Software & Apps - Page 15

A new report has revealed Apple is preparing to fall on it sword after releasing an Apple Intelligence feature that has been caught producing incorrect information.

A new report from the Washington Post claims Apple is preparing to disable its AI summaries generated for news and entertainment apps after the feature produced factually incorrect information several times. For those wondering what this feature does, Apple Intelligence users receive a notification summarizing the most popular news stories. The idea behind the feature is to provide users with a quick summary of the top headlines, which they can then engage with for further reading.

However, the blunders by the app have become more frequent, with the BBC in December filing a lawsuit against Apple for the feature, stating the BBC reported that a man suspected of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson had shot himself. Now, according to the WAPO report, Apple plans on temporarily disabling the feature in the coming iOS 18.3 update.

It was in April last year, the Senate passed a bill that deemed TikTok a threat to national security as its data scraping methods were found to be predatory and a risk to the American people.

The Senate gave ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, an ultimatum: either sell the popular app to a US government-approved entity and remain in the country or face a sweeping ban across both Android and iOS app marketplaces. ByteDance was given 270 to decide what it wants to do, and now, as we are approaching the deadline of January 19, the Biden administration has somewhat backpedaled on its decision, with a White House official speaking to ABC News and saying, "Our position on this has been clear: TikTok should continue to operate under American ownership."

Adding, "Given the timing of when it goes into effect over a holiday weekend a day before inauguration, it will be up to the next administration to implement." Notably, during Trump's first presidency, the former and now soon-to-be president called for the ban of TikTok, but recently, Trump has changed his tune, saying he will try and keep TikTok available in the US. However, neither Trump nor his administration has outlined a plan for exactly how that will happen.

Microsoft has been not-so-subtly warning Windows 10 users that support for the world's most popular operating system will be coming to an end this year, and now the Redmond company has written via a new blog post that support severance will include Office applications such as Word, Powerpoint, etc.

Microsoft will be officially ending support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, and following that date, Windows 10 users will be faced with a difficult decision: upgrade their system OS to Windows 11, which may require a hardware upgrade, or pay the $30 a year for continued security updates. Alternatively, Windows 10 users can do nothing at all and run the risk of their machine exponentially becoming more vulnerable to attacks. Despite Microsoft's continued efforts of trying to entice Windows 10 users to migrate to Windows 11, the now 10-year-old operating system still accounts for more than 60% of the total operating systems on PCs.

In yet another attempt to push Windows 10 users to Redmond's latest operating system, Microsoft has taken to its blog post to remind users, "Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices." Adding, "To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11." For those wondering if this means Office applications will stop working completely post-October 14, 2025 - they won't, but over time, the performance and reliability of the applications could falter.

If you're on Windows 10, and don't care for Microsoft's new Outlook app - well, you are out of luck sadly, as the software giant is now forcing this software onto its older OS.

As Bleeping Computer spotted, just as happened with Windows 11, those on Windows 10 will automatically get the New Outlook app.

This will happen with the next cumulative update for Windows 10 - either preview, or the full release of said update.

Windows 10 is scheduled to lose support in October this year, which will force millions of users around the world into deciding whether to upgrade to Windows 11, or pay for continued Windows 10 security updates every year -- or, of course, run the risk of their machine exponentially becoming more vulnerable to attacks.

To remind users Windows 10 is on the chopping block when it comes to support Microsoft has decided to roll out a full-screen pop-up ad that warns Windows 10 users support for the operating system is soon coming to an end, but, unfortunately, some Windows 10 users are reporting this pop-up ad is causing their machine to crash. A recent report by WindowsLatest details the error message that users are finding after seeing the upgrade reminder pop-up, which reads, "Reusable UX Interaction Manager is not responding".

According to the publication the Reusable UX Interaction Manager (RUXIM) is system process responsible for managing prompts and pop-ups across different applications and situations. The RUXIM is used to maintain a consistent user experience with pop-ups such as the one presented after the full-screen ad for Windows 11 crashed, but more interestingly, RUXIM is also associated with Windows update. TechSpot reports RUXIM helps deploy and schedule Windows updates, which is ironic considering RUXIM appears to need an update itself to correctly display an advertisement for Windows 11.

