TechCapsules

Volkswagen Group announced that more than 330,000 employees will receive Microsoft Copilot, an AI assistant designed to streamline tasks across engineering, production, procurement, and sales. The rollout is part of a long‑standing partnership with Microsoft and supports the group’s broader digital transformation strategy. Copilot aims to increase efficiency, freeing staff to focus on analytical, creative, and higher‑value work. The initiative was celebrated by both Volkswagen and Microsoft leadership, highlighting a collaborative effort to scale AI across the [...]

On November 5, SpaceNews and RTX will host a virtual event titled “Satellite Mission Management at the Edge,” focusing on the evolving demands of national‑security satellite operations. Speakers will examine how edge computing, automation, cloud‑native architectures, and modular design can speed technology upgrades, boost resilience, and lower costs while preserving security and control. The discussion will address the integration of emerging commercial capabilities with legacy systems and the need for faster decision‑making on orbit. The event, scheduled for [...]

Atomera and IQE plc have signed a Joint Development Agreement to demonstrate gallium‑nitride (GaN) epitaxy on Atomera’s Mears Silicon Technology (MST)‑enabled silicon wafers for radio‑frequency (RF) applications. The partnership combines Atomera’s quantum‑engineered silicon substrate, which promises higher transistor performance and lower cost, with IQE’s expertise in compound‑semiconductor epitaxy. Teams will co‑engineer a multi‑layer GaN‑on‑silicon structure aimed at delivering best‑in‑class linearity and loss for high‑volume RF markets, with the intent to produce test wafers for foundries, IDMs and [...]

Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) announced the winners of Season 1 of its prize‑funded quantum‑computing challenge. The ceremony in Tokyo concluded evaluation of 87 entries, with nine awardees selected but no first‑place prizes in the Society 5.0 or Cool Japan categories and no Jury Chairman’s Special Award, reflecting strict computational benchmarks. Eighty teams entered; 65 (81 %) used IBM Quantum Platform hardware, submitting 11,159 jobs and consuming more than 5,900 minutes of QPU time. IBM Fellow [...]

Microsoft has begun rolling out an updated File Explorer context menu to Windows 11 Insider builds, offering a cleaner layout and faster performance. The redesign consolidates rarely used commands into a streamlined submenu and adds a “quick actions” pane that surfaces common tasks such as copy, paste, rename and share on right‑click. It uses a lighter UI framework and optimized code paths, cutting menu latency by roughly 30 percent in internal testing. The update is delivered via the Dev [...]

Apple will suspend retail operations at seven French locations on Saturday, October 24, including all three stores in Paris—Champs‑Elysées, Opera and Marais‑Saint‑Germain—following violent protests that erupted on October 17. The Paris outlets will reopen on Sunday with limited hours, noon to 6 p.m., while shopping‑centre stores outside the capital remain open. Authorities have banned gatherings near the Champs‑Elysées and rejected a protest route from Place de la République to Opera, deploying roughly 70,000 police and gendarmes nationwide and closing 28 [...]

At TechCrunch Disrupt, Engine founder Elia Wallen, Gamma CEO Grant Lee, and GV partner Crystal Huang discussed customer‑acquisition tactics that don’t rely on viral social media. Lee described Gamma’s early “Gambassador” program, which matched influencers to distinct product segments and helped the AI‑presentation tool reach a multibillion‑dollar valuation, but warned that creators must understand the product to convert spend into sales. Wallen contrasted that approach with Engine’s bootstrapped growth to $150 million in bookings, achieved through cold calls, [...]

Annie Potts, who played young Sheldon’s Meemaw on the seven‑season sitcom Young Sheldon, disclosed in Jessica Radloff’s book that she was “a little sad” about the series finale’s decision to feature a cameo by Jim Parsons as an adult Sheldon who remained “mean and unchanged.” Potts said the surprise cancellation was announced via a Zoom call, leaving her “blindsided” and prompting her to “go full Meemaw” on the producers. She lamented that the ending contradicted the growth suggested by [...]