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Nearly halfway into 2026, enterprises are beginning to see tangible returns on their AI investments. Yet many are discovering that scaling requires something far less glamorous than flashy frontier models and state-of-the-art benchmarking: Clean, interoperable, governed data.

According to a new AI Momentum Survey from Dun & Bradstreet, 97% of organizations report active AI initiatives, but just 5% say their data is ready to support them.

This reflects the messy reality of AI as enterprises struggle to move beyond experimentation to operationalization.

“You do not need enterprise-wide AI-ready data to launch pilots or isolated AI use cases,” said Cayetano Gea-Carrasco, Dun & Bradstreet’s chief strategy officer. “But you do need it to scale AI reliably across mission-critical workflows and systems.”

Early gains seen

Organizations are all-in on AI in 2026 and view it as a mission-critical imperative, according to the D&B report. Well over half (67%) are seeing “early signs or pockets” of ROI, and 24% report “broad or strong” returns.

Further, more than half (56%) of the 10,000 businesses polled by the data and analytics firm say they are planning to increase AI investment in the next 12 months. Around one-third (30%) are scaling AI into production and 26% are operationalizing the technology across multiple core processes.

As adoption rapidly increases, early returns are more common now than even just a year ago, D&B noted, but they still remain uneven. Dovetailing with this, concerns around data readiness are “even more profound” than in 2025.

This is for a variety of reasons, including problems with access to data (reported by 50% of those polled by D&B), privacy and compliance risks (44%), and data quality and integrity concerns (40%). Further, 38% report lack of integration across systems, while 37% say there is a shortage of qualified AI professionals.

Concerningly, however, just a small number of enterprises (10%) say with high confidence that they are able to identify and mitigate AI-related risks.

“The key question is no longer whether organizations are experimenting with AI,” said Gea-Carrasco. “It’s whether they have the data and infrastructure required to deploy AI reliably at enterprise scale.”

He noted that it’s relatively easy for enterprises to launch copilots, chat interfaces, or departmental AI tools using general-purpose models and get “impressive results in a controlled environment.” But far fewer are able to deploy AI into production workflows, where accuracy, accountability, explainability, interoperability, and consistency directly impact business decisions. This includes areas like onboarding, compliance, risk management, and customer operations. “That’s where data readiness becomes critical,” said Gea-Carrasco.

The data hurdle

The challenges around data are only compounded as enterprises move from copilots to more autonomous agentic workflows. “Most enterprise data environments were built for human workflows, not autonomous AI systems operating continuously across the business,” he pointed out.

While AI systems can produce outputs that sound coherent, they can be difficult to trust operationally, due to hallucinations, conflicting recommendations across systems, and compliance issues, Gea-Carrasco noted. This is problematic for all enterprises, but particularly for those in regulated industries like banking, insurance, healthcare, and financial services, where trustworthy and auditable outputs are “non-negotiable.”

Organizations seeing the most progress are those working to ensure that their data is high-quality, reliable, and governed. They are investing in consistent identity resolution and data interoperability and maintenance, so that AI can “reliably consume” and act on information, he explained.

Where enterprises are seeing ROI

Enterprises are beginning to see ROI in areas where underlying data environments are more mature, thus making it easier for AI to be directly embedded into real workflows, according to Gea-Carrasco. This includes areas like sales intelligence, onboarding, compliance workflows, customer research, risk analysis, workflow automation, prospecting, screening, supplier evaluation, and business verification.

ROI is typically reflected in reduced manual research, faster onboarding and review cycles, improved operational consistency, accelerated sales workflows, and better decision support for employees, he said. “In many cases, organizations are using AI to help teams process and synthesize large amounts of information significantly faster than before.”

He emphasized that AI is most successful when it augments existing operational processes rather than fully replacing human decision-making. “Organizations are finding success where AI helps employees work faster, make better decisions, and it reduces repetitive manual work while humans remain involved in oversight and final approvals,” he said.

Enterprise approach to agentic AI

Agentic AI is beginning to enter production environments, although it is “still relatively early and targeted,” Gea-Carrasco pointed out.

