Computerworld.com [Hacking News]

When Workday acquired Sana just about a year ago, it said that the combination of Sana’s AI with Workday’s platform would create a new “front door” to work. Today at its Workday Rising conference, it unveiled that front door, turning Sana into Workday’s default home screen that, it said, “brings tasks, decisions, meetings, and agent activity into one place, helping employees move directly from what needs attention to getting it done.”

The new interface goes beyond merely answering questions to orchestrating Workday’s agents to execute tasks. Each employee’s experience is tailored to their role; when they open the application, they see the tasks and decisions that need their attention and can take action directly from the UI. And, using TypeSafe’s Jev AI model, Sana adapts its UI to each task, the company said, generating forms, calendars, approval cards, visualizations, and other interactive experiences in real time and completing tasks once the employee approves the action. It also supports work that spans multiple days, displaying relevant information at every stage of functions such as financial closing or preparation of workforce plans by HR.

Sana also works within other AI tools and platforms including Anthropic Claude, Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise, and Microsoft Copilot, as well as within Microsoft Teams and Slack. But, Workday said in its announcement, “third-party AI tools and platforms never get raw access to Workday data — they can now access this data through Sana, and Sana does the reasoning, applies each company’s own permissions, approvals, and policies, and carries out the work so actions are lawful by design and recorded, regardless of the tool it started in.”

Along with the Sana home page, known as Workday Home, the company introduced Sana Concierge, which brings together the self-service capabilities and Sana for IT Service Management released earlier this year with Workday Help and Case Agent to create AI-native employee services spanning HR and IT. Workday said it can resolve requests such as password resets, access requests, and questions about time off and payroll, as well as performing onboarding and offboarding. The employee just submits a natural language request, and Concierge looks up relevant policies and, based on the employee’s Workday information, guides them through the steps to complete their request.

If a human decision is needed, Concierge routes the request to the right person in the background, but remains the employee’s point of contact.

The Sana Workday Home experience is available today, with more capabilities and support “coming soon,” the company said. Sana Concierge is available now to early adopter customers, with general availability expected in the first quarter of 2027.

From copilots to autopilots

The company also introduced four new autonomous AI agents that act as autopilots across hiring, payroll, accounting, and compliance.

“From co-pilots to autopilots, that’s a big transition that you will see across our agents today,” said Joel Hellermark, former CEO of Sana, who is now Workday’s chief AI officer. “These are now agents that anticipate what needs attention, they apply the company’s policies, they advise on the next step, and then act once the appropriate person approves that. And these autopilots run completely on Workday’s rails, so they’re self-governed and compliant.”

And, he said, while a typical copilot-driven system “sits there” until the user logs in, autopilot agents run on a heartbeat, operating whether or not the user is online.

The Talent Acquisition Agent, for example, monitors the open job queue from the time a position is posted, finding qualified candidates and giving the recruiter information about them. It can generate outreach to potential hires and present it to the recruiter for approval, explain why candidates on a short list are a good fit, and schedule interviews with those the recruiter flags. It then automatically joins the interview and takes notes. Based on recruiter feedback, the agent learns how to improve its recommendations.

The agent works across multiple recruiting tools, including Workday Recruiting, HiredScore, Paradox, native Workday skills, and connected sourcing providers. The autopilot capabilities are available to early adopter customers today, with general availability planned for early 2027.

Three more autopilots will arrive for early adopters in early 2027, for Payroll Agent, Accounting Agent, and Deployment Agent.

This could be the start of a change in the coordination of work, said Melody Brue, analyst in residence at Moor Insights & Strategy. “Workday is trying to connect more of the work around a decision, from weighing options to carrying out the approved plan,” she said. “Sana could become the starting point for that process, giving Workday a larger role in coordinating work beyond its own applications. For current customers, the meaningful change would be less manual coordination between a request, an approval, and a completed transaction. The value depends on whether that reduces the work employees have to manage or shifts it into resolving exceptions when a workflow crosses systems.”

Extending Decision Intelligence

Workday Decision Intelligence, first seen in Adaptive from Workday, is spreading into more areas of the business, said Yasmeen Ahmad, SVP and GM, Workday Data Cloud.

Decision Intelligence is not an agent performing a task, she said. “It’s a planning and reasoning experience built for decisions that are too complex, too high stakes, or too cross-functional for any single task to capture.”

Ahmad described a scenario in which HR revised a hiring plan using Decision Intelligence, passing it to Finance to use as an input for reviewing its quarterly projections with the same tool.

“Normally this would have taken six weeks, five spreadsheets, and analysts trying to stitch it together. Today, it was all just a prompt,” she said.

Brue said that what she finds interesting is whether Workday can take more of the manual modeling out of a staffing discussion. “Workday already supports connected workforce and financial planning,” she said. “If teams can work through several options with fewer model adjustments and less reliance on specialists for routine ones, planning could be more responsive when business needs change.”

Work Intelligence

Work Intelligence, available to early access Workday Human Capital Management customers, breaks jobs into their component tasks, describing the skills employees need to perform them. It draws on Workday Skills Cloud, giving leaders a look at how jobs are changing, and then, using Decision Intelligence, companies can get a picture of their internal readiness for evolving work.

“The task-level analysis is worth watching,” Brue said. “A role is rarely entirely automatable or entirely human-led. Looking inside the role could give customers a more useful basis for redesigning work. But saving time across a dozen tasks doesn’t automatically free someone up for a different assignment. Companies may need to regroup the work, letting agents handle routine steps together and giving employees clear responsibility for what comes next.”

Off with its head

Workday also announced that its Trusted Agent Platform, on which organizations build and run AI agents governed by their business rules, is now headless, allowing customers to use the development tools and models of their choice. It brings together the existing Workday Data Cloud, Agent-Ready Tools, Developer Agent, custom agents, and Agent Harness.

However, Workday CTO Gabe Monroy emphasized that, at the same time, “headless can’t mean lawless. The rules for HR and finance already live in Workday, so customers don’t have to rebuild them for every agent they create. This is what lets companies move fast with agents without losing control.”

And, to enhance the controls, in early 2027 the company will add Agent Context Service and Grounded Reasoning to Agent Harness to provide Workday context that agents need and check requests against company policies, business processes, and tenant data before the agent is allowed to act.

“Governance gets more consequential as agents move from recommendations to actions,” Brue pointed out. “An agent can be authorized and still make the wrong call. Customers need to distinguish permission to recommend from permission to execute. And know which actions require human approval, especially in hiring and finance. The governance question extends to any workflow that crosses platforms. Customers need clear ownership of approvals, exceptions, and the audit trail when a request starts in one system, and an agent acts in another.”

For companies already using Workday and ServiceNow together, she said, there’s an additional consideration: Workday’s expansion into employee-facing AI and agent governance could create more overlap between platforms that have traditionally played complementary roles.

“Joint customers don’t suddenly need to choose one, but they may need to clarify which platform coordinates the work and how controls operate across both,” she said. “A unified experience won’t necessarily mean unified control.”

This article first appeared on CIO.

Apple has launched its most serious push yet into your home, built around its attempt to normalize always-on AI with Siri. As widely expected, the new products include its much-anticipated Apple HomeView smart display, a new Apple TV 4K with Siri AI, the next generation HomePod mini 2, and Apple Home Collection, a range of home accessories designed in collaboration with third-party partners.

What is HomeView? 

HomeView is a central control and entertainment device for smart homes. Powered by Apple Intelligence with Siri AI, the wall- or stand-mounted smart display costs $299 and has an A18 chip that runs “HomeView” software.

Apple confirmed most of the pre-event speculation, most particularly that the product will not be available in the European Union, as Siri AI is currently unavailable there due to restrictions within the Digital Markets Act. Apple did say it is “working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward.” We’ll see how that turns out.

Features include a custom-engineered acoustic system, FaceTime, face recognition, and Apple’s promise on privacy (which is that it provides you with some). The device supports up to six users; it uses face recognition to identify a user and then adapts what they see so they can access their own personal content on the device. That means you’ll see your emails, while your partner will see their own, for example.

HomeView is also a new breed of contextually driven AI devices, so it can call on your personal context to answer questions or requests. Wired called it a “giant Apple Watch for the home.” Industry watchers think it looks like a mini iMac G4, with a rounded base and a display on a stalk.

same same. pic.twitter.com/etlyfk8bBf

— Basic Apple Guy (@BasicAppleGuy) October 13, 2026

It has a 7-inch Liquid Retina display connected to a domed speaker base by a stainless steel hinge that provides a smooth tilt for comfortable viewing on tabletops of any height. It is available in silver, starlight, rose pink, and space gray. It has a built-in speaker reportedly capable of making a great sound, is AirPlay compatible, and works with compatible home security cameras to become an AI-powered home security system.  

It’s thought that Apple originally hoped to introduce HomeView a year or so ago but was stymied by its failure to develop Siri AI to schedule. All the same, it’s an important product, as it shows the company experimenting with ways to provide ambient AI experiences that actually benefit consumers. It puts the company up against products in the ilk of Amazon’s Echo Show or Google’s Nest. It also echoes Samsung’s SmartThings ecosystem, but platform integration and privacy may give it the edge.

Apple Apple Home Collection partnerships

The Apple Home Collection is a rare excursion into partnership, with Apple working with both LG Electronics and Schneider Electric to introduce a new range of smart home accessories developed in collaboration. 

It’s unclear whether this is a new licensing system for smart home products, building on the Works with Apple Home accessory branding Apple has offered for a while. 

This is smart home tech done better, however, as the big selling point is that you can install these products easily, “starting with one tap with iPhone.” You don’t need to install other apps, create new accounts or otherwise create additional cruft. The products are also designed for privacy, with Home app data encrypted end-to-end, so LG Electronics, Schneider Electric, and Apple can’t read it. They support the Matter and Thread home networking standards.

“Apple Home Collection makes it easy to choose smart home accessories with confidence,” said Matthew Costello, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering.

The new gadgets are available in a limited number of nations — mostly the US, UK, and Canada, though some are North America only. As anticipated, the new products include:

• A video doorbell
• Floodlight, outdoor, and indoor cams that are iCloud+ compatible
• Smart deadlock
• Smart thermostats

Apple reached a deal with ADT to offer professional installation of these accessories for a fee, though you don’t need to do this.

Prices seem to hover around the $200 mark. The LG Video Doorbell Wired starts at $250 (US), while the Schneider Home Smart Thermostat starts at $200 (US), for example.

New Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini

The HomePod mini 2 smart speaker is available in five colors and brings support for Siri AI (where available). It uses a new S10 chip to analyze music in real time to optimize dynamic range, loudness, and acoustic performance. A new feature called Sound Glow “dances” to the music, glowing and pulsing color inspired by the album cover. It works as a smart home controller and costs $149.

If you’re feeling flush, you can invest in four of these to create a quadrophonic speaker system for use with the new Apple TV 4K.

The upgraded Apple TV 4K has a new A19 processor, while built-in far-field microphones bring support for Siri AI where it is available. You can link it to the HomePod mini for better sound. The device works as a home hub and can also access your home video surveillance feeds. The processor upgrade means you’ll get smoother navigation and faster response. The system, which costs $299, also has a new, dedicated AV1 decoder, which should enable more efficient, high-quality streaming while using less bandwidth.

An interesting note: Siri AI will be available as a beta on older Apple TV 4K models (second generation or later) in most English-speaking countries. 

For the rest of us?

It seems relevant to mention a few yet-to-be-determined questions and rumors, such as what support the new Apple home ecosystem will provide for non-Apple devices. For example, if you are the only person in your family using an Android phone, you are locked out of the family experience of this smart home integration. How can that user use the product? When it comes to privacy, does the new Apple TV use Automatic Content Recognition to any extent, and how much viewer information does it collect? One more thing that has been picked up is that Siri AI will be available as a beta on older Apple TV 4K models (second generation or later) in most English-speaking countries. 

