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How to watch England vs India from anywhere: Live stream the first-ever women's test at Lord's for free

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The Home of Cricket awaits as it prepares to host its first-ever women’s Test match, with England taking on India in a one-off encounter. Both teams will be looking to bounce back after disappointing Women’s T20 World Cup campaigns. England finished as runners-up after being outclassed by Australia in the final (again), while India failed to progress beyond the group stage.

The head-to-head record slightly favors the tourists. India have won three matches, while England have managed just one victory in the 15 Tests between the two sides. Most recently, India claimed a dominant 347-run win in the one-off Test in December 2023, while the previous Test in England, played in June 2021, ended in a draw.

Adding to the occasion, Tammy Beaumont, one of England’s most prolific batters, has announced that she will retire from international cricket after this match. Led by Harmanpreet Kaur, this will be India’s first Test since their 10-wicket defeat to Australia at the WACA in March. Prior to that, India had not lost a women’s Test since the 2005-06 season, with that defeat also coming against Australia.

England, meanwhile, are also playing their first Test since suffering a crushing innings-and-122-run defeat to Australia in the 2024-25 Ashes. Led by veteran Nat Sciver-Brunt, the hosts will be eager to carry their momentum into the longest format after an emphatic 3-0 sweep of India in the recently concluded T20I series.

Read on to find out how to watch the England vs India women’s test from wherever you are, including free options.

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Can I stream England vs India women’s test for free?

Cricket fans in India are in luck! DD Sports will be providing free coverage of the entire ENG-W vs IND-W test match at Lord’s.

Just keep in mind, though, that DD Sports is a TV channel only available via cable TV – meaning cord-cutters are out of luck.

Cord-cutters in Australia, meanwhile, have a sneaky trick they can use to watch the game live: Kayo Sports offers a 7-day free trial to new users, letting you catch all the four days’ action live and free.

Outside any of these countries right now? No worries, you can still stream the action by using a VPN. More details below…

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Use a VPN to watch England vs India women’s test from anywhere

If you’re keen to watch cricket but you’re away from home and your preferred coverage is geo-blocked, you could always use a VPN to access it (assuming you’re not breaching any broadcaster T&Cs, of course). You may be surprised by how simple it is to do.

The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and comes with a 75% discount, and three months for free.

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Get NordVPN and stream the England vs India women’s test match from anywhere, even for free.View Deal

Quick start: Using a VPN to watch the 2026 England vs India one-off women’s test from anywhere

Using a VPN is incredibly simple, just follow these steps.

1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we’ve said, NordVPN is our favorite.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance if you’re visiting the U.K. and want to view an Australian streaming service, you’d select a location from Down Under (like Perth) from the server list.

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3. Sit back and enjoy the action. Head to Kayo Sports and watch England vs India women’s test just like you would at home.

How to watch England vs India women’s test live streams in the US

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Cricket streaming service Willow TV is the place to watch the England vs India women’s test match in the US.

If you don’t have it as part of your cable package, you can watch Willow coverage through your choice of Sling TV’s Desi Binge Plus or Dakshin Flex plans – starting from $10 per month.

Outside the US right now? You can make use of NordVPN to catch the action.

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How to watch England vs India women’s test live streams in the UK

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The England vs India women’s test match at Lord’s in London is exclusive to Sky Sports in the UK.

Sky Sports packages start from £22 per month. Or you can use a more flexible streaming option, Now (formerly Now TV). Now Sports memberships start at £14.99 for a day pass, or £34.99 monthly.

If you’re on holiday outside the UK, you can use NordVPN to access Sky Sports’ coverage.

How to watch England vs India women’s test live streams in India

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(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

As mentioned earlier, the England vs India women’s test is available on the free-to-air TV channel DD Sports.

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Cord-cutters can watch the game live on Sony Sports 1 and Sony Sports 2, with live streaming available on the SonyLiv app and website.

SonyLIV plans in India start at ₹299 ($3.14) for a monthly subscription, with annual mobile-only plans at ₹599 ($6.28) and premium annual packs at ₹999 ($10.48 USD) or ₹1499 ($15.72 USD).

