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 Brian Lynch, the senior director on Apple's home hardware engineering team, is leaving Apple for smart ring company Oura, reports Bloomberg. Lynch accepted a role as Oura's senior vice president of hardware engineering.
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Apple has started providing small security updates to iOS, iPadOS and macOS devices. These are dubbed Background Security Improvements that will offer minor system updates between the larger software updates. According to the company, these are meant to "deliver lightweight security releases for components such as the Safari browser, WebKit framework stack, and other system libraries that benefit from smaller, ongoing security patches between software updates."
These updates should download in the background, as the name implies, although the device will need to be restarted to complete the process. In practice, we found that applying a Background Security Improvement was faster than a typical software update from Apple. On an iPhone, the restart was more of a power cycle taking under a minute compared with the 5 to 10 minutes a standard update takes a device out of commission.
The inaugural Background Security Improvement was released today with a patch for WebKit. These updates will be supported and enabled on devices running iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1 and macOS 26.1. Details can be reviewed under the Privacy & Security section of the Settings menu.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/apple-releases-its-first-background-security-improvement-for-macos-ios-and-ipados-214052311.html?src=rss
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 Google is bringing Personal Intelligence to all Google Gemini users starting today, after testing the feature with its paid plans. Personal Intelligence allows Gemini AI to provide personalized responses based on information pulled from connected Google apps like Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube, and more.
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At the start of the year, Google introduced Personal Intelligence, a Gemini feature that allows the chatbot to pull information from the user's other Google apps and services to generate personalized responses. After making the feature first available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, the company is expanding availability to more users in the US.
Google is kicking off the expansion with AI Mode. Starting today, anyone in the US can enable Personal Intelligence inside of the company's dedicated search chatbot. To enable the feature, tap on your profile, select Search personalization, followed by Connected Content Apps. From there, select Connect Workspace and Google Photos.
In the coming weeks, Google will start rolling out Personal Intelligence to free users of the Gemini app in the US, with international availability to follow thereafter. The company plans to do the same with Gemini in Chrome, where personalization will first roll out to users in the US before becoming available in other countries.
Google suggests a few different use cases for Gemini personalization inside of AI Mode, the Gemini app and Chrome. For instance, say you turn to AI mode for help with planning an upcoming trip. Instead of generating a generic itinerary, the chatbot will pull information from your apps to suggest something more tailored to your interests. It can also help you with troubleshooting in cases where you can't remember the exact make or model of a
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 Accessory maker Spigen this week expanded its lineup of case options that are designed to look like vintage Apple Macs. The clever new Classic LS AirPods Pro 3 Case resembles a the iconic Apple Macintosh mouse, so it goes well with Spigen's Mac-style iPhone cases.
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Repair site iFixit today took apart the iPhone 17e, which is the new low-cost iPhone that Apple launched last Wednesday. The ?iPhone 17e? is almost identical to the iPhone 16e in design, but it does include a MagSafe back panel that supports ?MagSafe? and faster Qi charging than the iPhone 16e.
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Microsoft has unveiled Copilot Health, an AI-powered tool it claims can help make sense of your medical records, health history and fitness data from wearables, should you grant it access to that information. The company said it will be in a "separate, secure space" in the Copilot app and that the idea is to help provide you with more context and insights so you can ask your doctor the right questions when you see them.
Copilot Health is designed to help you better understand your medical information as a whole, Microsoft says. It is not "intended to diagnose, treat or prevent diseases or other conditions and is not a substitute for professional medical advice," the company pointed out in a blog post.
The tool can pull in activity, fitness and sleep data from more than 50 devices, including Apple Watch, Oura and Fitbit. Through HealthEx, it can access health records that include visit summaries, medication details and test results from more than 50,000 hospitals and provider organizations in the US. It can tap into lab test results from Function, should you allow it to do so.
Copilot Health can take all those details and apply "intelligence to turn them into a coherent story," such as helping you pinpoint the reasons why you don't sleep too well, the company suggested. It can access real-time provider directories in the US to help users find clinicians based on factors like location, specialty, spoken languages and insurance coverage.
Microsoft says that, across AI-powered consumer products li
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Those are just some of the things that Google's Gemini have been reporting in its Home Briefs—the summaries it can produce of the daily goings-on detected by Nest security cameras and other connected smart home devices—and some Gemini for Home users say they're getting thoroughly creeped out by the briefings, particularly with Halloween right around the corner.
"Throughout the morning, several instances of people in black cloaks or robes were observed standing in the yard," read a Home Brief screenshot posed by a Google Home user on Reddit. "The unusual presence of individuals in black cloaks or robes continued into the afternoon, with multiple sighting in the yard and approaching the driveway."
Talk about a spooky report, but the reality turned out to be pretty innocuous.
"It's hilarious, I got this summary today," the user said. "For the ‘black cloaks or robes,' I have Halloween decorations that the camera sees."
The user allowed that the creepy description was more or less "accurate," but that another event reported in the briefing ("a person was seen walking by the playset in the Backyard") didn't happen: "The person by the playset doesn't exist, the clip showed nobody."
In a similar occurrence, another Gemini for Home users posted a
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Google Cloud has joined AWS and Europe-based Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) in protesting Microsoft's anticompetitive cloud software licensing practices in the EU.
"Microsoft's cloud licensing restrictions restrict choice and create harmful downstream impacts for companies, ranging from higher costs to more security breaches to a chilling effect on smaller cloud and software providers including European AI startups," Amit Zavery, vice president of platforms at Google Cloud, wrote on X.
Microsoft should end the arbitrary "Listed Provider" designation and allow customers to run their previously purchased software on any platform without paying as much as 5x more to use non-Azure clouds, Zavery said, adding that Microsoft shouldn't be permitted to pick and choose who it competes with.
To read this article in full, please click here
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