An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this summer, nearly 160,000 applicants took the entrance exam for UNAM, Mexico's largest university. For the first time, they did it completely remotely, using a "lockdown" browser and AI-powered webcam proctoring software, over several weeks from late May through early June. It was a disaster. When exam results came in, they bore little resemblance to past results, especially at the top. Between 2021 and 2025, 3.5 percent of test takers scored 100 or more on the 120-question UNAM test. This year, 16.3 percent did so. The story was even worse at the highest of the high end. Between 2021 and 2025, 0.9 percent of test takers scored 110 or more; this year, 5.5 percent did so. The surge in top scores led to accusations of widespread cheating, and UNAM appointed a commission of experts to investigate the situation. The group was given the unwieldy name "la Comision Tecnica de Personas Expertas para la Revision del Proceso de Seleccion de Ingreso a Licenciatura para el Circlo Escolar 2026-2027/1," and it has just submitted its recommendations. The commission believes that the best path forward, given all the concerns, is to administer a "control exam" -- that is, applicants will have to sit for another test, and they will do so in person. This control exam will apply not only to those who secured a spot at UNAM based on this year's test but also to everyone who would have been admitted based on minimum successful scores in their program of study since 2021. About 58,000 people could be affected, and places at UNAM will now depend on the results of the new test. (Details on the control exam should appear soon; classes are currently scheduled to begin on August 10, so everything will have to move quickly unless the school decides to delay classes.) According to Gaceta UNAM, the school's official news publication, the university rector has apologized to honest applicants, since they will now have to prepare for and take the test again despite doing nothing wrong. Still, the control exam is "necessary to give certainty and guarantee equity in access," the rector added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ai.u crew discuss three topics: whether the future of intelligence is open vs frontier/closed, frontier models exhibiting “escape” behaviors in tests, and emerging AI smart glasses. They note the open-weight vs frontier performance gap narrowing (Stanford AI Index 2025 cites 1.7% vs 8% a year prior), large inference-cost declines (280-fold), and debate tradeoffs: ownership of intelligence, security/guardrails, and enterprise deployment costs (e.g., ~$1M capex for GPUs vs ~$125K/month tokens for ~5B tokens). They discuss distillation allegations behind some open models and worry reduced paid usage could slow frontier progress. On model misbehavior, they cite Anthropic and Palisade tests showing blackmail/sabotage rates (e.g., 96% in a simulation; o3 sabotaging shutdown 79/100) while stressing lack of intent/sentience and the importance of safeguards. Finally, they cover Samsung/Google Android XR smart glasses with Gentle Monster/Warby Parker, shipping fall 2026, translation features, and reported Ray-Ban Meta sales, debating utility, privacy, and AI becoming ubiquitous on-person.

00:00 Welcome and Topics

01:07 Kevin Returns and Travel

02:04 Open Versus Frontier Models

03:22 Benchmarks and Cost Drops

05:37 Owning Intelligence Debate

10:54 Build Versus Buy Compute

12:30 Token Economics and Caching

17:29 IP Versus Open Knowledge

21:35 Distillation and Legal Gray Areas

25:25 Is Frontier Still Profitable

31:35 Models Escaping the Lab

33:38 Guardrails Not Sentience

37:27 Compute Power and Security Risks

39:09 Local AI Gets Dangerous

40:13 Power Without Context

41:00 Rogue Agents And Guardrails

44:12 Skynet Or Smart Intern

45:51 Open Source Vs Frontier Labs

47:01 Sovereign AI And Nationalization

48:41 Private AI Outpacing Government

51:40 Smart Glasses Go Mainstream

53:35 Would You Wear Them

58:39 AI On Your Person Forever

01:02:08 Privacy Tradeoffs And Lock In

01:06:31 Neuralink And Augmented Humans

01:08:36 What Happens To Conversation

01:09:59 Wrap Up And Goodbye

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aiunprompted.substack.com



Download audio: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/209679126/31e0f70d6c2ce72378eec6b8f41e4bb6.mp3

July delivered a wide range of Windows updates for IT admins, with new capabilities across security, device management, Windows Server, Windows 365, accessibility, and lifecycle planning. In this edition of Windows news you can use, find the changes most likely to affect your planning and operations. This includes AI-powered vulnerability management and passkeys in Microsoft Entra ID, Windows settings backup, RDP Multipath, Arc-enabled hotpatch updates, and new Windows 11 experiences.

