On July 1, former Microsoft CEO and President Steve Ballmer surpassed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates for the first time on the Bloomberg list of the world's richest people to become the sixth richest person in the world. According to the data, as of the same day, Ballmer's net worth reached $157.2 billion, while Gates's wealth was $156.7 billion, falling to seventh place. The latest figures, as of July 6, show that Ballmer's wealth has grown further to $161 billion, and Gates' wealth is $159 billion. This is the first time Ballmer's net worth has surpassed Gates', and it is also the rare time in history that an employee's net worth has surpassed that of a company founder. Unlike Musk, Jeff Bezos and others, Ballmer's wealth was not accumulated through entrepreneurial success as a business founder, but simply because he chose to hold Microsoft "indefinitely." As Fortune previously reported, Ballmer is the only individual with a net worth of more than $100 billion as an employee rather than a founder.

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a desert moss species, known as Syntrichia caninervis, that has the potential to survive in the extreme conditions on Mars. The Global Times learned from the institute that during the third Xinjiang scientific expedition, the research team focused on studying the desert moss and found that it not only challenges people's understanding of the tolerance of organisms in extreme environments, but also demonstrates the ability to survive and regenerate under simulated Martian conditions. Supported by the Xinjiang scientific expedition project, researchers Li Xiaoshuang, Zhang Daoyuan and Zhang Yuanming from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography and Kuang Tingyun, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, concentrated on studying the "pioneer species" Syntrichia caninervis in an extreme desert environment, according to the institute in an article it sent to the Global Times on Sunday. Through scientific experiments, the researchers systematically proved that the moss can tolerate over 98 percent cell dehydration, survive at temperatures as low as -196 C without dying, withstand over 5000Gy of gamma radiation without perishing, and quickly recover, turn green, and resume growth, showcasing extraordinary resilience. These findings push the boundaries of human knowledge on the tolerance of organisms in extreme environments. Furthermore, the research revealed that under simulated Martian conditions with multiple adversities, Syntrichia caninervis can still survive and regenerate when returned to suitable conditions. This marks the first report of higher plants surviving under simulated Martian conditions. The research team also identified unique characteristics of Syntrichia caninervis. Its overlapping leaves reduce water evaporation, while the white tips of the leaves reflect intense sunlight. Additionally, the innovative "top-down" water absorption mode of the white tips efficiently collects and transports water from the atmosphere. Moreover, the moss can enter a selective metabolic dormancy state in adverse environments and rapidly provide the energy needed for recovery when its surrounding environment improves. Based on the extreme environmental tolerance of Syntrichia caninervis, the research team plans to conduct experiments on spacecraft to monitor the survival response and adaptation capabilities of the species under microgravity and various ionizing radiation adversities. They aim to unravel the physiological and molecular basis of the moss and explore the key life tolerance regulatory mechanisms, laying the foundation for future applications of Syntrichia caninervis in outer space colonization.

WhatsApp beta version 2.24.14.20 has a new feature that allows users to share photos with Meta AI. The AI chatbot will analyze uploaded images and provide information or context about the content. Users may be able to request specific edits to their photos directly through Meta AI, though the extent of this feature is still unknown. As the battle for AI dominance heats up, Meta is adding a new trick to its AI chatbot, Meta AI, which is already part of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. While Meta AI already has impressive text capabilities, such as replying to questions, suggesting captions, and holding conversations, users cannot currently share or upload photos to the Meta AI chat. WaBetaInfo has uncovered the exciting new feature in the WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.24.14.20. This feature will allow Meta AI to interact with photos shared by users, reply to photos, and even edit them. As shown in the attached screenshot, WhatsApp is testing a new camera button in the Meta AI chat, designed to function similarly to the camera button in regular chats. This addition will allow users to manually share photos with Meta AI, a capability that is currently unavailable. With this new functionality, users will be able to ask questions about their photos, presumably allowing users to ask the AI to identify objects or locations or provide context about the photo’s content. Moreover, the screenshot suggests that Meta AI will also offer the option to edit photos, enabling users to make changes to their images directly within the chat by sharing a prompt. The exact scope of this image editing feature remains unclear, leaving us to wonder if it will be limited to simple tweaks or if it will unleash a powerful AI-driven photo editing suite. The possibilities are both exciting and intriguing, and this feature could definitely be a big hit, especially if it performs as promised. While this new image-sharing feature would mean Meta will analyze and face-scan the photos you upload, the screenshot includes a disclaimer indicating that users will have the option to delete their photos whenever they want. As of now, it seems that the feature is still in development, so it might be some time before we finally get to see it roll out publicly. Recently, we also reported about WhatsApp working on an “Imagine Me” feature that would allow Meta AI to generate AI avatars of you based on a set of your photos. WhatsApp in our newsletters WhatsApp is a leading messaging app, keep up to date on the latest, and learn about more Android apps today!