If you’re currently out of India but want to watch the match live, you’ll need to get yourself a VPN, as per the instructions above.

How to watch England vs India women’s test live streams in Australia

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(Image credit: free)

The England vs India women’s test is being shown on Fox Cricket via Foxtel in Australia, with live streaming available via Kayo Sports.

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Kayo Sports starts at AU$30 per month after a 7-day free trial. Or you can get your first month for AU$1.

Outside Australia right now? Use NordVPN to access your favorite live cricket streams.

How to watch England vs India women’s test live streams in New Zealand

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Kiwis can watch the England vs India women’s test on Sky Sport and live stream it online via the Sky Sport Now service.

Prices start from $59.99/month or $549.99/year, and there’s also a $29.99/day option.

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Outside New Zealand right now? Use NordVPN to access your preferred women’s cricket coverage.

England vs India women’s test Q+A

Squads

England: Nat Sciver-Brunt (c), Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Alice Capsey, Tilly Corteen-Coleman, Sophie Ecclestone, Lauren Filer, Amy Jones (wk), Heather Knight, Emma Lamb, Grace Potts, Ellie Threlkeld, Mady Villiers, Issy Wong.

India: Hamanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana, Yastika Bhatia (wk), Shree Charani, Harleen Deol, Kranti Gaud, Richa Ghosh (wk), Sneh Rana, Pratika Rawal, Jemimah Rodrigues, Sayali Satghare, Deepti Sharma, Nandani Sharma, Renuka Singh, Shafali Verma.

What time does the England vs India women’s test match start?

The one-off 2026 England vs India women’s test match starts at 11am BST / 3:30pm IST every day from Friday, July 10 to Monday, July 13 at the iconic Lord’s in London.

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We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

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Browser-Based Image Inpainting Runs Locally, If One Doesn’t Mind A Big Download

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[Simon Willison] ported the Moebuis 0.2B image inpainting model to run locally in a web browser.  The web tool simply requires a user to provide an image, mark a section of it to be removed, and the model will do it’s best to patch up the missing area. The project was handled by Claude Code as an experiment in how things in the AI coding world have evolved, but more on that in a moment.

The existence of this tool shows that it’s possible for this kind of image editing to be done on the client side, running entirely locally with no reliance on remote services or server-side GPU resources. The online demo (GitHub repository here) is available if you want to try it out, but be warned it triggers a 1.27 gigabyte download of the required model on the first run.

What’s also interesting is [Simon]’s write-up, because he used the project as an opportunity to learn what has changed in the realm of AI coding agents. [Simon] is a software developer but in this project he didn’t personally write any of the code. One may think that means he didn’t learn anything other than how to use the tools, but that’s not quite true.

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He learned it’s possible to convert a PyTorch-based model to ONXX, that the converted model can run in supported browsers using local WebGPU acceleration, and that the CacheStorage API will work on large files. Last but not least, he learned Claude Opus 4.8 is capable of handling such a project pretty much autonomously, and even created an informative document explaining the underlying architecture.

One may consider AI coding agents to be disasters waiting to happen, but it’s also true that the landscape is changing quickly, and write-ups like [Simon]’s give a helpful peek at those developments.

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GIGABYTE Launches New Gaming PSUs That Can Detect GPU Cable Overheating

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Power supplies aren’t exactly the most exciting PC component to talk about. But considering how expensive modern graphics cards have become, and the issues we’ve seen with melting 12V-2×6 connectors over the past few years, it’s probably one of the few components you don’t want to cheap out on. That’s why GIGABYTE’s new GAMING Series power supplies are interesting. The company has introduced a new feature called T-Guard, which actively monitors the temperature of the GPU power connector and steps in before things get out of hand.

T-Guard Monitors Your GPU Power Cable in Real Time

The biggest highlight of the new PSU lineup is T-Guard, an active safety system designed specifically for the newer 12V-2×6 graphics card connector. Instead of waiting for something to go wrong, the PSU continuously monitors the connector using built-in temperature sensors. If it detects abnormal heat, which can occur due to a loose cable or excessive electrical load, it immediately alerts the system and begins protecting the hardware.

