run through pro audio copper wire, a banana, and wet mud. Spoiler alert: the results indicated that users were [1]unable to accurately distinguish between these different 'interfaces.'

>

> Pano, the moderator who built the experiment, invited other members on the forum to listen to various sound clips with four different versions: one taken from the original CD file, with the three others recorded through 180cm of pro audio copper wire, via 20cm of wet mud, through 120cm of old microphone cable soldered to US pennies, and via a 13cm banana, and 120cm of the same setup as earlier.

>

> Initial test results showed that it's extremely difficult for listeners to correctly pick out which audio track used which wiring setup. "The amazing thing is how much alike these files sound. The mud should sound perfectly awful, but it doesn't," Pano said. "All of the re-recordings should be obvious, but they aren't."



[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/speakers/in-a-blind-test-audiophiles-couldnt-tell-the-difference-between-audio-signals-sent-through-copper-wire-a-banana-or-wet-mud-the-mud-should-sound-perfectly-awful-but-it-doesnt-notes-the-experiment-creator

Micron has begun mass production of the 9650 series, the industry's first PCIe 6.0 SSD, capable of sequential read [1]speeds up to 28 GB/s and random read performance of 5.5 million IOPS -- roughly double the throughput of the fastest PCIe 5.0 drives available today.

The drive targets AI and data center workloads and ships in E1.S and E3.S form factors across two variants: the Pro, available in capacities up to 30.72 TB, and the endurance-oriented Max, topping out at 25.6 TB. Both variants share the same peak sequential and random speeds but diverge on mixed workloads and endurance ratings -- the Max 25.6 TB carries a random endurance rating of 140,160 TBW compared to 56,064 TBW on the Pro 30.72 TB.

Power draw holds at 25 watts, unchanged from high-end PCIe 5.0 enterprise SSDs, though the 9650 is Micron's first drive to support liquid cooling alongside air. Consumer platforms are not expected to adopt PCIe 6.0 until 2030.



[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/worlds-first-pcie-6-0-ssd-enters-mass-production-with-28gb-s-speeds-micron-9650-series-ssds-support-air-and-liquid-cooling

Up to a third of people worldwide have shoulder pain; it's one of the most common musculoskeletal complaints. But medical imaging might not reveal the problem -- in fact, it could even cloud it. From a report:

> In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week, 99 percent of adults over 40 were found to [1]have at least one abnormality in a rotator cuff on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The rotator cuff is the group of muscles and tendons in a shoulder joint that keeps the upper arm bone securely in the shoulder socket -- and is often blamed for pain and other symptoms.

>

> The trouble is, the vast majority of the people in the study had no problems with their shoulders. The finding calls into question the growing use of MRIs to try to diagnose shoulder pain -- and, in turn, the growing problem of overtreatment of rotator cuff (RC) abnormalities, which includes partial- and full-thickness tears as well as signs of tendinopathy (tendon swelling and thickening). "While we cannot dismiss the possibility that some RC tears may contribute to shoulder symptoms, our findings indicate that we are currently unable to distinguish clinically meaningful MRI abnormalities from incidental findings," the study authors concluded.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/02/99-of-adults-over-40-have-shoulder-abnormalities-on-an-mri-study-finds/

China's courts are now handling more than 550,000 intellectual-property cases a year -- making it the world's most litigious country for IP disputes -- as the nation's own companies, once notorious for copying foreign designs and technology, find themselves [1]on the defensive against a domestic counterfeiting epidemic fueled by excess factory capacity.

The problem runs from knockoff "Lafufu" plush toys (cheap copies of Pop Mart's wildly popular Labubu dolls, which prompted a nationwide crackdown and a Shanghai police bust of a $1.7 million stash in July) to copied motorcycles and solar panels. Judges in Shanghai, the preferred venue for IP litigation, are working through cases at a rate of roughly one per day, and it still takes three months for a case to land on a court's docket.

Chinese companies are also increasingly clashing abroad: patent-related cases involving Chinese businesses in America surged 56% in 2023, according to data from GEN, a Chinese law firm. Luckin Coffee and Trina Solar have both filed suits against foreign-based copycats.



[1] https://www.economist.com/business/2026/02/09/china-once-stole-foreign-ideas-now-it-wants-to-protect-its-own?taid=32f71dff-f41e-4018-919f-4d988061d35f

Mazda, the automaker that for years defended its scroll-wheel infotainment system as a safer alternative to touchscreens, is [1]abandoning the approach entirely in the 2026 CX-5 in favor of a 15.6-inch touchscreen and zero physical buttons.

The current lineup -- the CX-50 Hybrid, CX-70 and CX-90 -- still relies on a console-mounted scroll wheel and dedicated action buttons to navigate a tablet-like screen perched atop the dashboard. Upper-trim CX-70 and CX-90 models do have 12.3-inch touchscreens, but touch input only works when parked and only inside CarPlay; it disables automatically once the car is in drive.

