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Claude can now build your dashboards

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:05:23 GMT

A month after OpenAI gave ChatGPT Work a data agent that builds dashboards, Anthropic on Thursday shipped its own version.

Claude Dashboards, now in beta, lets users build live dashboards to see the exact queries pulling the data and export those dashboards to popular business intelligence tools.

Dashboards connects to enterprise data sources such as Snowflake, Databricks, Amazon Redshift, and ClickHouse, among others.

In addition, Anthropic is also launching Claude Motion, which uses code to animate reports and charts, and Docs, Slides, and Design are now out of beta.

Live dashboards, visible queries

To get started with dashboards, users connect their data platforms of choice and describe what they want to know.

Clicking a number in any of these new dashboards brings up the query that produced it. Users who don’t want to read SQL can also ask Claude to explain the figure.

Dashboards work with Claude’s existing connectors, too, including Salesforce.

The company says Claude will refresh the dashboard as data changes, with a timestamp on each chart showing when it was last updated.

It’s worth noting that Anthropic isn’t positioning Dashboards as a replacement for business intelligence tools (though some users will surely use it this way). Its feature set can’t replace specialized BI tools, but users who want to dig deeper can move a dashboard into services like Grafana, Hex, Mixpanel, monday.com, Omni, PostHog, or Sigma.

Support for Looker, Perplexity, and Tableau is coming later.

Business definitions and permissions

It’s worth noting that Anthropic isn’t the first to market with this idea.

OpenAI’s Data agent, which launched about a month ago as a ChatGPT Work plugin, also lets users build similar dashboards and connects to enterprise data platforms like Redshift, BigQuery, ClickHouse, Databricks, MongoDB, Snowflake, and Datadog. Users can also build dashboards directly in Power BI, Tableau, ThoughtSpot, and other BI tools.

The list of supported vendors for OpenAI and Anthropic differs slightly, and OpenAI supports semantic layers like Databricks Genie Ontology, but the overall direction is essentially the same. Anthropic tells us that Claude Dashboards will also support these semantic models if they are exposed through a connector.

At the end of the day, both companies want to become more deeply entrenched in the enterprise — that’s where the money is, after all — and move beyond simply being token providers to higher up the enterprise productivity stack.

The warehouse vendors aren’t sitting idle, either.

Snowflake signed a $200 million deal with Anthropic in December 2025, but OpenAI’s Data agent announcement includes comments from product leaders at both Snowflake and Databricks. Both vendors also have their own natural-language analytics tools, Snowflake Intelligence and Databricks Genie.

According to OpenAI, Data agent queries respect the existing table, row, and column permissions of whatever account is connected.

Admins can let users share dashboards outside their organization, including via public links.

“Dashboards use the data access people already have. A dashboard starts private to you,” an Anthropic spokesperson told The New Stack. “When you share it, each viewer’s own connections run its queries by default, so people see only data they already have access to. On Enterprise plans, Dashboards is off by default until an admin turns it on in organization settings. On Team and Enterprise plans, dashboards stay inside the organization unless an owner turns on external sharing.”

Claude Motion skips video models

In a somewhat related move, Anthropic also launched Claude Motion, which can turn material such as a quarterly update or a chart from a board deck into a short animated clip.

Since Anthropic doesn’t have a video model, Claude does this by writing code to animate the user’s text, charts, and images. But that also makes this more flexible and users can easily edit the animations until they export them to an MP4.

Credit: Anthropic.

Developers have been building similar videos with Claude Code and frameworks such as Remotion and HeyGen’s open-source HyperFrames. Motion brings that workflow directly into Claude, and you can edit the finished clip in any video tool.

Motion is now in beta for Team and Enterprise customers.

Availability and enterprise controls

Dashboards is available in beta on Claude’s paid plans. Enterprise admins must enable both Dashboards and Motion.

Docs, Slides, and Design, meanwhile, will be enabled by default for Enterprise organizations on October 15. They’ve been available in beta inside Claude conversations since September 16. Anthropic says users have created more than 45 million documents, decks, and designs since then.

Artifacts, Anthropic’s term for the documents, decks, and dashboards Claude creates, now support customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK). Admins can control which artifact templates users see.

Users of the standalone Claude Design site, which launched in April, have until December 14 to migrate. Their chats and comments won’t transfer.

The post Claude can now build your dashboards appeared first on The New Stack.

Claude vs Gemini: Comparing Google Docs, Sheets and Slides

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:27:41 GMT

Claude now works inside Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. See how it compares with Gemini for editing, spreadsheets, presentations, and Workspace context.

The post Claude vs Gemini: Comparing Google Docs, Sheets and Slides appeared first on TechRepublic.

Microsoft just gave AI agents guardrails so they can't delete your files by mistake

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:27:09 GMT

AI agents are more capable than ever, and that is exactly what makes them a potential problem. Today, most AI agents have the same permissions and file access as you do, so one hallucination can wipe out an entire folder. Today, Microsoft announced that its fix, Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC), is now generally available. MXC isolates AI agents from the rest of your system, limiting the problems caused by accidents or malicious prompts.

ChatGPT Gets GPT-6 and New Intelligent UI With Visual Answers

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:26:14 GMT

OpenAI today introduced Intelligent UI, a new feature that will let ChatGPT answer questions with "fully interactive user interfaces." OpenAI says everyday answers will be more visual, and the feature will make it easier for users to understand complicated topics.

