Perhaps the most notable integration here is with NotebookLM. Nano Banana is being used to drastically change up Video Overviews, offering up six new styles like watercolor and anime. It also now generates contextual illustrations based on sources and there’s a new option for micro-videos called Briefs.
For the uninitiated, Video Overviews is a neat little tool available to NotebookLM users that automatically generates explainer videos from documents. It can even whip up a narrated slideshow with visuals. The AI-heavy update starts rolling out to Pro users this week and to all users in “the upcoming weeks.”
Search integration offers new ways to make and edit images while using the official Google app. The company says folks can use a chat prompt to, say, ask the bot to create a stylized version of a pre-existing image. Additionally, photos can be snapped directly from the Lens tool and then edited via the AI. This is rolling out right now in English for US customers, with more countries and languages coming in the near future.
We don’t have any actual information as to what the Photos integration will look like, with Google simply saying it’s bringing Nano Banana to the platform in “the weeks ahead.” The company promises more details soon. Nano Banana is an image editor and Google Photos is a service for storing and organizing photos, so it’ll likely involve editing these stored images in some way.
Intel’s future has never seemed so uncertain. But most of the company’s roller-coaster ride of a year has been a lead-up to its next-gen CPU launch, announced this week. The chips will be known as Intel Core Ultra Series 3, codenamed Panther Lake, and they’re being manufactured in its new Arizona-based fabrication plant.
Intel claims the first configurations will ship before the end of the year and then more broadly starting in January 2026. We don’t have a complete lineup yet, but Panther Lake will include up to 16-core CPUs with a “more than 50 percent faster CPU” performance over the previous generation. Intel claims that the new integrated GPU with have up to 12 GPU cores that are also 50 percent faster than the prior generation, boosted by a new architecture.
Intel is fighting back against the stiff competition. Qualcomm dramatically entered the Windows laptop race in 2024 with its Arm-based, highly-efficient Snapdragon X chips, doubling the battery life of current Intel-powered laptops in some cases. While Intel was able to respond to the battery-life competition with its Core Ultra Series 2 V-series chips in late 2024, performance took a hit on these laptops, and the efficiency only applied to flagship, thin, and light laptops. Budget-level and high-performance laptops used a different architecture and therefore didn’t get that same bump in efficiency.
That made shopping for a laptop in 2025 even more head-scratching than normal. These next chips will attempt to fix this problem, with the company promising “Lunar Lake–level power efficiency” and “Arrow Lake–class performance.” Intel really needs to achieve that promise, because with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite having just been previewed and the Apple M5 on the way, the stakes keep rising. —Luke Larsen
Apple’s Next Hardware Launch Is Coming Soon
Tim Cook on stage during the Apple Keynote on September 9, 2025.Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
If you’re thinking, didn’t Apple just have an event? Yes, the company debuted new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods just last month. But rumors are heating up that the company will announce more products this month, focused on iPads and MacBooks. That’s not unusual, as the company has held October events for the past few years, usually for the tablet and Mac lineups. It’s unclear whether this will be an actual event or a silent launch via press release. The company has done both in the past.
So what can you expect? The marquee announcement will revolve around the anticipated M5 chipset, which may debut inside a new MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro. The flagship tablet likely won’t look or feel too different from the prior M4 version. MacBooks are a little more up in the air on launch timing; it could be at this event or early in 2026. If they are announced, it’ll be a new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M5, M5 Pro, and M5 Max chip. Apple has also reportedly been gearing up for a budget MacBook launch powered by an iPhone processor, but this may arrive early in 2026 instead.
Other hardware that may debut at this October event includes a new Vision Pro powered by an M4 or M5 chip with a comfier head strap, though it’s otherwise the same as the original headset. There may be a new Apple TV with a faster chipset, the new version of Siri (though this won’t come until 2026), and Wi-Fi 7 support. And we may finally see a second-gen AirTag, with a longer range.
The PlayStation 6 May Arrive in a ‘Few Years’
Sony published a video to its PlayStation YouTube Channel this week featuring Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PS5, and Jack Huynh, AMD’s senior vice president. It’s largely technical, digging into graphics technology that the two companies are jointly developing.
Everyone wants a piece of the smart glasses pie. With Meta plowing full steam ahead, releasing three new pairs of smart glasses in one go at its Connect conference this year (including the Ray-Ban Display with a screen), other big-name competitors are following suit. Apple, for example, is reportedly attempting to expedite its first pair of smart glasses by diverting resources from the Vision Pro team. To give you a sense of how urgent that pivot is, Apple is reportedly de-prioritizing the development of a cheaper and lighter version that people might actually, ya know, buy, to pursue said smart glasses.
Now, it looks like another smartphone titan is being swept up in that push, and the result could be Samsung-made smart glasses on shelves sooner than you think. According to a report from the Financial News in South Korea, we could see “Project Haean,” Samsung’s rumored (Google-powered) AR glasses, as soon as early next year. It’s hard to say how much stock to put in that rumor without any official timeline from Samsung, but if you’ll allow me to speculate for a moment, it does feel very possible.
