Kategorie

A critical vulnerability in Google's Fast Pair protocol can allow attackers to hijack Bluetooth audio accessories like wireless headphones and earbuds, track users, and eavesdrop on their conversations. [...]

**Microsoft vydal lednové servisní aktualizace pro Windows a další produkty. **Opravil 112 zranitelných míst, nové funkce nepřinesl. **Poslední aktualizace se dočkal Windows Server 2008.

On Thursday, the Wikimedia Foundation announced licensing deals with Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral AI, expanding its effort to charge major tech companies for using Wikipedia content to train the AI models that power AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot and OpenAI's ChatGPT.

While these same companies previously scraped Wikipedia without permission, the deals mean that most major AI developers have now signed on to the foundation's Wikimedia Enterprise program, a commercial subsidiary that sells API access to Wikipedia's 65 million articles at higher speeds and volumes than the free public APIs provide. The foundation did not disclose the financial terms of the deals.

The new partners join Google, which signed a deal with Wikimedia Enterprise in 2022, as well as smaller companies like Ecosia, Nomic, Pleias, ProRata, and Reef Media. The revenue helps offset infrastructure costs for the nonprofit, which otherwise relies on small public donations while watching its content become a staple of training data for AI models.

Read full article

Comments

Managing just-in-time access at scale is a growing IAM challenge as speed and auditability collide daily. Tines shows how automated workflows can grant, track, and revoke temporary app access without manual effort. [...]

The internet never stays quiet. Every week, new hacks, scams, and security problems show up somewhere. This week’s stories show how fast attackers change their tricks, how small mistakes turn into big risks, and how the same old tools keep finding new ways to break in. Read on to catch up before the next wave hits. Unauthenticated RCE risk Security Flaw in Redis Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

It’s important to put into context Apple’s decision to turn its industry standard creative apps into a subscription-based service. The context is that people are more prepared than ever to pay for access, rather than ownership — a mantra that’s been muttered in the back rooms of content creation since before Napster.

One way to get some sense of how this transformation manifests itself is to consider the latest app market data from Appfigures (via TechCrunch). That data tells us that while app downloads via the App Store and Google Play are declining (down 2.7% year-over-year), spending increased 21.6%, representing a move to in-app and subscription-based purchases for the fifth consecutive year. 

There is still plenty of life in the app market, of course, which generated an estimated 106.9 billion downloads last year, but the money – and consumer acceptance – is shifting. It also matters that spending on non-game apps now exceeds the value of the mobile games side of the market, which tells us app shoppers are ready to pay for the value of access to productivity apps.

Acceptance, but not at any price

Combine the trends and it’s evident that not only are people more prepared to subscribe to apps than in the past, but that they’re beginning to see the value in doing so. (That doesn’t excuse greed — how many users winced at recent price increases for Office 365, for example? Who else using creative apps feels as if the price they’re paying is far more painful than any “Apple tax”?)

Apple’s Creator Studio comprises two of the world’s most widely used creative apps, along with Photoshop competitor Pixelmator Pro. The suite also includes specialized tools for audio and video, and Apple’s own Office-compatible apps for spreadsheets, presentations, documents, and collaboration. The cost? $12.99 a month.

We can only speculate for now about the probable success of the bundle once it launches later this month, but we can already take an objective look at the timing of the release:

1. It comes as consumers are more ready than ever to subscribe to apps.
2. It arrives as many content creators recognize the value of app subscriptions.
3. It also walks into the room as consumers everywhere express deep dissatisfaction with the prices other leading app developers charge for subscriptions.

In other words, Creator Studio’s release seems well timed.

Cooking with Tim

Apple CEO Tim Cook saw it coming way back when he began to focus on services. “Our goal is to double the size of the services business in the next four years,” he said at that time. Apple achieved that in two years, and this side of its business generated more than $100 billion in revenue at roughly 75% margins in 2025. 

In early 2026, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, confirmed that more than 850 million people use at least one Apple service each week. That’s not only a living example of market penetration, it’s also an illustration of market reach. It shows that every week, one in 10 of all the humans alive today use an Apple service of some kind.

