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Mastercard’s latest push into artificial intelligence marks a clear inflection point for payments: the company has moved from embedding AI into detection systems to enabling agentic commerce—where AI agents can negotiate, authorize and execute purchases on behalf of users—backed by new developer tools, token innovations and expanded fraud-fighting capabilities. Background Mastercard’s announcements in 2025 formalize a strategy that pairs two long-running themes in payments: tokenization and...

Windows’ built‑in antivirus has quietly become the practical choice for millions of users, and the recent pushback against paid suites is no accident — the free Windows security stack now combines deep OS integration, modern cloud and AI detections, and targeted anti‑ransomware controls that cover most home and casual‑power users’ needs. Background Microsoft’s native protection — today marketed as Microsoft Defender Antivirus (historically “Windows Defender”) — ships with Windows 10 and...

DJI’s official practice tool, ORQA’s free FPV SkyDive, Real Drone Simulator’s broad-mode standalone app, FlowState’s open-source low-latency FPV engine, the pro-grade DRL SIM, and the veteran race sims VelociDrone and Liftoff (plus lightweight FPV Freerider) together form a practical toolkit for anyone who wants to learn drone flying, practice cinematic shots, or train for competitive FPV racing on a Windows PC—many of them available for free or with free trials, and all accessible via...

The author’s migration away from Windows 11 to macOS is a conversion driven less by fanaticism for Apple and more by pragmatism: fewer interruptions, a richer app ecosystem that matches professional workflows, and a single standout productivity tool — Raycast — that fills gaps Windows users have long patched with third‑party utilities. Background In a short, candid essay the author explains why macOS became the day‑to‑day choice after experimenting with Linux and using Windows 11 for years...

You have to admire the Malaysia Ministry of Finance for finding time, amid talk of disappearing chicken and onions priced like gold, to publish a formal clarification that the one‑off RM100 Sumbangan Asas Rahmah (SARA) aid cannot be used to buy beer — after a viral social‑media clip showed beer on supermarket shelves with SARA-related labels and logos. Background The federal government’s SARA programme promises a one‑off RM100 credit for every Malaysian aged 18 and above, loaded against the...

Albania has just promoted an avatar to cabinet rank: Diella, an AI-driven virtual assistant that will now sit—digitally—in the role of minister responsible for public procurement with an explicit mission to make government tenders “100% free of corruption.” Background Diella first appeared on the state’s e-Albania portal earlier this year as a voice-and-visual virtual assistant intended to help citizens navigate online services and generate digitally stamped documents. According to official...

ProsperOps’s CloudX Award win this September marks a clear inflection point for FinOps: the vendor’s autonomous approach to commitment and workload orchestration has been recognized by the DevNetwork CloudX Awards, and the announcement crystallizes a broader industry shift from visibility and recommendations toward outcome-driven automation that actively manages cloud spend. Background ProsperOps, founded in 2018 and best known for its Autonomous Discount Management (ADM) engine, was named a...

Flyoobe — the community tool that started as a compact Windows 11 installer bypass — has quietly shifted into a broader Out‑Of‑Box Experience (OOBE) and installer toolkit, and its latest publicized update brings a redesigned initial setup UI along with tighter ISO handling, performance trims, and deeper OOBE automation aimed at streamlining first‑boot choices on unsupported hardware. The change underscores a deliberate pivot: Flyoobe now packages known installer bypass techniques with...

Glow’s latest incremental update, Glow 25.11, continues the project’s steady focus on polish, portability and practical diagnostics: the release adds pre‑release support for Windows 11 version 25H2, broad UI and DPI refinements to match modern Windows visuals, targeted speed optimizations (notably WMI and GPU VRAM reads), and a set of reliability and localization fixes—while retaining the tool’s lightweight, portable nature and local-only telemetry model. Background Glow is a portable...

Google Cloud’s surprise decision to waive certain multicloud data‑transfer fees across the European Union and the United Kingdom has the potential to rewire the commercial logic of cloud strategy in Europe, but it also exposes a complex web of technical, contractual, and regulatory questions that IT leaders must navigate carefully. Background What changed — the headline On the eve of the EU Data Act becoming applicable, Google Cloud announced a new offering called Data Transfer Essentials...

