Nailing cross-channel marketing for your app is crucial in today’s ecosystem. This isn’t just a speculation, it’s a hard fact: the average mobile marketer uses 5 or fewer media sources, but CPIs tend to be much higher for marketers using 6 or more media sources, according to a report by Singular and ironSource Aura.It’s time to start looking elsewhere for users. Something to consider is returning to old-school, tried-and-true strategies that have taken a backseat as the industry has advanced, such as web acquisition campaigns. There are two clicks in these campaigns - the first click directs users from an ad to a web landing page and the second click directs users from the web page to the app store. While the funnel to get to your app is longer, it’s actually an opportunity. Let’s dive into why and how you should be running web-to-app acquisition campaigns.3 benefits of web-to-app campaignsWeb acquisition campaigns became tried-and-true for a reason and many apps are beginning to take advantage of the strategy to reduce costs, get better visibility, and expand their reach.Reduce costsWhile the cost of app acquisition campaigns is increasing as the space becomes more saturated, web campaigns have been underutilized in recent years. This means many advertisers are finding that the cost of web campaigns are less than app store acquisitions. Much of these higher costs comes from high app store fees - Apple takes a 30% cut from large developers and a 15% cut from smaller developers. The web remains a relatively low-cost, accessible channel.Get better visibilityWith the ability to direct users to your owned mobile site before they click to download your app, you get better visibility into new users and where they came from - the app store is a black box where it’s nearly impossible to match the user who clicked an ad to the user who downloaded your app. On top of that, longer funnels give you more control and insight into each step users take to get to your app - allowing you to better optimize your campaigns. For example, you can try out different web landing pages to find the most effective way to increase users’ understanding of your app before they download it. This increases your likelihood of, first, motivating users to download your app, and second, encouraging them to stick around.Expand your reachInternet users worldwide spent 415.5 minutes a day online in 2021 according to Oberlo. App users spend at most 300 mins a day in apps according to TechCrunch. The internet is still more prevalent than apps because, let’s face it, the web predates the app store. Even more so, users have become especially savvy on the web, visiting the search bar to research a brand, fact check a friend, or dive deeper into a news headline. This means that by running web campaigns, you’re reaching a massive audience - nearly the entire world population.Andre Kempe, Founder and CEO of Admiral Media says, “marketers consider web acquisition important because they’re reaching a different type of audience that may convert to becoming an active app user, even though they were surfing on a news website… When you start advertising for the web, you reach an audience you haven’t reached before. This is definitely a growth opportunity." Listen to the full podcast.Web campaigns are a tried and true strategy, which is what makes them so effective in today’s ecosystem. Realizing that you should be considering this acquisition channel, let’s discuss how web onboarding can help you maximize success.Maximize success with web onboardingTypically, users complete onboarding directly on your app. Web onboarding, however, means letting users register, subscribe, and sometimes pay on the web, before heading to your app. This way, users are fully prepared to start using your app before even clicking download, ensuring they can engage at full capacity as soon as download is complete.When users onboard through the app, they may not immediately decide to engage but at least the app is still on their phones reminding them everyday of its value - they’re likely to open it again at some point in time. When a user onboards on the web and decides your app isn’t valuable, they’ll never end up actually downloading it - it’s gone and forgotten before it even started. That said, with web onboarding, the users who end up downloading your app will do so with high-intent to actively engage. Plus, you don’t have to pay for users that download without ever engaging. Whatever category your app is - fitness, food delivery, dating, reading, learning, etc. - you can use the web touchpoint to drive quality users to your app.Ensure the transition is seamlessFirst, ensure the web experience mimics the app experience enough that users don’t feel jipped when they actually start using your app. The transition from the web to the app should be seamless. If you’re offering users a taste of your app, the web touchpoint should look exactly like your app or, at least, include all of the same features. If the buttons to adjust settings are on the right side of the page during onboarding, they should be on the right side in the app as well. To ensure users stick around, you have to give them what they signed up for.Give users a sneak peakYou should also determine your main selling point and give users a sneak peak. For example, if you’re a reading app that allows users to adjust the settings of the page, you could give users premium access to the first chapter of a book allowing them to adjust font size or brightness. Readers will not want to leave the experience behind, encouraging them to set up their subscription and input their credit card information on the web before heading to the app to continue reading the book. The best part - when they open your app for the first time they’ll be able to jump right into the app experience.Learn more about how to improve your app’s onboarding experienceWeb-to-app campaigns should not be ignored in this competitive landscape - lower costs, more visibility, better optimization, and strong reach. Going even further to onboard users through the web, you’re improving the quality of the users entering your app for the first time.

