Microsoft reportedly offered the US government $150m in free cybersecurity services, and injected consultants into agencies.

Elon Musk was a central figure in the business world pushing for Trump's return to the White House in the lead-up to this month's elections.

Chinese gaming and social media giant Tencent on Wednesday reported profit above analysts' expectations, while revenue missed slightly.

Twelve years after its official announcement, Ubisofts Splinter Cell movie is now officially dead. A producer shared the reasons why: https://80.lv/articles/ubisoft-s-splinter-cell-movie-canceled-due-to-budget-script/

Valve revealed details on the canceled Half-Life 2: Episode 3 for the first time.Take a look at the gameplay mechanics and concepts: https://80.lv/articles/valve-revealed-footage-of-half-life-2-episode-3/

A new, AI-powered platform called Aggie wants to manage your brands social media.Aggie is a product of Audience Genomics, which has since 2018 offered audience data analytics to big brands like Universal Studios, AMC Television, and Fenty Beauty. The company soon also worked with private equity investors to evaluate the quality of marketing by companies they were considering investing in, which led to advising some small and medium-sized businesses on marketing, says founder and CEO Greg Weinstein.And as much as those businesses valued insights and analytics, they still found it challenging to actually produce a steady stream of marketing content to reach audiences on social media.What we learned from them was that theyre all short-staffed, Weinstein says. They all feel under the gun of feeding the never-ending beast of having to populate their social media channels.Greg Weinstein [Photo: courtesy of Aggie]Realizing that the company had a large selection of data into what sorts of social media posts do well, including information that would-be competitors would find it hard to replicate now that social platforms have locked down access to automated tools, Audience Genomics created Aggie. Its a one-stop tool that with a few clicks can generate a calendar of social media posts for platforms including Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and Threads, allow users to tweak it if they so desire, then schedule it to publish.Aggie is informed by social media posts and website content previously published by that particular customer and others in the same industry and how theyve fared, as well as guidance that users provide, like requesting that the software focus on a particular sale or product. Its designed to create a diverse array of content, which can include a variety of images and captions ranging from quotes, tips, and tricks to information about specific goods and services to holiday greetings.Stephen Esposito [Photo: courtesy of Aggie]A calendars worth of posts are generated in under five minutes, and typically in less than 60 seconds, says Stephen Esposito, the companys lead investor and chief strategy officer. Keeping social media current is as important to reaching customers as maintaining a website was a couple of decades ago, he says. with younger customers in particular often dubious of businesses that dont regularly post.If you do not have an Instagram, or you have not posted in the last six months, you appear to be closed to them, he says.When customers sign up for the service, which has plans starting at $79 per month with an annual subscription, they provide their company logos, which Aggie uses to generate a branded color scheme for future posts. Users can edit text and images before scheduling posts, or reject some entirely, but the tool is designed to quickly generate usable posts that busy business owners and social media managers can approve, then move on with their days. Pro level accounts, starting at $159 per month, offer more posts every month and enhanced analytics.Sam Lavey, the marketing and social media director for boutique skincare startup Gleem Beauty, says before using Aggie, much of his time was spent coming up with ideas, graphics, captions, and hashtags for social posts. Now, Aggie can generate ready-to-use content for Gleems Instagram more or less instantaneously, though Lavey sometimes makes minor changes to the images, like inserting actual product images where the AI places imagined renderings.What took me just way too much time is now taking me near minutes, he says.Recently, hes also had success reusing Aggie-generated images and text in the beauty companys newsletter, which drives a healthy number of Gleems sales. And in the future, Esposito says, the tool will likely be able to create videos and longer-form editorial content.Aggie isnt the only product that can generate marketing content with AI. Other online marketing tools have increasingly added automated options to generate social media, email, and other material, and marketers can do the same in a bit more steps with tools like ChatGPT.But Weinstein says the companys wealth of data, experience in marketing, and attention to detail helps set it apart from the pack. For instance, he says, images that the product offers to customers come from an extensive library pre-generated and vetted by human experts, who use an in-house tool with a Tinder-like interface to accept or reject potential pictures.We built proprietary review and curation tools where every image actually goes through two layers of curation, he says.The software is also designed to be simple to use, catering to busy professionals like lawyers, real estate brokers, and hair salon owners who either arent social media savvyand may not care to beor simply dont have the time to devote to coming up with clever posts. Ideally, Weinstein says, it can help them compete for audience attention with bigger chains whove long had full-time social media staffing, something out of reach for most small businesses.They dont have time to make social media a second job, says Weinstein. Theyre busy doing their first job, and they dont have the skills, energy or inclination to learn how to become their own personal social media manager.

