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Tech Wrap July 22: Pixel 10 series, ASUS Vivobook 14, WhatsApp on Windows

Tech Wrap July 22: Pixel 10 series, ASUS Vivobook 14, WhatsApp on Windows

Google Pixel 10 series India launch. ASUS launches Vivobook 14. WhatsApp on Windows. Apple's new AI models. Acer Predator Helios Neo 16, 16s launched. Chrome on iOS update. Xbox PC app update.
Tech Wrap July 22
BS Tech New Delhi
Google sets Pixel 10 series India launch for Aug 21, previews Pixel 10 Pro
Google has announced that the Pixel 10 series will debut in India on August 21, a day after the global 'Made by Google' event. In advance, the company has shared a first look at the Pixel 10 Pro in a new shade, likely named 'Moonstone,' through an email to Google Store subscribers.
ASUS has launched the Vivobook 14 (X1407QA) powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor. The device features a 14-inch display with a 1900 x 1200 resolution and 60Hz refresh rate. Designed as an AI-powered PC, it includes a 180-degree hinge allowing the laptop to open flat.
Meta is reportedly revamping WhatsApp for Windows by replacing the current native app with a version based on a web wrapper. According to The Verge, this new beta version utilizes Microsoft's Edge WebView2 technology, pointing toward a shift to a browser-based interface.
During WWDC 2025, Apple introduced upgraded AI models designed to run Apple Intelligence features on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. These include both device-based and cloud-supported models. Apple has also released a technical document—"Apple Intelligence Foundation Language Models Tech Report 2025"—detailing model functionality and data sources.
Acer has introduced two new additions to its gaming laptop range in India—the Predator Helios Neo 16 and 16S—on July 22. Both laptops are equipped with Intel Core Ultra 9 processors and can be configured with up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti GPUs. As per Acer, the models cater to gamers, content creators, and professionals who demand high performance and enhanced gaming capabilities. These laptops include the PredatorSense utility hub, which enables users to monitor system health, apply AI-based optimisations, and access overclocking functions via a dedicated Copilot key.
Google has rolled out an update to Chrome for iOS, making it easier for users to toggle between personal and work Google accounts without needing to sign out. The update, outlined in a blog post, aims to streamline multitasking and maintain security by keeping professional data separate from personal use.
Microsoft has introduced new features to the Xbox PC app for Insider Programme users, enabling them to view gameplay history across platforms—including cloud titles not natively supported on PC. The update aligns with Microsoft's ongoing initiative to deliver a cohesive Xbox experience across devices.
An AI-powered coding platform, Replit, reportedly deleted its own production database during a code freeze, drawing widespread concern. First reported by Tom's Hardware, the incident involved an AI agent on the platform not only erasing critical data but also trying to hide the action, sparking a public response from the company.
Motorola is preparing to reintroduce the Moto 360 smartwatch in 2025, as per Android Headlines. The upcoming version is expected to feature a hybrid dual-OS setup—Wear OS for smart functionalities and a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) for power-saving mode—similar to recent OnePlus smartwatches, enabling longer battery life without sacrificing intelligence.
Samsung's Galaxy Watch 8 lineup is now available for purchase in India through Samsung's platforms. Debuted during the July 9 Galaxy Unpacked event, the new series offers improvements in design, wellness tracking, and AI integration. It also introduces Google's Gemini assistant to Samsung's smartwatch lineup, running on Wear OS 6 with One UI 8 Watch.
Samsung appears to be working on Galaxy Buds 3 FE, and alleged images of the earbuds have surfaced online. According to 9To5Google, tipster Evan Blass posted visuals that show a design closely resembling the premium Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, which launched last year.
Perplexity, a US-based AI firm, recently launched its AI browser 'Comet,' which uses "agentic AI" to interpret user intent and autonomously execute multi-step actions—like summarising content or booking services. Meanwhile, OpenAI's ChatGPT has introduced a smart shopping assistant that helps users compare products and make purchases online, bringing us closer to a new browsing experience. But how do AI browsers really differ from traditional ones like Chrome? Let's take a look.
AI models developed by Google and OpenAI have won gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad, achieving scores high enough to surpass the gold threshold for the first time. This marks a notable leap in AI's capacity to tackle complex mathematical problems, demonstrating progress toward more advanced intelligence.
Cybercriminals have exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft's SharePoint software to infiltrate government and corporate systems worldwide. Following reports from security experts, Microsoft issued a patch to fix the issue and stated that additional updates are still being worked on to counter ongoing threats.
Microsoft has issued an urgent patch to fix a critical flaw in its SharePoint software. According to the Associated Press, hackers were leveraging this vulnerability to attack enterprise and government systems. The company confirmed the existence of a zero-day exploit and provided manual patch instructions for affected SharePoint versions over the weekend
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The chatbot culture wars are here
The chatbot culture wars are here

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The chatbot culture wars are here

For much of the past decade, America's partisan culture warriors have fought over the contested territory of social media — arguing about whether the rules on Facebook and Twitter were too strict or too lenient, whether YouTube and TikTok censored too much or too little and whether Silicon Valley tech companies were systematically silencing right-wing voices. Those battles aren't over. But a new one has already started. This fight is over artificial intelligence, and whether the outputs of leading AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are politically biased. Conservatives have been taking aim at AI companies for months. In March, House Republicans subpoenaed a group of leading AI developers, probing them for information about whether they colluded with the Biden administration to suppress right-wing speech. And this month, Missouri's Republican attorney general, Andrew Bailey, opened an investigation into whether Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI are leading a 'new wave of censorship' by training their AI systems to give biased responses to questions about President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Trump himself joined the fray, issuing an executive order on what he called 'woke AI.' 'Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke,' he said in a speech. 'The American people do not want woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models, and neither do other countries.' The order was announced alongside a new White House AI action plan that will require AI developers that receive federal contracts to ensure that their models' outputs are 'objective and free from top-down ideological bias.' Republicans have been complaining about AI bias since at least early last year, when a version of Google's Gemini AI system generated historically inaccurate images of the American Founding Fathers, depicting them as racially diverse. That incident drew the fury of online conservatives, and led to accusations that leading AI companies were training their models to parrot liberal ideology. Since then, top Republicans have mounted pressure campaigns to try to force AI companies to disclose more information about how their systems are built, and tweak their chatbots' outputs to reflect a broader set of political views. Now, with the White House's executive order, Trump and his allies are using the threat of taking away lucrative federal contracts — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI were recently awarded Defense Department contracts worth as much as $200 million — to try to force AI companies to address their concerns. The order directs federal agencies to limit their use of AI systems to those that put a priority on 'truth-seeking' and 'ideological neutrality' over disfavored concepts such as diversity, equity and inclusion. It also directs the Office of Management and Budget to issue guidance to agencies about which systems meet those criteria. If this playbook sounds familiar, it's because it mirrors the way Republicans have gone after social media companies for years — using legal threats, hostile congressional hearings and cherry-picked examples to pressure companies into changing their policies, or removing content they don't like. Critics of this strategy call it 'jawboning,' and it was the subject of a high-profile Supreme Court case last year. In that case, Murthy v. 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This time around, the critics cite examples of AI chatbots that seemingly refuse to praise Trump, even when prompted to do so, or Chinese-made chatbots that refuse to answer questions about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. They believe developers are deliberately baking a left-wing worldview into their models, one that will be dangerously amplified as AI is integrated into fields such as education and health care. There are a few problems with this argument, according to legal and tech policy experts I spoke to. The first, and most glaring, is that pressuring AI companies to change their chatbots' outputs may violate the First Amendment. In recent cases like Moody v. NetChoice, the Supreme Court has upheld the rights of social media companies to enforce their own content moderation policies. And courts may reject the Trump administration's argument that it is trying to enforce a neutral standard for government contractors, rather than interfering with protected speech. 'What it seems like they're doing is saying, 'If you're producing outputs we don't like, that we call biased, we're not going to give you federal funding that you would otherwise receive,'' Genevieve Lakier, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said. 'That seems like an unconstitutional act of jawboning.' There is also the problem of defining what, exactly, a 'neutral' or 'unbiased' AI system is. Today's AI chatbots are complex, probability-based systems that are trained to make predictions, not give hard-coded answers. Two ChatGPT users may see wildly different responses to the same prompts, depending on variables like their chat histories and which versions of the model they're using. And testing an AI system for bias isn't as simple as feeding it a list of questions about politics and seeing how it responds. Samir Jain, a vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit civil liberties group, said the Trump administration's executive order would set 'a really vague standard that's going to be impossible for providers to meet.' There is also a technical problem with telling AI systems how to behave. Namely, they don't always listen. Just ask Elon Musk. For years, Musk has been trying to create an AI chatbot, Grok, that embodies his vision of a rebellious, 'anti-woke' truth seeker. But Grok's behavior has been erratic and unpredictable. At times, it adopts an edgy, far-right personality, or spouts antisemitic language in response to user prompts. (For a brief period last week, it referred to itself as 'Mecha-Hitler.') At other times, it acts like a liberal — telling users, for example, that human-made climate change is real, or that the right is responsible for more political violence than the left. 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These campaigns are designed to intimidate. And faced with the potential loss of lucrative government contracts, AI companies, like their social media predecessors, may find it easier to give in than to fight. 'Even if the executive order violates the First Amendment, it may very well be the case that no one challenges it,' Lakier said. 'I'm surprised by how easily these powerful companies have folded.'

iPhone 17 Pro: Apple to offer next-level camera experience with 3 BIG upgrades
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