One of the key use cases for generative AI involves answering questions over private datasets, with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) as the go-to framework. As new RAG techniques emerge, there’s a growing need to benchmark their performance across diverse datasets and metrics.  To meet this need, we’re introducing BenchmarkQED, a new suite of tools that automates RAG benchmarking at scale, available on GitHub (opens in new tab). It includes components for query generation, evaluation, and dataset preparation, each designed to support rigorous, reproducible testing.   BenchmarkQED complements the RAG methods in our open-source GraphRAG library, enabling users to run a GraphRAG-style evaluation across models, metrics, and datasets. GraphRAG uses a large language model (LLM) to generate and summarize entity-based knowledge graphs, producing more comprehensive and diverse answers than standard RAG for large-scale tasks.  In this post, we walk through the core components of BenchmarkQED that contribute to the overall benchmarking process. We also share some of the latest benchmark results comparing our LazyGraphRAG system to competing methods, including a vector-based RAG with a 1M-token context window, where the leading LazyGraphRAG configuration showed significant win rates across all combinations of quality metrics and query classes. In the paper, we distinguish between local queries, where answers are found in a small number of text regions, and sometimes even a single region, and global queries, which require reasoning over large portions of or even the entire dataset.  Conventional vector-based RAG excels at local queries because the regions containing the answer to the query resemble the query itself and can be retrieved as the nearest neighbor in the vector space of text embeddings. However, it struggles with global questions, such as, “What are the main themes of the dataset?” which require understanding dataset qualities not explicitly stated in the text.   AutoQ: Automated query synthesis This limitation motivated the development of GraphRAG a system designed to answer global queries. GraphRAG’s evaluation requirements subsequently led to the creation of AutoQ, a method for synthesizing these global queries for any dataset. AutoQ extends this approach by generating synthetic queries across the spectrum of queries, from local to global. It defines four distinct classes based on the source and scope of the query (Figure 1, top) forming a logical progression along the spectrum (Figure 1, bottom). Figure 1. Construction of a 2×2 design space for synthetic query generation with AutoQ, showing how the four resulting query classes map onto the local-global query spectrum.  AutoQ can be configured to generate any number and distribution of synthetic queries along these classes, enabling consistent benchmarking across datasets without requiring user customization. Figure 2 shows the synthesis process and sample queries from each class, using an AP News dataset. Figure 2. Synthesis process and example query for each of the four AutoQ query classes.  About Microsoft Research Advancing science and technology to benefit humanity View our story Opens in a new tab AutoE: Automated evaluation framework  Our evaluation of GraphRAG focused on analyzing key qualities of answers to global questions. The following qualities were used for the current evaluation: Comprehensiveness: Does the answer address all relevant aspects of the question?  Diversity: Does it present varied perspectives or insights?  Empowerment: Does it help the reader understand and make informed judgments?  Relevance: Does it address what the question is specifically asking?   The AutoE component scales evaluation of these qualities using the LLM-as-a-Judge method. It presents pairs of answers to an LLM, along with the query and target metric, in counterbalanced order. The model determines whether the first answer wins, loses, or ties with the second. Over a set of queries, whether from AutoQ or elsewhere, this produces win rates between competing methods. When ground truth is available, AutoE can also score answers on correctness, completeness, and related metrics. An illustrative evaluation is shown in Figure 3. Using a dataset of 1,397 AP News articles on health and healthcare, AutoQ generated 50 queries per class (200 total). AutoE then compared LazyGraphRAG to a competing RAG method, running six trials per query across four metrics, using GPT-4.1 as a judge. These trial-level results were aggregated using metric-based win rates, where each trial is scored 1 for a win, 0.5 for a tie, and 0 for a loss, and then averaged to calculate the overall win rate for each RAG method. Figure 3. Win rates of four LazyGraphRAG (LGR) configurations across methods, broken down by the AutoQ query class and averaged across AutoE’s four metrics: comprehensiveness, diversity, empowerment, and relevance. LazyGraphRAG outperforms comparison conditions where the bar is above 50%. The four LazyGraphRAG conditions (LGR_b200_c200, LGR_b50_c200, LGR_b50_c600, LGR_b200_c200_mini) differ by query budget (b50, b200) and chunk size (c200, c600). All used GPT-4o mini for relevance tests and GPT-4o for query expansion (to five subqueries) and answer generation, except for LGR_b200_c200_mini, which used GPT-4o mini throughout. Comparison systems were GraphRAG (Local, Global, and Drift Search), Vector RAG with 8k- and 120k-token windows, and three published methods: LightRAG (opens in new tab), RAPTOR (opens in new tab), and TREX (opens in new tab). All methods were limited to the same 8k tokens for answer generation. GraphRAG Global Search used level 2 of the community