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Google's Fitbit Edge Debuts a Replaceable Battery, Brings Back the Screen

Google has introduced the $179 Fitbit Edge, a new fitness tracker with a 1.34-inch OLED display, built-in GPS, ECG support, week-long battery life, and Fitbit's first user-replaceable battery. "And unlike the Pixel Watch, it's compatible with Android and iPhones via the Google Health app," reports Wired. From the report: The Edge has a user-replaceable battery, a Fitbit first, aligning with Google's efforts to make its Pixel Watch more repairable. (Likely also due to new battery regulations set to take effect next year in the European Union.) Repair options will vary by region and availability. If you find the Pixel Watch's round face too bulky, the Edge's capsule-shaped alternative might suit smaller wrists better. If the Charge 6's 1.04-inch display was too small, the Edge upgrades it to a larger 1.34-inch screen. The difference is noticeable, and that extra real estate could make a real impact when glancing at your metrics mid-workout.

The Edge borrows a few more attributes from the Pixel Watch, including an altimeter that uses atmospheric pressure to measure elevation changes. That means it can record elevation gain and loss during outdoor activities, track floors climbed, and add more context to your outdoor stats. It also has a far-field skin temperature sensor, replacing the standard device temperature sensor found in other Fitbits. By bringing some of the Pixel Watch's more advanced hardware to a fitness-first wearable, Google is giving the Edge a compelling middle-ground position in its lineup at a Fitbit-friendly price.

The Edge inherits the Fitbit Air's improvements while restoring several Charge 6 features the screenless tracker lacks, including built-in GPS and electrical sensors that work with the electrocardiogram (ECG) app. You can also control music playback on a connected Bluetooth device, as you could with the Charge 6, and Google Maps turn-by-turn directions will arrive later this year. [...] With a Google Health Premium subscription, the Edge can track blood pressure trends without manual calibration and insulin resistance trends without requiring a blood draw. Google first announced these capabilities alongside the Pixel Watch 5's debut, but they only became available at the end of September. They're also available on the Air, keeping Google's screenless tracker up to date as its lineup expands.

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Russia Was Not Ready For the Data Center War It Started With Ukraine

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When Russia began attacking Ukrainian data centers and telecommunication infrastructure, it apparently failed to prepare for possible retaliation. Now Russia's digital services are facing widespread outages after Ukrainian drone strikes knocked out three of the largest data centers owned by Russian tech giant Yandex within several days. Pro-Kremlin bloggers are warning that Russia's centralized digital economy could collapse because the country is not prepared for the "data center war" it started, according to posts translated by the pseudonymous independent researcher ChrisO_wiki. The Russian commentators also suggested that Ukraine's decentralized digital services could prove more resilient than Russia's system if the countries continue trading such blows.

Russia initially launched a drone strike campaign targeting Ukrainian data centers and mobile phone networks in late September. The attacks temporarily disrupted Internet and cell phone service for up to 100,000 households in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and came as part of a broader long-range strike campaign that has involved Russian missiles and jet-powered drones hitting Ukraine's power grid infrastructure, transportation hubs, and even residential apartment building blocks. But Ukraine soon began striking back at data centers owned by the Russian company Yandex, also known as "Russia's Google," in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described as a "symmetrical response."

[...] More importantly for Russian society, the damage to Yandex's data centers has reportedly caused interruptions or outages to popular Russian payment apps and digital banking services, email, e-commerce platforms, video streaming services, ride-hailing and food delivery apps, and navigation and map services. Yandex's search engine also accounts for about 70 percent of the market share in Russia. The disruptions are even more widespread, because the data center damage also impacts Yandex's cloud computing service, which counts some of Russia's largest companies as customers, according to The Moscow Times, an independent newspaper. These include large grocery and fast-food chains as well as a household appliance retailer.