Microsoft has pushed out another stark reminder that support for the world's most popular operating system will be ending this year, and that users of that operating system will need to upgrade to Redmond's latest OS to continue getting critical security updates.

Microsoft has taken to its website with a new blog post by Microsoft EVP and consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi, who explained that Windows 11 is "available at a time when the world needs it most," which references the looming October 14, 2025 date that will mark the end of support for Windows 10. Users still running the now 10-year-old OS will be faced with a choice of no longer receiving critical security updates that will result in their machine becoming exponentially more vulnerable to attacks, or pay the $30 a year to continue to receive Windows 10 security updates.

Despite Microsoft's marketing speak such as Windows 11 being available at a time "when the world needs it most," it's been long reported by myself and numerous other publications that Windows 11 adoption rate will not hit Microsoft's desired mark by the time October 14 rolls around. For example, Windows 10 is still currently on more than 60% of all PCs. In fact, over the last two months Windows 10 user base increased to 62.7% while Windows 11 fell to 34.1%. However, looking at the Steam Survey data, Windows 11 is in the lead with a 55% marketshare, while Windows 10 holds 42%.

With the new year having arrived, the prospect of Windows 10 support running out has become more concrete - it happens in October 2025 - and that has prompted ESET to issue a warning not to hang around in mulling your upgrade path from Microsoft's older OS.

The Slovakian security firm - which makes a popular antivirus app, and other security software besides - penned a blog post on the urgency to move away from Windows 10, as spotted by Neowin.

Thorsten Urbanski, Director of Marketing and Communication at ESET DACH (based in Essen, Germany), tells us:

Is it time for some good news about Windows 11 24H2, finally? No, it isn't sadly, instead we've got further tales of woe about fresh bugs in the 24H2 update.

There are two new critters which are skittering about in the works of Windows 11 24H2, as highlighted by Microsoft in its release health status dashboard for the OS.

The first glitch is with the Auto HDR feature, and when it's switched on, those running 24H2 may find the colors in games are messed up (with "certain display configurations" Microsoft advises).

The latest version of GPU-Z has just dropped with v2.61.0 adding support for Intel's new Arc B580 and B570 "Battlemage" graphics cards, as well as preliminary support for AMD's new RDNA 4-based Navi 48 GPU. You can download GPU-Z 2.61.0 here.

TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.61.0 is also the first version of the software to support detection of Qualcomm Adreno 540, 630, 640, and 642L with the team noting that "GPU-Z is an x86 application, although you can run it on Windows on Arm platforms, where the operating system's emulation allows GPU-Z to detect the underlying hardware".

Not only do we have Battlemage and RDNA 4 GPU support, the team has added support for the integrated GPUs of the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, NVIDIA H100 80 GB HBM3, A4000H, A800 40 GB Active, RTX 5880 Ada, and Tesla K40st. There's also new PCI vendor detection for ONIX, the new Intel Arc board partner, as well as Shangke.

It was in April of this year that the Senate passed a bill that banned TikTok from operating in the United States, as the software powering the application is now considered to be controlled by an adversary nation, China.

The new legislation that was passed deems TikTok a national security risk as the app has the ability to scrape the data of 170 million Americans, which could then be shared with China's government. According to lawmakers, the app having a China-owned parent company, ByteDance, along with its potential to spread misinformation in the US, has made it a dangerous piece of software. The US government is requiring ByteDance to sell its share of TikTok to an entity the US government is satisfied with or face a ban across both app marketplaces (App Store - iOS and Android - Google Play Store).

The US government has given ByteDance until January 19 to sell its share of TikTok or be forced to shut the app down across the US, which the Chinese company said at the time of the legislative decision wasn't enough time. ByteDance filed a temporary injunction to pause TikTok's US ban, but the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has found its claims "unwarranted," meaning the initial deadline of January 19 still holds. Notably, ByteDance can still file an appeal with the Supreme Court, which, if that court rules in ByteDance's favor, could prevent the TikTok ban.

Apple has announced the debut of iOS 18.2, an expansion of Apple Intelligence that arrived in a barebones form in late October.

