Anthropomorphizing AI creates dangerous blind spots in business decision-making beyond simple operational inefficiencies.Read More

Microsoft is testing AI-powered Windows search in a new dev channel build for Windows 11 Insider testers. Announced in October, it uses semantic indexing to let users search for local files using more casual language. Like other Microsoft AI features, youll need a Copilot Plus PC to use it.The feature applies whether youre using search boxes in Settings, File Explorer, or the taskbar. And you dont need to be connected to the internet for it to work, thanks to the NPU chips on Copilot Plus computers. For now, AI search is limited to Windows settings and files with image and text formats that include JPEG, PNG, PDF, TXT, and XLS. Image: MicrosoftMicrosoft says that search only works for files in locations youve chosen to index. Users can tweak those locations using options found under Settings > Privacy & security > Searching Windows, or turn on Enhanced to index their whole machine. The company adds that the feature will eventually expand to include cloud data such as that stored in OneDrive.AI-powered Windows search will gradually roll out to Windows Insiders on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, Microsoft writes, with support for Intel or AMD Copilot Plus computers later. The feature will work for machines set to Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish languages. Image: MicrosoftIn addition to the new search, the build also includes AI writing tools offered by Click to Do, a feature that lets you choose from context-sensitive menus of options when you hold the Windows key down and left-click on your screen. Now, when you click a block of text and select Rewrite, theres a Refine option that can correct grammar for you.

The weekend is officially here, and we've rounded up the best deals you can find! Discover the best deals for Saturday, January 18, below:Meta Quest 3S 256GB for $349Meta Quest 3S 256GB Get Batman: Arkham Shadow and a 3-Month Trial of Meta Quest+ Included All-in-One HeadsetAmazon has the Meta Quest 3S 256GB VR Headset with Batman: Arkham Shadow for $349 today. This headset is perfect if you're just entering the VR space, and it's equipped with everything you need to experience all the latest games out there. In our 9/10 review, we stated, "Raw processing power, full-color passthrough, and snappy Touch Plus controllers make the Quest 3S a fantastic standalone VR headset that also brings entry-level mixed-reality gaming to the masses for arguably the very first time."Donkey Kong Country Returns HD for $49.99Donkey Kong Country Returns HDDonkey Kong Country Returns HD just release for Nintendo Switch this week, and you can already save $10 off at Woot. If you enjoyed Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Returns HD is another excellent entry you are sure to have fun with. There are many different worlds to traverse through, with a variety of collectibles and items to discover. PS5 Disc Drive Available at TargetDisc Drive for PlayStation 5 Digital Edition Console$79.99 at TargetIf you are a recent PS5 Slim or PS5 Pro owner, it's likely you have ran into some trouble looking for in-stock PS5 Disc Drives. These sell out quickly each time they are restocked, but Target has the item available right now for $79.99. If you've been looking for a PS5 Disc Drive, grab one before they're gone.Tomb Raider I-III Remastered for $19.93Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara CroftAs the name suggest, this collection packs in remasters of the first three Tomb Raider games, and you can score this bundle for only $19.93 this weekend at Amazon. Both the Nintendo Switch and PS5 versions of the game are on sale, so you can grab a copy for the platform of your choice!Sonic The Hedgehog 3 SteelBook Up for Pre-OrderSonic The Hedgehog 3 [4K Steelbook + Blu-Ray + Digital Copy]$43.49 at AmazonIt's been a month since Sonic The Hedgehog 3 released in theaters, and you can now pre-order the 4K Steelbook at Amazon. This edition includes a 4K UHD disc, a Blu-ray disc, and a digital copy that you can redeem. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 pits Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles against the formidable Shadow. If you're a Sonic fan, this is the ultimate celebration of the franchise.Save $44 Off This Xbox Elite Series 2 Core Wireless ControllerXbox Elite Core Wireless Controller - RedThis deal from Target on the Xbox Elite Series 2 Core controller is one you can't miss. Widely regarded as one of the best controllers on the market, the Elite Series 2 has so many great features you can use to your advantage. This includes modifying the tension of the thumbsticks, creating custom button profiles, and so much more. The Core version of the Elite Series 2 controller allows for a cheaper price point with less premium outer materials and textures. Additionally, you won't get the paddles or charging dock in the box, so you'll need to buy those separately if you'd like them.Logitech G713 Mechanical Keyboard for $69Logitech G713 Wired Mechanical Gaming Keyboard with LIGHTSYNC RGBNormally $115.60, you can save $46.80 off this Logitech G713 keyboard today at Walmart. The G713 is a wired mechanical gaming keyboard with GX Blue switches. A cloud-shaped palm rest is included for maximum comfort, as well as support for Logitech's Lightsync RGB. You can even customize both the top plate and keycaps to your liking!