On top of the palpable push toward smart glasses, there’s also solid evidence that both Google and Samsung are heavily invested in AR. This year at I/O, Google showed off a preview of its XR glasses, which have a similar featureset as Meta’s Ray-Ban Display. While there was no indication of when those glasses may see the light of day, it’s clear that this isn’t some pie-in-the-sky prototype. Gizmodo’s Senior Editor, Consumer Tech, Raymond Wong, got to try the XR glasses a little bit, and while the demo only ran for a grand total of 90 seconds, they were at least real in the sense that Google was letting people try them on.
That’s all to say that new hardware is clearly in the pipeline, and while Samsung hasn’t gone as far as announcing anything official (it certainly hasn’t offered demos in a public setting), we have gotten some strong hints. At the I/O keynote in May, for example, GM of Android XR, Shahram Izadi said, “We’re taking our partnership with Samsung to the next level by extending Android XR beyond headsets to glasses. We’re creating the software and reference hardware platform to enable the ecosystem to build great glasses alongside us. Our glasses prototypes are already being used by trusted testers.” Well, well, look at that; Samsung and Google sittin’ in a tree…
That’s not a clear yes or no, to be sure, but it’s not, not a no either. No matter how this plays out (or when), I’m personally looking forward to Samsung entering the fray. Even more so than Google, Samsung has a chance to make smart glasses that feel truly useful. Given the breadth of its presence in phones and other hardware, it could offer tighter integration between mobile devices and smart glasses than Meta could ever dream of, and that’s huge for delivering a quality smart glasses experience right now, since they still rely on phones for all the big-time computing.
In the U.S., Samsung might not have the same weight as an Apple-scale ecosystem, but it’s still a huge player and would be the biggest one (sorry, Meta) that smart glasses with a screen have seen yet. Personally, my body (or my face, I guess) is ready for the varied and non-Meta-dominated smart glasses field that many of us have been waiting for.
Google’s Chrome web browser is about to become much less noisy.
On Friday, the technology giant announced a new feature that will automatically disable browser notifications for the websites you haven’t interacted with recently, disrupting their ability to pop up alerts and updates that you may no longer be interested in.
The feature will launch on Chrome on Android and on desktop.
The feature expands on existing functionality already available in Chrome’s Safety Check feature, which revokes camera and location permissions from websites you don’t visit anymore.
The company tacitly admits that browser notifications, as designed, might have been a bad idea, saying that its own data shows users receive a high volume of notifications but rarely interact with them. Less than 1% of all notifications receive any interactions from users, notes Google.
Image Credits:Google (screenshot)
Still, the tech giant believes some notifications can be helpful, which is why it won’t revoke those for installed web apps — only for the sites where there’s low user engagement and high volume of notifications sent. This change alone could push spammy websites that push a lot of notifications to reconsider how many they want to send alerts, so they won’t lose access entirely.
Unwanted notifications have been an issue facing consumers for years. On the iPhone, for instance, Apple was forced to add controls that let users send their push notifications to a daily summary, mute them, or turn them off altogether from the notification message itself, after consumerfrustrations with the notification system grew.
Google says it will inform users when it’s removing notification permissions, allowing users to change the setting back, if they prefer. If users would rather Google didn’t intervene, they can also opt to turn off this auto-revocation feature altogether, the company notes.
The feature had been in testing ahead of today’s official launch. Google found that these changes didn’t significantly impact the total number of clicks on notifications, an indication that people weren’t really engaging much with these pop-ups to begin with.
When Google the Pixel Watch 4, it made a point to mention that the smartwatch was “designed with serviceability in mind.” Now that it’s out, the repair experts at iFixit have taken a look and can confirm Google’s claims. The how-to specialist site has called the Pixel Watch 4 the most repairable you can buy right now. That’s notable, as iFixit , because you’d probably expect a sustainability-oriented brand such as Fairphone or Framework to be getting this kind of recognition ahead of Google. (That said, the Fairphone 6 did recently receive a perfect 10/10 repairability .) But iFixit said it was “truly impressed” with what owners can do to fix Google’s latest wearable on their own.
The first thing it highlights is the presence of visible screws that don’t interfere with the watch’s IP68 water and dust resistance rating. Both the vibration motor and battery are also easy to remove, the latter being glue-free and requiring you only to unscrew from its enclosure. As for the display, that’s also secured by screws alone (spotting a pattern here yet?) and sealed using a replaceable O-ring gasket that you can easily purchase. iFixit notes that it’s harder for square watches to use the same solution, so Google’s decision to make the Pixel Watch 4 round boosts its repairability.
At the end of its comprehensive video, iFixit awards Google a provisional rating of 9/10 for repairability, calling it “the most satisfying smartwatch teardown” it has performed to date. For transparency, the site points out that it does have an ongoing business partnership with Google, but insists it’s completely unrelated to the teardown treatment it gives the Pixel Watch 4.
Its perhaps surprising level of repairability isn’t the only thing in the Pixel Watch 4’s favor. In Engadget’s 86/100 of the device, Cherlynn Low also praised its rapid charging speeds, excellent health and fitness tracking credentials and attractive display.