The new CX-5 goes the other direction entirely, eliminating all hard buttons including the volume knob and physical climate controls that current models still offer. Mazda says the touchscreen is safe because core functions like climate are pinned to a persistent bottom bar -- an approach Ford, Rivian, and most of the industry adopted years ago.



[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/mazda-finally-admits-its-infotainment-system-is-the-worst

The software industry's decades-old habit of charging companies a flat fee for every employee who uses a product is [1]running into a fundamental problem : AI agents don't sit in chairs, and they don't need licences.

As autonomous agents take on tasks that human workers once handled, the per-seat pricing model that made SaaS revenue so predictable is giving way to consumption-based and hybrid alternatives. Snowflake and Databricks (valued at $134 billion) already charge based on usage. Salesforce initially priced its Agentforce customer relations bot at $2 per conversation but faced customer pushback and now offers action-based pricing, upfront credits and fixed fees.

ServiceNow's finance chief Amit Zavery said last month that some customers aren't ready for purely consumption-based models. Goldman Sachs estimates US software spending will nearly triple to $2.8 trillion by 2037 as automated tasks blur the boundary between IT and wage budgets, but that money will no longer arrive in the neat recurring instalments that investors and private equity firms have come to expect.



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/8784de75-861f-4460-b8c3-6937f626dbd1

Valve has updated the Steam Deck website to say that the Steam Deck OLED may be out of stock " [1]intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages ." From a report:

> The PC gaming handheld has been out of stock in the US and other parts of the world for a few days, and thanks to this update, we now know why. The update comes shortly after Valve delayed the Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and Steam Controller from a planned shipping window of early 2026 because of the memory and storage crunch.

>

> "We have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change," Valve said in a post about that announcement from earlier this month. Its goal is to launch that new hardware sometime in the first half of 2026, and the company is working to finalize its plans "as soon as possible."



[1] https://www.theverge.com/games/879845/valve-steam-deck-oled-out-of-stock-memory-storage-ram-crisis

Sony Group has developed a technology that can [1]identify the underlying music used in tunes generated by AI , making it possible for songwriters to seek compensation from AI developers if their music was used. From a report:

> Sony Group's technology analyzes which musicians' songs were used in learning and generating music. It can quantify the contribution of each original work, such as "30% of the music used by the Beatles and 10% by Queen," for example.

>

> If the AI developer agrees to cooperate for the analysis, Sony Group will obtain data by connecting to the developer's base model system. When cooperation is not attainable, the technology estimates the original work by comparing AI-generated music with existing music. The AI boom has sparked numerous cases in which AI developers are accused of using copyrighted music, video and writing without permission to train machines. In the music industry, AI-generated songs using the voices of well-known singers have been distributed online. The Japanese company thinks the technology will help create a system that distributes revenue generated by AI music to original songwriters based on their contribution.



[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/business/technology/artificial-intelligence/sony-group-tech-can-identify-original-music-in-ai-generated-songs

Instagram head Adam Mosseri told a Los Angeles courtroom last week that a teenager's 16-hour single-day session on the platform [1]was "problematic use" but not an addiction , a distinction he drew repeatedly during testimony in a landmark trial over social media's harm to minors.

Mosseri, who has led Instagram for eight years, is the first high-profile tech executive to take the stand. He agreed the platform should do everything in its power to protect young users but said how much use was too much was "a personal thing." The lead plaintiff, identified as K.G.M., reported bullying on Instagram more than 300 times; Mosseri said he had not known. An internal Meta survey of 269,000 users found 60% had experienced bullying in the previous week.



[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn71mgmzljlo

Sales of refurbished PCs are on the up amid shortages of key components, including memory chips, that are making brand new devices more expensive. From a report:

> Stats compiled by market watcher Context show sales of refurbished PCs via distribution [1]climbed 7 percent in calendar Q4 across five of the biggest European markets -- Italy, the UK, Germany, Spain, and France.

>

> Affordability is the primary driver in the secondhand segment, the analyst says, with around 40 percent of sales driven by budget-conscious users shopping in the $235 to $355 price band for laptops. The $355 to $475 tier is also expanding -- representing 23 percent of the refurbished market, up from 15 percent a year earlier -- indicating some buyers are prepared to spend a bit more for improved specifications.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/refurbished_pcs_memory_crunch/

The music industry's long romance with an ever-expanding catalog of songs [1]appears to be souring , as streaming platforms and rights holders confront a daily deluge that now includes 60,000 wholly AI-generated tracks uploaded to Deezer alone -- roughly 39% of the French service's daily intake, a statistic the company shared during Grammys week last month.

