The computing industry was founded with mainframes intended for the few. Bringing computers to the masses was the work of generations, such as the trailblazers we honor in this story. Whether they shrank transistors, crafted new programming languages, or connected people online and off, these software developers, hardware designers, and business executives took expensive, inscrutable technologies and made them accessible to all.

As Computerworld looks back at 2024, we celebrate the lives and accomplishments of these fifteen remarkable IT pioneers who passed away this year — but not before leaving their mark.

Niklaus Wirth: Pascal pioneer

February 15, 1934 – January 1, 2024

Niklaus Wirth
Tyomitch

After earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, followed by master’s and Ph.D. degrees, Niklaus Wirth began his career in teaching — first at Stanford University, then at his undergraduate alma mater, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), where he remained from 1968 until his retirement in 1999.

When tasked with starting the school’s computer science department, Wirth found the programming languages available at the time too complex — so he created his own. He released Pascal and its source code to the community in 1970 and introduced it to the classroom in 1971.

The result was a success, recalled Wirth: “It allowed the teacher to concentrate more heavily on structures and concepts than features and peculiarities — that is, on principles rather than techniques.” Pascal became an introduction to programming for generations of students — though it was not merely an academic exercise.

“I do not believe in using tools and formalisms in teaching that are inadequate for any practical task,” said Wirth. “[Pascal] represented a sensible compromise between what was desirable and what was effective.”

During his time at ETH, Wirth took two sabbaticals to work at Xerox PARC. There, he encountered the Alto computer, his first time using a personal computer that he didn’t need to timeshare with others. The experience inspired him to return to Switzerland and build his own personal computers and their accompanying software. Languages he developed for these computers included Modula-2 (1979) and Oberon (1988). Ultimately, Wirth was his own best student: “One learns best when inventing,” he said.

Wirth was honored in 1984 with ACM’s Turing Award and in 2004 as a Computer History Museum Fellow. He died at 89.

John Walker: Design revolutionary

May 16, 1949 – February 2, 2024

John Walker
Shaan Hurley

John Walker didn’t find his success overnight: the son of a doctor and a nurse, he studied astronomy before switching to electrical engineering; founded the hardware company Marinchip Systems in 1976; and then co-founded Autodesk in 1982. The company’s first product was an eponymous office automation program.

It was AutoCAD that finally gave Autodesk and Walker their fame. Walker didn’t invent computer-assisted design — the term “CAD” was coined in 1959 — but previous CAD software had largely been limited to more powerful mainframe computers; AutoCAD was one of the first implementations to be available to the masses.

Originally developed as Interact CAD, AutoCAD was demoed for CP/M computers at the 1982 Comdex industry trade show, where it was met with wild acclaim. It ushered in a design revolution in architecture, engineering, interior design, manufacturing, and more. AutoCAD is still used and supported today, with the latest version having been released for Windows and macOS in May 2024.

Walker himself was a talented software developer and author who enjoyed writing more than he did managing: shortly after Autodesk went public in 1985, he stepped down as CEO. He moved to Switzerland in 1991 and retired in 1994 at the age of 45.

In retirement, Walker wrote many books, including The Hacker’s Diet: How to Lose Weight and Hair Through Stress and Poor Nutrition (which, “notwithstanding its silly subtitle, is a serious book about how to lose weight,” wrote Walker); and The Autodesk File: Bits of History, Words of Experience, an 889-page PDF that saw its fifth and final revision in 2017.

Walker was 74 when he died from head injuries sustained from a fall at home.

Herbert Kroemer: Taking big steps

August 25, 1928 – March 8, 2024

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Javier Chagoya

Some inventors have ideas ahead of their time; it takes decades for technology and society to catch up. That’s why it wasn’t until 2000 that Herbert Kroemer received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in heterostructures dating back to the 1960s.

Kroemer earned his Ph.D. at the age of 23 before joining a semiconductor research group in the German postal service in 1952. Charged with improving the rate and reliability of transistors (still fairly new at the time, having been invented in 1947), Kroemer proposed improvements that required technology that did not yet exist. Kroemer’s proposals were eventually implemented in what became known as heterostructure transistors.

In 1963, while working at one of Silicon Valley’s first high-tech companies, Varian Associates, Kroemer recommended using heterostructures for lasers as well, enabling them to operate continuously at room temperature. He received the patent for his idea in 1967, which led to the creation of laser diodes — a technology with applications both small (disc players, barcode scanners) and large (satellite communications, fiber optics).

In 1976, after eight years on the faculty at the University of Colorado, Kroemer moved to University of California, Santa Barbara, where he remained until his retirement in 2012.

Kroemer once said, “Small steps didn’t really interest me. I was interested in big steps.” Those big steps earned him not only the 2000 Nobel Prize, but also the 2001 Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the 2002 IEEE Medal of Honor. He was 95 when he passed.

Daniel C. Lynch: Making connections

August 16, 1941 – March 30, 2024

Daniel C. Lynch
Informa Tech

Bringing people and ideas together and assuring they work well is what good leaders do. And that’s what Daniel Lynch did throughout his career.

After earning a master’s degree in mathematics, Lynch worked in the United States Air Force, where he learned to program. That skill set led him to positions at Lockheed Martin and then Stanford Research Institute, where he encountered the ARPANET. The precursor to the internet inspired his passion for computer networking, and he helped replace the ARPANET’s NCP protocol with TCP/IP, offering broader compatibility and networking.

Nonetheless, early internet developers proliferated a variety of incompatible applications and protocols. To get them all talking to each other, Lynch founded Interop, an annual conference that launched in 1986 with internet pioneer Vint Cerf as the keynote speaker. The show was an instant success, providing a much-needed space for direct communication among industry peers.

One of the early draws of Interop was the InteropNet, a local-area network (LAN) consisting of 120 miles of wires connecting 7,000 machines. With each of the show’s vendors being part of the InteropNet, it was an opportunity to test how hardware and software from different manufacturers would or could talk to each other. Interop also published 117 issues of a monthly technical journal, ConneXions (1987–1996).

Interop was sold to Ziff-Davis in 1991 and merged with their Networld event in 1994; the conference became known as Networld+Interop until 2005, when it again adopted the name Interop. The show hit its peak in 2001 with 61,000 attendees.

In 1994 — one year before he left Interop, and four years before PayPal was founded — Lynch co-founded CyberCash, an online payment service. CyberCash filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and was acquired by VeriSign — then, in 2005, by PayPal.

Lynch was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2019. He died at 82 from kidney failure.

Robert Dennard: Memory man

September 5, 1932 – April 23, 2024

Robert Dennard
Fred Holland

Entering college on a French horn music scholarship, Robert Dennard earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering. He then joined IBM as a researcher in 1954.

At that time, storing a single bit of information in memory required six transistors — a relatively expensive and limiting technique. In 1966, Dennard delivered dramatic improvements in speed and capacity when he invented the one-transistor memory cell. This design became the basis for dynamic RAM, or DRAM, which is used in practically all computing devices to this day.

Dennard also worked on metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). In a 1974 paper he co-authored, Dennard described how transistors could become smaller (in accordance with Moore’s Law) while retaining the same energy consumption — a principle that became known as Dennard scaling.

Dennard’s innovations earned him the United States’ National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 1988 and the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology in 2013. Yet Dennard remained humble, saying, “I’m a very ordinary person, with a very ordinary background and upbringing… It’s not enough to just think creatively. Once you’ve posed the question, you’ve got to answer the question.”

Dennard stayed at IBM until his retirement in 2014. He died at 91 from a bacterial infection.

C. Gordon Bell: VAX visionary

August 19, 1934 – May 17, 2024

C. Gordon Bell
Queensland University of Technology

In 1958, after returning to the USA from a Fulbright scholarship teaching computer design in Australia, Chester Gordon Bell enrolled in a Ph.D. program at his undergraduate alma mater, MIT. But Bell was lured by Digital Equipment Corporation to drop out of school in 1960 and become DEC’s second-ever engineer. There, he contributed to the architecture of the PDP-1, PDP-5, and PDP-11 minicomputers and was the principal architect of the PDP-4 and PDP-6. The PDP-1 was DEC’s first computer, and although only about fifty were manufactured, it paved the way for the commercial success of later models.

After a six-year hiatus to teach at Carnegie Mellon University, Bell returned to DEC in 1972 as vice president of engineering. During this stint, Bell co-architected and oversaw the development of the VAX series of “superminicomputers,” as DEC referred to them. Along with the PDP line, the VAX computers were so successful, they led DEC to become the industry’s second biggest computer manufacturer.

In 1983, Bell had a heart attack, which he blamed on the stress of working for DEC’s often overbearing co-founder, Ken Olsen. Bell retired from DEC — but his career stretched on for decades more. He went on to be an assistant director at the National Science Foundation; vice president of research and development at Ardent Computer; and principal researcher at Microsoft, where he championed lifelogging — recording and storing every aspect of one’s life digitally.

Bell also co-founded what is now the Computer History Museum of Mountain View, California; established the ACM Gordon Bell Prize to honor innovations in high-performance computing; and was granted the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 1991. He died at 89 from pneumonia.