“The decision to formally designate Google with Strategic Market Status is an important step to improving competition in digital markets,” argues Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at UK consumer watchdog Which?. “Online search is evolving as gen AI tools become more widely used, but the CMA must still act to tackle the harmful dominance Google has now and to promote competition between gen AI search tools.”
The CMA claims that Google Search accounts for more than 90 percent of all general search queries in the UK, and that over 200,000 firms in the UK collectively spent more than £10 billion ($13.3 billion) on Google search advertising in 2024.
“Designating Google with SMS enables us to consider proportionate, targeted interventions to ensure that general search services are open to effective competition, and that consumers and businesses that rely on Google can have confidence that they are treated fairly,” the CMA decision report reads.
In a statement shared with WIRED in response to the CMA’s decision, Google’s senior director of competition Oliver Bethell said that many of the ideas for interventions raised in this process would “inhibit UK innovation and growth, potentially slowing product launches at a time of profound AI-based innovation.” It continued: “Others pose direct harm to businesses, with some warning that they may be forced to raise prices for customers.”
This is not a surprising response, says Greg Dowell, senior competition knowledge lawyer at law firm Macfarlanes. “I think we can expect Google and all the other big tech firms that are being subjected to these new rules to try and defend their practices on the basis that they are pro-consumer,” says Dowell. “Ultimately it is natural that Google and other firms in this position don’t want to be constrained in what they can do when it comes to new product development.”
The new regulation will also affect Google Search’s “News” tab and its “Top Stories” carousel, as well as Google Discover. Google News, the company’s stand-alone news product, and AI chatbot Gemini are not affected, the CMA says.
Dowell claims that implementing this roadmap might take a number of months. “The CMA may go further than the EU has done with the [Digital Markets Act], particularly with regards to restrictions relating to Google’s AI services and how they’re integrated into Google search,” he explains.
“The CMA essentially has a huge degree of flexibility in the interventions that it can seek to impose, and so it can continually react to developments as they occur. So that’s one benefit of the UK digital markets regulation regime, particularly when you compare it to the situation in the EU, where these sorts of rules are fixed in the regulation itself.”
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially designated Google with strategic market status (SMS) under the new digital markets competition regime. Specifically, it found that Google holds “substantial and entrenched market power and a position of strategic significance” when it comes to general search and search advertising services. The digital markets competition regime came into force on January 1, 2025 and will enable the agency to “promote competition in fast-moving digital markets, while protecting UK consumers and businesses from unfair or harmful practices by the very largest technology firms.”
So what does getting the “strategic market status” designation mean, exactly? As the CMA clarifies, it doesn’t automatically mean Google did something wrong, but it does allow the agency to launch interventions that ensure general search services in the UK are “open to effective competition” and that businesses relying on Google are being treated fairly. The company is expecting to face new rules and regulations on how Search works in the near future. UK’s CMA launched an investigation on Google’s standing in the search industry on January 14 to confirm its status.
“We have found that Google maintains a strategic position in the search and search advertising sector – with more than 90% of searches in the UK taking place on its platform,” said Will Hayter, Executive Director for Digital Markets at the CMA. To be clear, the designation applies to the company’s AI Overviews and AI Mode features, as well, but not to its Gemini AI assistant, at least for now.
The CMA said it’s expecting to start consulting on possible interventions later this year. In an announcement of its own, Google said that “many of the ideas for interventions that have been raised in this process would inhibit UK innovation and growth, potentially slowing product launches at a time of profound AI-based innovation.” The company believes that some of those ideas would “pose direct harm to businesses” and could lead to higher prices for consumers.
“The UK enjoys access to the latest products and services before other countries because it has so far avoided costly restrictions on popular services, such as Search. Retaining this position means avoiding unduly onerous regulations and learning from the negative results seen in other jurisdictions, which have cost businesses an estimated €114 billion,” Google wrote. By “other jurisdictions,” Google means the European Union, whose similar Digital Markets Act law designated the company as a gatekeeper in 2023.
Across the country, schools are cracking down on cell phone use. At least 18 states have rolled out bell-to-bell bans, with New York calling phones “distraction devices.” Teachers are praising the shift, saying classes feel more focused. But teens? They’re not giving up so easily.
Students are sidestepping bans in the most millennial-inspired way possible, turning Google Docs into digital chat rooms. With laptops open, it looks like they’re working on assignments. In reality, they’re typing messages back and forth in real time, just like an old-school AOL chat room.
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Students secretly turn Google Docs into real-time chatrooms.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
A creative workaround for school cell phone bans
Parents and teachers admit the workaround is clever. One teacher said she respects her students’ determination to stay connected and even acknowledged that the phone ban has improved behavior and focus in class. Still, she worries that turning Google Docs into chat rooms could open the door to bullying or cheating. Parents are also weighing in. One parent told CyberGuy that some kids in their district are buying MacBooks just so they can text each other through iMessage. Others, the parent added, are leaning on email threads or even old-school Post-It notes to keep the conversation alive.
