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We may earn a commission from links on this page. Garmin watches are great for running, but are a bit tricky to work with when you’re trying to track strength training in the gym. (I have some tips here on how to make the most of that strange experience.) But an app called LiftTrack makes up for Garmin’s shortcomings, giving you the Garmin-based strength experience that maybe Garmin should have given you in the first place. Workout creation makes more sense with LiftTrack Credit: Beth Skwarecki LiftTrack is an app (available for iOS and Android) that helps you to create workouts, schedule workouts, and view your history of workouts and lifts. If you’ve used an app like Hevy or Strong to track strength training, you’ll be familiar with the idea. Create a workout in LiftTrack, and the experience is similar to those strength training apps: you’ll choose exercises, say how many sets and reps you plan to do, and arrange them into the order you’d like, supersetting pairs of them if you like. In Garmin’s own app, the process is backwards: you arrange blocks of work and rest, assigning exercises to them afterward. You can’t change weight or reps from one set to another unless you break the exercise out of its little repeat loop and create a new block. It’s an interface that makes sense for HIIT but not so much for a traditional gym workout of squats and curls. LiftTrack has some built-in strength programs (as does Garmin) and an AI routine builder (which Garmin does not). After creating a workout, you can sync it to your calendar for a given day, or set up a repeating schedule so that your bench press workout will appear every Monday. Your Garmin watch will pick up on the routineLiftTrack’s underlying features, like the ability to sync a workout to your calendar, are features Garmin has had all along. Garmin just doesn’t connect them to each other well. For example, there’s no simple way to tell Garmin that you want to bench every Monday. But Garmin does have a calendar that will automatically offer you a bench press workout if you set it up that way. So to do the workout, you just show up to the gym, select Strength Training on your Garmin watch, and the day’s workout will pop up asking if you’re ready to start. As you go through the workout, your watch will record your reps and let you indicate the weight you used. Once the workout is finished, the data syncs back to LiftTrack. LiftTrack lets you view your history and progressViewing a strength workout after the fact has never been super easy in the Garmin app. You can view today’s workout, yes, but you can’t easily get a big-picture view of things like how the weight you can squat has trended up over time. LiftTrack, once again, provides what Garmin does not. I can see my strength training history on a calendar (without any runs or other workouts cluttering it up), view my most recent workouts, and see charts of my progress on each lift. Based on that history, LiftTrack can then update your next workout, recommending that you go a little heavier if you were able to lift more than expected last week. In short, it’s everything that Garmin should have included in their strength training feature, but didn’t. View the full article

Back in 1987, President Ronald Reagan made a televised speech defending the principles of free trade, and slamming tariffs as a misguided policy that drives up prices and ultimately hurt American businesses, workers, and consumers. Now a Canadian ad campaign aimed at Americans is using that speech to remind Republican voters that Reagan’s views are still relevant. “High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars,” Reagan said. “Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.” The ad began airing this week on Newsmax and Bloomberg, and will expand to Fox News, Fox Sports, NBC, CBS, CNBC, ESPN, and ABC. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Tuesday during a speech “I’m a big Ronald Reagan fan . . . We’re going to launch a $75 million ad, and we’re going to repeat that message to every Republican district there is, right across the entire country.” This work follows a December ad campaign that focused on the negative impact of tariffs on trade. According to a September report from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario, the province’s real GDP growth is projected to slow to 0.9% this year and 1.0% next year due to the impact of U.S. tariffs. It comes at an awkward time, as automaker Stellantis announced a change in plans, moving production of its Jeep Compass model from Ontario to Illinois. The federal Canadian government is threatening to sue to company over the decision. This isn’t the first time advertising from the north has been aimed at Americans. In December, the Ontario government ran ads on Fox News and during NFL games to remind U.S. viewers that the Canadian province is America’s third biggest trade partner, and the main export buyer for 17 states. And in July, Quebec ran a series of tourism ads to encourage Americans to keep visiting despite The President threatening Canadian sovereignty. The new Reagan spot is a soft sell, using Americans’ own words to try and persuade them of a different tack on tariffs. But that gentler, more polite (dare I say Canadian) approach may not last long. Since President The President started pontificating about a 51st State, Canadians have reacted strongly by boycotting American goods and traveling south significantly less. The “Elbows Up” sentiment drove down U.S. travel in July by more than 30%—the seventh consecutive month of declines over 2024—and are buying more Canadian-made goods. On Wednesday, Ontario premier Doug Ford blamed President The President and his tariffs for the Stellantis decision. “That guy, President The President, he’s a real piece of work,” Ford said. “I’m sick and tired of rolling over. We need to fight back.” View the full article

Noninterest income at the Minneapolis-based company jumped more than 10% while asset quality improved and expenses held steady. View the full article

The The President administration is looking to provide an additional $20 billion in financing for Argentina through a mix of financing from sovereign funds and the private sector. That would come on top of the $20 billion credit swap line that the U.S. Treasury pledged to Argentine President Javier Milei and his government this month to bolster the South American nation’s collapsing currency. “We are working on a $20 billion facility that would complement our swap line, with private banks and sovereign funds that, I believe, would be more focused on the debt market,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters Wednesday. He called it “a private-sector solution” and said “many banks are interested in it and many sovereign funds have expressed interest.” At a White House meeting Tuesday with Milei, Republican President Donald The President said his administration wanted to help “our neighbors” with the aid package, but he also suggested that the money could be pulled if Milei’s party did not prevail in the Oct. 26 midterm elections. “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” The President said. The Argentine peso weakened slightly Wednesday after The President’s comments. The peso depreciated about 0.7%, with the dollar — the currency Argentines rely on to save — trading at 1,395 pesos, compared with 1,385 pesos the previous day. On Wall Street, shares of major Argentine companies rose slightly after dropping as much as 8.1% Tuesday upon The President’s comments. In Argentina, the opposition’s criticism was swift. Former President Cristina Fernández, who is under house arrest after a corruption conviction, wrote on social media: “The President to Milei in the United States: ‘Our agreements depend on who wins election.’ Argentines … you already know what to do!” Martín Lousteau, president of the centrist Radical Civic Union, said “The President doesn’t want to help a country — he only wants to save Milei,” and that “nothing good can come of this.” Maximiliano Ferraro, head of the opposition Civic Coalition, called The President’s comments “a blatant act of extortion against the Argentine Nation.” Vulcano reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. —Fatima Hussein and Andrea Vulcano, Associated Press View the full article

Chancellor faces lobbying from lenders not to raise taxes on the sectorView the full article

Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet are the five largest corporations by market cap, with the value of their combined shares totaling more than $16 trillion. These firms each pull in multiple billions of dollars in profit annually, and so pay tens of billions of dollars in annual taxes, too. But like other corporate giants in the S&P 500, the companies are also spending massive amounts on shareholder payouts, funneling trillions of dollars to wealthy shareholders through stock buybacks and shareholder dividends. Over the past five years, those five largest companies spent more than $1 trillion on stock buybacks and dividends, according to a new analysis from Oxfam—more than five times what they paid in federal taxes over the same time period. Looking at the entire S&P 500, the largest U.S. companies spent nearly $1.6 trillion combined on stock buybacks and dividends in 2024 alone. That’s triple the income of the poorest 27 million U.S. households combined, which totals $498 billion. ‘Unprecedented’ shareholder payouts “There’s been an unprecedented level of shareholder payouts in recent years,” says Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam. That includes both dividends paid out to shareholders and also stock buybacks, which is when companies buy their own stocks, thereby making their stock price go up. (Since many executives also have stock-based compensation packages, this also increases their pay.) Oxfam’s latest analysis provides a snapshot of those payouts, and the way corporations are spending their cash. To Oxfam, money spent on shareholder payouts are funds that could have gone to other internal investments, like raising worker wages or making a company more sustainable. The nonprofit also wants to highlight the disparity between these payments and how much companies pay in taxes. Corporate taxes have been on the decline since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed during President The President’s first term. Under that law, the effective tax rates for large corporations fell from an average of 22% to an average of 12.8%, thanks to a lower overall rate and a range of tax loopholes. If those five companies had paid pre-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act rates, Oxfam calculated that they would have paid an additional $168 billion in taxes over the past five years. The President’s recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act continues this trend, making permanent the TCJA tax cuts that were set to expire and bringing the effective corporate tax rate to as low as 12%, “the lowest rate in U.S. history,” per Morgan Stanley. The OBBBA also gives the biggest corporations nearly $1 trillion in new tax breaks. A possibility for change There’s a misconception, Riddell says, that shareholder payouts are a “rising tide” that will lift all boats in our economy. In reality, these actions “overwhelmingly benefit the top 1% and wealthy executives,” she says. “The bottom half of the United States owns just 1% of the stock market and very little of the overall retirement pie.” And when it comes to tax breaks, there’s an idea that when corporations save this money, they invest it elsewhere, like in workers or R&D. In reality, tax breaks fuel those enormous shareholder payouts. “Corporate tax savings aren’t being passed on to workers or consumers,” she says. “They’re being funneled to wealthy shareholders and executives.” Along with tax rates and stock buybacks, the Oxfam analysis also highlights the issue of enormous CEO pay: Over the past five years, the CEOs of the five largest U.S. companies made an average of $52 million annually—more than 1,000 times what a typical worker earns in a year. These actions are fueling the growing inequality in our country, and they’re a direct result of policy, Riddell says. They’re also occurring at a time when millions of Americans will soon lose their healthcare and access to food assistance because of funding cuts. But that means policymakers could take action to change these trends, too. That includes taxing or banning buybacks, capping dividends, supporting worker ownership, and adjusting the corporate tax code. (President Biden proposed tripling the tax that companies pay on stock buybacks, but the measure didn’t advance.) “What this analysis shows is that the corporations can drive inequality by enriching wealthy shareholders and directly through their compensation,” Riddell says. “But also it shows that there is a possibility for change.” View the full article