We know that in today’s market reality – characterized by conflict and polarization, political differences and international tension – it makes more sense than ever to build business around ultra-portable goods that are relatively easy to replicate. That’s the beauty of digital. 

For business it can also be about turning existing physical products and services into digital products that provide predictable, recurring income. Apple has done this (I remember Final Cut in a box), and it’s not alone. Everything from supermarket loyalty to diet and fitness apps illustrates the shift.

Apple’s latest decision highlights the extent to which the app industry has come of age. 

Life after the App Store

It should also be understood in a second context: life after the App Store. We learn once again just how dumb all governments have become each time we read the news, so it’s no surprise that regulation is chipping away at the App Store model. 

The eventual end product of this continued erosion will likely be a proliferation of App Stores, most of which will be led by companies building such outlets around their key and popular apps. (We’ll also gain higher prices and less security, but regulators seem to think that’s just fine.)

That’s why the publishers of those apps, including some games developers, have been so vehement in campaigning for app market liberalization. They aren’t doing it for your benefit, but to create new vehicles for capital accumulation for themselves.

What Apple has done by introducing its own Creative Studio product is play those incoming opponents at the same game. Sure, there may be many app stores, but if you want to use Apple’s industry standard products, you’ll subscribe at Apple’s store.

Eventually, Apple will extend the monetization of those products and services with in-app purchases, likely starting with premium templates and Canva-like AI-augmented design tools. In other words, by creating the new suite, Apple is also building an approach for life after the App Store. 

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, Mastodon, and MeWe. 

Companies struggling to keep up with the arrival of AI agents should buckle up: even more complicated technologies are quickly coming down the pike.

That includes physical AI, which includes robots — and which Nvidia pegs as a multibillion-dollar market —and quantum computing. Both are likely to disrupt a number of industries in the coming years. 

Companies can either adapt quickly and stay ahead of the curve or they will remain left behind, according to Joe Depa, chief innovation officer for Ernst & Young (EY).

Not surprisingly, the tax and advisory firm is taking a big interest in future looking technologies. The company has a history of embracing new technologies and advising clients on how to handle them.

Computerworld sat down recently with Depa to get his take on AI projects in the enterprise, the role of consultants and how companies can adapt to new technologies beyond AI agents. 

Many surveys show lots of AI proofs-of-concept, but very few get to production. What are you seeing on the ground right now? “The speed of technology evolution is accelerating. We’re moving from generative AI to agentic AI to physical AI, with quantum right behind it. ChatGPT was invented three years ago, and you’re seeing headlines around not getting value out of AI, but you’re also seeing clients get value.

“Some experimentation is standard for any technology life cycle, which is innovation theater in the beginning. But you’re now getting tangible use cases where AI is having impact.

“When we talk about agentic AI, we have use cases focused not just on productivity —particularly in back-office functions like finance, procurement, HR. Agentic AI is disrupting the software development life cycle. That area is ripe for agentic AI. Then physical AI is coming soon.”

Is AI adoption more like a sequential journey — getting one technology right before moving to the next — or is everything happening simultaneously? “The convergence of technology is happening all at once. You’ve got new processes being put in place while simultaneously replacing legacy infrastructure. You’ve got new technology, new talent being rolled into this convergence. Meanwhile, physical AI and quantum are coming quickly on top of agentic.

“Adaptability is the new job security. The ability to adapt is the most important skill for employees and the most important organizational differentiator. Organizations that can adapt quickly to new technology, redefining processes and training — that’s how they’ll differentiate. The ones that can’t will fall behind.”

With so many technologies emerging, how do you prepare for business changes that people can’t even yet anticipate? “It’s becoming not a technology issue as much as a business and process issue. The technology — whether AI, agentic AI, physical AI, or quantum — mostly exists to solve today’s problems. The issue is training, people, and adoption.

“Take healthcare. Robotic surgeries can be performed in some key categories at or better than human surgery. The robotic surgeon, if trained appropriately, isn’t tired, takes out the human emotional element, and performs surgery with laser-like precision.