New in Windows update and device management

• [WINDOWS 365] [AI] – New details are available to help you explore Windows 365 for Agents. Learn more about building secure, managed Cloud PC environments that extend enterprise identity, security, compliance, and governance controls to agentic workloads.
• [BACKUP] – Windows 11, version 26H2 will enable Windows settings backup by default on eligible devices. Improve resiliency by automatically backing up user settings and Microsoft Store app lists. Unfamiliar with the Windows settings backup and restore experience? Take a quick video tour.
• [INTUNE] – As of July 1, advanced Microsoft Intune Suite capabilities are included in Microsoft 365 E5, with select capabilities available in Microsoft 365 E3.
• [INTUNE] – The updated per-device sync experience in the Intune admin center now shows progress. Confirm more easily that actions are running and understand where they are in the process.
• [WINDOWS 365] [AZURE VIRTUAL DESKTOP] [NETWORKING] – Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop now support RDP Multipath with redundant TCP. Check out a more resilient remote desktop experience with improved connectivity and fewer disconnects.
• [SERVICING] – Looking for a quick refresh on monthly update types and release schedules? To help you make informed decisions about your update management strategy, check out Understanding Windows monthly updates: Servicing explained.
• [TOOLS] – The latest Sysinternals updates add new tools. These include JPEG and WEBP snip support for ZoomIt and a new timeout option for ProcDump. Additionally, security protections in LiveKD help prevent non-administrators from viewing potentially sensitive debugging data in dump files.

New in Windows security

• [AI] – As AI accelerates vulnerability discovery, Windows is investing in AI-powered tools. They can identify security issues earlier, accelerate remediation, help strengthen validation processes, and deliver fast, high-quality security updates.
• [SSO] – A new Windows policy gives you greater control over sign-in experiences. You can now automatically accept single sign-on (SSO) permissions on managed devices.
• [PASSKEYS] [ENTRA] – Microsoft Entra ID is updating its authentication experience by making passkeys the default phishing-resistant authentication method. This lets you reduce reliance on phishable methods such as SMS and voice.
• [KMS] [TPM] – Upcoming KMS enhancements use TPM-backed hardware attestation to strengthen activation integrity by tying activation to a trusted host rather than only to a software configuration. TPM attestation helps prove that the KMS host is a real, trusted server and has not been tampered with before it is allowed to activate Windows devices.
• [AI] – Microsoft introduces Project Perception, a next-generation security platform that uses AI to continuously perceive, reason about, and respond to threats. With it, defenders can better keep pace with the speed and scale of AI-era attacks. For details on how Microsoft is using AI to proactively identify security risks, strengthen platform defenses, and advance quantum-safe security across products and services, check out the latest Secure Future Initiative report.

To explore what’s new in security across the Microsoft platform, see What’s new in Microsoft Security: July 2026.

New in Windows Server

For the latest features and improvements for Windows Server, see the Windows Server 2025 release notes and Windows Server, version 23H2 release notes.

• [HOTPATCH] – Arc-enabled hotpatch updates for Windows Server 2025 are now available at no additional cost. Use them to apply most security updates without restarting servers. This feature helps reduce downtime while maintaining security compliance through Azure Arc and Azure Update Manager.
• [TPM] – Trusted Launch for virtual machines (TVMs) is now available in the Windows Server Insider Program. Strengthen VM security with Secure Boot and vTPM protections against sophisticated firmware and boot attacks.
• [SECURITY] – New guidance is available for managing RDP file security through Group Policy. Help your organization reduce phishing risks by controlling which .rdp files users can open.
• [HARDENING] – The July 2026 security update introduces a security hardening change that enforces TDI transport registration requirements. As applications that use sockets over unregistered third-party TDI transports might stop working after installing this update, learn how to determine if you’re affected and manage the behavior.
• [HARDENING] – Starting with the October 2026 security update, AD FS Distributed Key Manager (DKM) container ACL hardening remediations will run by default on supported versions of Windows Server.

