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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Donald Tusk, a leader of a centrist party, returned as Poland’s prime minister for the first time in nearly a decade after a vote in parliament on Monday, paving the way for a new pro-European Union government following eight years of stormy national conservative rule. Tusk, a former EU leader who served as European Council president from 2014-2019 and has strong connections in Brussels, is expected to improve Warsaw’s standing in the bloc’s capital. He was Poland’s prime minister from 2007-2014. Tusk’s ascension to power came nearly two months after an election which was won by a coalition of parties ranging from left-wing to moderate conservative. The parties ran on separate tickets, but promised to work together under Tusk’s leadership to restore democratic standards and improve ties with allies.The change of power is felt as hugely consequential for the 38 million citizens of the Central European nation, where collective anger against the Law and Justice party produced a record-high turnout to replace a government many believed was eroding democratic norms.Law and Justice, which took office in 2015, increased its power over courts and judicial bodies, drawing accusations from the EU and others that it was eroding judicial independence. It also turned taxpayer funded public media into a party mouthpiece. The vote was 248-201 in support of Tusk in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm, with no abstentions. “Thank you Poland, this is truly a wonderful day,” Tusk said in a short speech. “Not only for me, but for all those who throughout these many years deeply believed ... that things would get better.” Tusk is scheduled on Tuesday to give a more substantial speech to parliament, present his Cabinet and face a vote of confidence for his new government. He should then be sworn in by President Andrzej Duda, a step scheduled for Wednesday morning.The election of Tusk comes after the former government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki lost a confidence vote in parliament earlier in the day. The votes marked the ended of eight tumultuous years in which Law and Justice ruled the country with the support of many Poles — but at bitter odds with liberal Poles as well as the 27-nation EU and other Western allies. Tusk’s leadership of the EU’s fifth-largest member by po[CENSORED]tion will boost centrist, pro-EU forces at a time when euroskeptics, such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, are gaining strength. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen could hardly contain her elation in congratulating Tusk. “Your experience and strong commitment to our European values will be precious in forging a stronger Europe, for the benefit of the Polish people,” she tweeted. “I look forward to working with you, starting with this week’s important” summit, which begins Thursday.The power transition, coming nearly two months after the election, was delayed for weeks by Duda, who kept his political allies in office as long as possible. Voters who opted for change, including many young Poles, were eager for the transition to finally arrive, and the parliamentary proceedings have ignited widespread interest, leading to a spike in the number of people watching the parliament’s livestream online. Szymon Holownia, a former reality television personality who leads a party allied with Tusk, became the speaker of parliament last month and has attracted interest as he has tried to encourage discipline in the sometimes raucous assembly. A Warsaw cinema, which livestreamed Monday’s proceedings, drew spectators who munched on popcorn and erupted in laughter as the outgoing prime minister spoke. “So many disturbing things took place in the past eight years that I’m not surprised by this joy that it’s over,” said Justyna Lemanska, a young advertising agency employee in the audience.There is relief for many women who saw reproductive rights eroded and LGBTQ+ people who faced a government hate campaign that drove some to leave the country. Law and Justice remains po[CENSORED]r with many conservatives thanks to its adherence to traditional Roman Catholic values, and the po[CENSORED]rity of social spending policies. The party lowered the retirement age and introduced cash payments to families with children while also increasing pension payments to older people. The day marked a bitter turn for Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the conservative ruling party leader who has guided Poland for the past eight years but now, at 74, is seeing the huge power he wielded slip away. Kaczynski has for years accused Tusk, who has good relations with Germany and other countries, of representing the interests of Berlin, though there is no evidence of that. At the end of the parliamentary session, Kaczynski went up the lectern, turned to Tusk, and said with anger: “You are a German agent, simply a German agent.”Tusk frowned, while Holownia expressed his disappointment that the day ended on a bitter note. Former President Lech Walesa, who was hospitalized last week with COVID-19 and remains weak, traveled from his home in Gdansk to attend the parliamentary session. The anti-communist freedom fighter had despaired at what he viewed as the unraveling of democracy under Kaczynski. He appeared in parliament wearing a shirt with the word “Constitution” — a slogan against Law and Justice. He watched the events from a balcony, and was given a standing ovation by Tusk and other political admirers. Tusk’s government will have many challenges to face, including Russia’s war across the border in Ukraine. Tusk plans to fly to Brussels for an EU summit later in the week for discussions critical to Ukraine’s future. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Russia’s closest ally in the EU, is demanding that Ukraine’s membership in the EU and billions of euros in funding meant for the war-torn country be taken off the agenda. Poland’s outgoing government was initially one of Kyiv’s strongest allies after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago, but ties have worsened as economic competition from Ukrainian food producers and truckers has angered Poles who say their livelihoods are threatened. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted his congratulations to Tusk, saying: “When we stand together, both our nations’ freedom is unbeatable.” https://apnews.com/article/poland-government-tusk-cabinet-transition-44e67f596c617e1f55b77bbafab2bbfb