hierarchy. LazyGraphRAG outperformed every comparison condition using the same generative model (GPT-4o), winning all 96 comparisons, with all but one reaching statistical significance. The best overall performance came from the larger budget, smaller chunk size configuration (LGR_b200_c200). For DataLocal queries, the smaller budget (LGR_b50_c200) performed slightly better, likely because fewer chunks were relevant. For ActivityLocal queries, the larger chunk size (LGR_b50_c600) had a slight edge, likely because longer chunks provide a more coherent context. Competing methods performed relatively better on the query classes for which they were designed: GraphRAG Global for global queries, Vector RAG for local queries, and GraphRAG Drift Search, which combines both strategies, posed the strongest challenge overall. Increasing Vector RAG’s context window from 8k to 120k tokens did not improve its performance compared to LazyGraphRAG. This raised the question of how LazyGraphRAG would perform against Vector RAG with 1-million token context window containing most of the dataset. Figure 4 shows the follow-up experiment comparing LazyGraphRAG to Vector RAG using GPT-4.1 that enabled this comparison. Even against the 1M-token window, LazyGraphRAG achieved higher win rates across all comparisons, failing to reach significance only for the relevance of answers to DataLocal queries. These queries tend to benefit most from Vector RAG’s ranking of directly relevant chunks, making it hard for LazyGraphRAG to generate answers that have greater relevance to the query, even though these answers may be dramatically more comprehensive, diverse, and empowering overall. Figure 4. Win rates of LazyGraphRAG (LGR) over Vector RAG across different context window sizes, broken down by the four AutoQ query classes and four AutoE metrics: comprehensiveness, diversity, empowerment, and relevance. Bars above 50% indicate that LazyGraphRAG outperformed the comparison condition.  AutoD: Automated data sampling and summarization Text datasets have an underlying topical structure, but the depth, breadth, and connectivity of that structure can vary widely. This variability makes it difficult to evaluate RAG systems consistently, as results may reflect the idiosyncrasies of the dataset rather than the system’s general capabilities. The AutoD component addresses this by sampling datasets to meet a target specification, defined by the number of topic clusters (breadth) and the number of samples per cluster (depth). This creates consistency across datasets, enabling more meaningful comparisons, as structurally aligned datasets lead to comparable AutoQ queries, which in turn support consistent AutoE evaluations. AutoD also includes tools for summarizing input or output datasets in a way that reflects their topical coverage. These summaries play an important role in the AutoQ query synthesis process, but they can also be used more broadly, such as in prompts where context space is limited. Since the release of the GraphRAG paper, we’ve received many requests to share the dataset of the Behind the Tech (opens in new tab) podcast transcripts we used in our evaluation. An updated version of this dataset is now available in the BenchmarkQED repository (opens in new tab), alongside the AP News dataset containing 1,397 health-related articles, licensed for open release.   We hope these datasets, together with the BenchmarkQED tools (opens in new tab), help accelerate benchmark-driven development of RAG systems and AI question-answering. We invite the community to try them on GitHub (opens in new tab).  Opens in a new tab

Key Takeaways The European Commission will introduce the new International Digital Strategy that will focus on tech collaboration with the US and other countries. This is in contradiction to the growing pressure in Europe that calls for tech sovereignty and reducing tech dependence on the US. Low venture capital funding and a diverse regulatory landscape have been major challenges for tech innovation in Europe. Europe is seeing an increasing push to establish technological sovereignty and reduce the region’s reliance on US technology. However, there’s always been an undertone of acceptance that the EU is years behind the US when it comes to technological innovation and advancements. Now, the European Commission is planning to acknowledge this publicly. The EC will introduce a new International Digital Strategy, which will focus on collaboration with the United States and other tech-forward countries, such as Japan, South Korea, and India. The lawmakers believe that “decoupling” from the West is unrealistic and will instead push Europe further back in the technological race. Europe’s Call for Tech Sovereignty Several prominent political leaders and lawmakers have advocated for European sovereignty over technology and artificial intelligence.  For instance, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, said in a speech in 2024 that Europe’s strategic autonomy is a conscious choice to end the region’s dependence on others. In an earlier speech, he also said that if Europe fails to build champions in areas such as digital and artificial intelligence, its choices will be dictated by others.  