“There’s a doctor shortage everywhere. Robotic surgeries remove some compression on the system and provide better health outcomes. But getting surgeons to adopt robotic surgery is a challenge. How do I train doctors on these robots? 

“In some cases, there’s resistance because they don’t think robots can do it as well, even if you show them data. The technology’s there, we know it works. But if I can’t get hospitals and doctors to adopt it, it doesn’t matter. It’s less of a technology challenge, more of a change management challenge.”

How do you educate customers? Do you focus on solving the data problem first, or are people rushing to get agents in place either way? “It’s a combination. Some industries, like financial services and healthcare [and] precision medicine — financial services has over-invested for decades in data and data quality for compliance reasons. They can use it for AI and quantum. Precision medicine is another category with high data quality.

“But without the right data, infrastructure, and sandbox, you’ll spread yourself too thin. You may try things, but it doesn’t get you value. Without a defined use case and focus area, you create innovation theater.

“Companies are getting focused on that first step: What use case am I trying to solve? If I can get specific around the use case or business outcome, then the next question is, ‘Do I have the right data’? 

“If I have the right data, let’s simulate and use this technology to produce the outcome. And if we have the right outcome, is it going to change behavior in your organization? What action are we taking? It’s the use case, the data, the simulation, and there has to be actual outcome or action to get out of innovation theater.”

What role do partners and consultants play in AI deployment? How does consulting fit in when AI is supposedly replacing consultants? “What’s starting to happen is an open innovation ecosystem. The world’s moving quickly, so you have to leverage alliance partners more closely. If you want to experiment with quantum, your best bet is not to build your own quantum computer. Partner with somebody.

“We pick a few partners we trust with similar business strategies. We create an open innovation ecosystem where we’re lockstep in how we go to market. That’s important because it provides the speed you need.

“When you ask about consulting, what people need is really smart people that understand technology, data and AI, that can help identify business problems and solve them using technology more efficiently.

“If consulting services changes, it’ll change to deliver services more effectively. It comes down to talent. Do you have people that know how to deploy AI and agentic AI? Do you have people that orchestrate across multi-vendor environments? Do you have people that understand regulatory risk compliance? 

“Consulting firms with the right talent are going to see great success. You’ll see more opportunity, but also bifurcation. Without that, those consulting services will go away.”

As AI copilots and assistants become embedded in daily work, security teams are still focused on protecting the models themselves. But recent incidents suggest the bigger risk lies elsewhere: in the workflows that surround those models. Two Chrome extensions posing as AI helpers were recently caught stealing ChatGPT and DeepSeek chat data from over 900,000 users. Separately, researchers [email protected]

It’s 2026, yet many SOCs are still operating the way they did years ago, using tools and processes designed for a very different threat landscape. Given the growth in volumes and complexity of cyber threats, outdated practices no longer fully support analysts’ needs, staggering investigations and incident response. Below are four limiting habits that may be preventing your SOC from evolving at [email protected]

Lately, I’ve tried more overhyped, overly ambitious apps than I can even remember — all of ’em with lofty promises of completely changing my life and/or the way I get stuff done.

Spoiler alert: None of those has lived up to that promise or really even stuck as something I’m still actively using in any significant way, as of this current moment.

At the same time, the app that is absolutely blowing my mind and genuinely making my work and personal routine noticeably easier is a tiny little off-the-beaten-path tool that does one small job and does it remarkably well.

It doesn’t replace my main Android calendar app, and it isn’t intended to dramatically alter any of my existing workflows. All is does is make the act of scheduling new appointments delightfully simple by removing the silly friction that typically exists in that area.

It’s hands-down the most helpful, consequential app I’ve added into my Android line-up in ages. And I’d be willing to wager it might just make a world of difference for you, too.

[Get fresh Googley goodies in your inbox with my free Android Intelligence newsletter. Three new things to try every Friday!]

New app, familiar feelings

Now, fair warning: This tale, like most great sagas of our modern era, has a twist.

The calendar power-up of which we speak is new, in a sense — but it actually has a familiar past, at least if you’ve been following my mumbly musings for long.

