Google introduced the Memory Saver feature to its Chrome browser in February 2023 and has been enhancing it ever since. Now a new option will give users even more control over Memory Saver by introducing a way to configure its aggressiveness.
While Memory Saver is an excellent tool — as it addresses Chrome’s RAM issue by identifying tabs that are not being used and removing them from memory — there’s nothing in the way of controlling when a tab is flagged as inactive and therefore put on snooze. But a recently discovered flag in Chrome Canary by Windows Report shows that Google is testing out a feature that will give you three options for Memory Saver: Conservative, Medium, and Aggressive.
Once the toggle setting is enabled, you’ll have access to those three settings:
Moderate Memory Savings: With this setting, your tabs become inactive after a long period of time. It gives a balance between memory usage and keeping recently accessed tabs active.
Balanced Memory Savings: Selecting balanced memory savings means that your tabs become inactive after a moderate period of time.
Maximum Memory Savings: If you choose maximum memory savings, your tabs become inactive after a shorter period of time. This aggressive mode minimizes memory usage but may require more frequent tab reloads.
Google is also adding a new visual cue for inactive tabs, a dotted circle that will appear on inactive tabs to indicate that they’ve been put to sleep and are no longer consuming memory.
According to the report, Google has been extensively testing out the tool for quite some time. The tech giant “tested a multi-state option for memory mode with heuristic mode, fixed timer, and discard, and offered options behind flags to select the time when tabs can be discarded.” And while those tests eventually went nowhere in terms of new features, they influenced improvements made to Memory Saver.
There currently isn’t a timeframe for when this Memory Saver update will be rolled out to all Chrome users, but once it is you should be able to access it through performance settings at chrome://settings/performance.
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If the recent news concerning two Windows 11 updates that have been breaking various features isn’t enough, the recent reveal that the OS’s market share has dipped below 26% certainly should spark some alarm.
According to April 2024 data from Statcounter, Windows 11 plummeted to a 25.69% market share after it reached an all-time high of 28.16% back in February 2024. Meanwhile, Windows 10 has risen to over 70% market share during the same period, and this is after Microsoft announced its intentions to reach End of Support (EOS) for Windows 10 by October 2025.
Microsoft could be looking at a tremendous issue, in which its hopes for Windows 11 being the ultimate AI-supported OS with Copilot, are hampered due to not having the user base it needs. Normally, an OS drops in support once the successor launches, so Windows 11 falling nearly three points in just a few months is quite telling.
But is it honestly surprising?
It’s no secret that Windows 11 has been plagued with issues and bad updates since its launch — not to mention its biggest problem involving many users not being able to make the upgrade in the first place due to its much steeper installation requirements, which prevents many otherwise interested users from even upgrading in the first place.
There’s also the fact that the OS has been forcing ads as “recommendations” into the Start menu and has even begun testing promotional recommendation pages that take up your whole screen, urging users to make Edge the default browser and installing or enabling other services. The worst part is that there’s no way to fully opt out of these ads, which accomplish nothing but clog up the UI with constant notifications.
As for what features Windows 11 offers over Windows 10? There’s simply not enough incentive for users to make the jump, with some features like centering the icons and Start menu on the taskbar and bringing back desktop widgets, barely worth mentioning. And some features, like the ability to move the taskbar, were actually removed.
On the other hand, Windows 10 came after Windows 8/8.1 which endeared users to its many improvements including bringing back the Start menu. Not to mention how much more stable the OS is compared to its successor, with far fewer broken updates.
What’s the future for Windows 11?
The biggest reason to make the move to Windows 11 is possibly Microsoft Copilot, but that’s also coming to Windows 10. There are some unique AI tools that Windows 11 will be getting eventually, but that could also serve to further the divide between users with higher-end PCs and less powerful ones.
So then, what should Microsoft do? The tech giant might have to cut its losses and speed up the release of Windows 12, putting all the AI goodies and other new features there instead. The user base would be more willing to move to a new OS, and doing so could even prevent a possible ecological disaster in the making. There are also tons of other features and tools that could be added, plenty of which are fan favorites that would easily draw in users from Windows 10.