Rather than shutting down the entire PC instantly, the PSU intelligently reduces power only to the graphics card. That means the rest of the system can continue running normally, giving users enough time to save any unsaved work before safely powering the machine off. If your processor has integrated graphics, you’ll still get video output even after the GPU power has been limited, making it much easier to troubleshoot the issue rather than staring at a black screen.

Combined with real-time temperature monitoring, automatic GPU power limiting, and the ability to recover your work before shutdown, GIGABYTE says T-Guard offers three layers of protection against connector failures.

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Built for Modern Gaming PCs

Beyond the new safety features, the GAMING Series also ticks most of the boxes you’d expect from a modern enthusiast power supply. The units are fully compliant with the latest ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 standards, making them ready for current and upcoming graphics cards. They’re available in 750W, 850W, and 1000W capacities and come in both Black and Ice color options to better match different PC builds. Internally, GIGABYTE uses 100% Japanese capacitors, while the included dual-color 12V-2×6 cable makes it easier to confirm that the GPU connector has been plugged in correctly before powering on the system.

GIGABYTE has also focused on efficiency and acoustics with the new lineup. The PSUs have received Cybenetics ETA Platinum certification for energy efficiency and the Cybenetics LAMBDA A+ certification for low noise. According to the company, average operating noise stays below 20 dB(A) under typical workloads. Cooling duties are handled by a 135mm Fluid Dynamic Bearing fan, while HybridCool technology can completely stop the fan during lighter workloads. This allows the PSU to operate almost silently when the system isn’t under heavy load.

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Little House on the Prairie season 2: everything we know so far about the Netflix reboot’s return

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Little House on the Prairie season 2: key information

– Season 2 renewed before season 1 even aired
– No confirmed release date or plot
– Main cast expected to return, new cast confirmed to be introduced
– Production is underway as of July 2026

If there’s a reboot I’ve been pleasantly surprised by in recent years, its Netflix‘s take on Little House on the Prairie.

Based on the classic book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder of the same name, we follow the Ingalls family as they relocate to the Prairie lands of Kansas. Seen through the eyes of youngest daughter Laura (Alice Halsey), we’re reminded of what’s important in life — respect, understanding and a willingness to grow.

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LEGO Brings the Hubble Space Telescope Down to Earth

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LEGO Icons Hubble Space Telescope 11382
Builders who follow space sets have another strong option arriving soon from the LEGO Icons line. Set 11382 comprises a detailed model of the Hubble Space Telescope, which rewards meticulous building and makes an excellent display piece once completed. This 1,252-piece kit is intended for adults and costs $139.99. It will be released on August 1st, with the finished model measuring over 12.5 inches tall, 15 inches long, and 15 inches wide with the aperture door open.



When you first start building this telescope, you’ll see that the main cylindrical body is constructed first, followed by the removable panels along the sides, which must be opened for some reason to see inside the instrument bay. There are various eye-catching pieces in there, such as gyroscopes, primary and secondary mirrors, which give you an idea of how a real telescope collects light.


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LEGO Icons Hubble Space Telescope 11382
LEGO Icons Hubble Space Telescope 11382
The solar panels spring out from the sides on nice adjustable supports, and the antennae are all in their proper places. If that wasn’t enough, you can actually open the enormous aperture door to look at the optical system. All of these moving parts work together perfectly to create a model that maintains its shape whether picked up or displayed. Of course, it’s not just about the model; an astronaut minifigure hangs around near the telescope to provide a feeling of size. Which, by the way, is fairly impressive since the actual Hubble is quite large in orbit to say the least. There is also a display stand to keep everything steady and a little plaque with some basic information about the expedition.

LEGO Icons Hubble Space Telescope 11382
LEGO Icons Hubble Space Telescope 11382
Another element that stands out is the base, which features printed tiles that recreate three renowned Hubble images: the Pillars of Creation, the Whirlpool Galaxy, and the Butterfly Nebula. The light shines through the glass panels from behind, creating a wonderful soft glow effect. It’s a nice touch that enhances the overall experience.