ChatGPT responses will include graphics, tappable buttons, forms, charts, diagrams, and other interactive experiences. Sample comparisons between GPT–5.6 and GPT–6 on OpenAI's website show more visuals in responses, an interactive recipe widget that can automatically tweak quantities based on guest count, checklists, integrated maps, and multiple-choice follow-up questions to narrow down results.

ChatGPT can quickly create tools to complete tasks, like a bill splitter, small games, and a calculator. GPT–6 is also able to start answering while it's still thinking for quicker responses.

According to OpenAI, Intelligent UI uses a library of native, streamable components with a compiler that processes the interface as the model generates it.

In addition to introducing Intelligent UI, OpenAI is expanding GPT–6 models to more users. GPT–6 with Intelligent UI is rolling out to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users today, and tomorrow, the rollout will expand to Free and Go tiers.

Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise users get GPT–6 Sol, while Free and Go tier users get access to GPT–6 Luna. GPT–6 is limited to the Chat tab, and the models for Work and Codex aren't changing.Tags: ChatGPT, OpenAI
This article, "ChatGPT Gets GPT-6 and New Intelligent UI With Visual Answers" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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HSBC to make 'deep, wide and brutal' UK wealth management job cuts in AI push

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:24:41 GMT

HSBC is planning to axe up to 70% of its UK financial advisors as part of swingeing cuts to its wealth management business driven by riding use of AI, according to the Financial Times.

Starbucks’ next big design move takes aim at its small-footprint stores

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 15:29:37 GMT

Starbucks says it plans to roll out a new concept for its cafés with a smaller physical footprint that still has seating to stay a while.

New Starbucks coffeehouses are getting smaller.

Mistral’s new AI tried to escape its test environment. In three weeks, anyone can download it

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:46:49 GMT

Mistral launched Large 4 on Tuesday, its first major model release since Medium 3.5 at the end of April and the company’s latest attempt to close the gap with China’s leading open-weight models.

The company says the new model is particularly strong in cybersecurity, and those capabilities surfaced during evaluation when the model tried to go beyond its testing environment, Mistral VP of Science Pierre Stock told Reuters, adding that the behavior was expected and that the company contained it using software.

The episode has not slowed Mistral’s release plans, and Large 4, nicknamed “Le Chonk” in a nod to the “Le Chaton Fat” meme about a fictional supersized Mistral model that spread across X and Reddit in June, is now in public preview through Mistral’s API, with cybersecurity experts and government authorities testing a version with fewer safety restrictions before the weights are published on October 27.

OpenAI and Anthropic have seen similar behavior while testing their most cyber-capable models and responded by restricting access. Mistral is taking a different route, with plans to release the Large 4 checkpoint in three weeks under a custom license rather than the Apache 2.0 license used for Large 3. Once the weights are out, developers control how the model runs and what safeguards they put around it.

Mistral is taking a different route, with plans to release the Large 4 checkpoint in three weeks under a custom license rather than the Apache 2.0 license used for Large 3.

One trillion, 49 billion active

Large 4 gets its one-trillion-parameter size from a sparse mixture-of-experts architecture that activates 49 billion parameters during inference, a significant step up from the 675 billion total and 41 billion active parameters in Large 3.

The company trained Large 4 from scratch in roughly two months on about 4,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell GPUs in its European data centers. Mistral has made a point of the relatively small training cluster, although comparisons with the largest U.S. labs are difficult when so little training compute is disclosed.

Its sparse architecture keeps inference compute down by activating only 49 billion of the model’s one trillion parameters, but serving the full checkpoint will still require a substantial multi-GPU setup.

Software engineering and cybersecurity are the main targets for Large 4, with financial analysis, satellite and aerial imagery, technical drawings and chip design among its other use cases. It takes multimodal inputs, produces text and supports more than 160 languages, including every official language of the European Union.

Open weights, no recall

Mistral’s case for open weights in cybersecurity rests on control. Security teams scanning code or testing systems can run into a hosted model’s safety restrictions, and OpenAI’s safety system is already cutting off API responses mid-task even as the company gives models more authority inside its own development workflow, including blocking code from merging when a vulnerability is found.

Mistral’s case for open weights in cybersecurity rests on control.

Running Large 4 on their own infrastructure lets teams set those restrictions themselves and keep sensitive code and data in-house. Stock made the other half of that argument to Journal du Net, noting that once weights are replicated across the internet, access can no longer be easily revoked.

DeepSWE scores need context

Mistral reports a 62% score on DeepSWE v1.1, just above the 61% it lists for GLM-5.3. However, the live DeepSWE leaderboard puts GLM-5.3 and Kimi K3 at roughly 69% with their best published configurations, while GPT-6 Astra, Gemini 3.8 Flash and Claude Opus 5 are around 74%.

The results are stronger elsewhere. Large 4 reached a 15% task-pass rate on Harvey’s Legal Agent Benchmark and 67% on Finch, where Mistral’s testing has it tied with DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 and ahead of GLM-5.3 at 65%. Independent results for those configurations aren’t yet available.

For now, those numbers make Large 4 look competitive without putting it at the top of the pack. We’ll all be eager to see what comes at the end of the month when developers can run Le Chonk outside Mistral’s API and see how much of that performance survives on their own workloads.

Large 4 reached a 15% task-pass rate on Harvey’s Legal Agent Benchmark and 67% on Finch, where Mistral’s testing has it tied with DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 and ahead of GLM-5.3 at 65%.

The post Mistral’s new AI tried to escape its test environment. In three weeks, anyone can download it appeared first on The New Stack.

Putin clears UniCredit Russia restructuring ahead of proposed sale

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:39:58 GMT

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved the restructuring of Italian lender UniCredit’s domestic subsidiary.

