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.

Koenigsegg Agera RS Chimera combines technologies from Agera RS, CC850, and Jesko. An Agera RS platform features the engine from the Jesko and the simulated manual gearbox from the CC850. Development took three years, thanks to software and hardware integration challenges. A "chimera," for the uninitiated, is described as a mythical creature whose anatomy comes from multiple animals, creating a hybrid of two or more creatures' best bits. It's also the name of the latest one-off creation from Koenigsegg, and it's certainly apt; the Koenigsegg Agera RS Chimera is an amalgam of technologies from the decade-old, record-breaking Agera RS, the fascinatingly innovative CC850, and the awe-inspiring Jesko - which just recently set four new acceleration records. There's also a hint of Regera in here, which had some impressive records of its own. As reported by Mr. JWW, the strictly one-off special edition was commissioned by FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, and both he and one of Koenigsegg's engineers arrived at the same name. Let's take a closer look and see exactly why this is a hybrid, even though it's not electrified. Three Cars In One The Chimera was originally a regular Agera RS and one of several Koenigsegg megacars owned by Ben Sulayem, but he asked Christian and the team to initiate a special project on his behalf. Around the same time, the extraordinary Koenigsegg CC850 was revealed at Monterey Car Week 2022, introducing the innovative Engage Shift System (ESS). This was based on the already astonishingly fast nine-speed Light Speed Transmission, with new actuators and sensors added to enable the simulation of a manual transmission without a physical link between the shifter and the gearbox. Like the rest of the world, the FIA boss was enamored by this novel technology, and as a wealthy 'Egg collector, he asked for it to be put into his special Agera-based project. Christian pondered this and ultimately decided to fulfill the request, in the process turning Ben Sulayem's special edition into something of a development mule for the ESS. But unlike the CC850, the Chimera got the larger turbos of the Jesko, enabling around 1,280 horsepower on regular gas and up to 1,600 hp on E85. That means this is an Agera RS with a CC850 transmission and a Jesko engine. On paper, that sounds simple, but the reality was anything but... Three Shifting Experiences Took Three Years To Combine According to a video from YouTuber and Koenigsegg distributor Mr. JWW, this development process took three years and required the relocation of the battery, new mounts for the powertrain, new harnesses, new software and controllers, and even a new infotainment system. To ensure all the electronics worked seamlessly was a challenge, but then Ben Sulayem asked for another layer of intricacy, requesting that paddle shifters be added, like in the Jesko Absolut and Jesko Attack. In the CC850, you could only switch between the simulated manual mode and fully automatic shifts, but now, the Chimera's development has unlocked manually operable paddles, which have now been added as the only option you can add to a CC850. There was also significant relocation and redesigning of suspension components, with parts from the Jesko and the Regera forming the subframe and elements of the suspension, respectively. A new scoop for the new transmission's cooler was also added, but it looks like it was always planned. Christian von Koenigsegg says this is a true one-off, saying that it would be cheaper and easier to start something all-new from scratch than to mix new and old technologies again, and that it's simply "too much work" to tackle a retrofit project. The Chimera is not completed just yet, as there are still subtle elements to refine, such as the bite point of the clutch pedal, but these minor issues will surely be resolved soon. It's an amazing feat, combining three hypercars in one, and we can't even fathom how Koenigsegg will top this in the future, but we don't doubt that Christian and his team will continue to do just that.

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!