Lynn Conway: Breaking down barriers

January 2, 1938 – June 9, 2024

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Charles Rogers

While working at IBM on the Advanced Computing Systems project in the 1960s, Lynn Conway developed dynamic instruction scheduling (DIS), a computing architecture technique that enabled computers to perform multiple operations simultaneously, paving the way for the first superscalar computer.

Conway’s reward: she was fired from IBM and all record of her work expunged — all because she’d come out to her employer as being transgender. With her career erased, Conway underwent gender-affirming surgery and began a new career under a new name.

Despite the professional setback, Conway continued building a legacy of profound innovations. In 1973, while working at Xerox PARC with Carver Mead and Bert Sutherland, she co-developed very large-scale integration (VLSI), enabling microchips to hold millions of circuits — kicking off a revolution in computer architecture and design. She returned to MIT, a school she’d previously dropped out of in the 1950s after a physician threatened her with institutionalization, to teach the university’s first VLSI design course.

Related reading: Unsung innovators: Lynn Conway and Carver Mead

Conway then worked at DARPA before joining the faculty of the University of Michigan, where she remained for 13 years until her retirement in 1998. She did not come out about her work at IBM until 2000, after which she became an outspoken advocate for transgender rights. Conway was heartened by the changing landscape compared to when she grew up, saying: “Parents who have transgender children are discovering that if they… let that person blossom into who they need to be, they often see just remarkable flourishing of a life force.”

In 2020, fifty-two years after Conway was fired, IBM issued a formal apology.

She passed away at the age of 86 from a heart condition.

Trygve Reenskaug: A model for success

June 21, 1930 – June 14, 2024

Trygve Reenskaug
Trygve Reenskaug

When Xerox PARC developed the Alto computer in 1973, it debuted a new paradigm: the graphical user interface (GUI), an abstraction between the user and the computer’s underlying data. To develop GUI programs, developers also needed a new model to work with.

University of Oslo computer science professor Trygve Reenskaug was visiting PARC in 1979 when he came up with the solution: the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern. Originally designed in Smalltalk, an object-oriented language that was developed at PARC from 1972 to 1980, MVC eventually became popular for developing web applications, including in Ruby on Rails.

MVC wasn’t Reenskaug’s only innovation: in 1963, he developed an early CAD program, Autokon, which was widely used in maritime and offshore industries. And in 1986, he founded software company Taskon, where he developed the software package OOram (Object-Oriented role analysis and modeling). OOram later evolved into data, content, and interaction (DCI), a software development model that continues to be used to this day, such as in Tinder’s mobile app.

Reenskaug remained humble about his contributions, writing, “I have sometimes been given more credit than is my due.” He cited teammates Alan Kay, Jim Althoff, Per Wold, and Odd Arild Lehne, among others, who carried the baton before and after him.

Reenskaug was 93 when he died.

Bruce Bastian: Perfecting the word

March 23, 1948 – June 16, 2024

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B W Bastian Foundation

In 1979, while earning his master’s degree in computer science at Brigham Young University, Bruce Bastian partnered with his professor, Alan Ashton, to co-found Satellite Software International. Their flagship product was word processing software that they had co-developed for the city of Orem, Utah. That program later became the new name of their company: WordPerfect Corporation.

The WordPerfect software debuted several innovations, including function-key shortcuts, numbering of lines in legal documents, and a scripting capability. It went toe-to-toe with Microsoft Word, trouncing it in the MS-DOS era but proving slow to catch up in Windows, where Microsoft bundled Word in its Office suite. But over the years, versions of WordPerfect also proliferated for Atari, Amiga, Unix, Linux, Macintosh, and iOS devices.

WordPerfect was acquired by Novell in 1994 and by Corel, now Alludo, in 1996. Only the Windows version is still supported, having been most recently updated in 2021; it remains popular, especially among lawyers.

Bastian left the Mormon church in the 1980s when he came out as gay. He became a staunch advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights, sitting on the board of the nonprofit Human Rights Campaign and donating $1 million to defeat California’s Proposition 8 to outlaw same-sex marriage in 2008. His own nonprofit, the B.W. Bastian Foundation, continues to support organizations that further human rights and the LGBTQIA+ community.

“I’m doing this for the kid in Idaho, growing up on a farm. I don’t want him to go through the s— I went through,” Bastian told the Salt Lake Tribune.

Bastian died at 76 from complications associated with pulmonary fibrosis.

Lubomyr Romankiw: Magnetic personality

April 17, 1931 – June 27, 2024

Lubomyr Romankiw
Qhuang75

Born in Zhovkva, Ukraine (then part of Poland), Romankiw emigrated to Canada, where he attained citizenship and earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. After earning a master’s and Ph.D. in metallurgy and materials in 1962 from MIT, he joined IBM.

At that time, IBM’s mainframes relied on drum storage for memory, which was slow, heavy, expensive, and limited to a few hundred kilobytes. In the 1970s, Romankiw partnered with co-worker David Thompson to invent magnetic thin film storage heads. The innovation spanned almost a dozen patents that reduced the size and increased the density of data storage devices. Any modern device that uses magnetic-head hard drives (as opposed to solid-state drives) still employs Romankiw’s innovations. His work earned him a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2012.

Romankiw spent his entire career at IBM, earning the rank of IBM Fellow in 1986. He also became a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society in 1990. Among Romankiw’s other developments and 65 patents were inductive power converters and inductors for high-efficiency solar cells.

He was 93 when he passed.

Susan Wojcicki: Channeling innovation

July 5, 1968 – August 9, 2024

Susan Wojcicki
TechCrunch

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998, they needed office space. Management consultant Susan Wojcicki provided her garage — and, over the years, so much more.

Hired as Google employee #16, Wojcicki went on to play several defining roles in the company: she was Google’s first marketing manager in 1999; she product-managed the launch of Google Image Search in 2001; she was AdSense’s first product manager in 2003; and, while heading the nascent Google Video division, she initiated and managed Google’s acquisition of competitor YouTube in 2006.

In 2014, Wojcicki was appointed CEO of YouTube. Over the next nine years, she oversaw the service’s expansion into multiple countries, languages, and brands, including YouTube Premium, TV, Shorts, Music, and Gaming. The platform’s annual advertising revenue now exceeds $50 billion.

Throughout her career, Wojcicki’s work embodied the early days of Google, which she defined as “incredible product and technology innovation, huge opportunities, and a healthy disregard for the impossible.” She stepped down as YouTube CEO in February 2023, remaining in an advisory role at parent company Alphabet. She passed away 18 months later at age 56 from lung cancer.

Roy L. Clay Sr.: Godfather of Silicon Valley

August 22, 1929 – September 22, 2024

Roy L. Clay Sr.
Palo Alto Historical Association

Roy Clay was one of nine children raised in a household without electricity or a toilet. He nonetheless grew up to become the one of the first Black Americans to graduate from St. Louis University, earning his degree in mathematics.

After being denied a job interview at McDonnell Aircraft Manufacturing on account of his skin color, Clay persisted in applying until he finally got a job. He worked at McDonnell as a computer programmer for two years, then joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he wrote software to monitor an atomic explosion’s radiation diffusion. The reputation he developed there as a talented software developer landed him a job at Hewlett-Packard.

At HP, Clay wrote software for and led the development of the company’s first minicomputer, the 2116A, released in 1966. The computer and its immediate successors sold exceptionally well for decades, helping cement HP’s leadership in the early computer industry. Rising through the ranks at HP, Clay helped expand its talent pool by hiring engineers from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Clay left HP in 1971 to start a consulting firm that advised the likes of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading venture capital firm that helped shape Silicon Valley. In 1977, he formed his own company, ROD-L Electronics, a manufacturer of electrical safety test equipment. ROD-L hired a diverse workforce and offered employees a flex-time schedule as well as full tuition reimbursement. Said Clay, “If you’re not bothering to learn more, then you’re becoming unproductive.”

Clay was a pioneer not just in IT, but in politics: he was the first Black council member for the city of Palo Alto, California (1973–1979) and was elected to the position of city vice mayor (1976–1977).

As a trailblazer who worked tirelessly to diversify the tech industry, he earned the nickname “Godfather of Silicon Valley” — an honorific he adopted for his 2022 self-published memoir, Unstoppable: The Unlikely Story of a Silicon Valley Godfather.

Clay passed away at 95.

Ward Christensen: Modem maverick

October 23, 1945 – October 11, 2024

Ward Christensen
Jason Scott

Ward Christensen spent his entire 44-year career as a systems engineer at IBM — but it was his hobbies that earned him a place in history.

In 1977, when Christensen needed to convert a CP/M floppy disk to an audio cassette, he developed a transfer protocol consisting of 128-byte blocks, the sector size used by CP/M floppies. The protocol proved so versatile and reliable for a variety of platforms that it evolved into XMODEM, which became a standard for transferring data files across dial-up modem connections, especially at slower speeds such as 300 baud.

Christensen’s work on XMODEM earned him a sponsorship from the White Sands Missile Range to dial into the ARPANET. But he was frustrated by the organization’s design-by-committee approach, where ideas languished. When Chicago’s Great Blizzard of 1978 left Christensen and his fellow computing enthusiasts stranded in their homes, Christensen called his friend Randy Suess to develop a way for their local hobby computer club to meet virtually. The two collaborated, with Suess providing the hardware and Christensen the software. Within two weeks, the Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS) was up and running.

