Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the investing-in-the-future department: Meta has acquired a $3.5 billion stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, "a deal that increases the U.S. tech giant's financial commitment to the fast-growing smart glasses industry," reports Bloomberg. From the report: Meta's investment in the eyewear giant deepens the relationship between the two companies, which have partnered over the past several years to develop AI-powered smart glasses. Meta currently sells a pair of Ray-Ban glasses, first debuted in 2021, with built-in cameras and an AI assistant. Last month, it launched separate Oakley-branded glasses with EssilorLuxottica. EssilorLuxottica Chief Executive Officer Francesco Milleri said last year that Meta was interested in taking a stake the company, but that plan hadn't materialized until now.

The deal aligns with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's commitment to AI, which has become a top priority and major expense for the company. Smart glasses are a key part of that plan. While Meta has historically had to deliver its apps and services via smartphones created by competitors, glasses offer Meta a chance to build its own hardware and control its own distribution, Zuckerberg has said. The arrangement gives Meta the advantage of having more detailed manufacturing knowledge and global distribution networks, fundamental to turning its smart glasses into mass-market products. For EssilorLuxottica, the deal provides a deeper presence in the tech world, which would be helpful if Meta's futuristic bets pay off. Meta is also betting on the idea that people will one day work and play while wearing headsets or glasses.

Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005


Thanks to several reports from our TFW2005 members, we can report that Hasbro has started to send e-mails to all customer who informed about having issues with their copies of Haslab Omega Prime. Read on for details: “Thank you for your continued patience as we work to make things right with your HasLab Transformers: Legacy Robots in Disguise 2001 Omega Prime. Good news: your replacement, corrected figure (figure only, not full replacement product) is already on backorder, so there’s nothing more you need to do! Once your new figure is ready to ship (estimated fall 2025), we’ll send you an » Continue Reading.

The post Hasbro E-Mails Confirming Replacements For Haslab Omega Prime Incoming appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.

Posted by from MMO Champion
Ghosts of K'aresh Development Notes - July 9, 2025

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

THE WAR WITHIN SEASON 3

Additional raid and dungeon testing this week. See the schedules for more information:

Raid testing schedule

Dungeon testing schedule

CLASSES

Death Knight

Hero Talents

Deathbringer

Manaforge Omega 4-set bonus – Exterminate deals 20% increased damage, and Reaper’s Mark can stack up to 15 additional times. Upon exploding, Reaper’s Mark increases your critical strike chance by 10% for 8 seconds.

Rider of the Apocalypse

An issue causing the Manaforge Omega 2-set bonus to not grant the bonus damage to Undeath and Trollbane’s Icy Fury has been resolved.

Frost

Trollbane’s Icy Fury bonus from the Manaforge Omega 2-set bonus has been increased to 20% (was 10%).

Trollbane’s Obliterate from the Manaforge Omega 4-set bonus now deals Frost damage if was triggered from an Obliterate that consumed Killing Machine.

Trollbane’s Frostscythe damage from the Manaforge Omega 4-set bonus has been increased by 100%.

Unholy

An issue causing Whitemane’s Epidemic to benefit from the Mastery twice has been resolved.

Whitemane’s Death Coil damage increased by 100%.

Whitemane’s Epidemic damage from the Manaforge Omega 4-set bonus has been increased by 50%.

Whitemane’s Undeath bonus from the Manaforge Omega 2-set bonus has been increased to 20% (was 10%).

San’layn

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new department: BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Apple is making a high-level leadership change that could significantly shape its future behind the scenes. The company has announced that longtime executive Jeff Williams will step down from his role as Chief Operating Officer later this month. His successor will be Sabih Khan, Apple's Senior Vice President of Operations and a key player in the company's global supply chain strategy. Williams isn't leaving Apple entirely just yet. He'll continue working closely with CEO Tim Cook for the rest of the year, overseeing Apple Watch and health initiatives, as well as leading the company's industrial design team until his retirement. After that, Apple's design team will report directly to Cook.

Khan's promotion is part of what Apple describes as a long-planned transition. Cook praised Khan as a "brilliant strategist" who helped Apple reduce its carbon footprint by over 60 percent, expand domestic manufacturing, and remain agile during global supply chain challenges. Khan has been with Apple for 30 years and took on a more prominent executive role in 2019. He has quietly helped the company build one of the most influential supply chains in the world.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the drastic-times-call-for-drastic-measures department: Intel is laying off over 500 employees in Oregon as part of a broader restructuring plan expected to impact about 20% of its workforce. Bloomberg reports: The Oregon job reduction will hit facilities in Aloha and Hillsboro starting on July 15, Intel said in a regulatory filing. The layoffs are expected to eliminate about 529 employees on a permanent basis. The latest disclosure follows an announcement in California, where 107 employees were let go at Intel's Santa Clara headquarters.

Under new Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan, Intel embarked on a plan in April to slash jobs and reduce operating expenses. The company hasn't given a total figure for the cuts, but a person familiar with the matter has put the amount at more than a fifth of staff. In a statement, Intel said it was making the Oregon cuts to become "a leaner, faster and more efficient company."

"Removing organizational complexity and empowering our engineers will enable us to better serve the needs of our customers and strengthen our execution," the company said. "We are making these decisions based on careful consideration of what's needed to position our business for the future, and we will treat people with care and respect as we complete this important work."

Posted by from MMO Champion
The War Within Season 3 PTR Dungeon Testing: July 8-16

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The War Within Season 3 dungeon testing continues on PTR today. The test period starts on Wednesday July 8th at 5PM PST (20:00 EDT, 2:00 CEST) and ends Tuesday July 16th at 10:00 PST (13:00 EDT, 20:00 CEST). Please note that the test period may be adjusted in the event of technical difficulties.

This week’s testing focus is on returning dungeons from The War Within:

Tazavesh, the Veiled Market (Hard Mode)

Tazavesh, the Streets of Wonder

Tazavesh, So’leah’s Gambit

Halls of Atonement

Notable updates to these dungeons include:

Tazavesh, the Veiled Market Hard Mode

Players can start this experience by entering the dungeon on Mythic difficulty and talking to Al’dalil at the entrance.

Tazavesh, Streets of Wonder

General

Density of enemies reduced in Zo’phex the Sentinel’s area

Timer reduced from 39 minutes to 32 minutes

Interrogation Specialist

No longer cast Stasis Beam

Zo’phex the Sentinel

Vigor’s duration increased from 6s to 12s

Rotating Body Armor has been removed

Ancient Core Hound

Health reduced by 10%

Ancient Dread’s cooldown has been increased

The Grand Menagerie

Initial RP has been reduced

Overloaded Mailemental

No longer leave behind Expedited Zone after defeat

P.O.S.T. Worker

No longer cast Postage Stamp

P.O.S.T. Master

Spells are now on a more consistent schedule

Mail portals now only become activated during Unstable Goods

Money Order’s damage has been reduced

Bazaar Event

Total number of trades required reduced from 4 to 3

Target vendor now shows up on the mini-map

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the let-the-best-agent-to-agent-protocols-win department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The Linux Foundation announced at the Open Source Summit in Denver that it will now host the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol. Initially developed by Google and now supported by more than 100 leading technology companies, A2A is a crucial new open standard for secure and interoperable communication between AI agents. In his keynote presentation, Mike Smith, a Google staff software engineer, told the conference that the A2A protocol has evolved to make it easier to add custom extensions to the core specification. Additionally, the A2A community is working on making it easier to assign unique identities to AI agents, thereby improving governance and security.

The A2A protocol is designed to solve one of AI's most pressing challenges: enabling autonomous agents -- software entities capable of independent action and decision-making -- to discover each other, securely exchange information, and collaborate across disparate platforms, vendors, and frameworks. Under the hood, A2A does this work by creating an AgentCard. An AgentCard is a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) metadata document that describes its purpose and provides instructions on how to access it via a web URL. A2A also leverages widely adopted web standards, such as HTTP, JSON-RPC, and Server-Sent Events (SSE), to ensure broad compatibility and ease of integration. By providing a standardized, vendor-neutral communication layer, A2A breaks down the silos that have historically limited the potential of multi-agent systems.

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the diplomatic-footnoting department: The U.N. Human Rights Council passed a motion on climate change and human rights by consensus Tuesday after the Marshall Islands withdrew a divisive amendment calling for states to recommit to a fossil fuel phase-out. The motion calls on countries "to contribute to the global efforts" against climate change and follows the council's 2021 recognition of access to a clean and healthy environment as a fundamental right.

Oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had voiced opposition to the original fossil fuel phrasing during negotiations. Instead, the final motion referenced "the imperative of defossilizing our economies" in a footnote, allowing passage without a vote where the outcome had been uncertain.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the PSA department: Activision removed "Call of Duty: WWII" from Microsoft Store and Game Pass after hackers exploited a security vulnerability that allowed them to compromise players' computers, TechCrunch reported Tuesday, citing a source. The gaming giant took the 2017 first-person shooter offline last week while investigating what it initially described only as "reports of an issue."

Players posted on social media claiming their systems had been hacked while playing the game. The vulnerability was a remote code execution exploit that enables attackers to install malware and take control of victims' devices. The Microsoft Store and Game Pass versions contained an unpatched security flaw that had been fixed in other versions of the game.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the desperate-times department: Corporate employees of Amazon have been asked to volunteer their time to the company's warehouses to assist with grocery delivery as it heads into its annual discount spree known as Prime Day. From a report: In a Slack message reviewed by the Guardian that went to thousands of white-collar workers in the New York City area from engineers to marketers, an Amazon area manager called for corporate "volunteers to help us out with Prime Day to deliver to customers on our biggest days yet." It is not clear how many took up the offer.

The ask came the day before Prime Day kicks off. The manager said volunteers are "needed" to work Tuesday through Friday this week, in two-hour shifts between 10am and 6pm in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the company operates a warehouse as part of its grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh. Corporate employees seconded to the warehouse would be tasked with picking items, preparing carts and bags of groceries for delivery, packing boxes on receiving carts, and working to "boost morale with distribution of snacks," though they would be allowed to step into a conference room to take meetings and calls, according to the message. The manager noted such an effort would help "connect" warehouse and corporate teams. Further reading: Amazon Prime Day Spending Down 14% in Early Hours From 2024.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the for-what-it-is-worth department: Napster has returned with an AI-powered reinvention, launching a platform of specialized chatbots and holographic avatars. The former dot-com music file-sharing pioneer now offers dozens of "AI companions" trained as experts in fields from therapy to business strategy, plus the View device for 3D holographic video chats, FastCompany reports.

Infinite Reality acquired Napster for $207 million in March and rebranded itself under the nostalgic name. The platform charges $19 monthly or $199 bundled with hardware, marking Napster's latest attempt at relevance after previous owners tried VR concerts and crypto ventures.

Posted by onslaught24 from TFW2005


Thanks to various users on social media, our third official Transformers LEGO set has been unveiled! Following the initial Optimus Prime and subsequent Bumblebee sets, we now have Soundwave! The first Decepticon in the LEGO Icons line, Soundwave comes with a plethora of accessory necessities and is fully transformable like Prime and Bee. In addition to a fully-transforming, MP-13-esque Soundwave, the set also includes Laserbeak and Ravage which also seem to be able to transform and store in the tape deck, as well as a miniature version of his alternate mode to go with his Icons plaque. The LEGO Icons » Continue Reading.

The post LEGO Icons – Transformers Soundwave Set Revealed appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the moving-forward department: An anonymous reader shares a blog post: Version 140 of the Thunderbird mail client has been released. Notable features include "dark message mode" to adapt message content to dark mode, the ability to easily transfer desktop settings to the mobile Thunderbird client, experimental support for Microsoft Exchange, as well as global controls for message threading and sort order.

Thunderbird 140 is an extended-support release (ESR) which will be supported for 12 months. However, the Thunderbird project is trying to encourage users to adopt the Release channel for monthly updates instead. The project is staggering upgrades to 140 for existing Thunderbird users in order to catch any significant bugs before they are widely deployed, but users can upgrade manually via the Help > About menu. See the release notes for a full list of changes.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the philosophy-meets-contract-law department: Microsoft and OpenAI are locked in acrimonious negotiations partly because they cannot agree on what artificial general intelligence means, despite having written the term into a contract worth over $13 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

One definition reportedly agreed upon by the companies sets the AGI threshold at when AI generates $100 billion in profits. Under their partnership agreement, OpenAI can limit Microsoft's access to future technology once it achieves AGI. OpenAI executives believe they are close to declaring AGI, while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called using AGI as a self-proclaimed milestone "nonsensical benchmark hacking" on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast in February.

Posted by from MMO Champion
Warcraft Audio Novella: "The Doom of K'aresh"

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Embark on a legendary narrative journey with "The Doom of K’aresh," a new 3-part audio novella written by Adam Christopher and illustrated by Cynthia Sheppard.

