When something special is needed for a project, these products do the jobfrom bird-safe channel glass to highly efficient smart glass. (Courtesy Skyline Design)SDXSkyline DesignAddressing the shortcomings of traditional smart glass technologies, Skyline Design introduces SDX3 SmartView powered by CLiC, a film-free design utilizing liquid crystal technology to set a new standard for clarity, efficiency, and design flexibility for commercial spaces. A large pane of SDX3 glass utilizes less energy than a 25-watt lightbulb, with no limitations on the duration it can remain clear.(Courtesy Sightline Commercial Solutions)OculaSightline Commercial SolutionsOcula is an ultra-streamlined windscreen system designed to divert wind while elevating architectural aesthetics. At guard rail height, the system can withstand winds loads up to 86 psfeight times the amount of a standard windscreen.(Courtesy ES)Pivot DoorESThis pivot and swing entry system is designed for captured glass, structural-silicone glazed, and multiple phenolic panel finish options.(Courtesy C. R. Laurence)Latitude 34 Barn Door CollectionC. R. LaurenceThe Latitude 34 Barn Door Collection offers minimalist profiles, premium hardware, and field adjustability including door stop location, track leveling, and track height. The collection includes three distinct sliding barn door systems: Hemisphere, Meridian, and Solstice. (Courtesy Bendheim)Bird Friendly Channel GlassBendheimBendheims Lamberts glass is the first channel glass to earn the Bird-Smart Certification from the American Bird Conservancy.With their entire channel glass line now certified as Bird-Smart, Bendheim offers an alternative to traditional opaque building walls and flat architectural glass.

The Basilica of St. Stanislaus is a landmark church building in Chicopee, Massachusetts, with strong ties to the citys industrial and immigrant past as well as a landmark of the citys rebirth and growth. The congregation was founded and financed by Polish immigrants who had arrived in Chicopee, beginning in the 1880s. The young Poles were determined to establish and finance their own church in which they could worship in their own native language and espouse their Polish customs and traditions with a sense of community. The church was founded at a time where Polish immigrants were settling in Chicopee, finding work at local factories. The Polish population of Chicopee surged in the late 19th into the early 20th centuries from just 200 residents in 1885 to over 9,000 in 1914. The first St. Stanislaus Church was a small frame structure built on this site in 1891. The present church was built in 1908 from the designs of architectsRobert J. Reiley and Gustave E. Steinback and is Byzantine Revival in style. Constructed of brownstone with cathedral-like qualities, the facade is dominated by a pair of monumental masonry towers. Its spires are composed of copper drums which are surmounted by graceful belvederes and are pierced by arched openings. In 1991, PopeJohn Paul IIraised the status of the church to a minor basilica, a classification that remains to today, one of just a handful in New England.

Outgoing CISA chief Jen Easterly recently compared secure software development to automotive safety, arguing that we were at an inflection point similar to 1965 when Ralph Nader published the book Unsafe At Any Speed. The book spurred public outrage over road safety, which helped foster the widespread adoption of innovative vehicle safety measures.After reading Jens posts on the topic, the open question remains: are we really at a point where we can use outrage against insecure software risk to drive meaningful change? Lets see if we can objectively view this question and determine what needs to happen in 2025 alongside continued public pressure. For CISO and IT software buyers, besides your day-to-day improvement, demanding that the software you purchase is secure, and your vendors pledge to secure by design principles, what should you focus on in 2025 to help move the needle?The comparison between automobile risk in the 1960s and software risk in the modern era is evident. Rapid technology innovation has resulted in unsafe products being used daily. The software world, much like the automotive industry in the 60s, prioritises speed of release, features and functionality, and pushing the boundaries and limits of safe usage, all in the name of selling more products and innovating new offerings faster than your competitors. Software developers face continued pressure to release products as quickly as possible, often at the expense of the security of the code. Security is perceived as slowing down the development cycle and is often a bolt-on after the fact.To quote the great Charlie Munger, Show me the incentive, and Ill show you the outcome. Software developers dont write secure code because they have no incentive to do so. To make matters worse, the companies they work for have very little incentive to focus on the security of their products either. IT and CISO buyers have been purchasing insecure code for as long as code has existed.he automobile industry had a similar problem cars purchased to that point were not bought because they were safe. People werent going to the automobile dealerships (did they have dealerships in the 60s?) and asking questions about the vehicle's safety rating or if it had a collapsable steering column and padded dashboard. They purchased vehicles based on the look, the style, the top speed and acceleration, and most importantly, the joy they received while operating the new mode of transportation. Safety was not a required feature and was thus an afterthought. This is almost identical to how we have built and purchased software up through