Similarly, Thierry Breton, the former EU Commissioner for Internal Markets, said that digital spending in the EU will breach the 20% target, underlining the importance of investing in European tech sovereignty. He focused on Europe’s declining market share in the semiconductor industry and called for the development of groundbreaking European tech. The Eurostack movement in the EU has also been gaining a lot of traction and support from various think tanks, academic researchers, and industry voices. Eurostack staff calls for the development of an indigenous infrastructure stack in the European region, including cloud, AI, semiconductors, digital services, and data centers. The main aim is to reduce Europe’s dependence on Chinese and US technology. This growing concern among EU well-wishers is quite understandable. Excessive reliance on the United States puts the US (meaning Donald Trump) in a controlling position, where he can arm-twist the European Union in matters of trade and even politics.  We have already seen an example of this during the tariff war, where Trump imposed a 25% tariff on automobiles (and their parts) and steel and aluminum products imported from the EU. Also, the fact that Google, Microsoft, and Amazon account for around 69% of the cloud market in the EU is quite concerning, too. Europe Wakes Up to Reality Despite positive speeches and statements by people in power in the EU, the fact remains that Europe is still lagging behind the United States. Bulgarian lawmaker Eva Maydell said that Europe should “sober up” and accept that the train has left the station. Dan Nechita, the current EU director for the Transatlantic Policy Network, said that it’s not the right time to be politically absolute and say that “we are going to do everything in Europe.” EU tech chief Virkkunen has been working hard to bring home the support of influential tech lobbies and emphasized the need to continue working with the United States. To put it in a nutshell, the European Commission is ready to accept the fact that the damage is done, and now Europe needs to play second fiddle and forge strategic partnerships with key technological leaders (primarily in the US) to stay alive in the race. Lack of Investments and the EU’s Regulation-First Approach One of the major reasons behind the European Union’s sluggish tech development is the lack of venture capital investments in the region. As per an IMF post, EU VC funds raised around $130B between 2013 and 2022. During the same time, the US raised $924B.  Similarly, annual VC investments in the EU are only 0.2% of the GDP when compared to 0.7% in the US. Currently, the United States accounts for a massive 52% of the global VC funds, whereas the EU holds just 5%.  Lack of investments has forced European startups to look elsewhere, especially the United States, for funding and support. One of the major reasons for such low venture capital interest in Europe is its diversity. Each of the 27 countries in the EU has its own regulatory and legal challenges, which make it difficult for multinational corporations to operate in the region.  Plus, the EU has adopted a regulation-first approach, which is very different from the United States. Of course, this approach has its own merits, but it has surely slowed down the speed of technological investments in the region.  For instance, the GDPR puts a truckload of regulatory and moral responsibility on companies to protect user data. Similarly, the AI Act focuses on the more ethical development of artificial intelligence that’s aligned with human values and refrains companies from exploiting public data. Sure, all of these are positive tech regulations important to protect the long-term sovereignty of the public at large. Even global tech advocates have praised the EU’s efforts for the development of safe and ethical technologies. However, we cannot ignore the fact that this has come at the cost of sluggish tech investments and overall growth. With its back against the wall, Europe needs to reassess its strengths and focus on areas such as open-source technologies, such as France’s La Suite numérique, and government-backed technological initiatives to have a say in the upcoming artificial intelligence and semiconductor race. Krishi is a seasoned tech journalist with over four years of experience writing about PC hardware, consumer technology, and artificial intelligence.  Clarity and accessibility are at the core of Krishi’s writing style. He believes technology writing should empower readers—not confuse them—and he’s committed to ensuring his content is always easy to understand without sacrificing accuracy or depth. Over the years, Krishi has contributed to some of the most reputable names in the industry, including Techopedia, TechRadar, and Tom’s Guide. A man of many talents, Krishi has also proven his mettle as a crypto writer, tackling complex topics with both ease and zeal. His work spans various formats—from in-depth explainers and news coverage to feature pieces and buying guides.  Behind the scenes, Krishi operates from a dual-monitor setup (including a 29-inch LG UltraWide) that’s always buzzing with news feeds, technical documentation, and research notes, as well as the occasional gaming sessions that keep him fresh.  Krishi thrives on staying current, always ready to dive into the latest announcements, industry shifts, and their far-reaching impacts.  When he's not deep into research on the latest PC hardware news, Krishi would love to chat with you about day trading and the financial markets—oh! And cricket, as well. View all articles by Krishi Chowdhary Our editorial process The Tech Report editorial policy is centered on providing helpful, accurate content that offers real value to our readers. We only work with experienced writers who have specific knowledge in the topics they cover, including latest developments in technology, online privacy, cryptocurrencies, software, and more. Our editorial policy ensures that each topic is researched and curated by our in-house editors. We maintain rigorous journalistic standards, and every article is 100% written by real authors.

