Duolingo's [1]decision to go "AI-first" [2]sparked [3]backlash from users, but the company's [4]second quarter earnings result tell a different story. Quarterly revenue exceeded expectations, stock surged nearly 30%, and [5]daily active users grew 40% year-over-year . TechCrunch reports:

> Now the company anticipates making over $1 billion in revenue this year, and daily active users have grown 40% year-over-year. The growth is significant but falls in the lower range of the company's estimates of growing between 40% and 45%, which an investor brought up to [CEO Luis von Ahn] on Wednesday's quarterly earnings call.

>

> "The reason we came [in] towards the lower end was because I said some stuff about AI, and I didn't give enough context. Because of that, we got some backlash on social media," von Ahn said. "The most important thing is we wanted to make the sentiment on our social media positive. We stopped posting edgy posts and started posting things that would get our sentiment more positive. That has worked."



[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/29/0049233/duolingo-will-replace-contract-workers-with-ai

[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/25/0347239/duolingo-faces-massive-social-media-backlash-after-ai-first-comments

[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/06/08/185209/after-ai-first-promise-duolingo-ceo-admits-i-did-not-expect-the-blowback

[4] https://investors.duolingo.com/static-files/0b55110c-2eb9-466d-8549-5459e0851290

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/07/the-backlash-against-duolingo-going-ai-first-didnt-even-matter/

Despite [1]dwindling global market share, retreat from key regions [2]like Europe , and [3]halting in-house production, Sony insists its Xperia smartphone line [4]remains "very important" to its business . 9to5Google reports:

> During Sony's latest financial results presentation this week, Sony CFO Lin Tao addressed the state of its Xperia smartphone brand, saying that Xperia is part of "a very important business for us" as reported by [5]CNET Japan (translated). Tao said that "communication technology is a very important technology that Sony has cultivated for a long time. We also want to continue to value our smartphone business." Though adding that "communication technology is used in areas other than smartphones."



[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile

[2] https://www.gsmarena.com/is_sony_pulling_its_smartphone_business_away_from_europe-news-68612.php

[3] https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-reportedly-doesnt-make-its-own-xperia-phones-anymore

[4] https://9to5google.com/2025/08/07/sony-xperia-very-important-cfo-comments/

[5] https://japan.cnet.com/article/35236485/

Amazon Web Services has struck a deal with the U.S. government to [1]provide up to $1 billion in cloud service discounts through 2028 . CNBC reports:

> The agreement is expected to speed up migration to the cloud, as well as adoption of artificial intelligence tools, the General Services Administration said. "AWS's partnership with GSA demonstrates a shared public-private commitment to enhancing America's AI leadership," the agency said in a release.

>

> Amazon's cloud boss, Matt Garman, hailed the agreement as a "significant milestone in the large-scale digital transformation of government services." The discounts aggregated across federal agencies include credits to use AWS' cloud infrastructure, modernization programs and training services, as well as incentives for "direct partnership."

Further reading: [2]OpenAI Offers ChatGPT To US Federal Agencies for $1 a Year



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/07/amazon-aws-federal-discounts.html

[2] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/08/06/1433258/openai-offers-chatgpt-to-us-federal-agencies-for-1-a-year

[1]alternative_right shares an interview from The Register with David W. Hill, who served as lead designer for ThinkPad from 1995 to 2017. Here are some excerpts from the wide-ranging interview:

> Hill revealed that he tried several times to introduce additional laptops that had the famous "butterfly keyboard" found on the ThinkPad 701C. [...] Hill told The Register that he had [2]wanted to make more ThinkPads with butterfly keyboards and had tried at least three times to make it happen -- in one case there was a prototype where only half of the keyboard moved -- but was never able to get there. Eventually, screens became big enough that there was no need to have a keyboard that expanded. However, Hill said, he thought about putting a butterfly keyboard on a netbook when they were a viable product category in the late aughts. [...]

>

> One of the features Hill is most proud of developing is the ThinkLight, an overhead light located above the screen that lit up the entire keyboard and deck. Though the advent of keyboard backlights has made the ThinkLight redundant -- Lenovo discontinued it in 2013 -- it offers capabilities that backlights do not. If you want to place a paper on top of your keyboard, the LED will light it up, allowing you to see more than just your key legends. ... When designing the 25th anniversary ThinkPad, which came out in 2017, Hill brought back the ThinkLight, but he actually wanted to have -- for the first time -- two LEDs instead of one. The dual lights would have eliminated shadows and provided even better illumination, but unfortunately, this effort proved too costly to make it into the final product. [...]