Teens share their classroom hacks on TikTok with pride.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Social media reaction
On TikTok, students proudly show off their “secret” Docs conversations. Captions range from playful, “Your cell phone rule was never going to stop me,” to defiant: “Can’t ever silence us, queens.” The creativity is earning laughs from older generations who remember the days before smartphones. But the trend is also stirring debate. Some parents see it as a harmless way for kids to adapt, while others worry it undermines the entire point of the ban. Educators are split too, amused by the ingenuity, yet frustrated that students are still finding ways to drift off task during lessons. The viral clips prove one thing for sure: when it comes to tech, today’s teens will always find a workaround.
Some kids buy MacBooks to keep texting through iMessage.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Parent tips for navigating school cell phone bans
If your child’s school has adopted a phone ban, there are a few ways you can help them adjust while keeping communication open and safe:
Talk about the rules at home: Explain why schools are putting these bans in place and set expectations for how your child should behave with laptops and other devices.
Offer safe communication plans: Work with your child and the school to establish how you’ll contact each other in case of an emergency. Some districts allow phones in lockers or require them to stay powered off in backpacks.
Encourage balance: Remind your child that downtime from screens can actually help them focus better in class and relax during the school day.
Monitor alternatives: Keep an eye on how your child uses tools like Google Docs, email or messaging apps. What starts as chatting with friends can sometimes veer into bullying or cheating.
Be open to feedback: Ask your child how the ban is affecting their school day. Their perspective can help you understand where the real challenges and benefits are showing up.
If you’re a parent, this shows just how inventive kids can be when rules are put in place. Cell phone bans may cut down on scrolling, but students are quickly shifting to other tools. They’re chatting through shared Google Docs, buying MacBooks so they can iMessage during class, swapping notes over email, and even sticking to old-school Post-Its to stay in touch. While some of these workarounds seem harmless, they also carry risks, from distractions that take focus away from learning to new opportunities for bullying or even cheating. For teachers, it’s a reminder that managing distractions in the classroom goes beyond phone policies. Laptops, messaging apps, and even simple sticky notes can become back doors for the same behaviors schools are trying to limit.
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Phone bans are reshaping the school day, and educators are already seeing benefits. Yet students are proving they’ll always find ways to connect, whether through phones, laptops or even retro workarounds that echo the early internet era.
What do you think? Are these bans helping kids learn better, or are they simply pushing students to get sneakier with tech? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com/Contact
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Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
A little after the launch of the rest of the Pixel 10 family, Google’s new foldable is here. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is a beast — which may not be the first thing you want to hear about a foldable.
It’s perceptibly thicker than its biggest rival, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. But avoiding the race for thinness gives Google’s new foldable some advantages. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold has the best cameras of any foldable and enhanced hardiness with the top dust resistance rating. And remember: This thing is $1,800. There’s more: It has PixelSnap, Google’s version of MagSafe, and a bigger battery compared to its predecessor. Make sure to check out our full review .
It’s a week of heavy-duty gadgets, and I don’t mean CAT-branded phones and off-road EVs. We’ve also tested out . Predictably, perhaps, it has all the power you’d want as well as the PC maker’s excellent build quality. It’s got lots of ports too. Rejoice! Prices start at $2,799.
Nintendo spent the week its fans with a teaser video on its Today app. The Pixar-tinged animation focused on a baby playing with toys and a magical pacifier (dummy) and not much explanation about what game (or toy) it was teasing. Fortunately, more recently the games maker released a second version of the animated short, but this time you can clearly see widdle Pikmin creatures moving a baby’s building blocks and pacifier around. Yeah, it’s a Pikmin thing. Now, is it a ? Regardless, it’s cute.
Sony just dropped a new video with Mark Cerny, who was the lead designer for the PlayStation 4 and PS5, and Jack Huynh, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Group. They chatted up a storm about a series of technologies, collectively dubbed Project Amethyst. It is very early days, however, as the technologies “only exist in simulations.” They teased upscaling, better ray tracing and other machine learning-based rendering techniques. One of the more intriguing new concepts is Universal Compression, which builds on the PS5’s existing Delta Color Compression technique. It will theoretically allow Sony’s next console to compress everything that goes through its graphics pipeline, reducing the amount of memory bandwidth needed and even potentially cutting power consumption.
The original has grossed nearly a billion dollars globally.
A Minecraft Movie was a box office hit. So you know what that means in Hollywood? Sequels! Variety reports that Warner Bros. has penciled in the sequel for a July 23, 2027, premiere date, just two years after the original. When you know something can print money, you make more of it.
Legal experts WIRED spoke with say that the ICE monitoring and documentation apps that Apple has removed from its App Store are clear examples of protected speech under the US Constitution’s First Amendment. “These apps are publishing constitutionally protected speech. They’re publishing truthful information about matters of public interest that people obtained just by witnessing public events,” says David Greene, a civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from attacking the developers behind these ICE-related apps. When ICEBlock first rose to a top spot in Apple’s App Store in April, the Trump administration responded by threatening to prosecute the developer. “We are looking at him,” Bondi said on Fox News of ICEBlock’s Aaron. “And he better watch out.”
Neither the White House nor ICE immediately responded to requests for comment.