Now please subscribe to my daily, human-curated Apple-related news headline feed at The Core, or follow me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, or Mastodon.

New market research from Counterpoint Research shows that global smartphone sales fell by 20% in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period a year ago. This is the lowest level for a third quarter since 2012.

The decline is attributed to the ongoing shortage of memory components, where sharply rising prices for DRAM and NAND memory have driven up manufacturing costs. Manufacturers, in turn, have raised prices for customers. According to Counterpoint, global smartphone prices have risen by about 20% in 2026.

In terms of market share, Samsung continues to hold the top spot with 23%. Apple is close behind with 22% of the market, the highest share the company has ever held in a third quarter.

Counterpoint does not expect to see any clear recovery in the mobile market for the remainder of the year.

Microsoft has launched Decision-1, an AI model that returns probabilities for predefined answers, allowing software applications to use its outputs directly instead of processing a free-form response from a large language model (LLM).

The model targets tasks such as classifying requests, prioritizing incidents, and checking AI-generated responses. Microsoft says it can handle these decisions with lower costs and latency than approaches that rely on general-purpose LLMs.

“Instead of writing a free-form response, it takes a fixed set of answer options and returns a calibrated probability for each one in a single pass,” Microsoft said in a blog post.

Microsoft-Decision-1 is available through Microsoft Foundry and OpenRouter, according to the company. Microsoft built the model by post-training Qwen3.5-9B and said it plans to rebase it on other models, including Microsoft AI (MAI) and OpenAI models.

Model targets specific decisions

Decision-1 supports yes-or-no judgments, choices among predefined options, ratings, and rubric-based assessments of AI responses and agent actions, Microsoft said. Developers can use its outputs to classify inputs, rank work, verify responses, or determine the next action in an AI agent workflow.

Unlike a general-purpose LLM, which can generate explanations and other natural-language content, decision models return probabilities for the available answers. Microsoft said its Decision-1 model can also evaluate multiple decisions in parallel within a single request.

Microsoft cites benchmark results

According to Microsoft, Decision-1 achieved the highest accuracy in a comparison of 36 benchmarks covering nearly 150,000 questions kept blind from training. The company also reported that the model was about 2.5 times faster than the runner-up and 35 times faster than GPT-6 Sol.

Microsoft lists the price at 4.2 cents per million input tokens, with no charge for output tokens, according to the blog post.

In an incident-prioritization example, the company said a request using 86 input tokens and two output tokens cost approximately $0.0000036. At that rate, $1 would cover more than 275,000 similar decisions.

The benchmark results and cost calculations are Microsoft’s claims and have not been independently verified.

Charlie Dai, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, said specialized decision models could reduce the cost and latency of agentic AI workflows.

“Routing, classification, and approval checks often represent a large share of agent interactions, so a specialized decision model can significantly reduce cost and latency while reserving general-purpose LLMs for reasoning and content generation,” Dai said.

Amit Kumar Jena, development manager for AI at Kanerika, said moving routine routing and approval checks away from large generative models represents a meaningful architectural change for enterprises scaling AI agents.

However, Jena cautioned against using Microsoft’s benchmark results to predict enterprise savings. He said organizations should measure “cost and latency per successfully completed workflow, including fallbacks and mistakes.”

Governance risks

Decision-1 returns scores but does not provide a rationale for each decision. Microsoft’s documentation also warns that results can change depending on how questions are worded, Jena said.

“My concern is that a precise-looking probability can give an uncertain decision more authority than it deserves,” he said.

Dai said the absence of reasoning can make decisions harder to explain, validate, and challenge. He recommended calibration testing, controls over question wording and score thresholds, audit logging, and human review for high-impact decisions, particularly when customer outcomes or regulatory obligations are involved.

Jena recommended beginning with reversible tasks, such as request routing and triage, and requiring meaningful human review for decisions that materially affect people.

The concerns center on how organizations interpret the model’s scores and use them to trigger actions. A probability assigned to an answer does not, by itself, explain the decision or establish that it is correct for a particular enterprise application.

The article originally appeared on InfoWorld.

Microsoft on Monday unveiled the Maia 300, its third-generation AI chip. According to Microsoft, the new chip will be optimized to handle the latest reasoning AI models and agents, which should result in lower operating costs.

“We expect Maia 300 to deliver 40% more tokens per megawatt compared to leading GPU-based systems,” said Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president for cloud and AI, in a blog post.

The chip’s predecessor, the Maia 200, was launched in January and now supports Microsoft Copilot workloads, with GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Foundry to follow by the end of 2026, the company said. Microsoft plans to deploy the Maia 300 after the turn of the year.

Microsoft

The Maia 300 will make Microsoft less dependent on AI chips from Nvidia and AMD as Microsoft shifts more workloads to its own AI chips, noted The Verge.

“We will scale our Azure Maia family to multi-gigawatt deployments starting in 2027, making Maia the primary inference system for Microsoft products and services,” Guthrie said.

This story originally appeared on Computer Sweden.

The world is advancing toward a future in which over 10 billion humans coexist with trillions of autonomous agents in a superintelligent universe. But as AI becomes more intelligent, humanity is being divided into those who can access intelligent tools and those who will remain isolated from one of the greatest technological revolutions in decades.

As a response, Tether is building powerful infrastructure across AI, communication, finance, and neurotechnology for a future that doesn’t exclude people based on geography or wealth.

AI should be the great equalizer, but is it?

AI brings a powerful technology to the global population, currently around 17.8% of the world’s working-age population, according to Microsoft’s Global AI Diffusion report. However, access to its benefits remains uneven.

Economies with the largest quarter-over-quarter gains in AI adoption include the United Arab Emirates, with Singapore and the North Atlantic following behind. Despite a growing wealth and intelligence gap, with barriers around cost, privacy, and availability, AI adoption continues to grow in the world’s leading economies.

Between H2 2025 and Q1 2026, the rate of AI adoption grew more than twice as much in the Global North compared to the Global South. The disparity reflects persistent structural barriers in the Global South, including limited access to reliable electricity, internet connectivity, and digital skills.

Machine translation research has largely focused on Asian and European languages with large quantities of training resources. Meanwhile, African languages spoken by hundreds of millions of people remain relatively neglected compared to their high-resource counterparts. As long as these languages remain underserved by AI tools, African adoption of the technology risks falling even further behind.

To help advance machine translation across 19 Sub-Saharan African languages, Tether has developed TranslatePsy-AfriSLM, a free collection of open-source AI resources. At just 800 million parameters, the model is small enough to run comfortably on most smartphones, enabling it to deliver courses, educational content, scientific material, and AI-powered learning tools to traditionally excluded populations in their own languages.

Technology that gives all humans access to intelligence

Over the past several years, Tether has developed and invested in AI, energy, and communications, building the systems that let humans and machines work at scale, without depending on a handful of gatekeepers. This includes Keet, brain-computer interfaces (BCI), and investments in robotics.

While many people still view Tether as a stablecoin company, it prefers to describe itself as an infrastructure provider. “It’s been a while since we’ve considered ourselves crypto,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in a recent Fortune interview.

Tether is building technology that empowers governments, businesses, and individuals alike, developing universally accessible AI that is modular enough to be embedded in the fabric of any device, system, or environment.

Alongside neurotechnology, P2P communications, and robotics, Tether has developed QVAC, a cloud-free AI platform that grants users full control over their data.

Enabling peer-to-peer connections between devices, QVAC operates directly where it is needed, without intermediaries. There are no subscription fees, no vendor dependencies, and no data leakage. Open-source language models can be integrated via QVAC Fabric using a dedicated SDK or the QV.AC app. The inference runtime and fine-tuning framework let you execute, train, and personalize models directly on everyday hardware, including off-the-shelf GPUs, laptops, and smartphones.

Privacy-first infrastructure that lets users run AI locally without routing everything via centralized data centers is needed to build a more sovereign digital future.

This means making AI more accessible, more resilient, and not exposing vast quantities of personal data to a handful of giant cloud providers.

Follow Tether’s updates on AI and subscribe to the QVAC newsletter.

IDC has bad news for enterprises upgrading PCs: don’t expect prices to come down any time soon.

PC prices are already high due to constrained supplies and surging memory and component costs. Geopolitical tensions and an uncertain global economy won’t make the situation any better.

“A weaker economy could soften demand further, and with prices still high and supply constrained, the outlook for the remainder of 2026 and going into 2027 could deteriorate,” IDC analysts said in a press release last week.

The third quarter of 2026 was a disaster for PC makers, with shipments falling 20.1% year over year.

PC makers and their channel partners stocked up on inventory earlier in the year ahead of memory-driven price hikes. The focus in the third quarter was on clearing out that leftover inventory amid dried-up demand.

“Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand,” said Jitesh Ubrani, a research director at IDC.

Within the existing inventory, low-cost PCs are harder to find. For example, HP is making higher-priced PCs a larger part of its product mix so it can generate higher revenue amid declining PC shipments.

HP’s chief financial officer, Karen Parkhill, said in an August earnings call that the company is prioritizing “higher-value unit placements, repricing for higher commodity costs” to offset the lower volume of PC shipments.

“We continue to expect memory and storage costs to increase further as a percentage of the bill of materials,” Parkhill said.

Enterprises picked up new PCs earlier in anticipation of price increases and are now pulling back, said analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates. That’s partially because PC makers are passing higher memory and component costs on to customers, Gold said.

Many new PCs have AI hardware accelerators and qualify as AI PCs. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at an event last week said AI PCs accounted for 40% of PC shipments. HP said on its earnings call that AI PCs made up 46% of its PC shipments in the fiscal quarter that ended July 31.

The big question is whether AI PCs have any utility. HP is rolling out its own on-device AI software, called HP IQ, on its PCs to enhance the user experience. HP PCs also have an AI-based security tool from Wolf Security that protects against BIOS-level intrusion, said Ketan Patel, the company’s president of personal systems, on the August earnings call.

But companies are rethinking the typical three-to-four-year PC upgrade cycle because most AI work still happens in the cloud, Gold said. “They have been spending big on infrastructure and cloud services to implement new AI solutions, which don’t need the latest PC hardware,” he said.

Hardware makers are now building even faster PCs — dubbed “agentic AI PCs”— that cut token costs by running AI locally. Microsoft has dubbed that hardware as “Builder PCs.”

Agentic AI PCs with GPUs have more horsepower to run high-end LLMs and cut cloud-based token costs. But those PCs, such as Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Ultra and HP’s ZBook Ultra G3a mobile workstation, cost more than $2,500, which may be too expensive for cash-strapped enterprises.

Agentic AI PCs could help cut token costs, but “whether that really means the category has been reinvented is still up for debate,” Technalysis Research analyst Bob O’Donnell said in a research note.

Lenovo topped IDC’s global PC shipment chart in the third quarter of 2026. The company shipped 14.9 million units, a 22.6% decline from the same quarter last year, and held a 23.8% market share.

HP was in second place, with 10.3 million units shipped, a 30.9% year-over-year decline. The company held a 16.5% market share.

Dell was third, with 7.6 million PC shipments, a year-over-year decline of 25%. Apple was in better shape than its Windows counterparts, with 5.9 million units shipped, down 11.3% year over year. Asus and other PC makers accounted for the remainder.

Messaging on Android has come an impressively long way in a relatively short time.

After years of comically extreme flipping and flopping and endless-seeming strategy shifts, Google’s been focused on its Google Messages Android app as the primary platform for Android messaging for a solid several years now. And that almost shockingly unusual (for Google!) dedication is starting to make a noticeable difference.

At this point, here in the frequently overwhelming year of 2026, messaging on Android is actually a pretty decent experience. The Google Messages app is solid at its core — and, all basics aside, the service is packed with easily overlooked efficiency enhancers and experience-improving options.

As a follow-up to my collection of 12 time-saving Android texting tricks, I wanted to dive even deeper and explore some of Google Messages’ other oft-overlooked advantages — advanced features that are all too easy to miss but that can make your Android messaging adventures even more productive and pleasurable.