The Sun is extremely active right now, blasting the Earth with the biggest solar storms in 20 years. This is what it is doing to the rest of the Solar System. If you happened to look skywards on a few nights in May 2024, there was a good chance of seeing something spectacular. For those at relatively low latitudes, there was a rare chance to see the flickering red, pink, green glow of our planet's aurorae. A powerful solar storm had sent bursts of charged particles barrelling towards Earth and, as they bounced around in our planet's atmosphere, they unleashed spectacular displays of the Northern and Southern Lights. The dazzling displays of aurora borealis were visible far further south than they might normally be – and far further north in the case of aurora australis thanks to the power of the geomagnetic storm, the strongest in two decades. Although some people experienced only a faint, eerie glow, others were treated to a myriad of colour as far south as London in the UK and Ohio in the US. Reports even came in from just to the north of San Francisco, California. But while this spike in activity from the Sun left many on Earth transfixed by the light display it produced, it has also had a profound effect elsewhere in the Solar System. As most of us wondered at the colours dancing across the night's sky, astronomers have been peering far beyond to see the strange ways such intense bursts of particles affect other planets and the space between them. "The Sun can fire material outwards in any direction like a garden sprinkler," says Jim Wild, a professor of space physics at Lancaster University in the UK. "The effects are felt throughout the Solar System." Our Sun is currently heading towards, or has already reached, its solar maximum – the point in an 11-year cycle where it is most active. This means the Sun produces more bursts of radiation and particles from solar flares and events known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). If these are sprayed in our direction, they can supercharge the Earth's magnetic field, causing magnificent aurorae but also posing problems for satellites and power grids. "Things really seem to be picking up right now," says Mathew Owens, a space physicist at the University of Reading in the UK. "I think we're about at solar maximum now, so we may see more of these kinds of storms in the next couple of years." Around the Sun, multiple spacecraft are observing this increase in activity up close. One of those, the European Space Agency's (Esa) Solar Orbiter, has been studying the Sun since 2020 on an orbit that takes it within the path of Mercury. Currently the spacecraft is "on the far side of the Sun as seen from Earth", says Daniel Müller, project scientist for the Solar Orbiter mission at Esa in the Netherlands. "So we see everything that Earth doesn't see." The storm that hit Earth in May originated from an active region of solar flares and sunspots, bursts of plasma and twisting magnetic fields on the Sun's surface, known as its photosphere. Solar Orbiter was able to see "several of the flares from this monster active region that rotated out of Earth's view", says Müller, bright flashes of light and darkened regions called sunspots on the Sun's surface. One of the goals of Solar Orbiter is "to connect what's happening on the Sun to what's happening in the heliosphere," says Müller. The heliosphere is a vast bubble of plasma that envelops the Sun and the planets of the Solar System as it travels through interstellar space. What Müller and his colleagues hope to learn more about is where the solar wind – the constant stream of particles spilling out from the Sun across the Solar System – "blows into the interstellar medium", he says. "So we are particularly interested in anything energetic on the Sun that we can find back in the turbulence of the solar wind." This particular cycle, cycle 25, appears to be "significantly more active than what people predicted", says Müller, with the relative sunspot number – an index used to measure the activity across the visible surface of the Sun – eclipsing what was seen as the peak of the previous solar cycle. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in the US had predicted a maximum monthly average of 124 sunspots a day in May, but the actual number was 170 on average, with one day exceeding 240, according to Müller. But the exact cause of the Sun's 11-year-long cycle and its variabilities remains a bit of a mystery. • Alien aurora: The strange displays that light up other worlds • Why Einstein was wrong about black holes • The Moon is slipping away from the Earth – and our days are getting longer The effects of these changes in solar activity, however, extend far across the Solar System. Earth is not the only planet to be hit by solar storms as they billow across interplanetary space. Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, has a much weaker magnetic field than Earth – about 100 times less – and lacks a substantial atmosphere. But solar activity can cause the surface of the planet to glow with X-rays as solar wind rains down. Venus also lacks a substantial magnetic field, but the planet does still create auroras as the solar wind interacts with the planet's ionosphere. At Mars, the effect of solar activity is more obvious. Here, a Nasa spacecraft called Maven (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) has been studying the planet's atmosphere from orbit since 2014. "We were on the declining side of solar cycle 24 [then]," says Shannon Curry, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the US and the lead on the mission. "We are now coming up on the peak of cycle 25, and this latest series of active regions has produced the strongest activity Maven has ever seen." Between 14 and 20 May the spacecraft detected exceptionally powerful solar activity reaching Mars, including an X8.7 – solar flares are ranked B, C, M, and X in order from weakest to strongest. Results from the event have yet to be studied, but Curry noted that a previous X8.2 flare had resulted in "a dozen papers" published in scientific journals. Another flare on 20 May, later estimated to be an even bigger X12, hurled X-rays and gamma rays towards Mars before a subsequent coronal mass ejection launched a barrage of charged particles in the same direction. Images beamed back from Nasa's Curiosity Rover on Mars revealed just now much energy struck the Martian surface. Streaks and dots caused by charged particles hitting the camera's sensors caused the images to "dance with snow", according to a press release from Nasa. Maven, meanwhile, captured