Digital rights researchers say that the situation illustrates the dangers when key platforms and communication channels are centrally controlled—whether directly by governments or by other powerful entities like big tech companies. Regardless of what is officially available through the Google Play store, Android users can sideload apps of their choosing. But Apple’s ecosystem has always been a walled garden, an approach that the company has long touted for its security advantages, including the ability to screen more heavily for malicious apps.
For years, a group of researchers and enthusiasts have tried to create “jailbreaks” for iPhones to essentially hack their own devices as a way around Apple’s closed ecosystem. Recently, though, jailbreaking has become less common. This is partly the result of advances in iPhone security, but partly related to the trend in recent years of attackers exploiting complex chains of vulnerabilities that could potentially be used for jailbreaking for malware instead, particularly mercenary spyware.
“The closed ecosystem motivation sort of dwindled as Apple added capabilities that previously required a jailbreak—like wallpapers, tethering, better notifications, and private mode in Safari,” says longtime iOS security and jailbreak researcher Will Strafach. “But this situation with ICE apps highlights the issue with Apple being the arbiter and single point of failure.”
Stanford’s Pfefferkorn warns that while US tech companies are not state-controlled, they have in her view become “happy handmaidens” when it comes to “repressing free speech and dissent.”
“It’s especially disappointing,” Pfefferkorn says, “coming from the company that brought us the Think Different ad campaign, which invoked MLK, Gandhi, and Muhammad Ali—none of whom would likely be big fans of ICE today.”
Google has been rapidly expanding the availability of AI Mode in Search ever since it previewed the feature with testers in its Labs program in the beginning of March this year. Now, the company has announced that it has started rolling out the dedicated AI chatbot within Search to 40 new regions and has made it available in 35 new languages. The newly supported languages include Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, German, Greek, French, Malay, Russian, Thai, Vietnamese and more. Google says the advanced reasoning and multimodal understanding of its custom Gemini model for Search allow it to grasp the subtleties of local languages, so it doesn’t misunderstand inquiries or generate stilted answers.
In May, two months after Google started testing the feature, the company rolled it out to everyone in the US. At the time, it said that it will “graduate many features and capabilities from AI Mode right into the core search experience in AI Overviews” as it gets more feedback. In early September, Google opened up AI Mode to more languages, namely Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Brazilian Portuguese. More and more users in the new regions will see AI Mode responses in their Search page and will be able to interact with the feature in their preferred language over the coming weeks.
The company plans to add more capabilities to AI Mode and recently released an update that made it better at understanding visual prompts. It’s worth noting that, while AI Mode results could be useful for quick inquiries, online publishers attribute declining web traffic to the summaries. A Pew Research Center study found that users are less likely to click on website links and are more likely to end their browsing session if they see an AI Mode summary at the top of their results page.
Google is expanding access to Opal, its AI vibe-coding app, to 15 more countries. The app, which lets you create mini web apps using text prompts, is now available in Canada, India, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, Singapore, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panamá, Honduras, Argentina, and Pakistan.
“When we opened up Opal to users in the U.S. we anticipated they might build simple, fun tools,” said Megan Li, a Senior Product Manager at Google Labs, in a blog post. “We didn’t expect the surge of sophisticated, practical and highly creative Opal apps we got instead. The ingenuity of these early adopters made one thing clear: we need to get Opal into the hands of more creators globally.”
Opal works by getting users to enter a description of the app they want to make, after which the tool uses different Google models to do so. Once the app is ready, users can open the editor panel to view and customize the visual workflow of inputs, outputs, and generation steps. They can click any step to review or edit the prompt, or add new steps manually using Opal’s toolbar. Users can also publish their app to the web and share a link so others can test it with their own Google accounts.
In addition to the expansion, Google also announced improvements coming to Opal.
The tech giant says it has improved the debugging program but intentionally kept it no-code. Users can now run their workflow step by step in the visual editor or tweak specific steps in the console. Errors show up right where they happen to provide immediate context and eliminate guesswork.
Google also says that it’s made significant improvements to Opal’s core performance. The company notes that previously it would take up to five seconds or more to create a new Opal. Now, it’s worked to speed that up to make it easier to get started. Plus, users can now run steps in parallel, allowing complex workflows with multiple steps to execute simultaneously.
With the U.S. launch of Opal in July, Google joined a growing list of competitors including Canva, Figma, and Replit that are building tools to help nontechnical users design app prototypes without writing any code.
For the release of her twelfth album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” Taylor Swift sent fans on an online scavenger hunt this weekend, which began by searching for “Taylor Swift” on Google. But as fans unveiled secret videos as part of the campaign, some fretted that the clips looked like they were AI-generated — and they were not pleased.
A Google search for the singer’s name yields a cryptic message: “12 cities, 12 doors, 1 video to unlock.”
Fans had to figure out the location of the doors, then physically find them and scan a QR code, which surfaced 12 unique videos that contained the clues needed to solve the puzzle. When fans Googled the correct phrase, another orange door appeared, which fans had to collectively “knock” on by clicking 12 million times. Finally, the door “opened,” revealing a lyric video for “The Fate of Ophelia,” which has its own orange door progress bar on YouTube.