today. We prioritise and purchase based on the value we get from the software, with little to no interest in how secure it is.There is no incentive to prioritise security when thats not what buyers demand. The automobile industry required consumer recognition of the problem, resulting in an outcry for better safety standards before automobile manufacturers would waste their time on product safety features.The software industry hasnt learned from the automobile industrys past for a few key reasons. First of all, when you get into a car accident, there is a nontrivial chance of the loss of life. People die when there are no safety features present in their cars, and even a small number of deaths is unacceptable to the public. The consequences of a motor vehicle accident were immediate and visceral and left a lasting impression in the minds of those who were in one or saw one. Software is different. When the software on your TV, for example, breaks, you just reboot it.Until recently, in the worst case, the vast majority of software flaws resulted in the compromise of some anonymous corporate entity with little to no bearing on the populace. Sure, there might be a very small chance that their accounts were compromised, money directly stolen from them, or fraud perpetrated against them, but most of the consumer world believes that that wont happen to me, and by the law of large numbers, they are probably right. And if it does, they are insured, covered for loss, and, most of the time, only suffer from having to jump through lots of hoops to regain what theyve lost.Because of this laissez-faire attitude toward the risks, it is much easier for the software industry to ignore the problem, writing it off as a cost of doing business. In other words, there is no demand for change.In addition to the difference in risk between automobiles and software vulnerabilities, the complexity of the software landscape dwarfs that of the automobile of the 1960s. If we could quickly implement four to six software processes and fix the entire global software risk register, I promise we would. The problem is way more complex and challenging to fix than the less than 10 large auto manufacturers of the 1960s had to figure out. If only 10 software development firms existed today, it would be easier to mandate change.However, software is literally in everything that we touch. From IoT devices to home appliances to childrens toys - software has eaten the world, making securing that software a much more difficult task to complete. Automobile builders had to make a few changes to their products and were ready to sell. They didnt have to change the entire manufacturing world for every product available to the public to move towards safety. Here is where the comparison falls short.This incredible level of complexity begs the question of who is responsible for fixing the problem. In May 2024, there was a major push for software vendors to sign the Secure by Design (SbD) pledge. Currently, over 250 companies have committed to following secure by design principles and ensuring that their software is created with high-security standards at every step of the development process.I love the Secure By Design pledge, but 250 companies is a drop in the bucket; according to CyberDB there are over 3,500 cyber security companies alone. These are just the companies that are working to secure our daily lives. 250 signatures is a mere blip compared to the number of companies in the United States. Some research claims over 33 million businesses in 2024 in the US alone, the bulk of which are small businesses. The difficult problem is getting to the tipping point required for businesses across the US, and the world, to realise that the risk is too high and demand change from their software vendors. Research from the University of Pennsylvanias Annenberg School for Communication and the School of Engineering and Applied Science shows that approximately 25% of a population is required to hit the tipping point for large-scale social change. We arent even close.What I think we should be thinking about isnt how we fix code security problems better or faster, but instead, how we get to the tipping point where the incentive structure changes and the software of the world begins to fix itself. If we think of it this way, we quickly see that change will only come when a groundswell of buyer demand and government-mandated regulations are implemented.Given the negative outlook and tempered expectations that Ive presented, you probably regret reading this article. Id love for you to leave with the opposite idea in your brain and maybe approach 2025 as the year in which the software industry can move closer to the tipping point for building software more securely.Similar to the issues discussed in Unsafe at Any Speed, companies that write software of any kind will continue to push back on ownership of the problem and attempt to deflect or ignore responsibility for any health, safety, and security issues that appear. As software is used increasingly in life-and-death situations such as healthcare, automotive, emergency communications, etc. the business and buyer demand for less risk will increase.If we are loud enough, at some point, software liability will switch to those who are building the product, and when it does, the incentive structures will change, and companies will pay much more attention to the risks to their own business. Sadly, I dont think well ever get to the point where businesses care enough about code security to prioritise it just because its the right thing to do for their customers. Instead, to achieve our goals, we have to make it imperative to the health and success of their business to write more