On the afternoon of July 8, local time, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health issued a notice stating that an 18-year-old girl in the country died of diphtheria. The Ministry of Health asked Nghe An Province and Bac Giang Province to take urgent action to control the epidemic. Diphtheria is an acute respiratory infectious disease caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, which is mainly transmitted through droplets and can also be indirectly transmitted by contact with objects containing Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Severe cases may show symptoms of poisoning throughout the body, complicated by myocarditis and peripheral nerve paralysis.

Google Wallet can help you store your IDs, driving license, loyalty cards, concert tickets and more. You can also store your payment cards and use tap to pay to pay anywhere Google Pay is accepted. Google wallet is available in various countries but Google never launched it in India. Google let indian users stick with the Gpay which facilitates UPI payments. Tap to pay is not part of it. Also we can not store things such as IDs and Passes in indian version of Gpay. This might change and Google may launch Google Wallet in India. With the recent version of Google Wallet and Google Play Services, Google has added some flags and code which indicate that Google is working on something for Indian users regarding wallet. The first change I noticed recently when going through the Google Play Services apk was addition of two new flags Both flags are part of com.google.android.gms.pay package in the Google Play Services. This package contains all the flags for features of Gpay/Wallet. Google does server side flipping of flags to enable/disable features for users. So both these flags doesn't really provide any info about what features enabling these flags is going to bring. But the point here is that Google Wallet is not launched in India so why Google added these flags inside Play Services ? The answer could be that Google may be working on bringing Google Wallet to India. It can enable tap to pay, store payments and various other features for Indian users which we don't have in the current Gpay for India. I found similar flags in the analysis Google Wallet APK - These flags are also disabled by default. But this is again a clear indication of Google working towards something for Indian users. In both cases, enabling the flags doesn't bring anything noticeable UI or feature because there is nothing much added besides flags. Google has dogfood/testing versions internally, so the code will show up slowly in upcoming versions. The last piece of code I found is also from Google Play Services. In case you don't know, Google was working on Digilocker integration in the Google Files app which was supposed to bring your digital document inside the app such as driving license, COVID certificates, aadhar card. But Google has ditched the effort of bringing these features and they removed the "Important" tab (where digilocker was supposed to be integrated) from the Google Files app completely. So things are going to change and here is how. This is the code which I found in the Google Play Services - So the word "PASS" along with PAN, DRIVERS LICENCE, VACC CERTIFICATE & AADHAR CARD, is clear indication of the possibility of Google adding support for these directly through Google Wallet using Digilocker, just like Samsung Pass does it. This code is not old as I have checked older beta versions of Play Services where this code is not present. Here is a string which was added in a previous beta version a few weeks ago but I completely ignored it because it didn't make any sense without flags and the other code - This addition was surprising because there was nothing regarding digilocker before in the Play Services. In the words "pay_valuable", the "pay" to Wallet/Gpay and "valuable" refers to the things like Passes, loyalty cards and transit cards. Since we are talking about digilocker, these "valuable" are driving license, vaccination certificate, PAN card and Aadhar card which can be store in Google Wallet after digilocker integration. That's all about it. We will know more about it in upcoming app updates or maybe Google can itself annouce something about this.