Presented by Atlassian

Most companies are approaching AI adoption backwards by optimizing how individuals use AI instead of how teams work together, said Dr. Molly Sands, head of the Teamwork Lab at Atlassian, during a fireside chat with VentureBeat senior technology contributor Sam Witteveen at VB Transform 2026.

Sands leads a team of behavioral scientists and psychologists who study how AI is reshaping the way people work together, using those findings to help organizations redesign how work gets done.

“We don’t just study it, we also actively go in and change it,” she explained. Her teams teach new ways of working and remap how work flows across companies, a challenge that many organizations are still struggling with, she said.

Why AI speed isn’t translating into ROI

Atlassian’s annual State of Teams Report, which this year surveyed 12,000 global knowledge workers and interviewed roughly 200 Fortune 1000 executives, found a significant disconnect between activity and value, showing that everyone is using AI, while very few can yet locate where it pays off.

“89% of those executives told us that individuals are speeding up in their companies, and only 6% of them said they could point to specific examples of clear ROI,” Sands said.

But roughly 14% of teams had translated AI usage into real value — meaning a single organization could contain a handful of high-performing teams surrounded by others seeing no return at all.

Those leading teams shared three characteristics: context, workflows and culture. The teams pulling ahead were building what Atlassian calls a context graph by capturing goals, decisions, and organizational knowledge in shared digital records rather than leaving them in individual memory. Across products such as Jira and Confluence, the graph connects work items, goals and the people doing them, giving AI access to the organizational context it needs.

On workflows, the winning teams redesigned entire end-to-end processes rather than simply accelerating isolated tasks. Otherwise, speeding up individuals who are pointed in slightly different directions only causes them to “very quickly start to crash into each other,” as Sands puts it.

On culture, the fastest-moving teams worked under leaders who explicitly encouraged learning and experimentation, while making it clear that some experiments would fail.

How leaders can move AI from individual hack to team advantage

Experimentation and constraints are the fastest route to learning, Sands said. The teams seeing the biggest gains were deliberately imposing constraints on how they worked, from breaking every task into the smallest practical unit of work (a single story point) to committing to write no code by hand for a week.

“Most of it is not sustainable to do forever, but it is a really, really fast way to learn,” she said.

Sands argued that another obstacle isn’t the technology itself but the fact that employees are figuring out AI on their own. Every worker develops different prompts, agents and assumptions, creating another layer of unspoken knowledge inside teams that rarely translates into organizational performance.

To counter that, Atlassian experimented with AI working agreements at the start of projects, asking teams to decide not only what they would use AI for, but what they would deliberately avoid using it for, which agents they would share and what common skills would keep everyone working from the same context. Teams that adopted the practice used AI more, moved faster, made better decisions and ultimately produced higher-quality work.

The broader lesson, Sands said, is that AI isn’t creating entirely new management problems so much as exposing old ones. Teams have always struggled with hidden assumptions and different mental models of their work. AI simply makes those gaps more consequential, increasing the importance of shared context and explicit ways of working.

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When I started looking closely at the learning platforms schools ask families to use, I noticed something easy to miss if it doesn’t affect you: almost all of them are built in English first.

For families who speak Spanish at home, that one fact quietly changes everything. A child might be able to follow along in class, but the parent often can’t — and a parent who can’t understand the material can’t sit beside their kid and help them with it. The language barrier becomes an opportunity barrier. And it’s invisible to the people who never have to think about it.

For me, the English-first technology trend was never abstract. My own children use the technology I’ve built, and I built it for families like the ones all around me — so that the opportunity to understand money, technology, and how to build something of your own doesn’t depend on which language gets spoken at the dinner table. I’m tired of watching the same families get left a step behind — not because their kids are any less capable but because no one built the on-ramp in a language they could use.

That language gap is what I set out to close.

It matters now more than ever because a growing number of states are starting to require students to take a personal finance course to graduate. For example, California’s Assembly Bill 2927 requires students to complete a stand-alone personal finance course to graduate high school starting with the class of 2030-31, with schools required to offer it by 2027-28. But if the lessons exist only in English, many households that need that knowledge are also the ones least able to access and reinforce it at home. A mandate built that way doesn’t close the gap. It can widen it.