secure code, and the only way to do this is to be VERY LOUD and DEMAND CHANGE.The Security Think Tank on secure softwareAditya K Sood, Aryaka: Vigilant buyers are the best recipe for accountable suppliers.So, what can you do as a CISO and IT software buyer in 2025 to help move the needle and grow toward the secure code tipping point? First and foremost, we need each of you to be educated on the risks of software flaws and help articulate these issues to the developers of software that you purchase or license. Users and developers must be more aware of the importance of security and the potential consequences of software vulnerabilities to both the company that sells the software and the people that use it.Second, and likely more critical, you must push your government representatives and agencies to become more educated on the topic and build stronger regulations and standards for secure software creation. The automobile would have never become more secure if government agencies hadnt stepped in and put regulations and standards in place that demanded that motor vehicles have at least a minimum level of safety. We have to have regulations in the software world that place the tipping point within reach, and its up to the buyers and users of software to push the government on this front. Liability must shift back to the builder, which only happens when the government gets involved. Itll take an army, but if we scream and yell loud enough over time, purchase only software that is written securely, and make a significant enough level of noise, we can continue to slowly march toward improvement.Just as Unsafe At Any Speed was a wake-up call for the automotive industry, a growing awareness of software security issues and the impact of vulnerabilities to human safety and health is building pressure for a similar reckoning in the software world. We must keep moving toward a Secure At All Speeds software development world.I dont think well see the tipping point hit in 2025, but each of us must approach this change with a uniform rallying cry to build the volume required to be heard at the highest levels. Thank you, Jen Easterly and the CISA team, for the ground work youve done towards this movement, and I hope 2025 is the year where we will work together to take daily steps toward success.

LariBat - AdobeNewsCan AI identify financially vulnerable people better than humans?Research from customer experience firm Nice finds that AI can identify financially vulnerable people better than humans and offer more comfortable channels for financial problem solvingByBrian McKenna,Enterprise Applications EditorPublished: 04 Feb 2025 13:28 Some 35 million adults in the UK are financially vulnerable, according to FCA criteria. And 37% of financially vulnerable consumers want greater investment in AI-powered chatbots to help them with financial problems.This is according to a recent report from customer experience (CX) firm Nice, The changing face of vulnerability, carried out by Focal Data, which found a rise in the number of British people who identify themselves as vulnerable, hitting 19% an increase of over one million people since 2024, when the first study was done.But, assessed against Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) criteria, two-thirds of UK adults 35 million people are potentially vulnerable, often without being aware.The first study was undertaken by market research firm FocalData among 2,042 UK adults in November 2023, then repeated among 2,021 in November 2024.The FCA defines a vulnerable consumer as somebody who, due to their personal circumstances, is especially susceptible to harm, particularly when a company is not acting with appropriate levels of care. It identifies four factors which may increase the risk of vulnerability: poor health; experiencing a distressing life event, such as a bereavement; low resilience; and low capability such as financial, digital or language skills, or learning difficulties.Vulnerable consumers are increasingly reliant on digital channels for support, according to the Nice report. Over a third (37%) said they prefer organisations to invest in better digital services like AI-powered chatbots over traditional in-person services such as real-life branches, surpassing the general populations demand for digital services (33%).Richard Bassett, vice-president of digital and analytics at Nice, said: The findings pose a considerable challenge for UK organisations, particularly given regulations like the FCAs Consumer Duty Act or Ofgems Vulnerability Strategy. Vulnerability stems from an increasing range of factors from financial pressures to personal challenges making it harder to recognise, even for themselves.Subtle cues, such as mentions of stress or relationship breakdowns, often surface during customer service interactions but are easily missed or affected by bias, particularly with human agents. AI and automation provide a critical solution. By analysing customer service data, AI can detect vulnerability during every interaction and provide agents with real-time guidance ensuring no one is overlooked.The anonymity offered by digital channels can be especially empowering for vulnerable individuals who may feel uncomfortable discussing sensitive issues face-to-face. This presents a significant opportunity for UK organisations to leverage AI-powered chatbots and virtual agents to help vulnerable customers resolve their issues quickly and accurately.However, caution is essential. These solutions must be able to detect subtle vulnerability cues and respond appropriately, seamlessly escalate to a human agent or the correct workflow with full context preserved. These insights should be used alongside data from voice channels