The app got its start, y’see, as an element within other apps — specifically, WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, and (insert pause for momentary retching) Apple Messages.

That’s how it worked when I first stumbled onto it and profiled it in my Cool Tools newsletter way back in the prehistoric time of 2024, some 77 or so years ago, I believe. (I also ended up including it in a roundup of AI-powered apps that actually save you time here at Computerworld that same year!) Back then, it wasn’t even an app, technically, but rather an interesting chat-centric add-on called Dola. You’d connect it to your chat app of choice, and it’d then exist as a contact within that app that you could “message” and ask to handle various calendar-related chores for you.

It was incredibly clever and effective — but personally, I don’t use any of the chat apps it worked alongside. So while I absolutely appreciated it and eagerly shared it as a suggestion worth considering, it wasn’t something that landed for me, myself, and/or I as a part of my own personal tech setup.

Over the months since then, the team behind Dola decided to broaden their focus and expand the same concept into a more universally useful and less platform-dependent form.

The result is Toki, a standalone app for Android (and iOS, too, if you must) that is the intelligent on-the-go scheduling assistant I’ve long been yearning to see.

Toki picks up where Dola left off, but it’s so much more useful in this newly unshackled and simultaneously expanded context. In short, it’s a better and infinitely faster way to add any event onto your calendar without all the usual hassle and heavy lifting.

And there are two main scenarios where its powers really shine.

1. On-demand event-adding

The first Toki advantage is the simplest: When you find yourself facing a need to create an event from your phone and you don’t have any specific information about the event in front of you — in an email, a text, a website, an image, whatever — you can just fire up the app (or even use its instant-on Android app shortcut) and tell it whatever it is you need to create.

You can do this in pure plain language, too, without any fuss or funky formatting required. Quite literally, you just say what you want:

• a follow-up with Jed Schmidt about the work proposal next Tuesday at 10am
• a checkup with Dr. Riemenschneider March 4th at 2pm
• a meeting with Theo, Thad, and Thalia on the first Monday in February at noon — actually, make it 1pm, and make it at the CPK on Figueroa downtown with a note to bring my Grammy Gertrude’s famous biscuit recipe (my goodness, those biscuits were scrumptious!)

You can just talk or type to Toki in any way that feels natural, and it’ll figure out what you mean and format your event for you.

JR Raphael, Foundry

All you’ve gotta do is ramble off whatever you’re thinking, and Toki will turn it into a neatly formatted event in your calendar — then let you confirm what it did to make sure it’s right and, if you’d like, even switch your event into a different sub-calendar within your Google Calendar setup with a couple quick taps. If you need to add or adjust anything, you can just say whatever it is that you want. You can even enable an extra can’t-miss alert by asking the app to actually call your phone as a reminder when the time for the event arrives.

The instant confirmation and opportunity to adjust — including moving an event to a different sub-calendar — is one of Toki’s most useful assets.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Notably, the scheduling part of this is something that Google’s own Android-native Gemini assistant can also manage — at least in theory — but Toki is just so much better at it, both in its ability to understand and interpret anything and in its consistency with actually getting it right. Plus, unlike Gemini, it makes it impossibly easy to move your event between calendars — or even Google Calendar accounts, if you’re using more than one (or using more than one type of calendar account, too, if your work and personal lives are spread across the Google and Microsoft and/or even (gag) Apple ecosystems).

No exaggeration: It’s such a refreshing improvement, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

And the best part is what’s next.

2. A super sharing superpower

In addition to allowing easy on-the-fly event input, Toki — just as of a matter of days ago — can now act as an Android sharing target.

That sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, I know, so let me elaborate and translate back to plain English: When you find yourself looking at an email, a text message, a web page, or even a photo with event-related info on it, you can simply snap a swift screenshot and then tap the system-level share command that pops up and select Toki from the list of available options.

Capture a screenshot of anything, share it to Toki — and your work is essentially over.

JR Raphael, Foundry

With one more tap, Toki will read and interpret whatever’s visible there — even if there’s all sorts of unrelated gobbledygook alongside what actually matters — and turn it into a neatly formatted event on your preferred calendar for you.

