It's not just RAM prices that are going up, writes CNET. "Reports suggest the cost of Windows licenses for manufacturers is rising by up to 10%." Several sites that closely follow Microsoft news, including Windows Central and Windows Latest, have published articles citing a report from Taiwan's Economic Daily News that claims some PC manufacturers are seeing a 7% to 10% increase in the cost of Windows 11 licenses... Because they buy licenses in bulk, they get a sizeable discount over what a consumer would pay for a new copy of Windows 11. But given the existing cost pressures from other components, a big Windows 11 price hike could lead them to pass on some of the added cost to PC buyers. According to the EDN story, PC makers could raise prices by about 5% over the next quarter due to the reported Windows price hike. .. A translated version of the Economic Daily News article contains information from an unnamed PC brand executive. It says that while Microsoft typically raises licensing costs every year by single-digit percentages, that hike has reached 7% to 10% this year, a significant increase. "A representative for Microsoft declined to comment on the report," according to the article. But it also notes that three weeks ago laptop maker Framework blamed price hikes and reconfigurations for some of their models on processor, memory, storage, "and other silicon costs — but also "an increase in Windows license costs." Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the article.

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A Massachusetts newspaper reports that officials from the town of Littleton (population: 10,141) "claim that five of Littletonâ(TM)s Flock Safety cameras were switched back on by the company without informing the town..." Littleton had temporarily disabled the cameras earlier this year, according to the article, but upon discovering the cameras were still active, city officials say they directed the Town Counsel "to initiate cancellation of the contract with Flock Safety and directed the Town Administrator to coordinate the removal of the six cameras on public ways" with the Department of Public Works. Ironically, it's the same Massachusetts town that last year was breached by a Chinese-state-sponsored hacking group for over 300 days. Flock has also considered dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers' vehicles "to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed," reports 404 Media, "essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media... 404 Media first revealed the intended partnership last August when multiple sources provided information on the plan."

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"Framework has been sending out email notifications to customers alerting of a limited data breach in which customer information was accessed through a Metabase BI service zero-day exploit," writes Slashdot reader DuoDreamer. Data includes customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses. "Framework is investigating whether or not this included Framework for Business customers as well." TechCrunch reports: Framework's spokesperson Eric Schumacher told TechCrunch that the breach affected "all customers," but declined to specify a specific number. Framework computers are relatively niche products, but some estimates say the company sold hundreds of thousands of devices. Metabase disclosed its own breach in a blog post on its official website, where it said that it was hacked by someone using an unknown security flaw, a so-called zero-day. The company said the hackers exploited the bug to give them the ability to access customers' databases stored on Metabase's cloud servers. In its email to customers, Framework also included the email Metabase sent to the company, which says hackers accessed Framework's cloud instance. The computer maker said it investigated the incident and found that hackers had stolen its customers' personal data, but did not include their payment information.

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Microsoft is introducing AI token budgets for employees, making the cheaper GPT-5.6 its default internal model and telling engineers to focus on business results rather than maximizing AI usage. 404 Media reports: "As we accelerate our use of GitHub Copilot to deliver on our goals, we all need to be aware of how we consume tokens," Jay Parikh, an executive vice president at Microsoft said in an email to Microsoft employees. GitHub is owned by Microsoft, and GitHub Copilot is an AI coding tool. "Tokenmaxxing is not what we are optimizing for. I want all of us focused on maximizing outcomes that move the needle for our customers and our business." "As such, we are updating our internal guidance and managing token spend with the same discipline we apply to every other critical resource," Parikh said in the email. Parikh's email says that in an effort to "get greater value from our token investment" Microsoft is making OpenAI GPT-5.6, which is cheaper to use than other models, the default model for internal use. His email also links to updated internal Copilot guidelines stating that, as of July 2026, Microsoft divisions will have an "AI token budget target," and that employees can track their individual AI spending. "While there is no target spend value being shared at this time. The data shows that many engineers spend in the range of hundreds of dollars a month to a few thousand dollars in tokens," the guidelines say. They also say that some decisions may place further restrictions as they monitor spend. [...] Parikh's email said Microsoft will keep learning and adjusting its AI policies as models and products evolve, and stressed that he doesn't want to slow down the company's progress towards becoming "AI-first." "We are not optimizing for fewer tokens," he said. "We are optimizing for more impact per token.