Most enterprises today are deploying agents that are narrowly scoped rather than fully autonomous, he said. The near-term pattern is supervised autonomy, where agents execute portions of workflows while humans remain involved in approvals, oversight, and exception handling. Thus, agents are entering what he referred to as “clearly defined workflows,” such as research, onboarding support, and workflow orchestration.

Over the next several years, AI will move from standalone copilots to more connected agentic systems embedded directly into enterprise workflows, he noted. They will increasingly coordinate work across customers, suppliers, partners, employees, and enterprise apps. Agents will likely become ever more prominent in workflows around sales operations, onboarding, compliance, procurement, customer research, risk management, supplier evaluation, and monitoring.

“Enterprise AI is becoming less about isolated productivity tools,” said Gea-Carrasco, “and more about building intelligent operational systems that can support decision-making and workflow execution at scale.”

This article originally appeared on CIO.com.

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There are conflicting signals about whether AI is creating or destroying jobs, though many companies have blamed the technology for recent cuts. 

Analysts and industry experts say the reality is more nuanced: jobs being lost now to AI will likely reappear elsewhere, especially for those with hands-on AI experience.

In other words, while AI may be reshaping the labor market, it is not eliminating the need for talent. “We are seeing a shift toward the type of talent employers need and the expectations they have for impact,” said Kye Mitchell, head of Experis US.

Though hiring for entry-level jobs is under pressure as AI absorbs more routine work, that doesn’t eliminate opportunity, she said. “It changes the expectations. Employers now expect candidates to come in with hands-on experience, AI familiarity, and the ability to contribute faster.”

While reductions in headcount are real, the savings from cutting those jobs will reappear elsewhere in hiring for other roles or tasks, said Deepak Seth, senior director analyst at Gartner.

For example, though Claude Code might help IT leaders reduce the number of developers they have on hand, one faulty software rollout could lead to new hiring to fill gaps, Seth said. “Maybe you need to hire more quality testers in another group. Maybe you need to hire more people to train people on how to use these tools,” Seth said.

One thing seems clear: AI is indeed affecting young workers and suppressing entry-level wages. And it goes companies a rationale to do layoffs.

Many big tech companies are attributing large job cuts to AI, Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a May 7 blog post. 

April was particularly brutal for AI-related layoffs, with some top IT firms cutting positions due to efficiencies from AI. “They are also often citing AI spend and innovation. Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is,” Challenger said.

Opinions vary among workers about whether AI is taking jobs away, according to a study published last month by ADP Research and the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.

Though young workers are especially worried AI will slow job creation in some sectors, more experienced workers are sanguine about losing their jobs, Stanford and BCG said in separate studies.

“There appears to be less cause for concern about widespread job displacement … particularly those in occupations with high experience premiums in which AI is likely to complement the worker’s tacit knowledge,” BCG said in its study “AI will reshape more jobs than it replaces.”

LinkedIn in a January labor report went a step further and projected that AI had created 1.3 million new jobs globally. The jobs were in the areas such as data annotators, forward-deployed engineers and AI engineers.

Microsoft cited the LinkedIn report in its recent Work Trend Index study, and said AI is  creating a new operating model allowing companies to be smarter and more efficient.

But the company sidestepped the larger issue of how AI is affecting the job market. “Some jobs will change. Some will go away. And many that don’t exist yet will emerge,” Microsoft said in the study.

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Apple’s key manufacturing partner Foxconn has confirmed its US factories suffered a ransomware attack in recent days after the gang responsible claimed to have stolen 8TB of data from the company — including confidential Apple information.

This isn’t the first attack to hit Foxconn, and such is the scale and value of the company that it is unlikely to be the last. Criminals understand the value of the information it has and see it as a prime target. That it is an industrial company actively deploying smart factory infrastructure across its premises just makes it an even more interesting challenge; what happens if the machinery itself is attacked?

Industrial defenses have improved; so have attacks

In practice, most large industrial facilities are moving to secure their own internal factory networks using technologies such as SD-WAN, private 5G networks, network segregation, isolation of production environments from the corporate network, and active monitoring against threats to factory machinery. All the same, attackers always hope that complex, well-planned combination exploits will find some way into even those most private and secure portions of corporate systems.