The decision was revealed in official documentation, paving the way for the sale of the resulting spin-off.

The group announced in May a preliminary accord to divest sections of its Russian banking arm to an unnamed “well-established private investor” in the UAE, while preserving solely its local payment processing activities.

Under this plan, the Russian unit will be partitioned, allowing UniCredit to retain full control of the payments division as the UAE buyer purchases the balance of the business.

Financial terms of the transaction were not made public.

UniCredit anticipated completing the divestment in the opening half of 2027, conditional upon receiving the necessary official clearances.

The lender’s Russian branch caters to individual and corporate customers.

Alongside Austria’s Raiffeisen and Hungary’s OTP, UniCredit has stood as one of the principal Western institutions operating in Russia, maintaining a presence following the conflict in Ukraine despite demands from European supervisors to disengage.

Fellow Italian institution Intesa Sanpaolo, which conducts only corporate operations in the country, obtained equivalent presidential clearance in September 2023 without subsequently severing its Russian ties.

Separately, Hungary’s OTP Bank is currently reviewing withdrawal options from the Russian territory as regulators assess its footprint during a bid to acquire Baltic financial group Luminor Bank, according to Bloomberg.

In February this year, Citi completed the sale of its former Russian subsidiary, AO Citibank, to Renaissance Capital, marking the bank’s full withdrawal from Russia.  

Meanwhile, in April, ING called off the planned disposal of ING Bank (Eurasia) JSC to Global Development JSC. 

The bank said it ended the agreement after concluding there was no credible prospect of the purchaser securing the required clearances.

How to disable or restrict your iPhone's Apple Intelligence features

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 05:07:40 GMT

You have a lot of control over AI on your iPhone.

Metallica Make Metal History at Las Vegas Sphere - Setlist, Video

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 16:17:21 GMT

Vegas has never been louder. Continue reading…

‘Halo’ and the missed opportunity for the Mac

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:21:03 GMT

Macworld

Halo, officially known as Halo: Combat Evolved, was released for the Xbox in 2001. It’s regarded as the game that perfected the first-person shooter on the console, after GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 had provided the first successful blueprint four years earlier. Yet things could have turned out very differently.

Originally, Halo was unveiled for the Mac at Macworld Expo in July 1999. Alongside other titles, Halo was set to become a flagship for gaming on the Mac. This was no coincidence: the developer, Bungie had made a name for itself on the Mac in previous years with Marathon and Myth. Gaming on the Mac wasn’t exactly a novelty back then. And so Jason Jones, co-founder of Bungie, presented the first gameplay footage of Halo, complete with Martin O’Donnell’s now-iconic theme tune, on a Mac, specifically, the Power Macintosh G3.

Jones was introduced by Steve Jobs himself, who also announced that Halo would be released “early next year,” (early 2000). But things turned out differently.

27 years on, the first gameplay footage from ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ seems almost prehistoric. Microsoft buys Bungie

At the same time, Microsoft was planning something quite different. In PC gaming, Apple’s direct competitor had long since established itself and was setting its sights on game consoles. Microsoft wanted to shake up that market, which at the time was dominated by Nintendo, Sony (PlayStation) and, to a lesser extent, Sega (Dreamcast). To succeed, the company had to win gamers over to its platform and offer an attractive game library featuring top-class titles at the console’s launch.

The unveiling of Halo at Macworld Expo came at just the right time. On the one hand, the title promised to breathe new life into the first-person shooter genre; on the other, it was backed by a team that, whilst not as large or well-known as id Software (Doom, Quake), nevertheless already had a solid portfolio to its name. So Microsoft bought Bungie, along with Halo, and the game was not released for the Mac and only for the Xbox in late 2001.

Halo: Combat Evolved did eventually come out for the Mac in 2003, but no further Halo installment has since made it onto an Apple platform natively, even though the series was originally intended for it. You can only play all the titles on Apple devices via the cloud, but to do so you’ll need either Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now. At least that means you can even play Halo on your iPhone.

The best for (almost) everyone

Halo could have given Mac gaming the boost it needed, but Apple’s gaming dilemma is of its own making. One game wouldn’t have made any difference. It would also be presumptuous to believe that Halo alone could have elevated the platform to a relevant level. After all, many other games–some of which were already better known at the time–were announced back in 1999.

Looking back, Microsoft’s acquisition of Bungie was a great success. Microsoft managed to break into the console market and took Sega’s place, whose Dreamcast flop in 2001 also sealed the company’s fate as a hardware manufacturer.

Halo, on the other hand, established itself as the flagship title for first-person shooters on consoles and brought Bungie immense fame and success within the games industry. Following its split from Microsoft in 2007 and a partnership with Activision since 2010, the studio has, as of 2022, been owned by none other than Sony, Microsoft’s biggest rival in the console market.

And Apple? The company hasn’t completely abandoned its gaming ambitions, but the whole endeavor has been languishing for years. Although Apple makes a decent profit in the sector, it does not operate like a traditional gaming company and almost exclusively as a marketing platform, earning its revenue primarily through commissions from the App Store and in-app purchases. The subscription fees for Apple Arcade won’t feature prominently in the balance sheet.

Still, even without Halo, Apple is posting new record profits year after year. On the whole, things have gone quite well for all three parties involved.

Slovenia’s .si domain sees a surge in registrations after Trump’s ‘super intelligence’ order

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:09:56 GMT

The .si domain name is seeing unprecedented demand after President Trump's super intelligence executive order.

Nubank Says It Has No Plans to Acquire Monzo

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:51:56 GMT

Nubank thinks highly of fellow digital bank Monzo but doesn’t want to buy it.

