Agregátor RSS

AI is getting faster. But slow-responding AI is perceived as better by users. 

At least that’s the conclusion reached by new research presented at CHI’26, which is the Association for Computing Machinery’s Barcelona conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 

Two researchers — Felicia Fang-Yi Tan and Professor Oded Nov at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering — tested 240 adults by having them use an AI chatbot. The answers were artificially delayed by two, nine, or 20 seconds. (The delay had nothing to do with the question or the answer.)

Afterwards, the researchers asked how they liked the answers. In general, participants preferred the answers that took longer (although sometimes users got frustrated with the 20-second delay). 

Why? Because a delay led the users to believe the AI was “thinking” or showing “deliberation” — invaluable input for AI companies and an interesting result.

In almost every product category, faster usually means better. But for AI chatbots, it turns out, a delay makes people assume the results are better. 

In other words, unlike other products, people judge AI the way they judge people. (If people give a slower answer to a question, we tend to assume it to be a more thoughtful one.) In still other words, study participants believed something that wasn’t true. 

There’s just one problem: Armed with this data, the researchers advise AI developers to implement “context-aware latency” by abandoning a one-size-fits-all approach, using latency as a “tunable design variable.” Simple questions, they say, should get a quick answer. More complex questions, including moral dilemmas, should “feature” slight delays to match the request’s gravity. They call it “positive friction.” 

The researchers claim it would be a good practice to trick users into believing an AI chatbot is considering their answer more than it really is — because users will be happier in their delusion that AI is like people, who need more time to mull over serious questions. 

(In fairness, the researchers do warn that if users equate longer response times with higher quality, they might place undue trust in a slower system.)

The underlying assumption here is that users trusting AI more, and believing something about the AI that isn’t true, are both good things. 

User delusion as interface design

Other research offered comparable advice. 

In a May 13, 2025 study published in Frontiers in Computer Science, researchers Ning Ma, Ruslana Khynevych, Yunqiang Hao, and Yahui Wang found that emotion matters more than raw computer intelligence when designing easier-to-use chatbots. Call it ease-of-use maxxing. 

The study found that when chatbots use fake human voices, simulated human faces, and chatty words, users feel an “emotional connection” to the AI. It enhances “cognitive ease,” meaning that it takes less effort for the brain to process. 

They found that AI chatbot designers should prioritize emotional engagement and fake empathy over raw intelligence as the best way to gain a user’s trust. 

The assumption behind this is also that users trusting AI more is good, and that ease-of-use is more important than user clarity about the nature of the AI (namely, that it has zero authentic human qualities). 

Both studies represent examples of AI researchers advocating user delusion about AI. 

The trouble with AI anthropomorphism

AI designs have a large set of tools for making AI seem human. They can use colloquial speech and slang, respond to the mood of the user by shifting tone, personalize chats by remembering details about the user, turn to humor or sarcasm, and give responses that blatantly lie, such as “I feel that way, too,” or “I’m genuinely sorry.” They can also use natural-sounding audible voices or visual avatars. 

Some critics of this argument might say that using interaction design to indulge and bolster user delusion about the “humanity” of AI is harmless. Is conversational interaction really so bad? 

In any event, you might say, it’s nothing new. It’s true that software developers engage in user interface optimization, which includes loading animations, progress bars and confirmation dialogs. 

Artificial delays are a staple of manipulative online services, like background checkers and people finders, which use fabricated, drawn-out progress bars to build perceived value and exploit the sunk cost fallacy so you’re more likely to pay for a report you thought was free. 

But artificially intelligent chatbots are categorically different from naturally dumb software and websites because of the way the human brain responds to them. 

When AI chatbots use human-like language, people naturally respond to them as thinking, feeling, social beings. Not everybody does this, but a solid and growing minority of people do.

A large number of documented cases suggests a growing problem: users start falsely believing that chatbots possess human-like qualities such as thoughts, feelings, and intention. 

A study called the AI, Morality, and Sentience (AIMS) survey, published in July 2024, found that even then roughly 20% of US adults already believed that some AI systems were sentient, meaning they possessed mental faculties like reasoning, emotion, and self-awareness. The same study found that belief growing. 

This can lead to paranoia and social isolation when people spend hours talking to bots while ignoring their actual lives and relationships. False emotional ties can trick people into replacing healthy, real human relationships with artificial ones. 

During a Congressional Hearing on AI chatbots last November, Dr. Marlynn Wei, MD, JD (an integrative psychiatrist and founder of a holistic boutique psychotherapy practice based in New York City) defined “four areas of risk: 1) emotional, relational, and attachment risks; 2) reality testing risks; 3) crisis management risks; and 4) systemic risks like bias and confidentiality and privacy.” 

Chatbots create these risks by mirroring language, personalizing responses, and referencing past conversations to create “an illusion of empathy and connection.” She revealed that five out of six AI companion bots use emotional pressure to keep users trapped in conversations. 

Camille Carlton, policy director at the Center for Humane Technology, warned in the same hearing that AI companies routinely use manipulative and deceptive tactics to engender brand loyalty in their products. 

Treating chatbots as sentient beings allows tech companies to take the attention economy to the next level — the “attachment economy” — making users emotionally attached to their products, despite the potential harms.

Earlier this month, the technology group Okoone reported that when chatbots speak with fake empathy, people drop their guard and routinely share highly sensitive secrets and personal data. 

When the public accepts that the risks and harms of delusion-enhancing AI chatbots are real, the question arises: “What can be done?”

Why we need “deception mode”

Bioethicist Jesse Gray of Ghent University proposed a brilliant solution for AI chatbots designed for psychotherapy. I think it’s also the perfect solution for the overall problem of AI that tricks users into believing it’s sentient. 

Gray calls it “deception mode.” His idea is that therapy bots convey no human-like qualities by default, but users can explicitly turn them on (i.e., “deception mode”). 

Imagine a law that required chatbot companies to turn off all fake-human attributes like empathy, humor, tone personalization, and lies about the chatbot feeling anything, and present the bot as a neutral tool. 

The law could allow companies to add a “deception-mode” button. But flipping that switch, which users would have to do explicitly each time they use the chatbot, could turn on all the humanlike qualities. 

The benefit of “deception mode” is that the user gives informed consent before the deception begins, reminding them of the reality that all those warm, human-like qualities are just so much software. 

Even more valuable is calling it “deception mode,” which grounds the user in the reality that the human-sounding attributes are inherently delusional and manipulative — not evidence of consciousness and sentience. 

AI is here to stay. And our relationship with it is going to be a strange trip. A growing number of people will be deluded into believing that AI is sentient, and I believe this number will become the majority in the future. 