Every few months, we take stock of the quiet progress happening across Buffer. These aren’t flashy features or full-on launches — but they’re the kinds of updates that make everything feel smoother. Lately, the Buffer team has been doubling down on quality (alongside all the headline-grabbing stuff). Here's a look at all the small changes and quality-of-life improvements you'll now find in your Buffer dashboard. How we’ve been improving quality at BufferBug fixes and small improvements have always been part of the job. But we're a small team, and in the past, they sometimes had to compete with bigger feature projects. Recently, two teammates — Adam, our Senior Escalations Manager, and Amanda, our Staff Product Manager for Channels and Platforms — decided to change that. They introduced several systems to help: Defined timelines for bug fixes: Our highest priority bugs are resolved within 14 days, P2s within 30, and P3s within 60.These timelines help our teams plan their work and help customers know when to expect a fix.Regular refinement sessions: Every two weeks, the team reviews and prioritizes open issues. This keeps focus on the work that matters most.Customer follow-ups: When a bug is fixed, we'll get in touch with the person who reported it to let them know. This closes the loop and we want folks to know how much we appreciate it when they reach out about these things, big or small.Dedicated maintenance time: Around 10% of engineering capacity is set aside for bug fixing and technical housekeeping. It’s planned, not reactive, which keeps progress steady.To make sure this work stays on track, Adam also compiles product quality reports that track the volume, severity, and resolution time of bugs. Those reports help the team see patterns, spot recurring issues, and guide future priorities. All of this adds up! With all these systems in place, Buffer feels more reliable and calm, which goes for both the product and the team. Recent improvements to BufferHere are just some of the updates that have been shipped over the past few months. 🔒 Authentication & Security Improved login verificationFixed a logout bug that appeared after changing passwords on other devices🕸️ Integrations & Connections Added Zapier support for LinkedIn first comments and Thread topicsMade channel settings stay open when switching between channelsRecalculated posting streaks when reconnecting a channelUpdated the channel refresh modal to show which channels were refreshed 📝 Content Creation & Publishing Made the composer pre-select profiles if you have 3 or fewer channelsMade broadcasting more reliable: fewer posts get stuck, and fewer errors appearFixed link preview issues with shortened URLsFixed an issue where saving an idea didn’t work in the browser extension💻 Platform-Specific Enhancements Pinterest: Support for bulk uploads, including a new “Board Name” columnInstagram: Fixed missing address information for Instagram locationsLinkedIn: Fixed inconsistencies when adding LinkedIn mentions while editing posts📸 Media & Uploads Added support for all crop types in the new uploaderRestored missing Instagram crop types📆 Calendar & Planning Fixed calendar month view for 53-week years👥 Account Management Made it possible to transfer organization ownership to another adminUpdated payment confirmation emails to link directly to the Stripe invoiceWe care about product quality, so these small improvements are all a big deal to us. Our goal is for Buffer to be a calm, productive space that makes it easy for you to post consistently on social media. These new systems, fixes, and improvements are essential to making that a reality. It also helps our team. Fewer urgent bugs mean engineers can plan better, communicate more clearly, and work at a sustainable pace. Looking aheadOf course, this isn't a one-and-done job. We'll keep tinkering, following up with customers, and using data and automation to spot friction before it turns into frustration. If Buffer feels smoother lately, this work is the reason. If you notice something that could be better, we'd love to hear about it! View the full article

This week, fintech company Karta announced a new premium credit card designed with a very specific user in mind: American nonresidents with U.S. bank accounts—and high net worths. It’s designed to compete with other premium credit cards on the market, and thus, is available to customers who have a bank or brokerage account with a minimum balance of $150,000 in assets all without a Social Security number. It also offers similar perks and benefits to other premium travel cards, such as the Citi Strata Elite, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, or the American Express Platinum Card. Those include access to exclusive events, a Priority Pass Select membership that provides access to airport lounges, travel and auto insurance benefits, and the ability to earn points redeemable for flights or hotels. Also, in the same vein as other premium cards, Karta’s card has an annual fee of $300, which is considerably less than others in the space. Karta’s also announced that it’s raised $5.4 million in seed money from Canary, Clocktower Ventures, and FJ Labs, among others, and that it’s partnering with nearly two dozen U.S. financial institutions to get it into customers’ hands. “It’s designed for known residents who have U.S. assets,” says Freddy Juez, the founder and CEO of Karta. Juez says that the offering is taking aim at a problem that many nonresidents in the U.S. have: They have a lot of money in the bank, but may lack a Social Security number or tax identification credentials. That means they can’t, or have a lot of trouble, getting a credit card, and many high-net-worth individuals in Juez’s target customer segment may want one to take advantage of some of the perks offered by other cards. Also worth noting is that the credit cards these customers can get—usually in their native countries of Brazil, Argentina, and others—may have very high international swipe fees (which would be in the mix if they’re using the card in the U.S.) and interest rates. For instance, while an American Express may charge a foreign transaction fee of 2%, Juez says a card issued in Brazil could charge as much as 10%. Additionally, credit card interest rates in the U.S. tend to hover around 20%, whereas in Brazil, the average rate, as of June, was 450%. That makes for some compelling reasons to look for an alternative card for those in Karta’s target demographic. American Express offered such a card, the International Dollar Card, but started to phase it out at the end of 2024. Juez saw the market opportunity—he estimates there are tens of millions of potential customers—and jumped on it, hiring Fernando Delceggio, the former head of acquisition and new business development from AMEX International Dollar Cards (IDC), to help build out Karta’s new card. “I hired him immediately,” says Juez, and “now he runs it.” Also of note: The card is entirely managed through WhatsApp, the messaging platform owned by Meta. Customers can make disputes, ask questions, inquire about dinner reservations, and more—all through WhatsApp, and at the direction of AI agents. Juez says the reason for that is that the card’s target customer is wealthy Latinos, and Brazilians, in particular, and that “Brazilians are insane about WhatsApp.” “Latinos use WhatsApp in the same way or at the same level that Americans use simple texting,” he says, which is what made WhatsApp a sort of natural fit for the card—from a tech and cultural standpoint. While there is a risk in relying on WhatsApp—a third-party messaging platform that could presumably pull the rug out from under Karta—Juez says that Karta has thought ahead. “Everything we’ve built is in-house, and WhatsApp is there as the communications channel,” he says. So, in the worst-case scenario, Karta could move everything to another channel or platform. “But I think the incentives are aligned with what Meta wants to achieve,” he notes, since Meta wants more people to use WhatsApp, and Karta’s offerings could be one way to get them there. Juez, too, says that this premium card offering is only the beginning for Karta in the U.S., and he says the company could branch out after a few years into other financial offerings, such as bank accounts. And he’s confident, after less than a year in operation, that he’s tapped into a sizable and underserved customer segment, as evidenced by the company’s fast growth. “When I hired Fernando, he told me this was going to be a slow process. He said I’d only get one or two banks to become partners in six months,” Juez says. “We’ve gotten 22 banks in six months. That tells you how good the product is.” View the full article

If you have a stressful job, meditation can help—but it’s not easy to meditate at work. A new workplace pod is designed to help by giving you a private place to take a break, run through a guided meditation or breath work, and begin to experience benefits like improved focus and reduced burnout. OpenSeed, the startup behind the Iris Pod, launched in 2018 after founder Jonathan Marcoschamer attended a 10-day silent meditation course. He wanted to keep meditating during the day, but was working in an open plan office. “I couldn’t find anywhere to meditate,” he says. He also wanted to help make meditation more accessible for other people. So he started work on a prototype of a pod that could sit in a larger space. The first version was installed at companies like Deloitte and Morgan Stanley, where Marcoschamer says that it’s used as often as 16 times a day. The new version, in production now for delivery in early 2026, was developed over the last few years with Yves Behar’s Fuseproject, along with the Mexico City-based design studio Tuux. When you step inside the womb-like pod and close the door, a light outside shows that it’s occupied. Made from wood and wool felt panels and softly lit, it feels welcoming. “At the onset, we asked one question: how do we make an environment that as soon as you stepped in, it made you feel calmer?” says Marcoschamer. The panels, with wood sandwiched between two layers of felt fabric, help isolate sound so you don’t hear coworkers when you’re inside. On a tablet, you choose a program—a meditation to help boost energy, for example, or to calm you down after a stressful meeting. Music helps guide your breath, synchronized with the lighting. The floor and seat gently vibrate. Lavender and other essential oils offer aromatherapy. The sessions are designed to last around 10 minutes. Fuseproject designed the large pods to ship flat and then be easily assembled on site—drawing on the team’s previous experience with prefab homes—rather than delivering the product in a giant crate. “Shipping is always such a high cost, both in terms of the final price point of the product and environmental cost,” says Behar. The pod can be assembled within a few hours. (Initially, the team also planned to use recycled, 3D-printed wood for the structure, but the new technology wasn’t quite ready for this type of application.) The pods can be used in places beyond offices; one of the newest customers is a cancer treatment center, where OpenSeed plans to study how using the pods reduces stress. Other hospitals already used the first version of the product for doctors and nurses on breaks, but now it will also be used by patients. A correctional facility will provide the pod for police officers. The product is pricey, at $22,500 plus shipping and installation fees, but Marcoschamer argues that in a large office where it’s frequently used, the cost per use is low. “We’re seeing so many high-end wellness centers with all these very expensive treatments,” he says. “We want this to be something that’s accessible.” View the full article