YouTube had scored the video exclusive for the track, as well as the lyric videos from the remaining songs on the new album.
Google initially announced the scavenger hunt in a video on Instagram. The video begins with an aerial view of Earth, then quickly zooms in on a hilly, bejeweled landscape, until we see an orange door, overlayed with a Google search bar.
While Swifties love a puzzle, some were rubbed the wrong way by the 12 clue-containing videos, which looked to be AI-generated.
Instead of searching for clues to unveil Swift’s new lyric video, as Swift intended, some fans began to scour the video clips like detectives, looking for signs that the scenes were synthetic. However, while there are clips that look computer-generated, it’s unclear if they were made using AI, and if so, to what extent.
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It would make sense if these videos were generated using Google’s AI products. As OpenAI shows off its new Sora 2 video generator, this Taylor Swift collaboration would be a serendipitous opportunity for Google to show millions of Swifties what its Veo 3 model can do.
Google did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment on how these videos were generated or if Swift and Google worked together on this activation by using Google’s own AI technology. But Swift’s team and Google have teamed up for similar promotional activities in the past, we should note.
The use of AI in creative works is a sensitive subject. Some artists think these tools can help them, while others have protested the manner in which large language models are trained on their workwithout consent, effectively using artists’ own work to create the technology that could threaten their livelihoods.
Even Swift herself spoke out about the dangers of AI after President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated image of her showing support for his campaign last year; the incident spurred her to post an endorsement for former Vice President Kamala Harris, who ran against Trump in 2024.
“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.
The controversy around Swift’s possible use of AI is amplified given her own stature in the music industry.
While AI may appeal to some artists as a way to cut costs, the billionaire musician has every possible resource at her disposal to bring the fantastical scenes from her promotional videos to life.
Peter Thiel, PayPal’s first CEO, turned his fintech fortune into a far-reaching empire of influence spanning venture capital, politics and power. Marco Bello/Getty Images
In 2007, Fortune magazine reimagined a classic mafia scene with a Silicon Valley twist: 13 male founders and early employees of PayPal, all long gone from the company, posed at a San Francisco café with slicked-back hair, poker chips and dozens of whiskey glasses. The crowd included some of the most recognizable names in today’s tech scene, like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman. The magazine dubbed them the “PayPal mafia,” not for their time at the fintech company, but for their outsized impact on Silicon Valley through the companies they launched afterward.
PayPal went public in early 2002 and was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion the same year. Most of its early employees left the company after the acquisition. They went on to found YouTube, SpaceX and LinkedIn, among other legendary names in Silicon Valley. However, like their cinematic namesake, the group hasn’t avoided controversy. These former colleagues have built billion-dollar businesses while also finding themselves in the crosshairs of public criticism.
For instance, Thiel has faced controversy over his political affiliations and, most notably, for funding Hulk Hogan’s 2012 lawsuit against Gawker Media with $10 million — a case that ultimately drove the online media company into bankruptcy. Musk has also faced criticism for his takeover of Twitter and his prior role in the Trump administration, where he led widespread federal employee firings.
Here’s what they are up to these days:
Peter Thiel: venture capitalist
Peter Thiel. Marco Bello/Getty Images
Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Luke Nosek founded PayPal in 1998, originally as a software security company. After merging with Elon Musk’s X.com (unrelated to the social media platform he owns today), PayPal shifted its focus to digital payments.
Thiel served as CEO from 1998 until 2002, leaving after the company was sold to eBay. He then co-founded Palantir Technologies, a major U.S. government contractor providing data analytics services. The company now has a market capitalization of $439 billion.
Thiel is also known as a prolific angel investor. He co-founded Clarium Capital, Founders Fund, Valar Ventures and Mithril Capital. In 2004, Thiel became Facebook’s first outside investor after acquiring a 10.2 percent stake in the company for $500,000.
Thiel is among the many former PayPal employees who have entered political and high-profile public arenas. An active donor to the Republican Party, Thiel supported Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign but withheld donations during the 2024 election. He is also credited with helping JD Vance reach the Vice Presidential ticket.
Elon Musk: entrepreneur, the world’s richest person
Elon Musk. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Elon Musk briefly served as PayPal’s CEO before being ousted by the board in 2000. He went on to build one of the most influential portfolios in technology, spanning electric vehicles, space exploration, social media and A.I.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and has led Tesla since 2008. He also founded Neuralink and The Boring Company, expanding his reach into brain-computer interfaces and infrastructure. In 2022, Musk gained global attention for acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, later rebranding it as X.
His ties to A.I. run deep: Musk co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 but left in 2018 over strategic disagreements. In 2023, he returned to the field by launching xAI, a research venture focused on building A.I. that is more understandable for humans.
Today, Musk is the richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $400 billion. He is also perhaps the only PayPal alumnus to ascend into direct political influence. During the Trump administration, he led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a name shared with his cryptocurrency venture—before stepping down in May after clashing publicly with the President.