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Hackers Heat French Supermarket Fridges, Sparking Fires and Spoiling Food

Hackers remotely manipulated connected refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarkets, reportedly pushing some fridges and freezers to 50C (122F), spoiling food and even sparking fires. According to Reuters, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu ordered a cybersecurity investigation into the hacks, with similar incidents reported in Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, and Belgium. In France, Carrefour reported 80 affected stores, Monoprix said 5% of its locations were hit, and Les Mousquetaires said refrigerators at roughly 150 Intermarche stores were heated to 50C for six hours. From the report: Supermarket cold aisles are typically run by control panels that manage an entire store's fridges and freezers and can be accessed over the internet, which lets maintenance companies adjust them from anywhere. The source close to Lecornu said ANSSI had identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss.

Danfoss said it was "aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems." The affected units "were running outdated firmware," Danfoss said, adding that it had "long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions."

On August 9, cybersecurity firm Claroty's Team82 published research detailing vulnerabilities in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A controller. According to the report, software updates issued by Danfoss addressed issues that could have allowed attackers to bypass authentication controls and execute code on compromised devices.

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AI Coding Agents Generate More Code, But Not More Software

A study of more than 700 software firms found that AI coding agents significantly increase the amount of code developers produce, but not the amount of software companies actually ship. Ars Technica reports: A recent study (PDF) of actual coding practices across hundreds of firms finds that human code review forms a significant "bottleneck" for the overall efficiency of AI coding tools, resulting in "little evidence that firms increase software output or reduce employment" by using them. Any efficiency increased during the actual coding phase, the study authors find, is "absorbed by downstream constraints in the production process"; as "the code review process significantly increases in length, pull requests are more likely to require revisions, and reviewers leave more comments."

[...] In terms of raw code being produced, the results are clear and stark. The introduction of AI coding agents at a firm leads to a 30 percent increase in total lines of code generated, a 20 percent rise in the number of total commits, and a 23 percent increase in pull requests on average, the researchers write. But all that extra code doesn't translate directly into improved software output on the firm level. On the contrary, the resolution rate for Issues and Epics (i.e. wholesale software features) tracked by tools like Jira did not change in a statistically significant way after AI tools were introduced (the researchers also found no "compositional shift" in the size or complexity of those Jira-tracked issues across the AI introduction).

The reason for that discrepancy can be found directly in the code review process, which takes markedly longer on average after the introduction of AI coding agents. Overall, the average "review process" time between a pull request getting submitted and it being merged into the codebase balloons 49 percent on average after AI agents are introduced. That effect can be seen in more granular data, too, with "the share of pull requests with changes requested nearly doubl[ing], and the number of comments per pull request increas[ing] by 35%" following the AI agent shift, the researchers write.

In response to this change, the researchers found a 14 percent increase in the share of workers performing code reviews after AI agents' introduction. They also write that they "cannot attribute significant employment changes to AI" after looking at total active workers across Jellyfish and cross-referencing with LinkedIn data at those firms. While AI could also theoretically help with this review process, the researchers found that, so far, that impact has been marginal. Although 80 percent of measured firms used some form of AI code review by March 2026, AI agents were only responsible for 23.3 percent of all review comments and 10.8 percent of all pull requests, suggesting humans were still responsible for the vast majority of this work.

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Rejected Space Mission Profiles

Although NASA agreed that Voyager 2 'seemed lonely' they decided against launching a companion orbiter mission after further measurements indicated that the spacecraft actually preferred the peace and quiet.

Cabaretprijzen voor Ruud Smulders, Lisa Ostermann en Yentl en de Boer

De VSCD Cabaretprijzen, de Poelifinario’s, voor de meest indrukwekkende cabaretprogramma’s van het jaar gaan naar Ruud Smulders, Lisa Ostermann, Yentl en de Boer en David Linszen.

A no-rules approach to AI is mad politics and worse policy

Do not let it rip.


thexiffy

Last.fm last recent tracks from thexiffy.

The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight

The Sugarhill Gang

Wel.nl

Minder lezen, Meer weten.