>

> When I asked Hill about products he wanted to come out with but never got to, he talked about an idea for portable workstations that would fold up like a laptop but have a separate keyboard and screen like a desktop when you put them on your desk. He collaborated with butterfly keyboard creator John Karidis on this concept, but couldn't make it ready for market. "We did a lot of experimentation with laptops that sort of unfolded to be more like a desktop: things where the display elevated or the keyboard would remove so you could use them like a workstation, rather than just being a clamshell with a hinge, you open and close," Hill recalled. "We did a lot of experimentation with that and got close a few times, but never could completely sell it. I always thought it was an opportunity to create a new category."



[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/02/thinkpad_david_hill_interview/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired:

> Two years ago, researchers in the Netherlands [1]discovered an intentional backdoor in an encryption algorithm baked into radios used by critical infrastructure -- as well as police, intelligence agencies, and military forces around the world -- that made any communication secured with the algorithm vulnerable to eavesdropping. When the researchers publicly disclosed the issue in 2023, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), which developed the algorithm, advised anyone using it for sensitive communication to deploy an end-to-end encryption solution on top of the flawed algorithm to bolster the security of their communications. But now the same researchers have found that at least one implementation of the end-to-end encryption solution endorsed by ETSI [2]has a similar issue that makes it equally vulnerable to eavesdropping . The encryption algorithm used for the device they examined starts with a 128-bit key, but this gets compressed to 56 bits before it encrypts traffic, making it easier to crack. It's not clear who is using this implementation of the end-to-end encryption algorithm, nor if anyone using devices with the end-to-end encryption is aware of the security vulnerability in them.

Wired notes that the end-to-end encryption the researchers examined is most commonly used by law enforcement and national security teams. "But ETSI's endorsement of the algorithm two years ago to mitigate flaws found in its lower-level encryption algorithm suggests it may be used more widely now than at the time."



[1] https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/07/24/1942216/researchers-find-backdoor-in-encrypted-police-and-military-radios

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/encryption-made-for-police-and-military-radios-may-be-easily-cracked-researchers-find/

Warner Bros. Discovery is preparing to crack down on HBO Max password sharing by the end of 2025, with " [1]aggressive" enforcement and messaging starting next month . Deadline reports:

> JB Perrette, head of streaming and gaming at Warner Bros. Discovery said on the company's second-quarter earnings call that messaging to consumers is about to get more "aggressive." The media company looking to close the loopholes by the end of 2025, with the impact starting to appear in its financials by 2026. Several months of testing has enabled WBD to determine "who's a legitimate user who may not be a legitimate user," Perrette said. Once that is determined, he continued, the next step is to "turn on the more aggressive language around what needs to happen" in order to and make sure that "we are putting the net in the right place, so to speak."

>

> Asked about what "inning" the process is in, to use the baseball cliche, Perrette said only the first. By the fourth quarter, he said, the process will be happening "in a much more aggressive fashion." "The message language right now has been a fairly soft, cancel-able message," he said. It will "start to get more fixed and such that people have to take action as opposed to right now, sort of having to be a voluntary process." Once those directives are established, he said, "the real benefit will start probably in the fourth quarter and then kick in in 2026."



[1] https://deadline.com/2025/08/hbo-max-password-sharing-crackdown-warner-bros-discovery-1236481075/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet:

> In an interview, [1]Lansweeper , an IT asset discovery and inventory company, revealed to ZDNET that, in [2]its analysis of over 15 million identified consumer desktop operating systems, it found that Linux desktops [3]currently account for just over 6% of PC market share . This news comes after several other studies have shown the Linux desktop is right around the 6% mark. Indeed, according to the [4]US Federal Government Website and App Analytics count, the Linux desktop market share over the last 90 days has reached 6.3%, a new high. In July, according to StatCounter, the Linux desktop also set a record high by its metrics [5]with 5.24% .



