Category: Tech

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Have you ever needed a power performance boost on your computer? Perhaps you are doing tasks like editing videos, designing graphics, or playing a PC game, and feel like your computer is running too slowly. Windows has a lot of settings, often not in obvious locations, that can be customized to change things on your computer, like its security or the way it uses its power. One such setting is hidden away fairly well and is referred to as the performance power plan.

Introduced in 2018, it uses Microsoft’s High-Performance power plan to improve the performance of your computer by letting the hardware take all the power that it needs. Ultimately, it delivers power faster and immediately, rather than evaluating how that power should be prioritized and when it should be delivered.

However, this ultimate performance power plan is hidden away for a reason. This much ongoing power can be very draining on your computer. It can cause it to get very hot and wear out the battery. And, unfortunately, you may not end up seeing the difference in power that you think you will be getting.

How to enable the performance power plan on Windows 10 and 11

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If you are still hanging onto Windows 10 and resisting the upgrade for as long as you can, then this is how you find the power plan option. Go to your computer Settings, and then click System. There’s an option for Power & Sleep. After you click on that, it will have a Related Settings option with Additional Power Settings. Choose that. A window will pop up, and you’ll choose Show Additional Plans and then check the Ultimate Performance option. It should say underneath it that it provides ultimate performance for higher-end PCs.

However, you might not be able to find the option in that way, and it may be hidden entirely. There is a workaround for that. On Windows 10, click Start and a search box will appear. Type “cmd”, short for command, in the box. On the Command Prompt that comes up, right-click and select Run as Administrator. When prompted, enter powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61. If you use Windows 11, press Windows+X and select Terminal(Admin). Use the same command when prompted.

Windows 11 also lets you create a custom performance power plan if the command prompt doesn’t work. Go to Control Panel, Power Options, and create a new power plan. After naming it, choose to change the advanced power settings and customize. You can design it as you like, such as for Processor power management -> Maximum power state, changing both the battery and plugged in settings to 100%.

Is the ultimate performance power plan worth it?

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There are some dangers to using this setting. It can drain your battery very fast because you are operating at high power at all times. It’s the opposite of Windows 11’s energy saver mode. It’s best to have your computer plugged in so you don’t lose your battery in the middle of something important. It may also be more draining on a laptop rather than a desktop, depending on the specific one you have and its capabilities.

It is also not likely to really give you a significant boost of power. For example, if you think it will help you during a video game, you won’t get a tangible result because the game already takes up a lot of power. If you are doing an activity like editing a video where you may use a lot of power for a moment and then be idle for a while, then this may give you a bit more speed in the moment. Truly, though, the end result will be minimal. You may not want to use this unless you are working on a tight deadline.

It’s worth noting that this setting uses a great deal of energy, which could impact your bill depending on how often you use this feature. It will also make your computer run hot. Be careful about accidentally overheating your computer, and don’t have it touching anything that can be burned.

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Mental health care is as essential as caring for any other part of our bodies. Perhaps even more so, as our brains lead all aspects of our lives. People seeking care for their mental health may go to therapy, where they see a trained professional who helps them work through thoughts and emotions, and sometimes suggests changes that may help. We might go to a therapist for work stress, relationship problems, generally feeling anxious, or even issues like C-PTSD.

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), however, people are turning to chatbots like ChatGPT for therapy. Chatbots are AI systems that let users talk back and forth through a text-based format as if they are speaking to a real person. These are appealing because seeing a therapist is expensive, it must be scheduled into your day, and sadly, sometimes people feel ashamed of needing mental help at all.

However, using AI chatbots for therapy is never a good idea. There are no regulations in place to protect people who use AI in a way that can impact their mental health. Chatbots are known to provide untrue and unsafe information that can actually hurt the user and negatively affect them mentally in the long run. Health care professionals have a big tip for those using ChatGPT and other bots for their therapy: don’t. There are better options available.