This move would be the kiss of death for Windows 11, but this would honestly be a net positive for Microsoft, as it could put all the bad press for Windows 11 behind it and fully support a superior OS while giving Windows 10 users far more incentive to make the switch in the process.
At some point in the last 24 hours, Siri on the HomePod and the HomePod mini seems to have forgotten how to relay the time. When asking Siri “what time is it?” Siri is unable to answer and directs users to the iPhone.
“I found some web results, I can show them if you ask again from your iPhone,” is Siri’s full response to the time question. If you ask what time it is in a specific location, Siri is able to respond, and Siri on iPhone, iPad, and Mac provides the time as usual when asked.
This is a bug that Apple will be able to fix server side, so it will likely be addressed quickly. In the meantime, to get the time from Siri on the HomePod without having to swap to an iPhone, include your location.
Siri has long been ridiculed for failing to understand requests and not providing the expected information, and small bugs like this are a bit embarrassing as Apple prepares for a major AI update.
For the last several months, Siri has also been struggling with HomeKit commands, and there have been many complaints from smart home users. Asking Siri to “turn off the lights in the living room,” for example, often results in the lights being turned on or turned off in another room entirely. Hopefully some of these issues will be solved with a Siri overhaul in iOS 18 and its sister updates.
Apple is expected to announce iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, and new features have already been rumored for many apps, including Apple Music, Apple Maps, Calculator, Messages, Notes, Safari, and others. Below, we recap iOS 18 rumors on a per-app basis, based on reports from MacRumors, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, and others: Apple Maps: At least two new Apple Maps features are…
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman outlined some of the new products he expects Apple to announce at its “Let Loose” event on May 7. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. First, Gurman now believes there is a “strong possibility” that the upcoming iPad Pro models will be equipped with Apple’s next-generation M4 chip, rather than the M3 chip that…
Apple’s upcoming iPad Pro models will feature “by far the best OLED tablet panels on the market,” according to Display Supply Chain Consultants. Set to be announced on May 7, the OLED iPad Pro models will feature LTPO (a more power efficient form of OLED), a 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate, and a tandem stack and glass thinning that will bring “ultra-thin and light displays” that support high…
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman today said that iOS 18 will “overhaul” many of Apple’s built-in apps, including Notes, Mail, Photos, and Fitness. Gurman did not reveal any specific new features planned for these apps. It was previously rumored that the Notes app will gain support for displaying more math equations, and a built-in option to record voice memos, but this is the first time we have…
Best Buy today has discounted Apple’s M1 iPad Air (64GB Wi-Fi) to a new all-time low price of $399.99 in the Starlight color option, down from $599.99. Best Buy says this deal will last through the end of the day, and it’s only available in one color at this record low price. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a…
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of “Let Loose” and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more …
With iOS 17.5, Apple is adding a “Repair State” feature that is designed to allow an iPhone to be sent in for service without deactivating Find My and Activation Lock. The fourth iOS 17.5 beta that came out today adds a “Remove This Device” option for all devices in Find My, and using it with an iPhone puts that iPhone into the new Repair State. Right now, sending an iPhone to Apple to be…
When Paul Zimmer-Harwood volunteered to be intentionally infected with SARS-CoV-2, he wasn’t sure what to expect. He was ready for a repeat of his first brush with COVID-19, through a naturally acquired infection that gave him influenza-like symptoms. But he hoped his immunity would help him feel well enough to use the indoor bicycle trainer that he had brought into quarantine.
It turned out that Zimmer-Harwood, a PhD student at University of Oxford, UK, had nothing to worry about. Neither he nor any of the 35 other people who participated in the ‘challenge’ trial actually got COVID-19.