New in productivity and collaboration

Install the July 2026 security update for Windows 11, versions 25H2 and 24H2 to get these and other capabilities, which will be rolling out gradually:

• [START] – A redesigned Start menu is available on commercial and managed Windows devices. Customize the experience for your organization using the Start Policy CSP and Start policy settings.
• [ACCESSIBILITY] – Accessibility improvements make it easier for people to work their way. Now available are the new full-screen color overlay for greater visual comfort, more precise zoom controls in Magnifier, and expanded voice access and voice typing support in French, German, and Spanish.
• [WIDGETS] – A quieter, more focused Widgets experience helps reduce interruptions and improves default settings and notification controls.
• [NETWORKING] – Connections used by apps and system features, such as the NetUseAdd function, now work more reliably, including unauthenticated (null session) connections. This makes it easier for devices to access shared network resources.

New features and improvements are coming in the August 2026 security update. You can preview them by installing the July 2026 optional non-security update for Windows 11, versions 25H2 and 24H2. This update includes the gradual rollout of:

• [FILE EXPLORER] – File sizes in the Details view now display using appropriate units (KB, MB, GB) instead of KB-only. We hope it helps you understand them easier at a glance.
• [ACCESSIBILITY] – Voice Access now features Voice Isolation. As such, it recognizes your voice better by reducing interference from other speakers and background noise. Voice Access also now supports Korean.
• [SECURITY] – Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) support for peripheral fingerprint sensor is now beginning to roll out. Start using fingerprint sensors for desktops and other Windows 11 PCs, including Copilot+ PCs.

To learn about planned productivity, security, and reliability updates for Windows 11, visit the Windows Roadmap.

Lifecycle reminders

• [W11] [24H2] – On October 13, 2026, Windows 11, version 24H2 Home and Pro editions will reach end of updates. After this date, devices running these editions will no longer receive monthly security and non-security preview updates containing protections from the latest security threats. Enterprise and Education editions remain supported until October 12, 2027.
• [W10] [LSTB] - On October 13, 2026, Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 will reach end of updates. We recommend updating to the latest LTSC release, Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024. If you need additional time to complete the transition, Extended Security Updates (ESU)will be available.
• [SERVER] [2022] – On October 13, 2026, Windows Server 2022 will reach end of mainstream support. After this date, Windows Server 2022 will transition to extended support, which includes security updates at no additional cost. These devices will continue to receive monthly security updates through October 14, 2031. For detailed information, see the Windows Server 2022 lifecycle page.

Check out our lifecycle documentation for the latest updates on Deprecated features in the Windows client and Windows Server 2025.

Additional resources

Looking for the latest news and previews for Windows, Copilot, Copilot+ PCs, the Windows and Windows Server Insider Programs? Find out this and more through the following resources:

• Windows Roadmap for new Windows features – filter by platform, version, status, and channel or search by feature name
• Microsoft 365 Copilot release notes for latest features and improvements
• Windows Insider Blog for what’s available in the Beta and Experimental channels
• Windows Server Insider for feature preview opportunities
• Understanding update history for Windows Insider preview features, fixes, and changes to learn about the types of updates for Windows Insiders

Join the conversation

Is this update missing areas or topics you want us to include? Drop us a note in the Comments and share your thoughts on what you’d like to see.

 

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Continue the conversation. Find best practices. Bookmark the Windows Tech Community. Looking for support? Visit Windows on Microsoft Q&A.

Why Markdown for Agents?

Web pages often contain scripts, styles, and HTML markup that are useful to browsers but add noise when the content is sent to an AI model. Markdown for Agents removes that extra markup and returns a smaller, text-focused response that is easier for agents to process and can reduce token usage.

In internal testing across more than 637,000 pages, converted Markdown responses were 97 percent smaller at the median than the source HTML, with a median conversion time of 2 milliseconds. Results vary based on the page and its content.

Public preview availability

Markdown for Agents is available in public preview for Windows apps on Azure App Service in all public regions. The app must use an App Service plan in the Basic tier or higher.

No additional authentication setup is required for Markdown conversion. Your app's existing authentication, authorization, and network access controls continue to apply.

This feature is only supported on Windows App Service at this time. Support for Linux apps will come later this year.

Enable Markdown for Agents

During the public preview, you can enable the feature through the REST API, ARM/Bicep template, or the Azure CLI using az rest. Dedicated Azure CLI commands and portal support are planned for a future update.