Why you shouldn’t use AI as your health care therapist

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Companies that own chatbots train them to provide disclaimers that users should seek medical professionals in times of need. However, that doesn’t stop harm from being done. There have been cases where chatbots say they have the same training as therapists. There are reports of AI encouraging bad behavior like drug use because they are too eager to agree and support users. There is an ongoing lawsuit claiming a teen committed suicide because Character.AI encouraged him to do so. In May 2025, a federal judge on the case rejected the notion that artificial intelligence has free speech rights, as argued by a chatbot company.

Dr. Brent Kious is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Utah. He studies the use of AI in health care. He pointed out that it’s hard to identify what people are getting out of the use of ChatGPT as a therapist. Is it true therapy or just some kind of illusion of companionship? There are no regulations to monitor this. Dr. Kious stated in his interview on Psychology Today, “We are all unwittingly participating in this massive social experiment by interacting with things like ChatGPT, where that experiment is driven entirely by profit motives, with very little attention paid to how it’s going to affect the course of human life or society. And we should all take a step back and say, “Maybe not.” Maybe let’s put the brakes on this.”

Better options instead of ChatGPT

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Some employers offer a few free mental health sessions as part of their benefit packages. Check if your employer has one and take advantage of it. A company called BetterHelp provides online therapy to make it more convenient. You can also choose to talk to your therapist via text, only audio, or audio and video. It does cost money, however.  There is the free Crisis Text Line that’s also available through online chat or WhatsApp. You can text HOME to 741741 if you are in the United States.

ChatGPT answers billions of prompts a day, but the problem with using it or other AI for your mental health care is summed up well by psychotherapist Antonieta Contreras in her article published on Psychology Today: “We are flooded not only by articles, blogs, and videos on social media full of misinterpretations, assumptions, and misinformation, but now we have AI chatbots repeating like broken records summaries of those wrong ideas, like that people are “stuck in survival mode” … The result? People believe they’re irreparably damaged when they may actually be either already shifting into a less maladaptive state or experiencing the regular, albeit painful, process of being human.”

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Identity technology supplier Okta is to acquire Axiom Security, a supplier of privileged access management (PAM) for cloud, database, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and other critical resources, to reinforce its own offerings in this area.

The acquisition will see Axiom’s core technology integrated into Okta Privileged Access, which the buyer says will expand access controls across more sensitive resources so that its customers can, in turn, strengthen their own security fabric.

Okta claimed privileged access controls will form a key defensive layer to mitigate risks related to artificial intelligence (AI) as more of its customers bring AI projects into their workflows.

The supplier believes that many organisations are not giving sufficient regard to these risks. Its recent AI at work survey – which quizzed almost 300 C-suite executives in nine countries, including the UK – found that only 10% of respondents had a “well-developed” strategy for managing so-called non-human identities, or NHIs.

“In today’s dynamic cloud environment, manually managing these permissions can quickly become chaotic, leading to significant security risks, compliance gaps and operational inefficiencies,” observed Okta’s chief technology officer (CTO) and head of engineering, Abhi Sawant.

“With the introduction of a common NHI – AI agents – into the enterprise, businesses are struggling to ensure there is still visibility, security and governance for these unique privileged account types.

“Outdated or traditional PAM platforms that aren’t built with the flexibility and neutrality needed to manage permissions for the non-human workforce will lead to greater security risks,” he added.

According to Sawant, this is just one among many reasons that enterprises should consider deploying identity security fabrics – that is to say, architectures that can appropriately manage newfangled NHIs, as well as more traditional flesh-and-blood ones.

New functionality

In the coming months, Okta plans to introduce multiple Axiom-derived functionalities into its Privileged Access service.

These will include unified controls to offer a single-point-of-admin for privileged access across all privileged resources, whether on-premise or cloud-based, and just-in-time access, a potentially critical capability that eliminates standing privileges and replaces them with time-limited access, reducing operational overhead and risks by automating permissions for elevated access in environments such as Amazon EKS, GitHub, PostgreSQL or Snowflake, to name but a few.