I’ve spent the past three years building a bilingual K-12 learning platform, and the single most important thing I’ve learned is this: there is a world of difference between a product that has been translated and a product that is bilingual. Most edtech tools that advertise Spanish support only translate the interface — the menus, the buttons, the navigation — but the instruction itself stays in English. To a district evaluating the tool in a demo, it looks bilingual. To a parent sitting down with their child at the kitchen table, it isn’t.

This is the part I think edtech keeps getting wrong. We tend to treat language as the last step: build the English version and then add Spanish later if the budget allows. But a lesson a family can’t understand together hasn’t really been delivered — it’s just a box that got checked.

So, what does taking this seriously actually look like? Having sat on the builder’s side of these conversations, here is the concrete guidance I’d offer.

Five Questions for Edtech Vendors

When a vendor says their product “supports Spanish,” ask the following questions to differentiate true bilingual instruction from a translated menu bar:

• Is the instructional content itself available in Spanish — for every lesson and at every grade level — or only the interface? Ask them to open a mid-unit lesson in Spanish during the demo, not the homepage.

• Is the audio in Spanish or only the text? Many parents are stronger listeners than readers in either language. Text-only translation still excludes them.

• Are parent-facing communications translated? Progress reports, dashboards and notification emails are how parents actually use the platform. If these features are in English, the parent is cut out of the loop no matter what the student sees.

• Was the Spanish content written or reviewed by educators or was it machine translated? Machine translation of math word problems and financial terms produces errors that would confuse a struggling reader.

• When new content is released, are both languages released together? If Spanish content is released a semester after the English content, Spanish-speaking families are permanently a step behind — by design.

A vendor with a truly bilingual platform will answer these questions in 30 seconds. A vendor with a translated interface will pivot to their roadmap.

Small Changes Keep Parents in the Loop

Teachers can’t rewrite their district’s software, but they can keep Spanish-speaking parents in the learning loop with the tools they already have.

• Send the “what we’re learning this week” note home in both languages. Even if the learning platform is only in English, a two-line bilingual summary tells a parent what to ask their child about at dinner. Free translation tools are imperfect, but a two-line note reviewed by parents is achievable weekly.

• Show parents the language toggle if one exists. Many families never discover a product’s Spanish mode because nobody walked them through it at back-to-school night. A five-minute demonstration in the fall can change a family’s entire year.

• Assign homework with the parent in mind. When assigning homework on an English-only platform, include one question the student must explain to their parent in the family’s home language. This makes the parent a participant instead of a bystander. Plus, explaining a concept in another language is one of the best comprehension checks there is.

• Flag the gaps upward. District procurement teams rarely hear which tools are failing bilingual families because the feedback doesn’t travel that far. A teacher noting that “the educational unit has no Spanish audio and my students’ parents can’t understand it” is exactly the evidence a district needs at renewal time.

Requirements Don’t Create Access

Taking access seriously isn’t complicated. It means treating a second language as a design requirement, not a stretch goal. It means making the platform bilingual from the first line of code, in the text and the audio, so a parent and child can move through a lesson together. It means making sure the highest value subjects — the ones tied to a student’s economic future — are the ones that exist in both languages first, not last. None of this is exotic. It’s just a decision about who you’re building for, made early enough to matter.

Matty Benedetto keeps finding new ways to turn everyday habits into elaborate projects. This time the Vermont designer behind Unnecessary Inventions has built a portable snack safe that stays shut until its owner logs a set number of steps. The idea is simple enough. Load a treat, dial in the calorie count, close the lid, and start walking. Only after the counter hits zero does the door release.

The case resembles a sturdy lunchbox, with a convenient handle on top. Everything was 3D printed, then finished with snappy UV-printed typography and laser-cut acrylic panels for a sleek appearance. There’s a window in the back that lets you see what’s inside at all times, and it’s actually very effective at keeping you going. Watching a bag of gummy bears shrink in size is an excellent way to stay motivated.

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The front panel features a set of seven-segment displays that show your remaining step count in large, colorful numbers, as well as two rotary dials. They function as both a lock button and a mechanism to enter the calorie count of whatever snack you’re attempting to ‘accidentally’ conceal from yourself. Press the middle of the dial to close the box, then rotate it to enter the calorie count. The onboard computer calculates the number of steps required to burn all of those calories. I once saw a bag of gummy bears that required a series of procedures to release.