A federal judge in Texas has blocked a new rule from the Biden administration that would have expanded access to overtime pay to millions more salaried workers across the U.S.On Friday, U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan sided with the state of Texas and a group of business organizations that argued the Labor Department exceeded its authority when it finalized a rule earlier this year to significantly expand overtime pay for salaried workersruling that the department could not prioritize employee wages over job duties when determining eligibility.Under the federal law, nearly all hourly workers in the U.S. are entitled to overtime pay after 40 hours a week. But many salaried workers are exempt from that requirementunless they earn below a certain level.The Labor Departments now-scuttled rule would have marked the biggest increase to that cap in decades. Employers were required pay overtime to salaried workers who make less than $43,888 a year in certain executive, administrative and professional roles as of July 1and that was set to rise to $58,656 next year.The Labor Department estimated that an additional four million lower-paid salary workers would become eligible for overtime protections in the first year under the new rule. An additional 292,900 higher-compensated workers were also expected to get overtime entitlements through separate threshold increases.Now, the previous threshold of $35,568which was set in 2019 under the Trump administrationis poised to go back into effect.A spokesperson for the Labor Department did not immediately comment when reached by the Associated Press Friday. It was unclear if the department would attempt to appeal the decision from Jordan, who was nominated to his seat by Republican President-elect Donald Trump during his first term.At the time of the rules finalization in April, acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su stated that the administration was following through on our promise to raise the barnoting that it was unacceptable for lower-paid salaried workers to do the same job as their hourly counterparts with no additional pay.Following the finalization of this years rule, legal challenges bubbled up. A handful of trade groups argued the move would harm businesses and lead to costs that would potentially result in employers needing to cut jobs or limit their workers hours.David French, executive vice president of government relations for the National Retail Federationone of the groups that challenged the Labor Departments rulemaintained in a statement Friday that the changes would have curtailed retailers ability to offer the most flexible, generous and tailored benefits packages to lower-level exempt employees across the industry.Fridays ruling is a bit of dj vu. In 2016, an Obama-era effort to similarly expand overtime pay eligibility was ultimately shot down in court after facing pushback from some business leaders and Republican politicians.The Trump administration later brought a smaller raise through, marking the first increase since 2004. Advocates pushing for higher overtime pay have stressed that its far from enougharguing that too many salaried workers are still cheated out of their timebut potential changes under Trumps upcoming second term are unlikely to meet the level of those demands.Wyatte Grantham-Philips, AP Business Writer

A figure-eight-shaped accommodation block is among the buildings made from rammed earth and compressed earth blocks at the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture campus by US studio MASS Design Group.Located in the village of Gashora in Rwanda, the student housing forms part of an off-grid agricultural university, where there are various education spaces including a building with a zigzagging roof.MASS Design Group has created figure-eight-shaped student housing in RwandaMASS Design Group, which has an office in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, designed the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA) to be built predominantly from low-carbon local and natural materials.It is intended to serve as a model for sustainable land use and construction, aiming to protect and restore the local ecology, and is shortlistedin the educationproject and sustainable building categories of the Dezeen Awards 2024.It forms part of the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture campus"Through cutting-edge architecture, sustainable materials and off-grid power, RICA sets a new standard for environmental stewardship," MASS Design Group design director Chris Hardy told Dezeen."More than a symbol, RICA thrives as a biodiverse ecosystem, guided by a meticulous plan for native species restoration," he continued."From savannah woodlands to papyrus wetlands, RICA's design blends seamlessly with nature, utilising passive cooling and locally sourced materials like rammed earth and wood."Rammed earth and compressed earth blocks were used to create the university buildingsThe most distinctive building on the campus is the accommodation building for second and third-year students, which is shaped like a figure eight and contains two circular courtyards."The shape is defined by traditional Rwandan architecture and the iconic pivot irrigation fields, while the dimensions of the two circles were arrived at by combining the ideal bedroom and furniture size, minimising the cutting of the compressed earth blocks, and the total number of students to be housed," Hardy explained.Read: BE_Design uses angular woven screens to shelter leadership centre in RwandaElsewhere, the campus centre takes the form of a semicircular building topped with a folded roof, extended to form a canopy over an outdoor space.MASS Design Group collaborated with RICA to define five agricultural education buildings, including ones for learning about dairy, swine and poultry, row and forage crops, mechanisation and irrigation. Another building dedicated to the teaching of trees and vegetables is defined by a row of overlapping roof planes.Each of the buildings connects to outdoor agricultural areas to aid the students' education.The campus centre is topped with a folded roof. Photo by MASS Design GroupThroughout the campus, walls are built from rammed earth and compressed earth blocks made from soil excavated from the site and added to a low-cement mixture, designed for earthquake resilience.The roofs are made from locally sourced softwoods and topped with local terracotta tiles, fired with waste coffee bean husks. Stone from a local quarry was used in the foundations to reduce the amount of concrete needed.Timber roofs are topped with terracotta tiles. Photo by MASS Design GroupThe RICA buildings are passively ventilated and naturally lit, with internal temperatures regulated by thermal mass.Electricity is provided by solar panels, while its water and wastewater are treated by lake pumps, filtering stations and irrigation systems.The Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture has been shortlisted in the Dezeen Awards 2024As part of the project, MASS Design Group conserved the nearby savannah woodland and papyrus wetlands and reintroduced native species to the area, including the grey-crowned crane.According to the studio, the institute is expected to be climate-positive by 2040, meaning it is predicted to remove more carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere than it emits.Other projects recently completed in Rwanda that have been published on Dezeen include an angular leadership centre with woven screen walls and a community sports centre made from local materials.The photography is by Iwan Baan unless stated otherwise.The post MASS Design Group uses earthen walls for Rwandan university campus appeared first on Dezeen.