This took about two seconds to make happen.

JR Raphael, Foundry

For me, this is where Toki has been especially game-changing. I’m constantly coming across things I want to add on my calendar in other places while swiping around on my phone, and now, I can do it in a mere matter of seconds — with barely any active effort — simply by snagging that screenshot and then sending the info over to Toki to let it handle everything.

If there’s a physical card or sign somewhere in the real world, I can also just snap a fast photo of it and then send that over to Toki for processing. And, again, I can then confirm what it interpreted and make sure it’s on the exact sub-calendar within the right account, right then and there.

Appointment cards, posters, flyers, you name it — snap a photo, send it to Toki, and you’re done.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Once more, Gemini does something vaguely similar to this, but it’s not nearly as consistent or effective. And it doesn’t give you that instant on-screen confirmation and ability to move an event easily to another calendar. As someone who both has multiple Google accounts and religiously uses Google Calendar’s sub-calendars to stay organized, this alone has been downright transformative.

It’s also something I’ve written about before, in concept, when discussing a spectacular tool called Agenda Hero. Agenda Hero is actually quite similar on the surface and in what it aims to do for you — but on Android, its current app just isn’t exceptional. It’s mostly a shell that takes you to the service’s website, and it’s consequently a little clunky to use — with more steps and awkward interactions than what Toki offers up in the same environment.

Where Agenda Hero really shines is on the desktop, and that’s an arena where Toki is currently altogether absent. So I keep Agenda Hero around as a resource on my computer, where it’s invaluable, but now rely on Toki for the same smart scheduling feats on my phone. Together, the two make a powerful pairing and the best damn upgrade I’ve introduced into my calendar management cadre in recent memory.

Toki is free for casual use — with up to 14 event additions per week and up to two active calendars (which means those specific sub-calendars within any Google Calendar or other platform’s account). For most people and purposes, that’ll probably be plenty and all you’ll ever need.

If you want to lift those limits and support the app’s development, you can bump up to a premium plan starting at $3.59 a month or 36 bucks a year.

With an app this good, it almost makes the sting of all those grand AI disappointments a little easier to stomach.

Craving even more zesty Android knowledge? Check out my free Android Intelligence newsletter to get three new things to try in your inbox every Friday — and my Android Notification Power-Pack as a special welcome bonus.

The FTC has finalized an order with General Motors, settling charges that it collected and sold the location and driving data of millions of drivers without consent. [...]

Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it has taken a "coordinated legal action" in the U.S. and the U.K. to disrupt a cybercrime subscription service called RedVDS that has allegedly fueled millions in fraud losses. The effort, per the tech giant, is part of a broader law enforcement effort in collaboration with law enforcement authorities that has allowed it to confiscate the malicious Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Palo Alto Networks patched a high-severity vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated attackers to disable firewall protections in denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. [...]

Palo Alto Networks has released security updates for a high-severity security flaw impacting GlobalProtect Gateway and Portal, for which it said there exists a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-0227 (CVSS score: 7.7), has been described as a denial-of-service (DoS) condition impacting GlobalProtect PAN-OS software arising as a result of an improper check for Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it disrupted RedVDS, a massive cybercrime platform linked to at least $40 million in reported losses in the United States alone since March 2025. [...]

OpenAI is internally testing a new feature called "Agora," and it could be related to some sort of cross-platform feature that works in real time or some other new product. [...]

In what appears to be a case of diplomatic mind games in action, one day after the US government issued a regulation clearing the way for Nvidia to sell its H200 artificial intelligence processors to Chinese companies on a case-by-case basis, a published report has revealed Chinese custom officers have been told not to let them into the country.

The ruling announced Monday by the US commerce department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the primary agency that oversees export controls, represents a revision to its licensing policy for semiconductor exports to China, it said in a release.

The BIS will now review license applications for Nvidia H200 and similar chips providing that certain security requirements are met, including the stipulation that exporting these products to China will not reduce global semiconductor production capacity currently available to US customers.