The Brazilian lender made that pronouncement Wednesday (Sept. 30) in a securities filing, prompted by recent news reports that it was interested in acquiring the U.K.-based Monzo.

“As a matter of general practice, the company does not comment on specific opportunities,” Nu Holdings, Nubank’s parent, said in the filing.

“However, given the extent of recent media speculation, the company is providing this clarification: while we have a great deal of respect for Monzo, the company is not pursuing a transaction with Monzo.”

The filing added that Nubank is focused on expanding its footprint in Brazil, scaling operations in Mexico and Colombia and strengthening its presence in the U.S. and around the world.

The Financial Times (FT) had reported Saturday (Sept. 26) that Nubank was considering the purchase, a deal that would value Monzo between £8 billion and £10 billion.

Sources had told the FT the sale was one of three options facing Monzo. The others involved selling up to 15% of the business to private equity groups, and undertaking a “venture capital-style” funding round, in which investors would own smaller shares in the company.

Nu began the year by obtaining conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a new national bank in the U.S.

“The new entity, to be known as Nubank, N.A., represents a significant milestone in the company’s long-term strategy to expand its operational footprint beyond its core Latin American markets,” PYMNTS wrote at the time.

In July, the company received permission to begin operating as a bank in Mexico, where its more than 15 million customers make it the country’s largest digital bank.

Roughly two weeks later, Nu announced plans to obtain a banking license in Brazil by acquiring Banco Porto Real de Investimentos, a bank that extends credit to wholesale clients.

PYMNTS wrote earlier this year about Latin America’s ongoing embrace of digital financial services, as digital wallets, account-to-account transfers and real-time payment systems have begun supplanting cash.

“The shift is structural rather than cyclical,” that report said, adding that “experts predict that by 2030, digital payments will account for roughly two-thirds of eCommerce transaction value and nearly half of point-of-sale value across the region, reflecting sustained changes in consumer behavior rather than short-term substitution.”

The post Nubank Says It Has No Plans to Acquire Monzo appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Google announces Gemini 4 Argon AI model, but you can't use it yet

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:48:57 GMT

Google promised Gemini 3.5 Pro in June, but it spent the summer trotting out smaller Flash models. Now, Google is ready to take on the frontier again with Gemini 4 Argon. The company claims this new AI offers industry-leading performance in coding, knowledge work, and cybersecurity, but you aren't allowed to use it yet.

While most of us will have to wait to test Gemini 4, Google says engineers inside the company are already using the new model extensively. Argon reportedly used "fleet-wide telemetry data" to help Google save 300 TiB of memory across its data centers. Meanwhile, Argon agents have been working to migrate C/C++ codebases to Rust across Google, including thousands of lines in the core re2 and libgav1 libraries and more than 800,000 lines in the Fuchsia OS Zircon kernel.

Google has also come armed with a raft of benchmarks to back up its claims. On the software engineering DeepSWE v1.1 benchmark, Gemini 4 Argon hits 77.9 percent, which is higher than GPT-6 Astra, Fable 5.1, and Opus 5.5. Google promises similar power across a range of long-horizon tasks, pointing to Argon's industry-leading score in the economic analysis Vals Index test.

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Legends Faith No More To Headline Mystic Festival (PL) In 2027

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 18:55:46 GMT

Faith No More, alive and kicking, making a comeback, will be the crowning jewel of the 2027 edition of Mystic Festival held in Gdansk, Letnica on June 10-12. Truthfully, they need no introduction. Plus, it’d be quite a difficult task. Faith No More are troubadours who moved around genre boundaries and mixed them together however they saw fit. Th... Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com

Apple Watch SE 3 vs. Series 12 Buyer's Guide: Which Should You Buy?

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 18:49:34 GMT

The Apple Watch SE 3 starts at $249, while the Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399. The $150 difference buys a more advanced health sensing system, a larger display, longer battery life, and more options for tracking training and recovery.

The two watches still share many features, including an always-on display, wrist temperature sensing, sleep apnea notifications, retrospective ovulation estimates, 5G connectivity on cellular models, media playback, and 64GB of storage. Our guide helps to answer the question of how to decide which of these two Apple Watch models is best for you. The differences between the two models are as follows:

‌Apple Watch SE 3‌ Apple Watch Series 12 Same design as Apple Watch Series 4, 5, and 6 Refined design with a thinner casing, display with more rounded edges and a wider aspect ratio, and front glass that extends further over the sides for a higher screen-to-body ratio 40mm or 44mm case 42mm or 46mm case Aluminum case Aluminum, titanium, or ceramic case 40mm: 40 by 34 by 10.7mm
44mm: 44 by 38 by 10.7mm 42mm aluminum/titanium: 42 by 37 by 9.7mm
46mm aluminum/titanium: 46 by 40 by 9.7mm
42mm ceramic: 43 by 37 by 9.85mm
46mm ceramic: 47 by 41 by 9.85mm Aluminum GPS weight: 26.3 grams (40mm) or 32.9 grams (44mm) Aluminum GPS weight: 32.2 grams (42mm) or 39.5 grams (46mm) Ion-X front glass Ceramic Shield 2 front on aluminum models; sapphire crystal front on titanium and ceramic models No published IP6X rating IP6X dust resistance LTPO OLED display LTPO3 display with a 1Hz always-on refresh rate, allowing a live ticking seconds hand on supported watch faces ‌OLED‌ display Wide-angle ‌OLED‌ display 40mm: 324 by 394 pixels
44mm: 368 by 448 pixels 42mm: 374 by 446 pixels
46mm: 416 by 496 pixels 40mm: 759 sq mm display area
44mm: 977 sq mm display area 42mm: 970 sq mm display area
46mm: 1,196 sq mm display area Up to 1,000 nits brightness Up to 2,000 nits brightness 2 nits minimum brightness 1 nit minimum brightness Nylon composite and sapphire crystal back Aluminum or titanium and zirconia back; ceramic and zirconia back on ceramic models S10 chip (2024) S11 chip (2026) 2GB RAM 4GB RAM Second-generation optical heart sensor Always-on optical heart sensor Standard background heart rate tracking Background heart rate readings every five seconds Heart rate variability tracking Recovery HRV and more frequent overall HRV readings Vitals app with heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, and sleep duration Vitals app with heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, sleep duration, HRV, and a daytime view Readiness app Electrical heart sensor and ECG app Blood oxygen sensor and Blood Oxygen app Hypertension notifications Standard step tracking Improved step tracking Real-time heart rate and steps watch face complications Water temperature sensor Depth gauge to 6 meters and Depth app Oceanic+ app for snorkeling to 6 meters, available on the App Store Audio Intelligence features including Siri Recap, Sound Recognition, and Shazam Live Rewind and ‌Siri‌ Recap, due in beta in late 2026 Microphone Microphone with Voice Isolation Single, elongated speaker openings Individual speaker holes 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 4 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi 4 L1 GPS Precision L1 GPS Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip Find iPhone Precision Finding for iPhone, with distance and direction guidance HomePod playback controls ‌HomePod‌ playback controls and proximity-based media suggestions with a compatible Ultra Wideband ‌HomePod‌ Up to 18 hours of normal use Up to 24 hours of normal use Up to 32 hours in Low Power Mode Up to 38 hours in Low Power Mode Up to 7 hours of workout tracking Up to 10 hours of workout tracking Charges from 0 to 80% in about 45 minutes Charges from 0 to 80% in about 30 minutes 15 minutes of charging for up to 8 hours of normal use 15 minutes of charging for up to 12 hours of normal use 8 minutes of charging for up to 8 hours of sleep tracking 5 minutes of charging for up to 10 hours of sleep tracking Midnight and Starlight aluminum finishes Dark Bronze, Light Gold, Black, and Space Gray aluminum finishes Radiant Gold and Natural titanium finishes Pearl White and Night Blue ceramic finishes Silver and Radiant Gold titanium Hermès models 40mm: $249 GPS or $299 GPS + Cellular
44mm: $279 GPS or $329 GPS + Cellular Aluminum 42mm: $399 GPS or $499 GPS + Cellular
Aluminum 46mm: $449 GPS or $549 GPS + Cellular Titanium models start at $699; ceramic models start at $899

If you mainly want a smart watch for notifications, standard workout and sleep tracking, and an always-on display, the ‌Apple Watch SE 3‌ remains the better value. Although it is now a year old, it still represents excellent value for money at $249, offering most of the Apple Watch's core features for $150 less than the entry-level Series 12.

The Apple Watch Series 12 has a much stronger case for anyone who uses their device to follow health and recovery trends. Its new Health Sensing System enables frequent heart rate readings, Recovery HRV, and a Readiness score that draws on recent activity, training load, vitals, and sleep. ECG, blood oxygen monitoring, and hypertension notifications add further capabilities unavailable on the ‌Apple Watch SE 3‌.

Battery life may be a decisive factor. The Apple Watch Series 12 is rated for six more hours of normal use and three more hours of outdoor workout tracking. It also charges faster, which is particularly useful if you wear your watch overnight for sleep tracking.

The Series 12 also offers a larger and brighter display, which makes a noticeable difference in daily use, along with 5GHz Wi-Fi, Precision Finding for a misplaced iPhone, and premium titanium and ceramic case options. Its Audio Intelligence features include ‌Siri‌ Recap, Sound Recognition, and always-on Shazam.

If you prefer the Series 12's broader health tracking capabilities, longer battery life, display advantages, or luxury case options, the extra cost is justified. If those features are unlikely to change how you use or appreciate your watch, the ‌Apple Watch SE 3‌ is the more economical choice.Related Roundups: Apple Watch 12, Apple Watch SE 3Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now), Apple Watch SE (Neutral)Related Forum: Apple Watch
This article, "Apple Watch SE 3 vs. Series 12 Buyer's Guide: Which Should You Buy?" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Arnold Schwarzenegger Jingles All the Way to a New Christmas Comedy

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 18:46:17 GMT

'The Man With the Bag' sees Schwarzenegger team up with fellow action actor Alan Ritchson.

Nubank buying Monzo? What this means for UK and global banking

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 05:57:33 GMT

Reports that Nubank’s parent company, Nu Holdings, is interested in acquiring Monzo could significantly impact both banks’ trajectory and a competitive edge in the UK market.

Monzo is reportedly in talks with Nu Holdings, the parent company of digital bank Nubank, over a potential sale to the company in a sale which could rise to £10bn.

The UK bank has been approached by Nu Holdings over an acquisition in early stages talks. Monzo has enlisted the services of bankers Morgan Stanley and Qatalyst to serve as advisors and deal terms are reportedly under negotiation.

Sources have told The Financial Times and Sky News that any potential deal – between £8bn-£10bn – would be via cash and shares.

The acquisition approach from Nu Holdings is one of several options on the table for Monzo boardroom members. One includes selling up to a 15% stake in the bank to secure additional capital to accelerate its European expansion, eyeing a valuation of £8bn.