What happened at Foxconn

In this particular case, it doesn’t look as if the attack was made against connected industrial equipment at Foxconn. Wired reports a little of the events that took place:

• The attack was identified on May 1.
• Foxconn’s network collapsed.
• Wi-Fi failed first, then the disruption extended to core plant infrastructure.
• As the attack unfurled, workers were told to switch off their computers.
• They were also instructed not to log back in under any circumstances.
• There were previous attacks on other Foxconn facilities and subsidiaries, suggesting regular assaults on the company.

The attackers claim to have stolen key confidential data belonging to Foxconn clients, though sample files published by them don’t seem to include any Apple-related materials.

While it is easy to get lost in the shock value of what seems to be a successful attack against an Apple supplier, the underlying story should be a warning to every company as it highlights the febrile nature of the current threat environment.

The data is clear: factories are targets now

Recent security analyses have confirmed that attacks against the manufacturing sector are particularly severe. The IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2025 described manufacturing as the most targeted industry across four successive years. Dragos claims 70% of ransomware attacks have affected the sector, and the ENISA Threat Landscape raises similar alarms.

Attackers are highly focused on this sector for many reasons. They see the money potential of ransomware attacks and the reality that industrial operations can’t afford downtime, which means they become more likely to pay their way out of trouble. (That’s not to imply Foxconn has done so, but is more of a general observation.)

Attackers also recognize the fragmented nature of industrial cybersecurity as the industry goes through rapid digital transformation, leaving overall security only as strong as its weakest partner or parts.

Attacks are evolving quickly

It isn’t likely that the threat window will close any time soon. Paul Smith, director of Honeywell Operational Technology (OT) Cybersecurity Engineering warns, “Attackers are evolving fast, leveraging ransomware-as-a-service kits to compromise the industrial operations that keep our economy moving.”  

With new breed AI-augmented attacks expected to increase in volume and capacity in the coming years, the entire sector needs to put the strongest possible mitigations in place now. The continued evolution of nation state-adjacent attackers, likely equipped some day with access to quantum computers to power their exploits, is a real threat to industry and national infrastructure.

Put it all together and the recent attack against Foxconn is less of a story about Apple security and more a klaxon to everyone in the sector that the intensity and proficiency of these attacks is accelerating.

Plan for impact, not perfection

This also means larger entities such as Apple will probably need to introduce and/or enhance their mandatory supplier security guidelines to ensure supply chains have sufficient protection in place against such exploits — and the recognition that even when they do, successful attacks will still take place. 

Foxconn clearly had its own mitigation strategy, as it put this into effect the moment the attack took place then moved to threat analysis and dispatched mitigation teams. But even smaller operators should already know what they will do when attacked. Has your business got plans in place for this? Because the moral of today’s tale is that you should develop them immediately.

First they come for Foxconn. Then, they come for you.

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Microsoft has fixed a Windows Autopatch bug that caused driver updates restricted by administrative policies to be deployed on some Autopatch-managed Windows devices in the European Union. [...]

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Microsoft has unveiled a new AI-driven vulnerability discovery system that identified 16 previously unknown Windows vulnerabilities, including four critical remote code execution flaws, in what security analysts say could mark a major shift in how software vulnerabilities are discovered and remediated.

The system, codenamed MDASH, was developed by Microsoft’s Autonomous Code Security team alongside the Windows Attack Research and Protection group.

The platform will enter private preview for enterprise customers next month, Microsoft said in a blog post announcing the system.

The vulnerabilities were patched as part of Microsoft’s May 12 Patch Tuesday release.

“Cyber defenders are facing an increasingly asymmetric battle,” Microsoft added in the blog post. “Attackers are using AI to increase the speed, scale, and sophistication of attacks.”

Critical Windows components affected

The four critical vulnerabilities affected core Windows components broadly deployed across enterprise environments, Microsoft said in the blog.

Among them was CVE-2026-33827, a remote unauthenticated use-after-free flaw in the Windows IPv4 stack reachable through specially crafted packets carrying the Strict Source and Record Route option, Microsoft said.

Another flaw, CVE-2026-33824, involved a pre-authentication double-free issue in the IKEEXT service affecting RRAS VPN, DirectAccess, and Always-On VPN deployments.

Two additional critical flaws affected Netlogon and the Windows DNS Client, both carrying CVSS scores of 9.8.

The remaining 12 vulnerabilities rated “Important” included denial-of-service, privilege-escalation, information disclosure, and security feature bypass flaws affecting components such as tcpip.sys, http.sys, ikeext.dll, and telnet.exe, according to Microsoft.

How MDASH orchestrates AI agents

According to Microsoft, MDASH orchestrates more than 100 specialized AI agents across multiple frontier and distilled models, with each agent assigned to a different stage of the vulnerability discovery pipeline.

Some agents scan source code for potential flaws, others validate whether findings are genuine, and another stage attempts to construct triggering inputs capable of reproducing the issue before the finding reaches a human engineer for review.

“The model is one input. The system is the product,” Taesoo Kim, Microsoft vice president for agentic security, wrote in the blog.

Microsoft said the architecture was intentionally designed to remain largely model-agnostic, allowing the company to swap underlying AI models without rebuilding the broader orchestration pipeline.

That detail matters because MDASH arrives only weeks after Microsoft announced Project Glasswing, a partnership involving Anthropic and others to evaluate AI-driven vulnerability discovery using Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview model.

“Microsoft is now operating as platform owner, security vendor, AI infrastructure player, OpenAI partner, Mythos integrator, and agentic security supplier,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. “That is a formidable position. It is also a concentration of influence that security leaders must examine with clear eyes.”

AI vs AI vulnerability race

The announcement also highlights growing concern that AI-driven vulnerability discovery could accelerate offensive operations as well as defensive research.

Anthropic has previously said its Mythos Preview model identified thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including a decades-old OpenBSD flaw and a long-undetected FFmpeg issue that traditional fuzzing tools failed to uncover despite millions of attempts.

“We’ve entered an AI-versus-AI vulnerability discovery race,” said Sunil Varkey, advisor at Beagle Security. “The winners won’t be the organizations with the best static scanners anymore. They’ll be the ones who can run these agentic systems fastest against their own code and remediate at machine speed.”

Varkey said enterprises should pursue early access to systems such as MDASH where possible rather than waiting for broader commercial availability.

“Early access isn’t just nice-to-have,” he said. “It’s becoming a defensive necessity in the AI era.”

For CISOs, the broader implication may be that vulnerability management is shifting from periodic scanning toward continuous, AI-assisted discovery and remediation.

“The future belongs to security teams that can find, validate, contain, and fix in one governed motion,” Gogia said.

Benchmarks show progress, but analysts urge caution

To support its claims, Microsoft published benchmark results showing MDASH identified all 21 deliberately planted vulnerabilities in an internal Windows test driver without false positives. The company also said the system successfully recovered nearly all historical Microsoft Security Response Center cases tested against older Windows component snapshots.

On the public CyberGym benchmark for vulnerability reproduction tasks, Microsoft said MDASH achieved a score of 88.45%, topping the public leaderboard at publication time.

Gogia said the results show the category is maturing but warned against treating benchmark scores as direct proof of enterprise value.

“CyberGym is a signal, not a buying decision,” he said. “The machinery around the model is beginning to resemble a serious security research workflow.”

He added that many enterprises still lack the governance maturity required to operationalize machine-generated vulnerability discovery effectively.

“Discovery without remediation discipline is theatre,” Gogia said. “It produces dashboards, not resilience.”

This article originally appeared in CSO.

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Security teams have never had better visibility into their environments and never been worse at confirming what they fix stays fixed. Mandiant's M-Trends 2026 report puts the mean time to exploit at an estimated negative seven days. The Verizon 2025 DBIR puts median time to remediate edge device vulnerabilities at 32 days. These numbers have understandably driven the industry toward a clear [email protected]

Well, hell’s bells: It’s finally happening.

After years of misguided rumors and off-base expectations — over a decade’s worth, even! — Google is actually now on the brink of combining Android and ChromeOS into a single superpowered platform for laptops and mobile devices alike.

The company officially announced the advent of an entirely new type of product called the Googlebook as part of its pre-Google-I/O “Android Show” event on Tuesday. According to Google, the Googlebook is “a new category of laptops” that brings together Chrome, the Google Play ecosystem of apps, and “a modern OS that’s designed for Intelligence” (a fancy way to say “there’ll be lots of Gemini AI this-and-thats”).

