Software & Apps - Page 14

Microsoft has been caught red-handed scrubbing its official guidance on installing Windows 11 on a PC that doesn't meet the operating system's official requirements.

Ahead of Windows 10 support ending in October this year, Microsoft rolled out some guidance on how Windows 10 users can still upgrade to Windows 11, even if their system doesn't meet the operating system requirements. For those wondering, this guidance was for systems that don't have TMP 2.0, a hardware-level requirement for Windows 11, and the guidance was a workaround users could implement so they weren't left behind on an old operating system that will become exponentially more vulnerable to security exploits. However, that guidance has now been scrubbed from Microsoft's website.

The now-removed guidance informed users how they could tweak a Registry Key, which bypasses the Windows 11 requirements and enables the operating system to be installed on the officially unsupported PC. Notably, the tweak to the Registry did come with a warning of potential system instability with the additional risk of critical errors that may result in a complete system reinstallation. However, some users would prefer running these risks than going out and getting new hardware.

Apple Music currently has a tempting offer running whereby you can pay just $2.99 for six months of the music streaming service.

That's in the US, but the same offer also appears to be available in the UK for £2.99 (and possibly other regions too, we guess).

That works out at 50 cents per month instead of $10.99 monthly, but be warned, as ever with these kinds of promotions, you're signed up for the subscription and if you don't cancel it, after six months it'll auto-renew at the full price.

The FBI reports that victims lose approximately a billion dollars every year to tech support and pop-up scams. Microsoft's January 27 update to their browser Edge aims to reduce that figure.

The update in question includes a 'scareware blocker', which aims to combat a particular kind of tech support scam that involves malicious parties posing as tech support. The scam works by rushing the user with aggressive pages and using fear tactics to incite panic. These tactics include computer-generated voices, forced fullscreen effects, or hijacking of the keyboard and mouse. From there, the victim is prompted to call a fake tech-support number, after which the scam proceeds from there.

This type of scam is particularly convincing and often targets vulnerable users such as the elderly. Its prevalence is so common, in fact, that it was made into the central plot for the 2024 action film The Beekeeper. The film stars Jason Statham, who sets off on a revenge mission after his landlady becomes the victim of a multi-million dollar phishing scam.

The fate of TikTok still remains undecided as talks about the future of the app operating in the United States are still underway.

TikTok was deemed a national security risk by the US government last year, and as a result, TikTok's owner ByteDance was given an ultimatum to either sell the app to a US government-verified source or be banned from both Apple and Google app marketplaces along with telecommunications networks across the US. The deadline for the ultimatum was January 19, and a deal wasn't reached, resulting in TikTok going dark for approximately 16 hours.

However, upon taking office the following day, President Trump issued an extension that enabled TikTok to be reinstated. The 75-day extension included TikTok being brought back as long as a new deal for its sale was on the table for discussion. With the deal discussion still being underway, Cloudflare Radar has issued new estimations regarding the number of users that have returned to TikTok after it was briefly removed from both app marketplaces.

NVIDIA's RTX Video Super Resolution is like DLSS for watching videos on YouTube or a streaming service like Netflix on your PC; it uses an AI model and the Tensor Core hardware on GeForce RTX cards to upscale and improve image fidelity from a lower-resolution source. For those with 4K displays, a 1080p video will become sharper with more detail restored.

Video Super Resolution (VSR), designed to remove compression artifacts and other issues from streaming videos with heavy compression, is an option all GeForce RTX owners can enable in the NVIDIA App. In addition, Video HDR uses AI to tone map SDR videos to HDR - with some awe-inspiring results.

With the launch of the GeForce RTX 50 Series and the arrival of the new GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090, NVIDIA has brought several new features to gamers - from DLSS 4 to NVIDIA Broadcast updates for creators. As part of these updates, NVIDIA has confirmed that RTX Video Super Resolution is running on a more efficient AI model.

Windows 11 users who couldn't install the 24H2 update due to the bug with Auto HDR can get ready to finally pull the trigger on the upgrade.

That's because Microsoft has implemented a fix in the preview (optional) update for January 2025 (KB5050094).

Time for a quick recap on this one, for those who've forgotten: the Auto HDR bug emerged in December 2024, and for people using the feature (with an HDR monitor, of course), it was something of a nightmare. First off, it completely messed up the color palette in games, and secondly, it could also cause those games to freeze or even outright crash.

When Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, his goal was to create the "Everything app," which would mimic China's WeChat, an app that has consolidated popular individual apps such as taxi hailing, food delivery, banking, bill payments, and communication into a singular app.

Musk's plan was to create this "Everything app," but saw the purchasing of then-Twitter and now X as an accelerant to achieving that goal, with the Tesla CEO writing on X in October 2022, "Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app." In October 2023, we began hearing rumblings of X working on a seamless payment system that was in development, with Musk saying during an earnings call that he plans on turning X into a bank capable of storing "someone's entire financial life".

