2026 has been a 'devastating year' for Switzerland's glaciers - with several lost forever, study warns
This year has been 'devastating' for Switzerland's glaciers, scientists from ETH Zurich have warned.
Google Unveils Gemini 4 Argon, Retaking Benchmark Lead Over OpenAI and Anthropic
Google has unveiled Gemini 4 Argon, a new frontier AI model that it says leads or ties rivals on 13 of 18 disclosed benchmarks. The model is initially being released only to trusted cyber defenders and select pre-release testers, with broader availability planned later. VentureBeat reports: Google is not claiming that Gemini 4 Argon wins every benchmark. But across the benchmark table disclosed in the company's embargoed materials, Argon posts the highest score, or ties for the highest score, in more categories than GPT-6 Astra or Claude Opus 5.5. Across the 18 benchmarks Google disclosed, Argon leads outright on 12 and ties for first on one. GPT-6 Astra leads outright on three and ties Argon on one. Claude Opus 5.5 leads outright on two. That makes Argon the leading frontier model by total number of benchmark leads or top scores in Google's comparison set, even though the results show a still-close race in which OpenAI and Anthropic retain advantages in several important technical categories.
[...] The result is a more nuanced claim than "best model across the board." Argon appears to have the broadest top-score profile among the three frontier models in Google's disclosed comparison, but GPT-6 Astra remains ahead in several software, science-terminal and computer-use tasks, while Claude Opus 5.5 remains ahead in terminal-agent and post-training workflows. For enterprise buyers, that means model choice is still workload-dependent, even if Argon now gives Google its strongest claim yet to overall frontier leadership by benchmark count. [...] Argon also expands Google's output ceiling. The company says the model supports an industry-leading 1 million output tokens, up from a previous 64,000-token limit. That is a notable distinction for agentic software engineering, audit, migration and legal-review workloads where the value of a model often depends on how long it can sustain a chain of work before handing control back to a human.
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Paedophile fireman with up to 20 aliases walks free from court after breaching sexual harm order for the 12th time
Jason Brown escaped jail, receiving a suspended sentence and a £500 fine for breaching a sexual harm prevention order, despite repeatedly changing his name to hide his criminal past.
Cristiano Ronaldo WALKS OUT on Portugal: Star, 41, leaves camp after missing training again amid row with manager and vows to 'tell the truth' in cryptic statement
Cristiano Ronaldo has sensationally left Portugal's training camp amid a dispute with manager Jorge Jesus.
Man City's major sponsor Etihad considers legal action against Premier League after claims the airline was at the centre of 'sham' sponsorship deals
MIKE KEEGAN: Etihad Airways - the principal sponsor of Manchester City - is considering legal action against the Premier League after it was implicated in its bombshell ruling.
Moment Hamas-supporting asylum seeker who called for death to Jews gets British teens to chant 'Free Palestine' - as he is moved from taxpayer-funded house
Small boat migrant Abu Wadee, 34, has left the taxpayer-funded home in Corby, Nottinghamshire, where he had been placed by the Home Office amid ongoing outcry over his presence in the UK.
Are you watching Streeting? Putin's war chest to rise to record 35% of state budget by next year as he slashes welfare, education and healthcare to fund 17.1trillion ruble (£154bn) military
Vladimir Putin has sent a message to dithering UK ministers by increasing Russian defence spending to a record 35 per cent of the Kremlin's overall budget.
Jennifer Lopez tells paparazzi to 'relax' and 'stop acting crazy' in tense Paris exchange
The 57-year-old was stepping out in the French capital for Fashion Week, during which she has attended shows by such brands as Stella McCartney.
Economics on the stage? It sounds dry but this adds up to a night of frolicsome fun: PATRICK MARMION reviews The Standard Of Living
They are peddling a very rare commodity at the Theatre Royal in London's West End: Optimism.
'Xbox Is Not For Sale,' Says Microsoft's Gaming Chief
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says Microsoft has no plans to sell the gaming business, telling The New York Times that "Xbox is not for sale" and that the company intends to take a long-term view. Windows Central reports: Microsoft's vast layoffs across the summer have hit Xbox in their thousands, with studios like Ninja Theory on the path to being closed, and others like Double Fine being divested completely. Microsoft has effectively shut down Halo Studios itself and handed off the franchise to Call of Duty showrunners instead, as Xbox aggressively seeks to restructure for its next decade.