to enhance agent training and support, he added.It may seem counter-intuitive that AI could spot signs of vulnerability that a human agent in a contact centre is likely to miss. In a briefing with Computer Weekly, Bassett said: There are certain situations or circumstances where people do want the confidence of a human. If you have a bot thats diagnosing you, that might be something of a challenge to accept compared with a doctor.Having said that, if youve got financial difficulties, theres a lot of people who are embarrassed on the back of that, even ashamed of it. They havent got the confidence to admit that to somebody in the voice world, but on a chat, or even with a bot, they are okay to have those conversations.According to Bassett, customers, especially younger ones, feel more comfortable disclosing details of financial worries to a chatbot than to a live human.The study found that younger adults, especially those under 34, are at the forefront of being self-aware, with 31% identifying as vulnerable compared to 19% across all age groups. They are also more comfortable discussing mental health with customer service agents.Darren Rushworth, president of Nice, said: The increasing self-awareness among younger consumers is a promising step toward more open communication. However, organisations cannot depend solely on self-identification, as it overlooks those who are unaware of their vulnerability or choose to hide it out of fear, embarrassment or shame.Even when warning signs are flagged, they are often missed if advisers lack the confidence or tools to respond effectively. Worse yet, even when advisers take appropriate action, these cases can still fall through the cracks if workflows and knowledge across customer service are not properly connected.Financial pressures, particularly rising energy and utility costs, continue to weigh heavily on UK households. Some 35% of potentially vulnerable consumers anticipate reducing or stopping heating and hot water usage in 2025 due to financial strain, according to the study.In addition to financial concerns (21%), many consumers feel uncomfortable discussing other causes of vulnerability, such as mental health (34%) and relationship breakdowns (28%), with human customer service agents.Rushworth added: UK organisations especially energy providers must adopt AI-powered solutions that subtly build customer confidence, such as self-service to help consumers easily find critical information when in need.AI-powered guidance during interactions ensures agents provide accurate, empathetic support in real time. Automation can ensure compliance and events that include vulnerability appropriately routed into the correct processes.Read more about AI in customer experienceIn The Current Issue:Forrester: Why digitisation needs strong data engineering skillsLabours first digital government strategy: Is it dj vu or something new?Download Current IssueA driving licence in an app is a boost for digital identity - but not for angry suppliers Computer Weekly Editors BlogRedis restriction reaction: Percona offers support for Valkey Open Source InsiderView All Blogs

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Elon Musk was named to head up the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) (Photo by ... [+] Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)Getty ImagesThe names of six employees of the newly formed "Department of Government Efficiency," more commonly known as "DOGE," on Sunday were posted on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk. The billionaire tech entrepreneur, who also heads up DOGE, quickly responded to the posting of the names, writing on X, "You have committed a crime."For the record, Wired also revealed the names of the six engineers, who are described as being in their teens and early 20s. There has since been a wave of criticism that individuals with no high-level experience in the public sector were given access to the Department of the Treasury's payment system to carry out their duties.Vowing RetaliationOn Monday, Musk appeared less concerned by the public revealing and wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, "Time to confess: Media reports saying that @DOGE has some of world's best software engineers are in fact true."Yet, the individuals' qualifications three of whom don't have degrees continue to be the subject of debate online. Moreover, earlier in the day, U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. offered his support to Musk, posting a letter on X that read, "I recognize that some of the staff at DOGE has been targeted publicly," and added, "Any threats, confrontations, or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws."Since the revealing of the names, Musk's supporters online suggested the public revealing was akin to "doxing," yet, it remains unclear what "crime" (if any) may have been committed. A legal expert told this reporter on background he couldn't understand "what on earth Musk or the U.S. attorney" thinks was violated.MORE FOR YOUWas It Even Doxing?Even the claims of "doxing" may seem to be a bit of an overreach, as that is typically seen to involve the releasing of someone's personal information online without their consent. In this case, all that was released was the names of government workers taking the lead of a newly formed agency one that was also created without any oversight from lawmakers."Doxing has a broad definition, but is typically described as releasing private details about an individual into the public, specifically with the purpose of harming that person, where harm can range from embarrassment to promoting violent action against the individual," explained Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for