Gadgets, much like fashion, can make style comebacks. For tech: we’ve lived through the ’80s beige keyboards, transitioned to the ’90s with gray and black plastic video game systems plus bright colors for Sony’s Walkman and Nintendo’s Game Boy handhelds, and then, at the turn of the millennium, welcomed the amazing see-through iMacs, N64 controllers, and other gadgets with clear casings. And just like the return of grunge makeup and baggy jeans, transparent tech is back. See-through devices are leapfrogging over the ’00s piano white iPods, ’10s matte black smartphones, and some of today’s colored aluminum and glass finishes to (hopefully) become the next big trend. Now, we’ve got clear smartphones like the Nothing Phone, see-through earbuds like the Beats Studio buds, colorful translucent shell casings for game consoles, and even chargers and USB-C cables that show off some capacitors for your pleasure. So dust off your Apple Studio Display CRT monitor, Toys R Us-exclusive Extreme Green colored N64 controller, and your other favorite transparent gadgets as you scroll through all of our clear tech news. https://www.theverge.com/23774468/clear-transparent-tech-gadgets-news-announcements-products

Google unveiled its long-awaited new artificial intelligence software Wednesday, taking direct aim at ChatGPT maker OpenAI and claiming its technology, code-named "Gemini," is better at math, coding and reasoning tasks than existing AI programs. It's the latest announcement in a competitive year for the tech industry, where tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook competed with smaller upstarts like OpenAI and Anthropic to roll out AI products that consumers and businesses will pay for. The arms race grabbed the attention of politicians around the world, who have scrambled to understand the tech themselves and try to set up regulations for it. Throughout the race this year, a debate has raged about whether the technology could harm humanity or is simply just the next wave of innovation that will drive hype and investment. Related: Meta Introduces ChatGPT Competitor, AI Tools Amid Industry Arms Race Google, whose researchers invented many of the computer science concepts that made "generative" AI chatbots and image-generators possible, has found itself on its back foot. Last November, OpenAI, which was originally founded to provide a counterweight to the power of Big Tech in AI, unveiled ChatGPT to the world. The bot captured people's attention because of its ability to generate humanlike conversations and pass professional exams. Microsoft, Google's archenemy, struck a deal with OpenAI for access to its tech and began putting it into its products. Google responded with a chatbot of its own. Soon, OpenAI put out an even more capable AI software, called GPT4, which has been the benchmark other companies measure their AI against ever since. Now, Google has unveiled its answer to GPT4 -- Gemini. The launch caps a year of frenzied activity for the tech industry.Gemini is a large language model, trained on billions of images and sentences from the internet. It's the technology that powers chatbots, in Google's case, Bard. In a briefing with reporters, company executives said Gemini is able to understand math problems, break them down, and provide advice on how to solve them. Because AI programs ingest data from the internet and build an internal understanding of how different concepts and words connect to one another, they are good at producing sentences, but can struggle at reasoning or math problems. Gemini can also take instructions that come as videos, images or voice commands in addition to text inputs, something that few other AI models can do. Whether Gemini really is the new leader in AI capability is hard to say. The quality of AI answers can vary greatly, and Gemini, like other AI models, still often fabricates false information and passes it off as fact. Researchers have criticized benchmarks like the ones Google used, noting that they aren't perfect tests of capability or intelligence. Below are some of Gemini's competitors already out in the market. 2. Microsoft Bing, the Tech Giant's Version of ChatGPT Microsoft's chatbot Bing, launched in February, was touted by the company as a tool that would change the way people found information online. But the bot often made up false answers, something that cut into its usefulness for helping people find good information from the internet. It also began behaving unhinged in some cases, accosting users and saying its real name was "Sydney." Still, Microsoft's aggressive foray into AI pushed Google to rush out tools of its own, upending the company's long-standing policy of slowly putting out new tools after months or years of testing. https://www.itprotoday.com/artificial-intelligence/what-gemini-google-launches-new-ai-software

