By Deepti Pathak Armadillo Scutes are a new addition to Minecraft that help players make wolf armour. This can…
The post How To Get Armadillo Scutes in Minecraft? appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Siôn Geschwindt A new report from the University of Cambridge has warned that the UK’s push to lead in AI risks derailing its climate targets — unless urgent action is taken. According to the University’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, the unchecked growth of AI could drive a 25-fold increase in the global tech sector’s energy use by 2040, putting massive strain on power grids and accelerating carbon emissions.  Even the most conservative scenario suggests a five-fold rise over the next 15 years. The report’s authors argue it’s “magical thinking at the highest levels” to assume countries such as the UK…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

Because workers don’t want to be in meetings all day — especially if they’re unproductive — Zoom is packing more AI features into its software so attendees get more value from conversations and can use agentic AI to finish projects.

“The vision that our CTO has really laid out is this idea of agentic AI task completion,” said Kim Storin, the chief marketing officer at Zoom.

The approach to agentic task completion is designed to integrate smoothly into corporate workflows to take advantage of opportunities before, during and after meetings.

“That’s why we’ve been able to embed it into the platform instead of bolting it on,” Storin said. “It’s truly part of the overall workflow, versus just a side project of AI.”

Zoom took steps toward its conversation-to-completion goal this week by adding more tools to the company’s Custom AI Companion feature; it shows up in the interface as a chatbot where users can pose questions. 

The Custom AI Companion is now widely available to customers — and the chatbot can get answers from the third-party tools. For example, users will be able to pull out sales records from Salesforce during a conversation by querying the chatbot, and then update records, said Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom.

Zoom has also expanded the functionality with integrations with data storage platform Box and project management tools from Asana and Atlassian’s Jira. That means, for instance, users will be able to update Jira tickets or pull information from files in Box.

Users can also connect to services such as AWS’s Q agents, which is a generative AI (genAI) assistant. Q is Amazon’s version of Microsoft’s Copilot, which helps workers complete jobs and get answers.

“Great meetings are when you’re having an engaging, creative conversation, you are brainstorming, people are alert, they’re not fiddling around,” Hashim said.

Zoom’s AI Companion is available to all users, but the customized AI companion had been available only to large organizations. The add-on is now available to more customers, including small businesses, and will cost $12 per user per month, Hashim said.

“The Custom AI Companion can also join your Google Meet meetings or Teams meetings,” Hashim said.

Zoom’s AI features are based on established large language models (LLMs) from the likes of Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta. The company also uses custom and small language models for AI functions within its videoconferencing software.

“These small language models are more specific to a task and those are becoming better. It’s a federated approach that we are using for models,” Hashim said.

Product integrations are commonplace across productivity suites and project management tools, even if from rival providers. The integrations improve user productivity and keep projects on track.  

Zoom wants to “take that conversation and convert it into something which is really actionable” allowing users to complete tasks “as much as we can in the moment,” Hashim said.

Read more by this author:

Microsoft slashes prices 60% on genAI tech that understands audio, video, and text

Google to give enterprises control over beta Workspace feature rollouts

Apple reaches out to OpenAI, Anthropic to build out Siri technology

OpenAI productivity suite could change the way users create documents

Meta adds privacy feature to WhatsApp days after US House ban

Source:: Computer World

It was only a matter of time before they came for America’s only openly gay CEO, and it’s got nothing to do with performance. How can it? Apple’s valuation has soared under his watch, while the company’s positions on privacy and environmental responsibility lead almost every industry — and should be an example to all.

I imagine that’s precisely what reactionaries dislike about the Cook-led company. It would be so much simpler to introduce various kinds of surveillance (state, services, advertising, etc.) if Apple would just get out the way.

No one likes a goody two shoes

The last thing they need is a company that successfully shows us it is possible to transition to climate neutrality across its business. If it succeeds, it would prove that not only is this possible, but it benefits the business and its customers. Believe it or not, there are powerful forces who will fight to the death to prevent such high-profile successes.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, those with the power and the money (and there’s only a few that have both) know how much easier it would be to train our future MechaHitler overlords if everybody’s digital identities could be turned into open books. In their ghastly vision of tomorrow, privacy becomes something only the very wealthiest among us can afford. 

The rest of us exist solely to feed the machine.