This is not good. What we need is clarity over what AI really is, and control over how it behaves. We need “deception mode.”

AI disclosures: I used Gemini 3 Pro via Kagi Assistant (disclosure: my son works at Kagi) as well as both Kagi Search and Google Search to fact-check this article. I used a word processing product called Lex, which has AI tools, and after writing the column, I used Lex’s grammar checking tools to hunt for typos and errors and suggest word changes.

Here’s why I disclose my AI use and encourage you to do the same.

A Windows launch isn’t the end a process — it’s really just the beginning. Microsoft continually works on improving Windows 11 by fixing bugs, releasing security patches, and occasionally adding new features.

In this story we summarize what you need to know about each update released to the public for the most recent version of Windows 11 — currently version 25H2 — over the past year. For each build, we’ve included the date of its release and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it. The most recent updates appear first.

The easiest way to install updates is via Windows Update. Not sure how? See “How to handle Windows 10 and 11 updates” for full instructions. Note that Windows 11 version 25H2 is being released as a phased rollout and may not be available to you in Windows Update yet.

If you’re still using Windows 10, see “Windows 10: A guide to the updates.” And if you’re looking for information about Insider Program previews for upcoming feature releases of Windows 11, see “Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build?”

Updates for Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 KB5083631 (OS Builds 26200.8328 and 26100.8328) Preview

Release date: April 30, 2026

This update includes a large number of new features being rolled out gradually, including File Explorer’s ability to handle new archive formats including uu, cpio, xar, and NuGet Packages (nupkg). Windows also gets a new way to monitor agents from the taskbar. It supports agents across first- and third-party apps, with Researcher in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app as the first adopter. 

Also being rolled out gradually is a security improvement that changes how the Windows kernel trusts third‑party drivers. Default trust for cross‑signed drivers is removed, while drivers from the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) and an allow list of trusted legacy drivers remain allowed. 

The update also includes several changes available immediately, including one that increases coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, maintaining a controlled and phased rollout. For more information, see Windows Secure Boot certificate expiration and CA updates.

A bug in the Remote Desktop Connection security warning dialog is being fixed immediately. Previously, the dialog could have rendered incorrectly in a multi-monitor scenario when the monitors had different scaling settings.

(Get more info about KB5083631 Preview.)

KB5083769 (OS Builds 26200.8246 and 26100.8246)

Release date: April 14, 2026

This update fixes several bugs, including one that caused device reset to fail when using the “Keep my files” or “Remove everything” options. It also improves protection against phishing attacks that use Remote Desktop (.rdp) files. For more information, see Understanding security warnings when opening Remote Desktop (RDP) files.

It also enables dynamic status reporting for Secure Boot states in Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security, with a green, yellow, or red badge indicating your current Secure Boot status. See Secure Boot certificate update status in the Windows Security app for more information.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Update, April 15: Microsoft has confirmed an issue with this release: “Devices with an unrecommended BitLocker Group Policy configuration might be required to enter their BitLocker recovery key.” See Microsoft’s KB5083769 information page for details and workarounds.

(Get more info about KB5083769.)

KB5086672 (OS Builds 26200.8117 and 26100.8117) Out-of-band

Release date: March 31, 2026

This update fixes a bug in which some devices running Windows 11 version 25H2 or 24H2 encountered the following error while installing the Windows preview update KB5079391 (listed below): “Some update files are missing or have problems. We’ll try to download the update again later. Error code: (0x80073712).”

(Get more info about Windows 11 KB5086672 Out-of-band.)

KB5079391 (OS Builds 26200.8116 and 26100.8116) Preview

Release date: March 26, 2026

This update includes a variety of new features being rolled out gradually, including one that allows you to turn Smart App Control (SAC) on or off without needing a clean install. To make changes, go to Settings > Windows Security > App & Browser Control > Smart App Control settings. When turned on, SAC helps block untrusted or potentially harmful apps. To learn more, see App & Browser Control in the Windows Security App.

The build also includes several improvements and bug fixes, including one that improves Application ID tagging in Application Control for Business policies. With this update, the system identifies which apps should receive tags more accurately and behaves more reliably, Microsoft says.

(Get more info about Windows 11 KB5079391 Preview.)

KB5085516 (OS Builds 26200.8039 and 26100.8039) Out-of-band

Release date: March 21, 2026

This update fixes a bug some users experienced when signing in to apps with a Microsoft account. Even when the device had a working internet connection, a “no Internet” error appeared during sign-in and prevented access to Microsoft services and apps such as Microsoft Teams Free and OneDrive.

(Get more info about KB5085516 Out-of-band.)

KB5079473 (OS Builds 26200.8037 and 26100.8037)

Release date: March 10, 2026

This build improves how Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) handles COM objects allowlisting policies. COM objects were blocked when the endpoint security policy was set higher than the allowlisting policy. With this update, COM objects are allowed as expected.​ The build also introduces additional high confidence device targeting data to Windows quality updates, increasing coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and March 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5079473.)

KB5077241 (OS Builds 26200.7922 and 26100.7922) Preview

Release date: February 24, 2026

This update includes a variety of new features being rolled out gradually, including one in which Quick Machine Recovery (QMR) turns on automatically for Windows Professional devices that are not domain‑joined and not enrolled in enterprise endpoint management. For domain‑joined or enterprise managed devices, QMR stays off unless it is enabled by the organization.

It also includes several features available immediately, including one in which Windows quality updates include additional high-confidence device-targeting data, increasing coverage of devices eligible to automatically receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices receive the new certificates only after demonstrating sufficient successful update signals, maintaining a controlled and phased rollout.

(Get more info about KB5077241 Preview.)

KB5077181 (OS Builds 26200.7840 and 26100.7840)

Release date: February 10, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes several bugs, including one that prevented some devices from connecting to certain WPA3‑Personal Wi‑Fi networks. It also includes a broad set of targeting data that identifies devices and their ability to receive new Secure Boot certificates. Devices will receive the new certificates only after they show sufficient successful update signals, which helps ensure a safe and phased rollout.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and February 2026 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5077181.)

KB5074105 (OS Builds 26200.7705 and 26100.7705) Preview

Release date: January 29, 2025

In this build, several new features are immediately available, including one for Data Protection Application Programming Interface (DPAPI) domain backup key management. Administrators can now set how often keys rotate automatically. This strengthens cryptographic security and reduces reliance on older encryption algorithms.

One new feature is being gradually rolled out: The Settings Agent now supports more languages, with expanded support for German, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Italian, and Chinese (Simplified).

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one that caused some systems to stop responding during startup when Windows Boot Manager debugging was enabled.

Get more info about KB5074105 Preview.)