People remember many things about Windows 95, which turned 30 a couple of months ago. There were its signature new features, such as the Start Button, taskbar, and long file names. The launch event—hosted by Jay Leno—at Microsoft’s campus. The TV commercials with the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up.” The crowds of PC users so eager to get their hands on the upgrade that they descended on computer stores at midnight. Here’s a fact about Windows 95 that isn’t exactly iconic: It was the first voice-enabled version of Microsoft’s operating system. A collection of technologies known as the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) provided support for speech recognition and synthesis, letting developers create apps that could speak and be spoken to. But SAPI didn’t go on to revolutionize how people used Microsoft products. Neither did any of the numerous other voice-centric technologies it has developed over the decades, such as its 1990s Auto PC car platform and the ill-fated Siri counterpart Cortana. “It’s kind of amazing to think about it, really,” muses Microsoft executive VP and consumer CMO Yusuf Mehdi. “It’s probably been 30, 40 years since there was a new input mechanism for your PC. We had the keyboard, and then we introduced the mouse. There has not been another input mechanism.” Like many of the people presently charting a future for Windows, Mehdi has seen much of that history firsthand as a Microsoft employee—34 years of it, in his case, and though he’s glossing over touchscreens and styluses—both of which are part of Microsoft’s own Surface line and have their devotees—his overarching point stands. For all the ways Windows has evolved, the basic means of interacting with it have remained enduringly resistant to change. Yusuf Mehdi Once again, Microsoft is trying to overcome that. The company is announcing a Windows 11 update that lets you seek help from its Copilot AI by talking to it, with the response also coming in spoken form. Known as Copilot Voice, the feature leverages Copilot Vision, a technology—first previewed a year ago—that can scan the contents of your screen to suss out what you’re working on, whether you’re perusing a social media feed in your browser, crafting a business proposal in Word, or studying for an exam. If voice input and output provide the interface for this new Windows experience, Copilot Vision is the glue that holds it together. “It doesn’t require Copilot to have programmatic understanding of every app in the world,” says Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft’s president of Windows + Devices, who will soon mark his 25th anniversary at the company. “It just sees what you allow it to see and infers the world. It helps you with the task that you’re probably engaged in at that point in time.” Generative AI—including technologies Microsoft gets from its partner OpenAI—makes that possible. As corporate VP of Windows experiences (and 24-year Microsoft veteran—see a pattern here?) Navjot Virk puts it, “The point is not just that you can talk to your PC, the point is that the PC now understands you.” But making AI make sense in Windows is only partially about the technology performing as promised. In a world full of AI features that can feel like needy, uninvited distractions, Microsoft wanted this one to be welcome. Users must explicitly opt into Copilot Voice and Copilot Vision and use the wake word “Hey Copilot” to summon them. And even then, they’re designed to be unobtrusive complements to the familiar keyboard-and-mouse experience. “People know what they want to do,” says Virk. “We should make sure we get out of their way, but give them the tools that they will use.” That’s a sharply different vision from the one Microsoft rolled out at a May 2024 event with the lofty tagline “A new AI era begins.” The era in question involved a new class of laptop, called Copilot+ PCs, that packed powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon chips. Yet they were short on AI-related features compelling enough to justify buying a new computer. This time, Microsoft is concentrating on making AI available and appealing to all Windows 11 users, regardless of the machine they’ve got. The question the company asked itself, Mehdi says, is “What does a real AI PC look like in this next phase?” In some ways, its answers are utterly straightforward. Even so, putting the real in “real AI PC” will keep it busy for years. The ultimate AI proving ground For all its mundane workaday ubiquity, Windows is a demanding proving ground for AI. According to Microsoft, the operating system is currently running on 1.6 billion devices, a figure that includes both Windows 11 and the theoretically moribund Windows 10. Sure, some of its users are early adopters eager to be wowed by the latest technology, even in imperfect form. But many more just want Windows to be a reliable, surprise-free tool to accomplish daily tasks. Their bar for finding AI palatable isn’t lower than that of the enthusiasts—it’s higher. Those 1.6 billion devices also reflect an endless array of manufacturers, models, and configurations—a formidable challenge when it comes to deploying a voice interface that consistently works well. Not that long ago, PC-based voice-controlled assistants tended to interrupt themselves and otherwise fail to engage with the world in ways that were fluid and natural, notes Microsoft technical fellow Stevie Bathiche (26 years at the company). “That’s because [they] didn’t have a high-quality audio pipeline,” he says. “Now that’s solved.” Pavan Davuluri Microsoft’s solution borrows from work it originally did for Cortana and Teams and involves technologies such as beam forming, which help a PC block out irrelevant ambient noise. That helps even with basic Copilot Voice features that don’t sound like huge deals in themselves: the “Hey Copilot” wake word and ability to say “Goodbye” to conclude an AI session. But the most challenging part was what came in between: getting the AI to correctly handle everyday tasks as users might phrase them, regardless of their degree of AI savvy. With consumer AI in its typical current form, “If you know how to craft that perfect prompt and go into super detail, you can get a lot of bang out of it,” says Virk. “But how do we make this superpower accessible to every single user of Windows?” In several demos, the company showed me Copilot responding to briefly expressed spoken requests. In one, it explained how to disentangle multiple Spotify listeners’ data so the service’s year-end Wrapped summary wouldn’t be a meaningless mishmash. It also made style suggestions based on a Pinterest feed, defined physics concepts mentioned in class notes, and did the math to adjust the ingredients in a handwritten recipe to produce a larger batch. The closest it got to showing off was when it aided a songwriting example by humming a funk riff in G minor. All of this emphasizes the simple, practical, and broadly applicable. One reason why: The stinging reaction to Windows Recall, a feature Microsoft announced at its May 2024 event. By capturing an ongoing stream of screenshots, Recall gave the operating system a memory. The idea was that users would find value in AI being able to scour their past activity in intimate detail. But the technology was invasive, turned on by default, and unencrypted. After critics called it a privacy nightmare, Microsoft took Recall back to the drawing board and didn’t release it for almost a year. Naturally, the company now says it regards the whole kerfuffle as a teachable moment. “We have taken those learnings and really applied them and internalized them to everything new that we have,” says Virk. “First and foremost, the discussion that happens on the team is, ‘How will somebody understand the value of this? Will they be comfortable? Will they feel like they have control? Do they always know what is happening?’ Transparency is an important core tenet for our experiences.” Only some of those experiences are rolling out to all Windows 11 users immediately. Additional ones will be available in test form to users who subscribe to the Windows Insider early-access program. Those include features called Connectors that hook Copilot into apps such as Outlook and OneDrive, giving it far more access to your data than Copilot Vision can divine by analyzing the screen. (Yes, Microsoft says Connectors will be available to third-party developers, too.) Connectors are crucial to Copilot starting to get more agentic—able to perform complex tasks on the user’s behalf with some measure of autonomy. Other purveyors of AI are developing similar technologies. For example, OpenAI already has a ChatGPT agent (known as Agent) and integrations (also called Connectors). By building this sort of AI directly into Windows, which already serves as a hub for so many people’s work, Microsoft has the opportunity to make it particularly powerful. But as AI works more independently and gains access to additional data, the potential for security and privacy issues rises. Chastened by its Recall misfire, Microsoft emphasizes that its agent-related features are opt-in and engineered to receive only the access they need. Even before these features reach general availability, Windows is using multiple AI models in an agentic manner below the surface. As the operating system responds to a user’s request, “The big model creates the plan and the reasoning behind it,” explains Bathiche. “It says, ‘You do this, do this, do this.’ The small model is tuned to essentially say, ‘Yeah, let me take that instruction and translate it to what that actually means on the screen.’” That division of labor hints at a future when Windows, and computing in general, get atomized into bits of software negotiating with each other—a scenario that’s been predicted for decades and is only now going beyond the theoretical. Windows Insider members will also be the first to gain access to Ask Copilot, a new feature that puts Copilot directly on the taskbar, allowing them to initiate a typed AI session without firing up the existing Copilot app. Like “Hey, Copilot,” that may not sound like a huge whoop. But it’s key to Microsoft’s long-term goal of letting Windows call on AI in whatever way they prefer at any given moment. “You can get going with Copilot straight out of the gate,” says Davuluri. “And it can be chat, it can be voice, it can be vision. It can be any combination of them.” The road to Jarvis Ultimately, it’s impossible to ponder Windows’ future except in the context of its first 40 years. The graphical computing environment—not yet a full-blown operating system—shipped in 1985 and struggled at first. Only with 1990’s Windows 3.0 did it become a hit. Then new trends, such as multimedia and the web, only strengthened its position. In recent years, Windows—for all the enormity of its user base—has maintained a low profile. Indeed, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is justly admired for reimagining the company for an age that doesn’t revolve around Windows or any other desktop operating system. Had it clung to its past rather than broadened its horizons, it likely wouldn’t be the world’s second most valuable company today. Could voice and AI put Windows back in the spotlight? Mehdi doesn’t mention Apple’s recent travails in AI, but he’s clear that he sees an opportunity for Microsoft to bound forward more quickly than its eternal competitor. ”We’re going to have an open window,” he says. “And Apple is not going to be in this window for quite some time.” Thinking ahead over the next decade, Mehdi told me, Microsoft would love to turn Copilot into the real-world equivalent of Tony Stark’s ultracapable AI butler Jarvis. Still, he and the Microsoft executives I talked to mostly kept the hype in check. None of them suggested that voice might totally supersede today’s graphical interface in the way Windows once replaced MS-DOS’s text-based command line. Microsoft Jarvis, should it come to exist, will likely still support keyboard and mouse input—just like Windows 1.0. “We think this is the next interface because it’s additive,” stresses corporate VP of design and research for Windows + Devices Marcus Ash, who has been at Microsoft since 1999 (not counting a brief detour at Stripe) and was part of the team that created Cortana. “It gives you more things that you can do. But you can also go back to the way that you use things if that’s comfortable for you.” Which is not to say Microsoft won’t make every effort to make the case for Windows’ latest attempt to bake in voice technology. That undertaking will include a TV campaign showing the new features in action. “We’ve not advertised Windows in that kind of fashion in a while,” says Mehdi. “So we do have confidence in what we’ve got here.“ Once upon a time, Microsoft signaled that a Windows update mattered by rebranding it: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7. Not this time. Four-year-old Windows 11 is still Windows 11—additional evidence the company is trying to err on the side of underselling what it’s created. “Historically, we’ve changed names,” says Mehdi. ”Pavan and I were like, ‘Shoot, should we have [called it] Windows 12 or Windows 20 or something?’ We didn’t even think about it. We were spending our whole time working on the product. But it has that magnitude. And it’s obviously all with the backdrop of what’s happening in the world of AI.” If this new voice-enabled operating system wins hearts, it will be because its benefits speak for themselves. 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A BrightEdge study found that 68% of brands across industries are changing their search strategies to catch the GEO wave. That’s a big number, but hardly surprising – you’d have to have lived under a rock for about three years (since ChatGPT launched in late 2022) to miss the current. Still, many B2B marketing leaders I speak with haven’t fully grasped the shape of the opportunity – what GEO can do for their brands and where it falls short. There’s no question that AI search/GEO/LLMO – whatever you call it (there’s no consensus yet) – is critical to a holistic organic strategy. But leaning on them too heavily exposes gaps competitors can exploit. This article outlines three specific limitations of AI search in B2B marketing and how to offset them in your overall organic approach: Research on emerging verticals and solutions. Nuanced advice for vertical experts. Real and perceived objectivity. Let’s take a closer look at each. AI search won’t grow awareness for emerging verticals and solutions Traditional search marketing – SEO or PPC – isn’t set up to bring awareness to new products, verticals, or solutions. Its intent-based nature relies on a base of pre-established awareness. AI search shares the same limitations, but there’s another layer. It’s slower to index content than traditional search engines (because it has to wait for those engines to index it first). That means awareness for new products and solutions takes even longer to surface in AI search results. How marketers can adjust My advice is the same as for traditional search: use a Trojan horse strategy that connects your new product or service to an existing, better-established set of queries and themes. If you’ve already created awareness around a related term, leverage it to subtly redirect attention. Plant new seeds where awareness already exists. Dig deeper: 5 B2B content types AI search engines love AI search isn’t great at nuanced advice for experts Unlike ecommerce, where the path to purchase is shorter and more direct, B2B buying requires layered, contextual information. Marketers need to help everyone – from a CFO to an account coordinator – feel confident in a purchase decision. This is not where AI search excels. AI search models are great for needle-in-a-haystack problems – but not haystack problems. They excel at pinpointing a precise answer buried in noise, like when a homeowner wants to know how to tap into home equity without refinancing a low-rate mortgage. An AI model can quickly surface the right product type without forcing someone to sift through irrelevant results. Where these models fall short is with broader or more strategic questions. For example, “What’s the best way to modernize my warehouse?” The output often feels vague or generic because the model can’t account for the unique context of a company’s size, budget, or goals. In short, AI search can find the needle, but it can’t design the haystack. Hallucinations and misinformation remain ongoing issues for ChatGPT and its competitors – newer models still aim to “improve accuracy,” which means marketers must take results with a grain of salt. In B2B, where depth matters, that risk compounds, leaving more room for errors when you’re trying to impress a multi-party buying committee. How marketers can adjust Create and distribute content – whitepapers, user guides, case studies – that gives experts the depth they need to feel confident. I use the word “triangulation” with clients: anticipate and build a presence across the places users go for information. That includes LLMs, but also Google, Reddit, industry listings, and especially owned media. Dig deeper: The future of B2B authority building in the AI search era AI search doesn’t have real (or perceived) objectivity According to AI Overviews, Google’s results are more trusted than ChatGPT’s: And if that strikes you as a biased take from a Google property, well, therein lies the problem: those results might not be perfectly objective. That sentiment generally holds true for just about all AI search, especially since it doesn’t always cite its sources. As the AI Overview above hints, results for, say, “give me a list of the top {industry} providers” may well be pulling information from the providers it lists in the answer, which is more reflective of good GEO than an earned reputation as a top provider. Users can ask the LLM to cite sources. In response, they’ll receive a bunch of links that they can follow up on. But that behavior runs counter to the reason people use LLMs in the first place: they’re looking for one quick, digestible answer, not a directory of links to cross-reference. This doesn’t diminish AI search’s ability to produce a quick consideration set – and people are absolutely using the tools to request those. That information is perfectly organized and easy to read. But it lacks any kind of verification and/or social proof, which leaves both the user and brand with important supplemental steps. How marketers can adjust When I’m researching tools or software for my team, I use AI search to narrow options and then turn to Google to research each brand more deeply. I look for case studies, use cases, and reviews, which are far easier to find in traditional SERPs than in LLM results. Our data for B2B and SaaS clients shows the same behavior. Since ChatGPT’s launch, bottom-of-funnel research has still relied on assets like Google reviews, G2 or Capterra listings, and brand case studies – not on AI search results. Brand marketers should think like users: where will people go for validation once LLMs fall short? Work with your sales team to understand how prospects gather information. Make sure your owned media answers the questions ChatGPT can’t, and build a strategy for third-party reviews and listings. Without those pieces, you’ll leak conversions between the middle and bottom of the funnel. Dig deeper: How to do B2B content marketing the right way (with 5 examples) Building a complete strategy beyond AI search There’s nothing fixed about AI search results – model engineers may eventually incorporate reviews and third-party rankings. Until LLMs can mirror the strengths of traditional search, AI search will continue to have fundamental limitations – ones B2B marketers must plan for in any holistic organic strategy. 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Protein powders are notoriously hit-or-miss when it comes to taste. But according to a new study from Consumer Reports (CR), gym bros and casual proteinmaxxers should be less concerned with how their protein powders taste, and more concerned about whether they might contain lead. The study, published on October 14, tested 23 of the most popular protein powders and ready-to-drink shakes for heavy metal contamination. CR purchased multiple samples of each product, including two to four distinct lots, over a three-month period beginning in November of 2024. The samples were then tested for protein, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and other elements. The results were striking: More than two-thirds of the products analyzed contained more lead in a single serving than the amount that CR’s food safety experts say is safe to consume in a day. CR’s report noted that there’s “no reason to panic” if readers have been consuming these products, as they’re unlikely to cause immediate harm. However, protein companies are pushing back against the results, arguing that the report is “alarmist.” Here’s what to know: What did Consumer Reports find? CR’s report is structured around a daily threshold of allowable lead consumption, which its researchers set at 0.5 micrograms. This figure is based on the California Prop 65 maximum, which, the publication notes, has a “wide safety margin built in.” In comparison, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have any official guidelines on dietary lead limits, it has set an estimated benchmark for safe daily consumption, which is 2.2 micrograms for children and 8.8 micrograms for women of childbearing age. (An FDA spokesperson told CR that the 8.8 figure can likely be applied to all adults). To be clear, no amount of lead is technically okay to consume, with even low levels potentially causing serious health problems. According to CR’s report, the most concerning products were all plant-based protein powders, which, on average, contained lead levels that were nine times the amount found in those made with dairy proteins and twice as great as beef-based ones. Topping out CR’s list was Naked Nutrition’s Vegan Mass Gainer. For a serving size of 315 grams, CR found that the powder continued 1,572% of its daily lead consumption threshold, or about 7.7 micrograms per serving. Following that product was Huel’s Black Edition powder, which contained 6.3 micrograms of lead in a 90 gram serving, and Garden of Life’s Sport Organic Plant-Based Protein, which contained 2.76 micrograms in a 45 gram serving. How have protein powder companies responded? In a statement to Fast Company, Naked Nutrition said it was important to note that Naked Vegan Mass Gainer was the only vegan weight gainer in the study, meaning it had a much larger serving size compared to the other powders tested. When viewed on a per-gram basis, the company added, results are consistent with other plant-based proteins. “Elements such as lead are naturally occurring in soil,” a spokesperson said. “Because plants naturally absorb minerals and elements from soil, trace levels of heavy metals can be found in virtually all plant-derived foods and proteins, even in certified organic products, regardless of brand or country of origin. While Consumer Reports did not share its complete lab data, we reviewed the available information and verified results through independent third-party testing, which confirmed that no heavy metals exceeded FDA reference intake levels for adults, including for sensitive groups such as women of childbearing age.” A spokesperson for Huel, which published its own article in response to CR’s study, told Fast Company that it is “extremely frustrated” by the report and views it as “alarmist.” The brand added that California’s 0.5 microgram threshold is “ultra conservative” because it divides the observable effect limit by 1,000 to allow a margin for error. For comparison, the EU benchmark is 270 micrograms per serving. “It is important to understand that the Consumer Reports approach reflects a uniquely cautious regulation rather than an internationally accepted measure of consumer safety,” the spokesperson said. “Trace minerals such as lead occur naturally in crops because plants absorb them from the soil.” For context, Huel added, a meal of sausages, potatoes, cabbage, and carrots can contain around 5 micrograms of lead, and most adults consume between 20 and 80 micrograms per day from normal foods. “Huel is no different from everyday meals in this respect.” Huel’s spokesperson added that it has conducted 17 independent tests on Huel Black Edition, with results consistently showing lead levels between 1.5 and 2.2 micrograms per 90 gram serving. Garden of Life did not immediately respond to Fast Company’s request for comment, but a spokesperson for the company told CR that its products are safe for daily use despite CR’s recommended limits. View the full article