CBBS became the first of tens of thousands of dial-up BBSes that proliferated over the next twenty years. BBSes formed some of the first online communities and became important shareware distribution nodes for early game companies. The groundbreaking innovation earned Christensen multiple awards and recognition, including a 1993 Pioneer Award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Christensen retired from IBM in 2012, after which he remained active in Build-a-Blinkie, a nonprofit that teaches basic computer hardware skills. “I [can] think of no finer testimony to the soul behind this pioneer than the fact that up to the end of his life, he was teaching very young children how to solder together electronics to get them interested in science and engineering,” said Jason Scott, creator of BBS: The Documentary.

Christensen died at home from a heart attack at the age of 78.

Thomas E. Kurtz: Keeping it BASIC

February 22, 1928 – November 12, 2024

Thomas KurtzRauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth

After earning his Ph.D., Thomas Kurtz joined Dartmouth College in 1956 as a mathematics professor and the director of the university’s computing center, which consisted of a single computer. Kurtz and colleague John Kemeny worked around this hardware limitation by developing the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS), which operated from 1964 to 1999.

Having solved the problem of the computer’s accessibility, Kurtz and Kemeny set out to improve its usability for students. Existing programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL could be esoteric, so the pair developed an alternative: Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC. The school described the new language as “a simple combination of ordinary English and algebra, which can be mastered by the novice in a very few hours… There is enough power in the language BASIC to solve the most complicated computer problems.”

As a small, portable, easy-to-use language, BASIC proliferated, with variations for almost all platforms, becoming the introduction to software development for generations of computer users. It also launched countless careers and institutions: Microsoft BASIC was one of the first products from Microsoft when it was founded in 1975; the company later developed Applesoft BASIC to help launch Apple Computer’s Apple II personal computer. A young Richard Garriott used Applesoft to write the first Ultima computer role-playing game.

Kurtz retired from teaching in 1993. He received the IEEE’s Computer Pioneer Award in 1991 and was named an ACM Fellow in 1994. In 2023, he was inducted as a Computer History Museum Fellow, with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates presenting the award. Dartmouth College produced a documentary about BASIC for the language’s 50th anniversary.

Kurtz died at 96 from sepsis.

Donald Bitzer: Platonic principles

January 1, 1934 – December 10, 2024

srcset=”https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?quality=50&strip=all 2400w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=200%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 200w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=768%2C1152&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=683%2C1024&quality=50&strip=all 683w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=1024%2C1536&quality=50&strip=all 1024w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=1365%2C2048&quality=50&strip=all 1365w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=465%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 465w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=112%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 112w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=56%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 56w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=320%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 320w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=240%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 240w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/luminaries2024-15-bitzer-donald.png?resize=167%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 167w” width=”683″ height=”1025″ sizes=”(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px”>Donald BitzerNC State University College of Engineering

In 1959, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Control Systems Laboratory set out to develop a computerized learning system. They hired Don Bitzer, who’d just earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the school.

Bitzer accomplished what a committee could not, and the result was Program Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations, or PLATO. The system was jam-packed with content, including tens of thousands of hours of course materials, Star Trek-inspired games, and a message board that constituted an early online community. The hardware, initially based on the ILLIAC I computer, was equally groundbreaking: PLATO was one of the first computers to combine a touchscreen with graphics, and it was an early example of timesharing — an innovation University of Illinois might’ve earned a patent for, had the paperwork not been misfiled.

In 1964, the PLATO IV model debuted another innovation: the flat-panel plasma display. This alternative to traditional cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays, invented by Bitzer, H. Gene Slottow, and Robert Willson, rippled far beyond academic computers: decades later, it became the basis for flatscreen, high-definition televisions, used in computers and entertainment worldwide. For this work, Bitzer received a 2002 Technology & Engineering Emmy Award.

In 1989, Bitzer joined the faculty of NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he remained until retirement. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2013, the National Academy of Inventors in 2018, and as a fellow of the Computer History Museum in 2022.

“He was a rare systems-level individual who could easily move between hardware and software, and wrangled both sets of people, all while evangelizing the entire PLATO platform to any individual or organization who would listen,” said Thom Cherryhomes, creator of IRATA.ONLINE, a modern online community based on the PLATO system.

Bitzer was 90 when he died at home.

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak Have you ever encountered “MB” in a text and wondered what it means? Abbreviations like these…
The post What Does MB Mean in Text? appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

More and more, there are Android tips — and then there are Pixel tips.

Owning a Google Pixel phone has become a ticket of sorts to a uniquely top-tier type of Android experience. With Google’s pure vision for the way the operating system itself should work (and none of the experience-harming and often even privacy-compromising layers other device-makers love to lard into the software) — not to mention all the extra bits of exceptionally helpful Googley goodness that are available only in the Pixel environment — the Google Pixel increasingly represents Android at its best. And as anyone who’s spent any amount of time living with a Pixel can tell you, nothing else comes close to comparing.

That’s why I wanted to put together a special series of Pixel-specific tips to complement my collections of more general-interest Android tips and Google Android app tricks from 2024. Increasingly, some of the most interesting and beneficial bits of Googley intelligence are relevant only to those of us who are actively palming Pixels. And if you’re lucky enough to be part of that group, you deserve to have the best Pixel experience possible.

So here, without further ado, are the most memorable Google Pixel tips from Android Intelligence over the past year. Read ’em, remember ’em, and then do yourself a favor and come check out my free (and freshly updated!) Pixel Academy e-course to treat yourself to an entire treasure trove of advanced Pixel knowledge.

2024’s top Google Pixel tips

15 new Android 15 features to find on your Google Pixel phone

These experience-enhancing treasures are probably already present on your Pixel, but it’s up to you to find ’em.

5 handy hidden tricks for Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold (and Pixel Tablet, too!)

If you’ve got one of Google’s big-screen-packin’ Pixels, you’ll absolutely want to embrace these out-of-sight extras.

The barely-mentioned Pixel 9 wonder that’s completely won me over

Google’s latest Pixel phones have plenty of high-profile features, but a tiny-seeming detail most people aren’t even mentioning might be the most meaningful addition of all.

Google Pixel 9 vs. every past Pixel: To upgrade or not to upgrade?

Some balanced and thoughtful advice on Google’s Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro compared to every other Pixel model — from someone who’s lived with ’em all.

9 hidden Google Pixel features for smarter calling

Let your Pixel phone make your life easier with these exceptionally effective annoyance-eliminating options.

Get early access to Google’s Pixel Scam Detection system

Step up your scam-stopping intelligence with this free new feature for Google’s Pixel phones.

Bonus: A crafty new Chrome power-up

If you’re using Chrome on your computer in addition to your Pixel, this easy add-on will bring a big boost to your browser-based productivity in the desktop domain.

Hey, thanks for making the most of your precious Pixel with me over the past 12 months. Stay tuned for even more Pixel pondering in 2025!

And in the meantime, don’t let yourself miss an ounce of Pixel magic. Sign up for my free Pixel Academy e-course to discover tons more hidden features and time-savers for your favorite Pixel phone — on demand and anytime you want.

Source:: Computer World

From the editors of Computerworld, this enterprise buyer’s guide helps IT staff understand what the various videoconferencing options can do for their organizations and how to choose the right solution.

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak Roblox offers endless adventures, and saving your favorite items makes exploring even more exciting! Whether it’s…
The post How to See Your Favorites on Roblox? appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

This was an important year for Microsoft: it added approximately a half-trillion dollars to its market valuation and cemented its lead as the world’s leading generative AI (genAI) company. But 2024 has also been a transitional one for the company, as the US government increasingly turns its focus on reining in Big Tech.

As always, Microsoft was in and out of the news throughout the year (sometimes for good, sometimes not). These are the five most important hits and misses the company faced.

Microsoft goes all in on Copilot for Microsoft 365

Microsoft became more than a $3 trillion company this year, thanks not to Windows or the cloud – its valuation soared because it’s now an all-out genAI company.  This past year, it completed the integration of its core genAI product Copilot into Microsoft 365 (for additional user subscription fees, of course). A rollout that began in late 2023 to larger enterprises continued in early January, when Microsoft released versions for businesses of all sizes and for individuals. 

The results were mixed. I found the technology useful for creating first drafts in Word and PowerPoint and a potential big time-saver, although the quality of its writing often left something to be desired. I also found it Copilot had a tendency to “hallucinate” – that is, make things up – meaning its output needed to be double-checked. While adept at summarizing conversation threads in Outlook, it wasn’t particularly useful in Excel.

Presumably, Copilot’s quality will improve, because so much money is at stake. Think of it this way: at the start of 2024, Microsoft had 400 million subscribers to Microsoft 365. If only 10% of those  users subscribe to Copilot, Microsoft could rake in an additional $12 billion a year in revenue.

Though Microsoft hasn’t released information about the total number of Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscribers, it’s clear it could become one of the company’s biggest cash cows and portends financial good times to come.

Blistering security criticism burns Microsoft again

The year brought another serious round of criticism of Microsoft’s lax approach to security. In April, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) excoriated sloppy security practices that allowed Chinese spies to hack into the accounts of high-level government officials in charge of the country’s relationship with China. Among the officials who got burned: US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, and Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE).

A blistering 29-page DHS report detailed the company’s security failures, and pointed to “the cascade of Microsoft’s avoidable errors that allowed this intrusion to succeed.” The report said Microsoft’s security infrastructure is so weak that it failed “to detect the compromise of its cryptographic crown jewels on its own, relying instead on a customer to reach out to identify anomalies the customer had observed.”

The report’s conclusion: Microsoft’s security is “inadequate and requires an overhaul.”

Microsoft promised it would change. But we’ve been through this before, and the government hasn’t done anything about it in the past. I don’t expect this time to be different.

Thumbs down on Copilot+ PCs…for now

In an genAI-driven world, you need a PC built from the ground up to get the most from the technology. Or so Microsoft argued when it unveiled the Copilot+ PC line mid-year. The company might well have a point, but it has yet to prove it.

The first wave of Copilot+ PCs were underwhelming and overpriced. Although they had AI coprocessors onboard, it’s not clear why, because Copilot+ PCs were launched without what the company claimed was the best reason for buying them – the Recall feature that was supposed to let you find any file, email, or web site you visited in a snap. That feature was so insecure that Microsoft pulled it before Copilot+ PCs were released. 

Jeff Pollard, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, told Computerworld, “I think a built-in keylogger and screen-shotter that perfectly captures everything you do on the machine within a certain time frame is a tremendous privacy nightmare for users.” He’s right. Since then, though, Microsoft has reworked the feature, and has begun offering a public preview of it.

Even more confounding: the AI technology on Copilot+ PCs is less powerful than the one on regular PCs, unable to do some basic Windows tasks for you, such as turning dark mode on or off.

Microsoft is right that PCs with AI coprocessors are better suited for then rapidly advancing technology than PCs without them. But Copilot+ PCs aren’t those machines. One day, every PC shipped will likely have onboard AI coprocessor. But we’re not there yet.

The Feds target Microsoft for antitrust violations

Until November, Microsoft had managed to avoid the antitrust investigations and prosecutions targeting much of Big Tech. Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple were all slapped with serious actions that threaten the core of their respective businesses. Google, for example, might be split up after the US Federal Trade Commission won a lawsuit claiming the company violated antitrust law by actions it took to protect its search business. 

Microsoft might get whacked, as well. In late November, the FTC launched a wide-ranging investigation into the company’s AI, cloud computing, security and Teams products. The agency is focusing on ways in which Microsoft bundles cloud computing products and Teams with its office and security products, as well as whether it’s gaining too much market dominance in AI.

It’s not clear yet whether the FTC will eventually prosecute Microsoft, and whether any action against the company would be allowed to proceed once Donald Trump takes over as president in January. (See below for more about Trump and Microsoft.) But if the prosecution does move forward, it could be as problematic for the company as the Department of Justice’s Windows antitrust suit in 1998 that sent the company into a 15-year tailspin.

Trump wins the presidential election

The biggest wildcard for Microsoft came late in the year with Trump’s election, which has potential long-range consequences for its AI plans, as well as the cloud, Teams, and more. Trump could squash antitrust actions against Microsoft — or double-down on them. He could award billions of dollars in government contracts to the company — or rescind them. He could use the power of the bully pulpit to badmouth Microsoft — or praise it. 

There’s no way to know what the president-elect might do; Trump himself often doesn’t seem to know. With him, everything is personal. Stroke his ego and good things happen. Criticize him and he’ll loose the power of the government against you.

Since his election, most of Big Tech has been busy doing the former. Meta, AI and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman have all given $1 million donations for his inauguration. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Google founder Sergey Brin and Apple honcho Tim Cook have had dinners with him. Jeff Bezos has plans to do so soon, and also killed a Washington Postendorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in the run-up to the election.

So far, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has kept Trump at arm’s length. All the better for him, and for Microsoft’s culture and values. Doing that has been one of the best things he’s done all year. We’ll have to see whether there will be consequences for it in 2025, or whether Nadella gives in.

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak Have you ever needed to change an image format but weren’t sure how? If you’ve got…
The post How to Download a JPG Picture as a PNG File? appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By The Conversation Our growing reliance on technology at home and in the workplace has raised the profile of e-waste. This consists of discarded electrical devices including laptops, smartphones, televisions, computer servers, washing machines, medical equipment, games consoles and much more. The amount of e-waste produced this decade could reach as much as 5 million metric tonnes, according to recent research published in Nature. This is around 1,000 times more e-waste than was produced in 2023. According to the study, the boom in artificial intelligence will significantly contribute to this e-waste problem, because AI requires lots of computing power and storage. It will,…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Nick Godt Hyundai will start offering free North American Charging Standard (NACS) adapters to its EV customers in the first quarter of 2025.

Source:: Digital Trends

The end of the year means it’s time to reflect on what’s really important in life: friends, family — and Windows PC tips.

That may sound silly, but I’ve always believed it’s true. Useful tech tips and solutions help people get work done and accomplish tasks quickly so they can get back to what’s actually important in their lives.

I’ve shared a lot of PC tips over the last year. It’s easy for some of that to get lost in the hustle and bustle. So, as we wrap up 2024, it’s a good time to look back at the best advice of the year — especially useful Windows suggestions that can take your computing to the next level, whether you’re being productive on the job or just tweaking your personal PC at home.

Find this sort of advice useful? You don’t have to wait until the end of 2025 for more! Subscribe to my free Windows Intelligence newsletter to get new Windows tips each and every Friday.

Windows PC tips #1—4: PC productivity upgrades

Top 10 Windows productivity tips

These productivity tips are the best of the best — recommended by the incredibly smart and awesome readers of my Windows Intelligence newsletter!

8 easy ways to transfer files between Windows and your phone

We all have phones, and we all need to transfer files back and forth — even if it’s just a few quick photos now and then. Here are lots of easy ways to get that done, with something for practically every type of workflow.

20 insanely useful Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts I use every day

Keyboard shortcuts are an essential tool to take your PC productivity up a notch. This list is a great place to get started — you’ll almost certainly learn something new!

8 brilliant browser tab tricks for Windows power users

As PC users, we tend to wrangle with browser tabs all day. These ideas will make you even more efficient in your web browser of choice, whether that’s Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Brave, or anything else.

Windows PC tips #5—7: Computer customizations

10 ways to turn off Windows’ worst ads

Windows can be full of obnoxious, noisy ads and notification pop-ups. But it doesn’t have to be.

5 dark mode upgrades for your Windows 10 or 11 PC

Dark mode has come a long way on Windows in the last few years, but it still has a way to go. If you’re a dark mode fan, this advice will make your dark mode experience much better on Windows.

5 ways to stop Windows Update from rebooting your PC

Does Windows Update restart your PC when you least expect it? If you’d like more control, there’s a lot you can do to take much more control of Update so it will work on your schedule.

Windows PC tips #8—11: Features you need to try

5 ways to control Windows with your voice

Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant is long gone, but Windows still has a suite of powerful voice-powered features. You can use your voice to type and even to navigate the desktop and apps — no third-party software necessary!

You should be using your Windows PC’s touchscreen: 5 must-know tips

Many modern Windows laptops include touch screens. Here’s how to start putting that easily overlooked element to more effective use.

How to trim a video on Windows 11 or Windows 10

Did you know you can trim a video file on Windows in a few clicks, cutting just the portion you want? It’s possible with a quick tool buried in Windows — no big Clipchamp video editor necessary.

Why you should link your phone to your PC

If you haven’t set up the Phone Link app yet, you should! And if you have set it up, it’s worth a deeper look. This useful app included with Windows is packed with features for both Android phones and iPhones — although it’s more powerful with an Android phone.

Windows PC tips: #12—14: Excellent apps to install

10 PowerToys you should use on Windows

I’m a big fan of Microsoft’s free and frequently updated PowerToys package for Windows PCs. It’s packed with especially useful utilities you can install in a few clicks. Here’s a tour of many of the most useful ones.

The ultimate Windows app launcher

Microsoft’s new Workspaces PowerToy is a particularly useful and customizable app launcher that could transform many workflows. It might just be the best way to launch and arrange your apps after powering on your PC and signing in.

The best ways to run Android apps on a Windows PC

Microsoft axed Android app support in Windows 11. But don’t let that stop you: If you want to run Android apps on a Windows 11 PC, there are still some great alternatives.

As always, I hope you find some especially helpful PC tips and tricks. And I’ll see you in 2025 for even more Windows wizardry.

Why wait? Uncover even more useful Windows tips and tricks with my free Windows Intelligence newsletter — three new things to try every Friday and a free Windows Field Guide as soon as you sign up.

Source:: Computer World

The US has intensified its campaign to counter China’s ambitions in technology leadership, with the Biden administration initiating a high-stakes investigation into China’s expanding dominance in legacy semiconductor manufacturing.

The US Trade Representative (USTR) is probing whether China’s practices — backed by extensive state support — constitute unfair competition, endangering American industries and national security.

Source:: Computer World

For more than two years, I’ve been working with WinGet daily to monitor and maintain the apps on my Windows 10 and 11 PCs. For those not already in the know, WinGet is the built-in, command-line interface to Microsoft’s Windows Package Manager service. It works in both PowerShell and Command Prompt with equal facility.

WinGet is designed to enable users to “discover, install, upgrade, remove and configure applications on Windows 10 and 11 computers,” according to Microsoft Learn. In my experience, WinGet is helpful for checking and updating most applications that run on Windows.

Please note: WinGet is included with Windows 10 version 1709 and later, and all versions of Windows 11 as the App Installer. If you’re running an earlier version of Windows 10, visit the WinGet home page at GitHub. There, click the Latest button under “Releases” at right, and download the item named “Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller…msixbundle” (the missing characters identify Microsoft Store apps). Double-click on this item to install it.

(Don’t worry: if you do this on a newer Windows version, it will inform you, “The App Installer is already installed.”)

Exploring a PC using WinGet

Using WinGet starts with opening an administrative command line session. Press the Windows key + X, then pick Terminal (Admin) or PowerShell (Admin) from the pop-up menu. (I use PowerShell and will use it for examples throughout this story.) Given that WinGet runs in PowerShell, it uses straightforward PowerShell syntax to provide information or perform actions.

WinGet tells you about itself if you enter the command:

winget –info

(Although I’ve followed Microsoft’s lead in labeling this command “WinGet,” the command line doesn’t care about capitalization.)

As you can see in Figure 1, the output from this command shows the running version of Windows Package Manager, along with the OS Build number, system architecture, Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller version, and symbol values for WinGet directories, links, and Admin Settings.

Figure 1: Output from WinGet’s info command tells you about the system, plus WinGet-related software and settings.Ed Tittel / IDG

This information can be helpful, but it’s not terribly interesting, nor have I found it super-useful in day-to-day WinGet use and troubleshooting.

Things get more interesting with WinGet’s two information display subcommands: list and show. The list subcommand shows what’s currently installed on the target PC, while the show subcommand searches an online database of available packages to show you information about matching search hits.

With no qualifiers or queries, winget list shows a list of every item installed on your PC (177 items on an up-to-date Windows 11 production PC; 339 items on a heavily used production Windows 10 PC). All standard executables and Microsoft Store apps are included in this count.

Winget show won’t do anything unless you provide it with a search string. It’s normally used to search for specific packages, or to see if they exist. Try it with search strings such as windows, power, powershell and so forth. It’s soon obvious that this is a more focused tool. I use it primarily when WinGet tells me a package needs an upgrade. It helps me find complete IDs, version numbers, and publisher, and tells me where it came from. (That usually means WinGet’s package repository or the Microsoft Store.)

The winget search command can be more helpful than show if you’re looking for something specific. It lists all items that include the search string. Thus, if you use the same strings recommended in the preceding paragraph, you’ll get more — and more interesting — results.

Figure 2 shows the output for winget search PowerShell as an illustration. (It shows items with PowerShell in their names, IDs, and tags, so it’s more inclusive.)

Figure 2: Matching on ‘PowerShell’ is especially useful for tagged items, particularly Windows Terminal and related applications.Ed Tittel / IDG

WinGet’s star subcommand: upgrade

My favorite among the WinGet subcommands is the upgrade item. It offers insight into available upgrades and offers various ways to perform upgrades on a Windows PC. Indeed, three variants of winget upgrade are likely to be both useful and informative:

winget upgrade

winget upgrade –all

winget upgrade –all –include-unknown

By itself, winget upgrade (no additional arguments or modifiers) simply tells you if newer versions of installed packages are available. Figure 3 shows an example of this command from one of my production level test PCs, with some items in need of update. Notice that the Version column identifies the version that’s currently installed. The Available column identifies the corresponding new (updated) version one could apply in its stead, if desired.

Figure 3: Seven updates are available for the target PC, as shown.
Ed Tittel / IDG

The next command, winget upgrade –all, tells WinGet to update all items from the upgrade list for which a version number is known. In Figure 3, all items have values in the Version column. Note further that all packages shown come from the default WinGet package repository (named winget in Figure 3).

The third command, winget upgrade –all –include-unknown, tells WinGet to update all items even if the version column is blank. In general, this command is more useful because it involves less additional work. Thus, I use it as my go-to for all winget upgrade commands, just to make sure I cover everything.

Figure 4 shows results after running that catch-all command on the target PC. (I’ll have more to say about this figure later.)

Figure 4: On this production PC, WinGet finds and installs four upgrades, but leaves the fifth alone.
Ed Tittel / IDG

Note that you’ll sometimes see installer windows and even PowerShell or Command Prompt sessions open and close as WinGet goes through the necessary motions involved in performing those updates. Note further: when updating web browsers — Edge, Chrome, or Firefox, for example — if the browser is running when you run WinGet, you must relaunch that browser manually before the update fully completes. If it’s closed, it completes on its own. (WinGet always applies an abundance of caution when it encounters running processes.)

Running winget upgrade again after performing all updates shows nothing left to do. In Figure 5, the message “No installed package found matching input criteria” translates into “Nothing to upgrade.”

Figure 5: “No installed package found matching input criteria” means “Nothing to upgrade.”
Ed Tittel / IDG

About pinned applications (and other experimental WinGet features)

If you look back at Figure 4, you’ll see the sentence “The following packages have an upgrade available, but require explicit targeting” fairly near the top, with Discord listed below. What does that mean, and why does this happen? Some application developers, including Discord, use advanced WinGet features — pinning in this case (look back at the final line of Figure 4) — to prevent unwanted changes to the Discord app. It usually updates inside the app so this approach (mostly) prevents WinGet from getting involved.

On the other hand, you can always use WinGet to uninstall an app, and then use WinGet one more time to reinstall. For Discord, that command sequence looks like this:

winget uninstall Discord.Discord

winget install Discord.Discord

(Note at the head of Figure 4, the ID value for Discord is Discord.Discord, so that’s how we specify these commands.)

The first command removes (the old version of) Discord; the second command installs (the new version of) Discord. It’s what I call a remove-replace operation, and it works pretty well for general WinGet troubleshooting, too. I’ve also used it recently for Zoom Workplace, various Teams versions, and other occasional vexations.

For the record, the pin command is a relatively new subcommand for WinGet. It first appeared in general release in July 2024. According to Microsoft Learn, “the winget pin command allows you to limit the Windows Package Manager from upgrading a package to specific ranges of versions, or it can prevent it from upgrading a package altogether.”

Another special qualifier, namely –include-pinned, lets you override this restriction. But because Discord is the only item in my stable of apps that uses this restriction, it’s not worth adding to my go-to command string.

When the upgrade command fails or falls short

Sometimes, WinGet updates don’t clear the items that appear when you enter the winget upgrade command by itself. That means something remains on your PC that WinGet couldn’t handle. Through experience, I’ve observed the following possibilities, each of which has its own potential solution:

Multiple copies of the same app or application are resident. If you have multiple installations of the same program, only one is likely to be current and up to date. Unless you require older versions, the simplest fix is to uninstall them so only the current, updated version remains present.

I’ve seen this happen with PowerShell, for example, where some of my PCs retained version 7.2.5 even when 7.4.5 or 7.4.6 (the current version as I write this) was also present. Using Programs and Features (or some equivalent third-party tool like Revo Uninstaller Free), you can find and uninstall out-of-date versions.

Strange programs that you’ve never seen before and don’t need show up. Case in point: occasionally an item named “Teams machine-wide installer” shows up on my PCs. It’s something Microsoft uses that apparently gets left behind from time to time. Uninstalling this item causes no noticeable issues with Teams, and it removes the item from further upgrade consideration.

Current WinGet packages aren’t available for some apps. One of WinGet’s limitations is that it only works with items registered in its package database. You may need to visit the app publisher’s website to find current updates that aren’t registered with WinGet.

In the past, I’ve covered using third-party automated tools such as UpdateStar and Patch My PC to keep apps updated in Windows 10 and 11. These and other update scanners may find items in need of updating on your PC that WinGet doesn’t handle. On my PCs, that includes applications such as Nitro Pro (a PDF reader/editor), Amazon Kindle (for which only an outdated package is available via WinGet), FileZilla, various Intel tools (e.g., Intel Driver & Support Assistant), and more.

If you’re willing to research your applications and their sources for updates, you can almost always find a way to get them updated. That said, WinGet cannot handle all apps on its own. Many or most of them, yes; all of them, no.

A WinGet for all seasons

As you become familiar with WinGet, you’ll find it to be a terrific tool for helping keep Windows systems (and reference or canonical Windows images for automated deployments) up to date. It’s become my tool of choice for keeping apps updated because it’s fast and easy to use. Although I still use UpdateStar to scan my systems to tell me what needs updates and Patch My PC to handle a handful of things that WinGet can’t, WinGet remains my go-to tool to keep systems current. I use WinGet every day; the other tools weekly, at most.

If you try it for yourself, I believe you’re likely to continue using WinGet for the very same reasons. See Microsoft’s WinGet documentation for a complete list of commands and options.

One final note: If you know someone who could benefit from WinGet but isn’t comfortable using the command line, see this article by Chris Hoffman detailing how to use WingetUI, a package that wraps a graphical interface around WinGet.

This article was originally published in January 2023 and updated in December 2024.

Source:: Computer World

By The Conversation Businesses are already being radically transformed by artificial intelligence (AI). Tools now exist that offer instantaneous, high-quality results in improving certain operations without the burden of high costs or delays. In fact, generative AI could completely upend the traditional ways that we measure success in business. Generative AI refers to programs that produce high-quality text, images, ideas and even complex software code in response to prompts (questions or instructions) from a user. Applications powered by data-driven algorithms enable users to quickly create high-quality content, redefining traditional measures of success. A small café can generate aesthetically pleasing menus in a few…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Deepti Pathak In Minecraft, time moves much faster than in the real world, but have you wondered how…
The post How Long Is a Minecraft Day? appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Hisan Kidwai Tower defense games are a staple on Roblox, and the latest addition to the genre is…
The post Roblox: New Anime Vanguards Codes (December 2024) appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Nick Godt The Jeep Wagoneer S EV’s marketing campaign wants to show “beautiful things can still get dirty.”

Source:: Digital Trends

By The Conversation Artificial intelligence (AI) makes important decisions that affect our everyday lives. These decisions are implemented by firms and institutions in the name of efficiency. They can help determine who gets into college, who lands a job, who receives medical treatment and who qualifies for government assistance. As AI takes on these roles, there is a growing risk of unfair decisions – or the perception of them by those people affected. For example, in college admissions or hiring, these automated decisions can unintentionally favour certain groups of people or those with certain backgrounds, while equally qualified but underrepresented applicants get overlooked.…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Kirstie McDermott Across Europe, skills shortages are emerging as a key challenge. The Council of the European Union says this is driven by demographic change, demand for new skillsets, and poor working conditions in some sectors. Adding to that, a recent report highlighted that around 42% of Europeans lack basic digital skills, including 37% of those in the workforce. The rapid advancement of AI is adding more pressure. While AI offers the EU a shot in the arm to strengthen the bloc’s innovation and competitiveness, there is still a gap between the skills required, and the skills available. 5 jobs to discover…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Sriram Krishnan, a seasoned entrepreneur and former Andreessen Horowitz partner, as the Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Krishnan’s appointment signals a renewed focus on maintaining US leadership in AI innovation, alongside a push to reshape how AI interacts with industries and digital infrastructure.

Source:: Computer World

On the surface, Android and privacy might not seem like the most natural of bedfellows. Google is known for its advertising business, after all — it’s how the company makes the lion’s share of its money — and it can be tough to square the notion of data collection with the concept of carefully controlled information.

In actuality, though, Google gives you a good amount of authority over how and when it taps into your Android-associated info. (And even at its worst, the company never shares your data with anyone or sells it to third parties, despite some broad misconceptions to the contrary.) Ultimately, it just comes down to a matter of educating yourself about the possibilities and then determining what balance of privacy and function makes the most sense for you.

And you’d better believe the onus falls squarely on you to do that. By default, most Google privacy valves are opened up to the max — to the setting that allows the most feature-rich and ad-supporting experience and that uses your data in the most free-flowing manner possible. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it may or may not be what you want, particularly from a professional perspective. And navigating the layers of settings, not only with Google itself but also with the various third-party services that interact with your phone, is often easier said than done.

Well, consider this your guide to the labyrinth. I’ll take you through a series of 18 Android privacy adjustments, starting with the easiest and most broadly advisable tweaks and ending with higher-level tactics for the most privacy-minded users. Along the way I’ll explain what each setting accomplishes, how long it should take to implement, and how much inconvenience it’ll cause.

Make your way through the list and think thoroughly about each item’s pros and cons — and before you know it, you’ll have a deliberate Android privacy plan that’s less about defaults and more about your own preferences.

Section I: Easy Android privacy adjustments that are advisable for anyone

1. Uninstall unused apps

Time required: 2 minutes

Inconvenience level: 0/10

This first Android privacy step is a no-brainer and something everyone should do periodically: Look through all of the installed apps on your phone and remove anything you haven’t used in the past month or two (so long as it isn’t required by your IT department, of course!). Unused apps not only take a toll on your device’s resources; they also have the potential to leave open doors to sensitive info that’d be better off closed.

So open up your app drawer and mull over every icon you see there. If you haven’t used an app in a while, press and hold its icon and select “Uninstall” — or, if you don’t see that as an option, select “App info” and then find the Uninstall button. On certain Android versions, you might have to drag the app toward the top of the screen to access those same options; once you see them appear at the top of your display, drag the app up to that area and then release it.

With apps that came preinstalled on your phone out of the box, you may not always be able to uninstall but can often disable them — with the option to do so appearing either in that same long-press menu or within the aforementioned “App info” screen. That won’t get the app off your device entirely but will stop it from running and actively accessing any of your information.

2. Check on apps with access to your Google account

Time required: 2 minutes

Inconvenience level: 0/10

In addition to the phone-specific permissions, apps and services can request access to certain types of data within your Google account — things like your contacts, your Gmail messages, or even your Google Drive storage. Again, such access may be completely warranted and no cause for concern (and it’d be present only if you explicitly authorized it at some point), but once you’re no longer actively using the associated app, you don’t want to leave that pathway open.

Luckily, it’s an especially easy one to close — and another painless privacy step worth performing periodically. Just open up the Google account connections page and look over everything in the list. For any items you no longer use or don’t recognize, click their title and then click the “Delete all connections” option on the screen that comes up next.

Clamping down on third-party app access to your Google account is a simple way to secure forgotten pathways and strengthen your privacy.
JR Raphael / IDG

Click “Confirm” on the confirmation box that pops up after, then rest easy knowing that teensy crack into your data is closed up and patched over.

3. Revisit your Android app permissions

Time required: 5 minutes

Inconvenience level: 0/10

Now that we’ve taken care of apps you’re no longer using, let’s think about the ones you are still actively engaging with — because even those may have permissions you once granted but no longer require.

So open up the Security & Privacy section of your system settings and tap “Permission Manager.” Depending on your specific software and device, you might have to first tap a line that says “Privacy” or “Privacy controls” before you see it. (If you don’t see anything like that, try searching your system settings for the word permission to find the closest equivalent.)

Then, one by one, tap on each permission type in the list, look over the apps that have access to it, and consider whether each app’s access still strikes you as being necessary.

If you see something that seems questionable, tap the name of the app and then change its setting to “Deny.” There’s a chance the app will stop being able to perform one of its functions as a result, but at worst, it’ll prompt you to re-enable the permission at some future moment and you can then reconsider it.

And provided you’re using 2019’s Android 10 version or higher — and if you aren’t, you’ve got far bigger privacy problems to ponder! — pay extra attention to the “Location” section of permissions. As of that release, you can get more nuanced with that setting and allow an app to access to your location all the time or only when the app is actively in use, which gives you a lot more flexibility than the traditional all-or-nothing approach.

With 2020’s Android 11 version and higher, you can also grant apps access to your location, camera, and microphone only on a limited, single-session basis — meaning the permissions will expire and have to be requested anew each time, whenever you exit the app and move on to something else.

And with 2021’s Android 12 software and up, you can specify whether you want an app to have access to your precise location or only your approximate location, too.

Android lets you get incredibly granular about what data different apps can access, but it’s up to you to check up on it and make any necessary changes.
JR Raphael / IDG

For even more insight, look for the “Privacy dashboard” option within that same section of your system settings (or “Permissions used in last 24 hours,” for the closest equivalent in Samsung’s heavily modified version of the operating system). That’ll let you see exactly which apps have accessed different permission-requiring areas over the past 24 hours in a visual timeline view.

4. Put invisible app tracking on notice

Time required: 2 minutes

Inconvenience level: 1/10

Aside from their actual system-level permissions, apps on Android are able to track your activity in a variety of ways and then share that data elsewhere — provided they have access to the internet (which itself is a system-level permission).

Often, this is nothing nefarious. Lots of apps rely on these sorts of mechanisms to monitor performance and spot possible bugs, while others use technology considered “trackers” as part of the advertising that allows them to be monetized and continue offering you ongoing services for little to no ongoing expense.

Even so, you can take control of this type of tracking and make yourself aware of what, exactly, apps are doing in the background — and put a stop to it, if you want.

The key to making this happen comes in the unlikely-seeming spot of an Android web browser called DuckDuckGo. But you don’t need to do anything related to the actual browser function of the app to tap into it (though you certainly can, if you’d like!).

Instead, install the app, then open it up, make your way through its welcome screens, and once you see the main web browsing interface, tap the three-dot menu icon in the upper-right corner. Select “Settings,” then “App Tracking Protection.”

Flip the toggle at the top of the next screen into the on position, confirm that you want to activate the feature, and then keep an eye on your notifications.

There, DuckDuckGo will show you exactly what trackers it’s finding and blocking in apps on your device. You can also always see that same info by going back to that same settings screen within the browser.

DuckDuckGo’s App Tracking Protection feature gives you rare insight into — and control over — the typically-invisible ways apps track your activity.
JR Raphael / IDG

Now for the asterisk here: Since most of this activity isn’t actually anything to worry about, it’s possible that seeing this data will (a) cause you unnecessary stress and waste your time and (b) potentially cause some functions within apps to stop working properly — since DuckDuckGo is blocking mechanisms that may be crucial to an app’s operation.

But that same area of the browser’s settings make it easy to enable or disable the blocking on an app-by-app basis, so you can fine-tune and adjust things as you see fit.

Whether you ultimately decide to peek at the info for a while and then disable the feature or keep it running and blocking indefinitely, it’s a valuable bit of knowledge — and, optionally, power — to have.

5. Clamp down on your lock screen privacy

Time required: 1 minute

Inconvenience level: 1/10

By default, Android is typically set to show all of your notification content on your lock screen — and that means if someone else picks up your phone, they might see sensitive info without even having to put in a PIN, pattern, or passcode.

Change that by opening up the Display section of your phone’s settings, selecting “Lock screen,” then selecting “Privacy” and switching the setting to either “Show sensitive content only when unlocked” or “Don’t show notifications at all,” depending on your comfort level. (On a Samsung phone, you’ll instead open the Notifications section of the system settings and then tap “Lock screen notifications” to find a similar set of options.)

6. Opt out of Samsung’s data-sharing systems and consider avoiding its apps

Time required: 5 minutes

Inconvenience level: 1/10

If you have a Samsung phone, listen up: The company is quite possibly selling your data — not just using it internally and privately but outright selling it to third parties (and without being even remotely up-front about what’s going on).

As I’ve reported before, Samsung’s Galaxy phones have a disconcertingly intricate system for collecting different types of data from people who use its devices and then generating extra revenue by selling that data to other companies. And clearly, that’s not what you want to have happening.

So at the very least, opt of this obnoxiousness everywhere you can — most importantly by searching your system settings for customization service and then making sure the associated option is off everywhere it appears, including within the settings for the Samsung Calendar app, Samsung Clock app, Samsung Gallery app, and Samsung My Files app as well as within the “General management” settings and the settings for your Samsung account.

And if you really want to be proactive about your privacy, just ditch Samsung’s default apps altogether. You’ll get better all-around experiences by turning to other Android apps for those same purposes, anyhow, and you’ll have an easier time syncing or moving your data to non-Samsung devices now and in the future, too. And, y’know, you won’t be subjecting yourself to sneaky selling of your personal and/or company information with no discernible benefit to you.

Section II: Moderately advanced Android privacy modifications some people may want to perform

7. Turn off Google’s ad personalization system

Time required: 2 minutes

Inconvenience level: 2/10

Google makes its money by showing ads around the internet — that’s no secret. And it uses data about you to select ads that are, in theory, catered to your interests and more likely to be relevant to you. It never shares your data with advertisers, as mentioned at the top of this story, and all of the matching happens within Google and in a completely automated, machine-driven sense.

At the end of the day, you’re bound to see some of those ads no matter what you do — so there’s an argument that having the ads be catered to your interests at least creates the potential for them to be appealing as opposed to just random. But if you’d rather not have your data used for that purpose, you can turn the personalization system off.

Just head into the Google section of your system settings, tap your name and account name at the top, then tap “Manage your Google Account.”

Next, tap the Data & Privacy tab, scroll down to the “Personalized ads” section, and tap “My Ad Center” — then turn off the toggle at the top of the screen that comes up and confirm you want to make the change.

Google lets you opt out of its ad personalization system entirely, if you’re so inclined.
JR Raphael / IDG

If you’d rather take a more measured approach, you can also tap on any individual parts of your Google profile on that same screen to disable ad personalization based only on those specific variables — for instance, your gender, age, and marital status.

And one more thing to check: Make your way back to the Google settings menu where we started and tap your name and account name there one more time. If you see any additional Google accounts show up as options, be sure to tap them and follow the same steps we just went over for each subsequent account. Every Google account has its own separate settings, so you’ll have to make sure your ad personalization preferences are adjusted everywhere for them to become truly universal.

8. Reset or erase your Android advertising ID

Time required: 2 minutes

Inconvenience level: 2/10

As an alternate path to the full ad personalization opt-out, you can also now reset or erase something known as your “advertising ID” on Android.

That ID is a unique string of numbers specific to your phone that apps can use to identify you. They may not know your name or anything personal about you — unless you choose to share such info — but that advertising ID lets them learn about your interests and behaviors, even so, and then use that data to show you ads that are allegedly more likely to be up your alley.

When you reset or delete that ID, all of that data is lost — and apps have no way to connect your behavior to any consistent identifier associated with you. Again, just like with our last item, that doesn’t mean you won’t see ads within apps or around the web anymore. It just means those ads won’t be programmatically selected based on your ongoing activities and what those suggest about your interests.

Here, too, there’s some nuance available: If you reset the advertising ID, you’ll basically give yourself a fresh start and eliminate any data that’s been associated with your activity up until that moment. If you delete the ID, you’ll make it impossible for apps to identify you entirely (again, unless you choose to provide them with identifying info).

Either way, you can find the option by looking in the Security & Privacy section of your system settings, then tapping either “Privacy Controls” or “More Privacy Settings” followed by “Ads.” You’ll find both possible paths in that area, along with options to see and customize exactly which subject areas apps currently have associated with your ID, to see and customize if and how apps are able to use that data to control ads in other environments, and to opt in or out of allowing advertisers to request info that’d help them measure their ad performance over time.

Android’s advertising ID options are an untapped gold mine of privacy choices.
JR Raphael / IDG

9. Start using a VPN

Time required: 5 minutes

Inconvenience level: 2/10

If you’re using a company-connected phone, there’s a decent chance your employer is already providing you with a corporate VPN (virtual private network). But if not, it may be worth your while to set one up on your own.

A VPN, in short, keeps all the data you send and receive on your phone encrypted, private, and secure. Without it, someone could snoop on your connection and intercept sensitive info without your knowledge. (It’s an especially common concern when public Wi-Fi networks are involved.)

With widespread improvements to web security over the past several years, there’s now some debate as to whether a VPN is actually needed in most professional scenarios — especially outside of countries where authoritarian control over internet access is an issue.

Still, as long as you’re using a trustworthy and reputable provider, there’s certainly no harm in having that extra layer of protection in place. And if you’re working with sensitive company data in particular, there may be some significant benefits.

So where to begin? If you’re using a Google Pixel phone, you’ve got a VPN built right into your device and ready to roll without any expense. Just look for the “VPN” option within the Network & Internet section of your system settings, then tap the “VPN By Google” line to get it set up.

If you’re using a non-Pixel phone with the Google Fi wireless service, you also have access to a similar sort of built-in always-on VPN option. Like the Pixel VPN path, it’s free, secure, and as simple as can be to use. You can activate and manage it by tapping your name and then selecting “Privacy & security” within the Google Fi Android app. Look for the line labeled “Protect your online activity” to get started.

If you’re using any other phone and carrier, you’ll need to turn to a third-party provider to get that same sort of functionality. In its latest rankings, our sister publication, PCWorld, recommends ExpressVPN and NordVPN as its top two choices. Both have been consistently well-reviewed for years now.

Both are also minimal hassle once set up on your phone and shouldn’t change much about the way you work, but they do require an ongoing payment — roughly 13 bucks a month for either, with discounts available if you pay for a year or more up front — hence the inconvenience level score. But they’re absolutely more advisable to use than most free or dirt-cheap VPN options you’ll encounter, as those frequently mishandle data and stick you with unreasonably low usage limits in order to make up for their low costs.

10. Add extra encryption onto especially sensitive files

Time required: 3 minutes

Inconvenience level: 3/10

Give sensitive files on your phone an extra layer of encryption with Solid Explorer, which costs $3 after a two-week trial. The app lets you encrypt any file so it can be accessed only after your personal password or biometric authentication has been applied. That does mean you’ll have to unlock the file every time you want to view or share it, which can be mildly annoying — but depending on what type of material you have on your device, it might be worth it for the added peace of mind.

Solid Explorer lets you add an extra layer of encryption onto especially sensitive files.
JR Raphael / IDG

11. Find your Private and/or Safe Space

Time required: 3 minutes

Inconvenience level: 3/10

As of 2024’s Android 15 release, Android offers a native way to separate out sensitive apps and add in an extra layer of authentication to protect the information within them. The system also optionally allows you to hide those apps entirely and make ’em visible only after said authentication.

If your device is running Android 15 or higher, you can get started by searching your phone’s settings for Private Space and then selecting the “Private Space” option that shows up in the results.

Samsung devices also offer a similar feature called Secure Folder that’s available even on earlier Android builds. Search the system settings of any Galaxy gizmo for Secure Folder to find that.

And, no matter what type of Android device you’re carrying, you can find similar systems for keeping both files and photos out of sight and password-protected within the Google Files and Google Photos Android apps, respectively. Those systems don’t involve encryption, like our last measure, but they do make it far more unlikely for sensitive files and photos to be found in the first place — should anyone else ever have their hands on your device.

You can find ’em by looking for the “Safe Folder” tile on the Files app’s main screen and the “Locked” option at the bottom of the Photos app’s Collections tab.

12. Rethink your browser setup

Time required: 4 minutes

Inconvenience level: 4/10

Google’s Chrome Android browser has all sorts of impressive features, but many of them inherently require some manner of privacy tradeoff in order to work. For instance, you can easily find any page you visited on any device with a super-fast search — but in order for that to happen, Google has to maintain a cross-device record of every site you visit.

Only you can decide whether the conveniences outweigh the privacy tradeoffs, but if you want to make your Android web browsing as private as possible, Mozilla’s Firefox Focus app is hands-down the simplest, most minimal-effort way to make it happen.

Firefox Focus is designed at its core to provide an ephemeral, single-session-only sort of Android browsing experience: No history, cookies, or passwords are ever saved, and the app automatically blocks trackers and ads across the web. When you’re done with a page, you tap a trash can icon in the corner of the screen, and poof: It’s gone for good.

The app also offers a host of “enhanced tracking protection” features that make it incredibly easy to block scripts, cookies, and other forms of tracking, too. You can also configure it to require authentication every time you open it or switch to it from another app, in case you have a browsing session active and want to be sure no one else who holds your phone could possibly find it.

The downside, of course, is that there’s no syncing whatsoever — no ability to access or revisit your browsing history and also no way to find recently opened tabs from within the same browser on another device. Beyond that, aggressive blocking of cookies and other script-oriented elements on the web can often break websites and cause key functions to fail, without any obvious outward indication to you of what’s happening or why. (Believe me, I troubleshoot this stuff with people all the time!)

So if you’d rather stick with Chrome, there are things you can do to crank up its privacy protection and create a happy-medium of sorts for yourself. Start in the Sync section of the app’s settings, where you can scale down or even completely disable how different forms of your browsing data are shared with Google. Just remember that the more you disable, the more sacrifices you’ll make in terms of convenience — particularly when moving from your phone to your computer and maintaining a common collection of settings and history.

Firefox Focus and Chrome both offer a fair amount of privacy-related options, depending on which path you prefer.
JR Raphael / IDG

Other places to look include:

The app’s Google Services section, where you can stop Chrome from sending your browsing data back to Google for different reasons

The Search Engine section, where you can select any default search service you want

The Payment Methods section, where you can tell Chrome not to save or store any of your payment info

The Addresses and More section, where you can turn off Chrome’s on-by-default habit of saving your address and other such details and then offering to fill that in for you in the future

The Privacy and Security section, where you can control what info sites are allowed to see about you when serving you ads as well as prevent sites from detecting if you have payment info saved, opt out of having Chrome preload pages for faster browsing, and activate an option to lock any incognito tabs every time you exit the app

And the Site Settings section, where you can prevent all sites from accessing your location, camera, and microphone as well as control if and how cookies are allowed

13. Disable Android’s location history feature

Time required: 3 minutes

Inconvenience level: 4/10

By default, Google keeps track of everywhere you go with your Android phone in tow. That allows the software to proactively give you traffic and commute alerts for places you commonly visit and lets your phone make more intelligent suggestions based on your behavior — but it also, of course, gives Google quite the docket of data on your day-to-day whereabouts. (Again, the company doesn’t actually share that info with anyone but does use it to determine what ads are shown to you in certain places.)

If you want to turn off the system-level location tracking, open the Google section of your system settings, tap your name and account name at the top of the screen, then tap the Manage Your Google Account button. Next, tap the Data & Privacy tab and select “Location History” within the “History settings” section. (Note, too, that Google is in the midst of renaming this feature to “Timeline,” so the branding around it may change at some point before long.)

Tap the “Turn off” button on the screen that appears next and select either to turn the system off or turn it off and delete any activity that’s already been stored at the same time — and, either way you go, that’s it: Your phone won’t keep track of your treks anymore.

With a couple quick taps, you can stop Google from keeping track of your location — and optionally also eliminate all the existing data it’s stored.
JR Raphael / IDG

For a more nuanced option, look instead at the “Auto-delete” section directly beneath that button within the same Google account settings screen. There, you can instruct your phone to automatically delete all location data on a rolling three-month, 18-month, or 36-month basis — for a middle-ground possibility that’ll give you some of the standard location-oriented advantages without having quite as much data at play.

Here, too, by the way, settings are controlled on an account-by-account basis, so you’ll want to repeat this process as many times as needed for however many Google accounts you have associated with your device.

Section III: High-level Android privacy enhancements that won’t be for everyone

14. Ditch Gmail or Outlook for a more privacy-conscious email setup

Time required: 4 minutes

Inconvenience level: 6/10

If you’re really serious about privacy, ProtonMail is the inbox you want to use. ProtonMail applies end-to-end encryption to every message you send, which makes sure no one other than its intended recipient can ever set eyes on it. It’s a whole other level of protection from what you get with Gmail’s encryption or the encryption provided by most third-party mail servers.

The downside is that you have to either use a special ProtonMail.com address with the service or set up your own domain to work with ProtonMail’s servers — and anytime you’re emailing someone who isn’t a fellow ProtonMail user, you’ll have to encrypt your message with a password and a hint that they’ll then need in order to open it. That isn’t exactly easy, and it requires you to forfeit a fair amount of Gmail’s flexibility and power, but it does give you an awful lot of added privacy in return.

ProtonMail is free at its most basic level, which includes one address and 1GB of storage. If you need more storage or want any extra features — such as unlimited folders and labels and support for custom domains — you’ll have to subscribe to a paid plan, which starts at $48 a year for individuals or $84 per user per year for teams.

15. Encrypt your calls and messages

Time required: 4 minutes

Inconvenience level: 6/10

For full encryption on the calling and messaging front, Signal is the service you want. It adds end-to-end encryption only when you’re communicating with other Signal users, however — which severely limits its usefulness — and it doesn’t allow you to send and receive text messages from your computer, as most regular messaging apps now do.

Signal is free to use.

16. Consider other privacy-minded app alternatives

Time required: 4 minutes

Inconvenience level: 6/10

If you’re really concerned about maximizing your privacy, you don’t have to stop with swapping out your email, calling, and messaging tools. There’s a whole host of standard Android app alternatives — and also supplements — that offer extra privacy assurances at varying convenience-oriented costs.

Take a peek at my separate list of exceptional Android privacy and security apps for a bunch of possibilities worth exploring — such as:

Notesnook, a privacy-first note-taking app that adds end-to-end encryption into your virtual notebook

Cryptee, a fully encrypted vault for word processing as well as photo and general file storage

Simple Keyboard, an Android keyboard app with absolutely no internet access or data collection

These options won’t be right for everyone, and they require at times significant quality-of-life sacrifices compared to the standard Google equivalents. But if privacy is paramount, they’re well worth your while to weigh out.

17. Disable your Google Web & App Activity

Time required: 2 minutes

Inconvenience level: 7/10

By default, Google keeps track of what you do on the web and within its apps, whenever you’re signed into your account (as you generally are while using an Android device). It uses that info to serve up those targeted ads we keep coming back to, of course, but it also uses it to power personalization, results, and recommendations in places like Search, Maps, and also Google Assistant — in the places where that service is still active. Without it enabled, in fact, some of Assistant’s most useful commands won’t work — whether you’ve still got Assistant present on your phone or you’re interacting with it on other Assistant-connected devices.

If you want to disable that tracking, though, you can: Just head back to the Google section of your system settings, tap your name and Google account name once more, and then tap the Manage Your Google Account button followed by “Data & privacy.”

Find and tap “Web & App Activity,” then tap the Turn Off button and decide if you want to simply turn the system off or turn it off and simultaneously delete any already-collected data within it.

Once again, just like with the location history, you can also get more nuanced and instead ask Google to automatically delete this data on a rolling three-, 18-, or 36-month cycle. And you can specify certain areas of data that you do and don’t want included, too.

Deep within your Android device settings are all sorts of options for disabling or just scaling back the amount of activity Google stores about you.
JR Raphael / IDG

18. Disable your device backups

Time required: 2 minutes

Inconvenience level: 9/10

Last but not least, Android has the ability to back up your system data and then restore much of your system setup when the need arises. That’s a supremely handy option to have — but it invariably requires some of your information to be stored within Google Drive in order to work.

Specifically, Google maintains a record of what apps you have installed along with a limited amount of app setting data. It also stores your call history, phone settings, and in some cases your SMS messages for future use.

Disabling Android’s automatic backups will make your life significantly more difficult the next time you move to a new phone or reset your current phone, as everything from your previous setup will essentially be lost (or will need to be moved over manually, which is a pretty massive hassle).

If you’d rather reclaim the privacy required by this feature, however, you can turn the feature off by opening up the System section of your phone’s settings, tapping the Backup option, and flipping the toggle next to “Backup by Google One” into the off position.

On Samsung phones, the option is located within the Accounts and Backup section of the settings, under “Back up data” — beneath the “Google Drive” heading. Samsung also maintains its own separate and redundant backup system, which you’ll also see in this same settings section and can also disable, if you so choose.

As with any of these areas, only you can weigh out the added privacy against the lost convenience and figure out what arrangement makes the most sense for you. But now you know where to look — and you can make your own educated decisions.

This article was originally published in June 2020 and updated in December 2024.

Source:: Computer World