Microsoft’s push to make Xbox the gaming platform that follows players across consoles, PCs, and handhelds is now measurable—and exposed by a practical problem: some of the biggest publishers still aren’t playing ball with Xbox Play Anywhere, and that gap risks turning Microsoft’s cross-device dream into a marketing slogan instead of a functioning ecosystem. Background: what Xbox Play Anywhere is — and why it matters Xbox Play Anywhere (XPA) is a cross-buy and cross-save program that lets a...

Microsoft's latest Windows 11 preview builds have repurposed the post‑setup SCOOBE flow into a large, full‑screen subscription reminder that will tell Microsoft 365 users their account “needs attention” — and it does so in a way that many will read as a direct, blocking prompt to renew. Background SCOOBE — a backronym for Second Chance Out of Box Experience — is Microsoft’s follow‑up interface designed to re‑surface setup choices and recommended services after a fresh install or major...

Waitaki District Council’s cautious, staff-first rollout of generative AI shows how a small public body can harness large language models for practical gains—while keeping human judgment, privacy safeguards and governance firmly in the driver’s seat. The council’s chief digital officer, Teresa McCallum, has led a targeted programme that introduced Microsoft Copilot inside the council’s Microsoft environment and used Anthropic’s Claude for specific tasks such as thematic analysis of...

Ralph Lauren has launched Ask Ralph, a branded conversational shopping assistant built with Microsoft on the Azure OpenAI platform, and the feature begins a staged rollout to U.S. Ralph Lauren app users on September 9, 2025, delivering shoppable, head‑to‑toe outfit recommendations as visual “laydowns” that users can refine and add to cart in a single conversational flow. Background Ralph Lauren’s Ask Ralph lands at the intersection of two accelerating retail trends: the adoption of...

Amazon Web Services’ startups czar Jon Jones has left the company after roughly a year in the role, a departure that lands amid a broader wave of executive exits at AWS in 2025 and deepens scrutiny of the cloud giant’s ability to hold ground in the fiercely contested AI talent wars. Background / Overview Jon Jones was appointed vice president and global head of AWS Startups in late 2024, taking over responsibility for the company’s outreach to early‑stage companies, venture capital firms...

Microsoft has quietly expanded the Second Chance Out‑of‑Box Experience (SCOOBE) in Windows 11 Insider builds so it can surface a full‑screen reminder when a Microsoft 365 subscription “needs attention” — for example, when a renewal payment fails — and that reminder can appear before the desktop is shown, effectively forcing users to acknowledge the message on startup. Background: OOBE, SCOOBE and Microsoft's push to surface cloud services Windows has long used an Out‑of‑Box Experience (OOBE)...

Nvidia’s quiet retreat from a direct cloud play marks a meaningful strategic pivot: DGX Cloud — once pitched as NVIDIA’s own AI supercomputer service for enterprises — is being repurposed largely as internal infrastructure, while the company leans into a marketplace model (DGX Cloud Lepton) that routes customer demand through partners and hyperscalers. The change removes an awkward channel conflict with AWS and Microsoft, preserves Nvidia’s grip on the AI software-and-hardware stack, and...

Winaero Tweaker can turn Windows 11 from a one-size-fits-most OS into a personalized desktop with one-click rollbacks of Microsoft’s design choices — and the six changes described in the XDA piece are a solid starter pack for reclaiming control. Background Winaero Tweaker is a well-established third-party utility developed and maintained by Sergey Tkachenko and the Winaero project. It bundles hundreds of UI and behavioral tweaks that would otherwise require registry edits, Group Policy...

Amazon Web Services has lost Jon Jones, its vice president who ran the global startups and venture-capital outreach, in a move that crystallizes a wider 2025 pattern of executive churn and intensifying competition for AI talent across the cloud sector. Background / Overview Jon Jones joined AWS in 2017 and rose through go-to-market and product leadership roles before taking the startups portfolio in 2024. He held the global startups and venture capital brief for roughly a year after...

Glow’s steady, unapologetic march toward a one-stop Windows system-information utility continued this month with reports circling of a new incremental release in the 25.x series — the expected Glow 25.11 update — bringing UI polish, performance optimizations, and deeper platform compatibility for modern Windows devices. The release continues the project’s twin priorities: present exhaustive hardware and software telemetry in a compact, portable package while keeping the tool lightweight and...