During that earnings call, Musk said it was likely the new monetary system would be rolled out on the platform "by the end of next year," which didn't seem to happen. However, X CEO Linda Yaccarino has now taken to her personal X account to tease that X has partnered with Visa for X Money, which will enable secure and instant funding to users' X wallets via Visa Direct, peer-to-peer payments (send/receive money between users), and the options to transfer funds to user bank accounts instantly.

Netflix has made a change to its iOS apps that's been wanted by a fair few iPhone and iPad owners for some time now.

The addition of a single button to download a whole season of a show is now present in these apps, a feature that's already on Android, and has been eyed jealously by owners of Apple hardware.

Hat tip to 9 to 5 Mac for spotting this, and Netflix explains in a news post:

The fate of TikTok currently stands upon the edge of a knife, and if it strays but a little, it will fail, to the ruin of 170 million users across the United States.

TikTok is currently in limbo as the US government initiated the ban of the app, citing national security reasons as lawmakers found the app could be used to harvest the data of the 170 million Americans that use it and feed that data to the Chinese government. TikTok was given an ultimatum by the US government with a deadline of January 19.

That ultimatum was to sell the app to a US government-verified entity or be banned from both app marketplaces and US telecommunications services. The January 19 deadline was reached, and TikTok was briefly made unavailable in the US for approximately 16 hours.

Google has responded to the recent declaration by President Trump that the Gulf of Mexico will be renamed to the Gulf of America.

One of the first things President Trump did once he entered office was to declare the Gulf of Mexico was to be renamed to the Gulf of America, and now Google has announced it will comply with Trump's new naming scheme as the search conglomerate states it will abide by official government sources for all its naming of locations, as it has done in the past. Google took to X, where it wrote that it had received many questions regarding the name change, and that it has a "longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."

Moreover, Google explained it uses the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) as its source for naming locations, which is the US government's official source for geographic names. Trump's executive order gives a 30-day deadline for the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, along with the renaming of Denali to Mount McKinley. Google states once the change has been lodged in the GNIS the change will be reflected in Google Maps. However, there's a caveat.

The state of web search algorithms are in an interesting state in 2025. AI search summaries headline a good chunk of search results, and the internet is becoming increasingly dominated by AI-generated content.

However, a new threat to look out for has emerged: in the form of sponsored links in search results that contain cURL commands to malware. In this instance, the case involved the software package management tool 'Homebrew', for which users were being served ads that seemingly displayed the correct URL, but redirected users to a malicious link.

Canadian web developer Ryan Chenkie took to X to highlight the discrepancy, urging developers to exercise caution when installing the tool. As reported by Digital Trends, the scam works through a strategy called URL cloaking. Malicious actors create thousands of accounts simultaneously and use text manipulation and cloaking techniques to evade detection. They show reviewers and automated systems safe-looking websites, while regular visitors are redirected to malicious dummy sites

Installing a fresh version of Windows means installing a bunch of Microsoft apps and services that are typically quite useless or, at the very least, unnecessary. These apps and services are commonly referred to as "Windows bloatware," and manually removing each of them during or after Windows installation can be time-consuming and annoying. But what if there was a tool that could do it all for you in just a few clicks?

YouTuber and developer "TotallyNotK0," along with his team of developers at Raven, have created a new tool called "Talon" that's designed to streamline the removal process of all Windows bloatware. The new tool isn't ready for public release, but the above video demonstrates how it works and the effectiveness of removing unwanted software. The video shows users will need to turn off Windows Defender to run the software, and once it's run, users will be presented with the below screen asking, "What will you use this device for?" -- along with several options.

Users can select "Barebones, Gaming, Student, Professional, and Expert" versions of the automation, and each of these options removes the same amount of bloatware but is differentiated by the additional software Raven will install. For example, selecting "Gaming" will install the following applications: Discord, Steam, EA App, OBS, Spotify, and Emulation Station, along with removing any Windows bloatware. After selecting an option, Raven will begin the debloating process, and users can watch the removal of programs and software by pressing the Windows key and viewing their program list. After the process is complete, Raven will request that the PC conduct a restart.

Amidst the recent Tiktok fiasco, Bluesky and X are the latest platforms to throw their hat in the ring to replace the short-form streaming giant - releasing a series of new features in a bid to entice users to their platforms.

We've seen this pattern before with Threads, where Meta quickly rolled out their own Twitter-like app with the hope of capitalizing on the instability following Elon Musk's acquisition of X, formerly Twitter. This strategy worked - for maybe a week. Until people eventually reverted back to platforms that were actually designed for this functionality.

For users who are unaware, Tiktok was essentially banned last week by the Biden administration but recently delayed by President Trump, who signed an executive order on Monday to delay the order by 75 days. This has thrown both users and the market itself into a tailspin - as millions try to figure out where they can get their short-form fix.

Jimmy Donaldson, otherwise known as MrBeast, has announced he's submitted an offer to purchase the popular video posting platform TikTok, with the famed YouTube saying that he may soon become the platform's new CEO.

The announcement that he may become TikTok's new CEO comes only days after MrBeast posted a video with his lawyer claiming that he recently finished a business meeting with a "bunch of billionaires" about acquiring funding for the app. Now, MrBeast has posted a new video of him on a private jet, saying that he is about to submit his "final offer" for the platform and that if accepted, he could become the new CEO. As for what MrBeast is offering, TikTok owner ByteDance hasn't been disclosed, but Donaldson did say the offer was "crazy".