The electromagnets do all of the actual locking. They are quite strong, as a pair of them securely closes the door against any negligent tugging. An accelerometer on the inside monitors every step you take. As long as you keep moving, the counter will count down in real time. Stopping for a second freezes the counter until you move again. When the display reaches zero, the magnets disengage and the door snaps open.

All of the box’s brains are contained on an ESP32 development board, ensuring that all of the displays and devices work together seamlessly, while the cables and power are squeezed within so that nothing sticks out or gets in the way while walking. It’s light enough to take for a neighborhood loop or a longer errand run without feeling like a chore.

Benedetto tested it with gummy bears and a high step objective that corresponded to their calorie intake. The prize remained visible via the back glass at all times. He eventually burned off the calories, the magnets let go, and the bag became available. The entire process transforms getting a snack on a whim into a mini-commitment.
[Source]

‘Can we please stop pretending environmental rules are a burden on Europe’s economy?’ says EEB policy director Faustine Bas-Defossez.

EU environment ministers are set to meet in Dublin on Thursday (23 July) for an “informal” session discussing the climate and environmental challenges impacting the bloc.

Hosted by Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O’Brien, TD, the two-day meeting this week is one of 22 such sessions that Ireland will conduct as part of its eighth round leading the EU Council.

According to the meeting agenda, ministers are expected to discuss decarbonisation in EU’s competitiveness  and industrial strategy, and prepare for upcoming UN environment conferences.

Brussels-based European Environmental Bureau (EEB), which will be in attendance at the conference, is expected to push for the full implementation of the EU Green Deal.

“Can we please stop pretending environmental rules are a burden on Europe’s economy?,” said EEB policy director Faustine Bas-Defossez.

“The real burden is the cost of failing to deliver the European Green Deal. Environment ministers must defend this agenda tooth and nail. If a crisis with that human and economic toll is not our top priority, what is?”

The EEB is a mega-network of 190 environmental citizens’ organisations across 42 countries.

The gathering comes as Western Europe faced its hottest June on record this year, while the bloc continues to remain off track on the vast majority of its 2030 environmental targets.

The June past was also the second warmest globally, only behind June 2024 by 0.09 degree Celsius. European countries reported more than 10,000 excess deaths during last month’s heatwave, with a majority dead being aged 65 and above.

Meanwhile, failures in implementation and enforcement of environment law in the bloc is estimated to be costing residents at least €180bn annually.

The EU Green Deal targets a 50pc emissions cut by 2030, while legally binding the 2050 neutrality goal through the European Climate Law.

Alongside this major goal, the deal aims to fuel the economy with investments to upskill workers in new, sustainable technology and help households with energy efficiency.

At the same time, the EU is ramping up efforts to better compete with the likes of US and China by cutting red tape and simplifying regulation. It aims to cut administrative workload by at least 25pc for all companies and at least 35pc for small and medium-sized enterprises while staying the course on its environment goals.

Although, according to the EEB, evidence shows that Europe’s long-term competitiveness, security and resilience depend on fully implementing and strengthening the European Green Deal.

The group is calling on the Irish presidency to ensure that simplification leads to better implementation; secure a long-term EU budget that invests in climate resilience, nature restoration and pollution prevention; and safeguard science-based policymaking, democratic accountability and meaningful civil society participation.

“Europe cannot build competitiveness, security or prosperity on collapsing ecosystems and escalating climate disruption. Tackling the triple ecological crisis cannot be treated as just another priority, it is what will allow Europe to tackle the rest of its challenges,” said Bas-Defossez.

“The choice facing environment ministers in Ireland this week is simple; continue down the path of deregulation and delayed action, ignoring facts, science and citizens or put Europe back on track as a global leader in the transition to a resilient, fossil fuel-free and prosperous future. The costs of inaction are already being felt across the continent.”

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Craft Recordings has spent 2026 emptying the jazz vaults at a pace that suggests someone misplaced the brake pedal. It is only mid-July, and the label has already released six Original Jazz Classics titles, while Jazz Dispensary has marked its 10th anniversary with Top Shelf editions of Joe Henderson’s Tetragon, The Visitors’ Motherland, and Roger Glenn’s Reachin’. Woody Shaw’s Song of Songs is next, and it may be the most adventurous selection of the group.

Originally released by Contemporary Records in 1973, Song of Songs was Shaw’s second album as a leader and captured the trumpeter working in the fertile territory between hard bop, modal jazz, and the avant-garde. Recorded in Los Angeles in September 1972, the four-track album featured George Cables, Henry Franklin, Woodrow Theus II, Emanuel Boyd, Ramon Morris, and Bennie Maupin, with every composition written by Shaw. This was not experimentation for its own sake; Shaw was already developing the harmonic language, forceful tone, and compositional sophistication that would make him one of the most influential trumpeters of his generation.

Returning to vinyl in its original format for the first time in more than 50 years, the new Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf edition has been cut directly from the analog master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing. The LP arrives in a tip-on jacket reproducing the original Contemporary Records artwork, while standard and high-resolution digital editions will reach streaming platforms on the same day. Song of Songs arrives September 4, 2026, and continues a remarkable run from Craft that has been very good for jazz listeners and increasingly dangerous for their record-storage situation.

Forgive me IKEA.

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From Sideman to Singular Voice

Woody Shaw was not merely another gifted trumpeter to emerge from the hard bop tradition. He was a composer, bandleader, and formidable technician who expanded the harmonic vocabulary of the instrument and helped push modern jazz beyond the familiar language established by earlier generations.

Born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Shaw developed quickly enough to attract the attention of Eric Dolphy, Willie Bobo, and Bud Powell while still a young musician. After spending time in Europe, he returned to the United States and worked with Chick Corea, Max Roach, Art Blakey, and Joe Henderson. Those experiences placed him alongside some of the most adventurous musicians of the period and encouraged him to develop a voice that was increasingly his own.

Shaw began recording as a leader with Blackstone Legacy in 1970, a politically charged double album that connected his bebop foundation with the freer and more exploratory language of the avant-garde. Song of Songs, released by Contemporary Records in 1973, continued that development while presenting Shaw as an increasingly confident composer and bandleader.

The album features keyboardist George Cables, bassist Henry Franklin, drummer Woodrow Theus II, tenor saxophonist Ramon Morris, and multi-instrumentalist Emanuel Boyd, with Bennie Maupin appearing on “The Goat and the Archer.” Across four extended original compositions, Shaw gives the ensemble room to stretch without allowing the music to lose its structure or direction.

The nearly 12-minute title track was built around a five-note Indonesian scale and written against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Shaw dedicated the composition to the people of Southeast Asia, explaining in the original liner notes that the suffering caused by the war had influenced both his thinking and his music. The result is expansive and cinematic, but its political and emotional intent prevents it from becoming an abstract exercise.

“Love, for the One You Can’t Have” moves in a more personal direction. Written following Shaw’s separation from his wife, the ballad balances restraint with considerable emotional tension. “The Goat and the Archer,” inspired by Shaw’s Capricorn birth sign, introduces a more direct blues and swing foundation, while Maupin’s tenor saxophone adds further weight and contrast to the front line.

The closing “The Awakening” may be the clearest statement of where Shaw was headed. The performance is rooted in spiritual jazz, collective improvisation, and careful listening rather than a conventional succession of solos. Shaw described the title as a reflection of his own artistic awakening and his growing determination to lead a permanent group through which he could fully express his ideas.

That is what makes Song of Songs such an important record. It captures Shaw at the point where he was moving beyond the role of exceptional sideman and establishing a distinct musical identity as a composer and leader. The album connects post-bop, modal jazz, spiritual jazz, and the avant-garde without sounding like a collection of borrowed styles.

Shaw would go on to record more than two dozen albums as a leader and become one of the most influential trumpeters of the post-bop era. His harmonic ideas, technical command, and commitment to teaching left a lasting impression on the generation that followed, including Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, and Chris Botti. Song of Songs documents the moment when much of that future began to take shape.

Where to pre-order: $32.99 at Amazon

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Millions of WordPress websites could be at serious risk, researchers are warning, due to two recently patched vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited in the wild.

WordPress developers released a patch for two vulnerabilities – an SQL injection bug tracked as CVE-2026-60137, and a REST API batch-route confusion bug, tracked as CVE-2026-63030.

The U.S. Justice Department has seized more than 1,000 websites and blocked 1,970 domains used to stream FIFA World Cup 2026 matches without authorization.

Law enforcement authorities identified the seized domains using leads provided by U.S. authorities, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the Motion Picture Association’s Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), and multiple entertainment networks, including beIN Media Group, NBCUniversal, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and Warner Bros.

These seizures are part of several joint law enforcement actions based on investigations by the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) and the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington.

The Justice Department’s Criminal Division seized over a thousand domains as part of Operation Offsides, a joint law enforcement action led by the IPR Center in coordination with HSI Washington and involving 14 partners across 54 countries, including nearly 400 web domains by the end of last month.

“Operation Offsides is part of the Department’s ongoing effort to protect copyright while reducing the risk to American consumers from the malicious software embedded in many illicit streaming services,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva.

“These streamers not only violate copyright laws but also expose viewers to potential threats — including malware attacks and unsecure connections that can compromise personal and financial data,” added HSI Special Agent in Charge Eric Weindorf.

​In coordination with the Justice Department’s International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property program, law enforcement authorities also carried out “Operation Red Card,” blocking hundreds of illegal streaming sites in Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia.

A second phase of Operation Red Card launched July 10 in Colombia also led to the arrest of four members of the Los Ciberinfiltrados cybercriminal group, charged with illegally accessing telecommunications systems and selling pirated streaming content since at least 2024.

“The unauthorized broadcast of World Cup matches violates intellectual property rights and fuels criminal organizations,” noted IPR Center director Ivan J. Arvelo. “Through Operation Offsides and strong partnerships with law enforcement and the private sector, we identified and seized hundreds of domains, disrupting those who steal and distribute copyrighted content.”

​The announcement comes after the FBI’s warning in May that fake websites impersonating FIFA ahead of the 2026 World Cup were selling fake tickets and hospitality packages, stealing personal and financial information, and pushing other scams and fraud attempts related to the event.

In June, Mexican authorities also shut down 44 domains linked to the illegal PirloTV streaming platform and a major sports piracy ring. Collectively, these domains generated over 950 million visits every year, including around 230 million visits from Mexico alone.

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With over 132 million daily active users, Roblox has become one of the world’s biggest platforms for user-created games. Now, the company is taking game creation a step further by launching Build, a new AI-powered tool that allows users to create games using natural language prompts. Roblox says the feature will make game development more accessible to everyone.

What Is Roblox Build?

Roblox Build is a new feature that makes game creation easier for everyone. The feature introduces a mobile-first creation tab in the Roblox app, which lets users create games virtually from anywhere as long as they write a brief description of what kind of game they want to create using a short text command. The AI creates a playable template of the game, which creators can then customize after testing. After testing and refining the game, it can be posted to Roblox. One can even move to Roblox Studio when more advanced editing features are required, as both platforms work hand in hand.

The Build tool uses AI to do a number of things automatically within the game development process. With the help of Roblox AI and other types of AI technology, Build can create anything from characters and worlds to gameplay, sound effects, and graphics. Roblox says its AI has been trained using gaming-specific data and a large library of 3D models. As a result, it can create game-ready objects and fully playable scenes, helping more users bring their ideas to life.

Roblox plans to expand Studio with a new suite of AI tools for creators. One AI agent will automatically test games and find bugs before release. Another will provide easy-to-understand insights about game performance, and a third will recommend ways to boost player retention and monetization. In addition, Roblox is building AI technology that can generate editable 3D scenes from simple text descriptions.

Availability, Testing, and Pricing

Roblox is launching Build in public alpha starting July 28. The ability to publish games will first reach selected creators in New Zealand, before expanding to additional countries in the coming months. The company says age-verified users aged 9 and older can use Build during the testing phase. However, only games that clear Roblox’s safety checks will be available to age-verified users aged 16 and above. Roblox also plans to keep the basic version free while introducing paid options for power users later.

According to Roblox, these tools are part of its vision to let anyone turn a game idea into reality. By making development simpler, the company hopes more creators will build and publish engaging games on the platform.