LEGO Icons Hubble Space Telescope 11382
LEGO Icons Hubble Space Telescope 11382
Compared to the smaller Hubble set that came with the Space Shuttle Discovery, this one is a significant upgrade. The larger size allows you to dig into the inside features, and the proportions are much better, making it feel like a complete separate item rather than just an accessory thrown on. via terms of construction, the Icons series follows standard procedure: digital instructions via the LEGO Builder app, 3D model rotation, and step-by-step progress tracking. And everything moves at a great steady pace, keeping things interesting without speeding through the stages. You can see every major system on the telescope, which is a lovely touch.
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In Rural Districts, AI Resources for Educators Are Scarce

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Professional development is crucial in ensuring teachers can put AI to work effectively. But a recent study from Texas Tech University found that PD around AI may not be readily available in rural schools.

“The resources are limited. There is not much support out there for our rural educators,” says Nikkolina Prueitt, a co-author of the study. For rural schools to get the most out of AI, “we will need to build that knowledge base.”

Closing the Gap

AI has the potential to give rural teachers a pedagogical boost. It can provide instructional support, “like creating differentiated instruction, adapting lessons, drafting individualized education plans,” Prueitt says.

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And AI can expand rural students’ understanding of the world, says Amanda Robinson, an elementary teacher at Pikeville Elementary, a Title I school in Eastern Kentucky. “AI opens the students’ horizons.”

In a rural community, AI can students to “experience new learning, outside of their communities,” said Dr. LeeAnn Lindsey, director of edtech and innovation at Northern Arizona University. But she sees rural schools struggle to embrace that potential, due in part to a lack of in-house expertise. “Our big urban and suburban school districts, they have technology integration coaches who have been diving into the AI work for the past three years,” she says. “Rural school districts often don’t.”

To help close the gap, Northern Arizona last fall led a collaborative effort to offer PD around AI in three rural school districts in the state. Each district made available its superintendent, an instructional leader, and three classroom teachers for training over the course of two and a half months.

This was action-oriented PD. “They identified problems of practice in their own classroom that they wanted to address. Some of them looked at writing skills, some looked at student engagement, some looked at relevance of their lessons,” Lindsey says.

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“They learned the AI specific to the area that they wanted to address,” she adds. “Then they actually took those solutions into their classroom and collected data to find out if AI would really help them solve that problem.”

At Pikeville Elementary, Robinson gets professional training from a district learning coach, who helps teachers understand the current AI tools. “She tends to do them about twice a month, as her schedule permits, after school for about an hour. And then also she works with you one-on-one during your planning periods, if you need that,” Robinson says.

The AI training has helped improve Robinson’s instruction, she says. For example, she has leveraged her AI knowledge to develop a chatbot that helps students explore animal adaptations in certain habitats. PD around AI “gives us the opportunity to provide our students with more opportunities and more in-depth ways of thinking,” she says.

Building an AI PD Effort

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However, success stories like Robinson’s are outliers. The Texas Tech paper found that a lack of professional development resources often hinders AI adoption in rural schools. While tight budgets can make it hard to mount AI training, there are ways that schools can move forward with AI training.

Prueitt says it’s important that schools use their limited resources to mount the right kind of professional development. Rather than focus on specific AI tools, PD in K-12 should focus on “AI literacy and the foundational knowledge around AI,” she says. When teachers have a firm grounding in the basics, they’ re able to evaluate the tools effectively, “and that’s where it starts to grow and to be super useful for these rural educators,” she says, adding that the Center for Innovation, Design, and Digital Learning (CIDDL) is a great resource for educators.

School leaders should also focus on the big-picture intent of that training. “Our information and decision-making landscape is changing,” says Lindsey. “Our students need to be well versed in this changing information economy and the changing workforce.” Rural schools should prepare students for work in an increasingly tech-driven economy, she says, and PD around AI should reflect that intent.

Robinson has seen first-hand the value in that approach. “In our area, our students only see the jobs that are there within our communities. As teachers introducing AI, we are giving them more opportunities to become digitally literate,” she says. “As they start looking into universities in college, we’re putting them on a level playing field, instead of leaving our children behind.”

