OpenAI has decided its AI browser experiment has run its course, pulling the plug on ChatGPT Atlas less than a year after launch and moving its browser-based agent features into ChatGPT and Codex. The company said Atlas will stop working on August 9 as it rolls out the newly unveiled ChatGPT Work platform. Atlas arrived last October with no shortage of ambition. Rather than trying to out-Chrome Chrome, OpenAI wanted to bolt ChatGPT directly onto the web, promising a browser that could read pages, rewrite them, answer questions, and eventually start doing the clicking itself. However, within days of its debut, security researchers demonstrated prompt injection attacks that could manipulate the browser's AI assistant into following malicious instructions embedded in web pages. A few days later, researchers uncovered another flaw that allowed malformed URLs to cause Atlas to expose information about previously visited sites. Neither flaw proved fatal, but they quickly exposed the gap between an AI browser on launch day and one ready for the open web. OpenAI hasn't fully abandoned the idea of AI-powered browsing, but appears to have decided it doesn't need a standalone browser to deliver it. ChatGPT Work looks less like a browser and more like OpenAI's attempt to become the operating system for office work. The desktop application combines ChatGPT, Codex, and Atlas into a single package that can connect to files and business applications, browse the web, generate documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and websites, and stick with long-running projects for hours at a time instead of answering one prompt after another. Powering it all is GPT-5.6, OpenAI's latest model series, which the company says is better at reasoning through multi-step tasks and producing work that follows users' templates and reference material. The pitch is different this time around too. Atlas was all about rethinking the browser, but ChatGPT Work is about getting office workers to spend more time with OpenAI. To help with that, OpenAI has bundled plugins into a single directory, allowing ChatGPT to pull context from tools including Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, SharePoint, email, calendars, CRMs, and project trackers, either automatically or when users explicitly call them into a prompt. For developers, the biggest change is that Codex is no longer treated as a separate product. Codex is losing its standalone app and moving into ChatGPT Work, picking up inline diff editing, pull request reviews, and multi-repository support. ChatGPT Work is available to all plans on desktop, rolling out to Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu on web and mobile over the next few days. AI browsers have attracted no shortage of hype over the past year, but convincing people to swap Chrome for an AI-first alternative was always going to be a taller order than bolting another chatbot onto the web. ®

Microsoft says it matched its entire electricity consumption with renewable energy last year. The bad news is it also increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25 percent due to datacenter construction. The cloud and software biz has released a 2026 Environmental Sustainability Report [PDF], claiming its environmental sustainability work is entering a new phase due to rapid technological change. A global shift towards AI is reshaping economies, the report claims, which is becoming “foundational” to how technology is built and used. Producing the infrastructure to support AI, however, is also upping demand for energy, water, land, and materials required to support it, Microsoft admits. The foreword, penned by President Brad Smith and Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa, says that “AI can deliver broad societal, economic, and environmental benefits,” and “We do not see these dynamics as a reason to step back. We see them as a mandate to lead differently.” In 2020, Microsoft set itself the goal of becoming "carbon-negative" by 2030. Its own figures show emissions heading only upwards, from 13 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2020, to 20 million tons in 2025. However, Microsoft estimates that without the carbon reduction initiatives it has already put in place, emissions would now stand at 34 million tons. We asked Microsoft what this meant for its goal of becoming carbon-negative by 2030. It has yet to reply. As noted previously, Microsoft's rise in GHGs is primarily driven by the expansion of its datacenter infrastructure, though it also points to a decision to stop purchasing non-additional, unbundled renewable energy certificates. The construction spike means that Scope 3 emissions are still the largest part of Microsoft’s carbon footprint, but 2025 saw a growing contribution from Scope 2, due to generation of energy the company purchased. These represent 13 percent of total emissions – up from 2 percent in 2024. This underscores the growing role energy systems play in shaping environmental outcomes and why advancing carbon-free energy sources remains critical to long-term progress, the report says. When it comes to water consumption, another hot topic for those living near to datacenters, Microsoft says it focuses on cooling systems, improving water usage effectiveness (WUE), and reducing reliance on municipal water supplies. It claims the facilities it owns and operates achieved a 25 percent reduction in WUE since the 2022 baseline. The exact figures listed in Microsoft’s Environmental Data Fact Sheet put the company’s total global water withdrawal for 2025 at 13,266 million litres (3,504 million gallons), and total water consumption at 8,170 million litres (2,158 million gallons). For the first time, Microsoft claims to have replenished more than it withdrew during 2025, returning 14,278 million liters (3,771 million gallons). Elsewhere, the corporation says its Circular Centers program reused 92 percent of decommissioned servers and their components. In the past, Microsoft said it tried to cut the emissions from building datacenters by using concrete mixes with lower overall embodied carbon, and it experimented with facilities made out of wood, estimated to produce a carbon footprint 65 percent lower. ®

Microsoft plans to disable and remove OWA Light, the lightweight Outlook Web Access client for Exchange Server, in an upcoming update expected in August 2026. The company says retiring the two-decade-old legacy interface will reduce attack surface and engineering complexity, pushing users to the modern Outlook on the web experience instead. BleepingComputer reports: "OWA Light was an important compatibility experience when the web needed it. Today, the full Outlook on the web experience is the right place for us to focus," the Exchange Team said on Wednesday. "Retiring OWA Light will help reduce legacy surface area, simplify ongoing engineering work, and allow us to continue improving the experience customers use every day."