Senate Democrats are poised for the 10th time Thursday to reject a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits. The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become as it has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor. House Republicans have left Washington altogether. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed. “Every day that goes by, there are more and more Americans who are getting smaller and smaller paychecks,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, adding that there have been thousands of flight delays across the country as well. Thune, a South Dakota Republican, again and again has tried to pressure Democrats to break from their strategy of voting against the stopgap funding bill. It hasn’t worked. And while some bipartisan talks have been ongoing about potential compromises on health care, they haven’t produced any meaningful progress toward reopening the government. Democrats say they won’t budge until they get a guarantee on extending subsidies for health plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They warned that millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance — such as small business owners, farmers and contractors — will see large increases when premium prices go out in the coming weeks. Looking ahead to a Nov. 1 deadline in most states, they think voters will demand that Republicans enter into serious negotiations. “We have to do something, and right now, Republicans are letting these tax credits expire,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Still, Thune was also trying a different tack Thursday with a vote to proceed to appropriations bills — a move that could grease the Senate’s wheels into some action or just deepen the divide between the two parties. A deadline for subsidies on health plans Democrats have rallied around their priorities on health care as they hold out against voting for a Republican bill that would reopen the government. Yet they also warn that the time to strike a deal to prevent large increases for many health plans is drawing short. When they controlled Congress during the pandemic, Democrats boosted subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. It pushed enrollment under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. Nearly 24 million people currently get their health insurance from subsidized marketplaces, according to health care research nonprofit KFF. Democrats — and some Republicans — are worried that many of those people will forgo insurance if the price rises dramatically. While the tax credits don’t expire until next year, health insurers will soon send out notices of the price increases. In most states, they go out Nov. 1. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she has heard from “families who are absolutely panicking about their premiums that are doubling.” “They are small business owners who are having to think about abandoning the job they love to get employer-sponsored health care elsewhere or just forgoing coverage altogether,” she added. Murray also said that if many people decide to leave their health plan, it could have an effect across medical insurance because the pool of people under health plans will shrink. That could result in higher prices across the board, she said. Some Republicans have acknowledged that the expiration of the tax credits could be a problem and floated potential compromises to address it, but there is hardly a consensus among the GOP. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., this week called the COVID-era subsidies a “boondoggle,” adding that “when you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.” President Donald The President has said he would “like to see a deal done for great health care,” but has not meaningfully weighed into the debate. And Thune has insisted that Democrats first vote to reopen the government before entering any negotiations on health care. If Congress were to engage in negotiations on significant changes to health care, it would likely take weeks, if not longer, to work out a compromise. Votes on appropriations bills Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are setting up a vote Thursday to proceed to a bill to fund the Defense Department and several other areas of government. This would turn the Senate to Thune’s priority of working through spending bills and potentially pave the way to paying salaries for troops, though the House would eventually need to come back to Washington to vote for a final bill negotiated between the two chambers. Thune said it would be a step toward getting “the government funded in the traditional way, which is through the annual appropriations process.” It wasn’t clear whether Democrats would give the support needed to advance the bills. They discussed the idea at their luncheon Wednesday and emerged saying they wanted to review the Republican proposal and make sure it included appropriations that are priorities for them. While the votes will not bring the Senate any closer to an immediate fix for the government shutdown, it could at least turn their attention to issues where there is some bipartisan agreement. —Stephen Groves and Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press View the full article