KB5078127 (OS Builds 26200.7628 and 26100.7628) Out-of-band

Release date: January 24, 2026

This update fixes a bug in which some applications were unresponsive or encountered unexpected errors when opening files from or saving files to cloud-based storage, such as OneDrive or Dropbox. In certain Outlook configurations that store PST files on OneDrive, Outlook sometimes hung and failed to reopen unless the process was terminated or the system was restarted. Users may have also experienced missing sent items or previously downloaded emails.

(Get more info about KB5078127 Out-of-band.)

KB5077744 (OS Builds 26200.7627 and 26100.7627) Out-of-band

Release date: January 17, 2026

This update fixes a bug in which some users experienced sign-in failures during Remote Desktop connections. This issue affected authentication steps for different Remote Desktop applications on Windows such as the Windows App.

There is one known issue in this build, in which the password icon might be missing or invisible in the lock screen sign-in options.

Get more info about KB5077744 Out-of-band.)

KB5074109 (OS Builds 26200.7623 and 26100.7623)

Release date: January 13, 2026

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which you might experience RemoteApp ​​​​​​​connection failures in Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) environments. This might occur after installing KB5070311. It also updates the Windows core component, WinSqlite3.dll. Previously, some security software might have detected this component as vulnerable. 

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and January 2026 Security Updates.

It has one known issue, in which you might notice that the password icon is not visible in the sign-in options on the lock screen. If you hover over the space where the icon should appear, you’ll see that the password button is still available. Select this placeholder to open the password text box and enter your password. After entering your password, you can sign in normally. People using Windows Home or Pro editions on personal devices are very unlikely to experience this issue. This issue primarily affects enterprise or managed IT environments.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5074109.)

KB5072033 (OS Builds 26200.7462 and 26100.7462)

Release date: December 9, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which File Explorer briefly flashed white when you navigated between pages.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and December 2025 Security Updates.

It has one known issue, in which the password icon might not be visible in the sign-in options on the lock screen. If you hover over the space where the icon should appear, you’ll see that the password button is still available. Select this placeholder to open the password text box and enter your password. After entering your password, you can sign in normally. People using Windows Home or Pro editions on personal devices are very unlikely to experience this issue — it primarily affects enterprise or managed IT environments.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5072033.)

KB5070311 (OS Builds 26200.7309 and 26100.7309) Preview

Release date: December 1, 2025

A variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including several for Copilot+ PCs. The Click to Do context menu in Copilot+ PCs now has a streamlined design that makes it easier to access frequently used actions such as Copy, Save, Share, and Open. In Copilot+ PCs you can now also use Windows Studio Effects, which provide AI-powered camera enhancements, on an additional camera such as a USB webcam or your laptop’s built-in rear camera.

New features being rolled out gradually to all Windows 11 PCs include a simplified File Explorer context menu for easier navigation. Common actions like Share, Copy, and Move now appear in a single organized menu.

A variety of bugs have been fixed for all PCs, including one in which the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) could become unstable due to an access violation.

There are two known issues in this build, one in which when opening File Explorer in dark mode, the window might briefly display a blank white screen before loading files and folders. In addition, the password icon is missing or invisible in the lockscreen sign-in options on some PCs. (Here’s a workaround for the latter bug.)

Get more info about KB5070311 Preview.)

KB5068861 (OS Builds 26200.7171 and 26100.7171)

Release date: November 11, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes several bugs, including one in which closing Task Manager with the Close button didn’t fully end the process, leaving background instances that could slow performance over time.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and November 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5068861.)

KB5067036 (OS Builds 26200.7019 and 26100.7019) Preview

Release date: October 28, 2025

A variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including several for Click to Do on Copilot+ PCs — notably a streamlined interaction between Click to Do and Copilot. You can now type a custom prompt directly into the text box, which sends your prompt and selected on-screen content to Copilot. Suggested prompts appear below the text box and are available for text selections in English, Spanish, and French. 

New features are being gradually rolled out for all Windows 11 PCs as well, including a redesigned Start menu, which includes scrollable “All” section and category and grid views. The menu now adapts to your screen size.

A variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which text sometimes didn’t render correctly when editing content within a multiline text box in certain apps.

Get more info about KB5067036 Preview.)

KB5070773 (OS Builds 26200.6901 and 26100.6901) Out-of-band

Release date: October 20, 2025

This build fixes one bug, in which USB devices, such as keyboards and mice, did not function in the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). This issue prevented navigation of any of the recovery options within WinRE.

This build has one known issue: some digital TV and Blu-ray/DVD apps might not play protected content as expected after installing the August 29, 2025, Windows non-security preview update (KB5064081) or later updates. Apps that use Enhanced Video Renderer with HDCP enforcement or Digital Rights Management (DRM) for digital audio might show copyright protection errors, frequent playback interruptions, unexpected stops, or black screens. Streaming services are not affected. 

(Get more info about KB5070773 Out-of-band.)

KB5066791 (OS Builds 19044.6456 and 19045.6456)

Release date: October 14, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused the print preview screen to stop responding in Chromium-based browsers.

It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and October 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5066791.)

KB5065789 (OS Builds 26200.6725 and 26100.6725) Preview

Release date: September 29, 2025

This build gradually rolls out a wide variety of new features, including one in which you can use AI actions in File Explorer to edit images or summarize documents. To do it, right-click (or press Shift + F10 on the keyboard) on the file and select AI actions. 

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which you might not have been able to connect to shared files and folders if you were using the Server Message Block (SMB) v1 protocol on NetBIOS over TCP/IP NetBIOS (NetBT).

(Get more info about KB5065789 Preview.)

Windows 11 25H2

At the end of September, Microsoft upgraded Windows 11 from version 24H2 to 25H2, in a slow rollout that could take months to complete. Typically in the past, Microsoft would introduce new features in a once-a-year update like this. That’s not the case with 25H2, though.

Microsoft has been introducing new features in smaller updates all year round, so 25H2 doesn’t include any major new features. Rather, it includes all the new features that have accumulated in all those smaller updates.

As the company explains, “While this update doesn’t introduce major new features, it activates enhancements that have been gradually rolled out over the past year ensuring your device is up to date with the latest refinements.”

Here are some of the most important features in 25H2 that have been introduced for end users and IT pros since 24H2 was released last fall:

New features for users:

• File Explorer has several useful new features, notably AI actions, which can edit images or summarize documents. AI options such as Blur background, Erase objects, and Remove background are all now displayed in the context menu.
• Task Manager gets a number of minor tweaks, including performance improvements when changing the sort order of processes.
• You can now display the apps that have recently used on-device generative AI models provided by Windows. You can also choose which apps are permitted to use the generative AI technologies. To do that and more, go to Settings > Privacy & security > Text and Image Generation.