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As schools look to meet that mark, “there are programs and grants that rural districts can apply for, to be part of professional development experiences like the one we offered,” Lindsey says, noting that the training was offered was for free.

“The first step would be to look at the resources available in your state,” Prueitt says. Her institution offers free professional development opportunities to rural schools, including a recent two-day AI workshop for special educators.

State and regional education service centers can also help rural schools ramp up PD programs, Prueitt adds, and they can help those schools understand how PD can be best support teachers’ efforts to ramp up AI. That will include not just training on what AI can do in the classroom, but also instruction on how to use it appropriately.

A key question around classroom AI remains: “How do we use it ethically?” Prueitt says. The right PD will help teachers to not only make effective use of AI, but to do so “in a way that still keeps that human in the loop.”

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Robinson points to ethics as a key element of professional training around AI. She had previously taught K-6 technology and now is pivoting back to teaching writing and grammar, and while she’s looking forward to more PD to get familiar with the tools, she’s also aware of the limitations.

Chatbots for example can score students’ writing based on the rubric, before assignments are handed in. But “it will not eliminate my one-on-one conferencing,” she said. Rather, the AI can give students insight into their work, “so that I can show them where we can improve on this.”

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You can now check if a Google ad was made with AI

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Ever looked at an ad and wondered if a real person made it or if it was AI generated in seconds? Google is now giving you a way to find out.

The company just announced a new AI transparency label that tells you whether an ad was created or edited using generative AI tools. The label lives inside Google’s My Ad Center, and it is rolling out across Google Search, YouTube, and Discover globally.

How to find the AI label on Google ads?

Finding it is straightforward. Tap the three-dot menu or the info button on any ad, and you will see a “How this ad was made” section. If the ad was made using AI, you may see a label saying “Created or edited with AI.”

For ads made using Google’s own generative AI advertising tools, the label gets applied automatically, so you do not have to rely on the advertiser to disclose anything. If an advertiser uses a third-party AI tool instead, they can manually disclose that information through My Ad Center. In some countries, local regulations may also require AI labels to appear directly on the ad itself.

Why is Google adding AI labels?

As AI-generated images and videos become more realistic, it is becoming harder to tell how advertising content was created. Google says the new labels are meant to give people more transparency while helping advertisers keep up with evolving industry standards.

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The company has already introduced disclosures for digitally altered political ads and expanded support for technologies such as SynthID, which also powers Google Photos’ AI image watermarks, and C2PA, a standard that Google is also bringing to Google Messages to help identify AI-generated images in chats.

Google is also testing ways to show AI-generated image labels directly in Google Search and has expanded Gemini’s ability to help users spot AI-generated videos. The new ad labels build on those efforts by bringing similar transparency to commercial advertising.

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Bari Weiss Is Filling CBS News With British Right Wing Propagandists

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from the you’re-simply-not-very-good-at-anything dept

Bari Weiss is seeking out friendly interviewers at the New York Times to try and “calm the firestorm engulfing her leadership of CBS News.” By “leadership” of course they mean censoring stories critical of the president, letting Benjamin Netanyahu pick his own interviewer (who he knows won’t press him on war crimes), firing a bunch of industry veterans, and just generally being an unqualified, fail-upward clod.

As we’ve long explored, Weiss wasn’t hired to do journalism. She was hired to do right wing agitprop. But given she’s not good at that either, CBS just saw its lowest ratings in a quarter century.

Undaunted, Weiss is continuing her efforts to “reshape” CBS into something Larry Ellison and other U.S. oligarchs approve of. As a result she’s apparently accelerated efforts to hire a bunch of right wing Brits, most of them with associations to Rupert Murdoch’s sprawling right wing tabloid empire. Said Brits will, curiously enough, tell you that hiring a bunch of white right wing Brits is a wonderful idea:

“According to several figures familiar with her thinking, however, the hires are no coincidence. “She’s been looking at various Brits that might add a bit of opinion/attitude diversity to US media, instead of the dominant, predictable Columbia Journalism School uniformity. Not a bad idea,” said Andrew Neil, the former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times, who supported her hiring of Phillips.”