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the iPhone 17 Air will cost less than the iPhone Pro models, contradicting the long-standing expectation that the new ultra-thin iPhone would be even more expensive than the iPhone Pro Max models. With that being the case, the phone actually makes more sense than ever.New pricing rumorIn a new report, The Wall Street Journal said the following about the long-rumored iPhone 17 Air:Starting next year, Apple plans to introduce an iPhone that will be thinner than the approximately 8-millimeter profile of current models, said people familiar with the companys plans. The model is intended to be cheaper than Pro models, with a simplified camera system to reduce costs.This goes against what had been previously reported. Back in May, when The Information revealed some of the first details about the device, this was what they stated:The slimmer iPhone could be released concurrently with the iPhone 17, expected in September 2025, according to the three people with direct knowledge and two others familiar with the project. It could be priced higher than the iPhone Pro Max, currently Apples most expensive model starting at $1,200, they said.Why it mattersObviously, more expensive than the iPhone Pro Max implies a price tag of at least $1199 possibly even as high as $1299. For a thinner iPhone with less features, a compromised battery life, and a single camera. That didnt seem very worth it. Sure, it wouldve looked very nice, and potentially wouldve laid the groundwork for future iPhones to be thinner, but it wouldnt have made too much sense to buy.More recently, weve even heard that the iPhone 17 Air will lack a second speaker, relying only on the earpiece to output audio. With so many compromises, it never wouldve made sense to pay such a large premium for.However, if newer reports are to hold true, were now expecting a model cheaper than the Pro models. It isnt clear what this means exactly, since there could potentially be a price hike with the iPhone 17 Pro, but regardless, the iPhone 17 Air should come in under $1000. If there is no price hike on the iPhone 17 Pro, then the 17 Air could potentially be as low as $899, taking the same price point as iPhone 16 Plus. That drastically changes the value proposition there, making the new model up to $400 cheaper than we initially thought.Wrap upThe phone replacing the Plus will cost less than the Pro. Shocking development. View all commentsSure, youd still be losing out on battery life and a second camera compared to the iPhone 16 Plus, and youd also be missing a second speaker. All that being said though, you would be getting the cool, shiny looking, and far thinner iPhone for the same price you paid last year. Apple is probably betting on that being the appeal. This will be the first iPhone in a large number of years thatll look truly different compared to the prior model.Plus, unlike the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, the base model iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air will equip 120Hz ProMotion displays, making it more appealing to techies as well.My favorite iPhone accessories on Amazon:Follow Michael:X/Twitter,Bluesky,InstagramAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Image by Getty / FuturismDevelopmentsSmoking cigarettes is extremely deadly; each year, the habit is estimated to kill around 480,000 Americans. But it makes you feel good near-instantly, washing you over with a calming buzz that nothing else quite matches. It also looks cool at least in the movies.Soon, though, the "cool" factor may be the only thing going for it. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed slashing the levels of nicotine the drug that actually makes you feel good in cigarettes so drastically that they'd no longer be able to get you hooked."By reducing the nicotine level of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products to a level low enough to no longer create or sustain addiction, the cycle of exposure to these toxic chemicals can be broken," Brian King, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, said during a press briefing, per NBC News.Today, cigarettes contain around 11.9 to 14.5 milligrams of nicotine on average, depending on the brand. The FDA's plan is to reduce that to just 0.7 milligrams. Basically, as is The Atlantic'stake, it'd ban cigarettes in all but name.The substance on its own may not be responsible for most of smoking's harmful effects that comes from burning tobacco but it's incredibly addictive. It's why smoking is so easy to pick up, and so hard to quit."It's the tar and everything around the nicotine that poses the greatest risk to people's health," former acting CDC director Richard Besser told NBC. "But nicotine is what hooks you."By curbing addiction, the FDA argues in its proposal, you curb deaths. According to the agency's estimates, capping nicotine levels at 0.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco the amount that each cigarette contains would prevent 1.8 million tobacco-related deaths by 2060, and 4.3 million by the end of the century.The cap would also apply to other products including cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, most cigars, and pipe tobacco, the FDA said.It would not, however, affect vapes, nicotine pouches like the increasingly popular Zyns non-combusted cigarettes, waterpipe tobacco for hookahs and the like, smokeless tobacco products like snus and dip, and "premium cigars."There's no guarantee, though, that the proposal will be passed into law, in its current form or at all. It'll be down to the incoming Trump administration to make the decision in September.Considering that the FDA first announced its intent for the proposal during Trump's first term in office, the president-elect's campaign promise to "Make America Healthy Again" (however sincere, as there's also talk of gutting the FDA) there's at least an outside chance of it happening."If there's a goal to make America healthy again, I can't imagine anything more important to get done than this," said FDA commissioner Robert Califf, per NBC,We're sure that in the meantime, though, the tobacco industry will do everything to make these plans go up in smoke.More on nicotine: Teens Who Vape Show Higher Levels of Uranium and Lead, Scientists FindShare This Article