At the same time, Okta hopes to spin up AI-based application connector builder capabilities, exploiting AI to provide more security coverage across environments, while also using Axiom to extend secure access capabilities to databases and Kubernetes.

Securing agents a hot topic

Another product of Israel’s booming security development ecosystem, Axiom was co-founded four years ago by Itay Mesika and Ilan Dardik, who, like many cyber entrepreneurs, met during their military service. The firm has attracted around $10m in funding in the past couple of years, including a $7m seed round in 2022.

Still operating very much in its scaleup phase, Axiom counts multiple software companies among its customers, including corporate travel management platform Navan, and some cyber security names, including cloud security specialists Orca Security and Varonis.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but according to Israeli media reports, the deal may value Axiom somewhere around $75m (£56m).

The deal comes hot on the heels of Palo Alto Networks’ far larger bid for CyberArk, which similarly focused on incorporating more identity and PAM expertise into the buyer’s security platform with the intent of better protecting autonomous AI agents.

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Citrix has issued patches to fix three newly designated common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) in the widely used NetScaler Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and NetScaler Gateway lines, at least one of which is known to be under active exploitation by an undisclosed threat actor.

The trio of bugs, which are tracked as CVE-2025-7775, CVE-2025-7776 and CVE-2025-8424 are, respectively, a memory overflow vulnerability that leads either to pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) or denial of service (DoS), or both; another memory overflow vulnerability that gives rise to unexpected behaviour and DoS; and an access control vulnerability in NetScaler’s management interface.

“Cloud Software Group strongly urges affected customers of NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway to install the relevant updated versions as soon as possible,” said Citrix in a statement. The supplier added that there are no effective workarounds.

Per independent security analyst Kevin Beaumont, of the three flaws CVE-2025-7775 appears to be the most immediately dangerous issue. Citrix also confirmed talk of exploitation, noting in its advisory that: “Exploits of CVE-2025-7775 on unmitigated appliances have been observed”.

Commenting on the latest disclosure, Benjamin Harris, CEO and founder of watchTowr, said: “Well, well, well…another day ending in ‘day.’ Once again, we’re seeing new vulnerabilities in Citrix NetScaler facilitating total compromise, with CVE-2025-7775 already being actively exploited to deploy backdoors.

“Patching is critical, but patching alone won’t cut it. Unless organisations urgently review for signs of prior compromise and deployed backdoors, attackers will still be inside. Those that only patch will remain exposed,” he added.

No further information about the observed incidents, or whom they may have affected, has yet come to light. This said, the significance of NetScaler – which provides application delivery and secure remote access for internal- and external-facing applications – to many enterprises means that any vulnerabilities in the products are frequently a prime target for threat actors, particularly ransomware gangs.

This is borne out by the not-infrequent cadence of vulnerability disclosures impacting NetScaler. Earlier this summer Citrix fixed CVE-2025-5777, a flaw that enabled a threat actor to circumvent authentication measures by inputting malicious requests to steal a valid session token from memory.

Due to its similarity to the Citrix Bleed issues of 2023, CVE-2025-5777 quickly earned the nickname Citrix Bleed 2, and it was swiftly exploited by threat actors, although at the time of writing it does not appear to have been named in any major confirmed or attributed cyber attacks.

‘Tricky to exploit’

On a positive note, VulnCheck vice-president of security research Caitlin Condon said memory corruption flaws such as CVE-2025-7775 and CVE-2025-7776 were generally somewhat “tricky to exploit” and as such, tend to be used either by exceptionally highly skilled adversaries or more commonly, state-sponsored threat actors, as opposed to more commodity attackers.

As a case in point, Condon told Computer Weekly in emailed comments, another NetScaler flaw, CVE-2025-6543 with a similar description to CVE-2025-7775 has yet to see exploitation at scale despite having been rattling around since the end of June.