Despite the decrease, average profit margins approached 50%, as the lock-in effect continues to stymie inventory growth and keep home values elevated. View the full article

From inventory tiers to creative guardrails, today’s PPC brand safety choices signal not just campaign control but long-term trust. The post Ask A PPC: How To Manage Brand Safety In PPC appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. The way you study something will likely vary depending on how familiar you are with the subject matter. If you’re fairly acquainted with the core concepts, you can force active recall by using flashcards to review, or enhance your grasp of a topic by teaching it to someone else, for instance. But what about when you’re first encountering a new piece of information and you have no real context for it? A lot of reading techniques ask you to come up with questions or hypotheses before you even start reading, but that’s not easy when you don’t have much familiarity with your subject at all. In these cases, the REAP method can help. It’s a technique that directs you to read first, and save the deeper work for later. Here’s how it works. What is the REAP method?REAP is an acronym that stands for “read, encode, annotate, and ponder.” Like methods such as SQ3R or KWL, it asks you to approach each new passage with a strategic plan. But unlike those techniques, you don’t have to know anything about your subject going into a reading session. Instead of skimming the chapter, coming up with ideas about what you think it will be about and what you want to get out of it, and relying on what you already know before you start, you acknowledge that you don’t know much about the subject at all, and set out to learn more about it, and then think more about it to figure out what parts are most essential before committing it to memory. Essentially, it's a way of reading something while giving yourself the grace to not "get it" right away, as well as the space to learn it. Just by acknowledging you're feeling adrift, you can start to work on ways to understand as much as you can. How does REAP work?Here are the basic elements of the REAP method: Read the material Encode the information in your own words Annotate by jotting down main ideas Ponder what you've gone over Using the REAP method, you first read the passage, chapter, or section of text on your own. Don’t think too hard here; the goal of a reading-first approach is not to read overly critically, but to absorb the information as a whole. Then you encode the information by putting it in your own words. You can do this by writing a quick, paragraph-long summary in your notes or describing it out loud to someone else. You can try blurting, or writing down everything you can remember without referencing your materials, but don't worry if you forget things; you're still in the middle of the REAP process. Next, annotate the text by writing down only the main ideas—whether in the form of keywords, pieces of data, quotes, or standout elements of the introduction or conclusion. If you've already "blurted," you can use this part to refine and revise that, contrasting what you wrote down with the source material, then condensing it to include only the key parts. When it’s time to ponder, review the text, your summary, and your high-level notes as you develop additional research questions sparked by what you’ve read. This is when you can begin to make connections between the information and real-world applications. It’s only at this point that you lean on critical reading and reflection: Compare your encoding and annotation with the original text and consider whether you accurately identified the most critical themes and overall messages in your rewriting. In a sense, this is the reverse of methods like the aforementioned SQ3R or KWL. With those methods, you write down your questions before you start, then go hunting through the material for the answers. With REAP, since you don't have the context or knowledge to formulate questions, you have to go gather that before you can start pondering. Which of these reading techniques you use ultimately depends on how much you know going in. The REAP approach is a good one to start with before moving on to something more granular, like that SQ3R method. It lets you familiarize yourself with the full body of text instead of immediately focusing on the nitty-gritty of subheadings and tables. This helps you grasp the overarching meaning before you dive into the weeds. For maximum retention, next try going back through the text and employing a critical reading technique like THIEVES to extract every relevant detail. View the full article

