Holiday Shoppers Tapping Mobile Device to Buy, Desktop for Returns
Adobe’s holiday shopping data shows mobile devices accounted for 52.4% of online spend between Nov 1 and Dec 12, while desktops handled the majority of returns. Overall returns fell 2.5% YoY, but are projected to jump 25‑35% after Christmas. Consumers have already spent $187.3 billion this season, with home appliances and entertainment categories soaring. Flexible payment methods, especially BNPL, supported $13.9 billion in transactions, a 6% YoY increase.
Goodwill Central Texas Pilots ReNu to Transform Operations, Employee Experience
Goodwill Central Texas has rolled out ReNu, an in‑house production platform that replaces its legacy POS system and adds AI‑driven dynamic pricing and channel optimization. The pilot, active in six stores, automates item valuation and directs inventory to the most...
Wondershare Announces Strategic Collaboration with Topaz Labs to Bring Industry-Leading AI Video Enhancement to Its Creative Software Ecosystem
Wondershare announced a strategic partnership with Topaz Labs to embed the company’s diffusion‑based AI video enhancement model, Starlight, into its UniConverter platform. The integration delivers one‑click upscaling, denoising, deblurring, de‑aliasing and sharpening, allowing sub‑480p footage to be upgraded to HD...
SoftwareOne Announces New Genai Multi-Agent Cost Optimization System
SoftwareOne unveiled a GenAI multi‑agent cost‑optimization system designed to measure and improve AI agents' cost, accuracy, and performance. The platform embeds AI observability, delivering real‑time insights into agent behavior and operational impact. Leveraging its two‑decade AI expertise and 25‑year software‑asset...
Tencent Cloud Launches EdgeOne Pages Official Version, Strengthening Its End-to-End AI Strategy
Tencent Cloud has officially launched EdgeOne Pages, an edge‑native, full‑stack development platform that lets developers build and deploy web projects without managing servers or environments. Since its October 2024 beta, the service attracted over 150,000 users and more than one...
Bio-Hybrid Robots Turn Food Waste Into Functional Machines
EPFL’s CREATE Lab has built bio‑hybrid robots using langoustine abdomen exoskeletons harvested from food‑waste streams. By embedding elastomer actuators and a silicone‑coated shell onto the natural shells, the team created a manipulator that lifts up to 500 g, a gripper that...
Microsoft Brings Ask Copilot and Agents to the Windows 11 Taskbar for Business Users
Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7523, adding Ask Copilot and AI Agents directly to the taskbar for commercial users. The opt‑in feature integrates Microsoft 365 Copilot, contextual Work IQ data, and voice or text interaction in a single click. Agents can be invoked via...
Fasoo Enhances AI-R DLP to Strengthen Data Detection, Control, and Auditability for Secure GenAI Usage
Fasoo has launched an upgraded AI‑R DLP solution that bolsters data detection, policy control, and auditability for interactions with generative AI services such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. The enhancement adds context‑aware analysis of both text prompts and file uploads,...
Black Hole Stars Really Do Exist in the Early Universe
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have identified a population of compact, red, star‑like objects in the first billion years of cosmic history. New research shows these “little red dots” are actually black holes surrounded by massive, glowing gas...
Artificial Metabolism Turns Waste CO₂ Into Useful Chemicals
Northwestern and Stanford researchers have engineered a fully synthetic, cell‑free metabolism called the Reductive Formate Pathway (ReForm) that converts CO₂‑derived formate into acetyl‑CoA and subsequently into malate, a high‑value chemical. The pathway relies on five engineered enzymes arranged in six...
Tesco Signs Three-Year AI Deal Centred on Customer Experience
Tesco has signed a three‑year partnership with French AI startup Mistral AI to embed artificial‑intelligence tools across its retail operations. The deal focuses on improving internal workflows, staff efficiency and customer‑facing experiences rather than a single flagship feature. Tesco will establish...
What the AWS Outage Taught CIOs About Preparedness
The October outage of AWS US‑East‑1 rippled through SaaS tools, home monitoring, and even school sites, highlighting hidden third‑party dependencies. Deluxe’s CIO, Yogs Jayaprakasam, traced over a dozen major cloud failures in the past year and concluded that preparedness, not...