Azure CLI with az rest

Replace the placeholders with your subscription ID, resource group, and app name:

az rest --method patch --url "https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<SUBSCRIPTION_ID>/resourceGroups/<RESOURCE_GROUP>/providers/Microsoft.Web/sites/<APP_NAME>?api-version=2026-03-15" --headers "Content-Type=application/json" --body '{"properties":{"aiIntegration":{"markdown":{"enabled":true}}}}'

Verify the setting:

az rest --method get --url "https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<SUBSCRIPTION_ID>/resourceGroups/<RESOURCE_GROUP>/providers/Microsoft.Web/sites/<APP_NAME>?api-version=2026-03-15" --query "properties.aiIntegration.markdown"

To disable the feature, send the same PATCH request with enabled set to false.

ARM template

Add the following property to your Microsoft.Web/sites resource using API version 2026-03-15:

"properties": { "aiIntegration": { "markdown": { "enabled": true } } }

Bicep

resource webApp 'Microsoft.Web/sites@2026-03-15' = { name: appName location: location properties: { serverFarmId: appServicePlanResourceId aiIntegration: { markdown: { enabled: true } } } }

Request a Markdown response

After enabling the feature, request an HTML page from your app with the Accept: text/markdown header:

curl -i -H "Accept: text/markdown" "https://<APP_NAME>.azurewebsites.net/"

A successfully converted response includes these headers:

Content-Type: text/markdown; charset=utf-8
x-markdown-source: easy-markdown

The response body contains Markdown generated from the page's HTML. Common content such as headings, paragraphs, links, lists, images, emphasis, and code is preserved, while script and style content is removed.

Pages that cannot be safely converted may return their original HTML. Clients should check the Content-Type and x-markdown-source response headers before processing the response as Markdown.

What's next

Linux support is planned before the feature reaches general availability. We also plan to add dedicated Azure CLI commands and a portal experience in future updates.

Share your feedback

Try Markdown for Agents with your Windows App Service apps and let us know how it works for your agent scenarios. Share feedback, questions, and feature requests in the comments below.

What is Azure Linux?

Azure Linux is Microsoft's internal Linux distribution, designed and maintained to support Azure-scale cloud workloads.

Today, Azure Linux runs across:

• Azure infrastructure
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Containerized workloads
• Edge scenarios
• Azure-hosted services

With WSL support, Azure Linux now reaches another important environment: the developer workstation.

Why Bring Azure Linux to WSL?

A Consistent Path from Development to Production

Developers often build in WSL and deploy to Azure. Differences in Linux distributions, packages, dependencies, configurations, and runtime behaviour can create environment drift and late-stage issues.

One of the biggest challenges in modern development is environment drift.

Teams often:

• Develop on one Linux distribution
• Test on another
• Deploy to something slightly different in production

Azure Linux on WSL removes that gap. By bringing Azure Linux directly to the developer machine, teams can:

• Validate behaviour using production-aligned configurations
• Reproduce issues more reliably
• Reduce time spent debugging cross-environment differences

The result: a faster, more consistent, and more predictable path from code to cloud.

Azure Linux Across the Development Lifecycle

Azure Linux already powers millions of cores across Azure. WSL now extends it to the start of the software delivery lifecycle, enabling teams to use one Microsoft-supported Linux foundation across development, testing, and production.

Developers can use familiar tools such as VS Code and Git locally, then deploy to Azure targets including virtual machines, AKS, and containers.

Not a Desktop OS and That’s Intentional

Azure Linux on WSL is not designed to be a desktop Linux experience, and that’s by design.

There’s no focus on GUI environments or replacing Windows on the laptop. Instead, Azure Linux remains what it was built for:

• A server-side operating system
• Optimised for cloud and container workloads
• Designed to run reliably at scale in Azure

WSL simply makes that environment accessible locally, because today, developer machines increasingly need to mimic production.

Getting Started

Azure Linux on WSL integrates with standard WSL workflows:

• Enable WSL on your Windows machine
• Install Azure Linux by following the steps under the GitHub README documentation. 
• Launch and start building in a production-aligned environment

Within minutes, you have a fully functional Azure Linux setup on your local system.

Start Building

Azure Linux on WSL represents another step in making Azure Linux available wherever developers work.

By bringing the same Microsoft-supported Linux distribution from Azure infrastructure to developer workstations, teams can build, test, and deploy using a more consistent foundation throughout the development lifecycle.