Max Levchin: computer scientist
Max Levchin. John Lamparski/Getty Images
Position at PayPal: co-founder, chief technology officer from 1998 to 2002
As PayPal’s chief technology officer, Max Levchin helped lead the company’s anti-fraud efforts by co-creating the Gausebeck-Levchin test—the foundation for the widely used CAPTCHA security tool. After leaving PayPal, he launched the media-sharing platform Slide in 2004, which was acquired by Google in 2010. Levchin briefly served as Google’s vice president of engineering until Slide was shut down the following year.
In 2012, he co-founded Affirm, a leading “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) company, where he continues to serve as CEO. Today, Affirm has a market capitalization of $27.5 billion, with 21.9 million consumers and more than 350,000 merchant partners on its platform.
Levchin has also held board positions at Yahoo and Yelp. In 2015, he became the first Silicon Valley executive appointed to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s advisory board, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between companies and regulators.
Reid Hoffman: entrepreneur, investor
Reid Hoffman. Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED
Before joining PayPal, Hoffman worked as a senior user experience architect at Apple, contributing to the company’s online social network eWorld. He later became director of product management at Fujitsu. After his online dating startup, SocialNet, folded, Hoffman joined PayPal in 2000 as chief operating officer.
In 2003, he co-founded the career networking site LinkedIn. Following Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2017, Hoffman joined Microsoft’s board, a move that greatly increased his wealth.
Over the years, Hoffman has served on the boards of Airbnb and OpenAI, where he was also an early investor. Through the venture capital firm Greylock Partners, he has backed dozens of A.I. startups. In 2022, he co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman, who now serves as CEO. Earlier this year, he teamed up with cancer researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee to launch Manas AI, a startup focused on drug discovery.
David Sacks: investor, White House A.I. and Crypto Czar
David Sacks currently serves as the White House A.I. and Crypto Czar. JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images
Position at PayPal: chief operating officer from 1999 to 2002
Since leaving PayPal, David Sacks has built a career spanning film, tech, investing and politics. In 2005, he produced and financed a political satire that earned two Golden Globe nominations. The following year, he founded Geni.com, a genealogy-focused social network that later spun off Yammer, one of the earliest enterprise social networking platforms. He went on to co-found Craft Ventures, the startup Glue, and the podcast platform Callin.
Jeremy Stoppelman joined Musk’s X.com in 1999 and became vice president of engineering after its transition to PayPal. In 2004, he co-founded Yelp, where he has served as CEO ever since. Under his leadership, the company turned down a 2010 acquisition offer from Google and went public two years later. Stoppelman’s net worth is estimated at more than $100 million.
Ken Howery: investor, U.S. ambassador
Position at PayPal: chief financial officer from 1998 to 2002
Ken Howery served as PayPal’s chief financial officer from 1998 to 2002. After PayPal’s sale to eBay, he became eBay’s director of corporate development until 2003. He later joined Peter Thiel at Clarium Capital as vice president of private equity and went on to co-found Founders Fund as a partner. Beyond investing, he is a member of the Explorers Club, a nonprofit dedicated to scientific exploration, and an advisor to Kiva, the micro-lending nonprofit founded by former PayPal colleague Premal Shah.
Howery is also among the former PayPal executives who have moved into politics. He has donated at least $1 million to Donald Trump’s campaign through Elon Musk’s political action committee. During Trump’s first term, Howery was appointed U.S. ambassador to Sweden and today serves as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark.
Roeloth Botha: venture capitalist
Roelof Botha joined PayPal as director of corporate development shortly before graduating from Stanford University. He later became vice president of finance and went on to serve as chief financial officer until the company’s acquisition by eBay.
Position at PayPal: software architect from 1998 to 2003
Companies later founded: Yelp, Learnirvana
Russel Simmons helped design PayPal’s payment system as a software architect. After leaving the company, he and fellow PayPal alum Jeremy Stoppelman set out to build a platform for restaurant reviews. With a $1 million investment from Max Levchin, they launched Yelp in July 2004. Simmons served as chief technology officer until his departure in 2010. At the time, Yelp said he would remain a “significant” shareholder, though the size of his stake—and whether he still holds it—remains unclear.
In 2014, Simmons co-founded Learnirvana, an online learning platform.
Andrew McCormack: entrepreneur
Position at PayPal: assistant to Thiel from July 2001 to November 2002
Companies later founded: Valar Ventures
Andrew McCormack began his career as an assistant to Peter Thiel at PayPal and followed him into subsequent ventures. From November 2002 to April 2003, he oversaw operations at Thiel’s hedge fund, Clarium Capital.
In 2010, McCormack co-founded Valar Ventures with Thiel and James Fitzgerald, focusing on fintech investments. He remains a general partner at the firm.
Luke Nosek: investor
Position at PayPal: co-founder and vice president of marketing and strategy from 1998 to 2002
Companies later founded: Founders Fund, Gigafund
In 2005, Luke Nosek joined Peter Thiel and Ken Howery to launch Founders Fund, a San Francisco–based venture capital firm that has backed companies such as Airbnb, Lyft and SpaceX. While his exact net worth is unclear, Nosek has made substantial investments through his venture firms. At Founders Fund, he led one of the firm’s earliest major deals with a $20 million investment in SpaceX, later serving on its board.