Wall Street terughoudend in aanloop naar kwartaalcijfers

NEW YORK (ANP) - Beleggers op Wall Street deden het aan het begin van de nieuwe handelsweek voorzichtig aan, na de koerswinsten van vorige week. Ze stelden zich terughoudend op in aanloop naar kwartaalcijfers van grote banken als JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup en Morgan Stanley deze week. Er zijn ook belangrijke cijfers uit de chipsector op komst. Zowel chipmachinemaker ASML als de grote Taiwanese chipfabrikant TSMC delen hoe het afgelopen kwartaal is verlopen. De beurshandel in New York stond maandag ook onder druk door een stijging van de olieprijzen.

Toch sloot de Dow-Jonesindex met een winst van 0,4 procent op 51.850,55 punten. De breder samengestelde S&P 500-index verloor een fractie op 7807,24 punten. Techbeurs Nasdaq zakte 0,4 procent naar 27.245,90 punten, vooral door een koersverlies van chipconcern Micron Technology (min 3,9 procent). Dat kwam door vrees bij beleggers voor toenemende concurrentie van het Chinese CXMT, dat vooruitgang meldde bij de ontwikkeling van een nieuwe chipstructuur.

Volgens de topman van chipbedrijf Broadcom is financiering een groter obstakel voor de uitbreiding van AI dan de tekorten aan chips of elektriciteit, meldde de Amerikaanse zakenzender CNBC. Ook de topman van Intel maakt zich zorgen over de stijgende kapitaalkosten. Broadcom verloor 1,9 procent en Intel zakte 3,2 procent.

Nebius

De in Amsterdam gevestigde cloudcomputingprovider Nebius Group verloor 5 procent. Nebius heeft een intentieovereenkomst getekend met VOLT, initiatiefnemer en ontwikkelaar van een AI-fabriek in de Rotterdamse haven. De bouw van die fabriek moet in 2028 beginnen en Nebius en VOLT hebben de overeenkomst getekend voor een "substantieel deel van de rekenkracht van de in de Rotterdamse haven geplande AI-gigafabriek".

Salesforce won 2 procent. Het softwareconcern kreeg een adviesverhoging van Bank of America.

De olieprijzen liepen maandag verder op nadat ze eerder op de dag waren gedaald. De prijs zakte nadat de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump een "energiebestand" tussen OekraĂŻne en Rusland meldde. Maar volgens de president van OekraĂŻne, Volodymyr Zelensky, heeft Rusland zich niet gehouden aan dat staakt-het-vuren. Een vat Brentolie werd 1,4 procent duurder op 106,20 dollar. Amerikaanse olie steeg 1,6 procent naar 93,35 dollar per vat.


Zeehondenopvang Waddenzee dreigt failliet te gaan

LAUWERSOOG (ANP) - Als financiële steun van de provincie Groningen en de gemeente Het Hogeland uitblijft, dan gaat het Werelderfgoedcentrum Waddenzee (WEC) binnen twee weken failliet. Die boodschap hebben de directeur-bestuurder en de raad van toezicht van Stichting Zeehondencentrum Pieterburen maandag gepubliceerd.

"Het zou betekenen dat zeehonden in nood niet meer opgevangen kunnen worden en dat veertig mensen hun baan kwijtraken", schrijft het WEC. In het centrum is onder meer de voortzetting van de zeehondenopvang in Pieterburen gevestigd.

De problemen zijn ontstaan omdat de realisatie en ingebruikname van de nieuwe locatie, die opende in april 2025, "onverwachte kosten" met zich meebrachten. "Tegelijkertijd waren de financiële reserves al beperkt, doordat de exploitatie in de voorgaande jaren achterbleef bij de begroting. Het voorgenomen faillissement is een ongelooflijk moeilijke conclusie", aldus het WEC.

Vorige week lieten de provincie en Het Hogeland weten geen verdere financiële steun te willen verlenen.