Another reported option, revealed by The Financial Times, is for Monzo to launch a venture capital funding round selling smaller stakes in the company to raise capital.

There is no exact figure from Nu Holdings being discussed to acquire Monzo, but one analyst told Sky News the figure could start from £8bn and rise to £10bn.

Payment Expert has reached out to Monzo and Nubank for comment. Monzo declined to comment.

Nubank responded by stating: “Nubank does not comment on rumors or speculation. We reaffirm our commitment to maintaining open, clear, and timely communication regarding all significant business matters.”

Why would Monzo sell to Nu?

Monzo has undergone a period of significant change at boardroom level over the past year.

Former Monzo CEO, TS Anil, stepped down from his role in 2025 and was replaced by successor Diana Layfield, the former General Manager of Search International and Growth at Google.

Anil was Monzo CEO from February 2020, initially tasked with leading the bank’s US operations, but took over as Group CEO from Co-Founder Tom Blomfield. During his time as CEO, he helped Monzo grow its customer base from four million to more than 16 million personal and business customers as of today.

Following Anil’s departure, a slew of Monzo board members also announced their exits. This includes Board Chairman Gary Hoffman, European Chief Executive Michael Carney and Chief Banking Officer Kunal Malani, to name a few.

Some reports revealed Hoffman left Monzo due to his conflicting interests with other board members over a potential initial public offering (IPO) and which exchange it should list on.

A Monzo IPO has been floated for several years, but due to several factors surrounding leadership changes, listing in the UK vs. the US, and financial readiness, it has remained muted.

A sale to Nu Holdings would almost certainly close any Monzo public listing. It also means any sale would provide secure high returns for primary investors such as Tencent, Google Ventures, etc., and leverage Nu Holdings’ $65bn in total assets to fund its strategies without reliance on external investors.

image credit: Alf Ribeiro / Shutterstock.com Monzo’s current financial position

In its most recent annual financial report, Monzo posted revenues of £1.7bn ($2.28bn) in the financial year ending 31 March 2026, posting a pre-tax profit of £172.6m, record numbers for the bank.

Gross profit for 2025 was over £1bn, with average revenue per active customer reaching £183 across both personal and business accounts.

Around one in five UK adults bank with Monzo, with roughly half of its monthly active users, which reached 10.4 million, treating it as their primary bank. Business banking customer numbers rose by 45% to 905,000. Customer deposits surged 55% to £25.7bn, buoyed by a 75% increase in savings deposits to £15.5bn.

In April 2024, Monzo raised $430m in a funding round led by Capital G, Google Ventures and GIC for a post-money valuation of $5bn.

Further investment came in the form of $190m from Hedosophia and GIC, bringing total funding to $620m, setting a valuation benchmark of $5.9bn (£4.5bn).

Nu’s competitive play to rival Revolut

Nubank is one of the most popular banks in the world, and the most popular in South America, with more than 140 million customers across Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and the US.

However, it is not active in the UK and therefore any potential acquisition of Monzo would enable Nubank to gain a large market share in the country, leveraging Monzo’s 16 million customer base.

In 2025, Nu Holdings was considering changing its legal domicile from the Cayman Islands to the UK in a bid to expand global operations. Nubank’s legal domicile currently remains in the Cayman Islands.

If Nu Holdings had a significant footing in the UK via the acquisition of Monzo, it would become a direct competitor to Revolut in the country, with Revolut’s current UK customer base sitting at 13 million users.

Revolut has embarked on a rapid global expansion, securing banking licenses in countries such as the UK, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina, France, Mexico and Colombia, to name a few.

The UK-based digital bank has also seen its valuation soar to £115bn through a series of secondary share sales. Revolut’s 2025 financial year saw it achieve a pre-tax profit of £1.7bn, with revenues of £4.5bn.

Nubank Weighs $13 Billion Bid for Monzo

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 07:14:36 GMT

Brazilian digital bank Nubank is reportedly interested in buying U.K. FinTech Monzo.

Such a deal would value Mozno at up to £10 billion ($13.2 billion), the Financial Times (FT) reported Saturday (Sept. 26), citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Sources told the FT there are three different options facing Monzo. First is a takeover via a mix of cash and shares, valuing Monzo at between £8 billion and £10 billion.

Another source said Monzo had been in talks with private equity companies about selling as much as a 15% stake in the business to generate cash to fuel its growth. The third option would involve Monzo embarking on a “venture capital-style” funding round, in which investors would take smaller stakes in the company.

PYMNTS has contacted Monzo for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. Monzo declined to comment when reached by the FT.

A spokesperson for Nubank provided PYMNTS with this statement:

“Nubank does not comment on rumors or speculation. We reaffirm our commitment to maintaining open, clear, and timely communication regarding all significant business matters.”

The FT noted that these talks come at a pivotal moment for Monzo. Last year, several investors pushed for the ouster of the company’s board chairman following the surprise resignation of CEO TS Anil. Gary Hoffman, the company’s board chairman since 2019, announced he would step down last month.

New CEO Diana Layfield, who began her tenure in February, has shut down Monzo’s business in the U.S. as the company focuses on Europe, launching operations in Ireland and Spain.

PYMNTS wrote earlier this year that Monzo’s withdrawal from the U.S. followed a period when Monzo had been rethinking an American banking license. The FinTech had pulled an application in 2021 after regulators indicated approval was unlikely, and later considered relaunching that process as part of a larger bid for expansion.

“A charter would have allowed Monzo to operate under a single regulator, access core payment rails and originate loans directly,” that report said. “Without it, the firm remained dependent on partner banks, which can constrain margins and limit product scope.”