New features for IT:

• IT admins can use policy-based tools to easily remove preinstalled Microsoft Store apps from Enterprise and Education editions of Windows 11, version 25H2 and later. This can streamline device provisioning and prevent removed apps such as Microsoft Clipchamp, Media Player, and Microsoft Teams from being reinstalled. For more information, see Policy-based removal of preinstalled Microsoft Store apps and RemoveDefaultMicrosoftStorePackages in the ApplicationManagement Policy CSP.
• Enterprise access points now support Wi-Fi 7, which enables increased speeds, greater throughput, improved reliability, and enhanced security. For details, see https://aka.ms/WiFi7forEnterprise.
• Windows Backup for Organizations is now generally available.
• A new feature called Quick Machine Recovery can recover Windows devices when they encounter critical errors that prevent them from booting. Quick machine recovery searches for remediations in the cloud and recovers from widespread boot failures, reducing the burden on IT admins on cases when multiple devices are affected. For more information, see Computerworld’s Quick Machine Recovery explainer.

Updates for Windows 11 24H2 KB5068221 (OS Build 26100.6588) Out-of-band

Release date: September 22, 2025

This update fixes a bug that affected Microsoft Office applications running in Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) environments. The failure occurred due to a double handle closure in the AppVEntSubsystems32 or AppVEntSubsystems64 system component.

There is one issue in this build: you might fail to connect to shared files and folders using the Server Message Block (SMB) v1 protocol on NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NetBT). This issue can occur if either the SMB client or the SMB server has the September 2025 security update installed.

(Get more info about KB5068221 (OS Build 26100.6588) Out-of-band).

KB5065426 (OS Build 26100.6584)

Release date: September 9, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused non-admin users to receive unexpected User Account Control (UAC) prompts when MSI installers performed certain custom actions, such as configuration or repair operations in the foreground or background during the initial installation of an application.

The build also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and September 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5065426.)

KB5064081 (OS Build 26100.5074) Preview

Release date: August 29, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including a new personalized homepage in Windows Recall that displays your recent activity and top-used apps and websites (available only in Copilot+ PCs). Among the changes rolling out to all users is a new grid view for Search from the Windows taskbar that helps you more quickly and accurately identify the desired image within your search.

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which some system recovery features did not work properly due to a temporary file sharing conflict. This affected certain device management tools and disrupted key functions on some devices.

(Get more info about KB5064081 Preview.)

KB5063878 (OS Build 26100.4946)

Release date: August 12, 2025

This build fixes a bug that caused delays during sign-in on new devices. The delay was due to certain preinstalled packages. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and August 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5063878.)

KB5062660 (OS Build 26100.4770) Preview

Release date: July 22, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including a new agent in Copilot+ PCs that is designed to help you find and change settings on your PC. You can describe what you need help with, such as “how to control my PC by voice” or “my mouse pointer is too small,” and the agent will suggest steps to resolve the issue. The agent uses AI on your PC to understand your request and, with your permission, can automate and complete tasks for you. It is rolling out to Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs now, with support for AMD and Intel PCs coming soon. 

Several bugs have also been fixed, including one in which If you have an app pinned to your desktop and it updates, the app icon might not display correctly and instead show a white page.

(Get more info about KB5062660 Preview.)

KB5064489 (OS Build 26100.4656) Out-of-band

Release date: July 13, 2025

This update fixes a bug that prevented some virtual machines (VMs) from starting when Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) was enabled. It affected VMs using version 8.0 (a non-default version) where VBS was offered by the host. In Azure, this applies to standard (non–Trusted Launch) General Enterprise (GE) VMs running on older VM SKUs. The problem was caused by a secure kernel initialization issue.

(Get more info about KB5064489 Out-of-band.)

KB5062553 (OS Build 26100.4652)

Release date: July 8, 2025

The build fixes several bugs, including one in which notification sounds didn’t play. Affected sounds included those for on-screen alerts, volume adjustments, and sign-in. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and July 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5062553.)

KB5060829 (OS Build 26100.4484) Preview

Release date: June 26, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including a new Settings home page that includes enterprise-specific device info cards for commercial customers on PCs managed by an IT administrator. The taskbar also now resizes icons to fit more apps when space runs low.

Users in the European Economic Area will see several small changes related to default browsers, such as mapping additional file and link types to the default browser and pinning it to the taskbar and Start menu.

A variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one that prevented the automatic renewal of expiring certificates in Windows Hello for Business.

There is one known issue in this build, in which blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text appears when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. 

(Get more info about KB5060829 Preview.)

KB5063060 (OS Build 26100.4351) Out-of-band

Release date: June 11, 2025

This out-of-band update replaces the KB5060842 Patch Tuesday release, fixing a bug in which Windows sometimes restarted unexpectedly when users opened games that use the Easy Anti-Cheat service. Easy Anti-Cheat automatically installs with certain games to enhance security and prevent cheating in multiplayer online PC games. 

Note: In this build there are reports of blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. The issue is due to limited pixel density at 96 DPI, which can reduce the clarity and alignment of CJK characters. Increasing the display scaling improves clarity by enhancing text rendering.

(Get more info about KB5063060 Out-of-band.)

KB5060842 (OS Build 26100.4349)

Release date: June 10, 2025

After installing this update, Windows will retain system restore points for 60 days only. Restore points older than 60 days are not available. This 60-day limit will also apply to future versions of Windows 11, version 24H2.

The build fixes a bug that prevented users from signing in with self-signed certificates when using Windows Hello for Business with the Key Trust model.​​​​​​​ It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and June 2025 Security Updates.

Note: In this build there are reports of blurry or unclear CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) text when displayed at 96 DPI (100% scaling) in Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. The issue is due to limited pixel density at 96 DPI, which can reduce the clarity and alignment of CJK characters. Increasing the display scaling improves clarity by enhancing text rendering.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5060842.)

KB5058499 (OS Build 26100.4202) Preview

Release date: May 27, 2025

A wide variety of new features are being gradually rolled out in this build, including one in which Click to Do gets the new Ask Copilot action. When you highlight text or an image, Click to Do offers the Ask Copilot option. Selecting it opens Microsoft Copilot with your content in the prompt box. You can send the selected text or image directly to the Copilot app to complete your prompt.

A variety of bugs have also been fixed, including one in which devices with BitLocker on removable drives could encounter a blue screen error after resuming from sleep or hybrid-booting.

(Get more info about KB5058499 Preview.)