Hiring a bunch of white male right wing protectors of the extraction class (and global autocrats) as the pinnacle of “opinion diversity” is a theme you’ll see constantly throughout Weiss’ demolition and repurposing of CBS. Because said British tabloiders sometimes break gossip on politicians and celebrities (often illegally) they’re framed as tough journalists:

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“A CBS News source, describing Weiss’s interest in British journalists, said: “They do the kind of things that Bari is looking for; it’s not puff pieces and kid gloves.”

Rupert Murdoch’s longstanding skill wasn’t just to make right wing propaganda, but right wing propaganda that entertained and drew ratings and subscriptions. A soup of agitprop infotainment. To date there’s absolutely zero indication that Weiss and Ellison have any knack for that whatsoever, so they’re attempting to hire Rupert Murdoch adjacent folks who do.

Even then, it’s no longer the same world Rupert Murdoch thrived in. Broadcast TV is dying, social media is ever evolving, and (as we’ve seen at outlets like the Jeff Bezos Washington Post), people aren’t really in the mood for right wing billionaire simping agitprop. With any luck, the “new” CBS will collapse under the load of Warner Bros debt long before Weiss and company figure out the right formula.

Filed Under: bari weiss, consolidation, journalism, media, news, propaganda, rupert murdoch

Companies: cbs, paramount

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Nearly 50% of S’pore employees fear job loss as AI & cost-cutting concerns grow

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More than a third of workers also work from the office five days a week, double the global average

Nearly half of employees in Singapore expect their jobs to be affected by restructuring, automation or cost-cutting measures in 2026, according to Morgan McKinley’s latest 2026 Workplace Trends Report.

At 49%, the figure is significantly higher than the global average of 37%.

The finding comes amid growing uncertainty in Singapore’s labour market.

While overall employment has continued to grow, larger employers have become increasingly cautious about hiring, with more planning to reduce headcount this year. Recent Ministry of Manpower data also showed retrenchments climbed to their highest quarterly level since 2023, while job vacancies declined.

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How are employees responding?

While Morgan McKinley did not provide Singapore-specific figures for how employees are responding to job insecurity, the global findings suggest many workers are already taking steps to future-proof their careers.

Among employees who fear losing their jobs, 85% said they would start looking for a new role, while 64% said they would invest in new skills or additional qualifications.

The findings suggest that workers increasingly view upskilling and career mobility as ways to stay competitive amid economic uncertainty and rapid technological change.

Singapore is one of the world’s most office-based workforces

Alongside concerns over job security, employees in Singapore are also spending considerably more time in physical workplaces.

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The report found that 37% of employees in Singapore work from the office five days a week, more than double the global average of 17%. Among the markets surveyed, only Hong Kong recorded a higher proportion at 60%, making Singapore one of the world’s most office-centric employment markets.

However, this doesn’t necessarily reflect what employees want.

Globally, only 9% of respondents said they would choose to work from the office five days a week if given the option, with most preferring hybrid arrangements instead.

The findings highlight an ongoing disconnect between employee preferences and workplace policies in many markets.

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What lies ahead for Singapore’s job market?

Morgan McKinley’s findings are based on responses from 2,799 employees and 214 employers across the participating markets, collected through an online survey in late 2025.

While Singapore’s labour market continued to expand in the first quarter of 2026—with total employment rising by 9,400, marking the 18th consecutive quarter of growth since the fourth quarter of 2021—the survey suggests that workers remain concerned about what lies ahead.

  • Read other articles we’ve written on Singapore’s job landscape here.

Featured Image Credit: Ministry of Manpower

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SAP averts an EU antitrust fine by opening up its support market

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SAP has talked its way out of an EU antitrust fine. The European Commission said it would accept a set of commitments from the German software group, closing an investigation into how SAP handles maintenance and support for its on-premise enterprise software and sparing it a penalty that could have run into the billions. It is the kind of negotiated exit that has become Brussels’ preferred outcome in complex tech cases.

The case dates to September 2025, when regulators opened a probe into concerns that SAP’s practices restricted competition in the aftermarket for maintenance and support of its software.