Catch This Year’s Strawberry Moon Lighting Up the Sky on June 11 The last full moon before summer kicks off is one of the lowest of the year in the Northern Hemisphere A full moon on June 28, 2018, as seen from Manchester, England. The reddish glow is likely due to the 2018 Saddleworth Moor wildfires.  Benjamin Shaw, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Summer will officially begin with this year's solstice on June 20. And on Wednesday, June 11, comes a "strawberry moon," the last full moon of the Northern Hemisphere's spring. It will be at its brightest at 3:44 a.m. Eastern time in the United States. Its name, however, isn't related to the moon's color. The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which has charted everything from celestial bodies to the best time to plant vegetables since 1792, popularized useful nicknames for every month's full moon. According to the almanac, the name strawberry moon has been used by Native peoples, such as the Algonquian, Ojibwe, Dakota and Lakota, to mark the harvest time of “June-bearing” strawberries. "Mead moon" or "honey moon" are old European nicknames for June's full moon, according to National Geographic, and may have similarly been inspired by honey harvesting. In the Northern Hemisphere, the strawberry moon is one of the lowest full moons of the year. That's because June's full moon usually takes place closest to the summer solstice, which is when the Earth is in the lowest point of its tilted orbit around the sun, and thus the sun appears at its peak height in our skies. Full moons occur when they are opposite the sun in respect to Earth, so if the sun is in its highest point, the moon is in its lowest, as reported by Live Science's Jamie Carter. Earth will reach its aphelion—or the farthest point in its elliptical orbit around the sun—on July 3, making the strawberry moon one of the farthest full moons from our star, per Live Science. Earth's summer and winter solstices NASA Because of its position in the sky, June's full moon may live up to its nickname by appearing more colorful. According to NASA, when the moon hangs low, it "tends to have a more yellow or orange hue" than when it's high because its light has to travel through a thicker portion of the atmosphere to reach our view. This means a greater number of long red wavelengths survive the journey than short blue ones. Pollution, dust or wildfires can also make the moon appear more red. The strawberry moon is distinct from the blood moon, however, notes Fox61's Krys Shahin. Blood moons—like the one that graced our skies in March—occur during total lunar eclipses, when the sun, the Earth and the moon line up in a way that makes the Earth block most of the sun's light from reaching the moon. The light that manages to seep around our planet and still reach the moon has to filter through our atmosphere, meaning mostly red wavelengths make it through once again. Though the strawberry moon will reach its peak early Wednesday morning, the best time to see it will be when it rises over the horizon at dusk on Tuesday evening, per Live Science. As reported by Discover Magazine's Stephanie Edwards, Mars will also be visible on June 11. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. More about: Moon Sky Watching Guide Sun

Snapchat is officially coming to your wrist. The first ever Snapchat app for Apple Watch just launched, here are the details. more…

Menu Home News Hardware Gaming Mobile Finance Deals Reviews How To Wccftech GamingMobile Sea of Remnants Is an F2P ‘Ocean Adventure RPG’ Coming Next Year to PC, PS5, and Mobile Alessio Palumbo • Jun 5, 2025 at 04:35am EDT One of the most interesting surprise announcements from yesterday's State of Play is Sea of Remnants. Developed by Joker Studio, primarily known for the asymmetrical multiplayer survival horror game Identity V, and published by NetEase Games, the game is described as a free-to-play ocean adventure roleplaying game scheduled to launch in 2026 for PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, iOS, and Android. Sylar Pan, Product Lead at Joker Studio, said in a statement: Sea of Remnants places the world’s fate directly in the players’ hands. With more than 300 characters to interact with—whether as allies, enemies, or something in between—every action can trigger surprising and far-reaching consequences. We’re excited to see the stories players will create when they finally set sail. The premise of Sea of Remnants is quite peculiar. Players will take the role of puppet-looking sailors who have lost all their memories and embark on a journey alongside a mysterious girl across vast seas and uncharted islands to a city slowly awakening to its secrets. During their travels, players can recruit a crew of unique puppetfolk allies, customize their ships with modular upgrades, and assemble specialized teams for exploration and turn-based battles. Every decision, whether sparing enemies or seizing opportunities, will have dramatic consequences for the world. As rival factions react to each choice and the cityscape of Orbtopia evolves in response, no two captains will experience the same journey. Interestingly, while land combat is turn-based, naval fights take place in real time, with positioning and timing playing a crucial role in the outcome. As mentioned by the developer in the above statement, there will be