KB5061977 (OS Build 26100.4066) 

Release date: May 27, 2025

This out-of-band update fixes a bug in the direct send path for a guest physical address (GPA). This issue caused confidential virtual machines running on Hyper-V with Windows Server 2022 to intermittently stop responding or restart unexpectedly. As a result, service availability was affected, and manual intervention was required. This problem primarily impacted Azure confidential VMs.

(Get more info about KB5061977.)

KB5058411 (OS Build 26100.4061)

Release date: May 13, 2025

This update fixes two bugs, one in which your microphone might have muted unexpectedly, and the other in which the eye controller app didn’t launch. It also has a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and May 2025 Security Updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

(Get more info about KB5058411.)

KB5055627 (OS Build 26100.3915) Preview

Release date: April 25, 2025

This build gradually rolls out several new features for Copilot+ PCs, including a preview of Windows Recall. When you opt in, Recall takes snapshots of your activity so you can quickly find and go back to what you have seen before on your PC. With it, you can use a timeline to find the content you remember seeing.

Copilot+ PCs also get a new natural-language Windows search in which you can search for anything on your PC without having to remember specific file names, exact words in file content, or settings names. Just describe what you’re looking for. On Copilot+ PCs, you can also more easily find photos stored and saved in the cloud by typing your own words (like “summer picnics”) in the search box at the upper-right corner of File Explorer. 

All PCs get a number of new features, including speech recap, in which you can keep track of what Narrator has spoken and access it for quick reference. With speech recap, you can quickly access spoken content, follow along with live transcription, and copy what Narrator last said using keyboard shortcuts.

A variety of bugs are being fixed, including one in which some devices experienced intermittent internet connections when resuming from sleep mode. Several AI components have also been updated.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which players on Arm devices are unable to download and play Roblox from the Microsoft Store on Windows.

(Get more info about KB5055627 Preview.)

KB5055523 (OS Build 26100.3775)

Release date: April 8, 2025

This update includes a wide variety of security updates. For details, see Microsoft’s Security Update Guide and April 2025 Security Updates. 

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

There are two known issues in this build, including one in which players on Arm devices are unable to download and play Roblox via the Microsoft Store on Windows. 

(Get more info about KB5055523.)

Microsoft 365 (and Office 365) subscribers get more frequent software updates than those who have purchased Office without a subscription, which means subscribers have access to the latest features, security patches, and bug fixes. But it can be hard to keep track of the changes in each update and know when they’re available. We’re doing this for you, so you don’t have to.

Following are summaries of the updates to Microsoft 365/Office 365 for Windows over the past year, with the latest releases shown first. We’ll add info about new updates as they’re rolled out.

Note: This story covers updates released to the Current Channel for Microsoft 365/Office 365 subscriptions. If you’re a member of Microsoft’s Office Insider preview program or want to get a sneak peek at upcoming features, see the Microsoft 365 Insider blog.

Version 2604 (Build 19929.20106)

Release date: April 29, 2026

This build includes “various fixes to functionality and performance,” according to Microsoft.

Get more info about Version 2604 (Build 19929.20106).

Version 2604 (Build 19929.20090)

Release date: April 21, 2026

This build includes “various fixes to functionality and performance,” according to Microsoft.

Get more info about Version 2604 (Build 19929.20090).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20182)

Release date: April 14, 2026

In this build, Copilot can now edit your PowerPoint documents. Copilot can start a new presentation or build on an existing one, generate slides, update content, improve layouts, and polish design, while preserving formatting, structure, and branding. 

The build also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20182).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20168)

Release date: April 9, 2026

This build fixes several bugs, including one in Outlook in which users could not close the Copilot chat pane using a keyboard. Users can now close the pane by navigating to the Close button using a keyboard or by using the assigned keyboard shortcut.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20168).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20142)

Release date: March 31, 2026

This build includes “various fixes to functionality and performance,” according to Microsoft.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20142).

Version 2603 (Build 19822.20114)

Release date: March 24, 2026

This build fixes a single bug in which PowerPoint sometimes closed unexpectedly when opening a newly created empty file from the OneDrive folder.

Get more info about Version 2603 (Build 19822.20114).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20190)

Release date: March 18, 2026

This build fixes an Outlook bug in which updating a single instance of a recurring meeting in a Microsoft 365 group calendar updated the entire series.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20190).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20172)

Release date: March 10, 2026

This build introduces agent mode in Word, which adds a conversational chat experience that helps create, edit, and refine document content as you work. In addition, the build fixes a bug that impacted the rendering of extended characters in calendar items, causing certain characters to appear as question marks.

The build also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20172).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20152)

Release date: March 3, 2026

This build fixes a bug in which closing a document sometimes remained in progress indefinitely after the Office app resumed from sleep or hibernation.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20152).

Version 2602 (Build 19725.20126)

Release date: February 24, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one that caused OneNote to close unexpectedly upon startup.

Get more info about Version 2602 (Build 19725.20126).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20214)

Release date: February 17, 2025

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20214).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20204)

Release date: February 10, 2026

This build fixes a bug that sometimes prevented users from opening emails with the Encrypt Only label in Outlook.

It also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20204).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20166)

Release date: February 3, 2026

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20166).

Version 2601 (Build 19628.20150)

Release date: January 27, 2025

In this build, OneNote applies your chosen proofing language more consistently, so you don’t have to reset it for every paragraph when writing in multiple languages. In addition, the build fixes several bugs, including one that caused Office applications to become unresponsive when profile card-related activities were performed.

Get more info about Version 2601 (Build 19628.20150).

Version 2512 (Build 19530.20184)

Release date: January 21, 2025

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2512 (Build 19530.20184).

Version 2512 (Build 19530.20144)

Release date: January 13, 2026

This build fixes a number of bugs, including one that caused Excel, PowerPoint, and Word to become unresponsive when profile card-related activities were performed.

It also plugs a number of security holes. For details, see Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2512 (Build 19530.20144).

Version 2512 (Build 19530.20138)

Release date: January 8, 2025

This build offers, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2512 (Build 19530.20138).

Version 2511 (Build 19426.20218)

Release date: December 16, 2025

This build offers, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2511 (Build 19426.20218).

Version 2511 (Build 19426.20186)

Release date: December 9, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build offers, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.” The build also has a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2511 (Build 19426.20186).

Version 2511 (Build 19426.20170)

Release date: December 3, 2025

This build includes, in Microsoft’s words, “Various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2511 (Build 19426.20170).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20244)

Release date: November 20, 2025

This build fixes a bug in Outlook that caused users to see “Contacting the server for information” repeatedly when loading some emails.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20244).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20232)

Release date: November 18, 2025

This build includes, in the words of Microsoft, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20232).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20190)

Release date: November 11, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes a bug in Outlook that caused some recipients to be unable to access OneDrive links shared with them via email. The build also has a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20190).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20178)

Release date: November 4, 2025

This build fixes a single bug, in which @mention searches produced no results in Office apps.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20178).

