In the race to develop artificial intelligence, tech giants are building data centers that guzzle up water. That has led to problems for people who live nearby.

The conduits, which are spooled in big stacks on a boat before being buried in an underwater trench, are a crucial part of the grid as demand for electricity increases.

He worked to develop an atomic clock that is essential to global positioning systems and helped confirm a rare state of matter predicted by Albert Einstein.

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company said its Grok chatbot had also undergone a code update that caused it to share antisemitic messages this week.

In a $2.4 billion deal, Google recruited the chief executive and a co-founder of Windsurf, which OpenAI had been in talks to buy, as the battle to dominate artificial intelligence escalates.

A local startup's innovative approach to medical transportation has caught the eye of tech giant Google, leading to a prestigious opportunity for growth and development.

• Meta's Oakley glasses are up for preorder ahead of a July 22 launch
• The limited edition glasses will cost $499 / £499 / AU$789
• Cheaper Oakleys are set to arrive "later this Summer"

The wait is finally over. Meta’s Oakley smart glasses are finally available to preorder ahead of their July 22 launch, though there's a catch. Only its pricier limited edition HSTN are available for now; other designs are coming “later this summer” (that’s Northern Hemisphere summer for our Aussie readers, so later this month or August).

The Limited Edition Oakley Meta HSTN (pronounced how-stuhn) is on preorder at Meta.com for $499 / £499 / AU$789. In exchange, you’ll get white-framed specs with PRIZM 24K polarized lenses, which are apparently well-suited to playing sports in bright conditions.

Beyond their capabilities as regular glasses, these smart glasses live up to that descriptor by boasting a camera which can capture 3K video (a higher resolution than the Meta Ray-Ban glasses), built-in open ear speakers for music and hearing what the Meta AI companion has to tell you (as well as microphones so the AI can hear you), and a battery that can last for up to 8 hours of regular use (again, better than their Ray-Ban sibling).

With their charging case, these specs can squeeze out up to an extra 48 hours of use.

Should you wait? Probably

(Image credit: Oakley / Meta)

Now, I haven’t tested these glasses for myself, yet, but I constantly use my Ray-Ban smart glasses and after my phone (and maybe my VR headset), they’re easily the best gadget I own.

And these Oakley specs are just Ray-Bans with a different design, a few technical upgrades, and unfortunately, a higher price.

Things should get a little better in the coming month or so when the other six Oakley smart glasses designs launch. For context, they are:

• Oakley Meta HSTN Desert with PRIZM Ruby Lenses
• Oakley Meta HSTN Black with PRIZM Polar Black Lenses
• Oakley Meta HSTN Shiny Brown with PRIZM Polar Deep-Water Lenses
• Oakley Meta HSTN Black with Transitions Amethyst Lenses
• Oakley Meta HSTN Clear with Transitions Grey Lenses

That’s because these specs are set to introduce a new lower starting price of $399 / £399 / $629. However, this would still be higher than the cheapest Ray-Bans at $299 / £299 / AU$449, and much like the Ray-Bans, I expect the Oakley specs will get pricier if you opt for snazzier lenses – the Ray-Bans instead cost you $329 / £329 / AU$489 for polarized and $379 / £379 / AU$539 for transition lenses.

If you’re an athlete, the Oakleys could be a worthwhile upgrade, especially with PRIZM lenses tuned to a sport you play.

(Image credit: Meta)

Those of you simply looking to get the best smart glasses tech, however, might want to wait and see what Meta showcases at Meta Connect in September, where it's expected to debut smart glasses with a screen.

Yes, they’re likely going to be very pricey, however they are also believed to offer a truly next-gen experience – so if you’re tempted to upgrade your Ray-Bans and budget isn’t a concern, you might want to hold off a little longer (or be prepared to buy Oakleys, and then yet another pair of Meta smart glasses).

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• Windows 11 has a new Black Screen of Death (BSoD) rather than blue
• It simplifies the current BSoD as well as changing the color
• The problem is that it perhaps goes too far with the streamlining, and looks rather too much like a Windows update being applied

Windows 11 is getting a new design - and color - for the infamous 'screen of death' that appears when the system completely locks up and needs to be rebooted.

The Verge reports that after 40 years of the Blue Screen of Death, we're now getting a Black Screen of Death - handily still abbreviated to a BSoD - and it looks quite different to the current version in Windows 11.