When ChatGPT commercially launched in 2022, governments, industry sectors, regulators and consumer advocacy groups began to discuss the need to regulate AI, as well as to use it, and it is likely that new regulatory requirements will emerge for AI in the coming months.The quandary for CIOs is that no one really knows what these new requirements will be. However, two things are clear: It makes sense to do some of your own thinking about what your companys internal guardrails should be for AI; and there is too much at stake for organizations to ignore thinking about AI risk.The annals of AI deployments are rife with examples of AI gone wrong, resulting in damage to corporate images and revenues. No CIO wants to be on the receiving end of such a gaffe.Thats why PWC says, Businesses should also ask specific questions about what data will be used to design a particular piece of technology, what data the tech will consume, how it will be maintained and what impact this technology will have on others It is important to consider not just the users, but also anyone else who could potentially be impacted by the technology. Can we determine how individuals, communities and environments might be negatively affected? What metrics can be tracked? Related:Identify a Short List of AI RisksAs AI grows and individuals and organizations of all stripes begin using it, new risks will develop, but these are the current AI risks that companies should consider as they embark on AI development and deployment:Un-vetted data.Companies arent likely to obtain all of the data for their AI projects from internal sources. They will need to source data from third parties.A molecular design research team in Europe used AI to scan and digest all of the worldwide information available from sources such as research papers, articles, and experiments on that molecule. A healthcare institution wanted to use an AI system for cancer diagnosis, so it went out to procure data on a wide range of patients from many different countries.In both cases, data needed to be vetted.In the first case, the research team narrowed the lens of the data it was choosing to admit into its molecular data repository, opting to use only information that directly referred to the molecule they were studying. In the second case, the healthcare institution made sure that any data it procured from third parties was properly anonymized so that the privacy of individual patients was protected.By properly vetting internal and external data that AI would be using, both organizations significantly reduced the risk of admitting bad data into their AI data repositories.Related:Imperfect algorithms.Humans are imperfect, and so are the products they produce. The faulty Amazon recruitment tool, powered by AI and outputting results that favored males over females in recruitment efforts, is an oft-cited example -- but its not the only one.Imperfect algorithms pose risks because they tend to produce imperfect results that can lead businesses down the wrong strategic paths. Thats why its imperative to have a diverse AI team working on algorithm and query development. This staff diversity should be defined by a diverse set of business areas (along with IT and data scientists) working on the algorithmic premises that will drive the data. An equal amount of diversity should be used as it applies to the demographics of age, gender and ethnic background. To the degree that a full range of diverse perspectives are incorporated into algorithmic development and data collection, organizations lower their risk, because fewer stones are left unturned. Poor user and business process training.AI system users, as well as AI data and algorithms, should be vetted during AI development and deployment. For example, a radiologist or a cancer specialist might have the chops to use an AI system designed specifically for cancer diagnosis, but a podiatrist might not.Related:Equally important is ensuring that users of a new AI system understand where and how the system is to be used in their daily business processes. For instance, a loan underwriter in a bank might take a loan application, interview the applicant, and make an initial determination as to the kind of loan the applicant could qualify for, but the next step might be to run the application through an AI-powered loan decisioning system to see if the system agrees. If there is disagreement, the next step might be to take the application to the lending manager for review.The keys here, from both the AI development and deployment perspectives, are that the AI system must be easy to use, and that the users know how and when to use it.Accuracy over time.AI systems are initially developed and tested until they acquire a degree of accuracy that meets or exceeds the accuracy of subject matter experts (SMEs). The gold standard for AI system accuracy is that the system is 95% accurate when compared against the conclusions of SMEs. However, over time, business conditions can change, or the machine learning that the system does on its own might begin to produce results that yield reduced levels of accuracy when compared to what is transpiring in the real world. Inaccuracy creates risk.The solution is to establish a metric for accuracy (e.g., 95%), and to measure this metric on a regular basis. As soon as AI results begin losing accuracy, data and algorithms should be reviewed, tuned and tested until accuracy is restored.Intellectual property risk.Earlier, we discussed how AI users should be vetted for their skill levels and job needs before using an AI system. An additional level of vetting should be applied to those individuals who use the companys AI to develop proprietary intellectual property for the company.If you are an aerospace company, you dont want your chief engineer walking out the door with the AI-driven research for a new jet propulsion system.Intellectual property risks like this are usually handled by the legal staff and HR. Non-compete and non-disclosure agreements prerequisite to employment are agreed to. However, if an AI system is being deployed for intellectual property purposes, it should be a bulleted check point on the project list that everyone authorized to use the new system has the necessary clearance.