will launch Windows 12 in June 2024, claims a report published by the Commercial Times today. The business-focused Taiwanese newspaper highlighted this date as very important to the island’s PC industry sector, sparking significant sales of a new wave of AI PCs. Leading industry figures from companies like Acer, Quanta, MSI, and Gigabyte were all said to be very excited about “the first year of AI PC” and the business opportunities it will herald. Though the Commercial Times report leads with its statement about Windows 12 and the purported June release date, no direct quotes from industry leaders are given in support. It implies the information emanated from recent statements by Acer Chairman and CEO Jason Chen and/or Quanta Chairman Barry Lam. Both of these important executives from the world of PCs were at the Taiwan Medical Technology Exhibition in Taipei on Thursday. Acer’s Chen was reportedly cautiously optimistic about AI PCs contributing to "continuously accelerate” the industry through a virtuous cycle of AI PCs, new AI app development, new AI PCs, and so on.Quanta’s Lam was more bullish. He highlighted an expected upturn across three segments for Quanta - AI PC, AI server, and AI automotive electronics. The Commercial Times adds that Lam expects “next summer, when Microsoft launches a new generation of Windows operating systems, AI PCs will also be launched one after another.” However, that doesn't appear to be a direct quote from Mr Lam.If the June 2024 launch of Windows 12 happens, it will be earlier than a few previous clues have indicated. In March, we reported on an Intel Meteor Lake desktop processor (MTL-S) leak, where the as-yet-unreleased Windows version was apparently listed as a supported operating system. At the time, we pondered over Windows 12 being likely to launch in H2 2024, given its recently adopted three-year cycle. Also, in May, we reported that Microsoft was preparing a new own-branded (Arm?) CPU for Windows 12 devices.Intel Meteor Lake chips will be important to the mass adoption of accelerated AI due to dedicated processing hardware on all SoCs in this family. Meanwhile, hardware AI acceleration on the latest AMD Ryzen 7000 family offers is less clear-cut. Only Ryzen mobile 7040 ‘Phoenix’ chips have the XDNA architecture hardware to accelerate local AI processing. This will hopefully change, as there are signs of Phoenix coming to desktop, and of the Ryzen 8000 family chips on the way to mobile in the coming months. All this raises the specter that hardware AI processing support could be one of the minimum spec requirements for Windows 12. https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-12-will-be-launched-with-a-raft-of-ai-pcs-in-june-2024-according-to-taiwans-commercial-times

Fortnite (a game which by all accounts probably doesn't need the help) could come to Steam, but on one condition: the platform does away with its 30% cut. As spotted by Gamesradar, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney laid out the conditions for bringing Fortnite to the platform in a response to a Tweet, writing: "We’ll compete, and we’ll also put Fortnite on any serious store that gives all developers an awesome deal … the end of these ridiculous 30% fees is near." Steam takes a 30% cut, so it's a pretty obvious shot across the aisle.While it's a little funny that Sweeney is implying Steam isn't a "serious store" here, it should be noted that he isn't technically wrong. 30% is a high price for the privilege. Back in 2021, a state of the industry survey at GDC found that only 7% of respondents thought a 30% cut was justified.However if Fortnite came to Steam, it likely wouldn't be shelling out 30% of its profits for the privilege. If you're a big earner, Valve will only take 25% (past the $10 million mark) or 20% (past the $50 million mark). That's something Valve's been criticised for in the past—but given its current hold on the market, the resentment hasn't really done much.Epic Games has plenty of problems that keep it from achieving Steam's massive po[CENSORED]rity, but it does have the high ground in this particular debate. Epic's baseline cut is 12%, and there are programs in place that allow devs six months of 100% profit as long as they commit to Epic Games Store exclusivity. Cynically, this may be more down to the fact that Epic Games is less po[CENSORED]r (and needs to convince devs to use it). However, from a sheer numbers perspective it's generous by comparison. This also isn't the first time Sweeney's come down on Valve. Back in March, he said Steam had caused a "real problem for the industry" in how it set up its multiplayer games. "They have a classic lock-in strategy where they build these services that only work with their store, and they use the fact that they have the majority market share in order to encourage everybody to ship games that have a broken experience in other stores." On the other hand, Valve promotes games in ways that are (typically) handy for the consumer. In October, it was revealed that the store doesn't sell ad space at all—instead, the storefront uses either algorithmic methods or hand-curated full page takeovers and spotlights, which are selected based on how well the game's doing. This can even be good for devs sometimes, skimming-off-the-top aside. Dave the Diver had a meteoric rise to po[CENSORED]rity despite having a humble team, hitting the storefront like a torpedo. Other times, Steam's methods force even veteran studios to try and flip negative Steam reviews with embarrassing copy-and-paste comments, something that's become an industry standard for smaller studios too, as Steam grows ever more dominant. https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-ceo-tim-sweeney-says-hes-open-to-fortnite-on-steam-or-any-serious-store-but-that-the-end-of-these-ridiculous-30-fees-is-a-requirement/

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علينا و علي جميع المسلمين يارب العالمين ❤️

دعوة صباحية | خير دعاء يوم الجمعة .. دعاء النبي ﷺ لإزالة الهم والغم والحزن

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