Streaming services now host 253 million songs, according to Luminate's most recent annual report, after adding 51 million tracks over the course of 2025 at an average pace of 106,000 uploads a day. Spotify has already responded by requiring songs to hit at least 1,000 plays in the previous 12 months to qualify for royalties, and Luminate reported that 88% of tracks received 1,000 or fewer plays in 2025.

The distribution layer is in flux too: Universal Music Group is trying to acquire Downtown Music, owner of DIY distributor CD Baby, TuneCore's head recently stepped down without a planned replacement, and DistroKid is reportedly up for sale.



[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-02-12/streaming-music-enters-its-less-is-more-era

Samsung has all but confirmed that its upcoming Galaxy S26 will [1]feature a built-in privacy display , releasing an ad that demonstrates a "Zero-peeking privacy" toggle capable of blacking out on-screen content for anyone peering over the user's shoulder.

The underlying technology is reportedly Samsung Display's Flex Magic Pixel OLED panel, first shown at MWC 2024, which adjusts viewing angles on a pixel-by-pixel basis -- and leaker Ice Universe has shared a video of the feature selectively hiding content in banking and messaging apps using AI. Samsung's Unpacked event is scheduled for February 25th.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/879652/samsung-galaxy-s26-privacy-display-ad-flex-magic-pixel

Western Digital's entire hard drive manufacturing capacity for calendar year 2026 is [1]now fully spoken for , CEO Irving Tan disclosed during the company's second-quarter earnings call, a stark sign of how aggressively hyperscalers are locking down storage supply to feed their AI infrastructure buildouts.

The company has firm purchase orders from its top seven customers and has signed long-term agreements stretching into 2027 and 2028 that cover both exabyte volumes and pricing. Cloud revenue now accounts for 89% of Western Digital's total, according to the company's VP of Investor Relations, while consumer revenue has shrunk to just 5%.



[1] https://wccftech.com/western-digital-has-no-more-hdd-capacity-left-out/

Human software engineers and AI are currently in [1]a "centaur phase" -- a reference to the mythical half-human, half-horse creature, where the combination outperforms either working alone -- but the window may be "very brief," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on a podcast. He drew on chess as precedent: 15 to 20 years ago, a human checking AI's moves could beat a standalone AI or human, but machines have since surpassed that arrangement entirely.

Amodei said the same transition would play out in software engineering, and warned that entry-level white-collar disruption is "happening over low single-digit numbers of years."



[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-centaur-phase-of-software-engineering-jobs-2026-2

New Delhi's air quality index [1]averaged 349 in December and 307 in January -- levels the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies as hazardous -- and the months-long smog season that forces more than 30 million residents to endure respiratory illness has this year sparked something new: public protest. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at India Gate on November 9 to demand government action; police detained more than a dozen people, and a follow-up protest later that month turned violent.

The government's response has been largely cosmetic. Authorities deployed truck-mounted "smog guns" and "smog towers" that scientists widely regard as ineffective, and a cloud seeding trial in October failed outright. A senior environment minister told Parliament in December that no conclusive data linked pollution to lung disease -- a claim doctors sharply disputed. The government cut pollution control spending by 16% in the latest federal budget. Almost 1.7 million deaths were attributable to air pollution in India in 2019, according to the Lancet. A 2023 World Bank report estimated the crisis shaves 0.56 percentage point off annual GDP growth.



[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-13/india-s-toxic-air-pollution-spurs-public-anger-in-new-delhi

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> The European Parliament has [1]disabled AI features on the work devices of lawmakers and their staff over cybersecurity and data protection concerns, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO. The chamber emailed its members on Monday to say it had disabled "built-in artificial intelligence features" on corporate tablets after its IT department assessed it couldn't guarantee the security of the tools' data.

>

> "Some of these features use cloud services to carry out tasks that could be handled locally, sending data off the device," the Parliament's e-MEP tech support desk said in the email. "As these features continue to evolve and become available on more devices, the full extent of data shared with service providers is still being assessed. Until this is fully clarified, it is considered safer to keep such features disabled."



[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-parliament-blocks-ai-features-over-cyber-privacy-fears/

A partner at KPMG Australia has been fined $7,000 by the Big Four firm after using AI tools to [1]cheat on an internal training course about using AI. From a report:

> The unnamed partner was forced to redo the test after uploading training materials into an AI platform to help answer questions on the use of the fast-evolving technology.

>

> More than two dozen staff have been caught over this financial year using AI tools for internal exams, according to KPMG. The incident is the latest example of a professional services company struggling with staff using artificial intelligence to cheat on exams or when producing work for clients. "Like most organisations, we have been grappling with the role and use of AI as it relates to internal training and testing," said Andrew Yates, chief executive of KPMG Australia. "It's a very hard thing to get on top of given how quickly society has embraced it."



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/c30ded60-bece-45e0-981d-653e1e3e9818