the School of Information at the University of Michigan."Typically, government employees have less privacy protections than do private citizens. Listing individuals who are working on behalf of the government would not fall into previous definitions of doxing, though of course definitions can always change over time," added Lampe. "Whether doxing is a crime has traditionally been related to the type of information that has been released and how that information was acquired."What About Musk's Free Speech Absolutism?The release of the names of the "government" employees at DOGE and Musk's response also cast a very bright spotlight on his past claims that he is a free speech absolutist. It was just last November that CNN reported Musk reposted two X posts, which "revealed the names and titles of people holding four relatively obscure climate-related government positions."Now that the same thing has occurred with his employees at DOGE, Musk seemed to change his tune, suggested Dr. Julianna Kirschner, lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California."Elon Musk's free speech absolutism position should apply to all situations if he truly holds those beliefs. However, the leaked case of DOGE employees names has shown there are exceptions to the rule for Musk," Kirschner suggested.She added that merely sharing the names of people working for DOGE is not doxing."Actual doxing involves sharing personal information like phone numbers and home addresses, which would actually invade these individuals' privacy," noted Kirschner. "That did not happen here."Even if it were such a case, a free speech absolutist would not be concerned with the act of doxing."Absolutism from this vantage point suggests that any speech is valid, regardless of the consequences. The damage of doxing is well known, but a true free speech absolutist would not concern themselves with that," Kirschner continued.The more important point to note is that the now deleted account on X simply revealed information that may be relevant to the public."Knowing the identities of DOGE employees reveals their lack of public sector experience," explained Kirschner. "The public has a right to know how data is being used, and the account on X that revealed this information did a greater service to the public than Musk, a supposed advocate for free speech absolutism. What we are seeing here is a reflection of the common saying, 'Rules for thee, not for me.' From this inequitable perspective, free speech becomes a tool for obtaining power, and such a tool is discarded when it becomes inconvenient."

InvincibleAmazonThankfully, we did not have another interminably long wait to see another season of Invincible, and season 3 is just around the corner with its release on Thursday, February 6. Now, reviews are starting to roll in from critics with screeners and surprise, like the past two seasons, they are stellar. Perfect, in fact.As it stands, season 3 of Invincible has a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes from a dozen critics, and if history has said anything, it may actually maintain that as more roll in. The show, across all three seasons, has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, which I believe is probably a record for any Amazon Prime original, as critics almost never agree to that extent. And about a violent, animated superhero show no less? A little surprising, though I guess Netflix did something similar with its game adaptation series Arcane and Cyberpunk Edgerunners, which also had near-perfect scores.InvincibleRotten TomatoesSeason 1 of the show had a 98% score with only three negative reviews total. Season 2 had a 100%, season 3 now has a 100%. I am a little surprised that season 2 got perfect scores as I think it had some issues. Fans agreed, and scores dipped a bit to 87% for audiences.As for season 3, this appears to be a period where comic fans go now its going to get really crazy, which will be something to behold given just how crazy the past two seasons have been. The comics go some wild places, to be sure, and its unclear if the show will have the stomach to go all the way with some of the moments that happen in the source material. My guess would be yes, as they havent pulled back so far. And look at its counterpart live action series, The Boys, which has done even more insane things.MORE FOR YOURobert Kirkman has previously said that he wants to do eight full seasons of Invincible in order to finish out the story, and promises there will not be a wait as long as the gap between seasons 1 and 2 again (2.5 years), nor would they split seasons up again (there was a 4.5 month break in season 2). So thats good news. Normally it would seem a bit ambitious to say you want eight seasons of a show in the streaming era, but for how this series performs, I think Amazon will probably be on board. But were talking at least a decade of content from here, probably, so buckle up.Follow me , and .Pick up my sci-fi novels the and