For those that don't know, Apple will be rolling out Apple Intelligence features in stages, with iOS 18.1 being the first in a long process of slowly familiarizing users with a new suite of AI-powered features. In iOS 18.1, users were introduced to several new features, such as Writing Tools, an overhauled Siri, the Photos App becoming intelligent, the Clean Up tool, and other prioritization features.

iOS 18.2 is an expansion of iOS 18.1, with improvements being made in some of the previously announced features, such as the Photos app becoming even smarter, proofread, rewrite, and summarise text being added to Writing Tools, and ChatGPT being integrated into Siri. There are also other additions in iOS 18.2 that warrant being highlighted, and below, you will find a brief explanation of each.

Windows 11's Recall feature is back in play - in testing, and it just expanded to include AMD and Intel x86 Copilot+ PCs - but the controversial functionality has run into yet more trouble.

As you're doubtless aware, Recall is a supercharged AI search that uses regularly taken screenshots to find stuff on your PC. Those so-called 'snapshots' are not supposed to include any screen that has sensitive information on it, such as credit card details as an obvious example.

Tom's Hardware has been testing Recall in this respect, though, and found out that the results are hardly ideal in terms of maintaining cast-iron privacy for your more sensitive data.

When Microsoft first unveiled Windows Recall, it was met with heavy criticism for its intrusive nature on a PC, along with the potential security risk as a result of the feature working as intended.

For those that don't know, Windows Recall works by indiscriminately taking screenshots of a user's desktop and then storing those images within a folder. Users are able to "recall" what they were doing on a PC earlier in the day by simply asking via natural language or scrubbing through the time. While at face value, that seems like an interesting tool, but the word "indiscriminately" should be emphasized here, as Recall will capture everything on the desktop, meaning passwords, sensitive data, confidential information, and any other personal digitized information. A hacker gaining access to the folder containing screenshots of a session could prove a catastrophic security risk for that individual.

Microsoft has since added more layers of security to Recall in its re-release of the new app, which has also seen Recall become available on Copilot+ PC hardware. Since the re-release, Windows Insiders with Copilot+ PC hardware have been reporting issues with Recall, some of which have been officially recognized by Microsoft, who will address them in future updates. The expansion of Recall continues with Redmond announcing via its Windows Blog that Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.2510 (KB5048780) to the Dev Channel contains support for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot PCs.

It was only last week Microsoft clamped down on the hardware restrictions of Windows 11 by requiring systems to have TMP 2.0 for Redmond's latest operating system. Now, the company has seemingly changed its mind with a new blog post detailing the process of how to get Windows 11 onto a machine with hardware that doesn't meet Windows 11's hardware requirements.

Microsoft explained in its recent blog post that it doesn't recommend running Windows 11 on hardware that doesn't meet its specifications, as it means the machine won't receive critical security updates, making the system exponentially more vulnerable to progressively sophisticated cyber attacks. However, Microsoft writes that if the OS needs to be installed on an older machine, it can be, but a watermark is added to the Windows 11 desktop, along with a notification displayed in Settings to notify the user the hardware requirements haven't been met.

For those wondering if getting Windows 11 running on an outdated machine will cause more headaches than leaving it on Windows 10, don't worry, there is always the option of rolling back the machine to the older generation OS. Microsoft writes users can do this by going through the system recovery process. Right-click on the Start menu and select Settings > System > Recovery.

Microsoft recently took to its blog to announce that Copilot has become available for Windows Insiders and that the new software is "native" to Windows 11. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.

According to recent reports, Microsoft appears to have mistakenly labeled Copilot's new app as "native" to Windows 11, as the new Copilot loads copilot.microsoft.com. The difference between the new and old versions of Copilot is Microsoft's new AI companion no longer uses Microsoft Edge's Progressive Webb System (PWA) but still uses the rendering engine that powers Edge, WebView 2. Notably, WindowsCentral reports that the only part of Copilot that is "native" to Windows is the menu in the title bar and the About screen.

It's likely that Microsoft is referring to the new hotkey functionality as being "native" to Windows, as Windows Insiders are able to press Alt+Spacebar keys to bring up a new quick view interface for Copilot. However, this is still the Copilot website, just in a smaller window. Additionally, this new feature adds Copilot to Windows' System Tray. It should be noted that Copilot is still in preview, meaning many of these problems or lack of features will be added to or fixed before Copilot becomes available to the wider public.