CyberArk Named Leader in 2025 IDC MarketScape for Identity Security
CyberArk has been named a Leader in IDC’s 2025 MarketScape for Worldwide Integrated Solutions for Identity Security. The vendor’s unified platform spans human, machine and AI identities, leveraging AI‑driven automation to streamline privilege management. IDC notes that the market has...
"It Doesn’t Matter Which Industry You Belong to, Data Is Your Lifeblood" - Veeam CEO Tells Us Why Getting Security...
Veeam CEO Anand Eswaran says data security and resilience are prerequisites for any AI initiative. The company’s $1.725 billion acquisition of Securiti AI is meant to create a unified platform that protects data across its entire lifecycle, from creation to backup to...
Tiny Viral Switch Offers Hope Against Drug-Resistant Bacteria
Researchers at Hebrew University identified a tiny phage‑encoded RNA, PreS, that reprograms bacterial host cells during infection. PreS binds to the folded region of the bacterial dnaN mRNA, unfolding it and boosting production of the DnaN replication protein. The resulting...
Grok Delivers Daily AI & Robotics News Summary
From Grok. I gave it a lengthy post teaching it about my lists and asked it to find the latest news. Does this provide any value to you? If it does I will run it a couple times a day. +++++ Top-Level...
Bairong Launches RaaS Strategy and Results Cloud Platform
Bairong Inc. announced its enterprise AI Agent strategy, introducing a Results as a Service (RaaS) model and launching the Results Cloud platform, a three‑tier system for deploying and managing AI agents at scale. The platform provides observability, one‑click evaluation, autonomous...
Vuzix and Collins Aerospace Announce Strategic Collaboration to Scale Augmented Reality Defense Solutions
Vuzix Corporation and Collins Aerospace have formalized a multi‑year collaboration to deliver waveguide‑based augmented reality displays for U.S. Department of Defense programs. The partnership has achieved production approval and will begin low‑rate initial production in early 2026, with full‑rate production...
Rockwell Automation: Building Towards Autonomous Operations
Rockwell Automation outlines a roadmap to autonomous operations by integrating industrial data and AI across the enterprise. The company promotes an AI maturity pyramid that moves firms from basic data visualization to predictive analytics, prescriptive decisions, and full autonomy. Real‑time...
Intellias to Showcase AI-Powered Mobility & Software-Defined Vehicle Solutions at CES 2026
Intellias will exhibit its AI‑driven IntelliKit platform at CES 2026, highlighting a chip‑to‑cloud automotive technology stack that supports OTA updates, 3D instrument clusters, and generative‑AI voice interaction. New features include a SoundHound‑powered GenAI voice assistant, YOLO v12 computer‑vision on QNX RTOS, and...
Okta Names Rob Bernshteyn and Paul Sagan to Board of Directors
Okta announced the appointment of Rob Bernshteyn and Paul Sagan to its board of directors, effective December 19, 2025. Both bring deep SaaS, cybersecurity and artificial‑intelligence experience, positioning the company to capitalize on identity’s role in securing AI‑driven workloads. The moves coincide with the...
I-ESG Launches Fully Upgraded Next-Generation ESG Intelligence Platform Powered by Domain-Specialized AI
i‑ESG unveiled a fully upgraded next‑generation ESG intelligence platform that blends domain‑specialized natural language processing, Retrieval‑Augmented Generation, and layered agentic AI models. Backed by over ten ESG‑focused patents, a 7‑million‑record database, and mapping to more than 500 global regulations, the...
StackGen Named a Cool Vendor in 2025 Gartner® Cool Vendors™ for AI in IT Ops
StackGen was named a 2025 Gartner Cool Vendor for AI in IT Operations, highlighting its Autonomous Infrastructure Platform (AIP). The platform lets platform‑engineering teams replace manual Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with intent‑driven AI agents that generate compliant Terraform, OpenTofu and...
844: Applying Physics and Nanotechnology to Understand Mechanics and Shape in Biological Systems - Dr. Sonia Contera
In this episode, Dr. Sonia Contera discusses how physics and nanotechnology can illuminate the mechanics and shape of biological systems, from molecular assemblies to whole organs. She explains her interdisciplinary approaches—such as nanoscale imaging and mechanical probing—to study pancreatic tumors,...