Here are 16 such features well worth your while to uncover.

[Get more Googley tips in your inbox with my free Android Intelligence newsletter — something new and useful in your inbox every Friday.]

Android Messages feature #1: Trashed text resurrection

We’ll start with a freshly added fix for one of the longest-standing Android messaging frustrations — and that’s the app’s inability to let you bring back a messaging thread you inadvertently deleted.

Well, get this: As of just this past year, Google has finally given us an overdue “Trash” section within the Messages app that lets you see and optionally restore any conversation you’ve killed within the past 30 days. Can I get a halle-frickin’-lujah?!

And once you know it exists, it couldn’t be much easier to find and manage:

• Just tap your profile picture in the Messages app’s upper-right corner.
• Look for the recently added “Trash” option in the menu that appears — directly beneath “Archived.”

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At last! A place for finding and optionally restoring deleted messages within the Google Messages app on Android.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Tap that, and you’ll be taken to a special section of the app where every axed thread lives for about a month before being permanently deleted. There, you can tap any thread and then tap the circular clock icon at the top of the screen to restore it — or tap the trash icon to delete it permanently (and irreversibly) from your phone. You can also restore or delete all threads in that area together, if you want.

Thank goodness.

Android Messages feature #2: Text editing

In addition to recovering a deleted message, Google Messages on Android also now allows you to edit a message after you’ve sent it — for those mortifying moments when you realize you’ve made a mistake or sent the wrong thing to the wrong person (egad!).

The option is available only in messages where everyone involved is using the current RCS messaging standard. You’ll know that’s the case if you see “RCS message” in the text box at the bottom of the thread.

Provided that’s present, just press and hold your finger onto any individual message you’ve sent relatively recently, then look for the pencil-shaped editing icon alongside the word “Edit” at the top of the menu that appears. Last but not least, swear to yourself you’ll never hit send without reading over what you wrote again. (Right…)

On that note, I’d be remiss not to inform you that anyone’s original, pre-edited messages are always accessible for anyone else in the conversation to see — if they know where to look.

Android Messages feature #3: The text takeback

Too late to make an after-the-fact edit? Fear not — ’cause there’s one more way to undo your hasty texting embarrassment.

The Android Messages app can actually let you retroactively recall and delete something you’ve sent — for you and for anyone else in the conversation — in a way that works consistently with other Android users, though not quite as reliably with anyone on iOS. Still, it’s something.

To give it a go, press and hold your finger on any text you’ve sent within a Google Messages thread and look for the “Delete” option in the pop-up menu. Tap that, and you should then see the all-important option of whether you want to delete the message only in your view or delete it for everyone in the thread, provided that’s a possibility.

“Delete for everyone” — and hope for the best.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Select the “for everyone” option, tap “Delete” to confirm, and then just hope that whoever’s on the other end hadn’t already seen what you’d sent.

Android Messages feature #4: Custom icons

Up next is what might be my favorite little-known trick within Google’s Android Messages app: With a couple quick adjustments, you can turn any of your contacts’ faces into a custom notification icon. That icon will then show up at the top of your phone whenever that person messages you for extra-easy visibility and access.

See?

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A quick bit of simple setup, and bam: Anyone’s face can become their notification icon (for better or for worse!) on your phone.

JR Raphael, Foundry

The only catch is that your phone needs to be running 2020’s Android 11 operating system or higher for the feature to be available. (And honestly, if your phone isn’t running Android 11 at this point, you’ve got bigger fish to fry, Francesco.) Also, Samsung has screwed around with this system for no apparent reason — a frustratingly common theme with Samsung’s heavily modified approach to Android, especially as of late — so you may or may not be able to take advantage of this on a Galaxy gadget, depending on how recently its software has been screwed up updated. (Exaggerated sigh. What more can I say?!)

On any reasonably recent Android device that sticks close to Google’s core Android interface, though, here’s how to make the magic happen:

• The next time you get a message from someone, press and hold your finger to the notification.
• That’ll pull up a screen that looks a little somethin’ like this:

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Android’s Priority conversation setting is the key to creating custom notifications that really stand out.

JR Raphael, Foundry

• Tap the “Priority” line, then tap “Apply” to save the changes.

And that’s it: The next time that person messages you, you’ll see their profile picture in place of the standard Messages icon in your status bar, and the notification will show up in a special section above any other alerts.

Hip, hip, hoorah!

Android Messages feature #5: Custom sounds

In addition to making it easier to spot an important contact by their notification icon, you can also create a custom alert sound for messages coming in from different people — or even from specific threads within the Google Messages app — so you immediately know what they are before you have a chance to look.

This is one of those things that’s super-basic but also awkwardly out of sight and consequently unknown to an awful lot of Android-owning organisms. But once you know where to find it, it really couldn’t be much easier to get going. And it’s all connected to Android’s notification channels, which let you get incredibly nuanced on how different types of notifications within apps behave.

The quickest way to zip where you need to be is to open the thread you want to customize within Messages itself — whether it’s a one-on-one text with an individual person or a group conversation with multiple contacts. Once you’re inside the thread, tap the three-dot menu icon in its upper-right corner and select “Details,” then select “Notifications” on the screen that comes up next.

And hey, wouldya look at that? You should now be staring at a series of options about how that exact notification behaves — including, at least in the standard Google version of Android, the all-important “Sound” setting.

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A special sound for every conversation is no more than few fast taps away.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Tap that, then find and select any sound you like. The next time a new message comes in for this conversation, there’ll be no mistaking what awaits you from the second it arrives.

Android Messages feature #6: Short-term tune-out

Some incoming messages always require your immediate attention. Others, in contrast, are best tuned out and caught up with much later.

Surely you’ve been in that type of thread before, right? Y’know, the one where people are getting just a little too active — sending message after message, typically either during your workday or while you’re trying to focus on anything other than their uninteresting updates?

Google’s Android Messages app actually has a great way to deal with such struggles. It’s a temporary snoozing mechanism that lets you opt out of notifications from one specific conversation and that conversation only and stop receiving alerts from it for a set amount of time.

To try it out, press and hold your finger onto any thread in your main Messages list, then look for the clock icon with a “z” inside of it at the top of the screen. Tap that, and you can then decide to snooze notifications from that single conversation for one hour, eight hours, 24 hours, or — if you really want to tune it out — forever.

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The sanity-saving Android Messages snooze option. (Don’t worry: I won’t tell.)

JR Raphael, Foundry

You’ll continue to get notifications from all other conversations in the meantime, and you’ll still be able to see new activity from the snoozed thread by opening up Messages and actively looking at it. But you won’t be interrupted by its alerts again — for a while, at least.

Android Messages feature #7: Easier-to-read text

Whenever you next find yourself squinting at something in a messaging thread on your phone (hey, we’ve all been there), try a good old-fashioned zoom gesture on the screen — placing your finger and thumb together and then spreading ’em slowly apart.

You’d never know it, but the Messages app supports that standard gesture for zooming into a conversation. The inverse applies, too: When you’re ready to zoom back out and make everything smaller, just bring your two fingers closer together.

And if those actions aren’t working for you, tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen and select “Messages settings,” then make sure the toggle next to “Pinch to zoom conversation text” is in the on position.

Android Messages feature #8: Custom themes

While we’re thinkin’ about easier reading, a relatively recent Android Messages addition can let you create a custom color palette and even full-fledged theme for any conversations you’ve got goin’.

That way, you can always remember that texts with your significant other are in, say, purple, whereas messages with your most important client are in red. (Best not to get those two threads confused.)

Just open up any thread you like within Messages — then:

• Tap the three-dot menu icon in the screen’s upper-right corner.
• Select “Chat theme” from the menu that appears.
• Pick the color scheme and/or custom background image you prefer, then tap the Confirm button at the bottom.

Every Android Messages conversation can have its own distinctive theme, if you take the time to set it up.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Repeat for any other compatible conversations, and you’ll always know exactly what you’re looking at even with a fast glance — and without having to give it an ounce of active thought.

Android Messages feature #9: A consistent identity

In addition to deciding how other people appear within your Messages interface, you can also take a couple quick steps to help control how you show up for other people you’re messaging. This one mainly affects Android-based Google Messages users, but hey — we do what we can, right?

To take control of your own Messages identity, tap your profile picture in the app’s upper-right corner and select “Your profile.”

And lookie what we found: There, in a menu most mere mortals would never even open, is the option to set your own default profile picture and name so that anyone else using the app will see you as that identity.

Your Google Messages profile — ready and waiting for you to take control.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Those people can still change your name and picture to anything else on their own devices, of course. But this way, when you text someone new, you can rest easy knowing they won’t see you as “Weird Work Guy Who Keeps Texting Me” along with an image of a sloth. (Initially, anyway.)

Android Messages feature #10: Meatier media

You know a fantastic way to waste time? I’ll tell ya: moving from one app to another just to glance at something someone sent you.

But get this: Google’s Android Messages app can let you preview and get the gist of both text articles and even YouTube videos without ever leaving your current conversation — from right within the app and that very same message thread.

The key is to make sure you’ve got the associated options enabled:

• Tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen.
• Select “Messages settings,” then tap “Automatic previews.”
• Make sure the toggle next to “Show all previews” is on and active.

Now, the next time someone sends you a link, you’ll see the associated item’s thumbnail and description right then and there, within the Messages conversation:

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Videos expanded in-line within Messages — easy peasy.

JR Raphael, Foundry

With web pages, Messages will show you just enough of a preview to let you make an educated decision about whether you want to tap the link or not.

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Web links gain useful extra context once you enable the right option within the Android Messages settings.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Almost painfully sensible, no?

Android Messages feature #11: Instant editing

While we’re on the subject of media, the next time you find yourself needing to mark up or otherwise modify an image someone sends you (or even something you yourself sent within a Google Messages conversation), try this:

Press and hold your finger onto the image, within the Messages thread, and select the option to “Remix.” (It’ll have a banana next to it, for reasons that aren’t even worth getting into at this point.)

That’ll load the Gemini Messages image editing interface, where you can use plain text prompting to modify an image in any way you want. The suggestions are mostly silly stuff — recreating a photo in a 90s style, for instance, or giving an image of someone an 80s makeover — but you can also use it for plenty of actual productivity-oriented purposes, such as highlighting or underlining words in a screenshot, editing or replacing elements in a mockup, and practically anything else imaginable. 

Gemini image editing within Google Messages is incredibly useful — when it actually works.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Whatever you need to do, just ask — and at least 50% of the time, Gemini will actually accomplish it in the way you’re envisioning.

Android Messages feature #12: Gemini be gone

Speaking of Gemini’s inconsistencies, if you rarely to never interact with Google’s Gemini chatbot from inside the Messages app — perhaps because, y’know, it’s also available in approximately 7 gazillion other in-your-face places — you might appreciate the distraction-free satisfaction of an interface without a prominent Gemini button begging for you to caress it every googforsaken time you open up your messages.

(The Gemini icon is that starburst-shaped symbol that sits perpetually above the “Start chat” button, in Messages’ lower-right corner, if you haven’t ever tapped it to find out.)

And good news: You can actually send that icon a-packin’, if you’re so inspired: Just tap your profile picture in Messages’ upper-right corner, select “Messages settings,” then tap “Gemini in Messages” and flip the switch on the screen that comes up next into the off and inactive position. Doing so will only eliminate that icon in the main Messages inbox area. You’ll still be able to use the image editor we just went over, even with that option off.

All that’s left is to pat yourself on the back and celebrate the fact that you’ll only have to see Gemini in 6.9 gazillion other places from this point forward.

Android Messages feature #13: Free in-flight Wi-Fi

Gemini may be little more than a distraction within Messages most of the time, but one moment when that capability can actually come in handy is while you’re flying the allegedly friendly skies.