At their core, Googlebooks appear to sport an interface that’s somewhere between Android as we know it and ChromeOS — with echoes of the 2010-era large-screen-optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb era — to create what Google seemingly now sees as the future of the laptop experience.

In a lot of ways, Googlebooks seem poised to pick up right where ChromeOS left off — like, for instance, with how they make it easy to both natively install Android apps and stream apps directly from your phone on the computer. They also feature a nifty-sounding new Quick Access system that lets you seamlessly search, view, and work with files from your phone right on the laptop, without even having to do any sharing or transferring.

The Googlebook Quick Access system makes your Android phone’s storage easily accessible from your laptop.

Google

But more than anything, what’s defining Googlebooks at this point is what we don’t know about the devices and the ecosystems around ’em. Google is being deliberately cryptic with what it’s revealing about the setup — which is set to ship sometime “later this year” — as part of this early preview.

And what’ll really tell us the story of this new platform and what it’s all about — as well as the equally important tale of what it signifies for the broader Android and ChromeOS ecosystems and the people, companies, and organizations that depend on those — will be the answers to eight critical questions in areas where Google is thus far staying firmly tight-lipped.

[Get level-headed knowledge in your inbox with my free Android Intelligence newsletter — three new things to try every Friday.]

Specifically:

1. Do Googlebooks run Android?

It’s a pretty simple-seeming question, but somehow, it’s an answer that evades us as of this moment — and that, I’m told, is very much by design.

What we know right now is that Googlebooks are “optimized for the Android ecosystem” and able to run Android apps — but the same is technically true for Chromebooks, and those rely on a completely different operating system.

When I pressed for clarity on this during an embargoed press prebriefing (highfalutin lingo for a small meeting when Google presents info ahead of time to a bunch of writer-type folk in exchange for an agreement that we won’t talk about it until a specific stated date), an executive from the Googlebook team divulged that the devices are “built on the Android tech stack” and combine “the best of Android” with what Google learned from ChromeOS — and, of course, all the more recent Gemini stuff, too.

The Googlebook, as shown in a product mock from Google — with many mysteries remaining beneath that shiny outer surface.

Google

But that still doesn’t tell us if they’re Android devices or something else entirely — with an entirely new custom operating system at their core built for this specific purpose and merely based on Android as a starting point. (When I asked for further clarity a couple more times via email after the event, I eventually was told that Google is leaving those exact details to be answered later.)

And you’d better believe that’s a consequential distinction, as my next two questions illustrate.

2. Will device-makers be allowed to mess around with the operating system, à la Android, or will it be more locked down and consistent like ChromeOS?

Perhaps the biggest point of differentiation between an Android device and a ChromeOS device is that Android — for better or sometimes for worse — is a bit of an open canvas, and each individual device-maker and even carrier is able to take it and modify it for their own needs.

That’s why we see such a dramatic difference in how “Android” looks when you experience it on a Google-made Pixel phone vs. a Samsung-made Galaxy phone, for instance — and also why so many devices come with manufacturer- or carrier-added bloatware that exists solely to make those companies extra money at the cost of your user experience.

From the get-go, Chromebooks were kind of the anti-Android in this way. Google made it clear from day 1 that ChromeOS was a pristine surface that’d be identical no matter what exact device you’re using or who made it. And, with minor exceptions, it’s stuck to that all this time. You can pick up a Chromebook made by HP, Samsung, Acer, or Google and know it’ll look and work more or less the same exact way, with more or less the same exact interface and out-of-the-box experience.

If Googlebooks are truly Android devices, it’d logically follow that they’ll work more like Android — with each manufacturer potentially putting on their own custom spin and revamping the interface as well as adding in additional apps as they see fit. In that scenario, a device made by Samsung is likely to be very different from a device made by HP, Acer, or Google (and so on).

The seemingly technical distinction of what operating system is at the core means everything in this area — and the same is equally true and even more consequential with my next big question.

3. What do those last two questions tell us about Googlebooks’ software support and update expectations?

Whoo, boy — here we go: can of worms time.

Because device-makers are able to modify and control so many parts of the software experience with Android, it’s up to each individual manufacturer to process every new operating system update as it arrives — and then provide that update to its customers.

