In yet another demonstration of its addiction to surveillance, the UK government now wants your smartphones to stop you from looking at images containing nudes unless you pass an age verification check. The Financial Times reports the UK will soon “encourage” Apple and Google to build nudity-detection algorithms into their operating systems by default in an attempt to tackle violence against women and girls.

At first glance, this seems like a good idea, as it might protect people against various forms of abuse and could help in the battle against child pornography.

Critical to the notion is the concept that operating system vendors, rather than individual apps, will become responsible for age verification. Apple already offers Communication Safety tools within Parental Controls. These already detect nude photos and videos in apps such as Messages or FaceTime. 

Unintended consequences? They’re already happening

However, just like the UK’s many other surveillance-centered decisions, it is subject to unintended consequences:

First, it seems highly probable the algorithms required to police people’s devices will deliver false positives, likely including fine art portraits. It’s important to note that instances of this have already happened in response to the UK’s poorly-crafted and badly implemented Online Safety Act (OSA): one social media post of a painting by Francisco de Goya was restricted for UK users, reports the BBC.

Second, in the event the OS does detect a false positive, what happens next? Does the law imply perfectly innocent culture vultures will end up having to explain themselves to the authorities for daring to look at art? 

The third and biggest negative consequence is the same as it has always been: once you have smartphone operating systems working to analyze the content on your devices for one thing, what is to stop those systems working to identify other forms of content on the device?

With the UK moving in this direction, what is to stop more authoritarian governments from instructing operating system developers to monitor and prevent distribution of other forms of communications and content. It’s enough to drive the entire population to use of VPNs.

Protecting the innocent, or criminalizing debate?

None of these arguments is new. All have been raised in response to UK government overreach before; sadly, the current political class don’t seem to want to listen to those pleas. 

That’s not a good sign for a country that may well have already forced Apple to open up encrypted data to investigation despite strong resistance. The decision to force Apple and others to place backdoors in their devices was not discussed at the election, while the arrogant lack of transparency around that decision is cause for concern in any so-called democracy. 

It’s also true that the accompanying Online Safety Act (OSA) is already being applied in ways that creep far beyond its original stated intention. An excellent joint briefing from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch, and Index on Censorship describes a plethora of ways in which the OSA is unfairly restricting people’s day-to-day activities.

They tell us that the OSA may yet force the Wikimedia Foundation to withdraw Wikipedia from the UK. They also say the way the OSA is crafted means freedom of expression is being curtailed, even while the process of age approval has been farmed out to third-party companies that are themselves under little oversight. We have already seen people’s private data leaked.

Road to nowhere

To some degree, the UK government’s latest attack against online freedoms is to be expected. It is par for the course in an administration that is both enslaved to and displays little understanding of technology, is resistant to considering the social impact of it, and has little regard to the importance of free expression to legitimize democratic dialogue. It’s a government that combines legislative incompetence with authoritarian overreach, with little understanding of how bad these laws will be abused by even more politically abusive entities tomorrow. At the very least, the current raft of proposals need work.

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Source:: Computer World

By Shikhar Mehrotra Apple’s latest Apple Watch update isn’t about big redesigns or headline features. Instead, watchOS 26.2 focuses on small but significant changes.
The post Apple Watch update makes it easier to understand your sleep quality appeared first on Digital Trends.

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By Deepti Pathak Vivo India has released the seventh edition of its annual Switch Off Study, this time focused…
The post vivo Switch Off Study 2025: Indian Homes Push for Phone-Free Meals appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Pranob Mehrotra ChatGPT’s highly anticipated adult mode is expected to roll out in Q1 2026 as OpenAI tests its age-verification system.
The post ChatGPT’s adult mode is coming, but you’ll have to wait until next year to try it appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

Enterprises leveraging our rapidly digitizing world must also have a robust understanding of how cyber threats are evolving.

AI deepfakes are already becoming too convincing to be easily spotted by common sense approaches. Malicious actors are using AI to find vulnerabilities and to make their attacks harder to detect. And AI systems themselves pose security risks. Research by Foundry shows that security and privacy are the most pressing ethical issues around generative AI deployments.