The FT report added that selling Monzo to Nubank – valued at $65 billion, with 140 million customers throughout the Americas – would be a blow to the London Stock Exchange, which has been courting Monzo for a listing.

Nubank is also also focused on an international expansion, having obtained a banking license in the U.S., the FT report said.

The post Nubank Weighs $13 Billion Bid for Monzo appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Advent considers minority stake in Monzo as Nubank takeover talks continue

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 18:18:06 GMT

Advent International, the private equity firm, is considering acquiring a minority stake in Monzo as the British digital bank holds parallel discussions about a potential takeover by Nu Holdings, the ...

How I self-hosted my way out of Amazon's Kindle ecosystem without losing my mind

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 07:53:14 GMT

Amazon's Kindle ecosystem offers a lot of convenience. You can browse, purchase, borrow, and download books directly from your Kindle eReader, and sync progress across your devices. This convenience relies on Amazon's cloud services, and when Amazon stopped providing them to my Kindle, I decided to replace them with self-hosted services running on my own hardware.

Rammstein: Erstes Video aus LIVE IN MEXICO CITY

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 07:47:45 GMT

Das offizielle Video zu ‘Armee der Tristen (Live in Mexico City)’ ist jetzt verfügbar.

Der internationale Kinovorverkauf für RAMMSTEIN – LIVE IN MEXICO CITY ist gestartet: Der Rammstein-Konzertfilm ist aktuell für 1.200 Kinos in 45 Ländern bestätigt und kommt ab dem 4. November 2026 weltweit auf die große Leinwand. Passend dazu gibt es das erste Musikvideo zu sehen! Unten seht ihr die Live-Aufnahme des Rammstein-Songs ‘Armee der Tristen’ aus...

Monzo in talks about a sale to Nubank, reports

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 07:46:45 GMT

Product-Market Fit Questions and Answers For Startups

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 07:41:33 GMT

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You had the idea. You ran the experiments. You watched the numbers climb in the right direction. And somewhere between your first customer and your hundredth, something clicked — people‌ want what you built. Product-market fit is the holy grai of business. But here’s what nobody tells you: Reaching product-market fit isn’t the moment you stop trying (you’ve made it!), it simply means you’re growing fast (and your tools may need to catch up).

This quick guide will help startups and growing businesses understand what product-marketing fit means, as well as getting some of your questions answered.

What is product-market fit?

Product-market fit means your product solves a real problem for a defined group of customers at a price they’ll pay repeatedly. But for startups, finding product-market fit is less a single “aha” moment and more a signal that it’s time to systematize what’s working.

Salesforce research on small business trends shows that 50%+ of SMB leaders say their data is inconsistent across tools — which means by the time the picture is clear, the moment is already gone.

How do you know you’ve hit product-market fit?

Look for these signals before you start scaling:

Retention holds without heroics: Customers are renewing without needing a founder phone call to save the relationship. Referrals arrive without prompting: Your customers are sending you new business — organic growth is showing up in your pipeline. Sales cycles are shortening: Your team is closing deals faster because the pitch is proven, not improvised. Support patterns repeat: The same questions keep coming in — which means you can automate answers without losing the personal touch.

Once you see these signs, your job shifts from proving the product to protecting the momentum. This is the exact moment when “figure it out as you go” stops working. And it’s exactly where having the right tools (like a customer relationship management (CRM) platform) stops being optional and starts being the edge.

At the product-market fit stage, the cost of a missed follow-up isn’t just a lost deal — it’s a signal to your team that the process is broken. Salesforce is built for this exact inflection point: A turnkey agentic CRM that supports marketing, sales, and service in minutes, where your team already works. You need a trusted tool that knows your business from day one and keeps every lead, every customer, and every deal in one place.

Answering the most common product-market fit questions 1. How long does it take to reach product-market fit?

There’s no fixed timeline — some startups find it in six months; others take three years. The faster you can systematize your customer feedback loops and sales data in one place, the faster you can spot whether you’re on the right track.

2. Can a CRM help you find product-market fit?

Yes — not by telling you what product to build, but by making it easier to see which customers are sticking, which are churning, and why. A CRM built for startups gives you the visibility to answer those questions with real data, not gut feel.

3. What’s the difference between product-market fit and go-to-market fit?

Product-market fit means customers want your product. Go-to-market fit means your sales and marketing motion can acquire and retain those customers at scale. You need both, and the second depends on having clean, actionable data from a CRM your whole team actually uses.

4. What happens after product-market fit?

After product-market fit, you enter a hypergrowth phase where the bottleneck shifts from finding customers to serving them well. This is where 76% of SMB customers say their teams are operating off the same view of the customer — and where having a unified CRM becomes a genuine competitive advantage.

5. How do startups use Agentforce?

Agentforce provides small teams with autonomous help. AI agents can handle lead qualification, customer follow-up, and service triage — right inside the CRM tool. It’s not a separate systems integration; it’s built into Salesforce and ready to activate from day one, with skills built by experts who’ve seen thousands of sales and service motions. This enables your product to be ready for any market.

6. What’s the role of AI in finding and keeping product-market fit?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now table stakes for startups moving fast. The Small and Medium Business Trends Report found that 88% of SMBs are engaging with AI — but only 30% are actually implementing it. The gap isn’t ambition, it’s infrastructure. AI automates pattern recognition across thousands of customer feedback touchpoints to instantly surface the “why” behind customer behavior. And, predictive analytics allows startups to forecast retention trends and proactively address churn before it impacts the bottom line.