But, she added, this does not mean patching should be any less of a priority, particularly given recent trends.

“While the Citrix advisory only explicitly mentions active exploitation of CVE-2025-7775, management interfaces for firewalls and security gateways have been targeted en masse in recent threat campaigns,” said Condon.

“It’s likely that exploit chains targeting these vulnerabilities in the future may try to combine an initial access flaw like CVE-2025-7775 with a flaw like CVE-2025-8424 with management interface compromise as a goal. Vulnerability response prioritisation should include CVE-2025-8424 rather than being limited to the higher-severity, but harder-to-exploit, memory corruption CVEs alone,” she said.

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The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is calling for the government to make changes to company tax regulations and extend the powers of regulators to ensure artificial intelligence (AI) is not abused by employers to weaken staff.

In response to Labour’s Plan for Change, industrial strategy and memorandum of understanding with large language model (LLM) providers, including OpenAI, the TUC has published a paper focused on the importance of collective bargaining as AI becomes embedded in the workplace.

The TUC’s Building a pro-worker AI innovation strategy paper warns that short-term priorities driven by the UK’s corporate governance system mean AI may be used by some employers to cut costs and automate existing processes, rather than invest, expand and innovate.

“Such decisions will more likely displace or deskill workers rather than augment, expand or retrain the workforce as part of technological upgrading,” said the TUC. The paper’s authors noted that if machines do more tasks and reduce the demand for skilled workers or for labour overall, workers could become less able to command a fair share, with the surplus increasingly captured by employers and AI companies.

The TUC wants to see businesses incentivised to look beyond short-term shareholder value, and when reporting on employment matters, they should cover the impact of AI on employment. It also wants to see worker representation on company boards to provide a workforce perspective on business decision-making, including engagement in technology strategy. 

It called on the government to require company directors to focus on long-term company success as their primary aim, taking account of the interests of stakeholders, including the workforce, shareholders, suppliers, customers and the local community, along with impacts on human rights and the environment. There also needs to be changes to the tax regime, which the TUC said should be evaluated to consider effective means to incentivise investment in labour-augmenting, rather than displacing, AI automation technologies.

Looking at regulators, the TUC said the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) should be directed by the government to investigate the impact of market power on employment, alongside its current focus on “consumer benefit”. The paper said the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 should be amended to extend the CMA’s remit from consumer protection to worker protection.

The TUC also wants the Information Commissioner’s Office’s current remit to protect individual data rights to include collective data rights. This includes extending the ability of unions or worker organisations to access and exercise rights on behalf of individual workers. An example of how this could be used Ω the paper, is the ability of a union to gain access to data on how algorithms are used to set pay in the platform economy dynamically.

TUC assistant general secretary Kate Bell said: “AI could have transformative potential – and if developed properly, workers can benefit from the productivity gains this technology may bring. But for this to happen, workers must be placed at the heart of AI innovation.

“That means ensuring public money comes with strings attached, and isn’t siphoned away into the pockets of billionaire tech bosses. It means ensuring workers get a share in any productivity gains from new technologies. And it means dedicated training and skills programmes to protect workers in industries that may be disrupted by AI.”

Bell warned that if AI in the workplace is left unchecked, the AI revolution could entrench rampant inequality where shareholders are enriched while jobs are degraded or displaced.

“We cannot let that happen. Unmanaged disruption is not inevitable or acceptable. It’s time for an urgent and active policy response that makes sure workers are not left behind. AI technologies can help build a better future – we’re setting out a plan that shows how it can be done,” she added.

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The number of ransomware attacks observed worldwide held steady in July, increasing by just 1% to 376 recorded cases, according to the latest monthly Threat Pulse figures from cyber security services firm NCC Group.