[1] https://www.lansweeper.com/

[2] https://www.lansweeper.com/resources/lansweeper-scanning-guide/

[3] https://www.zdnet.com/article/think-linux-desktop-market-share-isnt-over-6-this-15-million-system-scan-says-otherwise/

[4] https://analytics.usa.gov/

[5] https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/07/16/2048246/linux-reaches-5-on-desktop

President Trump is set to sign an executive order [1]opening up 401(k) retirements plans to alternative assets , like private equity, real estate, and cryptocurrency. The move has the potential to unlock trillions in new investment for asset managers outside of stocks, bonds, and cash, "though critics say it also could bring too much risk into retirement investments," reports Reuters. From the report:

> "The order directs the Securities and Exchange Commission to facilitate access to alternative assets for participant-directed defined-contribution retirement savings plans by revising applicable regulations and guidance," the White House official said on condition of anonymity. The order directs the Labor Secretary to consult with her counterparts at the Treasury Department, the SEC, and other federal "regulators to determine whether parallel regulatory changes should be made at those agencies," the official said. [...]

>

> The new investment options carry lower disclosure requirements and are generally less easy to sell quickly for cash than the publicly traded stocks and bonds that most retirement funds rely on. Investing in them also tends to carry higher fees. In defined contribution plans, employees make contributions to their own retirement account, frequently with a matching contribution from their employer. The invested funds belong to the employee, but unlike a defined benefit pension plan, there is no guaranteed regular payout upon retirement.

>

> Many private equity firms are hungry for the new source of cash that retail investors could offer after three years in which high interest rates shook their time-honored model of buying companies and selling them at a profit. Whatever results may come from Trump's order, it likely will not happen overnight, private equity executives say. Plaintiffs' lawyers are already preparing for lawsuits that could be filed by investors who do not understand the complexity of the new forms of investments.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/trump-sign-order-opening-way-alternative-assets-401ks-official-says-2025-08-07/

Microsoft's [1]$30 Extended Security Updates license for Windows 10 will [2]cover up to 10 devices under a single Microsoft Account , the company confirmed in updated support documentation. The ESU program, which provides security updates through October 13, 2026, requires a Microsoft Account for all three enrollment options: the $30 one-time purchase, redemption of 1,000 Microsoft Reward points, or free enrollment for users who sync their PC settings to OneDrive. Windows 10's support ends October 14, 2025.



[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/10/31/2011223/want-to-keep-getting-windows-10-updates-itll-cost-you-30

[2] https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-10/microsoft-just-made-windows-10s-usd30-extended-support-program-an-even-better-deal-but-you-now-need-a-microsoft-account-to-pay-for-it

Google has [1]quietly admitted defeat in selling advertising for its smart TV platform, returning ad inventory to publishers and accepting a revenue share instead of controlling ad spots directly, according to The Verge. The policy reversal comes as Google spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on Google TV without breaking even, while Amazon outspends the company on retail incentives that have already pushed Google TV sets out of Costco stores in favor of Fire TV models.

Amazon pays up to $50 per activated television to retailers and manufacturers, The Verge reported. Google TV has grown to 270 million monthly active devices worldwide since unifying Android TV and Chromecast under a single brand in 2020, but many devices operate in overseas markets that generate little revenue or run customized versions controlled by pay-TV operators. YouTube's success in the living room -- generating $9.8 billion in quarterly ad revenue and accounting for 12.5% of all US television viewing -- has reduced internal support for Google TV, with sales teams prioritizing the video platform and some YouTube executives arguing the smart TV budget should be redirected, the report adds.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/lowpass-newsletter/724970/google-tv-ads-monetization-problem

OpenAI [1]released GPT-5 on Thursday, ending a two-year development cycle that CEO Sam Altman called a "significant leap in intelligence" over previous models. The updated AI system achieved state-of-the-art performance across multiple benchmarks, scoring 94.6% on AIME 2025 mathematics problems and 74.9% on SWE-bench Verified coding tasks.

The model operates as a unified system combining a standard response mode with deeper reasoning capabilities that activate automatically based on query complexity. OpenAI reduced hallucinations by approximately 45% compared to GPT-4o and 80% compared to its previous reasoning model when using extended thinking modes. GPT-5 becomes available immediately to all ChatGPT users at no cost, with paid subscribers receiving higher usage limits and access to GPT-5 pro for more complex reasoning tasks.



[1] https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-5/

An anonymous reader shares a report:

> OpenAI is paying bonuses to around 1,000 employees on its technical research and engineering teams, or about a third of the company, [1]ranging from the low hundreds of thousands to millions , as the company gears up to release its latest flagship GPT-5 model and faces an ever-rising battle for AI talent, according to a person with knowledge of the bonuses.



