Author: Carter

A recurring question in the payments space is whether a large-language-model agent can take over from a gradient-boosted decision-tree scorer on the synchronous authorization hot path. The question makes intuitive sense — agents are already handling investigation queues that previously required a seasoned analyst flipping across five dashboards, so extending that capability to real-time transaction scoring feels like a natural next step. I put together a compact benchmark to find out. The entire setup runs on a laptop. There’s no GPU, no API key, and no cloud account needed. The source is available on GitHub at github.com/sandeepmb/fraud-agents-benchmark. Every chart and…

Robust fraud prevention programs require oversight at every customer touchpoint — from account registration to checkout, from login to customer support interactions. Once this is in place, it delivers granular, step-by-step visibility into how users engage. While this is an essential layer of awareness, properly aggregating diverse data sets supplies the context needed to uncover sophisticated fraud techniques and spot emerging patterns early.Below, we walk through a real-world fraud scenario illustrating relevant data visibility across 4 levels — each necessary for building a competitive fraud program in today’s ever-changing landscape. Transaction Level: Individual user actions monitored and evaluated in isolation.…

  # Introduction  Twelve months ago, omni AI models seemed more like a theoretical promise than a practical tool for developers. The majority of multimodal setups still relied on a patchwork of specialized models operating behind the scenes: one handling text, another processing images, yet another dealing with speech, and occasionally a separate one for video. The notion of a single unified model capable of interpreting diverse input formats and producing outputs across different modalities felt like a distant aspiration. That landscape is beginning to shift. Open source omni and multimodal models now offer a significantly more cohesive approach to processing…

Even with all the upheaval in federal contracting over the past year, agencies managed to exceed the 23% governmentwide target for small business awards in fiscal 2025. The Small Business Administration reported that agencies directed 28% of all prime contracts to small firms last year. Although agencies hit the overall benchmark, the total dollar amount flowing to small businesses fell to $179 billion, down from $183.5 billion in 2024. This decline in total dollars also comes as agencies ramped up their federal procurement spending in 2025. Back in June, the Government Accountability Office reported that the government spent roughly $793…

Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysMicrosoft has quietly granted Windows 10 users an additional year of security updates.The company did not provide a reason for the extension.The number of PCs still running Windows 10 is likely still massive.Microsoft’s extension of Windows 10 security updates beyond the official end-of-support date has just received yet another one-year extension.If you previously enrolled in the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates program, your coverage end date has been automatically pushed back by a full year. If you own a Windows 10 PC and haven’t enrolled…

Contract manufacturers like Magna International allow established automakers to delegate serial production, handle ramp-downs, and experiment with new vehicle concepts without straining their own manufacturing networks. For automotive startups, Magna can reduce risk by offering access to proven operations, experienced workers, and dependable supply chains. Our facility in Graz houses a body-in-white (BIW) assembly line, a paint shop, and final assembly operations. The plant is tailored for low-volume vehicle programs. It can accommodate all powertrain technologies on one assembly line while distributing production loads evenly across different models. A multi-product BIW assembly line comprises several key elements, including the vehicle…

Nous Research has expanded the Skills System inside Hermes Agent, its open-source self-improving agent. The new addition is /learn, a command that writes a reusable skill for you. Point it at a document page, a local SDK, a past conversation, or pasted notes. The live agent gathers the material, then authors a SKILL.md on your behalf. Hermes Agent can now /learn from anything: feed it directories of any source material (code, API docs, manuals, PDFs, configs) and it distills a verifiable reusable skill pic.twitter.com/oRznwCRF3E— Nous Research (@NousResearch) June 23, 2026 Hermes Skills System Skills are on-demand knowledge documents the agent…

Morning Minute is a daily email briefing authored by Tyler Warner. The insights and viewpoints shared belong to him alone and may not align with Decrypt’s perspective. Plus, don’t miss our brand-new daily news program that covers all the biggest stories in just 5 minutes—grab it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.GM!Here’s what’s making headlines today: Crypto majors remain flat; BTC sits at $62,700 ETH Foundation plans 40% budget reduction and 20% staff cuts BlackRock officially backs a 1-2% portfolio BTC allocation Hayes’ Maelstrom unveils bullish case for CARDS token (CARDS +15%) Meta gears up to launch its own prediction market…

The modern CIO’s mission is straightforward: drive AI adoption across the entire organization as quickly as possible. CIO.com’s State of the CIO survey confirms that CEOs now consider leveraging AI their most important expectation for IT leadership. From exploring new AI solutions to vetting products, CIOs have become the pivotal players in shaping their companies’ AI strategies. And executives are demanding tangible results. Nearly two-thirds of top-level leaders say they face greater pressure to demonstrate returns on AI spending than they did a year ago, based on Kyndryl’s 2025 Readiness Report. This mounting pressure comes from multiple directions — boards…

DeepReinforce has released Ornith-1.0, an open-source model family built for agentic coding. The lineup spans four sizes, from a 9B dense model to a 397B mixture-of-experts flagship. Every checkpoint ships under the MIT license on Hugging Face. The models are post-trained on top of pretrained Gemma 4 and Qwen 3.5. Most coding agents pair a model with a fixed, human-designed harness. Ornith-1.0 instead learns to write its own. The DeepReinforce research team reports state-of-the-art results among open models of comparable size. TL;DR Ornith-1.0 ships in 9B, 31B, 35B-MoE, and 397B-MoE sizes under MIT, built on…