But all of these visions keep hitting the same snags: Apple gets in the way. The company, built on so-called liberal values such as peace, internationalism, diversity, and LGBTQ+ rights, is a conceptual anathema to some of those riding high on the zeitgeist today. Negative energies always focus inward in the end, and they are focusing inward today.

Knives out

In truth, they’ve been after Cook for a while. They didn’t mind Steve Jobs so much; they accepted his ability and genius. Indeed, the kind of people Jobs probably had little use for now use his quotes to sell “business wisdom’”books.

That’s how it rolls.

But Cook’s a different story. The knives have been out for him since he took the CEO throne. And even while the company moves from strength to strength, nothing he does is ever seen as quite good enough; I’ve lost track of the number of people I once respected who seem to take great delight in berating him.

The man who seemingly led development of the Vision Pro, a product so advanced it isn’t expected to become a mass market item until the next decade, is apparently not a “product guy.” The guy who spent a billion on Beats as a flagship to lead a suite of services that now generate almost as much revenue as the iPhone doesn’t get it. Tim Cook’s Apple, which has restored the Mac to glory on the back of Apple Silicon, has lost its way.

I’m sick of reading these kinds of things. They seem to state the news, but miss the reality — that in the current environment, nothing Apple does will be good enough, no matter who leads it. 

The company is beset. 

On the one hand, it faces reactionary forces. On the other it has the current crop of ghastly brain dead neo-liberals (I’m looking at you Europe and the UK), who, by incompetence or design, continue to erode the very values they claim to champion. “Security” means people in the UK don’t even know and aren’t even told the extent to which the dreadful authoritarians in the current government spy on their digital lives, meaning no security at all. While “trade” means Apple products are going to cost more in the US because of the “Trump Tax.” Meanwhile Europe continues to damage Apple’s business and ecosystem so some games developers can make a few dollars at the cost of platform security, using state- sponsored savagery to force an ideological vision of “free market” competition on the business of only one company.

What is there about using state power to undermine the business of one company while leaving competitors untouched that can be defined as ‘free market’?

Climate change

Apple does have its own problems, of course. It’s arguable that its top team has needed refreshment in the form of new talent for a while; hopefully, the company has a wealth of second-line talent to fill the gaps as senior leadership inevitably retires.

It is also interesting that there must be one or two high-placed Apple top 100 leaders who are taking delight in leaking Apple’s secrets, to the detriment of senior leadership’s credibility. Perhaps that is why they do it, reflecting their own ambition?

But for many Apple critics, the biggest problem isn’t Apple, its leadership, its many business challenges, or even Cook. No. The reason they want to force regime change is because Apple, since its inception, has always strived to mean something, to push for positive change. It’s the hopeful antidote to others’ hopeless empty rhetoric. Because at its heart, it has values, values Cook tries to push for, values we must maintain if there is to be any hope at all of surviving this spiritually bereft, morally absent, economically hopeless, nihilistic age.

That’s why I feel the company, despite its own structural imperfections (who else recalls Siri snooping or pressure against in-store unionization?), continues to be worth our time. 

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

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak Garena Free Fire Max is one of the most popular games on the planet, and for…
The post Garena Free Fire Max Redeem Codes for July 10 appeared first on Fossbytes.

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In yet more top-level Apple news, Chief Operating Officer (COO) Jeff Williams plans to step down pending his retirement later this year. As expected, he will be replaced by existing Senior Vice President of Operations Sabih Khan.

The move cast shockwaves across the Apple-watching industry as Williams was widely expected to eventually replace Tim Cook as Apple CEO. The news doesn’t appear to have shocked Apple, however, which describes the retirement as part of a long-planned succession.

Supply and demand

The news is still significant, given the extent to which the company is embroiled in problems across its supply chain — principally from a US government committed to using blunt instruments in the form of tariffs to impact its business. 

Khan, who evidently helped drive Apple’s ongoing transition to internationalize its supply chain, takes a high-pressure position in which he must find some way to balance US nationalistic demands against the grim realities of the technology supply chain. Managing this correctly is of major importance to Apple.

To make sure Khan can focus on that task, Apple has changed some of the responsibilities he will face in his role. Along with his COO responsibilities, Williams also oversaw Apple’s design team, Apple Watch, and health initiatives. But that oversight is being shared elsewhere across the company’s top team, leaving Khan free to get business done. (The Apple design team — which currently reports to Williams — will report directly to Cook starting later this year, for example.)