[1] https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/openai-pays-bonuses-ranging-millions-dollars-1-000-researchers-engineers

[1]schwit1 shares a report:

> China's biggest solar firms [2]shed nearly one-third of their workforces last year , company filings show, as one of the industries hand-picked by Beijing to drive economic growth grapples with falling prices and steep losses. The job cuts illustrate the pain from the vicious price wars being fought across Chinese industries, including solar and electric vehicles, as they grapple with overcapacity and tepid demand. The world produces twice as many solar panels each year as it uses, with most of them manufactured in China.

>

> Longi Green Energy, Trina Solar, Jinko Solar, JA Solar, and Tongwei, collectively shed some 87,000 staff, or 31% of their workforces on average last year, according to a Reuters review of employment figures in public filings.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1

[2] https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinas-solar-industry-quietly-fired-third-its-workers

Digital Foundry, the gaming hardware analysis publication known for its technical console breakdowns, has [1]separated from IGN ownership as of today , with founder Richard Leadbetter purchasing the outlet and its complete archives. Leadbetter, who retained 50% ownership since selling half to Eurogamer in 2015, acquired an additional 25 percent from IGN while investor Rupert Loman, Eurogamer's original co-founder, purchased the remaining quarter.

The five-person team will operate independently, maintaining its YouTube channel with 1.5 million subscribers and Patreon support generating approximately $200,000 annually. The publication plans to develop a full website for its written content and expand coverage while keeping most content free.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/games/743535/digital-foundry-game-console-analysis-going-independent

President Trump on Thursday [1]called on Intel's CEO to resign because of his past ties to China, the latest challenge for the troubled chip maker. From a report:

> "The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Thursday. The president appeared to be referencing Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's past business dealings in China, which Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) called out in a letter to the company's board earlier this week.

>

> On Tuesday, Cotton wrote an open letter to Intel's board questioning Tan's ties to the Chinese government, including apparent connections to the country's military and investments in other semiconductor companies. "The new CEO of @intel reportedly has deep ties to the Chinese Communists," Cotton wrote in a post on X accompanying the letter. "U.S. companies who receive government grants should be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and adhere to strict security regulations. The board of @Intel owes Congress an explanation."



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/trump-calls-on-intel-ceo-to-resign-over-china-ties/ar-AA1K5t7A

Electronic Arts faces a familiar challenge as it prepares to launch Battlefield 6 on October 10: [1]breaking its dependence on the FIFA franchise , now called EA Sports FC, which drives roughly 70% of company profits despite disappointing sales this year.

The company has poured unprecedented resources into Battlefield 6, treating it as a platform built for user-generated content rather than a traditional game release. Early signs appear promising -- the trailer hit nearly 5 million YouTube views in a week and shares climbed 5% after beta testing began -- but analysts remain cautious after last year's Dragon Age flop gutted subsidiary BioWare.



[1] https://www.ft.com/content/5012951c-0f21-4ad3-a374-b5dac4b9a6b3

[1]BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz:

> PCI-SIG [2]says PCI Express 8.0 will hit a raw bit rate of 256.0 GT/s, [3]doubling what PCIe 7.0 offers . The spec is expected to be ready by 2028, and the goal is to support massive data loads from AI, machine learning, edge computing, and even quantum systems. The group says PCIe 8.0 will allow up to 1 terabyte per second of bidirectional throughput with a full x16 configuration. They're also looking at new connector designs, improving protocol efficiency, reducing power use, and maintaining backward compatibility.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~BrianFagioli

[2] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250805675479/en/PCI-SIG-Announces-PCI-Express-8.0-Specification-to-Reach-256.0-GTs

[3] https://nerds.xyz/2025/08/pcie-8-0-specification/

[1]alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org:

> Three nano-glass spheres cling to one another. They form a tower-like cluster, similar to when you pile three scoops of ice cream on top of one another -- only much smaller. The diameter of the nano cluster is ten times smaller than that of a human hair. With the help of an optical device and laser beams, researchers at ETH Zurich have [2]succeeded in keeping such objects almost completely motionless in levitation . This is significant when it comes to the future development of quantum sensors, which, together with quantum computers, constitute the most promising applications of quantum research.