Microsoft introduced OWA Light roughly two decades ago as an alternative to OWA Premium, offering a simplified web interface for systems that didn't have Internet Explorer 6 or later installed or ran older web browsers. At the time, the company said that OWA Light offered a cleaner look, faster logon times on low-bandwidth Internet connections, and worked in locked-down browser modes (such as kiosks).

Microsoft deprecated OWA Light as of August 19, 2024, and announced this week that the OWA Light experience will likely be removed from Exchange Server (on-premises) next month. "In an upcoming Exchange Server update (estimated in August 2026), we plan to disable and remove the OWA Light experience. After that change is introduced, users will no longer be able to choose or be redirected to OWA Light and should use the modern Outlook on the web experience instead."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Van den Berge GOES Frank Taal is nog te zien t/m zaterdag 11 juli. Finissage zaterdag 11 juli, 15.00–18.00 uur, bij Galerie Frank Taal, Van Speykstraat 129, Rotterdam. Galerie Frank Taal en Galerie van den [Meer...]

Na een traumatische beginfase probeerde het kabinet twee jaar lang een ‘code zwart’ in de ziekenhuizen te voorkomen. Daarbij had het te weinig oog voor andere belangen, zeiden veel betrokkenen tegen de enquêtecommissie.

Het politieke experiment van het kabinet-Jetten is vijf maanden oud. Bewindspersonen zeggen dat de start moeizaam was. Onderling, en met de oppositie, is er vaak wantrouwen. „Ik had niet gedacht dat we het zo moeilijk zouden krijgen.”

Zelden waren de Nederlandse gasvoorraden zo klein als na afgelopen winter. Maar om ze weer gevuld krijgen is door de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten niet zo makkelijk. Daar lijkt nu nóg een complicerende factor bij te komen: een Super El Niño.

In sectoren met tekorten als de zorg en het onderwijs en op „cruciale domeinen” als kunstmatige intelligentie en energie wil het kabinet „mensen aantrekken, opleiden én behouden”. Jongeren- en studentenorganisaties reageren kritisch: „Onderwijs is geen kostenpost voor tekorten.”

Na een jazzconcert dringt bij Auke Hulst de vraag zich opnieuw op: wat is kunst eigenlijk? In de stortvloed aan AI-slop en content op sociale media dreigt vergeten te worden wat kunst uniek maakt.

Het begrip ‘eigen middelen’ is een klassieker in iedere Brusselse discussie over geld, maar zelden leidde het tot veel resultaat. Ook in de onderhandelingen over de meerjarenbegroting aast Brussel weer op eigen inkomstenbronnen. Maar in het nieuwe Europa lijkt die poging wél kansrijk.

Tijdens de installatie van het nieuwe Rotterdamse stadsbestuur voltrok zich een politiek drama. Joan Nunnely kreeg – met hulp van de coalitie – meer stemmen dan de voorgedragen kandidaat, die klaar zat om feestelijk beëdigd te worden.

Het kabinet heeft drie oud-ministers benoemd tot minister van staat. Dat is een eretitel voor staatslieden die bijzondere verdiensten hebben gehad voor Nederland en die in klein gezelschap kabinet en koning van advies kunnen dienen. Met hun aantreden zijn er nu negen ministers van staat.

Bijna de helft van de Nederlanders doet in de vrije tijd aan een vorm van kunst. Wat betekent het voor hen? Deze week: Marjolein Scheeper zingt in musicals.

Eerst stierf een Nederlandse passagier, daarna zijn vrouw en vervolgens werden meer opvarenden ziek. Een virusuitbraak op cruiseschip de Hondius veroorzaakte bijna niet in te dammen paniek. NRC onderzocht hoe de repatriëring van schip en passagiers verliep.

Turkish media reported that Turkey could announce it will resell the S-400s to one of the Gulf nations as soon as Friday in order to persuade the United States to lift sanctions on Ankara.

Yegor Guzenko’s Telegram channel, which has nearly 230,000 subscribers, said he may also be facing “extremism” charges.

VoiceDot: “Every dot on this globe is a real person’s voice — a short story about a place, a memory, a feeling. Tap one and hear someone from the other side of the world.” And you can record your own for others to hear.

Launched in 2015, Gangnam Unni has become an essential information platform that helps customers make informed decisions by addressing the information imbalance in the aesthetic medical market. Leveraging Korea's overwhelming achievements in aesthetic medical technology and services, it has rapidly grown in Japan and is expanding to more countries, including Thailand and the United States, as a global platform. Gangnam Unni began a global rebranding project to establish its identity as a specialized aesthetic medical platform and to build a differentiated image as a global leading brand in the rapidly growing business and market. To overcome pronunciation and meaning challenges in global markets, the brand name was changed to 'unni,' and its entire design?from the logo to in-app icons?was renewed, redefining its linguistic and visual assets.

Pleasure's All Yours(Bandcamp) the debut full-length from Atlanta's Ultra Lights is "a sugar rush with scuffed knuckles... pulling a thread connecting Johnny Thunders, the Replacements, Pavement, Parquet Courts, and (most obviously) the Strokes." (Pitchfork) Frontman John Robinson recently sat down with The Big Takeover to talk about being an up-and-comer again at 42 after two decades of near-misses in the underground scene with bands like Illegal Drugs and Turf War.

Here's the album in full on YouTube. If you want to start with the singles, that would be Good Enough, Bad Feeling, and Just Like You Want. My favorite track of theirs It's Your Funeral is from the EP that came before this and is about rising grocery prices. Spotify Instagram

billy.reeder has added a photo to the pool:

In the heart of Arashiyama Bamboo Grove