A while back, a crafty reader alerted me to the fact that you could use Gemini’s Messages integration to effectively give yourself free in-flight Wi-Fi access even when you haven’t paid for the privilege and it isn’t widely available. It’s a heck of a clever hack and a moment when you genuinely may want to activate Gemini within the Messages app, at least for a little while.

I’ve got a complete breakdown of how it works and how you can put it to use on your next flight.

Android Messages feature #14: Nudge no more

Do you like being nudged and pestered? I sure don’t — but by default, Google Messages does exactly that.

A long-standing Messages feature called, appropriately, Nudges, will periodically move conversations to the top of your messages list and emphasize ’em to encourage you to reply. If you find that to be helpful, hey, more power to ya. Keep it on! But if you find it to be little more than a nuisance, as I do, take 10 seconds to disable it:

Just head back into the Messages app’s settings (by tapping your profile picture in the upper-right corner and selecting “Messages settings”), then select “Suggestions & Actions” followed by “Nudges.” Flip off the switch next to “Suggest message reminders,” decide if you’d also like to switch off the option for “Birthday reminders” in that same area, and breathe a gigantic sigh of relief.

Android Messages feature #15: The sound of silence

When it comes to texting irritations, few things are more hackle-raising than the ongoing blooping cacophony of an oblivious smartphone owner tapping out texts and sending messages to other mammals. Do you really need a sound every single time you send a new message? Does that accomplish anything other than annoying everyone around you — and, quite possibly, also annoying yourself?

If you’re ready to join me in some sanity-saving silencing, go back to that Messages settings screen and look for the line that says “Hear outgoing and incoming message sounds,” then flip the toggle next to it into the off position.

You’ll still hear whatever normal notification sound you’ve set for incoming messages when you aren’t actively staring at the thread in question — but when the Messages app is open and in front of you, you won’t hear that obnoxious back-and-forth blooping for every bleepin’ new missive you’re in the midst of exchanging.

Android Messages feature #16: The spam can

Last but not least for this list, make sure you’ve got one of Messages’ no-brainer boosters active and working to keep spammy text interruptions out of your hair:

Gallop your way once more into Google Messages settings, tap “Protection & Safety,” and make sure the switch next to “Spam protection” is in the on and active position.

That’ll automatically send any suspicious-seeming messages into a cordoned-off area of the app, out of your regular view, and help keep both clutter and concerning scam attempts out of sight. If you ever want to see what’s been flagged, you can always access that stuff via the “Spam & blocked” option in the main Messages menu.

But by and large, no such noise will ever interrupt you, endanger you, or so much as waste your precious time again — and that, my friend, is worth almost as much as never hearing those blasted back-and-forth bleeps and bloops ever again.

???? Ready for more Android messaging magic? Check out my collection of 12 tricks for more efficient Android texting next — and join my free Android Intelligence newsletter to get helpful tips like these in your inbox every Friday.

What if the three remaining hard disk manufacturers became two? Seagate Technology and Western Digital control 90% of the market, according to market researcher TrendForce, with Toshiba picking up the crumbs.

Seagate and WD both make their own magnetic drive heads, but Toshiba relies on a third party, TDK, which also sells to Seagate and WD when they need extra capacity.

Seeking to guarantee supplies of this critical component, Toshiba made a bid for TDK’s drive head business earlier this year, according to Bloomberg. Concerned that this could affect its ability to meet the growing demand for hard disks from AI data centers, Seagate made a counteroffer, Bloomberg reported. TDK is staying mum.

If Seagate were to capture the TDK unit it could knock Toshiba out of the hard disk market altogether, according to Bloomberg.  

While Toshiba is reliant on its suppliers for technological advances, WD and Seagate continue to innovate. In February, Western Digital announced two technologies aimed at speeding up drive throughput: high bandwidth drive technology (HBDT) and dual pivot technology (DPT).

Western Digital said HBDT will enable simultaneous reading and writing from multiple heads on multiple tracks, delivering up twice the bandwidth of conventional HDDs.

In July, Seagate launched a hard disk packing 30TB into a 3.5-inch enclosure using its Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) technology, and announced plans to release 32TB and 36TB models.

This article first appeared on Network World.

The owner of a ransomware remediation company is facing trial for defrauding customers.

Zohar Pinhasi, also known as “Zack Silver” and “Zack Green,” has been arraigned in New York on wire fraud charges for allegedly defrauding clients of his ransomware remediation company, MonsterCloud.

Pinhasi falsely claimed he could recover documents encrypted by ransomware without paying a ransom, according to district attorney Joseph Nocella. “The defendant re-victimized his clients while extracting a hefty profit for himself,” Nocella said.

MonsterCloud claimed to offer an alternative to paying the ransom. Its website said that, thanks to its decryption techniques, “our team specializes in helping businesses recover their data without succumbing to ransom demands.” 

However, the indictment alleges that rather than using any technology, Pinhasi simply paid the cybercriminals in exchange for a decryption key with which MonsterCloud employees would then an attempt to unlock their clients’ files. It is alleged that Pinhasi typically charged clients a fee that was substantially higher than the ransom payment. For example, in 2023, he made a payment of $8,200 to a cybercriminal while charging a client $150,000.

There may be several reasons why clients chose to use MonsterCloud. US government advice (echoed by other governments) is not to pay ransoms as it may encourage more attacks, and victims may not get their data back. In addition, in some cases, if the attackers are from a country or group subject to trade sanctions, making a payment may actually be illegal, leaving the victim facing criminal charges.

There may be other factors at play. “Cases vary; sometimes negotiators simply overcharge for their services. In other cases, they may inflate the final amount, saying, for instance, that 50 percent extra is to ensure a third-party validation of secure data erasure or something similar that the client would buy,” said Ilia Kolochenko of cybersecurity company ImmuniWeb.

He warned that there were several techniques being used to extract additional money from ransomware victims.

“Some will be contacted by fake law enforcement agencies, which typically promise to find and arrest the hackers, but also mention the victim’s civil liability for the data breach and ask to prepay a bond for an eventual regulatory fine. Other victims may be contacted by fake cybersecurity companies, which claim that they have already found their stolen data on the Dark Web and ask for money to ‘securely erase’ the data from the dark web to avoid bad publicity and regulatory sanctions,” he said.

Similar cases have come to court recently, said Kolochenko, one in July involving a Florida business and another targeting a Latvian national in May.

This article first appeared on CSO.

There are important accounts to secure, and then there are important accounts to secure. Your Google account falls into that second category, maybe even with a couple of asterisks and some neon orange highlighting added in for good measure.

I mean, really: When you stop and think about how much stuff is associated with that single sign-in — your email, your documents, your photos, your files, your search history, maybe even your contacts, text messages, and location history, if you use Android — saying it’s a “sensitive account” seems like an understatement. Whether you’re using Google for business, personal purposes, or some combination of the two, you want to do everything you possibly can to keep all of that information locked down and completely under your control.

And guess what? Having a password that you hastily set seven years ago isn’t enough. With something as priceless as your personal data, that single key is only the start of a smart security setup. And even it might be due for an upgrade.

Take 10 minutes to go through these steps, then rest easy knowing your Google account is as guarded as can be.

Part I: Reinforce your front door Step 1: Check up on your Google account password

We’ll start with something simple but supremely important — that aforementioned Google account password. Consider the following questions:

• Is your Google password based on your name, the name of your partner or child, your birthday, your street address, or anything else someone could easily figure out by Googling you?
• Does your Google password revolve around a common word or easily guessable pattern?
• Is your Google password short — less than eight characters, at a minimum?
• Do you use your Google password (or any variation of it) to sign into any other app, website, or service?

If the answer to any of those questions is yes, first, bop yourself firmly on the nose. Then use this link to go change your password immediately — preferably to something long, complex, and not involving any easily discoverable personal info, any common words or patterns, or anything you use anywhere else.

(And note: This is also where a reliable password manager — whether the basic Google Password Manager or a more fully featured third-party option — can make all the difference in the world.)

Got it? Good. Next:

Step 2: Give your Google account a second layer of protection

No matter how strong your Google account password is, there’s always still the chance someone could crack it — but you can exponentially reduce the risk of anyone actually getting into your virtual property by enabling two-factor authentication on your account.

With two-factor authentication, you’ll be prompted for a second form of security in addition to your password — ideally something that requires a physical object that’d only ever be in your presence. In its simplest effective form, that could be a prompt or a code generated by your phone. If you want to get really fancy, it could be a button pressed on an actual key you carry (which could be a special USB- or Bluetooth-based dongle or even something built into your phone) — sometimes even called a “passkey,” which is basically just a confusing and overcomplicated way to say the same thing. There’s also an option to have codes sent to you via text message, but that method is relatively easy to hijack and thus not generally advisable to use.

Whatever path you choose, having that second layer in place will make it incredibly difficult for anyone to get into your Google account, even if they do somehow know your password.

Two-factor authentication makes it significantly more difficult for anyone to get into your Google account.

JR Raphael / Foundry

If you don’t have it set up yet, go to Google’s 2-Step Verification page to get started.

Step 3: Make sure you’re prepared to prove your identity

If Google ever detects some sort of suspicious activity on your account, it might require you to verify your identity before it lets you sign in. And if you haven’t looked at your account verification settings in a while (or ever, for that matter), there’s a decent chance the necessary info might be out of date or missing altogether.

Take a minute now to open up Google’s account security site and look in the section labeled “How you sign in to Google.” There, among other things, you should see two options:

• Recovery phone
• Recovery email

If the value next to either option is not current and correct, click it and update it immediately.

And with that, we’re ready to move on to our next level of Google account protection.

Step 4: Give yourself a selfie-centric failsafe

Effective online security is all about an endless array of “what if”-style scenarios, and this next Google account security strengthener is no exception. Now that we’ve confirmed you’re ready to recover your Google account if you ever get locked out, it’s time to ponder an alternate path out of that nightmare — in case the usual steps for recovery for any reason ever aren’t working.

As of August 2026, Google offers the option to verify your identity for an individual, non-company-connected account via a sophisticated selfie video — a short several-second clip of yourself staring at the camera and turning your head in different directions. All you’ve gotta do is take two minutes to opt into the option and record an initial selfie video now. Then, if you’re ever unable to access your account, you can submit a new selfie video and let the system match it with your original to confirm your identity.

To get started, go to this page within the Google account settings site on any device with a camera and follow the prompts to add a selfie video. Google will walk you through creating the video and then confirm that it’s saved and active. And if all your other available sign-in methods ever fail you in the future, you’ll have the added option to verify your identity via that path.

You can read more about the selfie sign-in system and how it works in this primer.

Step 5: Get by with a little help from your friends

In addition to your own selfie video verification, you can now authorize a trusted friend or family member to step in and confirm your identity for you.

It’s something Google recently launched called Recovery Contacts, and it’s incredibly easy to set up:

• First, open up the official Google Recovery Contacts settings page.
• Follow the prompt to confirm your password and authenticate.
• Then click the button to add a new recovery contact onto the account.

The person you specify will have to acknowledge and accept the request within a week before they’re confirmed and active — but once that happens, if you’re ever locked out, they’ll be able to confirm a special one-time recovery code on their secured device to authenticate for you.

(In short: After failing to sign in, Google would allow you to select the contact, and you’d then see a random number on your screen. At the same time, your contact would receive three different numbers on their device. In order to confirm and authenticate, they would have to select which of those numbers matches the number you’re seeing and relaying to them — while communicating with you and thus verifying that the request was actually legitimate and triggered by you — in order to complete the authentication.)

Again, this would only come up if you were completely locked out of the account and unable to receive the same sort of code directly on your own. And your contact wouldn’t actually have access to any of your Google account info. They’d just be an extra pathway for you to confirm your identity and get back into your own account in a worst-case scenario.

Setting up a Recovery Contact is possible only on an individual Google account — not a company-managed Workspace account, since in that situation, your company’s admin would already be able to help facilitate any account recovery for you.