In a change we already knew was in the pipeline, Microsoft has simplified the existing BSoD and removed the frowny face along with the on-screen QR code. The new black-colored screen for system crashes is far more streamlined and is currently being deployed in testing to the Release Preview channel.

In the blog post for that new Windows 11 preview build, Microsoft explains: "A more streamlined interface appears during an unexpected restart [system crash]. This updated design aligns with Windows 11’s visual style and helps you return to work faster. The screen displays a more readable layout while keeping the technical details visible. This screen appears with a black background."

You can see the new black screen below, which is mostly a simple message: "Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart."

That's pretty vague, of course, but for those interested in more detail, there's a stop code (error message) at the bottom of the screen, as well as a pointer as to 'what failed' (info on which system file was involved in the error).

With this move now present in the Release Preview build, it means that the redesigned BSoD will be coming to the finished version of Windows 11 soon.

(Image credit: Windows Latest / Microsoft)Analysis: Crashing bore

Tackling these tweaks one by one, let's start with the QR code, which has been banished. Am I going to miss that? No, in a word, and I doubt many other people will, either. The idea was to scan it and get a fuller picture of the details of the crash presented to you, but it never really imparted any useful information, just a generic support blurb. (And sometimes users weren't quick enough to be able to scan the code on-screen, anyway).

As for dispensing with the frowny face, I guess the argument for this is that it looked rather clunky, or arguably even childish, but it did serve an important function of sorts: making it clear that a 'bad thing has happened' (TM).

Here we come onto the issue with the new-look BSoD in my opinion (and not just mine): that it isn't so clear that an error has occurred. The design looks very similar to a standard Windows update, particularly with the new black background, along with the 'percentage complete' counter.

And so folks who don't read the thing properly – and those people are definitely out there – may be confused as to what's going on. A further niggle is that having the screen black may feel a bit more intimidating – I've certainly seen this point raised before - as blue is a friendlier color, black is a bit doom and gloom-y.

At any rate, I think a visual backup to the 'device ran into a problem' text would be handy. Okay, you don’t need a giant frowny face, but there could be some kind of graphic to indicate that an error has occurred, mainly to differentiate the BSoD screen from an update.

It wouldn't be that difficult for Microsoft to make that tweak, of course, and the company might just do that, depending on feedback to the new BSoD. In theory, though, it's a tricky change to test; in the final preview channel, crashes should be unlikely, so not many Windows Insiders (AKA testers) will see it. (It's also worth noting that in early preview versions, the BSoD is actually a GSoD - a green screen).

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A test of the app Dia illustrates that the humble web browser may be the path to making artificial intelligence more natural to use.

• Perplexity’s new Comet browser promises an AI assistant that travels the web for you
• Comet joins other AI browsers aiming to beat Chrome and other popular platforms.
• Though AI companies are betting on their browser's enticing users, their mainstream appeal is uncertain.

Perplexity has officially made the move to web browsers, embedding its AI tools into Comet, its new Chromium browser.

It’s available now, initially only to some subscribers of Perplexity’s $200-a-month Max plan. At first glance, Comet is like most browsers, but Comet has a unique sidebar. You can highlight a word, sentence, or image, and Comet will discuss it with you. You can get a summary of an article, write an RSVP, or organize the itinerary of your next vacation. There's also a privacy benefit. Perplexity says all of the AI processing stays local and that it won’t train its AI using your site visits.

It makes sense. Browsers are central to modern work and life. If AI models can latch onto our browsing flow, then we will be using them all the time. But will it stick?

The browser space has seen a lot of failed Chrome clones, from Yahoo Browser to Internet Explorer 6. Chrome and Safari claim over 90% market share globally. The subscription price alone might be the biggest deterrent. Perplexity’s Comet is $200 a month. Compared to the price of 'free,' it would take a lot more than an occasional paper summary to make people pay up.

And while Comet shows how it might be useful as a way for Perplexity to meld its AI with a web browser, it's hardly alone in pursuing the idea of augmenting web browsers with AI. OpenAI is building a ChatGPT-native Operator browser. Currently, The Browser Company, Opera's Aria, Microsoft's Edge with Copilot, and others are all providing similar services. And Google is continuously adding AI to Chrome, offering quick overviews, summaries, and image explanations.

