To resolve the scaling bottlenecks and runtime errors caused by monolithic system prompts, engineering teams should treat prompts as build artifacts by modularizing instructions into reusable templates. By running these modular "skill files" through a transpiler, developers can enforce static validation, catch missing dependencies at build time, and integrate prompt generation directly into their CI/CD pipelines. This deterministic approach prevents code drift and ultimately establishes a safe framework where agents can propose updates to their own logic via standard pull requests.

Google Cloud has partnered with Parallel Web Systems to natively integrate Parallel's search infrastructure as a web grounding provider on the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. This integration enables developers to anchor their AI agents in verifiable, real-time web results, significantly improving factual accuracy for complex enterprise workflows. Additionally, the partnership offers expanded architectural flexibility, allowing users to programmatically extract, permanently cache, and process web data alongside other large language models.

Google Cloud API Gateway now offers a model routing feature in Public Preview, allowing developers to dynamically route traffic to models like Gemini, Claude, or OpenAI OSS-GPT without hardcoding endpoints or managing open-source proxies. Developers can easily configure these routing rules directly within their OpenAPI 3.x specifications by mapping virtual model names to specific backend targets on a shared host. Once deployed, the Gateway acts as a serverless ingress layer that accepts standard OpenAI-compatible requests, automatically transcodes the payload to the native schema of the target model, and routes the traffic on the fly.

Agent Plugins 1.0.0 is a new, vendor-neutral directory specification—backed by Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others—for packaging Agent Skills and MCP servers into a single portable unit. By standardizing the manifest (plugin.json) and utilizing a fixed directory layout, it eliminates the need for developers to maintain separate wrappers or configurations to support different AI coding agents and IDEs. Google has officially joined as a Core Maintainer and already rolled out support in the Agents CLI and Data Agent Kit, allowing developers to start building and distributing interoperable plugins today.

Google seems to be showing fewer and fewer PDF files, and when it does show PDF files, it seems not to show them from some pretty important sites, like IRS.gov, New York State, and some others. But in some cases we are seeing Google show PDF documents, without you having to explicitly filter for PDF file types.

This second installment explores how Ray’s higher-level libraries—Serve, Data, and Train—abstract the complexities of running AI workloads on Google's TPU slices. Ray Serve uses a simple topology configuration to correctly gang-schedule large multi-host models, while Ray Data eliminates data-loading bottlenecks by feeding accelerators directly with native JAX batches. Finally, JaxTrainer streamlines distributed training across TPUs by automatically handling cross-slice coordination, checkpointing, and fault tolerance.

Sony raises the Xperia 10 VIII to £549 while retaining much of the Xperia 10 VII's hardware. Here's what changed and what stayed the same.

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Apple may soon launch a new Mac mini with M5 Pro and M6 chips as local AI demand grows. Here’s what buyers should know before upgrading.

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Compare Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel software support, Android updates, security patches, and long-term value to see which phones age better.

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Password notebooks are making an unexpected comeback as infostealers and browser attacks revive debate over the safest way to store credentials.

The post The Password Notebook Is Back — but Is It Actually Safer? appeared first on TechRepublic.

Apple offers longer advertised ANC playback per charge, while Samsung gives Galaxy and Android users more sound controls and phone flexibility.

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New Zealand proposes an under-16 social media ban that could fine platforms up to 10% of global revenue and require stronger age checks for users.

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GitHub Copilot's coding agent can now use Microsoft Teams conversations as context to investigate software tasks, change code, and create pull requests.

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Uber faces a $966 million Dutch privacy fine over automated driver suspensions, raising questions about GDPR compliance and meaningful human oversight.

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Taiwan indicted nine people, including Nvidia and Super Micro staff, over an alleged scheme that diverted restricted AI servers to customers in China.

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Microsoft Teams is adding a policy that lets IT admins automatically block detected external meeting bots instead of relying on organizer approval.

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Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...

On WhatsApp, your conversations belong only to you and the people you’re talking to. It’s why we built end-to-end encryption by default, and it’s why we continue adding new ways to keep your account secure and in your hands. Here are a few we’ve been working on.

Two-Step Verification Is Setting Stronger

Two-step verification is an extra protection layer that helps prevent someone from taking over your account, even if they get a hold of your one-time passcode. Until now, it was a six-digit PIN, but we’ve upgraded it to a full password: longer, alphanumeric, and even with special characters to make it harder to guess. 

More Context Before You Pick Up

When you get a call from someone who isn’t saved in your contacts, a little context can help you decide whether to pick up. On Android, you’ll now see more information about a non-contact caller, like whether the number is from a different country and if you have any groups in common. Scammers rely on urgency — now you can take a beat with some more info before answering.

1 Billion People Are Using Passkeys

A passkey lets you log back into WhatsApp with your fingerprint, face ID, or screen lock code. It’s the fastest and most secure way to verify it’s really you, with no codes or PINs. More than a billion people have already set one up, and you can now add more than one passkey to your account if you use both Android and iOS devices. To get started, go to Settings > Account > Passkeys.

We’ll keep building tools that help you stay in control of your account and boost account security.

The post New Account Security Features for WhatsApp appeared first on Meta Newsroom.

Apple is testing an AI shopping assistant in the Apple Store app that can answer product, trade-in, payment, and order questions for select users.

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Tap into the power of OpenAI, Meta, Midjourney, and additional powerful AI models with 1min.AI.

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