This comes in the wake of an unfortunate record-breaking start to 2025, but as NCC’s analysts observed, the more stagnant summer should not give security teams cause to rejoice, for the threat remains as persistent as ever. In July, this held especially true for the industrial sector, which bore 101, or 27%, of recorded attacks.

The consumer discretionary sector, including retail, was the second most attacked sector in July, with attacks rising from 76 to 82, followed by IT with 31 reported incidents, and healthcare with 30.

As ever, the majority of these attacks unfolded in the North American theatre, which accounted for 54% of incidents, down 3% month-on-month, followed by Europe with 21%, Asia with 12%, and South America with 6%.

NCC’s global head of threat intelligence, Matt Hull, urged organisations to fix the roof while the sun is still shining.

“While ransomware activity remained relatively flat in July, this lull should not be mistaken for a reduced threat. We saw a similar dip during the summer months last year, yet the overall threat level remained high,” he said.

While ransomware activity remained relatively flat in July, this lull should not be mistaken for a reduced threat Matt Hull, NCC Group

“Looking ahead, we anticipate the return of previously disrupted groups, likely in collaboration with social engineering actors to start launching more sophisticated and coordinated attacks. Now is not the time for complacency.”

Broken out by threat actor activity, INC Ransom emerged as the leader of the pack in July, accounting for 54 attacks, or 14% of the total. INC Ransom’s attacks have been on a steady upward trend since the spring, targeting providers of critical national infrastructure (CNI).

INC Ransom is noteworthy in the UK for being behind a spate of NHS-linked intrusions towards the end of 2024, and in the US for its attack on Ahold Delhaize, the Benelux-based parent of the well-known Food Lion and Giant supermarket chains.

It is also known for targeting Citrix products and services, several new flaws in which were reported in the past few months.

Other particularly active gangs in July were Qilin and Safepay, with 40 attacks apiece, and Akira with 37. DragonForce, used to great effect against Marks & Spencer in the UK, accounted for just under 20 incidents in July.

Qilin time

This month’s Threat Pulse report also offered a deeper dive into the Qilin ransomware operation. Qilin was the gang behind the June 2024 attack on NHS pathology lab services provider Synnovis, but since then, it has grown into the most active ransomware crew seen by NCC in June 2025, and, with almost 300 recorded victims so far this year, is easily one of the most formidable foes currently operating.

The predominantly Russian-speaking gang aggressively targets known vulnerabilities in widely used enterprise software tools from the likes of Fortinet, SAP and Veeam, and like many of its peers, makes a sport of targeting CNI organisations.

Regarded as a master of the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) crime model, Qilin swept up many homeless affiliates following the closure of RansomHub, and has gone out of its way to catch the eyes of less technically minded affiliates, said NCC.

The operation stands out for its technical proficiency and user-friendly interface that enables affiliates to easily build their payloads to target specific systems and manage victim negotiations and payments. It also has a competitive commission structure, with between 80% and 85% of payouts going to the affiliate, and even offers them legal services – after a fashion – to help guide them in their negotiations.

“The emergence of Qilin has been a product of wider trends observed throughout the ransomware landscape,” wrote NCC’s analysts.

“Threat actors engaging in specialised roles within the RaaS ecosystem offer affiliates a wide range of choices.

“RaaS platform developers can specialise in creating a service that attracts affiliates and produces profits for them as well. This has resulted in technically proficient developers and affiliates operating in major gangs like Qilin,” they added.

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While the CEOs of the major tech firms have lined up to support US president Donald Trump’s 9.9% equity stake in chipmaker Intel, the company itself sees many potential adverse effects going forward.

A few weeks ago, Trump questioned the suitability of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, claiming he had links to China. The pair then met. Intel described the meeting as “a candid and constructive discussion” on the firm’s commitment to strengthening US technology and manufacturing leadership. Now, the US government has taken a significant stake in the company.