Scientists deliberately gave people COVID — here’s what they learnt
The study’s results, published on 1 May in Lancet Microbe1, raise questions about the usefulness of COVID-19 challenge trials for testing vaccines, drugs and other therapeutics. “If you can’t get people infected, then you can’t test those things,” says Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London. Viral strains used in challenge trials take many months to produce, making it impossible to match emerging circulating variants that can overcome high levels of existing immunity in populations.
Researchers use challenge trials to understand infections and quickly test vaccines and therapies. In March 2021, after months of ethical debate, UK researchers launched the world’s first COVID-19 challenge trial. The study2 identified a minuscule dose of the SARS-CoV-2 strain that circulated in the early days of the pandemic that could infect about half of the participants, who had not previously been infected with the virus (at that time, vaccines weren’t yet widely available).
In parallel, a team led by Helen McShane, an infectious-disease researcher at Oxford, launched a second SARS-CoV-2 challenge study in people — including Zimmer-Harwood — who had recovered from naturally caught SARS-CoV-2 infections, caused by a range of variants. The trial later enrolled participants who had also been vaccinated.
Evolving strains
The first participants got the same tiny dose of the ‘ancestral’ SARS-CoV-2 strain as did those in the first trial. When nobody developed a sustained infection, the researchers increased the dose by more and more in subsequent groups of participants, until they reached a level 10,000 times the initial dose. A few volunteers developed short-lived infections, but these quickly vanished.
These volunteers want to be infected with disease to aid research — will their altruism help?
“We were quite surprised,” says Susan Jackson, a study clinician at Oxford and co-author of the latest study. “Moving forward, if you want a COVID challenge study, you’re going to have to find a dose that infects people.”
An ongoing COVID-19 challenge trial at Imperial College London, in which participants have been exposed to the Delta SARS-CoV-2 variant, has also encountered problems with infecting participants reliably, says Christopher Chiu, an immunologist and infectious-disease physician at Imperial who is leading that trial and was involved in the other challenge trials. Some participants have experienced infections, but probably not enough for a study testing whether a vaccine works, adds Chiu.
“We need a challenge strain that’s more representative of what’s circulating in the community,” says Anna Durbin, a vaccine scientist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, who was a member of the board that oversaw the safety of the latest ‘reinfection’ trial.
Viral strains used in challenge trials are produced under stringent conditions, a process that can take six months or longer, say scientists, making it impossible to match circulating variants perfectly. McShane and Chiu are readying a challenge trial using the BA.5 Omicron subvariant that emerged in 2022.
Raising doses
Researchers are looking at other ways to give people COVID-19. Jackson says that an even higher SARS-CoV-2 dose might be needed — one similar to doses used in influenza challenge trials, in which participants have substantial immunity. Another method could be giving participants multiple doses. Chiu says that his team is exploring the possibility of screening potential participants to identify those with low levels of immune protection against the BA.5 variant and any future challenge strains.
Chiu is leading a consortium that in March was awarded US$57 million by the European Union and CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in Oslo, to use challenge trials to test inhaled and intranasal COVID-19 vaccines that might also block transmission. He’s hopeful that such changes to trial protocols will do the trick. “What you really want is a model that replicates a genuine infection and ideally one that cause some symptoms,” he adds.
Ampere Computing unveiled its AmpereOne Family of processors last year, boasting up to 192 single-threaded Ampere cores, which was the highest in the industry.
These chips, designed for cloud efficiency and performance, were Ampere’s first product based on its new custom core leveraging internal IP, signalling a shift in the sector, according to CEO Renée James.
At the time of the launch, James said, “Every few decades of compute there has emerged a driving application or use of performance that sets a new bar of what is required of performance. The current driving uses are AI and connected everything combined with our continued use and desire for streaming media. We cannot continue to use power as a proxy for performance in the data center. At Ampere, we design our products to maximize performance at a sustainable power, so we can continue to drive the future of the industry.”