Part II: Clamp down on connections Step 6: Review the third-party services with access to your account

When you set up an app that interacts with Google in some way — on your phone, on your computer, or even within a Google service such as Gmail or Docs — that app gets granted a certain level of access to your Google account data.

Depending on the situation, that could mean it’s able to see some of your activity within specific Google services; it could mean it’s able to see everything in your Gmail, Google Calendar, or Google Drive; or it could mean it’s able to see everything across your entire Google account.

It’s all too easy to click through confirmation boxes without giving it careful thought — so look back now and see exactly what apps have access to what types of information. Visit Google’s third-party app access overview and look through the list of connected services. If you see anything there you no longer use or don’t recognize, click its line and then click the button to remove it.

Review your third-party app list and remove any items that no longer need access to your Google account.

JR Raphael / Foundry

Allowing apps you know and trust to access your account is perfectly fine, but you want to be sure to revisit the list regularly and keep it as current and concise as possible.

Step 7: Review the devices with access to your account

In addition to apps, you’ve almost certainly signed into your Google account on a variety of physical devices over the past several months (and beyond). And often, once you’ve signed in at the system level, a device remains connected to your account and able to access it — no matter how long it’s been since you’ve actually used the thing.

You can close that loop and take back control by going to Google’s device activity page. If you see any device there that you no longer use or don’t recognize, click the three-dot menu icon within its box and sign it out of your account right then and there.

Step 8: Look over app permissions on your phone

Another important app-related consideration: If you’re using Android, some system-level permissions — such as those connected to your contacts and calendar — can effectively control access to areas of your Google account data, since services such as Google Contacts and Google Calendar sync that data between your phone and the cloud.

Head into the Security & Privacy section of your phone’s system settings and look for the line labeled “Permission manager.” (Depending on your device, you might have to tap a line labeled “Privacy controls” before you see it.) If you can’t find it, try searching your system settings for the phrase permission manager instead.

Once you get there, you can look through each type of permission and see which apps are authorized to access it — and, with a couple more taps, revoke the permission from any apps where that level of access doesn’t seem necessary.

Android makes it easy to review and adjust an app’s permission, if you know where to look.

JR Raphael / Foundry

Step 9: Look over extension permissions in your browser

On the desktop, extensions added into Chrome or any other browser have the potential to expand your browser’s capabilities — but they also have the potential to put your privacy at risk.

Extensions could require access to anything from your complete browsing history to your system clipboard. They can often read and change data on sites you’re actively viewing, too — either any and all sites or only specific pertinent URLs, depending on the specific permissions requested.

None of this is necessarily bad, so long as the extension in question is reputable and requesting only the permissions it genuinely requires for the function it provides. But sometimes, even the most well-intending developers can get lazy and go with a broader permission than what their software actually needs. And in such an instance, an extension that does something as simple as enhancing the Gmail interface or allowing you to save articles for later could have access to everything you do in your browser — and the sort of broad data that’s typically kept under lock and key inside your Google account could be shared with external entities for no good reason.

So let’s do a quick little assessment, shall we? If you’re using Chrome, type chrome:extensions into your browser’s address bar. If you’re using another browser, look in its main menu to find the equivalent option for managing extensions or add-ons, as they’re sometimes also called.

Once you’re looking a list of all your installed extensions, click the “Details” or “Options” button for every extension on the page. Peek at the “Permissions” section within each one and then take a close look at the “Site access” section, in particular. Think carefully about the level of access that’s granted there and whether it’s genuinely needed — or whether it’d make sense to bring it down a notch and make it more limited in nature.

With Chrome and other Chrome-based browsers — like Microsoft Edge and Vivaldi — if the extension seems like it really only needs access to a specific site or domain and it’s requesting access to your activity on all sites, click the dropdown menu in that area and change its setting from “On all sites” to “On specific sites” (which lets you provide a specific, limited list of URLs on which the extension will have full visibility).

Chrome and other Chrome-based browsers make it easy to view and adjust the permissions for any browser extension you’re using.

JR Raphael / Foundry

Just remember that many extensions do legitimately need certain levels of access in order to operate — so make these changes cautiously and only after carefully thinking through the potential implications. Worst-case scenario, though, if you bring an extension’s access down and then find it’s no longer working as expected, you can always come back to this same area of your browser’s settings later and change it back.

Firefox, incidentally, doesn’t allow this level of granular permission-granting — so if you find an extension there is accessing more than you’re comfortable with, your only real option is to uninstall it entirely.

Speaking of which…

Step 10: Get rid of any mobile apps and browser extensions you don’t need

While you’re thinking about third-party add-ons for your computer and phone, take a moment to review everything you have installed on both fronts and consider how many of those programs you actually still use. The fewer cracked windows you allow on your Google account, the better — and if you aren’t even using something, there’s no reason to keep it connected.

And with that, we’re ready for our final two parts of account-protecting possibilities.

Part III: Plan for the worst Step 11: Set up or confirm your virtual Google will

Thinking about worst-case scenarios is never particularly pleasant — I’d much rather be eating crumpets, myself — but just as it’s important to have a plan in place for your physical and financial possessions, creating a virtual will for your Google account will make matters infinitely easier for your loved ones if and when you ever develop a mild case of death.

For company-managed Google Workspace accounts, someone at your organization would be able to take control of your account in the event that you were no longer able to access it. But with an individual Google account, no such system for passing along access exists.

Google has a simple system in place to manage this: Open up the Inactive Account Manager, and you’ll find tools for determining exactly what should happen if your account ever becomes inactive for a certain period of time. You can specify the number of months that must go by without any sign of your presence, along with the email addresses and phone numbers Google should use to contact you for confirmation. And then, you can give Google the email addresses of any people you want to be notified once it’s clear that you’re no longer available.

From there, you can specify exactly what types of information your chosen contacts will be able to access. You’ll even be able to leave a message for those people, if you want, and optionally create a broad autoreply that’ll be sent to anyone who emails you once your inactive period has begun (creepy!).

Google’s Inactive Account Manager is like a virtual estate planning tool for all of your account-associated data.

JR Raphael / Foundry

Even if you’ve gone through this process before, it’s worth going back in and revisiting your preferences occasionally to confirm the info is all still complete and accurate — not only in the specific contacts you have set to be notified but also in what specific areas of your account those people will be able to access, if this situation ever actually arises.

For that latter piece of the puzzle, be sure to click the email address of each person you have listed, then click the “Edit apps & services” option on the screen that comes up next. That’ll show you a list of account-related areas — everything from Contacts and Calendar to Google Chat, Google Photos, and even your location history (if you’re using a device that contributes to such a collection) — and let you both see which areas are currently selected and add or remove any areas you want from the list.

Virtually every time I’ve ever looked at that, I’ve found a handful of newer account-related areas weren’t selected to be shared — presumably because they didn’t exist when I had last reviewed the options. I had to manually check them all to be sure they’d be included in any post-consciousness account sharing.

Part IV: Turn your protection up to the max Step 12: Think about Google’s Advanced Protection Program

Last but not least is a step that won’t be right for everyone but could be hugely consequential for certain types of Google users. For anyone at a higher risk of a targeted attack, Google offers an elevated form of account security called the Advanced Protection Program.

The program is described as being appropriate for business leaders, IT admins, activists, journalists, and anyone else who’s in the public eye and likely to be sought out by someone looking to do damage. It puts a series of heavy-duty restrictions on your Google account to make it especially difficult for anyone else to gain access — but as a result, it also makes things a bit more difficult for you.

The core part of the Advanced Protection Program is a requirement to have a physical security key the first time you sign into your account on any new device. That means in addition to your password, you’ll need that specific form of two-factor authentication — either an approved key built into your phone or a standalone dongle — in order to access your email, documents, or any other area of your Google account.

As part of the added security, you also won’t be able to connect most third-party apps to your Google account — including those that require access to your Gmail or Google Drive in order to operate. That could create some challenges (such as signing into an Android TV device, curiously enough) and require some compromises (such as no longer being able to use most third-party email clients with Gmail). And if you ever can’t get into your account for any reason, you’ll have to go through an extra-involved, multiday recovery process in order to restore access. You can read more about what the Advanced Protection Program is like to live with in this thoughtful overview.

Ultimately, only you can decide if the added inconveniences are worth the extra assurance. If you want the utmost in security for your Google account, though — and particularly if you’re someone who’s at a higher-than-average risk of being targeted — it’s something well worth considering.

If you do want to make the leap and add this extra layer of intense security onto your Google account, head over to Google’s Advanced Protection Program website to get started. With a personal account, you’ll be able to get yourself up and running in a matter of minutes. With an account that’s part of a paid company Workspace plan, your plan administrator will have to enable Advanced Protection for the organization before you’re able to do it. Once you start the enrollment process, you’ll see pretty quickly if it’s already available for your account or not — and if not, you can contact your company admin to ask about the possibility of allowing it.

And with that, give yourself a pat on the back: Now that these 11 steps are behind you, your Google account security is officially in tiptop shape — and you shouldn’t have to devote an ounce of thought to this area again anytime soon.

Just set yourself a reminder to revisit this page and review the steps within it once a year for good measure. (I’ll continue to update and expand the specific instructions as needed over time.) Do the same with security smarts in other areas — like your Android security settings, if you’re using an Android device of any sort — and then rest easy knowing your most important digital info is as secure as it can possibly be.

This article was originally published in February 2020 and most recently updated in October 2026.

Half of all US consumers use AI services — but only a small fraction pay for them. Google is trying to shift the balance by giving users of its Gemini AI services reasons to become paying customers.

Users are certainly reluctant to dip into their pockets. A quarter of US consumers use AI daily, but only 4.5% have an active paid subscription to ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, according to research from Andreesen Horowitz. The survey found, however, that consumers are extremely engaged and that the top 10% of spenders account for roughly half of all observed spending.

Now Google is changing the rules on who can use which Gemini models, limiting what users of its free service and its lowest-priced subscription tier can do.

Starting from October 9, those without a paid subscription will only be able to access the less powerful Gemini Flash Lite model; previously, they could use Gemini Flash and had variable access to Gemini Pro. Subscribers to the $4.99/month Google AI Plus plan will still be able to use Gemini Flash, but will lose access to Gemini Pro. Subscribers to the most expensive plans, AI Pro ($19.99/month) and AI Ultra (from $99.99/month) will retain access to Gemini Pro.

This is a clear change of direction for Google, looking to tap into the market for AI power users. The Andreessen Horowitz survey revealed that Claude had already overtaken Gemini among consumer users and Google now wants the higher end of the market. The question will be whether users are willing to pay that premium.

Apple is about to intensify its push into the smart home, having spent several years pulling the threads together. The push is well past time, though we’ve expected it for months.

We’ve seen the industry try to come to grips with some of the challenges surrounding complex consumer technology in domestic environments before. The multitude of competing standards did eventually generate the Matter standard and its friend, Thread. 

Apple’s upcoming event invite seems to allude to the latter, featuring a woman embroidering an Apple logo to a piece of cloth. 

Welcome home. October 13. pic.twitter.com/ChelGSDOTI

— Greg Joswiak (@gregjoz) October 8, 2026

While it’s only slight evidence, it feels like a hint that whatever Apple does introduce will have something to do with Thread.

Bringing it all together

Thread is a low-power, wireless mesh networking protocol built to support smart homes. It takes communication between the devices out of the router to create a self-healing mesh network, which means that if one device goes down, the mesh will reconfigure itself. It also cuts contention — competition among devices sharing a connection — on Wi-Fi, and while I imagine wireless network interference may remain a problem, given how crowded these wavelengths have become, particularly in built-up areas, it may make for a more stable networking system.

The other challenge we’ve had with smart home devices concerns resilience. Some smart devices have lifespans measurably shorter than the non-smart devices they replace, and I’ve found some incredibly hard to migrate to new networks if you replaced your old one. 

Those problems are a pain for anyone who just wants to chill out and relax at home, rather than engaging in yet more tech support simply to do the same thing the non-smart item that worked for a decade used to do with no help at all.