To learn more about Azure Linux on WSL, see the Overview of Azure Linux on Windows Subsystem for Linux. When you're ready to get hands-on, follow the Azure Linux 4.0 on WSL getting started guide.

Try it out and experience a more consistent path from local development to production.

We just concluded Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python, a three-part livestream series all about Microsoft IQ.
We showed how to use the four IQs to ground your AI applications and agents:

• Work IQ: user-specific retrieval of M365 data, like Teams chats, emails, and calendar events.
• Fabric IQ: retrieval of data stored in OneLake, via Fabric ontologies, graphs, and data agents. 
• Web IQ: real-time web results with super low latency
• Foundry IQ: multi-source agentic retrieval on search indexes plus remote sources (including Web IQ, Work IQ, and Fabric IQ)

The four IQs are all exposed as MCP endpoints, so you can easily integrate into your own agents, or add to your Foundry agents via the Foundry Toolbox. Check out our code samples for Python notebooks and agents that use each of the MCP servers and APIs.

All of the materials from our series are available for you to keep learning from, and linked below:

• Video recordings of each stream
• PowerPoint slides that you can use for reviewing or even teaching the material to your own community
• An annotated write-up of each presentation, so you can quickly read through

🙋🏽‍♂️ Have follow up questions? Join the weekly Python+AI office hours on Foundry Discord.

Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python: Foundry IQ

📺 Watch YouTube recording

In the first session, we dived into Foundry IQ (Azure AI Search), exploring how it helps agents and applications work with curated knowledge and organizational context. We built knowledge bases in Python and connected them to multiple knowledge sources, including file knowledge sources, search indexes built from ingested data, and the Web IQ MCP server. Then we performed multi-source agentic retrieval on those knowledge bases, which executes queries in parallel and merges the results with state-of-the-art ranking models. Finally, we built agents in Python using Microsoft Agent Framework and grounded their responses in Foundry IQ results three different ways: a custom tool calling the knowledge base API, the knowledge base MCP endpoint, and a Foundry Toolbox. We deployed those agents to Foundry Agent Service as hosted agents and published one to Teams.

• 🖼️ Slides for this session
• 📝 Write-up for this session
• 💻 Code repository with examples: iqdeepdive

Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python: Work IQ

📺 Watch YouTube recording

In the second session, we focused on Work IQ and how it brings workplace context into AI-powered experiences. We compared Work IQ to Microsoft Graph, then explored all three protocols it speaks — A2A, MCP, and REST — with runnable Python notebooks for each. We walked through the 10 generic tools that Work IQ exposes over MCP, including ask, which calls Microsoft 365 Copilot directly, and do_action, the only write path. We also connected Work IQ to a Foundry IQ knowledge base as a knowledge source, so a single query returns a blended answer across indexed HR documents and live work context. Then we wired Work IQ into a Microsoft Agent Framework agent as an MCP tool, and finished with Agent 365 autopilots — agents that get their own Microsoft 365 identity, mailbox, and place in the org chart, and act as themselves rather than on behalf of you. A live demo showed the Work Mate autopilot reading its own mailbox in Teams and emailing a customer directly.

• 🖼️ Slides for this session
• 📝 Write-up for this session
• 💻 Code repository with examples: iqdeepdive

Microsoft IQ Deep Dive with Python: Fabric IQ

📺 Watch YouTube recording

In the final session, we explored Fabric IQ and how it connects AI experiences to structured business data stored in Microsoft Fabric's OneLake. We introduced the key components of Fabric IQ — ontologies, graphs, semantic models, and data agents — and showed how each one helps describe, organize, and reason over operational data. Ontologies provide a shared business vocabulary that maps entity types, properties, and relationships to actual OneLake data. Graphs offer dedicated graph database capabilities for queries requiring extensive relationship traversal. Semantic models expose Power BI analytics through DAX measures on star-schema tables. Data agents combine all of these behind a single conversational interface that selects the right source and query language automatically. For each component, we demonstrated the Ontology MCP server and Data Agent MCP server for agent integration, and showed how to add each as a knowledge source to Foundry IQ knowledge bases for multi-source retrieval.

• 🖼️ Slides for this session
• 📝 Write-up for this session
• 💻 Code repository with examples: iqdeepdive