[...] The NYT interviewed (paywall) Sharma recently covering the Xbox layoffs generally. The outlet said that Asha "did not stall" in declaring Xbox not-for-sale. "Xbox is not for sale. [...] We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that. [...] We've got a long way to go with Microsoft and we're going to take the long-term view."
The NYT quite patronizingly called the comment a "bob and weave" seemingly unwilling to let go of the idea of divestiture. It's great shareholder bait; Xbox has long been an aspirational type of product, and it has been a loss leader in some regards. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has remarked in the past about how, despite the fact Xbox isn't a huge profit generator, fandom of the brand has led to lucrative deals for Azure on the business side of things. Yet, shareholders would love nothing more than for Microsoft to quit the difficult and risky game industry to dive all-in on AI psychosis products instead...
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New electoral system 'opens door to racist, bigoted, eccentric' candidates, Chancellor warns
As Andy Burnham looks to rip up the current rules, it has emerged that John Healey said axeing the first-past-the-post model could hand more power to fringe parties under an 'unfair, perverse' system.
A pathologist who talks to corpses, and a plot full of inexplicable holes: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews ITV's Winter
We're all hypocrites, of course. We can't get enough of corpses, in cosy murder mysteries, on true-crime podcasts and in brutal noir detective serials.
Irony alert: OpenAI whines that Chinese model stole its special IP that it stole from everybody else
US model makers can train on web data - but distilling theirs is a 'national security risk'
Sheridan Smith's BBC drama The Cage is axed after just one series despite her 'superb' performance and 3million viewers
Sheridan Smith's BBC drama The Cage has reportedly been axed after just one series.
New images reveal damage to Nicolas Cage's $10.5million Malibu home three weeks after massive sinkhole struck
A large sinkhole swallowed up Cage's driveway, a fence, portable restroom, and a portion of the adjacent street three weeks ago.
Chad Lowe supported by friends Cary Elwes and Marlee Matlin after announcing daughter Fiona's death at 13 and sharing suicide hotline
Lowe, the younger brother of Hollywood star Rob Lowe, shared Fiona with his wife Kim Painter. They are also parents to daughters Mabel, 17, and Nixie, 10.
Hot Dog! America's new chatbot is packed with wieners
Just ask America.gov and you'll receive a favorite July 4th food.
Macklemore sidekick reveals what REALLY happened when rapper sparked cries of antisemitism for jumping on stage with a fake hooked nose... years before his Ed Sheeran debacle
The outspoken Seattle musician sparked widespread fury when he popped up on stage wearing a fake hooked nose, black beard and black hat more than a decade ago.
Hackers Stole Millions of US Military Personnel Records During Months-Long Data Breach
A months-long breach of the Defense Manpower Data Center exposed personal information belonging to roughly 2.8 million living current and former U.S. military personnel and staff, plus records for nearly 300,000 deceased people. Attackers reportedly exploited a file-sharing vulnerability between October 2025 and July 2026, accessing unencrypted records that included Social Security numbers, dates of birth, demographic information, and military service details. TechCrunch reports: The DMDC may not be widely known to the general public, but serves as one of the Department of Defense's records-keeping units. The DMDC maintains over 60 million records for U.S. military and civilian staff and their family members to help determine benefits and entitlements, such as healthcare and retirement. The unit also provides a critical service as the military's "leading identity management provider," which links active service members, employees, and contractors to credentials, such as smart cards and passwords. These are used to access Pentagon computer systems, buildings, and bases.
"We make sure that the right people get access and the wrong people don't: security of identity information is paramount," the DMDC's website reads. The Department of Defense, which oversees the DMDC, said it does not have any indication that the information was misused, but did not say how it reached that conclusion. TechCrunch contacted a Pentagon spokesperson to ask if officials had any communications from the hackers, whose identities are not known, but we did not hear back.
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YouTube lunatic designed and 3D printed a working mechanical calculator
If you can't afford a Curta, we still don't recommend trying this: It'll eat up months of your life and all the filament you have