AI browsing future

Perplexity, OpenAI, and any other contender face the same challenge of getting people to switch. And while it's possible that Perplexity breaks through to a new group of users with the idea of an AI browser, they will then have to face off against each other as well as the AI-enhanced versions of Chrome, Safari, and the others on the rise from Brave to Firefox, each with their own pitch for a better AI, more privacy, or another appealing feature.

Or, maybe the concerns about technical issues and user privacy will keep the AI browser a niche product with limited appeal for hardcore users, a bit like Linux. AI might be the future of browsing, a brief fad, or something in between.

The question of what makes it worth the effort will need to be answered. If Comet and others can streamline the online experience and save us a lot of time, they'll be popping up everywhere, but for now, they’re novelties priced at a premium. We'll have to see if the AI-enhanced browser can find the users it needs to last.

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• xAI has launched the new Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy AI models
• Grok 4 requires a $30 monthly SuperGrok subscription
• The launch comes as Grok faces renewed criticism

xAI introduced new versions of its Grok AI model line. Grok 4 and its larger, more powerful sibling, Grok 4 Heavy, are part of CEO Elon Musk’s effort to position Grok as a serious competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude. That includes the new $300-a-month subscription tier called SuperGrok Heavy, which offers exclusive access to Grok 4 Heavy.

Musk boasted during the announcement livestream that “Grok 4 is better than PhD level in every subject, no exceptions. At times, it may lack common sense, and it has not yet invented new technologies or discovered new physics, but that is just a matter of time.”

And the model’s benchmark scores do suggest it's not hyperbolic to say so; it's a legitimate leap forward. Grok 4 scored 25.4% on the notoriously difficult Humanity’s Last Exam benchmark without tools, putting it ahead of Gemini 2.5 Pro and OpenAI’s o3. The bragging is even more apt for Grok 4 Heavy, because as a multi-agent version of Grok 4, it deploys several reasoning agents simultaneously. On the same test, it scored 44.4%, better than all current commercial offerings.

The takeaway, at least from a technical standpoint, is that Grok 4 is now firmly in frontier-model territory. That’s a meaningful shift for xAI, which just months ago was primarily known for its integration with X, the rechristened Twitter owned by Musk. xAI is clearly trying to be taken seriously as a legitimate AI research and enterprise company.

If you do pay the $300 a month for SuperGrok Heavy, you'll get not only access to Grok 4 Heavy but also developer tools, API usage, and be first to try out new and upcoming features like an AI coding assistant, a multi-modal agent, and an AI video generator. As OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic all roll out more expensive subscription tiers, xAI is likely to be keen to come out ahead in both timing and model quality.

Introducing Grok 4, the world's most powerful AI model. Watch the livestream now: https://t.co/59iDX5s2ckJuly 10, 2025

Grokking controversy

Of course, the benchmarks and demos shared by Musk and his team during the livestream could not quite overshadow how Grok’s official account on X this week spiraled into antisemitic madness.

The chatbot’s automated replies on X for hours included conspiracy theories about Jewish control of Hollywood, praise for Hitler, and even declaring itself as “MechaHitler.” The company swiftly deleted the posts as they appeared, and Grok briefly denied even making them before copping to the reality of screenshots.

Eventually, X deleted all of the eye-poppingly offensive posts and placed temporary restrictions on the account. The outburst appeared to be tied to a recent update to Grok’s internal system prompt that the company then reversed.

Musk didn’t address the incident directly during his Grok 4 livestream, nor did anyone at xAI offer a public explanation. Meanwhile, Linda Yaccarino stepped down as CEO of X on the very same day, though xAI insists the timing is unrelated.

With all that happening in the background, Grok 4's launch didn't have quite the clean innovation-centered debut xAI likely hoped for. And it's hard for the company to claim the praise for Hitler was simply a technical error when Musk, who is intimately tied to both X and xAI, has repeatedly insisted that Grok will be a non-politically correct AI model.

You can build the most powerful model in the world, but if users are constantly bracing for it to say something offensive or unhinged, that power won’t matter.

There’s no question xAI has the technical chops to build a top-tier model. But unless they start addressing trust, transparency, and content safety with the same intensity they apply to benchmarks, they’ll always be playing catch-up to companies with AI chatbots that don't remind people of major public relations disasters.