glowing aurora as the particles hit the Mars' atmosphere, engulfing the entire planet in an ultraviolet glow. The flares can cause the temperature of the Martian atmosphere to "dramatically increase," says Curry. "It can even double in the upper atmosphere. The atmosphere itself inflates. The entire atmosphere expands dozens of kilometres – exciting for scientists but detrimental for spacecraft, because when the atmosphere expands there's more drag on the spacecraft." The expanding atmosphere can also cause degradation of the solar panels on spacecraft orbiting Mars from the increase in radiation. "The last two flares caused more degradation than what a third of a year would typically do," says Curry. Mars, while it has lost most of its magnetic field, still has "crustal remnant magnetic fields, little bubbles all over the southern hemisphere", says Curry. During a solar event, charged particles can light those up and excite particles. "The entire day side lights up in what we call a diffuse aurora," says Curry. "The entire sky glows. This would most likely be visible to astronauts on the surface." By the time solar storms reach further out into the solar system, they tend to have dissipated but can still have an impact on the planets they encounter. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have aurorae that are in part driven by charged particles from the Sun interacting with their magnetic fields. But one of the key effects of solar activity on interplanetary space that astronomers are eager to study is something called "slow solar wind", a more sluggish, but denser stream of charged particles and plasma from the Sun. Steph Yardley, a solar astronomer at Northumbria University in the UK, says solar wind is "generally classed about 500km/s (310 miles/s)", but slow wind falls below this. It also has a lower temperature and tends to be more volatile. Recent work by Yardley and her colleagues, using data from Solar Orbiter, suggests that the Sun's atmosphere, its corona, plays a role in the speed of the solar wind. Regions where the magnetic field lines, the direction of the field and charged particles are "open" – stretching out into space without looping back – provide a highway for solar wind to reach high speeds. Closed loops over some active regions – where the magnetic field lines have no beginning and end – can occasionally snap, producing slow solar wind. The variability in the slow solar wind seems to be driven by the unpredictable flow of plasma inside the Sun, which makes the magnetic field particularly chaotic. The X-class flares and coronal mass ejections seen in May transformed the interplanetary medium as they flung out material across the solar system. Solar Orbiter detected a huge spike in ions moving at thousands of kilometres per second immediately after the 20 May flare. Computers on board other spacecraft – the BepiColombo probe, which is currently on a seven-year journey to Mercury, and Mars Express, in orbit around the Red Planet – both saw a dramatic increase in the number of memory errors caused by the high energy solar particles hitting the memory cells. The day after the coronal mass ejection, magnetometers on board the Solar Orbiter also saw large swings in the magnetic field around the spacecraft as a huge bubble of plasma made up of charged particles thrown out from by the event washed past it at 1,400km/s (870 miles/s). Increased solar activity is a boon for scientists. "If you track the number of papers produced by solar physicists, you can almost see an 11-year cycle in there," says Owens. "We are all more scientifically productive when there's a lot of activity to study." As the Sun continues into solar maximum, the Solar System will see more and more activity streaming from its surface. Yet while all the planets witness at least some of the activity, our planet bears the brunt more than most. "Earth is slightly unique in that space weather can have interesting effects on human technologies," says Wild. "There's an extra dimension here on Earth." Perhaps one day those anthropogenic effects might be felt elsewhere, too. "If you're going to fly to Mars and you have a six-month flight through the interplanetary environment, you're going to potentially suck up a lot of space weather events," says Wild. "How you protect your astronauts is an interplanetary issue that we need to get our heads around."

U.S. and Australian officials said on Monday (July 8) that both countries are committed to improving financial connectivity in the Pacific and strengthening banking services in the region to resist China's growing covetousness. According to Reuters, at the two-day Pacific Banking Forum co-hosted by the United States and Australia, Australian Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said that Canberra hopes to be the partner of choice in the Pacific region, both in banking and defense. "If there are countries acting in this region whose main goal is to promote their own national interests rather than the interests of Pacific island countries, we will be very concerned," Jones said at the first day of the forum in Brisbane. He made this comment when asked about Chinese banks filling the vacuum in the Pacific region. The report said that as some Western banks have interrupted their long-standing business relationships with banks in small Pacific island countries, while others are preparing to close their businesses, these Pacific island countries face many challenges and their ability to obtain US dollar-dominated banking business is limited. The report said that experts said that Western banks are taking de-risking actions to meet financial regulations, which makes it more difficult to do business in Pacific island countries. This in turn weakens the financial resilience of these island nations. At the same time, Washington is also stepping up efforts to support Pacific island nations in limiting China's influence. Brian Nelson, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Counterterrorism and Financial Intelligence, said, "We recognize the economic and strategic importance of the Pacific region, and we are committed to deepening engagement and cooperation with our allies and partners to enhance financial connectivity, investment and integration." The report said that neither the United States nor Australia has yet announced detailed plans at the forum, but comments from officials from both countries reflect the growing unease among Western countries that have traditionally had influence in the Pacific region about China's growing influence in the region.