Nestle will cut 16,000 jobs, new CEO Philipp Navratil said on Thursday, as the world’s largest packaged food company seeks to cut costs and win back investor confidence. The jobs being cut represent 5.8% of Nestle’s around 277,000 employees. Navratil said Nestle had raised its cost savings target to 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.77 billion) from 2.5 billion francs by the end of 2027. U.S. import tariffs are a headwind for Nestle, despite the bulk of the company’s U.S. sales being manufactured locally, while food producers across the board are grappling with fragile consumer confidence and changing habits as people seek to eat more healthily. “The world is changing, and Nestle needs to change faster,” Navratil said. UNPRECEDENTED MANAGEMENT TURMOIL Nestle, whose shares leapt by around 8% in early trading, has experienced an unprecedented period of managerial turmoil, with Navratil replacing Laurent Freixe, who was fired in September as chief executive over an undisclosed relationship with a direct report. Chairman Paul Bulcke then stepped down early to make way for former Inditex chief Pablo Isla two weeks later. Navratil said the 12,000 white-collar job cuts over the next two years, in addition to a further 4,000 headcount reduction as part of ongoing initiatives in manufacturing and the supply chain, were part of an efficiency push. ‘FUEL TO THE TURNAROUND FIRE’ The Swiss maker of KitKat chocolate bars, Nespresso coffee and Maggi seasoning has been fighting to reverse stalling sales growth and arrest a share price slide as it battles U.S. import tariffs, while costs have risen and debt levels have climbed, increasing pressure from investors. Nestle’s quarterly results “add fuel to the turnaround fire,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a note, naming the headcount reduction as a “significant surprise”. A 1.5% rise in real internal growth – a measure of sales volumes – in the third quarter, well above analysts’ expectations of a 0.3% rise, may offer Navratil breathing space as he looks to make his mark following his sudden promotion. Navratil said driving RIG-led growth was Nestle’s highest priority. “We are fostering a culture that embraces a performance mindset, that does not accept losing market share, and where winning is rewarded,” Navratil said. Strategic reviews of Nestle’s waters and premium beverages business and low-growth, low-margin vitamins and supplements brands are ongoing, the company said. NESTLE LEAVES 2025 GUIDANCE UNCHANGED The Swiss company maintained its 2025 outlook. It said organic sales growth should improve compared to 2024 and predicted the underlying trading operating profit margin, which excludes certain non-recurrent expenses, at, or above, 16%. For the medium-term, the forecast is at least 17%. The margin forecasts include the higher U.S. import tariffs on Swiss goods of 39%, that came into effect in August, Nestle said. The bulk of the 3 billion Swiss francs in cost savings is due to come in 2026-27, Nestle said, with 700 million Swiss francs in savings expected in 2025 as a whole. Organic sales, which exclude the impact of currency movement and acquisitions, rose 4.3% in the quarter, Nestle said, above analysts’ estimates for 3.7% growth. Quarterly sales growth was driven by pricing-led upticks in coffee and confectionery, but Greater China was a drag. CFO Anna Manz said Nestle had been too focused on driving distribution across China and not enough on building consumer demand. “So what you see in China is us correcting that and actually to consolidate our distribution and make it more efficient, while we build this consumer demand.” ($1 = 0.7955 Swiss francs) —Alexander Marrow, Reuters View the full article

In an era where economic uncertainty and global supply chain disruptions are commonplace, small business owners are continually seeking innovative solutions to enhance efficiency and adaptability. IBM’s recent alliance with S&P Global aims to provide exactly that with a powerful new tool: the integration of IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate agentic framework into S&P Global’s offerings. This collaboration aims to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle some of the pressing challenges faced by businesses today, particularly in managing supply chains, procurement, finance, and risk management. The partnership promises to deliver AI-driven insights that can help small businesses streamline operations and improve decision-making processes. The newly launched solutions will focus on enhancing visibility and insight into supply chain and vendor selection. By utilizing IBM’s advanced AI capabilities alongside S&P Global’s extensive data and analytics, small business owners can expect better outcomes in procurement strategies and risk management. Saugata Saha, President of S&P Global Market Intelligence, remarks, “By integrating IBM’s innovative AI capabilities with S&P Global’s distinctive data and analytics offerings, we are creating an exciting combination that is set to advance actionable insights and streamline workflows.” One significant advantage of this collaboration is the ability to utilize AI agents to connect various data sources to actionable insights, streamlining business processes. Rob Thomas, Chief Commercial Officer at IBM, emphasizes the need for this advancement, stating, “Supply chains have become increasingly global and complex, and AI agents can help businesses restore control.” For small businesses, effectively managing their supply chain is critical; even minor inefficiencies can lead to significant financial losses. The launch of new AI agents built specifically for S&P Global’s ecosystem is another notable aspect of this collaboration. These agents will focus on supply chain management first, but the plan includes expanding their functionality to finance and insurance. Business owners can look forward to utilizing these tools to expedite decision-making, ultimately driving greater efficiency. Moreover, the incorporating of S&P Global’s proprietary data, research, and analytics enhances the already robust features of IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate. With over 500 pre-built agents and tools available in its Agent Catalog, business owners can easily access and implement AI solutions tailored to their needs. However, as with any new technology, small businesses should consider potential challenges. The integration of AI into existing workflows may require careful planning and adjustments. Small business owners will need to weigh the costs of implementing these advanced solutions against the potential benefits. Additionally, depending on the size of the business and its specific needs, transitioning to an AI-driven approach may necessitate staff training or even a change in operations. Despite these challenges, the potential for improved efficiency and decision-making may outweigh the initial hurdles. Both IBM and S&P Global emphasize a commitment to providing AI-ready data designed for machine learning applications, which can enable faster model development and deployment. In a time when businesses must pivot and adapt to changing market dynamics, those that leverage cutting-edge technologies like AI will likely find themselves with a competitive advantage. Small business owners considering the integration of AI should first evaluate their specific needs and readiness for technology adoption. Ultimately, this collaboration between IBM and S&P Global sets a promising stage for small businesses to enhance their operations. By dispersing complex data into usable insights, small businesses can more effectively manage risk and seize new opportunities, leading to better strategic choices. For more detailed information on this collaboration, interested readers can visit the original announcement at IBM’s newsroom here. This article, "IBM and S&P Global Unite AI and Data to Revolutionize Supply Chains" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

In an era where economic uncertainty and global supply chain disruptions are commonplace, small business owners are continually seeking innovative solutions to enhance efficiency and adaptability. IBM’s recent alliance with S&P Global aims to provide exactly that with a powerful new tool: the integration of IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate agentic framework into S&P Global’s offerings. This collaboration aims to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle some of the pressing challenges faced by businesses today, particularly in managing supply chains, procurement, finance, and risk management. The partnership promises to deliver AI-driven insights that can help small businesses streamline operations and improve decision-making processes. The newly launched solutions will focus on enhancing visibility and insight into supply chain and vendor selection. By utilizing IBM’s advanced AI capabilities alongside S&P Global’s extensive data and analytics, small business owners can expect better outcomes in procurement strategies and risk management. Saugata Saha, President of S&P Global Market Intelligence, remarks, “By integrating IBM’s innovative AI capabilities with S&P Global’s distinctive data and analytics offerings, we are creating an exciting combination that is set to advance actionable insights and streamline workflows.” One significant advantage of this collaboration is the ability to utilize AI agents to connect various data sources to actionable insights, streamlining business processes. Rob Thomas, Chief Commercial Officer at IBM, emphasizes the need for this advancement, stating, “Supply chains have become increasingly global and complex, and AI agents can help businesses restore control.” For small businesses, effectively managing their supply chain is critical; even minor inefficiencies can lead to significant financial losses. The launch of new AI agents built specifically for S&P Global’s ecosystem is another notable aspect of this collaboration. These agents will focus on supply chain management first, but the plan includes expanding their functionality to finance and insurance. Business owners can look forward to utilizing these tools to expedite decision-making, ultimately driving greater efficiency. Moreover, the incorporating of S&P Global’s proprietary data, research, and analytics enhances the already robust features of IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate. With over 500 pre-built agents and tools available in its Agent Catalog, business owners can easily access and implement AI solutions tailored to their needs. However, as with any new technology, small businesses should consider potential challenges. The integration of AI into existing workflows may require careful planning and adjustments. Small business owners will need to weigh the costs of implementing these advanced solutions against the potential benefits. Additionally, depending on the size of the business and its specific needs, transitioning to an AI-driven approach may necessitate staff training or even a change in operations. Despite these challenges, the potential for improved efficiency and decision-making may outweigh the initial hurdles. Both IBM and S&P Global emphasize a commitment to providing AI-ready data designed for machine learning applications, which can enable faster model development and deployment. In a time when businesses must pivot and adapt to changing market dynamics, those that leverage cutting-edge technologies like AI will likely find themselves with a competitive advantage. Small business owners considering the integration of AI should first evaluate their specific needs and readiness for technology adoption. Ultimately, this collaboration between IBM and S&P Global sets a promising stage for small businesses to enhance their operations. By dispersing complex data into usable insights, small businesses can more effectively manage risk and seize new opportunities, leading to better strategic choices. For more detailed information on this collaboration, interested readers can visit the original announcement at IBM’s newsroom here. This article, "IBM and S&P Global Unite AI and Data to Revolutionize Supply Chains" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Who doesn’t love a little cinnamon sprinkled on their toast or oatmeal? Unfortunately, lovers of the spice now have more things to worry about. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded its list of ground cinnamon products to avoid over fears that they could contain elevated levels of lead. Here’s what you need to know about the latest cinnamon products the FDA is warning consumers to avoid. What’s happened? On October 10, the FDA updated its ongoing list of ground cinnamon products that consumers should avoid due to fears that the products may contain elevated levels of lead, which could be harmful. The most recent updates to the list of products are just the latest additions to a list that the agency originally published in July 2024. Since then, the FDA has added additional products to the list five times—two of those times being very recently, on October 8 and October 10. Upon publishing its original notice in 2024, the agency said that it had “determined that the ground cinnamon products listed in the table below contain elevated levels of lead and that exposure to these products may be unsafe.” These determinations were made after product testing by state programs that the FDA itself later confirmed. As a result of the findings, the FDA recommended that the firms involved should voluntarily recall the products—the list of which has consistently grown. What cinnamon products should I avoid? As of the time of this writing, the FDA lists 16 different cinnamon products consumers should avoid due to fears of elevated levels of lead. Those products include: DistributorRetailer(s)Lot Code(s)Brand Name(s)Lead Concentration (ppm)Singh Trading Inc. DBA Roshni Foods None listedUPC code: 6251136 034139 Best by date: BESTBY 020925Roshni2.268Haitai Inc. USA None listedUPC code: 6251136 034139 Best by date: BESTBY 020925HAETAE4.60EUREKA INC. U.S.A. Recall AnnouncementDistributed to grocery stores in California and Michigan from 08/24/2024 to 10/6/2025Batch No.: 06 B:02 UPC code: 6251136 034139 Best by date: May 2026Durra2.44SLR Food Distribution, Inc Recall AnnouncementDistributed to retailers located (New Jersey, New York, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Ohio) between 02/15/2024 and 06/28/2025UPC code: 0 688474 302853Wise Wife2.49Spicy World of USATAJ SUPERMARKETAF-CINP/822 Best by date: Best Before: July 2025Jiva Organics2.29IHA Beverage, Commerce, CA IHA Beverage Issues a Voluntary Recall of Super Cinnamon Powder 4oz Because of Lead ContaminationAsian Supermarket, Little Rock, ARNone listed Super Brand7.68 6.60Sands Impex Inc. Dba Asli Fine Foods Woodbridge, IL Asli Fine Foods . Recalls Asli Cinnamon Powder 7 oz Because of Possible Health RiskA&Y Global Market Columbia, MODDDLUS (Missouri)Asli2.32El Chilar Apopka, FL El Chilar HF, LLC. Expands Recall of El Chilar Ground Cinnamon Due to Elevated Levels of LeadEl Torito MarketD181EX0624 (Maryland) E054EX0225 (Maryland)El Chilar3.75 7.01Moran Foods, LLC Saint Ann, MO Colonna Brothers, Inc. Issues an Updated Voluntary Recall for Marcum & Supreme Tradition Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskSave-A-Lot Food Stores, Ltd.BEST BY: 12/05/25 12 D8 (Missouri) BEST BY: 12/05/25 12 D11 (Virginia)Marcum2.22 2.14Raja Foods LLC Skokie, ILPatel BrothersBatch No.: KX28223, Best Before October 2026 (Connecticut)SWAD2.89Greenbrier International, Inc. Chesapeake, VA Colonna Brothers, Inc. Issues an Updated Voluntary Recall for Marcum & Supreme Tradition Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskDollar Tree10A11, BEST BY: 10/06/25 (California)Supreme Tradition2.37MAMTAKIM, Inc., Elizabeth, NJ (importer)EurogroceryExp and Lot: 08 2024 L1803231 (Connecticut)Compania Indillor Orientale2.23ALB-USA Enterprises Inc., Bronx, NY ALB-USA Enterprises Recalls ALB Flavor Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskEurogroceryBest Before:30/08/2025 – LA02 (Connecticut)ALB Flavor3.93Advance Food International, Inc Advance Food International Inc. Recalls Shahzada Brand Cinnamon Powder 7oz Because of Possible Health RiskPremium SupermarketNone (New York)Shahzada2.03American Spices LLC, NY American Spices LLC. Recalls Spice Class Ground Cinnamon Because of Possible Health RiskFish WorldBest by: 12/2026 (New York)Spice Class2.04La Frontera ImportsFrutas Y Abarrotes Mexico, Inc.None (New York)La Frontera2.66 Images of the products can be found on the FDA’s notice here. Has anyone been harmed by consuming the designated products? As of the time of this writing, no one is yet known to have been harmed by consuming the listed products, the FDA says. However, it can take months or years to see the negative health effects of elevated levels of lead in the body. “Long-term exposure (months to years) to elevated levels of lead in the diet could contribute to adverse health effects, particularly for the portion of the population that may already have elevated blood lead levels from other exposures to lead,” the agency warns in its notice. The FDA goes on to explain that the adverse health effects of consuming lead-contaminated food vary depending on a number of factors, including the age of the person, the volume and frequency of lead exposure, and more. “The very young are particularly vulnerable to the potential harmful effects from lead exposure because of their smaller body sizes and rapid metabolism and growth,” the agency warns. “High levels of exposure to lead in utero, infancy, and early childhood can lead to neurological effects such as learning disabilities, behavior difficulties, and lowered IQ.” What are the consequences of lead exposure? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), exposure to lead in children can result in adverse effects, including: Damage to the brain and nervous system Slowed growth and development Learning and behavior problems Hearing and speech problems The CDC says this can lead to lower IQ, a decreased attention span ability, and underperformance in educational environments. “Lead exposure in children is often difficult to see,” the agency notes. “Most children have no obvious immediate symptoms. If parents believe their children have been exposed to lead, they should talk to their child’s healthcare provider.” What should I do if I have the listed cinnamon products? Ground cinnamon products last for years, which means consumers may have the products in their kitchen pantries and on their shelves, and may even have forgotten about them—and so people may not use the products until far in the future when they suddenly need the spice for cooking or baking. But the FDA is warning consumers to check their homes now and discard any of the products on the list, warning that “consumers should not eat, sell, or serve ground cinnamon products” the agency has identified as potentially having elevated levels of lead. View the full article

Ken McCallum says Chinese ‘state actors’ regularly present threats to UK national security View the full article