For those that don't know, TikTok was briefly banned across the US after the deadline was reached on the ultimatum given to ByteDance regarding the operation of the app in the US. The US government declared TikTok a threat to national security in April last year, citing the app's ties to the Chinese government and the risk for approximately 170 million Americans to have their data funneled to an adversarial nation.

TikTok has been thrown a lifeline by President Trump who signed an executive order on Monday that delays the banning of the popular app by two and a half months.

The ByteDance-owned video-sharing app has gone through quite a bit over the last week as millions of users began posting videos to the platform saying their goodbyes to viewers in preparation for TikTok's ban scheduled to take place on January 19. The ban came after a 270-day process where its owners, ByteDance, were given the ultimatum to sell the app to a US government-verified entity or have it removed from both app marketplaces and banned from Internet Service Provider (ISP) across the US.

A deal wasn't struck, and as a result, TikTok went dark for approximately 16 hours but quickly became available again a day before Trump was sworn into his Presidency as the former and now current president indicated he was going to sign an executive order extending the enforcement of the ban. That executive order has now been signed by Trump, which gives ByteDance an additional 75 days to reach a deal with the US government. Trump suggested the US could own 50% of TikTok, which would enable the US government to take a look under the hood of the app and monitor it for nefarious activity.

The United States government briefly banned the popular video-sharing app TikTok after the deadline given to TikTok's owner, ByteDance, was reached.

The banning of TikTok dates back to April last year when the US Senate enacted a new law that categorized TikTok as a national security threat. US lawmakers found TikTok to be a threat to the safety of millions of Americans due to its ties to the Chinese government and the potential for the data of approximately 170 million Americans to be funneled to a foreign, adversarial government.

The European Commission is bumping up its efforts into an investigation into X, formerly Twitter, as the regulator has now officially requested the social media platform hand over its algorithm for evaluation.

The EU has demanded X provide it with internal documentation on the recommendation systems used across the website to serve users' content. The request states X will need to provide documentation on any recent changes by February 15, and to go along with that, the EU also has demanded access to X's commercial APIs "that allow direct fact-finding on content moderation and virality of accounts." Furthermore, the European Commission has requested X provide it with any documentation on recent changes to the content recommendation system and any planned changes between now and the end of 2025.

Notably, the European Commission says these demands fall under Digital Services Act (DSA) proceedings that were launched against it in December 2023, which, if found guilty, could result in mass penalties against X. The Commission was queried whether these new demands were in relation to Musk's recent political maneuverings throughout the EU and the UK, to which the Commission told The Register, "These are investigatory steps that we are taking to have access to additional information ... crucial for the Commission's enforcement work to understand and analyze risk stemming from X's recommender systems."

TikTok was officially banned by the US government yesterday, and as a result, the popular video-sharing app went dark for approximately 24 hours. But now it's back, and it's thanks to President Trump.

After being punted the responsibility of dealing with the debacle of the TikTok ban, the popular app is officially back and available to Americans once again. For those wondering why it was briefly banned in the first place, the US government in April last year deemed the app a national security threat for its ties to the Chinese government through its owner ByteDance and the potential for the data of approximately 170 million Americans being shared with a foreign adversary.

The ban was scheduled to come into effect on January 19, and hours before the deadline, the app went dark, as millions of users shared a message they received from the app which said it's currently working with the US government on its return. It appears that work has already been done, as TikTok has made its return, with the company writing on X:

TikTok across the United States has officially been banned, and with now millions of users unable to access the app, many are wondering if a VPN is a viable workaround to the block.

The TikTok ban came into effect seemingly early as thousands of users reported seeing a message display in their app that stated the app was no longer available in the US due to a new law that had been enacted. The law the message is referring to dates back to April last year when the Senate passed a bill that deemed TikTok a national security threat as the app was found to have ties to the Chinese government. The ban was predicated on protecting the data of the approximately 170 million Americans who use the app from being funneled to the Chinese government.

Now that the app has officially gone dark, many are wondering if there is a way to bypass the block and still use the app. The first thing that springs to mind is a VPN or a Virtual Private Network. In a nutshell, a VPN masks the IP address of a user, which is essentially an address linked to an internet connection so data can be correctly sent/received.

TikTok users across the United States have been locked out of the popular video-sharing platform hours before the deadline for the ban came into place.

The banning of TikTok dates back to April last year when the Senate passed a bill that deemed TikTok a national security threat as the app was found to have the ability to scrape the data of the 170 million Americans using the app. Lawmakers decided the app's predatory data-gathering techniques and the possibility of American data being shared with the Chinese government were enough to deem the app as a national security threat.

To remedy this problem, lawmakers gave TikTok owner ByteDance until January 19, 2025, to either sell the app to a US-based and government-approved buyer or have the app banned across both the App Store and Google Play Store. That deadline has now approached, and hours before it ticks over to January 19, users are reporting TikTok already being unavailable, with users receiving the message: