Drivers will be able to see live petrol prices on Google Maps for the first time from Thursday, in a move that will help motorists shop around for the cheapest fuel. Millions of motorists will be able to find the cheapest petrol and diesel prices by searching for a local forecourt in the Google app, in what could prove to be “a major development” in making fuel prices more fair, according to campaigners. The tech company will use data from the government’s Fuel Finder platform, which displays real-time prices at 99% of forecourts, to show Google Map users the cheapest in their local area. The Guardian
If you thought Windows Recall was creepy, buckle up. Microsoft is about to shoehorn even more AI into its desktop operating system, giving Copilot access to every file on your PC. But don’t worry, Redmond insists it’s totally secure and safe since the agents powering the functionality will run entirely on your PC — some of the time. Microsoft describes the new functionality, announced alongside a new Nvidia N1X powered Surface Laptop, as “hybrid intelligence.” The Register
Announced at Computex earlier this year, the is finally available for pre-order. The flagship laptop is powered by Nvidia’s RTX Spark SoC and is set to compete with Apple’s rumored MacBook Ultra. The Surface Laptop Ultra is currently available to pre-order through Microsoft’s official online store and select retailers worldwide. It starts at $2,599, with open sales beginning October 16.
Customers can get up to $1,000 cashback when trading in an eligible MacBook Pro while purchasing the Surface Laptop Ultra.
A £20 steak has traditionally cost £20 whether you order it at 1pm on a rainy Tuesday or 8pm on a packed Saturday – but AI is about to change that. Restaurants are being encouraged to embrace a more sophisticated form of dynamic pricing, using AI to work out how much customers are prepared to pay for dinner. Piemetrics, a technology business whose clients include Wagamama owner The Restaurant Group as well as London restaurants Soom and Barge East, has a stark message for restaurants: “Your menu is underpriced. Let’s fix that.” Telegraph
On 23 August, Cooper Freeman had no idea clouds above his head were being filled with a silver compound in order to cause rainfall. Neither did thousands of other residents in Homer, Alaska, who later discovered a start-up called conducted an experiment in that region using cloud-seeding technology. The company, based in El Segundo California, claims it produced 19 million US gallons of water in the sky in three hours. This approach to weather modification, now more than 80-years-old, involves using planes and drones to disperse compounds such as silver iodide into clouds to form ice crystals. BBC
The cutting-edge car du jour, even while very few will ever buy one, is a good index of what the world’s coming to. It’s a dress-for-the-job-you-want principle, on wheels: drive for the world you want to inhabit. That’s why when Tesla launched the Model X with a bioweapon defence mode (2016!), we should have been much more worried than we were, and it’s why the EV has a lot to say. “A new era,” the heritage carmaker calls it, and it’s not wrong.
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