Down the road, quantum computing promises immense power and capabilities for businesses, but it will also be used by adversaries, especially to break encryption.

And further out, technologies still in the labs, such as DNA-based data storage, cybernetics and bio-hacking present their own challenges to security and data protection.

These are just some of the ways future technologies put enterprise security at risk.

shutterstock/Gorgev

Over the horizon

According to Martin Krumböck, CTO for cybersecurity at T-Systems, security teams can form a clearer view of emerging threats, by dividing them into three timescales, or “horizons”. “There’s always something changing in security,” he says.

Classical infrastructure security is in the “here and now”, and an immediate priority. And too many enterprises still have gaps in cloud security and are not yet ready for AI.

“We are seeing very quick business adoption of AI,” Krumböck explains. “At the same time, people are ignoring the risks. But the risks are already here.”

Deep fakes, used for CEO and CFO fraud, are one example. “In the past, we could mitigate that with good training,” Krumböck says. “Now, the deep fakes are getting so good that all that training is thrown out of the window.”

Other AI threats include attacks on training data for large language models (LLMs), prompt injections and direct attacks on models themselves. “But it is not at the forefront of thinking yet,” he warns.

CISOs and CSOs, then, need to be aware of the risks of AI. But they need to juggle this with monitoring longer-term threats.

“Further over the horizon, there are issues that will become important in security,” says Krumböck. “The shift to post-quantum cryptography isn’t about responding to a threat today, but about preparing for tomorrow. Particularly against long-term risks like ‘harvest-now, decrypt-later’ attacks.” Threats to blockchain technology are another medium-term risk.

It’s worth at least being aware of longer term risks posed by emerging disciplines like  DNA-based computing technology, where the DNA molecules themselves perform computational processes.

“DNA storage becomes a huge information security risk because it’s so small and can be easily implanted somewhere or used to smuggle data out,” says Krumböck. “It sounds like sci-fi right now, but it might become a reality.”

Back to the future

Clearly, security and IT leaders need to plan for emerging threats and inform their boards.

One trusted method is to test new technologies through small trials. This helps understand the organization’s risk appetite, alongside the benefits of innovation.

Few enterprises, though, can employ dedicated teams of security researchers and futurists to assess far-off risks. But organizations can work with their security partners, leverage their expertise and scale to look over the horizon.

As one of the largest enterprises in its sector, Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems have that scale. “That, in itself, puts a huge target on our backs, and we need to defend our own telecommunications network day in day out, and protect our end customers,” Krumböck explains.

This allows T-Systems to invest forward-looking security research, and crucially, translate that intelligence into information and advice that boards can understand, and act on.

Want to secure AI initiatives? Start with this e-book.

Need to rethink comprehensive security? Check out this guide.

Source:: Computer World

By Hisan Kidwai Asus’s Zenbook lineup, as many of you might already know, is the flagship series, catering to…
The post Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (AMD) Review: Gorgeous Display Meets Ryzen Power appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Moinak Pal Health Connect is evolving beyond fitness, with signs of medical, lifestyle, and symptom tracking that could make Android health data simpler and more unified.
The post Google Health Connect is expanding to track symptoms, alcohol intake, and more appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

Et casino kan fremstå attraktivt ved første øjekast, men vilkårene for at få penge udbetalt er også vigtige, når man vurderer, hvad der er det bedste online casino i Danmark. Gebyrer, minimumsbeløb og tidsfrister kan påvirke den praktiske værdi af en gevinst. Derfor bør man undersøge udbetalingsreglerne, før man opretter en konto eller indsætter penge.

Læs udbetalingsvilkårene før indbetaling

Start med casinoets egne betalingsoplysninger og vilkår. Se efter, om der opkræves et gebyr fra operatøren, og om bestemte betalingsmetoder har særlige omkostninger. Det er også relevant at undersøge, om banken eller betalingsudbyderen kan lægge egne gebyrer oveni. Et casino kan beskrive en udbetaling som gratis, mens en ekstern udbyder stadig har vilkår, der påvirker den samlede transaktion.

Vilkårene bør gøre det tydeligt, hvilke metoder der kan bruges til udbetaling, og om pengene skal sendes tilbage via samme metode som indbetalingen. Hvis oplysningerne er uklare eller spredt over flere sider, er det fornuftigt at kontakte kundeservice og bede om et konkret svar. Gem eventuelt svaret, så det kan sammenholdes med de offentliggjorte betingelser.

Kontrollér minimums- og maksimumsbeløb

Udbetalingsgrænser kan variere efter metode, kontotype og tidsperiode. Et minimumsbeløb kan betyde, at små gevinster ikke kan hæves med det samme, mens et maksimum pr. dag, uge eller måned kan forsinke udbetalingen af større beløb. Undersøg derfor både grænsen for den enkelte transaktion og eventuelle samlede loft over en bestemt periode.

Det er også værd at afklare, om operatøren deler en større udbetaling op i flere mindre overførsler. Læs reglerne for, hvordan perioderne beregnes, og om grænserne ændres efter identitetskontrol eller andre forhold. Sammenligning bliver lettere, hvis man noterer beløbene i samme valuta og skelner mellem grænser pr. transaktion og grænser pr. tidsrum.

Hastighed afhænger af flere led

Udtrykket hurtig udbetaling kan dække over forskellige dele af processen. Først skal casinoet godkende anmodningen; derefter kan betalingsnetværket og banken bruge yderligere tid på at overføre beløbet. Verifikation af identitet, manglende dokumentation eller sikkerhedskontrol kan også forlænge ventetiden. Det er derfor mere informativt at se efter konkrete behandlingstider og betingelser end at lægge vægt på en kort markedsføringsbeskrivelse.

Når man sammenligner oplysninger om et online casino med hurtig udbetaling, bør man kontrollere, om den angivne tid gælder operatørens behandling eller hele overførslen til bankkontoen. Se også, om tiderne gælder alle betalingsmetoder, og om weekender og helligdage tæller med. En tydelig tidsramme giver et bedre grundlag for sammenligning end en ubestemt påstand om hurtighed.

Vurder licens og ansvarlighed sammen med betalingerne

Gebyrer og grænser bør ikke stå alene i vurderingen af det bedste online casino Danmark. Kontrollér, om udbyderen har dansk tilladelse hos Spillemyndigheden, og om oplysninger om ejer, kundeservice og klagevej er lette at finde. En dansk licens er desuden forbundet med regler om ansvarligt spil og adgang til ROFUS. Disse forhold siger ikke i sig selv noget om, hvor hurtigt en bestemt udbetaling gennemføres, men de er vigtige dele af en samlet vurdering.

Før en konto bruges, kan man sammenholde licensoplysninger, betalingsvilkår og grænser i en enkel liste. Notér gebyrer, minimum, maksimum, forventet behandlingstid og eventuelle krav om dokumentation. Hvis noget er uklart, bør man få det afklaret på forhånd frem for at antage, at vilkårene svarer til dem hos andre udbydere.

En nøgtern sammenligning

Det bedste valg afhænger af, hvilke vilkår der er gennemsigtige og passer til ens behov. En lav eller manglende operatørbetaling kan være mindre relevant, hvis beløbsgrænsen er lav eller behandlingstiden uklar. Omvendt kan en præcis beskrivelse af både gebyrer og udbetalingsforløb gøre det lettere at forstå, hvad man kan forvente. Sammenlign dokumenterbare oplysninger, læs de gældende regler grundigt, og spil kun for beløb, du har råd til at tabe.

By Peter C. Horan Trending Fowrard: Stickerbox uses it’s own ‘safe’ AI to give kids creative control – and the founders promise multiple guardrails to protect children.
The post AI toys are getting scary – but this small red box promises a fix appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

OpenAI has released GPT-5.2, claiming significant gains in the AI model’s ability to complete real-world business tasks to an “expert level” compared to GPT-5.1, released in November.

The new model, available in Instant, Thinking, and Pro performance tiers, offers major improvements across a range of benchmarks, the company said.

Using OpenAI’s GDPval benchmark, which compares the model’s ability to complete 44 different business tasks to the same standards as human experts, GPT-5.2 matched or exceeded human users in 70.9% of tests, compared to GPT-5.1’s 38.8% across the Instant (basic), Thinking (deeper reasoning), and Pro (research-grade) versions.

To illustrate these advances, OpenAI said that GPT-5.2 Thinking could fully format a workforce planning spreadsheet, while on GPT-5.1, the equivalent output assembled the same spreadsheet correctly, but in a more basic state that lacked formatting.

“We designed GPT‑5.2 to unlock even more economic value for people; it’s better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, writing code, perceiving images, understanding long contexts, using tools, and handling complex, multi-step projects,” said OpenAI.

GPT-5.2 also showed a mixture of gains across other important benchmarks, including ARC-AGI-1/ARC-AGI-2 (general problem solving), and SWE-Bench Pro/SWE-Bench Verified (real-world software tasks).

“For everyday professional use, this translates into a model that can more reliably debug production code, implement feature requests, refactor large codebases, and ship fixes end-to-end with less manual intervention,” the company said.

GPT-5.2 has begun rolling out to ChatGPT users, starting with the paid plans. Subscription pricing is unchanged. For API access, GPT-5.2 is priced at $1.75 per one million input tokens, and $14 per one million output tokens, with a 90% discount on cached inputs. Despite this being more expensive than GPT-5.1, OpenAI claimed the model’s greater efficiency meant that “the cost of attaining a given level of quality ended up less expensive due to GPT‑5.2’s greater token efficiency.”

Code red

For OpenAI, the appearance of the new version so soon after the last one represents an important acceleration in its GPT-5 model development. In early December, CEO Sam Altman sent a ‘code red’ emergency memo to OpenAI employees warning that without rapid development of GPT-5, the company risked falling behind Google’s increasingly capable Gemini 3 model

Since then, things appear to have stabilized, with Altman telling CNBC this week that Gemini’s advances had been less significant than first feared, and that the code red state would end by January. However, a noticeable omission from the web announcement was any comparison between GPT-5.2’s performance and that of Gemini 3. Reportedly, a separate press briefing offered only a limited comparison.

Maria Sukhareva, a principal AI analyst at Siemens, questioned OpenAI’s use of benchmarks more generally. “It [GPT-5.2] claims to beat GDPVal, but this is a benchmark developed by OpenAI for OpenAI. Technically there are no obstacles for OpenAI to fine-tune their model for those 44 tasks, while completely failing on everything else,” she pointed out.

“Essentially, the numbers reported by GPT-5.2 are meaningless where one cannot see what data they trained the model on. GPT-5.2 suffers from all the same problems as previous models,” she argued. Sukhareva’s deeper dive on GPT-5.2 benchmarking can be found on her Substack.

Rachid ‘Rush’ Wehbi, CEO of e-commerce platform Sell The Trend, has tested GPT-5.2 under real-world conditions. “GPT-5.2 is doing a lot better when it comes to keeping its train of thought going for longer periods and not falling apart when you throw some layered context at it. For companies, that’s way more important than making a tiny bit of an improvement on some potentially inconsequential benchmark,” he said.

“Benchmarks are fine for showing you’ve made some sort of progress, but they don’t tell you if your model is going to actually hold up in the real world. GPT-5.2 is a step forward, but enterprise AI is still a work in progress.”

According to Bob Hutchins, founder of AI literacy company Human Voice Media, “most enterprise frustration with AI up until now is from the last 20% — the formatting, the constraints, the handoffs. GPT-5.2 shows progress there.” His advice for enterprises was, “ignore the launch noise and run a disciplined trial. GPT-5.2 is a meaningful step. It does not close the gap between promise and practice, it narrows it.”

For example, benchmarking by agentic AI company Vectara’s Hallucination Evaluation Model, found that, while GPT-5.2 has improved on that front, it still lags some competitors.

“OpenAI still has some way to go in improving hallucination performance,” commented Ofer Mendelevitch, Vectara head of developer relations. “GPT-5.2-low-thinking is best in the GPT family so far, ranking 33rd on our leaderboard with an 8.4% hallucination rate. However, ChatGPT 5.2 notably trails DeepSeek V3.2, which ranks 23rd with a hallucination rate of 6.3%. For comparative purposes, Gemini 3’s grounded hallucination rate in our testing was 13.6%, with Grok 4.1 coming in at 17.8%.”

This article originally appeared on InfoWorld.

Source:: Computer World

US President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the Justice Department to challenge state artificial intelligence laws the administration says threaten US competitiveness.

In his order, Trump is taking issue with state “requiring entities to embed ideological bias within models” — although the example he gave of embedding bias was “a new Colorado law banning ‘algorithmic discrimination’” that, he said, could “force AI models to produce false results in order to avoid a ‘differential treatment or impact’ on protected groups.”

The order establishes an AI Litigation Task Force within the Justice Department to challenge state laws on grounds they are “unconstitutional, pre-empted, or otherwise unlawful.” The order directed the Commerce Department to publish an evaluation of state AI laws that conflict with national policy priorities and to withhold Broadband Equity Access and Deployment funding from states with such laws.

The US Federal Trade Commission will be required to “explain the circumstances under which State laws that require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models are pre-empted by the Federal Trade Commission Act’s prohibition on engaging in unfair and deceptive acts, while the Federal Communications Commission will consider adopting “a Federal reporting and disclosure standard for AI models that pre-empts conflicting State laws,” according to the text of the Executive Order.

The order also calls on the administration’s Special Advisor for AI and Crypto to recommend legislation to establish a “uniform Federal policy framework for AI that pre-empts State AI laws that conflict with the policy set forth in this order,” although it will still allow states to set their own laws on AI child safety protections, data center infrastructure, and procurement of AI services.

The order targets a growing patchwork of state regulations. States introduced nearly 700 AI bills in 2024, with 113 enacted. Colorado’s AI Act takes effect in June 2026, requiring developers to disclose information about high-risk AI systems and conduct impact assessments. California’s SB 53 requires transparency about AI use in employment decisions. Texas’s TRAIGA, effective January 2026, sets disclosure requirements for generative AI in contracts.

Compliance costs remain for EU sales

The order aims to simplify domestic compliance, but US companies selling AI products and services in European markets will still need to comply with the EU AI Act, which applies to any AI system used by people in EU member states.

“A deregulated US posture can make American AI firms faster at home, but it does not make them freer abroad,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research.

The EU regulation, which entered into force in August 2024, classifies AI systems by risk level and requires conformity assessments, transparency obligations, and human oversight for high-risk applications including hiring tools, credit scoring systems, and law enforcement applications.

That could be an obstacle for products conceived under a different set of laws, said Enza Iannopollo, vice president principal analyst at Forrester, said, “These requirements cannot always be added as an afterthought. Many AI systems need safety, integrity, and ethical safeguards built in by design.”

And, said Gogia, “The EU AI Act is not just a legal framework, it is a procurement filter.” Enterprise procurement teams, internal audit functions, and insurers impose requirements similar to EU standards regardless of local regulation, he said. Multinationals standardize internal AI governance to avoid building separate compliance systems for different markets.

Enterprises face increased liability exposure

The order’s approach of pushing to remove state laws it considers pre-empted by an existing federal law on “unfair and deceptive acts,” and drafting legislation that would, if passed, pre-empt other state AI laws, leaves enterprises navigating increased legal uncertainty, according to analysts.

Without regulation establishing common standards, companies must provide separate assurances to each customer and business partner, increasing transaction costs and legal uncertainty, Iannopollo said.