And you know the deal from there, right? In practice, that means there’s a massive disparity in the speed and reliability of post-sales software support across the Android ecosystem — with some devices always receiving new updates within mere days of their release and others consistently waiting six months to a year or even longer to get increasingly stale software. It’s a serious problem in the Android arena, and it has been for ages now.

And even if you don’t care about the more superficial interface improvements and feature additions, you’d better believe timely software support matters. Operating system updates are packed with vital fixes in areas like privacy, security, and performance. Particularly for professionals, knowing you’re always on the latest available Android version should be a given — not something you need to worry about or an area where you risk realizing you’re half a year behind.

If Googlebooks follow the Android model, it stands to reason that this same disparity will exist among them — and that knowing who makes a device and what their upgrade history looks like will be an incredibly important part of any intelligent buying decision.

If Googlebooks are more their own individual operating system and it’s one that more closely mirrors the ChromeOS concept, then Google itself might handle the heavy lifting with updates and deliver ’em all quickly and universally, without any third-party meddling or reliance.

Again, as of now, we just don’t know, nor do we yet know even what the overall standard will be for software support and update longevity with Googlebooks in general. As you can imagine, the answers to these questions couldn’t be more critical — for professionals and organizations in particular, but also just for regular ol’ individual device owners.

Googlebooks present an entirely new software environment — with lots of unknowns.

Google

Speaking of which…

4. What does the Googlebook’s arrival mean for the future of ChromeOS and Chromebooks? 

Here’s the million-dollar question — or maybe the $14.7 billion question, to be more precise:

With Googlebooks set to start shipping sometime later this year, is ChromeOS effectively kaput? Is Google shifting its focus away from Chromebooks and toward Googlebooks as their de facto replacement?

The answer here gets especially murky. When I raised the subject during the aforementioned briefing, executives were quick to note that they will continue to support all existing ChromeOS devices through their promised lifespans — and that they absolutely were not giving up on the platform or abandoning its users.

That’s important, and it’s great to know. But it still isn’t answering the actual question I’m posing here — which is longer term, if Google intends to continue investing in ChromeOS and creating new Chromebook devices or if that platform and device type is essentially being phased out and supported only in a legacy context, for the products that already exist or are presently under development.

And that’s where I’ve been struggling to get a clear, unambiguous answer. Upon following up with a Google media relations rep to try to gain clarity, I received the following carefully worded statement:

Chromebooks have become an invaluable tool for educational institutions, businesses, and consumers throughout the globe, bringing powerful features, security, and simple-to-use management tools for commercial users. We absolutely intend to continue investing in those experiences and supporting those users. And of course, all Chromebooks will continue to receive support through their device’s existing date commitment, and many Chromebooks will be eligible to transition to the new experience.

Okay, so we got a teensy new nugget there — in that “many Chromebooks” will be able to “transition” to the newer, Googlebook-style setup. Again, good to know.

But still, it isn’t the answer we’re looking for here. Will Chromebooks keep being produced and offered indefinitely alongside Googlebooks, as different choices for different markets and/or needs — or will Googlebooks eventually replace Chromebooks as the de facto laptop-level device at some point in the foreseeable future?

When pressed on this point, a media relations rep from Google told me that yes, Chromebooks will “continue to be sold” — and that there are already more devices “in the pipeline” for release. When I followed up further to attempt to clarify, again, if that meant Googlebooks and Chromebooks would both be produced and offered indefinitely moving forward — not just that there’ll be a period of overlap in which both will be available to purchase, based on devices that were already released or under development — I didn’t receive another reply (after a day and a half and in time for this article’s publication).

At the risk of turning this into a total Abbott and Costello routine, I’m still just not entirely sure that what we’re hearing actually answers what I’m asking — or what that might mean for the many education and enterprise organizations relying on Chromebooks now, once their current devices start to near end dates and they’re ready to look for replacements.

As a potentially related side note, all software-level considerations aside, Googlebooks are described as being “built with premium craftsmanship and materials” — every Googlebook — and so it sure doesn’t seem like they’ll be positioned in the same way that many current Chromebooks have, at the more budget or midrange level that’s suitable for mass organizational deployment.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

5. What about other core Chromebook qualities — like the built-in security, lack of slowdown over time, and the true desktop browser experience they offer?