AmpereOne-3 on its way
Jeff Wittich, chief product officer at Ampere, recently spoke with The Next Platform about future generations of AmpereOne. He told the site that an updated chip, with 12 memory channels and an A2 core with improved performance, would be out later this year in keeping with the company’s roadmap. This chip, which The Next Platform calls AmpereOne-2, will reportedly have a 33 percent increase in DDR5 memory controllers and up to 50 percent more memory bandwidth.
However, what’s coming up beyond that, at some point in 2025, sounds the most exciting.
The Next Platform says the third generation chip, AmpereOne-3 as it is calling it, will have 256 cores and be “etched in 3 nanometer (3N to be precise) processes from TSMC”. It will use a modified A2+ core with a “two-chiplet design on the cores, with 128 cores per chiplet. It could be a four-chiplet design with 64 cores per chiplet.”
The site expects the AmpereOne-3 will support PCI-Express 6.0 I/O controllers and maybe have a dozen DDR5 memory controllers, although there’s some speculation here.
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“We have been moving pretty fast on the on the compute side,” Wittich told the site. “This design has got about a lot of other cloud features in it – things around performance management to get the most out of all of those cores. In each of the chip releases, we are going to be making what would generally be considered generational changes in the CPU core. We are adding a lot in every single generation. So you are going to see more performance, a lot more efficiency, a lot more features like security enhancements, which all happen at the microarchitecture level. But we have done a lot to ensure that you get great performance consistency across all of the AmpereOnes. We are also taking a chiplet approach with this 256-core design, which is another step as well. Chiplets are a pretty big part of our overall strategy.”
The AmpereOne-3 is reportedly being etched at TSMC right now, prior to its launch next year.
Bioengineered immune cells have been shown to attack and even cure cancer, but they tend to get exhausted if the fight goes on for a long time. Now, two separate research teams have found a way to rejuvenate these cells: make them more like stem cells.
Both teams found that the bespoke immune cells called CAR T cells gain new vigour if engineered to have high levels of a particular protein. These boosted CAR T cells have gene activity similar to that of stem cells and a renewed ability to fend off cancer. Both papers were published today in Nature1,2.
The papers “open a new avenue for engineering therapeutic T cells for cancer patients”, says Tuoqi Wu, an immunologist at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas who was not involved in the research.
Reviving exhausted cells
CAR T cells are made from the immune cells called T cells, which are isolated from the blood of person who is going to receive treatment for cancer or another disease. The cells are genetically modified to recognize and attack specific proteins — called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) — on the surface of disease-causing cells and reinfused into the person being treated.
But keeping the cells active for long enough to eliminate cancer has proved challenging, especially in solid tumours such as those of the breast and lung. (CAR T cells have been more effective in treating leukaemia and other blood cancers.) So scientists are searching for better ways to help CAR T cells to multiply more quickly and last longer in the body.
Cutting-edge CAR-T cancer therapy is now made in India — at one-tenth the cost
With this goal in mind, a team led by immunologist Crystal Mackall at Stanford University in California and cell and gene therapy researcher Evan Weber at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia compared samples of CAR T cells used to treat people with leukaemia1. In some of the recipients, the cancer had responded well to treatment; in others, it had not.
The researchers analysed the role of cellular proteins that regulate gene activity and serve as master switches in the T cells. They found a set of 41 genes that were more active in the CAR T cells associated with a good response to treatment than in cells associated with a poor response. All 41 genes seemed to be regulated by a master-switch protein called FOXO1.
The researchers then altered CAR T cells to make them produce more FOXO1 than usual. Gene activity in these cells began to look like that of T memory stem cells, which recognize cancer and respond to it quickly.
The researchers then injected the engineered cells into mice with various types of cancer. Extra FOXO1 made the CAR T cells better at reducing both solid tumours and blood cancers. The stem-cell-like cells shrank a mouse’s tumour more completely and lasted longer in the body than did standard CAR T cells.
Master-switch molecule
A separate team led by immunologists Phillip Darcy, Junyun Lai and Paul Beavis at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia, reached the same conclusion with different methods2. Their team was examining the effect of IL-15, an immune-signalling molecule that is administered alongside CAR T cells in some clinical trials. IL-15 helps to switch T cells to a stem-like state, but the cells can get stuck there instead of maturing to fight cancer.