If Apple can fix these two problems — technical capability as well as lifespan — then it has a chance to broaden adoption of smart home tech. 

That’s strategically very important to Apple, as I believe it thinks Siri’s inherent privacy will be a huge advantage in this space. Given that even smart televisions gather and share huge amounts of data about who is watching them, I think the company is probably right. Siri promises better than that — though no one should ever forget the debacle around HomePod voice grading.

A new Home order?

At time of writing, there are several reports claiming slightly conflicting things:

• One set of reports posits that Apple plans to introduce a range of new own-brand smart home devices, including a new HomePod, Apple TV, and the hybrid iPad. In the future, these claims say, Apple will extend this lineup with its own smart alarm systems and other smart devices.
• The second wave of reporting followed the revelation that Apple has been cooperating with LG on the development of a new wave of smart devices. As I noted, these included smart locks, video doorbells, a thermostat, and a range of security cameras for outdoor and indoor use. For a while, people thought these new products would be co-branded. That news was followed by reports the company is also working with Schneider Electronics on a wave of products. 

But perhaps there’s a way to bring all these claims together. 

The most likely synthesis I see to all this information is that Apple plans a big push into smart homes by reinvigorating its “Works with Apple Home” partnership kitemark. 

That’s something that could come in the form of the often speculated homeOS. If so, then LG and Schneider will likely be joined by others as launch partners for a new Apple-powered smart home operating system. 

What’s next?

In the end, this intensified interest in smart homes on the part of Apple can only be a good thing if it means we end up with devices that are easier to use, easier to manage, network together better, protect our privacy, and do what they say they’ll do.

Will Apple launch new products? If it does, will it announce new partnerships? Will it even introduce homeOS? We’ll find out on October 13.

Now please subscribe to my daily, human-curated Apple-related news headline feed at The Core, or follow me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, or Mastodon.

Google seems to be making a strategic play to control the AI infrastructure layer, not just roll out another shiny new agent.

At its Gemini at Work 2026 event this week, the tech giant unveiled what it calls a “single, universal agent” and API in Gemini that can be kicked off from a simple prompt box. Like other available agents, it is plugged into skills, tools, and enterprise systems, can answer questions, create media, and write and run code, return finished work via of documents, inboxes, and developer environments, and spin up sub-agents to help it do its job.

But Google isn’t just looking to go toe-to-toe with existing offerings, or trying to convince enterprises its models are qualitatively and quantitatively superior, said independent tech analyst Carmi Levy.

“Instead, it’s trying to establish itself as the gatekeeper of the new enterprise operating system, powered by whatever underlying model makes the most sense,” he said.

‘Omnipresent access,’ orchestration capabilities

Google says its Gemini agent works autonomously from a single interface, and can function as a personal assistant or team member, akin to a project manager or analyst. Coworker agents can perform tasks across days, sessions, and shifting responsibilities; they have dedicated identities, and are given their own @agents.company.com emails and persistent storage.

However, Google says, they only have access to specifically-defined data and channels. Enterprise-dictated security, governance, and cost controls are built-in.

“You give it objectives, not instructions,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said in his keynote. “Work now starts in the prompt window.”

The agent runs in the cloud and has “omnipresent access,” meaning it can work on nearly any device, including iOS and Android phones or Windows and Mac desktops, he said. It can also be accessed through any channel, including command line interfaces (CLIs), Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or Slack channels, and when integrated into third-party apps. When needed, it also works as a headless agent, or even without a dedicated user interface.

Working autonomously, the Gemini agent can spin up temporary or job-specific underlying agents and communicate and coordinate workflows with them to orchestrate multi-step tasks. These include parallel and sequential steps that might run for hours or days, Google said.

Notably, the agent is given the flexibility to choose which model should drive different workflows, to improve quality and reduce cost; right now, those models include the Gemini family and Claude, but Google says it will soon expand capabilities to other leading private and open models.

This is important because the leading model changes every few months, Kurian noted, and “the best model for the task is not always the largest one.”

Choice a ‘unique value proposition’

Mahmoud Ramin, a research director at Info-Tech Research Group, noted that Google’s announcement does not create a whole new category, since OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Meta have already positioned multiagent capabilities in their platforms.

What is interesting with Gemini, though, is that not only can it operate directly in multiple Google products like Gmail, Drive, Sheets, and Slides, it also connects to external systems. It is, of course, a good fit for those already using the Google environment, he noted, and the strongest use cases are around repetitive tasks and information synthesis, such as that described in the research performed by project managers, analysts, and marketing specialists.

Levy agreed that Google’s unique value proposition revolves around choice. “It separates the agent from the underlying model, and allows enterprises to use whatever model makes sense for a given workload,” he said.

Its role-based agents are also “compellingly unique,” because they allow enterprises to create agents optimized for specific roles; meanwhile, more granular permission-setting addresses growing concerns about automated bots going off the rails.

While OpenAI and Microsoft have made similar claims, Google is “arguably leading the conversation around identity, audit trails, and who, or what, is ultimately responsible for workflows,” Levy said.

Google and others looking to be ‘gatekeepers’

As the AI industry pivots beyond mere chatbots toward its “inevitably agentic future,” the role of companies like Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and others in the role of gatekeepers comes into sharper focus, Levy noted. The defining layer has shifted from operating systems to browsers, apps, cloud platforms, and now large language models (LLMs).

In the agentic rush, key players are racing to establish their role in enterprise workflow infrastructure. “The agent layer could be the ultimate prize of the AI era, and it largely explains why every vendor announcement seems to essentially claim the same thing,” Levy said.

But Google has to convince IT decision makers that its agentic roadmap is better than the competition’s; this means shifting the AI conversation to autonomy, rather than just basic tasks.

Like virtually every other vendor’s agent, Google’s Gemini agent can write an email, tweak a spreadsheet, and build a presentation. “However,” Levy said, “whether CIOs and CISOs can trust it to run mission critical business processes indefinitely without doing something stupid enough to generate damaging headlines is another story altogether.”

“Will enterprises care? If they’re already heavily invested in Google’s workplace stack, this could be an easier sell in the C-suite,” he noted.

Raising important governance questions

Info-Tech’s Ramin noted that whatever platform enterprises choose, the front-and-center focus going forward should be who controls AI agents.

“As organizations unleash the power of agent autonomy, it raises the pivotal and non-negotiable requirement of enforcing governance,” he said, noting that with basic AI systems, risk is “much more contained” compared to that of an autonomous agent that has access to multiple business systems and can communicate with other agents.

In the latter case, enterprises should significantly enforce guardrails, including permissions, identity, human oversight, and system audits, he said. They should “clearly outline which decisions the agent is allowed to make, what data should be accessed, and how performance will be monitored.”

When ICANN revealed the 1,615 applications for new top-level domains (TLDs) on Wednesday, it provided a peek into efforts to control mindshare and organization perceptions via URL naming.

Existing TLDs include .com, .org, .net, .edu and .gov, as well as country-specific TLDs such as .uk and .ca, and an already long list of generic ones, but ICANN envisions even further expanding the number globally, potentially also expanding the headaches for IT teams who must manage routing, allowlists, and blocklists. 

Judging from the number of applicants, there’s considerable enthusiasm for ICANN’s notion.

Although it will be months before ICANN officials can whittle down the list of applications, sort out multiple requests for some TLDs, and ultimately decide who gets which one, Meta seems to be in the tech lead for attempts, with 21 requests, including .aiglasses, .facebook, .instagram, .llama, .messenger, .meta, .metaai, .metaglasses, .metaverse, .muse, .superintelligence, .threads, .vrs, .wearables and .whatsapp. It is also one of 13 organizations seeking to grab .agent.

OpenAI made 15 requests, for everything from the obvious, such as .chatgpt and .openai, to .asi, .codex, .deploy, .evals, .gpt, .mcp, .model, .oai and even .skill and .voice. It, too, is after .agent, and is one of seven trying to register .agi (signifying artificial general intelligence, AI’s Holy Grail).

Amazon submitted applications for eight TLDs, including .alexa, .echo, .eero, .kgs, .kuiper, .leo, .ring and .twitch. Despite its plethora of products, Microsoft only sought two: .msft and .copilot. OpenClaw also asked for two, specifically .claw and .oss, as did Anthropic, which only requested .anthropic and .claude.

Although it’s unclear who, if anyone, will ultimately get either .superintelligence or .si, the battle for those domains is already being fought. And to counter the AI focus, six organizations are looking to acquire the .human TLD.

“Reveal Day marks an important milestone for the next expansion of the Domain Name System,” said Kurtis Lindqvist, president and chief executive officer of ICANN, in its announcement. “These applications demonstrate how organizations around the world are innovating new ways to build trusted online identities, serve their communities, and connect with internet users. ICANN remains focused on administering a fair, transparent, and predictable evaluation process grounded in the policies developed by our global multistakeholder community.” 

Now that the initial list has been published, ICANN’s process gives applicants who also applied for a second choice two weeks to potentially switch. “Applicants may switch to the replacement string only during this period, and only if their replacement string is eligible. If the replacement string is identical to another applied-for primary string, or another replacement string, it cannot be used,” the site said. “Applicants should be aware that replacement strings could end up in contention in the later stages of the program.”

Once that period, known as the string replacement period, has wrapped, a final list will be published, marking the start of the 104 day Community Input and Objections Period during which members of the general public, the ICANN community, governments, and other parties can provide input, raise concerns, or formally object to new generic top-level domain (gTLD) applications before final decisions are made.

Microsoft is giving Copilot greater control over Windows PCs, allowing the AI assistant to organize and make changes to local files, and run certain tasks using on-device AI models.

The changes were announced at Microsoft’s Hybrid Intelligence event, where it outlined plans to combine local and cloud AI processing to help customers reduce AI costs and retain more control over data.

Three new Copilot capabilities will be available to Copilot+ PC users “in the coming months,” Microsoft said.

One is the ability for Copilot to access local files and recent user activity, providing additional context for the AI assistant’s outputs.

Copilot will also be able to perform actions on a device, such as moving files and changing settings.

“It has the same level of the ability to control and change things that I do as a user, but always with permission,” said Jacob Andreou, Microsoft EVP, Copilot, during the event.

The capability sounds similar to Copilot Actions, an “experimental” feature that Microsoft announced last year in preview for Windows Insiders at the time.

Finally, there will be an option to run Copilot on local AI models for certain tasks, only accessing cloud servers “when needed,” Microsoft said.

“Copilot will still use the cloud for the hardest tasks,” said Andreou, “but for times when cost or privacy matter more, it can delegate down to local models that run directly on your computer.”

Microsoft’s hybrid model reflects market demand, noted Biswajeet Mahapatra, principal analyst at Forrester. “The demand we see is not for AI that runs exclusively on-device, but for AI that can intelligently decide which workloads should run locally and which belong in the cloud,” Mahapatra said. “Enterprises increasingly want both options available.”

In a demo, Andreou also showed how the ability to access and interact with local files will increase the usefulness of Autopilot (formerly called Scout), the long-running Copilot agent that can be set to work continuously in the background. (Autopilot is currently in private preview.) Autopilot can also run on locally hosted models, he added, helping reduce costs and avoid sending private data to the cloud.

Microsoft also announced more powerful hardware — including the Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box — and more efficient AI models designed to run on devices.

“Most companies are still getting their heads around AI, token usage, which models to use, and where to run them,” said Tom Mainelli, group vice president, Device & Consumer Research, at IDC. “As these companies get more savvy and look to scale AI to more employees, the need to run AI locally — including Microsoft Copilot — will increase.” 

Current business laptops have some local AI capabilities and features, said Mainelli, but still largely rely on Copilot running in the cloud. This could change once more advanced hardware is broadly available, he said.

“As more systems ship with the right combination of CPU, GPU, NPU, and memory, and as local models continue to improve, I expect more AI jobs to run on the device,” said Mainelli.