Smulders, Ostermann en Yentl en de Boer winnen Poelifinario's

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Ruud Smulders, Lisa Ostermann en het duo Yentl en de Boer hebben maandagavond een Poelifinario gewonnen, de belangrijkste Nederlandse cabaretprijs. Dat gebeurde tijdens het Cabaretgala in Theater Diligentia in Den Haag. De Neerlands Hoop-prijs voor de meest veelbelovende theatermaker ging naar David Linszen.

De prijzen worden uitgereikt door de Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouwdirecties (VSCD). Smulders won de prijs in de categorie Entertainment. Het was de eerste keer dat hij de prijs won. Ostermann won in de categorie Engagement. Het was haar tweede Poelifinario. De jury prees haar combinatie van "pure openhartigheid en heerlijk onzinnige gekkigheid". Het duo Yentl en de Boer kreeg ook voor de tweede keer een Poelifinario overhandigd. Ze wonnen in de categorie Kleinkunst.

Bij het gala was er ook aandacht voor de recent overleden cabaretier en schrijfster Paulien Cornelisse. Voor de prijsuitreiking droeg het duo Yentl en de Boer een lied aan haar op.


Houthi's claimen nieuwe aanval op luchthaven Riyad

RIYAD (ANP/AFP) - De Jemenitische Houthi's claimen een nieuwe aanval met een ballistische raket op de luchthaven in de Saudische hoofdstad Riyad. "De inslag was nauwkeurig", aldus een woordvoerder. De door Saudi-Arabië geleide coalitie tegen de Houthi's zei eerder een ballistische raket op weg naar Riyad te hebben neergehaald.

Er zijn meerdere explosies gehoord in Riyad, kort nadat inwoners een waarschuwing van de autoriteiten op hun mobiele telefoons hadden ontvangen. "Het gebied wordt bedreigd door een vijandelijke luchtaanval. Blijf alstublieft kalm en blijf binnen of op een veilige plek uit de buurt van ramen en deuren", luidde het bericht.

De door Iran gesteunde Houthi's voeren sinds vorige week regelmatig aanvallen uit op vliegvelden en oliefaciliteiten in Saudi-Arabië. Het vliegveld in Riyad was zaterdag ook al het doelwit van Houthi-aanvallen. Daarbij kwamen dertien mensen om het leven en raakten honderden anderen gewond.


Fröttmaning

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Fröttmaning

Fröttmaning

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Fröttmaning

Fröttmaning

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Fröttmaning

Fröttmaning

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Fröttmaning

Fröttmaning

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Fröttmaning

The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

Selma Blair arrested at JFK after she allegedly attacked flight attendants

Several news outlets reported Blair allegedly punched a flight attendant, bit another and tried to open plane door

The actor Selma Blair was arrested on Sunday at John F Kennedy (JFK) airport in New York on allegations that she attacked flight attendants on a Delta Air Lines flight, according to officials.

Blair’s arrest happened at about 11pm, after Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials said they responded to a call “about a physically abusive passenger aboard Delta Air Lines flight 938 which was parked at the gate” at JFK after arriving from Los Angeles (LAX).

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‘No negativity’: Carrick still confident at Manchester United despite ‘sticky’ start

  • United have endured worst league start since 1986-87

  • Trip to AtlĂ©tico in Champions League awaits on Tuesday

Manchester United have endured their worst league start in 40 years but Michael Carrick insists he is “loving it”. United arrived in Madrid without Kobbie Mainoo and Luke Shaw, who both picked up knocks in the draw against Tottenham at the weekend, and with the coach admitting that his team are in “a spot”, but he vowed that they would “come out fighting”.

Despite collecting just six points in the Premier League so far, Carrick claimed he did not feel under pressure and backed his captain, Bruno Fernandes, who he revealed was still “carrying something”, to rediscover his form. As he talked about building, there was a reminder too of the fact that Arsenal, the champions, finished “seventh or eighth” in Mikel Arteta’s first two seasons.

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Volkskrant.nl biedt het laatste nieuws, opinie en achtergronden

Cabaretiers Lisa Ostermann en Yentl en de Boer winnen hun tweede Poelifinario op rij