Join Ray Porter, the voice of Locus-Walker, for a reading of the thrilling and tragic tale behind the fall of K’aresh, shattered home world of the brokers and the ethereals, and setting for the second major patch of World of Warcraft: The War Within.

---

Chapter 1: The Voice from the Void

Shortly before the fall of Dalaran, Alleria Windrunner seeks answers from Locus-Walker about the fall of his home world, K’aresh, and the part Xal’atath played in it. Locus-Walker weaves Alleria a tale of K’aresh at the height of its beauty, and of the day its Worldsoul called to him for aid.

View the PDF

---

Chapter 2: The Devouring War

After the darkening of K’aresh’s skies, Locus-Walker learns the name of the threat facing them: Dimensius the All-Devouring. As hope fails, Locus-Walker and the Ravel struggle to launch a desperate ploy that might save their world.

View the PDF

---

Chapter 3: Ethereum

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the better-late-than-never department: The Georgia Court of Appeals has overturned a trial court's order after finding it relied on court cases that do not exist, apparently generated by AI. The appellate court vacated the ruling in a divorce case involving Nimat Shahid's challenge to a divorce order granted to her husband Sufyan Esaam in July 2022.

"We are troubled by the citation of bogus cases in the trial court's order," the appeals court stated in its decision, which directs the lower court to revisit Shahid's petition. The court noted the errant citations appear to have been "drafted using generative AI" and were included in an order prepared by attorney Diana Lynch.

Lynch repeated the fabricated citations in her appeals briefs and expanded upon them after Shahid had challenged the fictitious cases. The appeals court found Lynch's briefs contained "11 bogus case citations out of 15 total, one of which was in support of a frivolous request for attorney fees." The court fined Lynch $2,500 for filing the frivolous motion.

Posted by Tony_Bacala from TFW2005


New update from Hasbro on the Cyberworld front.  The show launches this weekend on YouTube and a sneak peek clip has been shared.  Check out all the details below, some pics after the break! TRANSFORMERS: CYBERWORLD DROPS EXCLUSIVE SNEAK-PEEK VIDEO AHEAD OF JULY 12 SERIES PREMIERE Watch the New Clip, Featuring Optimus Prime and Grimlock, on the Official TRANSFORMERS YouTube Channel HERE PAWTUCKET, RI – JULY 8, 2025 – Hasbro, a leading games, IP and toy company, has unveiled a new video clip for TRANSFORMERS: CYBERWORLD, a 36-episode CG-animated original series that will launch on the official TRANSFORMERS YouTube » Continue Reading.

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Posted by Tony_Bacala from TFW2005


Hasbro continues the reprint train today with a new reissue for a semi-recent release – Studio Series 86 Blaster and Eject.  For those that missed him the first go around, he’s available again now at Entertainment Earth (we’ll update if other retailers carry him).  Retail is ~$34.99 with a ship date of October 2025.  Read on for pics and details. Transformers Studio Series 86 Voyager Autobot Blaster & Eject TFSource, Entertainment Earth, Big Bad Toy Store, Robot Kingdom, The Chosen Prime, Ages » Continue Reading.

The post Reissue Alert – Transformers SS86 Blaster appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the moving-forward department: SUSE has unveiled a new support package aimed at customers concerned about data sovereignty. From a report: Called "SUSE Sovereign Premium Support," the service geo-pins support to a given region rather than adopting the traditional follow-the-sun model, where support comes from whatever region is online. The latter approach could break sovereignty regulations or policies, as it might involve transferring data out of a region. Ensuring that support is available from a specific region is therefore crucial, particularly for European customers.

SUSE CEO Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen told The Register: "Digital sovereignty has become a really hot topic in the last half year, and specifically in Europe, where companies feel an increasing need to get things done in-house, in-country, or in-region within Europe, with less dependency on non-European vendors and supply chains and people."

Posted by Tony_Bacala from The Toyark


Batman (No Man’s Land) Entertainment Earth, Big Bad Toy Store, The Chosen Prime, ToyGeek, Amazon (#ad) Nightwing (Teen Titans) Entertainment Earth, Big Bad Toy Store, The Chosen Prime, ToyGeek, Amazon (#ad) Monarch (DC Countdown) Entertainment Earth, Big Bad Toy Store, ...

The post McFarlane Digital Wave 5 – Classic Nightwing, Monarch, No Man’s Batman & More appeared first on The Toyark - News.