The wording of the agreement suggests the US government is making an $8.9bn investment in Intel, but what appears to have happened is that the US Department of Commerce has used funding provided by the previous administration’s US Chips Act, covering $5.7bn of grants together with $3.2bn awarded to the company in 2024 as part of the Secure Enclave programme, which provides semiconductor technology to the Department of Defence.

Amazon Web Services and Microsoft along with HP and Dell welcomed the US government investment.

“The industry needs a strong and resilient US semiconductor industry, and no company is more important to this mission than Intel,” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer at Dell Technologies. “It’s great to see Intel and the Trump Administration working together to advance US technology and manufacturing leadership.

“Dell fully supports these shared priorities, and we look forward to bringing a new generation of products to market powered by American-designed and manufactured Intel chips.”

But as these companies try to win in the artificial intelligence (AI) arms race, Intel’s grip on the x86 PC and server market is under threat as rival chips offer better performance needed to run AI and high performance workloads. The 27 August PassMark high-performance benchmark for processors has 24 AMD processors ahead of Intel’s first entry, and it is third, behind two AMD chips, when measured against price and performance.

In a US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Intel said the conversion of future grant funding into investments in common stock by the US government means it no longer benefits from the reduced future operating costs made possible by such grant funding.

Given Intel is a highly capital intensive business and has other grant arrangements with government entities, the SEC filing noted that these grants could also be converted into common stock in the future or there could be an unwillingness to provide further grants to support its expansion.

Intel also warned that its non-US business may be adversely impacted by the US government being a significant stockholder. Given that sales outside the US accounted for 76% of the company’s revenue for the fiscal year ended 28 December 2024, it said that having the US government as a significant stockholder could lead to additional regulations, obligations or restrictions, such as foreign subsidy l in other countries.

The SEC filing also notes that with the US government as a major shareholder, the company could experience adverse reactions from investors, employees, customers, suppliers, other business or commercial partners, foreign governments, or competitors. It could also face increased public or political scrutiny.

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The Police Digital Service (PDS) has completed a “strategic restructuring” of its senior leadership team, more than a year after two of its employees were arrested for suspected bribery, fraud and misconduct in public office.

The two PDS employees were arrested, interviewed and bailed by City of London Police in July 2024, and since then, the organisation’s senior leadership team has undergone a complete revamp.

Within two weeks of the news of the arrests breaking, Computer Weekly confirmed that PDS chief executive Ian Bell had resigned from his post, before later being replaced by interim CEO Tony Eastaugh in August 2024.

According to the PDS website, Eastaugh’s appointment has now been made permanent, and the senior leadership team appears to have been streamlined, with fewer roles now listed, and is now staffed with interim leaders. They include Ed Preece, who served as PDS’s director of governance and performance between September and February 2025, before taking on the role of interim chief operating officer.

As previously reported by Computer Weekly, the organisation’s chief information security officer (CISO), Jason Corbishley, departed PDS in April 2025 to take up a position in the private sector as a consulting director at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42. He has since been replaced by interim CISO Chris Cope.

The following month, in April 2025, the company’s chief financial officer, Catherine Wilmot, departed PDS, before being replaced by Lisa Cranston.

The website also lists David Bowen as interim deputy CEO and ex-Government Digital Service human resources head Greg Hobbs as interim chief people officer. Both appear to be new roles at PDS.

When asked by Computer Weekly about the raft of interim senior leadership appointments, a PDS spokesperson said they were geared towards assisting the organisation with achieving its push to digitally transform UK policing.

“The Police Digital Service has made appointments to its executive team over the past year to strengthen its leadership and deliver on the ambitious goals of the National Policing Digital Strategy,” said the spokesperson, in a statement.  

“The appointments are designed to bring in fresh expertise and perspectives to better address the complex challenges facing modern policing,” they added. “These individuals bring extensive experience crucial for overseeing the PDS’s corporate strategy and ensuring effective collaboration with police forces and key partners.

“This strategic restructuring ensures the organisation can deliver on its mission to help policing protect the public in an evolving digital world.”