What Apple said

Williams has been Cook’s right-hand man for decades. He helped build the incredibly complex Apple supply chain, capable of churning out millions of devices every year made using components from across the planet. He has made a huge contribution to every Apple product we use.

“Jeff (Williams) and I have worked alongside each other for as long as I can remember, and Apple wouldn’t be what it is without him. He’s helped to create one of the most respected global supply chains in the world; launched Apple Watch and overseen its development; architected Apple’s health strategy; and led our world-class team of designers with great wisdom, heart, and dedication,” said Cook. 

Who is Sabih Khan?

A 30-year Apple veteran, Khan became senior vice president for operations in 2019 and has been in charge of all aspects of Apple’s global supply chain for the past six years. Before joining Apple’s procurement group in 1995, Khan worked as an applications development engineer and key account technical leader at GE Plastics. 

“Sabih is a brilliant strategist who has been one of the central architects of Apple’s supply chain,” said Cook. “While overseeing Apple’s supply chain, he has helped pioneer new technologies in advanced manufacturing, overseen the expansion of Apple’s manufacturing footprint in the United States, and helped ensure that Apple can be nimble in response to global challenges. He has advanced our ambitious efforts in environmental sustainability, helping reduce Apple’s carbon footprint by more than 60 percent. Above all, Sabih leads with his heart and his values, and I know he will make an exceptional chief operating officer.”

“I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Sabih for 27 years and I think he’s the most talented operations executive on the planet,” said Williams, the outgoing COO. “I have tremendous confidence in Apple’s future under his leadership in this role.”

Succession

Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reports that John Ternus, the senior hardware engineering chief, is now the most likely replacement for Cook once he retires. But Gurman speculates Ternus will handle Apple Watch hardware, with the operating systems and health software to be handled by Head of Software Engineering Craig Federighi and Fitness+ to become a part of Services.

That’s logical and sounds highly credible, though does call into question Apple’s ability to deliver the profoundly powerful health-related features we all think the company is working on.

This is unlikely to be the last planned transition from Apple’s top team, all of whom are about the same age.

The company must now figure out how to create a complex succession plan to create an executive team that spans numerous ages, as many of the leaders of its existing senior team inexorably head toward well-earned retirement. This sure has been a long week for Apple.

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

Source:: Computer World

By Thomas Macaulay Five rocket companies will compete for contracts to provide Europe’s next launch services — and boost the continent’s troubled access to space. The European Space Agency (ESA) selected the quintet, who will now contend for two types of contracts: Providing launch services for ESA between 2026 and 2030. Demonstrating upgraded launch capabilities, including at least one flight test. The initiative — named the European Launcher Challenge (ELC) — aims to expand Europe’s pathways into the cosmos. In recent years, these routes have been painfully limited. When the Ariane 5 rocket was retired in July 2023, ESA was left with no independent…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

The Crowdstrike disaster in July 2024 gave Microsoft a black eye. How could third-party security software fail so spectacularly — to the point that millions of Windows PCs became unbootable unless system administrators physically fixed them in person? 

That’s the question Microsoft has been trying to answer with the Windows Resiliency Initiative, which is now bearing fruit. Beyond that, Microsoft has been implementing changes to make Windows more resilient in general, ensuring Windows PCs can fix themselves and another outage can’t wreak the same havoc Crowdstrike did.

With that in mind, let’s look at what Microsoft has in store for Windows 11 PCs. And, yes, this includes the end of the famous blue screen of death.

Want more Windows PC insights? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. I’ll send you free in-depth Windows Field Guides as a special welcome bonus!

The advent of hotpatching

Hotpatching, which is usually buried in talk about enterprise reliability, is one of the most interesting changes Microsoft has been working on — and while this change is currently aimed at enterprise users, it isn’t hard to imagine a version of it extending to regular PC users down the road. And it has the potential to affect how everyone uses Windows.

Despite the technical name, hotpatching is simple: When Windows downloads and installs the monthly security update, it can immediately apply the update without a reboot. 

The difference may seem subtle, since Windows 11 PCs could already install an update without a reboot. But previously the security fix wouldn’t take effect until after rebooting — something that many people delayed until it was more convenient for them, leaving their PC unprotected in the meantime. 