over 300 non-player characters to interact with, each featuring distinct designs and personalities as well as their own allegiances. Players can befriend, provoke, or remove them. When in Orbtopia, players will even find leisure activities such as mahjong, and life skills such as hotspot cooking and fishing. The Steam page of Sea of Remnants already includes the minimum and recommended requirements. Minimum: OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit or later Processor: Intel Core i7-9700 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600X Memory: 16 GB RAM Graphics: GTX 1060（6GB）/RX 480（8GB） DirectX: Version 11 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 60 GB available space Recommended: OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit or later Processor: Intel Core i7-12700 / AMD Ryzen 7 7700X Memory: 32 GB RAM Graphics: RTX 3070 Ti/RX 6800XT DirectX: Version 12 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 80 GB available space Subscribe to get an everyday digest of the latest technology news in your inbox Follow us on Topics Sections Company Some posts on wccftech.com may contain affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com © 2025 WCCF TECH INC. 700 - 401 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Ahead of the TechEx North America event on June 4-5, we’ve been lucky enough to speak to Kieran Norton, Deloitte’s US Cyber AI & Automation leader, who will be one of the speakers at the conference on June 4th. Kieran’s 25+ years in the sector mean that as well as speaking authoritatively on all matters cybersecurity, his most recent roles include advising Deloitte clients on many issues around cybersecurity when using AI in business applications.The majority of organisations have in place at least the bare minimum of cybersecurity, and thankfully, in most cases, operate a decently comprehensive raft of cybersecurity measures that cover off communications, data storage, and perimeter defences.However, in the last couple of years, AI has changed the picture, both in terms of how companies can leverage the technology internally, and in how AI is used in cybersecurity – in advanced detection, and in the new ways the tech is used by bad actors.As a Considered a relatively new area, AI, smart automation, data governance and security all inhabit a niche at present. But given the growing presence of AI in the enterprise, those niches are set to become mainstream issues: problems, solutions, and advice that will need to be observed in every organisation, sooner rather than later.Governance and riskIntegrating AI into business processes isn’t solely about the technology and methods for its deployment. Internal processes will need to change to make best use of AI, and to better protect the business that’s using AI daily. Kieran draws a parallel to earlier changes made necessary by new technologies: “I would correlate [AI] with cloud adoption where it was a fairly significant shift. People understood the advantages of it and were moving in that direction, although sometimes it took them more time than others to get there.”Those changes mean casting the net wide, to encompass the update of governance frameworks, establishing secure architectures, even leveraging a new generation of specialists to ensure AI and the data associated with it are used safely and responsibly. Companies actively using AI have to detect and correct bias, test for hallucinations, impose guardrails, manage where, and by whom AI is used, and more. As Kieran puts it: “You probably weren’t doing a lot of testing for hallucination, bias, toxicity, data poisoning, model vulnerabilities, etc. That now has to be part of your process.”These are big subjects, and for the fuller picture, we advocate that readers attend the two talks at TechEx North America that Kieran’s to give. He’ll be exploring both sides of the AI coin – issues around AI deployment for the business, and the methods that companies can implement to deter and detect the new breed of AI-powered malware and attack vectors.The right use-casesKieran advocates that companies start with smaller, lower-risk AI implementations. While some of the first sightings of AI ‘in the wild’ have been chatbots, he was quick to differentiate between a chatbot that can intelligently answer questions from customers, and agents, which can take action by means of triggering interactions with the apps and services the business operates. “So there’s a delineation […] chatbots have been one of the primary starting places […] As we get into agents and agentic, that changes the picture. It also changes the complexity and risk profile.”Customer-facing agentic AI instances are indubitably higher risk, as a misstep can have  significant effects on a brand. “That’s a higher risk scenario. Particularly if the agent is executing financial transactions or making determinations based on healthcare coverage […] that’s not the first use case you want to try.”