 “Using AI to power products, services, or business models creates liability across multiple fronts: employment law, consumer protection, privacy, and sector-specific regimes such as banking or critical infrastructure. When AI systems lack built-in safeguards, those liabilities become harder and costlier to manage,” she said.

Technology trade group NetChoice sees the order helping ensure America leads in AI innovation. “Startups and small businesses will greatly struggle to create and compete with a 50-state patchwork of red tape,” said Patrick Hedger, NetChoice director of policy, in a written statement.

Brad Carson, president of Americans for Responsible Innovation, a political action committee lobbying for a thoughtful governance framework for rapidly advancing technologies, said in a written statement that the order “directly attacks the state-passed safeguards that we’ve seen vocal public support for over the past year, all without any replacement at the federal level.”

The order follows Trump’s July 2025 AI Action Plan, which called for removing regulatory barriers to AI development. Trump revoked President Biden’s October 2023 AI executive order in January 2025.

Source:: Computer World

By Omair Khaliq Sultan If you’ve been thinking about getting into 3D printing but don’t want a giant machine taking over your desk, this deal is right in the sweet spot. The Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D printer is on sale for $199.99, which is $50 off its regular $249.99 price. That puts it in very tempting territory for […] The post Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D printer drops to $199.99 in new deal appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Deepti Pathak Apple has officially confirmed that Apple Fitness+ will launch in India on December 15. This is…
The post Apple Fitness+ Now Available in India: Key Features & Price appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Deepti Pathak Every time a new smartphone hits the market, one question automatically pops up: Is it really…
The post OPPO Find X8 vs Find X9: What’s Changed appeared first on Fossbytes.

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Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince says in a new interview with Wired that the company has blocked more than 416 billion AI bot requests since July 1, 2025. It’s all part of the company’s initiative to help customers stop AI bots from scraping their content without payment.

According to Prince, AI represents a platform shift that will change the entire internet business model, and Cloudflare wants to protect an open ecosystem where both small and large players can operate on a level playing field.

He particularly criticizes Google for merging its search and AI crawlers. This means that anyone who blocks AI training also disappears from Google’s search index. Prince says Google is abusing its dominant position here.

“It’s almost like a Marvel movie — the hero of the last film becomes the villain of the next one,” Prince told Wired. “Google is the problem here. It is the company that is keeping us from going forward on the internet, and until we force them — or hopefully convince them — that they should play by the same rules as everyone else and split their crawlers up between search and AI, I think we’re going to have a hard time completely locking all the content down.”

Prince hopes that industry pressure and possible future regulation will lead to new and fairer business models where AI companies pay for licensed content instead of scraping it for free.

Source:: Computer World

By Viviane Mendes When OpenAI announced its new shopping search capabilities, I took the news with a grain of salt (perhaps the whole shaker). For the past decade, we have watched the slow evolution of traditional search engines. What began as tools for pure information discovery gradually morphed into ecosystems dominated by SEO-optimized content and sponsored results. My initial fear with ChatGPT’s update was simple: Are we seeing the beginning of a similar shift? Is the purity of the “reasoning engine” being diluted by the necessity of commerce? After testing the new shopping integration, the results suggest that we are at a pivotal…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Omair Khaliq Sultan If you’ve been eyeing Samsung’s top-end smartwatch but choking at the price, this is a much easier way in. This renewed Galaxy Watch Ultra gives you the 47mm titanium design, LTE connectivity, AI-powered insights, and all the fitness and health tracking you’d expect, for $249.99 instead of roughly $500. The catch is simple: it’s renewed, […] The post This Galaxy Watch Ultra deal drops a flagship smartwatch to $249.99 appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Omair Khaliq Sultan If you’ve been curious about AR glasses but didn’t want to spend headset-level money, this is the moment to pay attention. The XREAL One AR Glasses take whatever you’re watching or playing and turn it into a virtual 147-inch 1080p screen at up to 120Hz, floating right in front of you. Right now they’re $399.99, […] The post Xreal One AR glasses drop to $399.99 and bring a 147-inch screen to your face appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends

At Apple, maintaining the highest possible security and privacy across its platforms starts with the standards it supports. 