The team analysed gene activity in CAR T cells and found that IL-15 turned on genes associated with FOXO1. The researchers engineered CAR T cells to produce extra-high levels of FOXO1 and showed that they became more stem-like, but also reached maturity and fight cancer without becoming exhausted. “It’s the ideal situation,” Darcy says.
Stem-cell and genetic therapies make a healthy marriage
The team also found that extra-high levels of FOXO1 improved the CAR T cells’ metabolism, allowing them to last much longer when infused into mice. “We were surprised by the magnitude of the effect,” says Beavis.
Mackall says she was excited to see that FOXO1 worked the same way in mice and humans. “It means this is pretty fundamental,” she says.
Engineering CAR T cells that overexpress FOXO1 might be fairly simple to test in people with cancer, although Mackall says researchers will need to determine which people and types of cancer are most likely to respond well to rejuvenated cells. Darcy says that his team is already speaking with clinical researchers about testing FOXO1 in CAR T cells — trials that could start within two years.
And Weber points to an ongoing clinical trial in which people with leukaemia are receiving CAR T cells genetically engineered to produce unusually high levels of another master-switch protein called c-Jun, which also helps T cells avoid exhaustion. The trial’s results have not been released yet, but Mackall says she suspects the same system could be applied to FOXO1 and that overexpressing both proteins might make the cells even more powerful.
The iPhone 16 series might well look like these mockups. Photo: Sonny Dickson
Images of iPhone 16 “dummy” units have been published by a tipster with an established record. They show the redesigned camera hump reportedly coming to the two non-Pro models and other changes.
The pictures are the best look yet at the handsets Apple is expected to launch in autumn 2024.
iPhone 16 dummy units reveal multiple changes
Although Apple is half a year away from unwilling the 2024 iPhone, details have been leaking out for months. And the leaks have now reached the point that iPhone 16 dummy units are starting to appear.
The leak helps confirm earlier reports that the camera hump in the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will be about half the current width, with the LED flash moved outside of the hump. The design, featuring two lenses one atop the other, harks back to the iPhone X.
One of Dickson’s images also shows that the customizable Action button that premiered in the iPhone 15 Pro will appear on all of the 2024, as had been previously rumored. Apple makes a habit of introducing new features in the Pro models before bringing them to all of its handsets.
The leaked pictures also reveal basic information, like that there will continue to be four models in the iPhone 16 series, and that none of them are being really radically redesigned.
iPhone mockups are a real thing
This leak is part of long-running phenomenon. For years now, 3D mockups of Apple handsets appear in Asia well before the devices are unveiled. These often prove quite accurate.
Go ahead and make fun of the Apple iPad on your favorite social network, I dare you. You will be swarmed by iPad fans, defending their favorite tablet to the death, which always seems to be just over the horizon for the tablet market. We got no new iPads in 2023, making it one of the hardest ever for iPad fanatics, but I say fear not! The iPad is healthy, and I see a brighter future than ever for Apple’s tablet.
Is the iPad really healthy? Well, according to Canalys, iPad sales declined year-on-year by quite a bit, as much as 24%. That still left Apple in a distant first place among tablet makers. Samsung’s sales declined only 11%, but it still shipped less than half of the tablets that Apple delivered, according to Canalys estimates.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is incredibly capable (Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
That’s gotta be tough news for Samsung. The latest Galaxy Tab S9 series, including the more affordable Galaxy Tab S9 FE, are some of Samsung’s best tablets ever. The entire lineup is IP68 water resistant, which is a first for tablets that aren’t sold as rugged business tablets. They come with an S Pen, which is a better stylus than the Apple Pencil, a $79 / £79 / AU$139 implement that doesn’t even work with every iPad.
The iPad didn’t need an update to stay up-to-date
The iPad, on the other hand, has languished on shelves for a long time. There were no iPad updates in 2023. After endowing the iPad Pro with the M2 chip, and the iPad Air with the M1 chip, in late 2022, Apple left the tablet alone.