For now, the installed base of enterprise PCs “remains highly mixed,” said Mahapatra.

“While Microsoft highlighted new AI-capable hardware, and noted that a growing share of business laptops are Copilot+ PCs, most enterprise fleets will take several years to refresh,” he said.

“The immediate opportunity is therefore concentrated among organizations already investing in AI PCs and high-performance devices. Many enterprises will continue to rely primarily on cloud-hosted AI while selectively adopting local AI capabilities as refresh cycles progress.”

Microsoft is also attempting to address security when running agents on-device. This includes the general availability launch of Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) on Windows 11, which allows organizations to set up policies that define which files and networks agents can access. MXC is supported by a range of agent tools, including OpenAI’s Codex and OpenClaw, with Anthropic Claude Code, Box, Manus, and others to follow.

Added security measures should give business customers more confidence when enabling Copilot to access local files, said Mainelli. “That’s what Microsoft is bringing to the table: a level of security and traceability in these processes that should give companies confidence in using them,” he said. “Microsoft took major steps in telling that story today, and we’ll see how companies respond.”

Enterprises should manage agents on Windows devices “in the same way they approach any automation platform: trust should be based on controls, not on the AI itself,” said Mahapatra.

“Microsoft’s announcement is significant because it acknowledges that agents require a different security model than traditional applications,” he said. “Technologies such as Microsoft Execution Containers are designed to limit what agents can access, identify which agent took an action, and enforce policy-based controls.”

At the same, he warned against granting broad autonomous access to local files without appropriate governance. “Role-based access, read-only assistance, document summarization, search, and workflow support are likely to be adopted more quickly than autonomous file modification or business process execution,” Mahapatra said.

“As agents move from providing recommendations to taking actions, organizations will need stronger approval controls, monitoring, auditing, and human oversight. This is especially important for agents interacting with sensitive data, regulated processes, or systems of record.”

There’s a big disconnect between the rate at which IT is deploying various kinds of AI-generated output and the speed with which it can roll those changes back when things go wrong, warns a new report from Fleet Device Management. It’s almost as if the rush to embrace AI has eclipsed the need to manage its deployment effectively.

The research, based on a survey of more than 250 enterprise IT practitioners managing Apple devices, is available in full via the company’s website and echoes similar concerns I’ve heard from others in the space. I spoke with Fleet founder and CEO Mike McNeil to get his take on the disconnect. 

What’s happening in the enterprise

First, some of the stats gathered in the survey:

• 86% of respondents allow AI-written output to reach production devices following some review.
• 61% used AI to author an MDM profile/configuration in the past month.
• 62% used it to write scripts/code.
• 69% can’t roll back a bad configuration within an hour; 43% need more than a day.
• About a quarter (26%) can recover the same day but only with manual intervention.

McNeil stressed the challenge exposed by this data. “When one of those changes is wrong, 69% can’t undo it within an hour, and 43% need more than 24 hours,” he said. “So the exposure is real even without a count of incidents. The AI tool isn’t what gets pulled back. The configuration it produced is, and most teams do that by hand.”

The risk of moving too fast

He told me that just 7.6% of Fleet’s customers are exclusively Mac shops, confirming that most Fleet clients manage multiple platforms. It’s not a platform-specific challenge; McNeil sees this as a problem for all of them.

“I’d frame risk by two things: how much privilege the code runs with and how hard recovery is,” he explained, noting the risk of scripts running at root, which can take full control of the machine to the extent that reversion can’t undo what’s done. 

“Windows and Linux have the most scripting-heavy management, so they have the most room for script-level mistakes,” he said — but even iOS is at risk from a bad restriction or network profile, particularly when attempting to recover remotely.

He pointed out: “36% of respondents manage Apple devices through Intune, a Windows-first platform. Tooling built around one platform’s assumptions tends to be weakest at the edges of another’s.”

Why MDM is a high-risk tool

For Apple in the enterprise, the risk is inherent to device management and IT’s power to use MDM to deploy a potentially poorly crafted AI tool at scale. 

“MDM is one of the few trusted paths that can bypass the [macOS platform security] prompts, which is exactly why a bad or malicious MDM-delivered change is so consequential,” he warned. 

He continued: “Windows has a larger and older attack ecosystem, with more legacy surface area. Linux gives administrators the most freedom and the fewest guardrails. On every platform, the management channel is the high-value target, so the same controls apply — review, least privilege, a change record, and a fast revert.”

The risk is that poorly crafted AI-generated MDM profiles can set off a chain of problems that can take days to resolve, particularly in large-scale device deployments. The problem is that unless there’s a clear audit record, it’s harder to remediate errors.

“AI speeds up authoring, but review capacity stays the same,” McNeil said. “Without a gate, errors and anything malicious in a script reach production faster.”

Speed needs to be managed

Ultimately, while AI can accelerate a multitude of IT tasks, the speed of deployment must also be matched by robust review and strong rollback tools. “Speed is only an advantage if recovery keeps pace,” he said.

Fleet’s core argument is that IT needs to change how it approaches what it does. “Mac administration is an engineering discipline now, and these admins are further along than the industry thinks,” he said. “The infrastructure around them hasn’t caught up.”

How should IT approach this? McNeil suggests a succession of protections his own MDM system already supports through GitOps with YAML files, adding, “the pattern works with any tool that has an API.” 

• Treat device configuration like application code. 
• Profiles, scripts, and policies should live as files in a Git repository. 
• A change arrives as a pull request, a second person reviews it, and automation applies it to devices. 
• To undo it, you revert the commit. 

“One caveat: a revert fixes what the configuration says. It doesn’t undo a script that has already run. That’s an argument for preferring declarative configuration over imperative scripts where you can,” he advised.

Less clicking, more engineering

None of these cautions are arguments against use of AI in enterprise IT, of course. They are arguments to promote a more conscious management system around the use of it. All the same, as AI proliferates, the Fleet CEO does think IT pros must anticipate a change in their roles. “Less clicking, more engineering,” he said.

“As AI takes on more of the mechanics like creating configuration profiles, drafting scripts, and troubleshooting routine issues, admins can spend less time figuring out how to make a change and more time deciding what should change, how it affects the business and where human judgment is required,” he said.

Finally, I pointed to the ongoing dilemma between Apple and IT. Some people complain Apple doesn’t innovate in the enterprise fast enough, others say it innovates too fast. What does Fleet think?

“Keeping up with Apple’s release pace was the single most cited hardest part of the job, at 31%,” he told me. “Budget and headcount came last, at 5%. Admins aren’t complaining that Apple ships too little. They’re stretched by the yearly OS cycle, new frameworks, and deprecations.”

“My own view is that the direction is right,” he said. “Declarative Device Management and tighter platform security are good for enterprises. The pace is the issue, and it’s the main reason admins need automation and a safety net.”

Now please subscribe to my daily, human-curated Apple-related news headline feed at The Core, or follow me on BlueSky, LinkedIn, or Mastodon.

No matter what type of Android phone you carry or how you usually use it, one thing is a near-universal constant:

You’re gonna spend a ton of time messing with messages.

The messages may be from clients, colleagues, or your cousin Crissy from Cleveland (damn it, Crissy!). But regardless of who sends ’em or what they’re about, they’re all poppin’ up on your phone and cluttering your weary brainspace.

My fellow Android adventurer, I’m here to tell you there’s a better way.

Google’s Android Messages app has gotten surprisingly good over the years. That’s no big secret. If you only rely on what you see on the surface, though, you’re missing out on some of Messages’ most powerful and underappreciated efficiency-enhancing options.

Today, we’ll unearth some of Messages’ most effective step-savers. They may not be able to cut down on the number of messages you send and receive on your phone (DAMN IT, CRISSY!), but they will help you spend less time fussing with ’em. And they might just help you have a more pleasant experience, too.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

(Before you splash forward, take note: The tips on this page are all specific to the Google Messages app for Android. If you’re using a phone where that exact app wasn’t preinstalled or set as the default, you can download it from the Play Store and give it a whirl. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.)

[P.S. Want even more advanced Android knowledge? Check out my free Android Shortcut Supercourse to learn tons of time-saving tricks — for messaging and beyond!]

Android Messages trick #1: Smarter shortcuts

If I had to pick the simplest Android Messages trick for enhancing your efficiency, it’d be embracing the built-in shortcuts Google gives us for faster message actions.

And goodness gracious, have we got a gaggle of ’em to learn and remember — so many, in fact, that I just recently put together an entire guide dedicated to that one specific subject.

A few standouts worth calling out here, though:

• You can swipe to the right on any individual message within a thread to reply directly to it — which essentially quotes and repeats the original message above whatever you write for context.
• You can swipe to the left on any message to see the timestamp showing exactly when it was sent.
• And you can tap on any message you’ve sent within a conversation (where everyone is using the current RCS messaging standard) to see if the text has been read.

From the main Messages screen, meanwhile, you can swipe left or right on any message to perform an instant action — archiving the conversation, deleting it, or toggling it between read and unread status.

All you’ve gotta do is mosey your way back into the Messages app’s settings areas and tap on the “Swipe actions” item to set things up the way you want…

> Step-saving swipes within Messages — now available for your customization.

…and then, just remember to actually use those gestures moving forward. (That part’s on you.)

Android Messages trick #2: Instant access

Outside of the actual Google Messages app, you can create your own custom shortcuts for accessing especially important threads directly from your home screen — without ever having to open up the app directly or wade through it to find what you need.

For any conversations you find yourself looking at often, it’s an incredibly handy way to save steps and get to where you’re going more quickly. And it’s incredibly easy to do, too, once you know the trick:

• From your Android device’s home screen or app drawer, press and hold your finger onto the Messages icon.
• That should pull up a pop-up showing your three most recent active conversations.
• You can then tap any of ’em to open it directly or press and hold any of the conversations to drag it directly onto your home screen for easy ongoing access.

Alternatively, you can also use the built-in widgets within the Google Contacts app to achieve something similar for any conversation with any contact on your phone.

Android Messages trick #3: Contact prioritizing

While we’re thinking about making certain conversations stand out, ever wish you could keep your most important messaging threads at the top of the list for easy ongoing access?

Poof: Wish granted. No matter what kind of Android phone you’re holding or how needlessly meddled with its software may be, just hold your finger onto the conversation in question on the main Messages app screen, then tap the pushpin-shaped icon in the app’s upper bar.

You can now pin up to 20 conversations that way, and they’ll always appear above all other threads in that main inbox view.

Android Messages trick #4: Calendar connection

The next time you’re working to plan a meeting or event with a fellow Homo sapien in Messages, make yourself a mental note of this:

Anytime someone sends you a message that includes a specific date and time, the Messages app will underline that text. See it?

That underlined time is a covert link from an incoming message to your Android calendar agenda.

JR Raphael, IDG

You’d be forgiven for failing to realize, but you can actually tap that underlined text to reveal a shortcut for opening that very same day and time in your Android calendar app of choice. It’s a great way to get a quick ‘n’ easy glimpse at your availability for the time you’re discussing.

And if you then want to create a calendar event, just look for the “Create event” command that should appear right below that very same message. That’ll fire up a new calendar event for you on the spot, with the appropriate day and time already filled in.

That button to the left of the text suggestions is a spectacular time-saver for on-the-fly event creation.

JR Raphael, IDG

Don’tcha just love simple step-savers?

Android Messages trick #5: Seamless scheduling

If you’re ready to hammer out a response to a message right now but don’t want your reply to be sent for a while, follow the advice shared by a reader in my Android Intelligence newsletter recently and simply schedule your message for some specific future time.

The Android Messages app’s scheduling system is spectacularly useful. You can rely on it for setting reminders to be sent to clients, business-related messages to be pushed out the next morning, or context-free middle-finger emojis to be delivered to your cousin in Cleveland at ungodly hours in the middle of the night.

