All posts tagged: Doesnt

The man who built Apple’s stores doesn’t buy Silicon Valley’s bet on AI shopping

The man who built Apple’s stores doesn’t buy Silicon Valley’s bet on AI shopping

Published by skeptic

While Silicon Valley is spending billions to make AI agents shop for us, the man who pioneered Apple’s retail stores thinks the industry is overestimating how much of shopping people will hand over to machines — and believes physical stores will continue to thrive. Ron Johnson, 66, has heard predictions about the demise of physical retail before. He joined Apple in 2000 to build its retail business as online shopping was beginning to take off, and went on to help create a store network that became central to how Apple sells its products and connects with customers. “AI is a new technology that will improve the online shopping experience,” Johnson said in an interview. “But I don’t know that it’s going to change which way we shop.” Johnson’s view comes as some of the world’s biggest tech companies are trying to push AI deeper into shopping, betting that agents can automate more of how we find and buy items — a concept commonly called agentic commerce. Google is making that push with its Universal Commerce …

The Real Reason Organisational Change Doesn’t Stick

The Real Reason Organisational Change Doesn’t Stick

Published by Jenni Sidey

Why do some businesses thrive while others struggle? The strategy may be sound. The people can be bright. The effort is real. Yet, somehow, things don’t seem to move forward. In last month’s post, we explored why learning often fails to lead to behavioural change. The problem is that insight alone rarely changes behaviour. The same problem exists at an organisational level. Even after insight has landed, there is still work to do. Why do capable people and organisations still struggle to convert understanding into performance? Knowing What to Do Isn’t the Same as Doing It As we demonstrated last month, the problem isn’t necessarily knowing what to do; it’s understanding how to apply it. Access to information, particularly in business, is already broad given the number of business books and articles published every year. AI has accelerated that dramatically. Most of us can access strategies, ideas, frameworks, and user studies instantly. Knowledge no longer provides us with the edge it once did. The advantage increasingly lies with those who apply what they learn consistently, …

Chip Roy doesn’t want to regulate AI, says Congress should have oversight

Chip Roy doesn’t want to regulate AI, says Congress should have oversight

Published by Sam Flores

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a GOP House hardliner and proponent of limited government, said during a Friday appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he feels Congress has an oversight role to play when it comes to artificial intelligence. But that doesn’t necessarily means he thinks the legislature should demand regulation of the technology. “I don’t want to regulate anything,” Roy said. “I’m a free market conservative. I’m a limited government conservative.” Instead, Roy said, he’d be in favor of AI CEOs testifying at congressional hearings and explaining what they’re doing to address safety concerns. House Freedom Caucus member U.S. Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) speaks during a press conference regarding federal government spending on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 12, 2023. Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters “There’s a perfect role in our federal form of government, our republican form of government, for Congress to have these guys come tell us what they’re doing for something that’s so pervasive,” Roy said. Roy, who will leave the House at the end of this year after falling short in his …

My backup app doesn’t store a single byte of my data, and that’s exactly why I trust it

My backup app doesn’t store a single byte of my data, and that’s exactly why I trust it

Published by skeptic

Several backup services make it easy to hand over your files and let someone else handle the storage. You’re entrusting their safety to whoever is storing them, hoping they stay private. I’ve simply never liked this model. I wasn’t expecting Duplicati to be much different. In fact, after installing it and backing up my files, I went looking for them on my connected storage, expecting to find them sitting there. But I didn’t find anything that looked like them, and that absence is the entire reason Duplicati has become the backup tool I trust most. Related I don’t trust free backup apps, but this open-source one changed my mind Open-source backups with flexible storage, encryption, and efficient snapshots. My file left home and came back a stranger I backed up a photo, then went looking for it — and couldn’t find it Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOfCredit: Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf One of the first files I backed up was a photo. It felt like a basic file, but on my backup destination, instead of seeing what …

White House doesn’t want voters to see the real Trump

White House doesn’t want voters to see the real Trump

Published by Sam Flores

If there’s ever been anything Donald Trump loves more than gold, it’s a camera. The former reality TV host has willingly debased himself in a myriad of ways — doing an ad for Pizza Hut, shaving Vince McMahon’s head during a wrestling match, painful “acting” appearances in “Home Alone 2″ and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” — all to get a sweet, sweet dose of video proof of his existence. Right now Trump can’t stop begging for attention, even though it’s immensely damaging to his party’s midterm prospects. He forced the Republicans to throw him a two-day fake convention so he could give lengthy prime-time speeches. He holds frequent on-camera events in the Oval Office, forgoing the work of actual governance so he can be photographed sitting behind the Resolute Desk. “Sitting” may be the operative word here, because as much as Trump wants to be on camera, it’s increasingly obvious that the White House only wants that to be under controlled conditions, ideally with the president parked behind a desk. If he must stand …

Tesla’s new Roadster teaser hints at a ‘Cyber’ redesign it doesn’t need

Tesla’s new Roadster teaser hints at a ‘Cyber’ redesign it doesn’t need

Published by skeptic

Tesla will finally unveil its new Roadster on October 1, more than eight years after it first showed the car in 2017. And a teaser this weekend suggests the production version is getting Tesla’s “Cyber” design treatment. The teaser shows SpaceX cold gas thrusters firing out the back, and Elon Musk has promised “radical design changes.” But the Roadster never needed a redesign. It needed to ship. Tesla has been stuck in a design rut The 2017 Roadster was genuinely great. Low, clean, and fast, it still looks good eight years later. That’s the problem for Tesla: the best-looking car it has ever designed is nearly a decade old and never made it to production. Look at what came after. The Model Y arrived in 2020 and became the best-selling car in the world, but let’s be honest about what it is: a slightly taller Model 3 with a hatch. A great product. Not a design leap. Advertisement – scroll for more content Since then, it’s been all “cyber.” The Cybertruck. The Cybercab. The Robovan. …

Why £72 million doesn’t come for free – the risks to Reform UK of taking cash from mega-donors

Why £72 million doesn’t come for free – the risks to Reform UK of taking cash from mega-donors

Published by Sam Flores

British politics looks set to be dominated in the coming weeks and months by the £72 million donated to Reform UK. This is because, and there’s really no other way to cut the cake here, this is an astonishing amount of money. The donations to Reform came in the space of just one weekend – £36 million each from crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne. Delo has ties to Hong Kong, while Harborne – whose self-confessed “competitive spirit” prompted him to match the first donation – is based in Thailand. There’s a temptation to say I told you so (hands up if you were warning 18 months ago, as I was, about mega-donors). But it’s more important to think about what’s next – and the consequences for Reform of accepting these donations. Read more: Reform UK polling sting: why even small donations matter in politics these days Both donors have said they expect nothing in return. But in terms of the legality of the donations, the case is complex because of the representation of …

‘Parliament said no. The suffering doesn’t stop there’

‘Parliament said no. The suffering doesn’t stop there’

Published by Sam Flores

Author: Andrew Copson ‘For politicians, there may be another vote. For people like me, there may not be another time.’ Hannah Slater, a 38-year-old mother living with a terminal illness, put the stakes of today’s decision better than any speech in the chamber managed to. MPs have rejected the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. Hannah and everyone else who asked them for a choice now has to live with that refusal. What makes this harder to accept is that our analysis suggests there was no great ideological shift against assisted dying. Just five MPs moved from support to opposition, well short of the 12 needed to defeat the Bill. Yet 43 previous supporters abstained, more than enough to determine the outcome. Ahead of the vote, we knew that a visit to Ukraine, a wedding, and constituency commitments would keep supporters away. These were foreseeable absences. What confidence can people have in a Parliament where a decision of such consequence can turn on whether MPs can be physically present? Dying people have been denied …

Want to lower your risk of dementia? It doesn’t involve a blood test

Want to lower your risk of dementia? It doesn’t involve a blood test

Published by Sam Flores

By Lauran NeergaardAP Medical Writer  Sept. 14, 2026 6:44 PM PT WASHINGTON — New blood tests that might predict Alzheimer’s years before symptoms begin may sound tantalizing for people who worry about later-in-life dementia. But doctors say they aren’t quite ready yet — and besides, you can lower your risk without a test. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared four blood tests to help doctors diagnose whether Alzheimer’s — not another kind of dementia or something else — is behind someone’s memory problems or other cognitive symptoms. Some laboratories and online services offer their own tests. Faster diagnosis can help people with early-stage Alzheimer’s qualify for drugs that can modestly slow the worsening of their symptoms. Yet dementia specialists say people without symptoms also are seeking these tests, even though they’re neither approved nor recommended for them. For now, “the worried well should not be getting those tests” outside of a research study, stressed testing expert Nicholas Ashton of Arizona’s Banner Health. Instead, people should focus on potentially preventable brain risks. One large study found …

What Trump Doesn’t Understand About Xi

What Trump Doesn’t Understand About Xi

Published by Sam Flores

President Trump will host Xi Jinping for a state visit on September 24, once again putting his claimed bonhomie with the Chinese leader at the center of the relations between the two superpowers. But Trump’s insistence on the importance of this personal rapport shows just how little he understands his adversary. I have been studying Xi ever since he became China’s heir apparent, and I became an analyst at the CIA in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration. I spent years deciphering Xi for U.S. presidents as the intelligence community’s top expert on Xi. And I spent two years as the director for China at the National Security Council, where I staffed all of President Biden’s interactions with Xi and coordinated diplomacy with China across the U.S. government. For a decade now, Trump has oscillated between courting and skirmishing with Xi. After his first term, Trump called Xi a friend and described him as someone he knew well. His experience with Xi seems to have led him to believe that he has …