The base model iPad was updated in 2022, and it still uses a mobile A14 Bionic chipset, while the even older iPad mini, last updated in 2021, inexplicably uses a faster A15 Bionic. Apple also still sells the iPad 10.2-inch model from 2021 as a new device.
You can still buy this 2021 iPad 10.2 from Apple brand new (Image credit: TechRadar)
Here’s the thing – the iPad was already more than a year ahead of other tablets on the market. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S is a powerful, capable Android tablet with a fantastic display. Its Snapdragon processor can’t come close to the iPad Air’s M1 chip. The M1 chipset can power a professional laptop. The Snapdragon is strictly mobile.
Even the A14 Bionic chipset in the base model iPad gives the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, found in the Galaxy Tab S9, a run for its money.
The iPad is so overpowered it sticks around longer
How could Apple improve the iPad? Maybe a better question would ask, what improvements do we need? The iPad is already powerful, well-designed, and long-lasting. I mean it lasts a long time in battery tests, and it also lasts a long time as a product you’ll own. When it comes to longevity, the iPad puts the iPhone to shame, though maybe that should change.
I owned the very first iPad, and I used it for at least six years before I broke it accidentally by dropping it. By then, it wasn’t worth fixing, but I felt I’d gotten plenty of value out of that purchase. On the last day it was alive, I was able to do everything I wanted, including playing games, watching movies, and browsing all of my favorite websites. A six-year-old iPad was completely capable, and I couldn’t have asked for more.
The original iPad lasted a very long time, years and years
A big reason why the iPad market has stalled is because the market is saturated. People keep iPads and tablets much longer than they keep phones. On inspection, we should probably all just hold onto our phones longer. If a five-year-old iPad is a powerhouse, then a five-year-old iPhone is probably much more capable than we all imagine.
The difference is that Apple and our mobile carriers offer us financial incentives to trade in our old phones for new ones. That’s how we buy phones, on contracts and payment plans. That’s not how most people pay for tablets.
Do you really need a fourth screen? Of course you do
The iPad is the best of all of those worlds, and iPad fans know it
That’s the real problem with the iPad: it’s another expenditure on a device that replaces… well, nothing. If you have an iPhone, you can do everything the iPad can do, and more. If you have a laptop, too, then you really don’t need a third screen. What about that smart TV on your wall? Now, an iPad makes four screens, and there’s nothing it offers that your other screens can’t manage.
The iPad isn’t an impulse buy, either. It isn’t a hundred bucks or so. You can’t buy it with the gift card you won in a work raffle like you might buy an Amazon Fire tablet for $100. The iPad costs hundreds, and that’s before you add accessories like the Apple Pencil, a keyboard, or even just a nice folio cover.
Still, there is something undeniable about its appeal. The iPad is more powerful and capable than a smartphone. It’s more portable than a laptop. It’s more personal than the TV hanging on the wall. The iPad is the best of all of those worlds, and iPad fans know it.
The iPad’s bottom line is much lower this year
Of course a new iPad Air with an OLED screen would be sweet (Image credit: Apple)
Here’s what truly made this past year a boon for iPad fans. Every iPad model can be found for the lowest price ever. The iPad 10.9 is $429 / £307.62 right now on Amazon, down from $449 / £499 at launch. The iPad Air is $449 / £438.02, down from $599 / £569. Sorry, Australian friends, Amazon isn’t giving you the same iPad discount these days.
The iPad Pro hasn’t dropped as much as the rest, but the 64GB M1 iPad Air now costs $150 / £120 less on Amazon than it did when it launched. That’s a 25% discount in the US. Maybe Apple was doing the right thing by delaying any iPad update as long as possible. The iPad didn’t need an update. It needed a price cut.
Small business owners are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to gain a competitive advantage in the market, new research has claimed.
A GoDaddy study of over 500 US entrepreneurs found a growing confidence in the power of generative AI tools to drive business success.