The worry was familiar in enterprise software: once a customer is locked into a core system, the terms attached to keeping it running can quietly foreclose rivals who might otherwise offer cheaper or better support.

SAP’s answer was a package of concessions rather than a fight. The company agreed to offer an alternative method for calculating the licence fees on which maintenance and service charges are based, a technical change that goes to the heart of how customers get priced into staying.

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It also agreed to scrap reinstatement fees and to reduce back-maintenance charges for customers who leave and later return. Those fees are the sort of friction that makes switching support providers expensive enough that many customers simply do not bother, which is precisely the effect regulators objected to.

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A further commitment lets customers terminate their licences in specific circumstances, including insolvency or bankruptcy, giving businesses in distress an exit they did not previously have. Taken together, the measures are designed to make leaving, pausing or switching SAP support a real option rather than a theoretical one.

The commitments will apply globally and run for 10 years, an unusually long and broad undertaking that turns a European settlement into a worldwide change in how SAP treats its customers. For a company whose installed base spans most of the world’s large enterprises, the reach matters as much as the substance.

The outcome fits a pattern in the Commission’s recent enforcement. Rather than litigate to a fine and years of appeals, Brussels has increasingly used commitment decisions to extract behavioural change quickly, the same instrument it has reached for while probing hardware and medtech markets from chips to dental aligners.

The company avoids a penalty and an admission; the regulator gets enforceable promises without the delay of a full case.

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For SAP, the calculus is straightforward. A fine would have been a one-off cost, but a formal infringement finding would have handed ammunition to customers and rivals for years.

Settling on commitments removes the legal overhang while letting the company frame the changes as a customer-friendly gesture rather than a defeat.

The concessions are not costless. Making it easier to leave, and cheaper to come back, chips away at the recurring maintenance revenue that has long been one of the most dependable parts of SAP’s business. How much it actually loosens customers’ grip depends on whether third-party support providers can now compete on terms that were previously stacked against them.

There is a strategic backdrop, too. SAP has spent years steering customers off on-premise systems and onto its cloud subscriptions, and the aftermarket the Commission scrutinised is tied to the older, installed-software world the company is trying to move beyond. Loosening its grip on legacy support is easier to concede when the future is meant to be somewhere else.

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That is the open question the settlement leaves behind. The Commission has changed the rules of the aftermarket on paper; whether customers use their new room to move, or stay put out of habit, is something the next decade will decide. For now, SAP keeps its money, its market and a ten-year promise to behave.

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One interface isn’t enough for enterprise AI

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Presented by Oracle NetSuite


Every major technology transition produces a set of assumptions about where the market is headed. The assumptions are often directionally correct, but they tend to underestimate the degree to which organizations adapt new technologies to their own circumstances. AI is following a similar trajectory.

Many current discussions about enterprise AI assume a future in which employees interact with business systems through a common interface. The details vary depending on the prediction, but the destination often looks similar: a conversational system that becomes the primary way people access information, complete tasks, and interact with software.

The history of enterprise technology suggests a more complicated outcome. Organizations rarely adopt new capabilities uniformly because different parts of the business operate under different constraints. A finance team responsible for reporting accuracy, controls, and approvals approaches technology differently than an analytics group exploring operational data. Both groups have different requirements than a customer service organization focused on response times and case resolution. Even when there is broad agreement that a technology is valuable, the path to adoption tends to vary across functions.

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The shift to cloud software followed this pattern — some organizations moved aggressively while others spent years operating hybrid environments. Different departments often modernized on different timelines, reflecting the priorities of the work itself rather than any industry consensus about the correct pace of adoption.

There’s no one-size-fits-all AI

AI has accelerated many aspects of technology development, but it has not changed this underlying dynamic. Organizations still evaluate new capabilities through the lens of existing processes, responsibilities, and operational requirements.

For some employees, the most useful AI capabilities may be the least visible ones. A finance manager closing the books is often less interested in a new interface than in shortening a reporting cycle. An operations leader dealing with inventory issues is usually focused on identifying problems earlier and resolving them more quickly. In these situations, the value of AI comes from reducing the amount of effort required to complete existing work.