With hotpatching, it all happens automatically, eliminating the need to reboot for Windows updates. Perhaps you’ll still have to reboot once a year for the biggest update, but overall, your PC is going to be better protected than before.

A recent Microsoft blog post buries talk of hotpatching and instead discusses how only organizations running Windows 11 Enterprise can use hotpatching with the “Windows Autopatch” cloud service.

That’s true — this is first and foremost for IT departments with Windows 11 PCs. But as Microsoft continues working on the technology, it’s worth considering how easily this could expand beyond Enterprise versions of Windows at some point down the line. Imagine a future version of Windows — perhaps Windows 12? — where a headline feature was “no more rebooting for Windows Updates.” We might be closer to that than you think!

The self-healing PC

Quick Machine Recovery may be the best new Windows feature most people will never think about — even if they use it!

Windows has something called the Windows Recovery Environment, and Windows boots right to it if your PC can’t start properly —  often fixing common problems your PC faces. However, when CrowdStrike dragged down PCs across the world, the recovery environment couldn’t automatically fix it, forcing system administrators to manually fix each affected PC in person.

Quick Machine Recovery is designed to avoid situations like that by acting as a “self-healing” system of sorts for Windows computers. In short, it ensures that the recovery environment can get solutions to problems from the internet. Let’s say another antivirus program, a bad driver, or even a buggy Windows Update takes down PCs and the recovery environment can’t fix them. With this update, when in the recovery environment, your PC can connect to Microsoft’s server (over Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet) and download fixes directly from Microsoft. And if Microsoft spots a problem affecting a large number of PCs, it can address it preemptively without all the manual fixes that were needed during CrowdStrike.

The Windows Recovery Environment has been able to access the network for years — dating back to Windows 10 — but now Microsoft is putting that network access to better use.

The Windows Recovery Environment is getting a huge upgrade.Chris Hoffman, Foundry

Microsoft says this will be available later in this summer. While enterprises can activate it on Windows 11 Professional and Enterprise, it’s also available on Windows 11 Home, where it’s turned on by default. It should help Windows silently recover from the worst errors without all the manual work.

The…black screen of death?!

Microsoft is about to end blue screen of death errors forever — by getting rid of the traditional blue screen. Instead, if your system encounters an unexpected failure and needs to restart, you’ll see a black screen of death instead. (Luckily, we’ll still be able to call them “BSODs.”)

The new black screen of death won’t show you a frowny face anymore.Chris Hoffman, IDG

Surprisingly, this color swap isn’t just an aesthetic choice — it’s part of a “simplified user interface.” Instead of the large frowny face and scannable QR code that were ushered in with the Windows 8 BSOD (and that, by most counts, few people actually used), almost all that appears on the new black screen of death is the stop code and the explanation of what caused the problem — in short, the technical information that actually matters. This should make it easier for people to remotely troubleshoot systems without the clutter.

More importantly, Microsoft already did a lot of work with Windows 11’s 24H2 update on speeding up this reboot. According to the company, the crash dump collection process, which is how Microsoft captures pertinent crash information when your system blue-screens or black-screens, now takes about two seconds. With the reboot process faster than ever, the idea of whipping out your phone to scan a QR code seems quaint.

User-mode antivirus

More importantly, the biggest architectural change for Windows is getting antivirus and other security software out of the Windows kernel. This is why CrowdStrike’s disastrous update was so difficult to fix: Because the security software runs at such a low level in Windows, Windows couldn’t say “Oops, this didn’t work, let’s fix it” — instead, the whole system crashed.

When Microsoft was designing Windows Vista nearly 20 years ago, the company wanted to get security software out of the Windows kernel. But, with Microsoft starting to offer its own antivirus at the time, security companies argued it was being anti-competitive and would hurt their business. Stung by the US government going after it allegedly monopolizing the web browser market on Windows, Microsoft backed off and let security companies continue to integrate at a low level with Windows, despite tightening down other parts of the operating system.

With CrowdStrike’s explosion, though, Microsoft decided to take another crack at this. The result is the “Windows endpoint security platform,” which will arrive in private preview form for Microsoft’s antivirus partners this month. They’ll be able to create antivirus and endpoint security software that runs outside the Windows kernel, ensuring they won’t cause the operating system to fail if they encounter a problem. 