Every Accusation Is a Confession (or a Statement of Intent): MAHA’s New Tuskegee Experiment
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded a $1.6 million grant to the University of Southern Denmark to conduct a five‑year randomized trial of hepatitis B vaccine timing in newborns in Guinea‑Bissau. The study, led by Christine Stabell Benn and Peter Aaby,...
Hosted.com’s Dedicated Email Hosting for Custom Domain-Based Communication
Hosted.com has launched a dedicated Email Hosting service aimed at small businesses, startups, and freelancers who need professional, domain‑based email without purchasing a full web‑hosting plan. The offering promises high‑speed delivery, secure SSL‑encrypted communications, and built‑in spam and anti‑virus protection....
MurafaDigital OÜ Unveils New Insights Into Social Media Ad Stability and Campaign Success
MurafaDigital OÜ released a study on social‑media ad stability, highlighting how consistent posting, policy compliance, precise audience segmentation, creative refreshes, and real‑time data monitoring drive campaign success. The research shows that regular schedules sustain engagement, while adhering to platform guidelines...
IManage Momentum Grows as Organizations Prepare for Trusted AI
iManage announced accelerating global momentum as enterprises shift AI from pilots to production, emphasizing that a governed document management system (DMS) is essential for trustworthy AI. The company now hosts nearly 3,000 organizations and half‑million daily cloud users, delivering a...
Airia Achieves AWS Validated Partner Status Strengthening Enterprise AI Security and Deployment Capabilities for AWS Customers
Airia has earned AWS Validated Partner status, confirming its AI security, orchestration, and governance platform meets Amazon’s stringent standards. The integration enables Airia to work natively with AWS services such as Amazon Bedrock, offering enterprises a model‑agnostic layer of protection...
Voice Convert AI Launches Solution for Personalized Lead Engagement and Campaign Outreach
Voice Convert AI launched an AI‑driven voice agent platform that automates lead engagement, after‑hours inquiries, and campaign outreach for small and medium businesses. The service prioritizes high‑value prospects while the AI warms low‑priority leads, and includes managed setup, performance guarantees,...
The Rise Of Private AI — Enterprise-Controlled Models Without Cloud Exposure
Enterprises are shifting from a cloud‑first mindset to a control‑first strategy by adopting private AI, where large language models are trained, fine‑tuned, and served on owned infrastructure. The move is driven by concerns over data leakage, regulatory compliance, and the...
A Quick Review of #fintech 2025
FinTech funding worldwide slipped 6% year‑over‑year in Q1‑Q3 2025, with deal count falling 27% to 2,654. Average deal size rose to $24.5 million, highlighting a shift toward larger, later‑stage rounds. While Europe’s funding plunged 42% and the United States saw a...
8 Must‑Know AI Agents for HR Leaders 2026
8 AI Agents Every HR Leader Needs To Know In 2026 #AIagents are rapidly emerging as one of the most powerful tools for automating #HR #workflows , from #recruitment and onboarding to #workforce management and #skills development. This article explores...
Things Worth Reading: 22nd December 2025
Chris Skinner’s "Things worth reading" roundup for December 22, 2025 curates seven high‑impact stories shaping finance. It highlights the Bank of England’s split decision to cut rates, British banks’ race to deploy agentic AI and the regulatory alarms it raises, and a...
9 Brands That Doubled Down On AI in 2025
In 2025 generative AI moved from a peripheral experiment to a core business engine for leading brands, with companies like Unilever, Klarna, and Disney embedding the technology across product creation, marketing, and operations. The shift delivered dramatic cost cuts, faster...
This AI Finds Simple Rules Where Humans See only Chaos
Researchers at Duke University unveiled an AI framework that distills complex, high‑dimensional dynamics into simple, linear‑like equations. Inspired by Koopman’s operator theory, the system combines deep learning with physics‑based constraints to isolate a few hidden variables governing behavior. Tested on...
The What the FinTech? Podcast | Season Six’s Jailed Buzzwords
Season six of the What the FinTech? podcast introduced its “Fintech Jail” segment, where guests either lock away overused fintech buzzwords or free previously incarcerated terms. Across 25 episodes, words such as “Cloud,” “Cheques,” and “Blockchain” were jailed, while “Agile,”...