‘Reset programme’

As confirmed in a previous statement to Computer Weekly, attributed to Eastaugh, in the wake of the July 2024 arrests at PDS, the organisation set about a “significant reset programme” that concluded at the end of last year.  

As outlined in Eastaugh’s statement, the reset paved the way for PDS to introduce a “new operating model and an ambitious strategic delivery plan to support policing and public safety”, while allowing PDS to focus on delivering “live services at greater speed, scale and efficiency”.

Meanwhile, and at the time of writing, the criminal investigation involving the two unnamed PDS employees is still ongoing, as confirmed to Computer Weekly by City of London Police.

PDS, incorporated in June 2012, is classified as a private company with no shareholders, and its activities are funded by the Home Office and the wider policing sector. 

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You might be using generative AI products like ChatGPT and Gemini to create drafts, summarize documents, reason through complex topics, or make viral videos, but others are using these models to come up with solutions to much bigger problems. For example, an MIT Antibiotics-AI Project study recently published in scientific journal Cell details not one but two AI techniques that allowed researchers to discover never-before-seen antibiotics that might neutralize two dangerous drug-resistant bacteria.

Artificial intelligence models did not create the new drugs on their own. Instead, the AI simply followed complex instructions to discover molecules that might be able to destroy Neisseria gonorrhoeae (gonorrhea) and Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The AI models generated millions of possible chemical compounds that would harm the bacteria and thus put a stop to infections. In each case, the researchers applied specific filters to narrow down the lists of compounds to adequate candidates. These filters included requirements that the resulting antibiotic should not harm humans nor share common traits with existing antibiotics that have lost their efficacy against the two bacteria. After applying these conditions, the researchers ended up with a few viable candidates that show promise in lab testing.

From millions of options, AI found a novel gonorrhea drug

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Per MIT News, to find a potential antibiotic for gonorrhea, researchers instructed the AI to create molecules based on a key bacteria-killing chemical fragment. They started with a set of 45 million fragments made up of all the possible combinations of 11 atoms and fragments from the Enamine REadily AccessibLe (REAL) Space molecule repository.

From there, the AI refined the list to 4 million fragments that might kill the bacteria. After extracting chemical fragments that would harm the human body, researchers shrank the list to around 1 million candidates. After further tests, the MIT scientists ended up with a fragment called F1 that showed potential for addressing gonorrhea.

They fed the F1 candidate into two generative AI algorithms: chemically reasonable mutations (CReM) and fragment-based variational autoencoder (F-VAE). The former created molecules around F1 by modifying atom configurations and other characteristics. The latter used learned patterns to forge complete molecules from a fragment. These two technologies produced 7 million potential candidates based on F1. That massive list ultimately shrank to some 1,000 viable compounds, out of which 80 were chosen for potential lab synthesis. Just two of the 80 versions could be created, and only one (NG1) effectively destroyed gonorrhea in both a mouse model and lab dish.

Given more freedom, AI also produced results in MRSA tests

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The second experiment saw a similar journey, beginning with millions of candidates that might kill S. aureus and ending with a single top option effective in MRSA therapies. But this time, the researchers did not force the AI to follow a fragment strategy. The only rule the AI had to follow concerned chemistry. The atoms would have to be able to join into “chemically plausible molecules.”

This time, the AI found 29 million compounds potentially effective against MRSA. After implementing the same filters used in the fragment-based experiment for gonorrhea, the team ended up with 90 candidates. The following test was more successful than the gonorrhea experiment, as researchers synthesized 22 molecules, six of which were highly effective against MRSA.

Of those six, they singled out the main candidate, DN1, which successfully addressed a MRSA infection in a mouse model. Interestingly, both DN1 and NG1 disturbed the cell membranes of the two bacteria. However, DN1 had a broader effect, while NG1 only interacted with a single protein. Once the cell membrane is impacted, the bacteria dies.