The company, known for its tight integration between hardware and software, deliberately takes choices that help it promote those priorities — even at the cost of integration with third-party software and services.

It is also true to say that Apple continues to improve and iterate its enterprise offerings. “It’s so great to see the momentum [around Macs in the enterprise],” Jeremy Butcher, who handles business product marketing at Apple, told me last month. “As you know, it’s very intentional.”

Understand the future, look to the past

Apple’s decision to remove kernel extension (kext) support back in 2020 is a perfect illustration. Way back then, the company decided kexts were a potential security problem and gave warning of its intention to remove support from macOS. Some developers complained at the removal — and then we later had the huge CrowdStrike disaster on Windows, which effectively justified Apple’s decision.

While the complaints at Apple’s decision certainly generated volume, and while it is true that the removal of kext support gave some developers problems, the result was improved security across Apple’s ecosystem.

Apple thinks the same way when it comes to identity management across its platforms. That’s because it knows identity is critical to evolving endpoint security architecture, and to build that, you must secure your platforms on the strongest available foundations — particularly for products that support its enterprise presence.

Identity, it’s the answer, don’t you see?

At WWDC 2025, Apple improved Platform Single Sign On, bringing authentication with PSSO into Setup Assistant during Automated Device Enrollment. This hit the market with macOS 26 only a few weeks ago. However, to enjoy this implementation, identity providers must adopt a narrow number of modern frameworks, such as OAuth or OIDC. The idea behind this is that for Identity Providers (IdPs, much used in enterprise security) to deliver optimized platform support across Macs, they must support the latest frameworks. 

That means they can’t rely on custom stacks, as Apple can’t necessarily ensure their security, which means they must support Apple’s Extensible SSO frameworks to deliver seamless sign-on. 

The principle is that if you want to deploy the best possible Apple user experiences, you must align with the company’s decisions around supported frameworks.

Transition is an opportunity

This may all sound a little unfair, but Apple’s focus isn’t on being fair to IdPs, it’s about delivering consistently secure experiences for its users, and, as CrowdStrike showed, strong security cannot exist without strong foundations.

This can be tough news for some businesses, particularly those still enduring the slow but inevitable migration away from their legacy platforms. During that transition it is inevitable some companies will seek a middle ground between Apple’s expression of SSO and the needs of their legacy platforms, even if Apple offers better experiences. Given the company’s track record for making solid security decisions, it seems to me likely to only be a matter of time until IdPs that don’t currently support Apple’s chosen APIs will end up doing so.

Where we are today on that journey is an opportunity, of course. Many in the Apple enterprise focused MDM space will reach out to companies at this point in their transition with compromise solutions that give some of what they need in terms of Apple SSO while also handling noncompliant tech. 

That’s just good business. It’s a profit center for them and can also be seen as a positive reflection of the vibrancy of Apple’s wider enterprise ecosystem and its ability to shape itself to meet ever-emerging enterprise needs. 

Apple’s flexible ecosystem

There’s always going to be money to be made bridging the gap between the central Apple experience and third-party platforms, software, and services. That’s OK, of course, as it means the core Apple experience is maintained, and users like you and I can continue to rely on the platform delivering the best possible security experience. 

Apple’s decision to limit identity provider support to a narrow number of modern frameworks is causing consternation. But, eventually, most of those IdPs will dig a little deeper in their development investment and build solutions Apple can accept — it is important to note that the current macOS that supports recent changes in Apple’s implantation has only been available for a matter of weeks. While we wait for them to catch up, there are plenty of Apple partners ready to help bridge the gap. 

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Also now on Mastodon.

Source:: Computer World

By Shikhar Mehrotra Google is rolling out a massive upgrade to Chrome on desktop, integrating Gemini AI and native AI Mode tools directly into the browser to deliver smarter search, contextual insights, and automatic threat detection.
The post Google turns Chrome into a native AI browser with Gemini-powered tools appeared first on Digital Trends.

Source:: Digital Trends