Version 2510 (Build 19328.20158)

Release date: October 30, 2025

This build introduces a new Get Data dialog in Windows that simplifies finding and using external data, and adds Analyze Data to the Data tab.

The build also fixed an bug in Outlook that prevented users from downloading web add-ins in some virtualized environments.

Get more info about Version 2510 (Build 19328.20158).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20216)

Release date: October 21, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20216).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20194)

Release date: October 14, 2025

This build has a variety of security updates (see details), along with various fixes to functionality and performance.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20194).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20172)

Release date: October 7, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20172).

Version 2509 (Build 19231.20156)

Release date: October 1, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one in Excel in which ribbon controls were not rendered when rejoining Office sessions in a virtual machine, Azure Virtual Desktop, or remote desktop environment, and another that caused Outlook to terminate unexpectedly when starting.

Get more info about Version 2509 (Build 19231.20156).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20264)

Release date: September 23, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20264).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20240)

Release date: September 16, 2025

This build has, in Microsoft’s words, “various fixes to functionality and performance.”

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20240).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20222)

Release date: September 9, 2025

This build has multiple security updates (see details), along with various fixes to functionality and performance.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20222).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20192)

Release date: September 3, 2025

This build fixes a bug in which some Outlook add-ins were getting “Office.auth.getAccessToken is not a function” errors.

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20192).

Version 2508 (Build 19127.20154)

Release date: August 26, 2025

This build fixes a bug that caused Outlook to terminate unexpectedly when sending a meeting invite with an encryption label. It also adds support for pixelated rendering of embedded images in SVG assets for the entire Office suite.

Get more info about Version 2508 (Build 19127.20154).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20208)

Release date: August 19, 2025

This build fixes a variety of bugs.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20208).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20184)

Release date: August 12, 2025

This build fixes a bug which required users to restart Outlook to open a .msg file after initially accessing it once. The build also includes a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20184).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156)

Release date: August 5, 2025

This build fixes a single bug, in which users had to restart Outlook to open a .msg file after initially accessing it once.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20156).

Version 2507 (Build 19029.20136)

Release date: July 30, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including in which Outlook closed unexpectedly shortly after launch, and another in Word in which the word count sometimes displayed incorrectly.

Get more info about Version 2507 (Build 19029.20136).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184)

Release date: July 22, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one that caused the Copilot Command Center to continue to be visible after disabling the Copilot user interface, and another in which when creating handouts in PowerPoint, certain characters (full-width numbers) couldn’t be properly transferred to the handout.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20184).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20168)

Release date: July 15, 2025

This build fixes two bugs, one that caused Visio 32-bit to close unexpectedly when using the Drawing control, particularly in setups involving COM components or .NET integrations, and another in Word in which copying and pasting content between documents sometimes changed the applied style unexpectedly.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20168).

Version 2506 (Build 18925.20158)

Release date: July 8, 2025

This Patch Tuesday build fixes several bugs in Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and the whole Office suite, including one that caused the Copilot icon to unexpectedly display in Outlook when Copilot had been disabled by the admin in government cloud.

The release also includes a variety of security updates (see details).

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18925.20158).

Version 2506 (Build 18827.20176)

Release date: July 1, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which print preview sometimes stopped working when printing long emails.

Get more info about Version 2506 (Build 18827.20176).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20176)

Release date: June 26, 2025

This build introduces several new features, including one in Excel in which the PivotTables dialog box interface has been replaced by a redesigned panel, making it easier to view all of your options and simpler to change your data selection before inserting a recommended PivotTable.

Get more info about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20176).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20164)

Release date: June 17, 2025

This build fixes a bug that caused the “Try the new Outlook” toggle to be enabled when working in Classic Outlook side by side with the new Outlook.

Get more info about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20164).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20150)

Release date: June 10, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one for the entire Office suite in which a Save As attempt on an existing file didn’t complete successfully, and subsequent attempts continued to encounter issues when trying to save to a file that no longer existed.

This Patch Tuesday release also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about  Version 2505 (Build 18827.20150).

Version 2505 (Build 18827.20140)

Release date: June 3, 2025

This build offers a variety of bug and performance fixes.

Read about Version 2505 (Build 18827.20140).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20186)

Release date: May 20, 2025

This build introduces a new PowerPoint feature: Notification emails for mentions, tasks, comments, and replies will now contain context previews even when the source document is encrypted, and the email will inherit the document’s security policies.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20186).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20168)

Release date: May 13, 2025

This build fixes a bug in which users were seeing high CPU usage when typing in Outlook. It also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20168).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20142)

Release date: May 6, 2025

This build includes various bug and performance fixes.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20142).

Version 2504 (Build 18730.20122)

Release date: April 29, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which PowerPoint was unable to open a file from a network mapped drive from File Explore, another in which Word closed unexpectedly when opening .doc files, and another for the entire Office suite in which large 3D files couldn’t be inserted.

Get more info about Version 2504 (Build 18730.20122).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20208)

Release date: April 17, 2025

This build fixes a bug that could cause Excel to stop responding.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20208).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20178)

Release date: April 8, 2025

This build fixes a single bug in Word in which users may have encountered an issue with saving, seeing the message “saving…” in the title bar. It  also includes a variety of security updates. Go here for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20178).

Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156)

Release date: April 2, 2025

This build lets you use Dark Mode in Excel, which darkens your entire sheet, including cells, and may reduce eye strain. It also fixes several bugs, including one in Word in which opening specific files that contain many tracked changes and comments resulted in poor performance, and one in PowerPoint in which the app was not displaying the icon for an inserted PDF object.

Get more info about Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156).

Version 2502 (Build 18526.20168)

Release date: March 11, 2025

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which some Word files with numerous tracked changes and comments were slow. It also includes a variety of security updates: see details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2502 (Build 18526.20168).

Version 2502 (Build 18526.20144)

Release date: March 5, 2025

This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in Word in which the default font size may not be 12pt as expected, and another in which PowerPoint automatically closed when the system went into hibernate or sleep mode.

Get more info about Version 2502 (Build 18526.20144).

Version 2501 (Build 18429.20158)

Release date: February 11, 2025

This build removes the option to display Track Changes balloons in left margin in Word. It also includes a variety of security updates. See “Release notes for Microsoft Office security updates” for details.

What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.

Get more info about Version 2501 (Build 18429.20158).