>

> As part of their levitation experiment, the researchers, led by adjunct professor of photonics Martin Frimmer, were able to eliminate the gravitational force acting on the glass spheres. However, the elongated nano object still trembled, similar to how the needle on a compass moves when settling into position. In the case of the nano cluster, the trembling motion was very fast but weak: the object made around one million deflections per second, each measuring only a few thousandths of a degree. This tiny rotational oscillation is a fundamental quantum motion exhibited by all objects, which physicists call zero-point fluctuation.

>

> To date, no one has been successful in detecting these tiny movements for an object of this size as precisely as the ETH researchers have now done. They achieved this because they were able to largely eliminate all motions that originate from the field of classical physics and obscure the observation of quantum movements. The ETH researchers attribute 92% of the cluster's movements in their experiment to quantum physics and 8% to classical physics; they therefore refer to a high level of quantum purity. And the records do not stop there: The researchers accomplished all of this at room temperature. Quantum researchers usually have to cool their objects to a temperature close to absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius) using special equipment. This was not required here.

The research has been [3]published in the journal Nature Physics .



[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right

[2] https://phys.org/news/2025-08-pure-quantum-state-cooling.html

[3] https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41567-025-02976-9

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist:

> People withAlzheimer's disease have lower levels of lithium in their brains, and [1]giving lithium to mice with symptoms of the condition reverses cognitive decline . Together, the findings suggest that lithium deficiency could be a driver of Alzheimer's disease and that low-dose lithium medications could help treat it. [...] [Bruce Yanknerat Harvard University] and his colleagues analyzed levels of 27 metals in the brains of 285 people after they died, 94 of whom were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and 58 of whom had mild cognitive impairment, a precursor of the condition. The other participants showed no signs of cognitive decline at the time of their death.

>

> Lithium levels in the prefrontal cortex -- a brain region crucial for memory and decision-making -- were about 36 percent lower, on average, in people with Alzheimer's disease than in those without any cognitive decline. For those with mild cognitive impairment, lithium levels were about 23 percent lower. "We suspect that's due to a number of environmental factors: dietary intake, genetics and so forth," says Yankner. Yet there seemed to be another reason, too. In those with Alzheimer's disease, clumps of proteins called amyloid plaques contained nearly three times the amount of lithium as plaque-free regions of their brain. "Lithium becomes sequestered in these plaques," says Yankner. "We have two things going on. There is impaired uptake of lithium [in the brain] very early on and then, as the disease progresses, the lithium that is in the brain is further diminished by being bound to amyloid."

>

> To understand how this influences cognition, the team genetically engineered 22 mice to develop Alzheimer's-like symptoms and reduced their lithium intake by 92 percent. After about eight months, the animals performed significantly worse on multiple memory tests compared with 16 mice on a standard diet. It took lithium-deficient mice around 10 seconds longer to find a hidden platform in a water maze, for example, even after six days of training. Their brains also contained nearly two and a half times as many amyloid plaques. Genetic analysis of brain cells from the lithium-deficient mice showed increased activity in genes related to neurodegeneration and Alzheimer's. They also had more brain inflammation and their immune cells were less able to clear away amyloid plaques, changes also seen in people with Alzheimer's disease.

>

> The team then screened different lithium compounds for their ability to bind to amyloid and found that lithium orotate -- a naturally occurring compound in the body formed by combining lithium with orotic acid -- appeared to be the least likely to get trapped within plaques. Nine months of treatment with this compound significantly reduced plaques in mice with Alzheimer's-like symptoms, and they also performed as well on memory tests as normal mice. These results suggest lithium orotate could be a promising treatment for Alzheimer's.

The findings have been [2]published in the journal Nature .



[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2491493-low-dose-of-lithium-reverses-alzheimers-symptoms-in-mice/

[2] https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09335-x

Without providing specifics, President Trump said on Wednesday that he will [1]impose a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips , but not for companies that are "building in the United States." CNBC reports:

> "We're going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors," Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon. "But the good news for companies like Apple is if you're building in the United States or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge," he said. "So in other words, we'll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors. But if you're building in the United States of America, there's no charge."

The remarks follow a recently announced commitment by Apple to [2]invest another $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years to boost manufacturing in the U.S.



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/06/trump-tariffs-chips-companies.html

[2] https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/08/06/1448241/trump-apple-to-announce-new-100-billion-commitment-to-manufacturing-in-us