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Ars Technica reports: Hyundai Motor Company's plan to put humanoid robots to work by 2028 is not part of current negotiations with striking South Korean autoworkers, according to the company. The automaker is disputing news reports that partial labor strikes by the Hyundai Motor union at the world's largest automotive plant in South Korea were spurred by concerns about the company's planned deployment of humanoid robots in the United States starting in 2028. [The planned robots are built by Boston Dynamics, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hyundai.] A Hyundai statement shared with Ars describes the union's demands as focusing on compensation-related issues such as wage increases, bonuses, and an extension of workers' retirement age. "Potential deployment of robots in Korean production facilities is not part of the current labor-management discussions," according to the Hyundai statement... Hyundai emphasized that its current plan only covers the initial deployment of the Atlas humanoid robot at Metaplant America, an electric vehicle factory near Savannah, Georgia, starting in 2028. "Decisions about future Atlas deployment at other facilities will be made thoughtfully, in accordance with local operational needs, and in dialogue with the employees and workforce representatives at those sites," the company stated. However, The Wall Street Journal described the Hyundai Motor union as making "unprecedented demands seeking to enshrine job protections in the era of robots and AI," and characterized certain compensation demands as hedging against potential reductions in work hours caused by AI adoption and robotic automation. "Remember that without labor-management agreement, not a single robot using new technology will be allowed to enter the workplace," the union told Hyundai in an internal letter reported by Reuters. Hyundai management and the labor union are currently reviewing a proposed wage reform that would "provide factory workers with greater income stability even after the carmaker's planned deployment of humanoid robots," The Korea Times reported. But experts cautioned that the wage overhaul, which would convert hourly pay for overtime and night-shift allowances into fixed wages, could come at the expense of company productivity.

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Nearly 200 Silicon Valley companies, including Proton and Y Combinator, are urging the Trump administration not to block U.S. access to Chinese open-weight AI models or risk crippling the next generation of U.S. startups. Politico reports: On Wednesday, the newly-formed Little Tech Association sent letters to President Donald Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and others in the administration with its appeal, marking the first coordinated effort by Silicon Valley's wider influential startup community to weigh in on one of the Trump administration's most closely watched AI debates. At issue: whether Washington should restrict access to increasingly powerful open-weight -- meaning, AI models whose weights are publicly available -- AI models released by Chinese companies such as Moonshot AI and Alibaba. "American leadership requires two things: world-leading American open-weight models and continued access for U.S. builders to open models already available worldwide," the startup founders wrote in the letter (PDF) obtained by POLITICO, also sent to Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. Instead of broad prohibitions, they argue the government should adopt targeted safeguards. And they warn that banning Americans from downloading Chinese open-weight models wouldn't stop their proliferation -- but would weaken U.S. startups. "There'll be hundreds of companies that instantly die," said Suhail Doshi, founder of AI infrastructure startup Particle and a member of the association, which POLITICO first wrote about exclusively, in an interview. "It's great for Anthropic. We're all going to have to spend money on Anthropic." Last week, the Beijing-based AI company "Moonshot" released a massive new model that reset the AI race overnight, immediately vaulting into the top tier of global AI, beating Anthropic's Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol in front-end coding tests. China's Xi Jinping also used his first appearance at China's World AI Conference to promote a vision of low-cost, broadly accessible AI and call for international cooperation rather than technological rivalry.

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Google is renaming NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, but will keep it a standalone app even as it ties more closely into Gemini and Google Search. "Google says it plans to bring notebooks to AI Mode, its chatbot-like experience in Search, too," reports The Verge. From the report: Along with the name change, Google is rolling out an update announced last month that allows Gemini Notebook to connect to a secure cloud computer to write and execute code. This feature is available to Google AI Ultra and Workspace business customers, but will come to Pro users on the web "over the coming weeks."

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A lawsuit from 26 Meta employees alleges the company used AI-driven scoring and monitoring systems to select workers for layoffs, disproportionately targeting employees with disabilities or those who had taken protected medical, family, pregnancy, or parental leave. "Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work. Instead, Meta used a constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems -- including a system referred to internally as 'Metamate,' employee-trained 'second-brain' agents, keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance ranking and calibration -- to score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the list," the lawsuit (PDF) said. Ars Technica reports: Employees were allegedly graded, among other things, on how much they used Meta's AI tools. "Meta's internal dashboards classified employees by their stage of adoption of its artificial-intelligence tools, using categories such as 'AI Native,' 'AI First,' and 'AI Enabled,'" the lawsuit said. The lawsuit is apparently "the first against a major U.S. company to challenge the alleged use of AI in conducting layoffs," according to Reuters. The complaint alleges that Meta's tools for monitoring employees did not account for differences caused by disabilities and protected leaves. "Those tools draw on inputs -- performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, 'AI-native' ratings, and AI-token consumption -- that, by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability," the lawsuit said. The lawsuit alleged that Meta management did not take steps to adjust scores for employees who took leave or who requested reasonable accommodations for disabilities. "Meta did not neutralize those inputs for protected leave; did not exclude protected-leave-takers or accommodation-seekers from the selection cohort; and did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires," the complaint alleged. "The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves." The 26 plaintiffs requested leaves or disability accommodations in the 24 months before being selected for layoffs, the lawsuit said. The layoffs are not yet finalized, but employees are scheduled to start losing their jobs on July 22, the lawsuit said. "These claims lack merit and are not based on facts," said Meta in a statement. "Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI."

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