The UK police [1]plan to spend up to 75 million pounds ($102 million) to digitize their vast archive of VHS tapes , aiming to preserve evidence by converting analog media into digital files integrated with evidence management systems. The procurement includes both in-house solutions and outsourced services, with additional funding earmarked for converting other legacy formats like microfiche and DVDs. The Register reports:

> According to [2]a tender notice published last week, Bluelight Commercial - a not-for-profit buyer that acts on behalf of the emergency services - says the police force requires either in-house technology or outsourced services to convert the arcane magnetic tape format to digital storage. The notice, which sets out procurement plans, says the framework agreement will help forces with the "conversion of analog media to digital records, including metadata for integration with a digital evidence management system."

>

> In the first lot of the framework, Bluelight asks for in-house VHS media digitization software, hardware, and training to "enable a Police Force to convert VHS tapes to digital files." This chunk of the arrangement could be worth 50 million pounds ($68 million) for four years, excluding VAT. The second lot asks for outsourced VHS media digitization "for the provision of conversion services delivered completely by a third party with electronic files being returned securely to the customer force." The output is also set to be ingested by a digital evidence management solution. It could be worth up to 25 million pounds ($34 million) over the same period. In addition, Bluelight Commercial is looking for a provider to help with more niche media digitization, including converting microfiche, CD, DVDs to an electronic file format, in an arrangement which could be worth a total of up to 25 million pounds ($34 million).



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/08/uk_police_dangle_75_million/

[2] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/036989-2025

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:

> Google [1]announced on Tuesday that it's launching a new Gmail feature that is [2]designed to help users easily manage their subscriptions and declutter their inboxes . The new "Manage subscriptions" tool is rolling out on the web, Android, and iOS in select countries. With the new feature, users can view and manage their subscription emails in one place and quickly unsubscribe from the ones they no longer want to receive.

>

> Users can view their active subscriptions, organized by the most frequent senders, alongside the number of emails they've sent in the past few weeks. Clicking on a sender provides a direct view of all emails from them. If a user decides to unsubscribe, Gmail will send an unsubscribe request to the sender on their behalf. "It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of subscription emails clogging your inbox: Daily deal alerts that are basically spam, weekly newsletters from blogs you no longer read, promotional emails from retailers you haven't shopped in years can quickly pile up," Chris Doan, Gmail's Director of Product, wrote in a blog post.

>

> Users can access the new feature by clicking the navigation bar in the top-left corner of their Gmail inbox and then selecting "Manage subscriptions." [...] Google says the new feature will begin rolling out on the web starting Tuesday, with Android and iOS users starting to receive it on July 14 and July 21, respectively. It may take up to 15 days from the start of the rollout for the feature to reach every user, the company says. The Manage subscriptions feature is available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.



[1] https://blog.google/products/gmail/new-manage-subscriptions-unsubscribe/

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/08/gmails-new-manage-subscriptions-tool-will-help-declutter-your-inbox/

Meta has [1]acquired a $3.5 billion stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica , "a deal that increases the U.S. tech giant's financial commitment to the fast-growing smart glasses industry," reports Bloomberg. From the report:

> Meta's investment in the eyewear giant deepens the relationship between the two companies, which have partnered over the past several years to develop AI-powered smart glasses. Meta currently sells a pair of Ray-Ban glasses, first debuted in 2021, with built-in cameras and an AI assistant. Last month, it launched separate Oakley-branded glasses with EssilorLuxottica. EssilorLuxottica Chief Executive Officer Francesco Milleri said last year that Meta was interested in taking a stake the company, but that plan hadn't materialized until now.

>

> The deal aligns with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's commitment to AI, which has become a top priority and major expense for the company. Smart glasses are a key part of that plan. While Meta has historically had to deliver its apps and services via smartphones created by competitors, glasses offer Meta a chance to build its own hardware and control its own distribution, Zuckerberg has said. The arrangement gives Meta the advantage of having more detailed manufacturing knowledge and global distribution networks, fundamental to turning its smart glasses into mass-market products. For EssilorLuxottica, the deal provides a deeper presence in the tech world, which would be helpful if Meta's futuristic bets pay off. Meta is also betting on the idea that people will one day work and play while wearing headsets or glasses.