I’ll make this one easy for ya: Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know.

Once more, extremely critical questions. And so far, no known answers.

6. Will Googlebooks be able to run Linux programs — and/or Windows apps, as Google worked so hard to establish with ChromeOS in recent years?

Over the years, ChromeOS morphed into something I’ve called the “everything” OS — an ironic evolution, without a doubt, given the original Chromebook vision.

Part of that means the devices can run practically every type of app imaginable, short of Mac-native software. You can install Android apps, of course, and run anything from the web. You can also install Linux apps and, with the right add-on, even run full-fledged Windows programs on a Chromebook — a move Google made proudly and after lots of thoughtful iteration to close the gap on corporate concerns around ChromeOS limitations.

Part of the Chromebook’s appeal has also always been the desktop-caliber Chrome browser experience it gives you — something that the mobile versions of browsers have never quite been able to match when it comes to speed and unrestricted productivity. It’s a very noticeable difference when you attempt to do work on the web on a Chromebook compared to a traditional Android (or any other mobile operating system) device.

As for Googlebooks, all we know right now is that they can run Android apps. So are they essentially just a new and improved version of an Android tablet — something that’d be fine and maybe even nice for more casual use but a far cry from the sort of productivity-minded environment Chromebooks have grown into providing? Or will they retain their predecessors’ progress when it comes to that singularly versatile platform-bending software support?

Until we know those answers, it’s impossible to really wrap our heads around any of this.

7. Will the devices all be touch-centric, with touch-capable displays?

The way Google is showing its Googlebooks being used certainly makes it seem like they’re more touch-oriented devices — with keyboards available for when you need ’em. 

Chromebooks, though, started out that way and then quickly evolved to showcase a more diverse range of hardware options — which, in recent years, increasingly did not include touchscreens as a baseline option.

If these are being portrayed as more traditional laptops, maybe touch isn’t necessarily expected for them, either. But if they’re more of supercharged tablets, a touch capability would certainly make sense.

The Googlebook’s trademark “glowbar,” as seen on some past Google-made devices.

Google

So. Many. Questions. And, on that note, one more:

8. How will these be branded — and will Google itself be making Googlebook hardware?

Based on the name “Googlebook” (which, on a side note, is remarkably similar to “gobbledegook” — trust me, you’ll never unsee it now), you’d be forgiven for assuming that Google itself is the one making ’em all.

That, we do know, is definitely not the case. Google says it’s partnering with a variety of companies — including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, to start — to create the very first Googlebooks, and that alone raises so much curiosity in my mind.

To wit: Will all of those companies’ devices simply be called Googlebooks — the Acer Googlebook and the Dell Googlebook, for instance? Or will it be more of a Windows-esque model, where they’ll brand ’em however they want and then list somewhere on the packaging that they’re Googlebooks or running, erm, GoogleOS, or Android Googlebook Desktop Edition, or whatever the heck it ends up being called?

For that matter, will Google itself be making a Googlebook? It’d be weird if it didn’t, given the name “Googlebook” and the company’s ever-increasing homemade hardware ambitions. But if it does, will its device be the Pixelbook Googlebook? (Gesundheit.) And will we be seeing the same sort of awkward competition that’s present within Android now, where Google both makes and controls the OS and competes for customers as a creator of the same sort of hardware?

For now, all we can really say is that Googlebooks are coming — and they appear to establish a whole new horizon for how we think about laptops, Android, and ChromeOS. They’ll have a neat glowbar that brings to mind earlier Google hardware products, and they’ll feature a bunch of bits of native Gemini integration. And they’ll interact with Android in some interesting ways.

Beyond that, let’s hope that the answers to all these questions become apparent as the months march on and we grow closer to the Googlebook’s launch — ’cause without these answers, Googlebooks really are just a bunch of gobbledegook, albeit gobbledegook surrounded by a cryptically pretty enclosure and plenty of hazily promising potential.

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Microsoft on Tuesday released patches for 138 security vulnerabilities spanning its product portfolio, although none of them have been listed as publicly known or under active attack. Of the 138 flaws, 30 are rated Critical, 104 are rated Important, three are rated Moderate, and one is rated Low in severity. As many as 61 vulnerabilities are classified as privilege escalation bugs, followed by Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]