“If you plug 5, 6, 10, 50, a hundred agents together, you’re getting into a network of agency […] the interactions become quite complex and present different issues,” he said.In some ways, the issues around automation and system-to-system interfaces have been around for close on a decade. Data silos and RPA (robotic process automation) challenges are the hurdles enterprises have been trying to jump for several years. “You still have to know where your data is, know what data you have, have access to it […] The fundamentals are still true.”In the AI era, fundamental questions about infrastructure, data visibility, security, and sovereignty are arguably more relevant. Any discussions about AI tend to circle around the same issues, which throws into relief Kieran’s statements that a conversation about AI in the enterprise has to be wide-reaching and concern many of the operational and infrastructural underpinnings of the enterprise.Kieran therefore emphasises the importance of practicality, and a grounded assessment of need and ability as needing careful examination before AI can gain a foothold. “If you understand the use case […] you should have a pretty good idea of the ROI […] and therefore whether or not it’s worth the pain and suffering to go through building it.”At Deloitte, AI is being put to use where there is a clear use case with a measurable return: in the initial triage-ing of SOC tickets. Here the AI acts as a Level I incident analysis engine. “We know how many tickets get generated a day […] if we can take 60 to 80% of the time out of the triage process, then that has a significant impact.” Given the technology’s nascence, demarcating a specific area of operations where AI can be used acts as both prototype and proof of effectiveness. The AI is not customer-facing, and there are highly-qualified experts in their fields who can check and oversee the AI’s deliberations.ConclusionKieran’s message for business professionals investigating AI uses for their organisations was not to build an AI risk assessment and management programme from scratch. Instead, companies should evolve existing systems, have a clear understanding of each use-case, and avoid the trap of building for theoretical value.“You shouldn’t create another programme just for AI security on top of what you’re already doing […] you should be modernising your programme to address the nuances associated with AI workloads.” Success in AI starts with clear, realistic goals built on solid foundations.You can read more about TechEx North America here and sign up to attend. Visit the Deloitte team at booth #153 and drop in on its sessions on June 4: ‘Securing the AI Stack’ on the AI & Big Data stage from 9:20am-9:50am, and ‘Leveraging AI in Cybersecurity for business transformation’ on the Cybersecurity stage, 10:20am – 10:50am.Learn more about Deloitte’s solutions and service offerings for AI in business and cybersecurity or email the team at uscyberai@deloitte.com.(Image source: “Symposium Cisco Ecole Polytechnique 9-10 April 2018 Artificial Intelligence & Cybersecurity” by Ecole polytechnique / Paris / France is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)

What just happened? Enthusiast-class discrete graphics cards typically dominate conversations about high performance, but integrated GPUs aren't far behind when it comes to overclocking records for clock frequency. The latest world record holder recently explained how he managed voltage and temperature levels to push an Intel iGPU past the 4GHz mark for the very first time. Overclocker Pieter Massman recently detailed how he set a new graphics clock frequency world record at Computex 2025. While most recent record holders have used Nvidia's flagship RTX 4090, Massman surpassed them using the integrated GPU from an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. With help from Asus overclocker Peter "Shamino" Tan, Massman pushed the Arrow Lake processor's Xe2-LPG 64EU iGPU to 4.25GHz – more than double its stock boost clock. The team achieved the feat twice, validating the results in CPU-Z during a livestream in the early days of this year's Computex event in Taiwan. According to Massman's blog, Skatter Bencher, the achievement marks a new world record for both integrated GPU clock frequency and GPU clock frequency overall. Since the RTX 4090 launched in 2022, frequency records have steadily climbed from around 3.3GHz to 4.02GHz in 2023. Massman had previously set the iGPU record at 3.9GHz during an Arrow Lake launch event late last year – using the same chip he would later overclock at Computex. The overclock involved setting the GT ratio to multiply the default reference clock by a factor of 85, the highest available setting. Initially, Massman supplied 1.3V to the integrated GPU via a VccGT voltage rail dedicated to the CPU's graphics tile cores, but this only reached 3.1GHz. // Related Stories Pushing further required a delicate balance of overvolting and liquid nitrogen cooling, ultimately achieving 4.25GHz with 1.7V and a temperature of -170°C. However, measuring the iGPU's performance at those settings overwhelmed several common benchmarking tools. Furmark crashed after reaching 2,800 points in 1080p, 3DMark Speed Way halted around 650 marks, and GPUPI 1B only ran for about 17.9 seconds. To stabilize the system, the team overclocked the graphics die-to-die interface and increased the reference clock. While discrete and overall GPU clock frequency records have steadily risen since the early 2000s, progress with iGPUs only resumed recently. After breaking the 2GHz barrier in 2011, integrated GPU overclocking plateaued for nearly a decade before surpassing 3GHz in 2023. Whether graphics overclocking will stagnate as CPU frequency gains have since 2010 remains to be seen.