We’ve spent years as an industry obsessed with what people search for. Now, it’s time to be just as focused on where they search. Generative engine optimization (GEO) isn’t just another tactic – it’s a new lens, a new mindset that’s reshaping how we think about search, content, and customer discovery. This article will help you: Plan financially and strategically for GEO in 2026. Understand what it means for your team, your content, your data, and, most importantly, your audience. Follow the user: From what to where Search isn’t a single destination anymore. It’s a journey made up of moments, typed, spoken, tapped, prompted. Over the past nine months, we’ve been tracking how people search, and one thing’s obvious: Google is still king with 417 billion searches per month. ChatGPT alone is processing 72 billion messages a month. And we’ve seen that users under 44 use, on average, five platforms to search. From TikTok to ChatGPT to review sites and Reddit, discovery is diversifying, and your strategy must follow. The most exciting aspect of this is that it is still in its early days. You have the opportunity to lead, but you need to be willing to adapt. Why multi-platform searching offers such an opportunity The mere exposure effect shows us that familiarity builds trust. If your audience sees your brand in multiple, relevant touchpoints, your perceived credibility increases, even before they land on your site. But that can’t happen if your strategy still treats search as a single-channel activity. So, where to begin? Start with audience research – deep, layered, and behavior-led. Combine surveys, social listening, focus groups, and analytics to find out: Where your audience is searching. What they’re trying to do. What motivates them in that moment. Map against four core human search drivers: Fact-finding: Rational, objective answers. Crowd-sourcing: Validation from peers and communities. Taste-tuning: Inspiration that fits their identity. Habit-driven: Shortcuts based on trust and familiarity. If your budget planning doesn’t start with this understanding, you’re essentially building a strategy in the dark. Rethink ranking: Optimize your search real estate The SEO industry has rightly been fixated on AI Overviews, but many brands are missing the wider picture. Search real estate has never been more diverse, with images, sitelinks, video carousels, reviews, forum answers, shopping links, and AI-powered responses all competing for attention. We need to think beyond ranking and instead focus on occupying the spaces where our audience is actively looking for reassurance, answers, or inspiration. Here’s a simple content format framework to cover the full spectrum of search intent: Shape perspectives: Opinion-led, expert content Mindset: Curious, reflective, exploring ideas. Brand opportunity: Build thought leadership and spark category conversations. Example formats and platforms: Opinion pieces, newsletters, blogs – X, Medium, Threads. Inspire and engage: Short-form and visual, emotionally resonant Mindset: Seeking emotion, identity, and connection often through entertainment. Brand opportunity: Build affinity through authentic, visual storytelling. Example formats and platforms: Short-form video, UGC, reels – TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts. Inform and reassure: Long-form, detail-rich content Mindset: Seeking facts, clarity, and confidence before deciding. Brand opportunity: Build trust with expertise and transparency. Example formats and platforms: Guides, FAQs, whitepapers – Google, Bing, specialist AI tools. Simplify and empower: Explainer and how-to formats Mindset: Wants practical help and easy steps to act. Brand opportunity: Remove friction with visual learning and demonstration. Example formats and platforms: How-tos, demos, webinars – YouTube, LinkedIn Live. Your GEO budget should be allocated across all these types of content, not just to rank but to show up where your audience is looking in the format that suits their mindset. Dig deeper: GEO and SEO: How to invest your time and efforts wisely Build and expose your entity authority In a GEO-led world, your brand needs to be understood, not just crawled or linked to. Large language models (LLMs) don’t see your brand the way a search engine does. They need structured clarity to learn who you are, what you do, and why you’re credible. That means treating your business like an entity: Brand. People. Products. Expertise. Processes. Yes, most businesses already have some of these assets, like author bios, about pages, product descriptions, and awards, but they’re often fragmented or buried. Here’s the behavioral point: humans (and machines) trust logic they can see. Your internal recommendation engine? Your customer support process? Your buying guide? If any of this logic lives in code or internal tools but never gets surfaced, LLMs and users can’t trust what they don’t understand. So make your decision-making visible: Use “How we choose” content. Add explainer videos or structured markup. Link related resources in a way that mimics how your business and team think, not just how your website flows. Create transparent, traceable journeys that allow both users and machines to understand your brand’s logic, not just your pages. Invest in trust and credibility We’re not in the game of chasing algorithms. We’re in the business of earning trust, and GEO makes that more important than ever. In 2026, E-E-A-T is going nowhere. It needs to be your strategic cornerstone. That means your budget should include: Always-on digital PR: Fresh mentions and citations in high-authority sources. Data storytelling: Reports, whitepapers, research built to be referenced. Customer review strategies: Reputation, sentiment, and response. Awards and accreditations: Third-party trust signals. Behavioral insight: To frame your messaging in line with audience values. Your digital PR strategy should be mapped like this: 45% always-on commentary and seasonal hooks. 30% evergreen assets that build over time. 20% integration with on-site content and schema. 5% experimentation (multimedia, partnerships, AI-native formats). Every campaign should answer the question: What would my audience type into Google, or ask an assistant, and would this be the answer they’d trust? If the answer is yes, you’re building GEO-ready content. Dig deeper: How multimodal discovery is redefining SEO in the AI era Think about the messenger Once you know what to say and where to say it, the final piece of the trust puzzle is who says it. It’s not enough to understand where to show up and what to say. You also need to think about who has the best voice. There is a behavioral bias known as the messenger effect, which means humans evaluate information based on the source. This offers a huge opportunity when we consider who should say what for our brand. There are four key voices to consider: Brand: Your voice What you stand for and want to be remembered for. UGC: Their voice What your audience is saying and sharing about you. Influencer: A trusted voice People who add credibility and humanize your brand story. Media: An amplified voice
 Platforms and publications that extend your reach and authority. Planning this early in your strategy will ensure you have the budget available to get this bit right, alongside all of the other activities you need to cover. Dig deeper: Search behavior, decoded: What platform preference really tells us Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Rethink your reporting strategy The old saying still holds true: if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. But GEO visibility can’t be tracked with traditional SEO tools alone. Your budget may need to include: Tracking inclusion in AI overviews and assistant responses. Monitoring brand mentions and citations. Measuring entity performance through structured data. Analyzing sentiment and trust signals. Building internal systems for first-party behavioral data. As large language models index brands based on what they know, owning and understanding your data becomes a real competitive edge. And when you align that data with behavior, the insights get even more powerful. For example, wouldn’t you want to know how often your audience shares your brand through WhatsApp? With server log analysis, you can. That kind of visibility adds another layer of understanding around audience sentiment and journey. WhatsApp is just one piece of the discovery puzzle. Think about how often people turn to a group chat or community and ask, “Can anyone recommend a business for…?” Those conversations are search signals too – and they can show whether your strategy is truly working. Here’s the strategic takeaway: the more insight you have into how your audience behaves and where your brand is referenced, the better you can: Personalize experiences. Adapt your messaging. Automate intelligently. It’s worth noting that GEO tracking is still in its early days. The data available today is nowhere near what will emerge in the next few years. So, when investing in tools, do it wisely – the next great platform might not even exist yet. Also consider how frequently you need to report and to what depth, since the cost of data collection can rise quickly. Budget for people, not just platforms Let’s talk about the human side. GEO success depends not just on content or tools but also on cross-functional teams that integrate SEO, PR, content, data, and behavioral insight. Most businesses will need to increase their: Talent budget: Hiring hybrid thinkers who understand search, AI, and behavior. Training budget: Raising digital and behavioral literacy across departments. Culture budget: Breaking down silos and encouraging co-creation. You can’t assume audience understanding. You need people or partners who understand how humans search and how machines learn. That only happens when you invest in capability building, not just campaigns. Dig deeper: How to keep your SEO skills sharp in an AI-first world Build a GEO-aligned budget structure Traditional SEO budgets were split across: Technical SEO. Content. Digital PR (with a focus on links). But that’s not enough anymore. Here’s a more aligned budget framework for GEO: AreaApprox. %FocusCore SEO40%Maintain and evolve technical and content foundationsDigital PR / E-E-A-T25%Authority, mentions, trustData and reporting20%Insight, attribution, and entity trackingTraining10%Cross-skill development and team integrationInnovation5%New formats, platforms, AI-native content This isn’t about cutting your SEO budget – it’s about reframing what visibility means and where it happens. Most brands will end up spending more, not less, but through a broader, cross-platform lens. Use your audience insight to prioritize We’ve covered a lot – and there’s plenty to consider, especially as search becomes increasingly multi-platform. You might be thinking, I don’t have the budget to do everything, and that’s okay. Your audience insight should guide what comes first. If you’ve done the groundwork, you should already know: Which platforms matter most based on search volume. Why your audience turns to each platform and what motivates them. The types of content that fit each context and mindset. Which messengers or voices carry the most influence at each stage. With that understanding, your goal is to cover enough ground to build real relationships – not just show up for the conversion moment. The marketing funnel still exists, but it’s evolved into what Google once called the messy middle. That means you need different content variations across the journey, not just at the end when someone’s ready to buy. Every part of your strategy should operate as a test-and-learn plan. Keep assessing what’s working and what isn’t – but first, define what good looks like. Success won’t always mean volume. Sometimes it’s engagement depth, share of voice, or sentiment shift. And don’t lose sight of your competitors. Right now, there’s more opportunity to lead than we’ve seen in years of traditional SEO. Spot the gaps, act early, and your brand will be the one setting the pace, not catching up. Dig deeper: The fractured future of search: New rules for SEO in the AI age Design for discovery – everywhere We haven’t stopped Googling – but we’ve started seeking answers in more places, and with different expectations. Users now want faster validation, clearer signals, and richer content. Sometimes they want a chatbot, sometimes a TikTok, sometimes a thread – sometimes all three. That’s why GEO matters. It’s about being found by the right person, in the right place, at the right time, with the right content. As you plan for 2026, ask: Do we understand our audience’s motivations? Are we showing up everywhere they search? Are we building trust across every stage of the journey? Are we giving our teams the tools, time, and trust to deliver? Visibility in 2026 won’t come from gaming the system. It will come from understanding the human behind the query – and showing up with something truly helpful. The future is search everywhere optimization. View the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. For a while there, the “blurting” method of note revision was all over TikTok, making it somewhat of a studying trend. Whether or not it's still popular on social media is irrelevant; it's still a solid retention technique that can help you entrench information in your long-term memory. There are actually two ways to blurt when you’re studying, and both are helpful for retrieval practice and overall retention—but only if you’re doing them instead of scrolling, so read this, put your phone down, and get at it. How to blurt some study notesOne way to blurt when you study is by reading through your notes and materials, then putting them away and grabbing a blank sheet of paper. From there, you write down everything you can remember about the subject, which enhances your use of active recall to retrieve the information from your memory. Don’t worry about how long it takes you the first time. Instead, focus on getting every detail you can remember onto the page. When you’re done, go through your notes and materials again to identify anything you forgot to include, then write that information on the blurting page, using a different colored pen. (The colors you use when note-taking are more important than you might realize.) Don’t be discouraged by anything you forgot to include; this is helpful for identifying the concepts you grasp and the ones you need some extra practice with. You can repeat this process every time you review your notes or add to them, strengthening your memory’s grip on the new information and training yourself to retrieve it when you need it. This will make test-taking a breeze when the time comes. How to blurt out loudThe second way to go about blurting actually involves, well, blurting. Instead of writing down everything you can remember, try saying it out loud. Make a voice note instead of written ones, tapping into the production effect to entrench the information in your brain. When you’ve exhausted everything you can say on the topic, go back and give it another listen while you go through your notes, paying attention for anything you might have missed. Re-record yourself sharing all the information you could remember and whatever you forgot to say. Eventually, you’ll create a complete “personal podcast” that will be helpful for your studies. You can listen to the full voice note wherever you are, reaping the memory benefits of not only speaking out loud, but hearing the information over and over again. When to mix in some blurtingThis is a solid approach on its own, as it allows you to check, in real time, how much you're retaining. But you can mix it in with other study methods, packing more of a punch. Blurting is a helpful component of dual-coding, or combining verbal and visual cues while you study. Try blurting with visuals instead of written explanations, creating a timeline or diagram from memory before checking your recall against your notes or text. Just make sure you leave spaces in your visuals so you can easily fill in anything you forgot during the blurt. During a SQ3R studying session—where you write down ideas and questions to look for as you read, then review them—you can use blurting as part of the recitation section (the "R" in SQ3R). If you're committing to an overlearning model, which is when you review something until it's absolutely second nature, try adding blurting into your weekly review. The best part of this is it can be combined with other approaches or just whipped out on its own for a quick brain refresh. TikTok trends come and go, but a quality study method is forever. View the full article

Microsoft has added support for the data-nosnippet HTML Attribute for Bing Search. This was previously not supported but yesterday, Microsoft announced it is "introducing the data-nosnippet HTML attribute."View the full article

Team to join multinational task force despite long-running tensions between two countriesView the full article