Nvidia expressed appreciation for the ruling. A spokesperson told NetworkWorld, “we applaud President Trump’s decision to allow America’s chip industry to compete to support high paying jobs and manufacturing in America. Offering H200 to approved commercial customers, vetted by the Department of Commerce, strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America.”

But the script changed on Wednesday when Reuters reported, “Chinese customs authorities told customs agents this week that [the chips] are not permitted to enter China, according to three people briefed on the matter.”

More symbolic

“The impact of these flip-flop policies should be minimal to the enterprise,” said Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group. “The volumes of chips involved are not material to the Nvidia allocation from TSMC. This is more a symbol of the ongoing trade war between the US and China, with the latter indicating they don’t need US chips at scale for AI development.”

He noted, “the broader implications and potential impacts may signal to enterprise customers of Nvidia that perhaps they don’t need the latest and greatest GPUs from [them] either to achieve acceptable results across select AI workloads. It is doubtful that Nvidia would commission additional production issues for H200 without China as the customer willing to pay a premium price. Other customers will happily purchase this stock in lieu of China.”

And last month, Charlie Dai, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, said renewed H200 access is likely to have only a modest impact on global supply, as China is prioritizing domestic AI chips and the H200 remains inferior to Nvidia’s latest Blackwell-class systems in both performance and appeal.

He pointed out, “while some allocation pressure may emerge, most enterprise customers outside China will see minimal disruption in pricing or lead times over the next few quarters.”

H200 now pulled onto the ‘geopolitical chessboard’

Forrester senior analyst Alvin Nguyen said Wednesday that he agrees with Dai’s assessment, especially with the recent developments of the US now permitting and China moving to effectively ban the import of H200 chips.

“This is older AI technology; it is still useful, but adding a premium to it when the Chinese AI ecosystem is catching up or caught up to what is being offered will make it a target for capacity rather than a first choice for enterprises in China,” he said.

“For global enterprises with Nvidia in their AI tech stack, it makes sense to maintain standards across regions/locations if they are able to bring in H200s into China,” Nguyen said. “Outside of China, this could lead to longer lead times and costs not decreasing, but global enterprises are already plagued by uncertainty and will adjust.”

Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research, had a different point of view, saying “the H200 situation matters because it has become a case study in how enterprise assumptions about infrastructure availability can be invalidated by policy volatility, not product lifecycle.”

A new category of risk

The H200, he said, “is not the most powerful chip in Nvidia’s portfolio, and wasn’t at the top of any CIO’s wish list. That’s precisely why it was attractive. It sat in the tier that enterprises could reasonably expect to access without bidding wars or global competition.”

He explained, “it had enough capability for mid-scale inference and internal fine-tuning, especially for firms not building frontier models. And yet, it has now been pulled onto the geopolitical chessboard, first through a highly conditional US approval and then a sudden, informal block at Chinese customs.”

The real story here, he said, “is not whether H200 itself makes or breaks enterprise AI plans. The story is that even legacy silicon is no longer safe from last-minute policy swings. Enterprises used to worry about whether chips were fast enough or cost-effective enough. Now they have to worry whether the rules will even allow those chips to ship, integrate, or support remote workloads in different geographies.”

This creates a new category of risk, Gogia said. “It is not technical. It is regulatory, interpretive, and highly political,” he said. “For enterprise CIOs and procurement heads, it means that AI infrastructure can no longer be built around static assumptions. What matters today is not just the specs of a chip, but the geopolitical narratives surrounding it.”

He added, “when something as structurally stable as a two-year-old GPU can be tossed into policy limbo, that sends a very clear message: infrastructure planning needs to be engineered for volatility, not just for scale or speed.”

This article originally appeared on NetworkWorld.

Google appears to be testing a new feature that integrates Gemini into Chrome for Android, allowing you to use agentic browser capabilities on your mobile device. [...]

Google is rolling out 'Personal Intelligence,' a new Gemini feature that pulls your data from Gmail, Photos, Google Search, and other products. [...]

OpenAI has quietly rolled out a new ChatGPT feature called ChatGPT Translate, and it looks very similar to Google Translate on the web. [...]