Browning Industrial Park / MULTIPLE Architecture & UrbanismSave this picture!© Bruno Dias Ventura Architects: MULTIPLE Architecture & Urbanism Area Area of this architecture project Area:  15562 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Bruno Dias Ventura Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project Manufacturers:  Joris Ide, Ozklux, VMZINC, ZumtobelMore SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. The Browning Park project emerged from a strong ambition: to transform a derelict industrial site - once home to Herstal's weapons industry - into a vibrant green lung at the heart of the city. Over time, the site had become a sealed and fragmented grey zone, disconnected from its surrounding neighborhoods. The project was driven by a desire to reverse this fragmentation by creating a continuous pedestrian path, reopening the site, and reconnecting it with its urban context. This central promenade became the backbone of the design, around which inclusive and fully accessible public spaces were thoughtfully arranged.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!One of the most significant challenges stemmed from the condition of the site itself. Decades of industrial activity had left behind polluted soils and substantial infrastructural remnants. A deep soil remediation process - reaching depths of up to 12 meters - was required before any development could begin. This necessary intervention also offered the opportunity to reshape the topography and increase permeable surfaces, thus improving rainwater infiltration and boosting the site's resilience to climate change. Another key challenge involved balancing heritage preservation with new uses. The former Browning factory, for instance, had to be partially dismantled, structurally reinforced, and reimagined, while retaining its historical identity.Save this picture!In terms of construction, the project focused on reusing existing structures wherever possible. The factory's original metal frame was preserved and strengthened, and a new timber roof was added to create a covered public hall. Adjacent to it, the garden integrates remnants of the steel framework, which now supports wild vegetation and forms a robust, weather-resistant landscape feature. These gestures embody the project's commitment to circularity and a low environmental footprint.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The spatial layout of the park was carefully designed to accommodate a wide variety of users and age groups. Along the main pedestrian spine, a sequence of diverse atmospheres and uses unfolds: a skatepark, a playground, picnic areas, outdoor fitness zones, a square with a fountain, a woodland area, and a flower garden. All these features are barrier-free and fully accessible.Save this picture!The project was developed in close dialogue with the people of Herstal and future park users. A series of public consultations and co-creation workshops were held throughout the design process, ensuring the park would reflect local needs and aspirations. The involvement of municipal services, which will oversee the long-term maintenance of the park, the hall, and the intergenerational house, was also crucial to ensuring the project's durability and success.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Herstal, BelgiumLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this office MaterialSteelMaterials and TagsPublished on June 05, 2025Cite: "Browning Industrial Park / MULTIPLE Architecture & Urbanism" 05 Jun 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030623/browning-industrial-park-multiple-architecture-and-urbanism&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

TL;DR: Canberra authorities are embracing a tough approach to ransomware threats. A new law will require certain organizations to disclose when and how much they have paid to cybercriminals following a data breach. However, experts remain unconvinced that this is the most effective way to tackle the problem. Companies operating in Australia must now report any payments made to cybercriminals after experiencing a ransomware incident. Government officials hope the new mandate will help them gain a deeper understanding of the issue, as many enterprises continue to pay ransoms whenever they fall victim to file-encrypting malware. Originally proposed last year, the law applies only to companies with an annual turnover exceeding $1.93 million. This threshold targets the top 6.5 percent of Australia's registered businesses – representing roughly half of the country's total economic output. Under the new law, affected companies must report ransomware incidents to the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD). Failure to properly disclose an attack will result in fines under the country's civil penalty system. Authorities are allegedly planning to follow a two-stage approach, initially prioritizing major violations while fostering a "constructive" dialogue with victims. Starting next year, regulators will adopt a much stricter stance toward noncompliant organizations. The Australian government has implemented this mandatory reporting requirement after concluding that voluntary disclosures were insufficient. In 2024, officials noted that ransomware and cyber extortion incidents were vastly underreported, with only one in five victims coming forward. Ransomware remains a highly complex and growing phenomenon, with attacks reaching record levels despite increased law enforcement actions against notorious cyber gangs. Although several governments have proposed similar regulations, Australia is the first country to formally enact such a law. // Related Stories Jeff Wichman, director of incident response at cybersecurity firm Semperis, cautions that mandatory reporting is a double-edged sword. While the government may gain valuable data and insights into attacker profiles, the law may not reduce the frequency of attacks. Instead, it could serve mainly to publicly shame breached organizations – while cybercriminals continue to profit. A recent Semperis study found that over 70 percent of 1,000 ransomware-hit companies opted to pay the ransom and hope for the best. "Some companies, they just want to pay it and get things done, to get their data off the dark web. Others, it's a delayed response perspective, they want negotiations to happen with the attacker while they figure out what happened," Wichman explained. According to the study, 60 percent of victims who paid received functional decryption keys and successfully recovered their data. However, in 40 percent of cases, the provided keys were corrupted or ineffective.