Microsoft has taken to its blog to announce the availability of Copilot Vision, a new Copilot Pro feature that is designed to provide a helpful AI companion for internet browsing.

Microsoft has detailed the new feature in its blog post where it states Copilot Vision will require permission of the user and, if enabled, will be able to see what webpage a user is on, digest the information on the webpage, and provide helpful answers and information about what the user is searching. The new feature is currently only available in the US to a small group of Copilot Pro subscribers, which is a $20 per month subscription that unlocks Copilot across Office applications, priority access to Copilot during peak times, and now Copilot Vision.

The Windows maker explains that Copilot will be able to "understand the full context of what you're doing online," and when Copilot Vision is enabled, it "sees the page you're on, it reads along with you, and you can talk through the problem you're facing together. Browsing no longer needs to be a lonely experience with just you and all your tabs." For those worried about security, Microsoft has emphasized that Copilot VIsion is an entirely optional feature that needs to be manually switched on by a user for it to be enabled.

Microsoft has just shattered any hope that older machines that don't meet the requirements for Windows 11 will get some leeway leading into the official ending of the world's most popular operating system.

Windows 11 was released three years ago, and when the new operating system became available, users were faced with a slew of hardware requirements in order to upgrade. One of the biggest hurdles for users to get around was the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) hardware requirement, which is a hardware-based security requirement that resides within a motherboard or CPU processor. Most modern PCs shipping today automatically ship with TPM 2.0, making them Windows 11 eligible, but that doesn't help millions of machines with older hardware that don't meet the specification.

Microsoft explains in a recent blog post that TPM 2.0 will be required for how it integrates into the security side of a system, with The Verge explaining features such as Windows 11 like Credential Guard and Windows Hello for Business, BitLocker disk encryption, and Secure Boot, are all being helped by TPM 2.0. Microsoft even goes as far as to write, TPM 2.0 will be "a non-negotiable standard for the future of Windows," which means Microsoft won't be going back on any of its hardware requirements for Windows 11.

Microsoft has been pushing Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11 as the cut-off date for Windows 10 support slowly approaches.

The Redmond-based company has been pushing Windows 10 customers via various in-operating-system advertisements to upgrade to Windows 11, as support for the world's most popular operating system will end on October 25, 2025. Following the severance date, Windows 10 machines will no longer receive security updates, resulting in affected machines becoming exponentially more susceptible to security breaches or hacking. Notably, Windows 10 is still by quite a margin the most-used operating system in the world, with it holding a 61.8% market share versus Windows 11's 34.9% market share.

What's interesting is Windows 11 went from 35.6% in October to 34.9% in November, meaning it lost millions of users. As for Windows 10, the older generation operating system managed to grow its market share by just under 1%. It should be noted that these figures aren't official from Microsoft, as Redmond doesn't make those kinds of statistics public. However, Statcounter calculates its results with data from more than five billion page views across 1.5 million global sites, making it quite a reliable indicator for market share.

It was only earlier in the month the Australian House of Representatives voted to pass new legislation that bans social media for anyone that isn't over the age of 16.

That new legislation has now been voted upon in the Australian Senate, where it was passed, meaning the details of the Bill "Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age)" will be brought into effect. According to the new legislation, social media platforms will now be obligated to implement age verification checks and strategies to prevent social media platforms from being used by underage people.

Services that will fall under these new policies enable users to post material, interact with two or more people, and interact with all other end users, which all of the popular social media platforms, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and X, all fall under.How this new widespread regulation will be implemented is up to the companies behind the social media platform, not the Australian government.

Windows 11 24H2 is Microsoft's latest update that's currently available in the company preview channel for those that wish to opt-in to the Windows Insider Programme.

However, Windows 11 24H2 has been riddled with problems, most of which have been identified and confirmed by Microsoft, with fixes meant to be on the way. One of the biggest problems with 24H2 is the seemingly widespread error that stops PCs and laptops made by Dell from shutting down or even entering sleep mode.

The problem was first discovered by Windows Latest and later confirmed by Dell in an official statement on the company's website. According to the reports, the problem can be traced back to the Dell Encryption app and the latest installation of Windows 11 24H2. Compatibility errors between these two resulted in affected Dell systems being unable to shutdown.