[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-invests-3-5-billion-191357907.html

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

> Apple is making a high-level leadership change that could significantly shape its future behind the scenes. The company has announced that longtime executive Jeff Williams will [2]step down from his role as Chief Operating Officer later this month . His successor will be Sabih Khan, Apple's Senior Vice President of Operations and a key player in the company's global supply chain strategy. Williams isn't leaving Apple entirely just yet. He'll continue working closely with CEO Tim Cook for the rest of the year, overseeing Apple Watch and health initiatives, as well as leading the company's industrial design team until his retirement. After that, Apple's design team will report directly to Cook.

>

> Khan's promotion is part of what Apple describes as a long-planned transition. Cook praised Khan as a "brilliant strategist" who helped Apple reduce its carbon footprint by over 60 percent, expand domestic manufacturing, and remain agile during global supply chain challenges. Khan has been with Apple for 30 years and took on a more prominent executive role in 2019. He has quietly helped the company build one of the most influential supply chains in the world.



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

[2] https://nerds.xyz/2025/07/apple-coo-transition-jeff-williams-sabih-khan/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet:

> The Linux Foundation announced at the Open Source Summit in Denver that it will [1]now host the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol . Initially developed by Google and now supported by more than 100 leading technology companies, [2]A2A is a crucial new open standard for secure and interoperable communication between AI agents. In his keynote presentation, Mike Smith, a Google staff software engineer, told the conference that the A2A protocol has evolved to make it easier to add custom extensions to the core specification. Additionally, the A2A community is working on making it easier to assign unique identities to AI agents, thereby improving governance and security.

>

> The A2A protocol is designed to solve one of AI's most pressing challenges: enabling autonomous agents -- software entities capable of independent action and decision-making -- to discover each other, securely exchange information, and collaborate across disparate platforms, vendors, and frameworks. Under the hood, A2A does this work by creating an [3]AgentCard . An AgentCard is a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) metadata document that describes its purpose and provides instructions on how to access it via a web URL. A2A also leverages widely adopted web standards, such as HTTP, JSON-RPC, and Server-Sent Events (SSE), to ensure broad compatibility and ease of integration. By providing a standardized, vendor-neutral communication layer, A2A breaks down the silos that have historically limited the potential of multi-agent systems.

>

> For security, A2A comes with enterprise-grade authentication and authorization built in, including support for JSON Web Tokens (JWTs), OpenID Connect (OIDC), and Transport Layer Security (TLS). This approach ensures that only authorized agents can participate in workflows, protecting sensitive data and agent identities. While the security foundations are in place, developers at the conference acknowledged that integrating them, particularly authenticating agents, will be a hard slog.

Antje Barth, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) principal developer advocate for generative AI, explained what the adoption of A2A will mean for IT professionals: "Say you want to book a train ride to Copenhagen, then a hotel there, and look maybe for a fancy restaurant, right? You have inputs and individual tasks, and A2A adds more agents to this conversation, with one agent specializing in hotel bookings, another in restaurants, and so on. A2A enables agents to communicate with each other, hand off tasks, and finally brings the feedback to the end user."

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said: "By joining the Linux Foundation, A2A is ensuring the long-term neutrality, collaboration, and governance that will unlock the next era of agent-to-agent powered productivity." Zemlin expects A2A to become a cornerstone for building interoperable, multi-agent AI systems.



[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-foundation-adopts-a2a-protocol-to-help-solve-one-of-ais-most-pressing-challenges/

[2] https://a2aprotocol.ai/

[3] https://www.agentcard.net/

Activision [1]removed "Call of Duty: WWII" from Microsoft Store and Game Pass after hackers exploited a security vulnerability that allowed them to compromise players' computers, TechCrunch reported Tuesday, citing a source. The gaming giant took the 2017 first-person shooter offline last week while investigating what it initially described only as "reports of an issue."

Players posted on social media claiming their systems had been hacked while playing the game. The vulnerability was a remote code execution exploit that enables attackers to install malware and take control of victims' devices. The Microsoft Store and Game Pass versions contained an unpatched security flaw that had been fixed in other versions of the game.



[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/08/activision-took-down-call-of-duty-game-after-pc-players-hacked-says-source/

The U.N. Human Rights Council [1]passed a motion on climate change and human rights by consensus Tuesday after the Marshall Islands withdrew a divisive amendment calling for states to recommit to a fossil fuel phase-out. The motion calls on countries "to contribute to the global efforts" against climate change and follows the council's 2021 recognition of access to a clean and healthy environment as a fundamental right.

Oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had voiced opposition to the original fossil fuel phrasing during negotiations. Instead, the final motion referenced "the imperative of defossilizing our economies" in a footnote, allowing passage without a vote where the outcome had been uncertain.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/cop/un-vote-phase-out-fossil-fuels-tests-climate-commitments-2025-07-08/

Corporate employees of Amazon have been asked to [1]volunteer their time to the company's warehouses to assist with grocery delivery as it heads into its annual discount spree known as Prime Day. From a report:

> In a Slack message reviewed by the Guardian that went to thousands of white-collar workers in the New York City area from engineers to marketers, an Amazon area manager called for corporate "volunteers to help us out with Prime Day to deliver to customers on our biggest days yet." It is not clear how many took up the offer.

>

> The ask came the day before Prime Day kicks off. The manager said volunteers are "needed" to work Tuesday through Friday this week, in two-hour shifts between 10am and 6pm in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the company operates a warehouse as part of its grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh. Corporate employees seconded to the warehouse would be tasked with picking items, preparing carts and bags of groceries for delivery, packing boxes on receiving carts, and working to "boost morale with distribution of snacks," though they would be allowed to step into a conference room to take meetings and calls, according to the message. The manager noted such an effort would help "connect" warehouse and corporate teams.

Further reading : [2]Amazon Prime Day Spending Down 14% in Early Hours From 2024 .



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/07/amazon-grocery-deliveries-prime-day

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-08/amazon-prime-day-spending-down-14-in-early-hours-from-2024

Napster has [1]returned with an AI-powered reinvention , launching a platform of specialized chatbots and holographic avatars. The former dot-com music file-sharing pioneer now offers dozens of "AI companions" trained as experts in fields from therapy to business strategy, plus the View device for 3D holographic video chats, FastCompany reports.

Infinite Reality [2]acquired Napster for $207 million in March and rebranded itself under the nostalgic name. The platform charges $19 monthly or $199 bundled with hardware, marking Napster's latest attempt at relevance after previous owners tried VR concerts and crypto ventures.



[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/91362947/napster-is-back-betting-big-on-ai

[2] https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/03/25/1229231/music-pioneer-napster-sells-for-207-million

An anonymous reader [1]shares a blog post :

> Version 140 of the Thunderbird mail client [2]has been released . Notable features include "dark message mode" to adapt message content to dark mode, the ability to easily transfer desktop settings to the mobile Thunderbird client, experimental support for Microsoft Exchange, as well as global controls for message threading and sort order.

>

> Thunderbird 140 is an extended-support release (ESR) which will be supported for 12 months. However, the Thunderbird project is trying to encourage users to adopt the Release channel for monthly updates instead. The project is staggering upgrades to 140 for existing Thunderbird users in order to catch any significant bugs before they are widely deployed, but users can upgrade manually via the Help > About menu. See the [3]release notes for a full list of changes.



[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/1029175/

[2] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/07/welcome-to-thunderbird-140-eclipse/

[3] https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/140.0esr/releasenotes/

Microsoft and OpenAI are locked in acrimonious negotiations partly because they [1]cannot agree on what artificial general intelligence means , despite having written the term into a contract worth over $13 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

One definition reportedly agreed upon by the companies sets the AGI threshold at when AI generates $100 billion in profits. Under their partnership agreement, OpenAI can limit Microsoft's access to future technology once it achieves AGI. OpenAI executives believe they are close to declaring AGI, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called using AGI as a self-proclaimed milestone "nonsensical benchmark hacking" on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast in February.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/07/agi-may-be-impossible-to-define-and-thats-a-multibillion-dollar-problem/

The Georgia Court of Appeals has [1]overturned a trial court's order after finding it relied on court cases that do not exist, apparently generated by AI. The appellate court vacated the ruling in a divorce case involving Nimat Shahid's challenge to a divorce order granted to her husband Sufyan Esaam in July 2022.

"We are troubled by the citation of bogus cases in the trial court's order," the appeals court stated in its decision, which directs the lower court to revisit Shahid's petition. The court noted the errant citations appear to have been "drafted using generative AI" and were included in an order prepared by attorney Diana Lynch.

Lynch repeated the fabricated citations in her appeals briefs and expanded upon them after Shahid had challenged the fictitious cases. The appeals court found Lynch's briefs contained "11 bogus case citations out of 15 total, one of which was in support of a frivolous request for attorney fees." The court fined Lynch $2,500 for filing the frivolous motion.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/08/georgia_appeals_court_ai_caselaw/

SUSE has unveiled a new support package aimed at customers concerned about data sovereignty. From a report:

> Called "SUSE Sovereign Premium Support," the service [1]geo-pins support to a given region rather than adopting the traditional follow-the-sun model, where support comes from whatever region is online. The latter approach could break sovereignty regulations or policies, as it might involve transferring data out of a region. Ensuring that support is available from a specific region is therefore crucial, particularly for European customers.

>

> SUSE CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen told The Register: "Digital sovereignty has become a really hot topic in the last half year, and specifically in Europe, where companies feel an increasing need to get things done in-house, in-country, or in-region within Europe, with less dependency on non-European vendors and supply chains and people."



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/08/suse_sovereign_support/

An impostor pretending to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted foreign ministers, a U.S. governor and a member of Congress by sending them [1]voice and text messages that mimic Rubio's voice and writing style using AI-powered software , Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing a senior U.S. official and a State Department cable. From the report:

> U.S. authorities do not know who is behind the string of impersonation attempts but they believe the culprit was probably attempting to manipulate powerful government officials "with the goal of gaining access to information or accounts," according to a cable sent by Rubio's office to State Department employees.

>

> Using both text messaging and the encrypted messaging app Signal, which the Trump administration uses extensively, the impostor "contacted at least five non-Department individuals, including three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a U.S. member of Congress," said the cable, dated July 3. The impersonation campaign began in mid-June when the impostor created a Signal account using the display name "Marco.Rubio@state.gov" to contact unsuspecting foreign and domestic diplomats and politicians, said the cable.



[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/a-marco-rubio-impostor-is-using-ai-voice-to-call-high-level-officials/ar-AA1Ibuny

X said Tuesday it is " [1]deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India " after the Indian government ordered the platform to block 2,355 accounts on July 3, including two Reuters news agency handles. The social media company said the order came under India's Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, with non-compliance risking criminal liability.

The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action within one hour without providing justification, X said. After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock the Reuters accounts.



[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/8/deeply-concerned-over-india-press-censorship-says-x-as-accounts-blocked

Google is implementing a change that will enable its Gemini AI engine to [1]interact with third-party apps , such as WhatsApp, even when users previously configured their devices to block such interactions. ArsTechnica:

> Users who don't want their previous settings to be overridden may have to take action. An email Google sent recently informing users of the change linked to a notification page that said that "human reviewers (including service providers) read, annotate, and process" the data Gemini accesses.

>

> The email provides no useful guidance for preventing the changes from taking effect. The email said users can block the apps that Gemini interacts with, but even in those cases, data is stored for 72 hours. The email never explains how users can fully extricate Gemini from their Android devices and seems to contradict itself on how or whether this is even possible.



[1] https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/07/unless-users-take-action-android-will-let-gemini-access-third-party-apps/

Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic will announce Tuesday the launch of a $22.5 million AI training center for members of the American Federation of Teachers, according to details inadvertently published early on a publicly accessible YouTube livestream. The National Academy for AI Instruction will be based in New York City and aims to equip kindergarten through 12th grade instructors with "the tools and confidence to bring AI into the classroom in a way that supports learning and opportunity for all students."

The initiative will [1]provide free AI training and curriculum to teachers in the second-largest US teachers' union , which represents about 1.8 million workers including K-12 teachers, school nurses and college staff. The academy builds on Microsoft's December 2023 partnership with the AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization that includes the American Federation of Teachers.



[1] https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-openai-and-a-us-teachers-union-are-hatching-a-plan-to-bring-ai-into-the-classroom/

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:

> The herbicide ingredient used to replace glyphosate in Roundup and other weedkiller products [1]can kill gut bacteria and damage organs in multiple ways , new research shows. The ingredient, diquat, is widely employed in the US as a weedkiller in vineyards and orchards, and is increasingly sprayed elsewhere as the use of controversial herbicide substances such as glyphosate and paraquat drops in the US. But the [2]new piece of data suggests diquat is more toxic than glyphosate, and the substance is banned over its risks in the UK, EU, China and many other countries. Still, the EPA has resisted calls for a ban, and Roundup formulas with the ingredient hit the shelves last year. [...]

>

> Diquat is also thought to be a neurotoxin, carcinogen and linked to Parkinson's disease. An October analysis of EPA data by the Friends of the Earth non-profit found it is about 200 times more toxic than glyphosate in terms of chronic exposure. [...] The new review of scientific literature in part focuses on the multiple ways in which diquat damages organs and gut bacteria, including by reducing the level of proteins that are key pieces of the gut lining. The weakening can allow toxins and pathogens to move from the stomach into the bloodstream, and trigger inflammation in the intestines and throughout the body. Meanwhile, diquat can inhibit the production of beneficial bacteria that maintain the gut lining. Damage to the lining also inhibits the absorption of nutrients and energy metabolism, the authors said.

>

> The research further scrutinizes how the substance harms the kidneys, lungs and liver. Diquat "causes irreversible structural and functional damage to the kidneys" because it can destroy kidney cells' membranes and interfere with cell signals. The effects on the liver are similar, and the ingredient causes the production of proteins that inflame the organ. Meanwhile, it seems to attack the lungs by triggering inflammation that damages the organ's tissue. More broadly, the inflammation caused by diquat may cause multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, a scenario in which organ systems begin to fail. The authors note that many of the studies are on rodents and more research on low, long-term exposure is needed.

The report notes that the EPA is not reviewing the chemical, "and even non-profits that push for tighter pesticide regulations have largely focused their attention elsewhere."

"[T]hat was in part because U.S. pesticide regulations are so weak that advocates are tied up with battles over ingredients like glyphosate, paraquat and chlorpyrifos -- substances that are banned elsewhere but still widely used here. Diquat is 'overshadowed' by those ingredients."



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/06/weedkiller-diquat-organ-damage-study

[2] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2025.1562182/full

Arizona has [1]activated one of its largest grid battery storage projects to help meet peak summer energy demand. Electrek reports:

> Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, just brought its 1,200 MWh Papago Storage facility in Maricopa County into commercial operation. The big grid battery is now supplying stored electricity to Arizona Public Service (APS), the state's largest utility, in time for peak air-conditioning season. Papago is the first of three Recurrent projects with APS. Together, they'll provide 1,800 MWh of storage and 150 MW of solar power. That's enough to run about 72,000 homes for four hours and provide year-round solar for another 24,000 homes.



[1] https://electrek.co/2025/07/07/arizona-brings-a-huge-grid-battery-online-ahead-of-peak-demand/

A team of U.S. and German researchers analyzed over 15 million biomedical papers and found that AI-generated content has [1]subtly infiltrated academic writing, with telltale stylistic shifts -- such as a rise in flowery verbs and adjectives. "Their investigation revealed that since the emergence of LLMs there has been a corresponding increase in the frequency of certain stylist word choices within the academic literature," reports Phys.Org. "These data suggest that at least 13.5% of the papers published in 2024 were written with some amount of LLM processing." From the report:

> The researchers modeled their investigation on prior COVID-19 public-health [2]research , which was able to infer COVID-19's impact on mortality by comparing excess deaths before and after the pandemic. By applying the same before-and-after approach, the new study analyzed patterns of excess word use prior to the emergence of LLMs and after. The researchers found that after the release of LLMs, there was a significant shift away from the excess use of "content words" to an excess use of "stylistic and flowery" word choices, such as "showcasing," "pivotal," and "grappling."

>

> By manually assigning parts of speech to each excess word, the authors determined that before 2024, 79.2% of excess word choices were nouns. During 2024 there was a clearly identifiable shift. 66% of excess word choices were verbs and 14% were adjectives. The team also identified notable differences in LLM usage between research fields, countries, and venues.

The findings have been [3]published in the journal Science Advances .



[1] https://phys.org/news/2025-07-massive-ai-fingerprints-millions-scientific.html

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36517599/

[3] http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adt3813