In other words, this is user-mode antivirus — antivirus software that runs as a normal process without getting its hooks into the Windows kernel in a way that can cause serious problems. 

This isn’t ready to go for regular PC users yet, but antivirus companies will be starting to work on software that takes advantage of it soon. And in a Microsoft blog post, the company provides quotes from a variety of companies like Bitdefender, Sophos, Trend Micro, and CrowdStrike itself about how excited they are to be partnering with Microsoft on this. Microsoft appears to be trying to move carefully so that it’s not seen as a monopolist — especially in case a security company comes after them, like back in 2006.

Overall, this is good news and should make Windows more reliable. It’s possible the reduced access to deep parts of Windows could make some security software less powerful. But, after the CrowdStrike disaster, it’s clear changes to Windows were needed — and should have been made long ago.

Protected print mode and driver cleanup

Speaking of the Windows kernel, many hardware drivers run in there, too. It was major news when USB showed up all those years ago and you could plug in a USB drive, keyboard, mouse, or another standard device and it would just work without needing to hunt down a hardware driver for each device. We take it for granted now, but imagine having to install SanDisk’s driver suite to copy files off a USB flash drive!

Printers never quite caught up, though. (That was a bigger problem than you might realize, since printer drivers have historically been a frequent source of security problems.)

That’s all starting to change. We’re in the middle of a big migration to a standard printer driver system, though it’s easy to miss it. Windows is currently in a hybrid mode where it accepts both traditional legacy printer drivers and modern printer drivers for Mopria-certified printers. You can activate Windows Protected Print mode under Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners on Windows 11. When you do, Windows will block the installation of older third-party drivers and force the usage of the “Windows modern print stack.” 

Windows protected print mode isn’t on by default yet, but it’s the future.Chris Hoffman, Foundry

Microsoft is also starting to delete old legacy drivers from Windows Update — you can still install them if you want, but Windows Update won’t automatically download them on your PC when you plug in an old device. It looks like Microsoft is slowly cleaning up the hardware driver, which can only be good news for security and reliability. (Microsoft doesn’t mention this work as part of the Windows Resiliency Initiative, but it’s closely related.)

Encryption by default

Last but not least, disk encryption has always been a little confusing on Windows. Professional editions of Windows got access to full BitLocker drive encryption, while Home editions of Windows got access to the simplified BitLocker device encryption feature — but only if their hardware supported it.

Encryption is critical for data security, though — it’s the only thing that stops a thief, or anyone else who gets ahold of your laptop, from digging through all your personal documents. 

With Windows 11’s 24H2 update, released near the end of 2024, Microsoft lowered the hardware requirements and started activating BitLocker device encryption by default on new Windows 11 installations in more scenarios. It still requires you sign in with a Microsoft account — Microsoft will back up your BitLocker recovery key to your Microsoft account, ensuring Home users have a backup method if they lose their password.

While this also isn’t part of the resiliency initiative — at least, not officially — with more Windows 11 PCs using secure encryption for their storage, this definitely falls into the same general bucket. It’s important to note, though, that while you can poke around in Settings or Control Panel to see whether Windows is using encryption, Windows doesn’t normally call this out or warn you if your PC’s storage isn’t encrypted for some reason.

Windows often automatically encrypts the storage on new PCs.Chris Hoffman, Foundry

AI features on Copilot+ PCs get a lot of hype, and it’s easy to drum up interest by showing off screenshots of new Start menu and taskbar designs. But these rarely-discussed, under-the-hood features that increase security and resiliency are what will ultimately make Windows better for everyone — both enterprises with fleets of PCs and the average user with a Windows 11 PC at home. It’s great to see Microsoft focusing on improvements like these.

Want to stay up to date on Windows? Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. You’ll get free copies of Paul Thurrott’s Windows Field Guides as a bonus when you sign up, too!

Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt Funding focus is a new series analysing cash flow into the European tech ecosystem. After debuting with a look at the biggest rounds so far this year, we now turn to the largest deals in the Netherlands for H1. Startups in the Netherlands raised just $503mn (€429mn) in the first quarter of this year — the lowest quarterly total since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Dealroom data. But three months later, the outlook has improved. Total funding for the first half of 2025 hit $1.4bn (€1.2bn). That’s down from $1.8bn (€1.54bn) at the same point last…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai Garena Free Fire Max is one of the most popular games on the planet, and for…
The post Garena Free Fire Max Redeem Codes for July 9 appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Siôn Geschwindt A group of major European media organisations has launched a chatbot aimed at combating online disinformation.  The tool, called ChatEurope, responds to queries with information verified by journalists. It was set up by a consortium of media brands led by Agence France-Presse. Fourteen other news organisations, including France Médias Monde, Deutsche Welle, El País, and Romania’s RFI, have supported the project, which is also backed by the European Commission.  The chatbot was designed by DRUID AI, a Romanian enterprise AI platform, and uses a language model developed by French startup Mistral. It’s hosted on infrastructure built by Paris-based open-source software…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Hisan Kidwai It’s no secret that electric scooters are an amazing way to navigate city streets. However, unless…
The post TLTBoard: The Future of Outdoor Mobility appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Deepti Pathak Garena Free Fire Max is one of the most popular games on the planet, and for…
The post Garena Free Fire Max Redeem Codes for July 8 appeared first on Fossbytes.

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By Siôn Geschwindt Finnish startup Donut Lab has secured €25mn in seed funding to scale up its in-wheel hub motors for electric land, sea, and air vehicles.  Alongside the investment, Donut Lab is opening an R&D hub in Chippenham, UK. Risto Siilasmaa, serial tech investor and former Nokia chairman, has also joined the company’s board. Marko Lehtimaki, Donut Lab’s CEO and co-founder, said the investment signals a continued demand for the company’s technology. “It demonstrates to us [founders] what we have always believed, that our tech solution is truly groundbreaking,” he said.   Donut’s flagship innovation is a hollow hub motor dubbed, you guessed…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

Historically, when companies roll out new capabilities, they start out lenient to encourage usage. Take facial biometrics for example. When they first went into use, the initial settings were chosen to make it easier for the biometrics to work. Yes, it meant more imposters would get a green light, but it sharply limited friction for legitimate users. 

Google and many certificate authorities used a similar playbook with web server certificates, allowing them to be used for all kinds of authentication functions instead of just the web server function they were designed for.

That all ends, in theory, on June 15, 2026, according to Google. 

The online post explaining the change is quite technical, but the upshot is that Google is finally trying to put an end to the sometimes sloppy way in which certs are being used.

Earlier this year, various groups debated shortening the expiration time frame of web certs to six weeks, a move that was ultimately made official in April. That move dealt with how long web certs could be used. The new Google effort focuses on what they can (and cannot) be used for.

The decision “marks a critical shift in how digital trust is governed and it has serious implications for enterprises, particularly in financial services,” said Timothy Hollebeek, industry technology strategist for DigiCert. The change “will flag such certificates as misconfigured or non-compliant, leading to significant outages for legitimate applications of this EKU. For organizations still using multipurpose certificates, this is a wake-up call. Financial institutions may no longer rely on certificates intended for browsers and web servers.”

Hollebeek argued that this is the right move, given that “many of these applications need no communication outside of the company network and will therefore be more securely protected on an internal PKI, where the organization can configure certificates as they see fit.”

Erik Avakian, a technical counselor at consulting firm Info-Tech, agreed. “Google is actually doing the right thing,” he said. “This is good because it goes back to the concept of least privilege” where certs are used “only for the intended purpose. It’s about zero trust” when “certificates are separated like this.”

Avakian said most users will do whatever is convenient, unless they’re required to do otherwise. “It helps to be forced to do better security,” he said. “Users want to get things done quickly and easily. It comes down to culture, to costs, to ease.”

Hollebeek said the change comes down to using different certificates for server authentication and client authentication. “Cryptographic separation between domains is a well-known security principle,” he said. “You should only be using Web PKI certs if there is a browser involved.”

Another certificate expert, Jason Soroko, agreed with the others that taking the easy route with certs —rather than correct one — is behind this problem. 

“Client authentication certificates should be coming from a private certificate authority,” said Soroko, who is a senior fellow at Sectigo. “It was just easier to go to some CA [certificate authority] and get your client authentication.”