UK studio Hugh Broughton Architects has collaborated with American designer Rick Owens to create a prototype off-grid mountain refuge for the latest Moncler's Genius show, which took place in Shanghai.Designed to provide a warm sanctuary in harsh environments, the shelter has a faceted shape that contains a mezzanine bedroom, bathroom and a small combined kitchen and living area.Hugh Broughton Architects and Rick Owens showcased an accommodation shelter at the City of Genius show in Shanghai. Photo by Fang ZhengIt was created to coincide with the launch of the Owens' clothing collaboration with Moncler and for the latest edition of the fashion brand's annual show, which this year was titled City of Genius.In addition to building a prototype refuge for the show, Hugh Broughton Architects designed a fully functioning version of the shelter that can be made to order.It was designed to provide refuge in harsh mountain conditionsThe refuge has a steel structural frame enclosed with 20 glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) composite panels, which contain polyisocyanurate (PIR) insulation and were finished with brushed stainless steel facing.The faceted metal shape was raised from the ground on adjustable steel legs so it can be positioned on uneven mountain terrain.The compact interior and reflective surfaces were informed by a mountain shelter by Charlotte Perriand and Pierre JeanneretHugh Broughton Architects' design was informed by Le Refuge Tonneau, a mountain shelter designed by architects Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret in 1938."Charlotte Perriand's project is a masterclass in thoughtful and aspirational design in a mountainous setting," studio founder Hugh Broughton told Dezeen."The cleverly designed micro interior is both practical and elegant, whilst its exterior is clad with highly insulated shiny aluminium panels to respond to and minimise the impact on its snowy context."Read: Rick Owens references architectural silhouettes on industrial runway at Palais de TokyoA set of entrance steps, which fold away when not in use, lead to an airlock on the lower level of the refuge, designed to protect the internal spaces from harsh weather.A small kitchen and living area was furnished with a log-burning stove and a day bed with built-in storage. The bathroom was placed at the rear of the shelter, with a double bed was tucked into a mezzanine upper level.Photovoltaic panels, ground-based solar arrays and a wind turbine were added to power the off-grid shelter, and its interior surfaces were lined with padded duvet nylon from Moncler and felted wool.The mountain refuge was designed to function off-the-grid. Render by SyncStudio"The layout balances practicality with comforts to give respite from the cold outside," said Broughton."Wet clothing and skis can be stored in a small airlock space with a drained floor before the inhabitants move into a cocoon-like environment, which is lined with Rick Owens' signature felt blankets," he continued."Additional storage and the 'life support systems' are located under a staircase, which itself leads to a compact yet luxurious sleeping area with views to the outside."A set of entrance steps can fold away when not in use. Render by Sync StudioHugh Broughton Architects has designed a number of structures for extreme environments, including a mobile research centre in Antarctica andaninflatable building that explores how people could live on Mars.The photography is by Rick Owens and Moncler unless stated and the video is by SyncStudio.The post Hugh Broughton Architects and Rick Owens create off-grid mountain refuge for Moncler appeared first on Dezeen.

Material science combines with fear-based marketing in this Armor-Tex jacket. The Chinese-made garment is said to be stab-proof, and needed because "violent crimes are lurking in the hidden alleys of society." The nondescript black windbreaker features an intergrated 3.9mm-thick carbon fiber vest, which provides "complete torso protection against stab, spike, and cut threats in any direction" (but doesn't protect your arms, naturally). Unsurprisingly in our current climate, the jacket has gone gangbusters on Kickstarter, landing $160K in pledges at press time, with 16 days left to pledge. Prices start at $269.