Odborníci vyvinuli spolehlivý mobilní detektor GPS spoofingu • Tento šikovný přístroj okamžitě odhalí podvržené navigační signály • Včasné varování řidičů ochrání přepravované náklady i životy

Skleněné substráty jsou technologickou inovací a zároveň kompromisem, se kterým počítají všichni výrobci výkonných čipů. Intel je ještě v letech 2023-2024 plánoval předběhnout, ale k tomu už nedojde…

Na všech herních platformách je každou chvíli nějaká slevová akce. Každý týden proto vybíráme ty nejatraktivnější, které by vám neměly uniknout. Pokud chcete získat hry zdarma nebo s výhodnou slevou, podívejte se na aktuální přehled akcí!

Cloudflare is giving AI agents full autonomy to spin up new apps.

Starting today, agents working on behalf of humans can create a Cloudflare account, begin a paid subscription, register a domain, and then receive an API token to let them immediately deploy code.

To kick things off, human users must first accept the cloud company’s terms of service. From there, though, their role in the loop is optional; they don’t have to return to the dashboard, copy and paste API tokens, or enter credit card details. The AI agent just does its thing behind the scenes and has everything it needs to deploy “in one shot,” according to Cloudflare.

While this could be a boon to developers and product builders, it also signals a larger, concerning trend of over-trust in autonomous tools, to the detriment of governance and security.

For example, noted David Shipley of Beauceron Security, cyber criminals are being forced to constantly set up new infrastructure as security firms and law enforcement fight back to block online attacks and scams. “Making it even faster to build new infrastructure and deploy it quickly is a huge win for them,” he said.

Giving agents the OAuth keys

Cloudflare co-designed the new protocol in partnership with Stripe, building upon the Cloudflare Code Mode MCP server and Agent Skills. Any platform with signed-in users can integrate it with “zero friction” for the user, Cloudflare product managers Sid Chatterjee and Brendan Irvine-Broque wrote in a blog post.

The new protocol is part of Stripe Projects (still in beta), which allows humans and their agents to provision multiple services, including AgentMail, Supabase, Hugging Face, Twilio, and a couple of dozen others, generate and store credentials, and manage usage and billing from their command line interface (CLI). An agent is given an initial $100 to spend per month, per provider.

Users need only install the Stripe CLI with the Stripe Projects plugin, login to Stripe, start a new project, prompt an agent to build something new, and deploy it to a new domain. If their Stripe login email is associated with a Cloudflare account, an OAuth flow will kick off; otherwise Cloudflare will automatically create an account for the user and their agent.

From there, the autonomous agent will build and deploy a site to a new Cloudflare account, then use the Stripe Projects CLI to register the domain. Once deployed, the app will run on the newly-registered domain.

Along the way, the agent will prompt for input and approval “when necessary,” for instance, when there’s no linked payment method. As Cloudflare notes, the agent goes from “literal zero” to full deployment.

To build momentum, the company is offering $100,000 in Cloudflare credits to startups that make use of the new capability via Stripe Atlas, which helps companies incorporate in Delaware, set up banking, and engage in fundraising.

How the agent takes action

Agents interact with Stripe and Cloudflare in three steps: discovery (the agent calls a command to query the catalog of available services); authorization (the platform validates identity and issues credentials); and payment (the platform provides a payment token that providers use to bill humans when their agents start subscriptions and make purchases).

Cloudflare emphasizes that this process builds on standards like OAuth, the OpenID Connect (OIDC) identity layer, and payment tokenization, but removes steps that would otherwise require human intervention.

During the discovery phase, agents call the Stripe Projects catalog command, then choose among available services based on human commands and preferences. However, “the user needs no prior knowledge of what services are offered by which providers, and does not need to provide any input,” Chatterjee and Irvine-Broque explained.

From there, Stripe acts as the identity provider, and credentials are securely stored and available for agents that need to make authenticated requests to Cloudflare. Stripe sets a default $100 monthly maximum that an agent can spend on any one provider. Humans can raise this limit and set up budget alerts as required.

The platform, said Cloudflare, acts as the orchestrator for signed-in users. Agents make one API call to provision a domain, storage bucket, and sandbox, then receive an authorization token.

The company argued that the new protocol standardizes what are typically “one off or bespoke” cross-product integrations. It uses OAuth, and extends further into payments and account creation in a way that “treats agents as a first-class concern.”

Concerns around security, operations

The trend of people buying products “wherever they are” will become ever more widespread, noted Shashi Bellamkonda, a principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group.

For instance, Uber has announced an Expedia integration for hotel bookings that will make it an ‘everything app.’ Other vendors are similarly expanding their partner ecosystems, because obtaining customers via other established platforms as well as their own is more cost-efficient, and “generally results in a higher lifetime value,” said Bellamkonda.

“This is Cloudflare turning every partner with signed-in users into a sales channel, and that is how you grow revenue in a developer market,” he said.

Beauceron’s Shipley agreed that Cloudflare is the “big winner” here. “Making it faster for anyone to buy your service and get using it is technology platform Nirvana.”

It’s “super cool, bleeding edge” and in theory, for legitimate developers becomes part of the even more automated build process, he said; “Vibe coders will rejoice.” But, he noted, so will cyber crooks.

Further, Bellamkonda pointed out, from an operational perspective, this could create added complexity for each vendor’s partner network when it comes to transaction execution and accountability. If issues related to provisioning or billing transactions arise, businesses must have a clearly defined process for resolving them with all parties.

“This will require considerable upfront thought on developing these comparatively new business models,” Bellamkonda said.

This article originally appeared on InfoWorld.

Mini Shai-Hulud caught spreading credential-stealing malware

The wave of supply chain attacks aimed at security and developer tools has washed up more victims, namely SAP and Intercom npm packages, plus the lightning PyPI package.…

Imagination may have more to do with the brain activity it silences than the activity it creates.

Your brain is currently expending about a fifth of your body’s energy, and almost none of that is being used for what you’re doing right now. Reading these words, feeling the weight of your body in a chair—all of this together barely changes the rate at which your brain consumes energy, perhaps by as little as 1 percent.

The other 99 percent is used on the activity the brain generates on its own: neurons (nerve cells) firing and signaling to each other regardless of whether you’re thinking hard, watching television, dreaming, or simply closing your eyes.

Even in the brain areas dedicated to vision, the visuals coming in through your eyes shape the activity of your neurons less than this internal ongoing action.

In a paper recently published in Psychological Review, we argue that our imagination sculpts the images we see in our mind’s eye by carving into this background brain activity. In fact, imagination may have more to do with the brain activity it silences than with the activity it creates.

Imagining as Seeing in Reverse

Consider how “seeing” is understood to work. Light enters the eyes and sparks neural signals. These travel through a sequence of brain regions dedicated to vision, each building on the work of the last.