To tap into this productivity-boosting power, just type out your message normally — but then, instead of tapping the triangle-shaped send icon at the right of the composing window, press and hold your finger onto that same button when you’re done.

No reasonably sane person would possibly realize it, but that’ll pull up a hidden menu for selecting precisely when your message should be sent.

Send any message, anytime — no matter when you actually write it.

JR Raphael, IDG

And the person on the other end will have no way of even knowing you wrote the thing in advance.

Android Messages trick #6: Swift saving

When you run into a message you know you’ll want to reference again, save yourself the trouble of trying to dig it back up later and instead star it on the spot to make it fast as can be to find in the future.

Once again, it couldn’t be much easier — once you know where to look: Whilst viewing an individual message thread, just press and hold your finger onto the specific message you want to save, then tap the star-shaped icon that appears in the pop-up menu alongside it.

Then, when you want to find the message again, tap the search icon at the top of the main Messages screen and select “Starred” from the menu that comes up. That’ll show you every message you’ve starred for exceptionally effortless resurfacing.

Android Messages trick #7: Smart searching

Speaking of that Messages search system: Starring is sublime, but sometimes, you need to dig up an old message that you didn’t go out of your way to save.

The Android Messages app makes that even easier than you might realize. Tap that same search icon at the top of the app’s main screen — and in addition to searching your entire history message for any specific string of text, take note:

• You can start typing out the name of anyone in your contacts, then select them from the suggestion that appears — and then type in some text to look for something specific only within messages from that one person.
• You can use the options within the main Messages search screen to look specifically at images, videos, locations, or links people have sent you.
• And you can combine any of those variables for even more granular finding — looking for links you sent to a particular client, for instance, or locations an out-of-town colleague sent to you.

The Android Messages app’s search system is chock-full of helpful info.

JR Raphael, IDG

How ’bout them apples?!

Android Messages trick #8: Instant marking

I don’t know about you, but I find it impossibly irksome to see messages sitting with bold emphasis in my Android Messages inbox. That, to me, is a marking that means I need to read (and possibly also respond) to the message in question. And I can’t possibly rest for the day until I know that everything in my Messages inbox is open, addressed, and dealt with (or at least opened and with a reminder set to deal with it at some specific future time).

Sometimes, though, it’s all too easy to fall behind and get a backlog of bolded messages — and in such scenarios, one could really use a quick ‘n’ easy one-switch reset button to bring everything back to read status and give yourself a fresh start.

Well, surprise: Messages has such an option! Tap your profile picture in the app’s upper-right corner and look for “Mark all as read” in the menu that comes up to find it — then let yourself rest easy as all that attention-demanding boldness melts away once and for all.

Android Messages trick #9: Quicker cleanup

Certain services love to send confirmation codes via text messaging when you sign in or try to perform some action. It may not be the most advisable or effective form of extra security, but — well, it’s better than nothing. And for better or for worse, it’s a pretty common tactic.

Core security considerations aside, the most maddening part of these confirmation codes is having ’em clutter up your messages list at every Goog-forsaken moment. But the Google-made Android Messages app can actually take care of that for you, without any ongoing effort — if you take about 20 seconds to make the right tweak now.

Here’s the secret:

• Tappity-tap that comely character in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen (y’know, the one whose appearance has a striking resemblance to your oversized head).
• Tap “Messages settings” in the menu that comes up, then select “Messages organization.”
• Within that curiously created section, you’ll see only one option: “Auto-delete OTP messages after 24 hours.” OTP may not exactly be an everyday, universally known abbreviation, but fear not — for it isn’t an erroneous reference to an early 90s rap hit with equally ambiguous meaning. Nope: It stands for one-time password, which is the same thing we’re thinking about here.
• Flip that toggle into the on and active position, then flip a finger of your choice to all the confirmation codes in your messages list with the knowledge that they’ll be auto-purged a day after their arrival from that point forward.

Who’s down with OTP? Every last homie. (I apologize.)

Android Messages trick #10: A voice message time-saver

In an amusingly full-circle progression, people for some reason seem to love sending voice messages within texting conversations these days. If you’re anything like me, though, you might not so much adore listening to said messages instead of simply reading what the other person wants to tell you.

Google Messages has a solution: Head back into the app’s settings — by tapping your profile photo in the upper-right corner of the main screen and then selecting “Messages settings” — and then look for the line labeled “Voice message transcription.”

Tap it, and make sure the toggle next to “Show transcripts of voice messages” is in the on and active position.

The next time someone sends you a voice message, you’ll see a plain text transcription of their words right alongside the audio player.

Yes, please — and thank you.

Android Messages trick #11: Readable reactions

Speaking of brevity, Slack-style reactions may seem silly on the surface, but they serve an important communication purpose in allowing you to quickly acknowledge a message without having to carry the conversation on further. Whether it’s a thumbs-up, a clapping hands symbol, or even perhaps an occasional burrito emoji, it really can be a handy way to say “Yup, got it” (or “Yup, want beefy goodness”) without having to use a single word.

You probably know you can summon a reaction within the Android Messages app by pressing and holding a specific message within a conversation and then selecting from the list of available emoji options — right? But beyond that, Messages packs an even faster way to issue a reaction in the blink of an eye.

And here it is: Simply double-tap your finger onto any individual message within a conversation. That’ll apply the thumbs-up reaction to it without the need for any long-press or symbol selection.

It’d be nice if there were a way to customize which reaction is used for that action by default — so that, obviously, we could all change it to the burrito emoji, since that’s what any sane person uses most often — but if and when an upward thumb will do the job, now you’ve got a super-easy way to bring it into any conversation with a fast finger tap.

Android Messages trick #12: iRritation elimination

Last but not least in our list of magnificent Messages enhancements is something specific for your conversations with the Apple-adoring animals in your life. And it relates to those very same sorts of reactions we were just going over.

One obnoxious side effect of Apple’s “no one exists outside of iOS” mentality, y’see, is the way the iPhone’s equivalent of those reactions show up on Android. Plain and simple, they show up as — well, plain and simple text messages, instead of coming through as reactions.

Surely you’ve encountered this, right? Those pointless messages you get from iGoobers that say stuff like “Loved ‘Please stop texting me, Crissy'”? It’s a perfect illustration of how to waste time in your Android messaging adventures and encounter ample annoyance.

Well, scribble this on your metaphorical mental iPad: Google’s Android Messages app is actually able to intercept those absurd platform-specific reactions and turn ’em into standard reactions instead of plain-text interruptions. And it’ll take you all of 12 seconds to enable the option:

• Head back into the Messages app’s settings.
• Tap “Advanced.”
• Look for the line labeled “Show iPhone reactions as emoji” and make sure the toggle next to it is in the on position.

All that’s left is to breathe one final heavy sigh of relief — and to send Crissy a well-deserved burrito reaction.

????  Don’t let the learning stop here: Continue on to my collection of 16 advanced Android messaging features you’ve probably never noticed — and join my free Android Intelligence newsletter to get helpful tips like these in your inbox every Friday.

Cisco is adding AI agents to Webex group chats so colleagues can assign them work and share the results, part of a wider revamp of the Webex app.

Announced at the WebexOne conference Wednesday, users will soon be able to @mention agents in Webex “spaces” to help schedule meetings, take notes, and track tasks.

“You work with AI, but your teammates may never see that work — they can’t build on it, contribute to it, or reuse it,” said Amit Barave, Cisco vice president and general manager for Webex Suite and AI, in a blog post. “With Webex, agents become part of the team, participating where the work is happening.”

“This makes AI a shared capability for the team,” said Snorre Kjesbu, Cisco vice president and general manager for collaboration, in a separate blog post. “It can help people prepare together, carry decisions forward, and coordinate the next steps without losing the context of the conversation.”

As well as Webex spaces, the collaborative agents will be accessible during video and voice calls via the AI Assistant side panel, though these will only be visible to individual users, rather than teams, a Cisco spokesperson said.

Cisco’s announcement reflects the growing push from collaboration software vendors to bring AI agents directly into their applications, said Irwin Lazar, principal analyst at Metrigy. By positioning agents where employees are already collaborating, they are able to perform tasks such as managing meeting agendas, facilitating, and providing contextual information into meetings.

“We’ve seen similar efforts by Slack, with Claude Tag, and with Zoom via ZoomMate,” said Lazar. “Like the others, the strength of the agent is dependent on its access to information, so the key is enabling connectivity to external data sources such as CRM, ERP, project management, etc.”

The changes are part of a wider Webex app refresh app that includes a new personalized landing page to highlight work priorities and upcoming meetings, as well as suggest follow-up actions, such as responding to messages or reviewing meeting recaps.

“The new assistant literally knows what you are doing and your upcoming schedule and knows more than other major providers,” said Jim Lundy, CEO of Aragon Research. “In fact, I’d say that their assistant could be sold unbundled.”

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Cisco

In addition, Cisco is extending the range of third-party agents accessible from Webex, too. Anthropic’s Claude Managed Agents — cloud-hosted agents that process multi-step tasks in the background — can be added to group conversations as a team member to complete tasks, as well as OpenAI’s recently announced “dot” agents.

Cisco also unveiled more of its own native Webex agents. Personal Agents for Webex Calling can screen calls to help users avoid missing an important call when they’re unavailable to speak. The agents can “converse with callers to understand their needs and determine urgency, prioritize what matters most, and take action on your behalf,” Barava said. Personal Agents for Webex Calling will be available in the first quarter of 2027, alongside the new Webex app, collaborative agents, third-party agents.

A previously announced Translator agent is now in “controlled availability” ahead of a general release in November. This provides real-time translation in the Webex app, as well as Cisco 9800 Series Desk Phones, with support for ten languages: English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish.

An AI Coach agent for Vidcast — Cisco’s tool for short form, asynchronous video messaging in Webex — is aimed at helping users improve communication performance. “The AI Coach watches and listens while a presenter delivers, reacts to pacing, tone, and word choice as they happen, and asks the questions a live audience would,” said Barave. The AI Coach agent is available now.

Metrigy’s Lazar said he has witnessed an uptick in business demand for agentic tools in collaboration applications generally. “They offer the potential to bring context into meetings, saving time and increasing focus. Cisco’s aim is to ensure that the Webex App can remain the place where people work, rather than other apps or AI interfaces like Claude Cowork,” he said. “I would say the only weakness in the Cisco portfolio now is ability to capture data from non-Webex meetings. They lack the capability that Zoom now has to capture audio from third-party or external meetings.”

A Cisco spokesperson said that some Webex AI capabilities are available at no extra cost in Webex Suite, which costs $25 per user each month, and Enterprise tiers. More advanced features — such as Polling and Translator agents, the Personal Agents for Calling, and collaborative agent functionality — will require a new “Enhanced AI Offer for AI” add-on. This will be available in the coming weeks, Cisco said, though pricing for the add-on was not provided.

Cisco didn’t specify if any of the AI features will require any additional, usage-based costs on top of fixed subscription fees. The company recently stated that the Translator agent provides 50 minutes of translation per user each month, with additional usage requiring an “add-on.”

The lack of artificial intelligence features in LibreOffice should be considered a feature in and of itself, according to the free office suite’s creators. The Document Foundation, the organization behind the free office suite. The Document Foundation, the organization behind the free office suite project, writes in a blog post that, for the time being, the software will not include any AI in the standard installation.

The decision is not motivated by any principled opposition to AI, the post states, but rather by the fact that the technology doesn’t currently meet the project’s requirements for privacy, user control, and open standards.

For example, users must be able to decide for themselves where the AI model runs. The Document Foundation also requires that any future AI solution not collect telemetry or lock users into a single vendor. AI-generated content must also use the open document format ODF, and AI features must be entirely optional.

However, if an AI solution emerges in the future that can meet all these requirements, The Document Foundation will consider it.

This article originally appeared on Computer Sweden.

More on LibreOffice:

• Austrian Armed Forces switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice
• LibreOffice downloads on the rise as users look to avoid subscription costs