![[Podcast] Unifying Intelligence](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://hixhlmpcokxhartfkpyi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/thumbnails/191217ac8fbaab586c7b0ea0b6df822b.webp)
[Podcast] Unifying Intelligence
Enterprises are still wrestling with fragmented data definitions and hidden logic that lock them into costly vendor ecosystems, according to a new survey of 100 senior IT leaders. Strategy Software’s three‑part podcast series, "Unifying Intelligence," breaks down why data consistency...
Product Spotlight: 2025 Year in Review
The 2025 Year in Review product spotlight showcases six security‑focused solutions targeting education, enterprise, and financial sectors. Connect ONE’s ERP consolidates school data and grants first‑responder‑only access, while Genetec embeds cloud‑native audio into its Security Center SaaS for real‑time coordination....
Sunday Creativity Boosted by Lovart AI's Fast Design Tools
Sunday nights are for being creative. @lovart_ai is a great place to make fun holiday cards and other things for your family. Which is what I am doing with my kids. It is a lot better than last time I tried it....
2026 AI: All Major Labs Unleash New SOTA Models
Here are my predictions for 2026 in the AI world: - openai will release new sota models - google will release new sota models - anthropic will release new sota models
SANS Stormcast Monday, December 22nd, 2025: TLS Callbacks; FreeBSD RCE; NIST Time Server Issues
The episode covers three security topics: TLS callbacks (Thread Local Storage) used by malware to execute code before a program's main function, a critical FreeBSD remote code execution flaw in the rtsold daemon that parses unsanitized DNS search lists from...
VC Predicts AI-Driven Science Boom Next Year
A venture capitalist told me last week to pay attention to AI in science. Says that will be a big trend next year. So I am. Added all these to my lists.
Google AI Revolutionizes Filmmaking Process
Filmmaking with Google AI. https://t.co/5OKYuiWBrR #Filmmaking #moviemaking #movie #film #AI #ArtificialInteligence #GoogleAI @AlbertoEMachado @Eli_Krumova @postoff25 @Khulood_Almani @anand_narang @NutritiousMind @baski_LA @TanyaSinha_ @devaang @AlAmadi1 @jeancayeux @enilev @efipm @mvollmer1 @Nicochan33 @RagusoSergio @FrRonconi @Shi4Tech @sallyeaves @LaurentAlaus @Fabriziobustama @smaksked @MargaretSiegien @PawlowskiMario @gvalan @Ym78200 @mikeflache @EduardoValenteI @ipfconline1 @kalydeoo @chboursin...
2026 Social Ad Budgets Set to Rise Across Networks
What are you planning to do with your social ad budgets in 2026? Most companies plan to increase it. Here's what networks they are planning to ramp up spending on.
World Models Are Redefining Enterprise Systems, Say Skyfall AI
How are world models changing enterprise systems? Here the founders of @skyfallai tell me how. Don't have time to watch this video? Click the Grok button and ask it "what will I learn by watching this video?" (I'll post a link...
No Wonder There's a Bubble - Study Claims Nearly All of the World’s Data Centers Are Built in the Wrong...
A new study finds that nearly 7,000 of the world’s 8,808 operational data centers operate outside the ASHRAE‑recommended 18 °C‑27 °C temperature range, with about 600 facilities in climates exceeding 27 °C year‑round. Singapore alone hosts over 1.4 GW of capacity despite average temperatures...
Artemis 2 Astronauts Rehearse Countdown for Upcoming Moon Launch
NASA’s Artemis 2 crew—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen—completed a full countdown rehearsal inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, strapping into Orion atop the SLS rocket. The test simulated launch‑day procedures and stopped just before zero, confirming crew‑in‑capsule integration....
More Expensive LLMs Aren’t Always the Better Choice
There are times when the very latest LLM is the best, and there are times when the most expensive LLM is the best. And there are times when it isn't. We've run 2,700 VC Pitch Decks through SaaStr AI VC so I...
The Modern Content Marketing Stack: 70+ Platforms For Every Stage In the Customer Journey in 2025
The blog maps more than 70 content‑marketing platforms to each phase of the customer‑journey lifecycle, from strategy through measurement. It shows how tools cluster around strategy, creation, collaboration, infrastructure, distribution, personalization, optimization, and analytics. By aligning technology with the content...