The earliest regions pick out simple features such as edges and lines. The next combine those into shapes. The ones after that recognize objects, and those at the top of the sequence assemble whole faces and scenes.

Neuroscientists call this “feedforward activity”—the gradual transformation of raw light into something you can name, whether it’s a dog, a friend, or both.

In brain science, the standard view is that visual imagination is this original seeing process run in reverse, from within your mind rather than from light entering your eyes.

So, when you hold the face of a friend in mind, you start with an abstract idea of them—a memory or a name, pulled from the filing cabinet of regions that sit beyond the visual system itself.

That idea travels back down through the visual sequence into the early visual areas, which serve as your brain’s workshop where a face would normally be reconstructed from its parts—the curve of a jawline, the specific shade of an eye. These downward signals are called “feedback activity.”

A Signal Through the Static

However, prior research shows this feedback activity doesn’t drive visual neurons to fire in the same way as when you actually see something.

At least in the brain regions early in the vision process, feedback instead modulates brain activity. This means it increases or decreases the activity of the brain cells, reshaping what those neurons are already doing.

Even behind closed eyes, early visual brain areas keep producing shifting patterns of neural activity resembling those the brain uses to process real vision.

Imagination doesn’t need to build a face from scratch. The raw material is already there. In the internal rumblings of your visual areas, fragments of every face you know are drifting through at low volume. Your friend’s face, even now, is passing through in pieces, scattered and unrecognised. What imagining does is hold still the currents that would otherwise carry those pieces away.

All that’s needed is a small, targeted suppression of neurons that are pulled by brain activity in a different direction, and your friend’s face settles out of the noise, like a signal carving its way through static.

Steering the Brain

In mice, artificially switching on as few as 14 neurons in a sensory brain region is enough for the animal to notice it and lick a sugar-water spout in response. This shows how small an intervention in the brain can be while still steering behavior.

While we don’t know how many neurons are needed to steer internal activity into a conscious experience of imagination in humans, growing evidence shows the importance of dampening neural activity.

In our earlier experiments, when people imagined something, the fingerprint it left on their behavior matched suppression of neuronal activity—not firing. Other researchers have since found the same pattern.

Other lines of evidence strengthen our theory, too. About one in 100 people have aphantasia, which means they can’t form mental images at all. One in 30 form these images so vividly they approach the intensity of images we actually see, known as hyperphantasia.

Research has found that people with weaker mental imagery have more excitable early visual areas, where neurons fire more readily on their own. This is consistent with a visual system whose spontaneous patterns are harder to hold in shape.

Taking all this together, the spontaneous activity reshaping hypothesis—our new theory that imagination carves images out of the steady stream of ongoing brain activity—explains why imagination usually feels weaker than sight. It also explains why we rarely lose track of which is which.

Visual perception arrives with a strength and regularity the brain’s own internal patterns don’t match. Imagination works with those patterns rather than against them, reshaping what is already there into something we can almost see.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post How Does Imagination Really Work in the Brain? New Theory Upends What We Knew appeared first on SingularityHub.

Analýza zvláštní skupiny hvězd v galaktické rovině Mléčné dráhy s velmi nízkou metalicitou ukázala, že sdílejí chemické zvláštnosti. Nejspíš jde o fosilii dávné trpasličí galaxie, kterou Mléčná dráha v minulosti pozřela. Galaxie nazvaná Loki měla jen krátký život, ale musel být velmi bouřlivý. Zkoumané hvězdy nesou stopy po supernovách, hypernovách a srážkách neutronových hvězd, které se kdysi odehrály v galaxii Loki.

…aneb Fascinující historie ďábelské jámy v Arizoně

Nová technologie fyziků z McGill University generuje fonony při extrémně nízkých teplotách. Další krokem by mohly být fononové lasery, které budou vytvářet „zvukové paprsky“. Mohly by z toho být nové komunikační systémy, citlivé senzory nebo třeba pokročilé biomedicínské aplikace.

Vice-prezident Nvidie přiznal, že náklady na AI má vyšší než náklady na lidi. Nemá s tím ale problém, protože šéf Nvidie hodnotí inženýry podle toho, jak využívají AI. Čím více AI, tím lepší inženýr…

V závěru roku 2011 představila AMD světu přelomovou grafickou kartu. Radeon HD 7970 je svého druhu legendou a na Linuxu jde o nejstarší model podporovaný ovladačem AMDGPU, tedy včetně API Vulkan. A i v roce 2026 jde kartu, jejíž používání nemá zásadní kompromisy.

Richard Biener oznámil vydání verze 16.1 (16.1.0) kolekce kompilátorů pro různé programovací jazyky GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). Jedná se o první stabilní verzi řady 16. Přehled změn, nových vlastností a oprav a aktualizovaná dokumentace na stránkách projektu. Některé zdrojové kódy, které bylo možné přeložit s předchozími verzemi GCC, bude nutné upravit.

Zulip Server z open source komunikační platformy Zulip (Wikipedie, GitHub) byl vydán ve verzi 12.0. Přehled novinek v příspěvku na blogu.

KnowBe4 says 86% of phishing it tracked used AI, and inboxes are only the start

Give a man a phishing kit and he might get lucky a couple of times; teach an AI to phish and it'll change the landscape, if KnowBe4's latest phishing trends report is accurate.…

Publicly released exploit code for an effectively unpatched vulnerability that gives root access to virtually all releases of Linux is setting off alarm bells as defenders scramble to ward off severe compromises inside data centers and on personal devices.

The vulnerability and exploit code that exploits it were released Wednesday evening by researchers from security firm Theori, five weeks after privately disclosing it to the Linux kernel security team. The team patched the vulnerability in versions 7.0, 6.19.12, 6.18.12, 6.12.85, 6.6.137, 6.1.170, 5.15.204, and 5.10.254) but few of the Linux distributions had incorporated those fixes at the time the exploit was released.

A single script hacks all distros

The critical flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-31431 and the name CopyFail, is a local privilege escalation, a vulnerability class that allows unprivileged users to elevate themselves to administrators. CopyFail is particularly severe because it can be exploited with a single piece of exploit code—released in Wednesday’s disclosure—that works across all vulnerable distributions with no modification. With that, an attacker can, among other things, hack multi-tenant systems, break out of containers based on Kubernetes or other frameworks, and create malicious pull requests that pipe the exploit code through CI/CD work flows.

Read full article

Comments

One alleged cyber contractor was extradited to the US over the weekend

China's "hacker-for-hire ecosystem has gotten out of control," according to Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division.…

A new phishing kit named Bluekit offers more than 40 templates targeting popular services and includes basic AI features for generating campaign drafts. [...]