The big picture: Nvidia has fired back at AMD with new benchmark results showcasing the superior performance of its latest GPUs running DeepSeek's AI models. This comes after AMD's recent publication of benchmarks that positioned its Radeon RX 7900 XTX ahead of Nvidia's offerings. Nvidia's counterattack claims that its new GeForce RTX 5090 GPU outperforms AMD's flagship by a staggering margin. According to Team Green, the RTX 5090 is up to 2.2 times faster than the RX 7900 XTX when running DeepSeek R1 AI models.The tech giant conducted extensive benchmarks using three versions of the DeepSeek R1 AI model: Distill Qwen 7b, Llama 8b, and Qwen 32b. When using the Qwen LLM with 32b parameters, Nvidia reports that the RTX 5090 was 124 percent faster than AMD's contender, while the previous-generation RTX 4090 still managed a 47 percent lead.Similar patterns emerged across other tests. With Llama 8b, the RTX 5090 reportedly outpaced the RX 7900 XTX by 106 percent, while the RTX 4090 maintained a 47 percent advantage. Even in the Qwen 7b test, Nvidia's latest offering was 103 percent quicker, with the RTX 4090 showing a 46 percent performance edge.These results starkly contrast with AMD's earlier benchmarks, which had shown the RX 7900 XTX outperforming NVIDIA's RTX 4090 and 4080 in most scenarios, with leads of up to 113 percent and 134 percent, respectively.Nvidia also claimed that its GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs, powered by up to 3,352 trillion operations per second of AI processing capability, are uniquely positioned to run DeepSeek's family of distilled models faster than any other option in the PC market. This is because DeepSeek's R1 model family, which Nvidia described as part of a new class of 'reasoning models. // Related StoriesThese LLMs are designed to mimic human problem-solving processes by allocating more computational resources to 'thinking' and 'reflecting' on complex issues. This approach, known as test-time scaling, allows the model to dynamically allocate computing resources during inference to reason through problems more effectively.Nvidia also noted that its RTX 50 Series GPUs, featuring dedicated fifth-generation Tensor Cores, are built on the same Blackwell GPU architecture that drives AI innovations in data centers. This architecture enables RTX to fully accelerate DeepSeek models, delivering peak inference efficiency on personal computers.The company also touted its RTX AI platform, an ecosystem that opens up DeepSeek-R1 capabilities to over 100 million Nvidia RTX AI PCs worldwide, including those equipped with the latest GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs.Nvidia argued that high-performance RTX GPUs ensure AI capabilities remain accessible, even without an internet connection. This not only offers low latency but also enhances privacy, as users can avoid uploading sensitive materials or exposing their queries to online services.

A rapid series of agreements between US companies and Tesla CEO Elon Musk's businesses reflect optimism regarding his proximity to President Donald Trump. Amid concerns over aggressive steps Musk has taken to reorganize the federal government, the deals indicate that the world's richest man is amassing an alarming amount of power.Some of the announcements signal a potential reversal of fortunes following Musk's troubled takeover of X, formerly known as Twitter. In 2022, Musk proposed purchasing Twitter for $44 billion and unsuccessfully attempted to back out of the deal. The social media network has since lost most of its value as advertisers exited the platform over concerns about hate speech.However, Bloomberg recently reported that a group of banks led by Morgan Stanley plans to sell up to $3 billion of Twitter's debt, boosted by a $6 billion stake in Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI. Amid dramatic growth in the AI industry, recent fundraising valued xAI at $50 billion.Additionally, major advertisers have begun returning to Twitter. Sources told The Wall Street Journal that Amazon is increasing its ad spending on the platform, and Apple is considering gradually returning to the platform after its 2023 exit.Another deal that could help Musk increase Twitter's value, settle its debt, and realize his broader ambitions for the social network comes from Visa. The credit card company plans to become the first to allow peer-to-peer payments, wallets, and bank transfers directly through the platform. // Related StoriesAfter acquiring the social media network, Musk said he wished to transform it into an "everything app" resembling China's Weibo, which combines aspects of Twitter, Amazon, and PayPal. Visa may have just become the first partner to buy into the billionaire's dream.Musk's Starlink internet service has also received new partners following the CEO's growing presence in Trump's inner circle. United Airlines has accelerated its timeline for implementing the satellite service to provide in-flight Wi-Fi, and select iPhone users with T-Mobile can now test the satellite-to-cell service in remote locations lacking traditional coverage.These and other agreements come as Musk's newly branded Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has seized vital federal government mechanisms. After Musk spent over $260 million boosting Trump's reelection campaign, the incoming president gave him an office in the White House and tasked DOGE with finding ways to slash federal spending. The tech CEO aims to cut $2 trillion.In the opening weeks of Trump's new administration, DOGE has gained access to US Treasury systems that control Social Security, Medicare, and tax return payments. Some fear Musk could use the data to illegally halt funding of government programs.Musk has also pressured government employees to resign and halted operations at USAID, which oversees the deployment of lifesaving medicine and other foreign aid worldwide. Although the organization hasn't been completely dissolved, and some forms of aid are exempt from recent cuts, DOGE is reportedly still blocking HIV/AIDS relief.As members of Congress call the tech CEO's actions illegal and dangerous, investors have begun viewing his businesses as a relatively safe bet. Despite rising competition in sectors like electric vehicles and AI, rising shares have ballooned Musk's net worth since the November election, making him worth almost as much as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg combined.