At the same time, another group of users increasingly wants direct interaction with AI systems. Analysts, planners, and operational teams often benefit from the ability to explore information conversationally, compare scenarios, and investigate questions that do not fit neatly into predefined reports. For these users, the interface itself becomes valuable because it provides a more flexible way to work with business information.

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A customer service representative handling a high volume of inquiries has different requirements than a financial analyst investigating a trend in operating expenses. One benefits from information appearing automatically within an existing process while the other may benefit from the freedom to ask follow-up questions, explore alternative explanations, and move through data more dynamically.

Many organizations are discovering that both patterns exist simultaneously, which reflects a broader reality about how businesses evolve. Operational complexity accumulates gradually, systems multiply, and processes become fragmented. Information becomes distributed across applications, reports, spreadsheets, and workflows and employees spend increasing amounts of time locating information before they can begin acting on it.

Much of the value created by enterprise software over the last several decades came from reducing that fragmentation. Bringing financials, operations, inventory, customer information, planning, and reporting into a common system created a more complete picture of how the business was operating.

AI is beginning to address a related problem. Once information exists within connected systems, employees still need to find it, interpret it, and apply it. Reporting cycles consume time. Routine questions require investigation. Managers often spend considerable effort assembling information before they can make decisions. As organizations grow, these activities become increasingly expensive because they consume attention from people whose expertise is often in short supply.

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AI’s promise is to reduce the effort required to move from information to action.

At Dura Software, AI-connected workflows are helping automate portions of revenue reporting that previously required manual preparation during each reporting cycle. Sloan Session, CFO at Dura Software, described the arrangement in practical terms: “The agents handle the pull. The humans handle the judgment and the personal touch.”

That observation captures an important aspect of current AI adoption. Most organizations are not attempting to remove judgment from business processes. They are trying to reduce the amount of time spent gathering, organizing, and preparing information so that experienced employees can focus on the decisions that require expertise.

A similar pattern emerged at S&B Filters. Employees previously spent several minutes during customer interactions collecting backorder information from multiple systems. By connecting AI to operational data, the company reduced that process to seconds and eventually extended the capability directly to customers through self-service.

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Don’t forget about governance

In both cases, the benefit comes from reducing the friction associated with finding and using information rather than introducing a new interface. The moment information becomes easier to access, questions about access itself become more important. Permissions, approval structures, and security policies exist because businesses need mechanisms for controlling access to information and managing risk. Those requirements do not disappear when employees begin interacting with data through AI systems. If anything, they become more important because AI can make information easier to access.

Berry Carter, CEO of S&B Filters, described the principle clearly. If a user cannot access specific information within NetSuite, that user should not gain access to the same information through an AI assistant. The statement sounds obvious. Implementing it consistently across systems, workflows, and models requires considerably more discipline than the statement itself suggests.

Lauren Polasek, former NetSuite administrator and board member of the Texas NetSuite User Group, recently made a related point. Connecting technology is often the easier part. Organizations still need to determine which tools should be used, who should have access to them, and how governance should evolve as adoption expands.

This is one reason predictions about a single AI interface are difficult to reconcile with how enterprises actually operate. The requirements of a finance organization closing the books are different from those of a customer service team handling thousands of interactions each day. Some AI capabilities will be embedded directly into business processes where employees may barely notice them. Others will provide more direct access to operational information through conversational systems. Many businesses will end up using both approaches because the underlying work is different.

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Have AI your way

That perspective has shaped how we think about AI at NetSuite. Some customers want AI embedded directly within operational workflows. Others want the ability to connect NetSuite data to external models and assistants so they can interact with business information through tools that are already part of their daily work. Increasingly, organizations are asking for both.

The NetSuite AI Connector Service and our support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) were designed with that reality in mind. The goal is to allow organizations to connect business information securely to the workflows and systems that make sense for them while continuing to benefit from AI capabilities built directly into NetSuite.

The history of enterprise software suggests that adoption rarely follows a straight line. As organizations adopt AI, business leaders should identify the business objective and the workflows involved so they can match the solution to the reality of the work.


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