The findings indicate a positive shift in attitude towards AI among small and medium-sized businesses. Three in four believe that GenAI will give them an edge over similar-sized competitors. More than two-thirds (68%) also see AI as enabling them to compete better with larger enterprises.
GenAI is helping SMBs
Nearly three-quarters (73%) said that they’ve already experimented with the technology, and more than a quarter (26%) already use AI for business purposes – up from 11% in the year before.
Generative AI really took off back in November 2022 when ChatGPT hit public preview, but SMBs are now expanding their use cases beyond simple content generation. More than two in five (44%) now use AI to enhance sales performance – twice as many as in 2023.
Amy Jennette, Senior Director of Marketing at GoDaddy, commented on the trend, stating: “We’re at the beginning of the AI revolution and small businesses are already taking advantage of the technology, which is really unprecedented.”
Despite initial concerns about AI potentially replacing human jobs, the survey found very low levels of concern among SMBs – only one in 10 believed that GenAI could outperform them in their roles, and the majority (89%) expressed confidence that AI would have a positive impact on their business.
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Jennette also highlighted the tangible benefits of deploying AI across the SMB landscape, revealing that small businesses could save over $4,000 and 300 hours of work annually, underscoring the potential cost-saving benefits of productivity tools that use artificial intelligence.
Most people think of immunization as a way to prevent infectious disease. Vaccines contain proteins that the immune system can use to identify a pathogen, such as a virus, enabling the body to respond forcefully to it in future. But the immune system doesn’t only defend against foreign invaders — it also responds to threats from within, such as cancer.
Just as pathogens carry distinguishing proteins, known as antigens, so too do cancer cells. The immune system constantly detects and destroys mutating cells, and usually prevents tumours from developing. But sometimes cancer cells acquire mechanisms to evade the immune system. To tackle these cells, some researchers are turning to vaccines — not to prevent cancer, but to treat it.
Nature Outline: Cancer vaccines
The idea of giving people with cancer a vaccine against their own tumours has been pursued for decades to little avail. But several fresh approaches to the problem have spurred anticipation that this could be about to change.
Initial efforts closely resembled conventional vaccines for infectious diseases, delivering one or a few proteins that are commonly expressed by certain cancers. Such vaccines are still in development, but the failure of several shared-antigen vaccines in large clinical trials in the mid-2010s has shifted researchers’ attention towards more-personalized approaches.
Among the most promising are neoantigen vaccines based on the messenger RNA (mRNA) technologies that matured during the COVID-19 pandemic. Neoantigens are proteins generated by mutations unique to a person’s cancer. First, a tumour sample is genetically sequenced. Then, a computer model selects several dozen neoantigens that are likely to generate a strong immune response. These antigens can be delivered by injection in the form of mRNA, DNA or proteins.
Other approaches bypass the need to identify a cancer’s antigens. Exvivo cell vaccines introduce tumour samples to dendritic cells (a type of immune cell) in culture. These cells, which are crucial to activating and directing tumour-killing T cells, take up an array of neoantigens from the tumour. Then the activated dendritic cells are delivered into an individual.
Another approach — and the furthest removed from conventional immunization — is insitu vaccination, in which the whole process takes place in an individual’s body. Rather than delivering antigens through an injection, this method aims to make use of those that are already there, in the tumour. Radiotherapy or a virus is used to kill cancer cells, releasing neoantigens locally. Simultaneously, the patient is given drugs that mobilize and activate dendritic cells so that they take up these neoantigens and instigate an immune response.
The relative merits of each approach will become clearer as clinical trials advance. As well as efficacy, factors such as the cost of production will affect the vaccines’ clinical uptake. And whichever methods are used, a vaccine by itself might not be enough to enable the immune system to overcome a tumour’s defences — many continuing trials combine a vaccine with a drug to boost T-cell function. But with several early trials yielding promising results, oncologists are optimistic that immunotherapy is poised to receive a transformative shot in the arm.