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.I'm getting a huge kick out of Connections these days. It lends itself to more creative thinking than Wordle, which I also enjoy. But today was a tough one for me. Read on for today's Connections hints and answers.The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. And players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.Read more:Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every TimeHints for today's Connections groupsHere are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.Yellow group hint: Think money.Green group hint: Order in the court.Blue group hint: Natural wonders.Purple group hint: It's a first name, and a sea creature.Answers for today's Connections groupsYellow group: Fund.Green group: Court filing.Blue group: Landforms.Purple group: They have rays.Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English WordsWhat are today's Connections answers? The completed NYT Connections puzzle for Jan. 19, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNETThe yellow words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is fund. The four answers are kitty, pool, pot and purse.The green words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is court filing. The four answers are action, case, claim and suit.The blue words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is landforms. The four answers are basin, bluff, cape and plain.The purple words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is they have rays. The four answers are aquarium, geometry, sun and Tampa Bay.

To consider a detail and its larger context at one and the same time is fundamental to a designers work and is critical to working with architects on a daily basis, Lau explained of her design approach in Expressive Modern, published just a year after she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in fine arts from the New York School of Interior Design. Founding each project around a clients personal treasures, interests, or lifestyle needs while also considering the surrounding natural environment, she created specifically tailored spaces that feel both reminiscent of great rooms of history and wholly rooted in the present.With Robins, Lau collaborated particularly closely, cofounding the first edition of Design Miami in 2005 alongside the now London-based consultant Ambra Medda. The fair began with Laus co-curation of 15 galleries, and a design prize to the late architect Zaha Hadid. Lau later would become the first designer invited to exhibit at New Yorks annual Salon Art + Design fair, where she showed a richly decorated living room of objects, from ceramics to showpiece minerals, in homage to the 120-year influence of Art Nouveau, in 2017.With this background in mind, Laus design mantra of curating rather than merely decorating spaces was a natural conclusion. In September 2024, the designer debuted a truly curated space of her ownan inaugural eponymous gallery on the eighth floor of the New York Design Center. It showcases her expert selection of contemporary and vintage ceramic, glass, and metal works alongside textiles and furniture. Lau previously designed commercial projects with bravado for institutions like Baccarat, Elie Tahari, and the Museum of Arts and Design, and product collections for Doris Leslie Blau, Heath Ceramics, Kohler, Kyle Bunting, Maya Romanoff, and S.Harris.Despite Laus formal training and sophisticated experience in the decorative arts, her projects have no hint of arrogance. Instead, there is a perpetual joyfulness in their designs, one that can only come from someone whose creativity is firmly rooted in the earth and inspired by its spectacular spectrum. As Lau herself once wrote: I see nature as a friend and teacher, a mentor who shaped my imagination early on and continues to inform my interior design work.

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With a TikTok ban looming in the United States, Perplexity AI is the latest bidder hoping to give the video app a new corporate home.CNBC first reported on Perplexitys interest. A source with knowledge of the offer confirmed to TechCrunch that Perplexity (whose CEO Aravind Srinivas is pictured above) has submitted a bid to merge with TikTok US.The source also confirmed other details about the bid that it would create a new entity combining Perplexity, TikTok US, and new equity partners; that most investors in TikToks parent company ByteDance would be able to retain their equity; and that by merging, Perplexity hopes to bring more video to its AI search engine.A law requiring ByteDance to either sell TikTok or see it banned in the US is set to take effect on Sunday, January 19. That will be President Joe Bidens last day in office, and officials from his administration have said that it will leave the actual implementation of the ban to the next Administration.Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, said he would most likely give TikTok a 90-day extension, and TikToks CEO posted a video thanking Trump for his efforts.However, TikTok said that without more explicit assurances of non-enforcement from the Biden administration, it will be forced to go dark on Sunday.Despite a number of buyers expressing interest in TikTok, ByteDance has said repeatedly that it does not intend to sell. (The company described a report that the Chinese government is open to an acquisition by Elon Musk as pure fiction.) CNBC reports that Perplexity is hoping it can overcome those reservations by proposing a merger rather than a sale.TechCrunch has reached out to TikTok and Perplexity AI for comment.