A company interested in what Grok 4 Heavy can do for them might be a little more hesitant to pay $300 a month if the first thing people think of when they hear about Grok powering the system is Holocaust denial. That kind of baggage is heavier than any dataset.

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• Google just launched photo-to-video capabilities in Veo 3
• Now you can ask Gemini to transform a photo into an eight-second video
• Available for Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, the feature rollout starts today

Google just added a new powerful tool to its Gemini Veo 3 image generation feature that allows users to turn still photos into videos, and it's pretty incredible.

Available for Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers, you'll now be able to transform static photos into dynamic videos directly from within the Gemini app on the web. Google says the features will roll out to iOS and Android throughout the rest of the week.

Google is yet to confirm when, or if, Veo 3 will become available to free users, although you can get three months of Veo 3 for free with a Google Cloud trial.

The new photo-to-video feature will create an eight-second 720p video clip and can even add audio to make the video even more realistic.

Google's Veo 3 is the best video generation tool on the market, outshining even OpenAI's Sora at the time of writing. Now, with this added functionality that allows users to turn their photo memories into videos, Veo 3 is better than ever before.

How to bring your photos to life with Veo 3

You can see some examples of Veo 3's new feature above, and trying it out is pretty straightforward. Just follow these steps:

1. Click tools in the Gemini prompt bar
2. Select Video
3. Upload a photo
4. Describe the motion and audio (including dialogue, sound effects, and ambient noise

This new feature is so easy to use, and the results are pretty impressive. Considering that less than a year ago, we couldn't even generate videos using AI, the power of Gemini and Veo 3 is staggering.

Veo 3's ability to sync audio to moving images and create videos of your photos from a prompt makes this a welcome addition to the world of AI video generation.

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• Windows 11 24H2 now has better security levels
• This is down to Microsoft improving the scripting engine in the OS
• As a result, hackers will find it more difficult to discover and leverage exploits in Windows 11

Windows 11 just got a move to tighten security, but Microsoft has only applied this to the latest version, 24H2.

So, if you've yet to upgrade to Windows 11 24H2 - perhaps because you've heard about some of the bugs in this version of the desktop OS - now might be a good time to finally pull the trigger (especially given that some nifty new features have just arrived).

Neowin reports that Microsoft announced a switch in the default scripting engine in Windows 11, from the JScript runtime to the newer JScript9Legacy.

If that sounds like gobbledegook, the long and short of it is that this is the engine that runs JScript, Microsoft's own take on JavaScript for use within Windows (and Internet Explorer back in the day).

Any apps or web pages leveraging JScript will be more performant with the new version, and security will get a boost - there will be less chance of holes in JScript popping up in Windows 11 that attackers might capitalize on.

Microsoft explains: "JScript9Legacy is designed to be more compatible with modern web standards, which helps mitigate the risk of cross-site scripting (XSS) and other web-based attacks.

"The new engine incorporates advanced security features such as improved handling of JavaScript objects and stricter execution policies, which make it harder for malicious scripts to exploit the system.

"By replacing JScript.dll with JScript9Legacy.dll, the operating system can better defend against a wider range of security threats, ultimately providing a more secure environment for users."

Analysis: Making life harder for hackers

(Image credit: Getty Images)

All of this happens in the background, so you won't notice any difference to your experience on the desktop. You will, however, be more secure with Windows 11 24H2 now (without having to do anything).

As Neowin points out, Windows has been vulnerable to exploits leveraged by this scripting engine in the past - there was a flaw that allowed for remote code execution (an attacker remotely running code on the host PC to nefarious ends) a year ago. That was patched, naturally, but having JScript with much tighter defenses by default, so fresh attacks are less likely to succeed in the first place, is obviously very worthwhile.

So, Windows 11 24H2 now has tighter security than 23H2 by default, and this is a good enough reason to consider an upgrade if you've been hanging back. And I get why you might be cautious, too, given the prevalence of some quite nasty (and odd) bugs plaguing those who made the leap to 24H2 (particularly gamers). However, those glitches have settled down somewhat - so it's perfectly possible you won't run into any stumbling blocks at this point.

Of course, at some stage, you're going to have to upgrade to version 24H2 anyway - Microsoft recently made the update compulsory. Indeed, Windows 11 25H2 is now on the horizon (packing the same security improvement we see here, naturally).

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