How dangerous are gonorrhea and MRSA?

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Gonorrhea is a widely spread sexually transmitted infection. Internationally, 82.4 million new infections were recorded in 2020. Additionally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), gonorrhea’s drug resistance “is a serious and growing problem” that might make the condition untreatable. Meanwhile, S. aureus ranks high on the WHO’s “list of drug-resistant bacteria most threatening to human health.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also labels the bacteria a “serious threat” that can lead to death.

To be used in humans, NG1 and DN1 would have to pass preclinical trials and then clinical trials. These steps might take months to years. MIT News notes that Phare Bio (a nonprofit partnered with the Antibiotics-AI Project) “is now working on further modifying NG1 and DN1 to make them suitable for additional testing.” Before using generative AI to develop potential antibiotics for gonorrhea and MRSA, MIT scientists employed AI to create the antibiotics halicin and abaucin. 

Curious to explore other ways AI is impacting science and medicine? Check out this breakthrough tool that can detect cancer 99% of the time.

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Google Maps has a stranglehold on many of our smartphones when it comes to navigation, and for good reason. The app offers plenty of features while also giving directions and other information pertinent to your journey. But sometimes it’s worthwhile to give another navigation app a try. If you’ve been eyeing Waze — another navigation app from Google — you might be wondering exactly why you’d choose one over the other.

After all, both apps are made by the same company, so you might think they aren’t very different. Truth be told, the answer isn’t a simple yes or no. Each app offers a different approach to navigation, and they each have a number of unique features that may make one or the other better suited for your needs.

Google Maps is more utilitarian, for starters. It’s focused on providing multiple ways to approach your journey, while also providing you with as much information as possible. Waze, on the other hand, is more personal. The app learns about your journey over time and then uses that information to find the fastest route for you while making you feel like part of a larger community. There are also other features to consider, but ultimately, choosing whether to use Google Maps or Waze comes down to determining what you need out of your navigation app.

The biggest differences

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While Google has slowly been adding some of the more important features from Waze to Google Maps, there are still notable differences between the features offered in each app. One of the biggest is that Waze isn’t particularly great for discovering new locations. You can open the Waze app, search for something like “Costco” or “McDonald’s” and see information about the different locations around you, but it won’t provide much additional information beyond basic details like the phone number, address, and store hours.

On the other hand, discovery on one of the strengths of Google Maps. You’ll find reviews, photos, links to the business’s website, and more. It’s helpful if you’re looking for more information about somewhere, and you just don’t get the same level of information from Waze.

Where Waze does stand above Google Maps is in its traffic and incident reporting. Much of the data is fed to the app by users themselves — something Google brought to Maps last year. But Waze still does the job better thanks to its long-standing community. Further, Waze launched a new feature last year that helps you find up-to-date parking around you, which is great if you live in a big city. Waze is also more personal, allowing you to create a profile that shares information with other users, so you always feel like you’re contributing to the community. Plus, you can customize your experience even further with different voices and icons.

Google Maps is still the best navigation app

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Ultimately, the thing to keep in mind when choosing between Waze or Google Maps is that you need to decide whether you want a navigational app that offers you more information or one that finds you the fastest route while also giving you some of the best traffic and incident reporting information you’ll find in any app.

Both apps offer many of the other features you’ve come to expect from these kinds of tools — voiced directions, a digital speedometer, and the ability to set favorites like your home address, work, and more for faster selections. I’ve never really felt like I was missing anything when switching between one or the other, though I have personally found that the best choice is to utilize Waze during long journeys and to rely on Google Maps for most of my daily driving or when looking for foot-based or local transit directions.

If you don’t want to switch between the two, Google Maps is the better choice for most users. Waze can find the fastest route and has better incident reporting capabilities than Google Maps, but if you prefer to have more information at your fingertips with user-friendly interface, it’s hard to beat everything that Google Maps offers, especially since Waze is ending support for older Android devices soon, too.

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