The Google statement is written in a language the cert community should certainly understand:

“To align all PKI hierarchies included in the Chrome Root Store on the principle of serving only TLS server authentication use cases, the Chrome Root Program will phase-out multi-purpose roots from the Chrome Root Store. Beginning June 15, 2026, the Chrome Root Program will set an SCTNotAfter constraint on root CA certificates included in the Chrome Root Store for any PKI hierarchy found in violation of the below requirements,” Google wrote. “To reduce negative impact to the ecosystem, the Chrome Root Store may temporarily continue to include a multi-purpose root CA certificate in the Chrome Root Store without an SCTNotAfter constraint on a case-by-case basis, but only if the corresponding CA Owner has submitted a Root Inclusion Request to the CCADB for a replacement root CA certificate before June 15, 2026.”

The upshot? If your operation has been using certs in a lazy, lackadaisical manner, you’ve got less than a year to clean things up.

Source:: Computer World

By Siôn Geschwindt Wimbledon’s new automated line-calling system glitched during a tennis match Sunday, just days after it replaced the tournament’s human line judges for the first time.  The system, called Hawk-Eye, uses a network of cameras equipped with computer vision to track tennis balls in real-time. If the ball lands out, a pre-recorded voice loudly says, “Out.” If the ball is in, there’s no call and play continues. However, the software temporarily went dark during a women’s singles match between Brit Sonay Kartal and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Centre Court.  At 4-4 in the opening set, Pavlyuchenkova reached game point when Kartal…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

Even though threats of additional fines mean it has been forced to make so many changes to bring its business into compliance with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple has always said it would appeal Europe’s $570 million fine for violating the DMA. Today, it did just that against, accusing the European Commission of going beyond what the law requires.

In a statement provided to Computerworld, Apple said: “Today we filed our appeal because we believe the European Commission’s decision, and their unprecedented fine, go far beyond what the law requires. As our appeal will show, the EC is mandating how we run our store and forcing business terms which are confusing for developers and bad for users. We implemented this to avoid punitive daily fines and will share the facts with the Court.”

Beyond what the law requires

The company has identified multiple instances in which regulators agreed to one thing and then demanded more, effectively dictating and micro-controlling Apple’s business to the detriment of the company and its customers. The company seems to have two strands to its argument:

The recently introduced tiered service scheme Apple reluctantly brought to market in Europe is one facet. It seems the two sides agreed that Apple could seek compensation for App Store services provided to developers through a Store Services Fee, which Apple announced last year. The regulators then changed their minds, insisting the fee structure include tiers so developers could opt out of some services. This forced Apple to introduce a new model quite recently — even though no other App Store provider offers such services in this way.

In the days following Apple’s latest changes, I saw complaints about the tiered system Apple put in place. But the company was required to split them this way by the regulators, who dictated which services had to be optional. Given regulators don’t actually make anything, it’s no surprise some of their decisions seem somewhat clumsy. 

Lack of clarity and consistency

Apple is also challenging the “steering” concept the regulators seemingly insist should be applied against its business. Announcing its record fine against Apple, Europe also redefined some of the components to justify the move. 

That meant the European Commission changed its stance to say steering wasn’t just about publicizing offers and promotions on external sites, but also about free promotion of offers and services such as alternative app payments within apps. Apple was also forced to permit links from inside apps to third-party app stores. 

Apple’s claim is that in making these changes, the regulators moved beyond the law, redefining the notion of steering in a way that exceeded what the DMA actually required. 

Win or lose, we’ve already lost

Apple will use its time in court to try to prove these claims, but the action will probably stretch across years — unless Commissioners change their approach or the political intention in the EU and/or US shifts.

While we wait, European customers will be able to enjoy the full benefits of the new arrangements, in the form of sketchy in-app pester advertising to use unregulated third-party payment services, a loyalty war as some big apps attempt to use their own market reach to create their very own app store fiefdoms, slow or no appearance of some operating system features and a less-effective search system for applications. 

It won’t all be good news, as I expect some millionaires with the cash to build and maintain App Stores of their own might carve out a couple of bucks from within this inevitable chaos. If you play games, for example, you’ll gain the pleasure of giving money for existentially inconsequential in-game digital boosts direct to the publisher, rather than via the platform. (This does also mean you’ll only have the games publisher to help you when things go wrong, including when your kids purchase in-game currency when using the app. Good luck with that.)

That’s progress I suppose, a change that will give some users a real sense of freedom from the so-called Apple Tax, and will no doubt give Europe’s current neo-liberal leadership a cozy, fuzzy feeling. Perhaps Commissioners should focus their intention elsewhere.

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Source:: Computer World

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