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Finding the right gifts for everyone on your list this time of year can be a major source of stress. It can be even more daunting if you're trying to stick to a budget all while getting the folks you love things that they will really appreciate. But there's also a good chance you're getting fed bad gift ideas (and just as bad deals) if you're browsing the web frantically searching as we get closer and closer to the holidays.
Allow us at Engadget to help you through it. Here, you'll find all of our holiday gift guides collected in one place, so you can more easily find the best Christmas gifts you need this year. Are you looking for white elephant gift ideas? Are you struggling to come up with a good gift for the father figure in your life? Are you just looking for a good board game to pick up for your own family? We've got you covered with gift ideas for all of those scenarios and more.
Best white elephant gift ideas
According to legend, the King of Siam would give a white elephant to courtiers who had upset them. The recipient had no choice but to simply thank the king for such an opulent gift, knowing that they likely could not afford the upkeep for such an animal. It would inevitably lead them to financial ruin. This story is almost certainly untrue, but it has led to a modern holiday staple: the white elephant gift exchange. These gift ideas will not only get you a few chuckles, but will also make your recipient feel (slightly) burdened.
Read more: The best white elephant gift ideas
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Ever since reporting earlier this year on how easy it is to trick an agentic browser, I've been following the intersections between modern AI and old-school scams. Now, there's a new convergence on the horizon: hackers are apparently using AI prompts to seed Google search results with dangerous commands. When executed by unknowing users, these commands prompt computers to give the hackers the access they need to install malware.
The warning comes by way of a recent report from detection-and-response firm Huntress. Here's how it works. First, the threat actor has a conversation with an AI assistant about a common search term, during which they prompt the AI to suggest pasting a certain command into a computer's terminal. They make the chat publicly visible and pay to boost it on Google. From then on, whenever someone searches for the term, the malicious instructions will show up high on the first page of results.
Huntress ran tests on both ChatGPT and Grok after discovering that a Mac-targeting data exfiltration attack called AMOS had originated from a simple Google search. The user of the infected device had searched "clear disk space on Mac," clicked a sponsored ChatGPT link and — lacking the training to see that the advice was hostile — executed the command. This let the attackers install the AMOS malware. The testers discovered that both chatbots replicated the attack vector.
As Huntress points out, the evil genius of this attack is that it bypasses almost all the traditional red flags we've been taught to look for. The victim doesn't have to download a file, install a suspicious executable or even click a shady link. The only things they have to trust are
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A Windows launch isn't the end a process — it's really just the beginning. As with Windows 10, 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 23H2. 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 23H2 is being released as a phased rollout and may not be available to you in Windows Update yet.
To read this article in full, please click here
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