7. What’s an example of a company with a good product-market fit?

Covecta, an AI-native fintech startup building specialized agents for banks and lenders, was managing leads across multiple tools with no consistent way to track inbound prospects or ensure timely follow-ups. After joining the Salesforce Launchpad program and adopting Salesforce Pro Suite, Covecta was fully up and running within four weeks — and saw 4x pipeline growth in fewer than four months, with 30% monthly revenue growth in their first month on Salesforce.

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Try it for free 8. How do you know when you’ve reached product-market fit?

Product-market fit shows up in customer behavior: Users keep coming back, retention improves, referrals increase, and sales become easier because prospects quickly understand the value. No single metric proves it, so look for a consistent pattern across usage, revenue, retention, and customer feedback.

9. What metrics should startups track when measuring product-market fit?

The right metrics depend on your business model, but common indicators include customer retention, churn, product usage, sales conversion rates, expansion revenue, and referrals. Bringing this data together in a CRM helps teams see the full customer journey instead of evaluating each signal in isolation.

9. Can a startup lose product-market fit?

Yes. Customer expectations change, competitors enter the market, and products can become less relevant over time. Startups can protect product-market fit by continuously monitoring customer behavior, collecting feedback, and acting quickly when engagement or retention begins to decline.

10. Should you scale before reaching product-market fit?

Usually, no. Scaling sales and marketing before customers consistently adopt and retain your product can amplify churn and increase acquisition costs. Before investing heavily in growth, confirm that you know who your best customers are, why they buy, and what keeps them engaged.

11. How does customer feedback help establish product-market fit?

Customer feedback reveals the problems people care about, the value they receive from your product, and the reasons they stay or leave. The key is connecting that qualitative feedback with sales, service, and usage data so your team can distinguish recurring patterns from one-off requests.

12. What should startups look for in a CRM while pursuing product-market fit?

Startups need a CRM that is quick to implement, easy for the whole team to use, and flexible enough to evolve with the business. It should bring sales, service, marketing, and customer feedback together so founders can identify their strongest segments and make decisions using a shared view of the customer.

13. How does product-market fit affect fundraising?

Strong product-market fit gives investors evidence that a startup is solving a meaningful problem for a defined market. Reliable retention, repeatable demand, and a healthy pipeline can make the growth story more credible‌ — ‌and a CRM makes it easier to demonstrate those signals with consistent data.

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Start building on your product-market fit momentum

The hardest part of finding product-market fit is that it creates a new kind of urgency: Now you have to keep it. A CRM that knows your business, runs AI agents from day one, and keeps your entire team on the same page is how product-market fit startups protect what they’ve built and accelerate what comes next.

Get started with Salesforce for free or activate Foundations to try out Agentforce today.

AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What does product-market fit actually mean for a startup?
Product-market fit means you’ve found a group of customers who need your product, are willing to pay for it, and come back — ideally while telling others. It’s the foundation every go-to-market strategy needs to be built on, and it’s measurable through retention, referral rates, and sales cycle length.

How do I know if I’ve lost product-market fit?
Watch for rising churn, increasing time-to-close, and customers who need more and more hand-holding to renew. If your pipeline is full but deals aren’t closing without heavy founder involvement, that’s often a signal your fit isn’t as strong as the top-of-funnel suggests.

What tools do startups use to track product-market fit signals?
Most early-stage startups start with a lightweight CRM and basic analytics. As signal volume grows, a platform like Salesforce Trailhead offers free training on CRM fundamentals, so your team can use the data they’re collecting to actually make decisions — not just store it.

Is Salesforce too complex for a startup that just found product-market fit?
Not with Suites. Salesforce Starter Suite is designed for lean teams: pre-built AI, no specialist required to set up, and live in minutes. The Salesforce Launchpad program also offers startup-specific onboarding support, discounts, and access to a community of founders who’ve scaled with Salesforce from seed to IPO.

How does Agentforce help startups that are scaling after product-market fit?
Agentforce gives your team AI agents that work inside your CRM — scoring leads, following up with prospects, and flagging at-risk customers — without needing a dedicated ops hire.

Commerzbank may buy UniCredit’s German unit HVB – report

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 21:33:55 GMT

Commerzbank could acquire UniCredit’s German subsidiary HVB through an equity-funded transaction as the two companies evaluate a potential combination, reported Reuters citing CEO Bettina Orlopp.

Addressing attendees at a financial conference, Orlopp noted that such an arrangement represents one of several “options on the table” to expand the Italian lender’s holding.

The development follows more than two years of pursuit by UniCredit, which built an interest approaching 50% despite domestic opposition.

Both organisations are now holding discussions.

Orlopp explained that alternative transaction routes comprise a direct combination of the two lenders, or UniCredit launching a subsequent offer to remaining Commerzbank investors, “most likely with a premium”, to elevate its holding beyond 90%.

“All three basic options are on the table,” she confirmed.

These remarks follow the three prerequisites set up earlier this month by the German government regarding any potential takeover.

The conditions were outlined during initial face-to-face discussions between Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil and UniCredit chief executive Andrea Orcel.

According to the finance ministry, Commerzbank must preserve its stock exchange quotation and maintain its corporate headquarters in Frankfurt.

The institution is also required to continue supplying credit to German mid-sized commercial enterprises across domestic and international markets.

The talks are the first occasion on which Berlin has publicly defined the terms it wants Orcel to satisfy in relation to a takeover of the country’s second-largest listed bank.

In July, UniCredit acquired a 47.59% overall stake in Commerzbank, giving it control over 49.65% of the bank’s voting rights.