In 2017, Nosek left to co-found Gigafund, which went on to invest $1 billion in SpaceX, according to the company. He also sits on the board of ResearchGate.
Premal Shah: entrepreneur
Position at Paypal: product manager
Companies later founded: Kiva
Three years after leaving PayPal, Premal Shah co-founded Kiva, a nonprofit that provides loans to entrepreneurs in underserved communities worldwide. He also serves on the boards of other nonprofits, including the Center for Humane Technology, the Change.org Foundation, Watsi and VolunteerMatch.
Keith Rabois: investor
Position at PayPal: executive vice president of business development
After leaving his executive role at PayPal, Keith Rabois became an active investor, backing companies including Slide, YouTube and Palantir. He also invested in LinkedIn, where he served as vice president of business and corporate development, and Square, where he was chief operating officer.
Rabois joined venture capital firm Khosla Ventures from 2013 to 2019 and was a partner at Founders Fund from 2019 to 2024.
President Donald Trump has shared a message on Truth Social, pleading with Google and YouTube to bring back Univision before the 2026 Midterm Elections, writing, “Google, for the purpose of FAIRNESS, please let Univision back!”
Newsweek has reached out to Google outside of regular working hours via email for comment.
Why It Matters
In September, Google’s YouTube TV dropped Univision’s Spanish-language networks after both sides failed to come to terms on a contract renewal.
YouTube TV first launched in 2017, then costing $35 a month. The package of channels, which includes a mix of local networks, news channels, entertainment channels, sports channels, and children’s channels, now costs $82.99 monthly.
Univision is the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S., with 59 stations that are either owned or operated or both. YouTube also pulled TelevisaUnivision channels UniMas, TUDN, Galavision, FOROtv, De Película, De Película Clásico, Bandamax, Telehit, Telehit Música, and TLNovelas, in addition to the stations.
What To Know
YouTube issued a statement about dropping Univision, which read, “TelevisaUnivision has over 160 million subscribers and billions of views across YouTube, where they generate ad revenue from their content. On our paid live TV subscription service, YouTube TV, however, TelevisaUnivision only represents a tiny fraction of overall consumption. Since we have not reached a new agreement with them, their content is no longer available on YouTube TV.”
Responding to this, TelevisaUnion said in a statement, “Google’s YouTube TV has refused to ‘Do the Right Thing’ and dropped Univision from its platform—stripping millions of Hispanic viewers of the Spanish-language news, sports, and entertainment they rely on every day.”
The statement continued that “Google’s actions are especially tone-deaf and egregious on the eve of a potential government shutdown, disregarding the appeals of government officials and Hispanic organizations who urged them to keep Univision on the main bundle.”
Now the president has weighed in with his own plea. “I hope Univision, a great and very popular Hispanic Network, can get BACK onto the very amazing Google/YouTube,” he wrote on Truth Social on October 4.
“It has been taken out of their package, which is VERY BAD for Republicans in the upcoming Midterms,” the president wrote, adding that Univision has been “so good” to him.
The Univision outage came before the federal government shutdown, which was a story Univision journalists had been covering.
Univision has launched a campaign, dubbed “Do the Right Thing Google,” which involves outreach to politicians. The TelevisaUnivision chief executive Daniel Alegre wrote in an open letter, “Univision is a trusted voice for Hispanic Americans, especially in times of emergencies, elections and for other critical news and events.”
YouTube dropping Univision comes as it settled a lawsuit brought by Trump, after the platform suspended his account following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol—it has agreed to pay $24.5 million, and comes after social media sites including X and Facebook settled similar suits over suspending the president’s social media accounts.
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social: “I hope Univision, a great and very popular Hispanic Network, can get BACK onto the very amazing Google/YouTube. It has been taken out of their package, which is VERY BAD for Republicans in the upcoming Midterms. They were so good to me with their highest rated ever political Special, and I set a Republican Record in Hispanic voting. Google, for the purpose of FAIRNESS, please let Univision back!”
Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, wrote in a post on X: “Google/YouTube should not put Univision and Telemundo behind a paywall. Google shouldn’t be abusing its monopoly power by forcing millions of Texans & Americans to pay extra for Spanish-language programming. That’s not right and it’s not fair.
Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, in a post on X: “Just one week after getting caught red-handed censoring conservatives on its platforms at the behest of [former President Joe] Biden bureaucrats, Google is now attempting to jack up prices on millions of Americans who rely on channels like Univision. That’s wrong and I’m demanding answers.”
Plus: China sentences scam bosses to death, Europe is ramping up its plans to build a “drone wall” to protect against Russian airspace violations, and more.
Following Apple’s removal of ICEBlock from the App Store, an app used to report on the activity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, 404 Media reports that Google is also removing similar apps from the Play Store. In a statement to Engadget, Google said “ICEBlock was never available on Google Play, but we removed similar apps for violations of our policies.”
Google says that it decided to remove apps that shared the location of a vulnerable group following a violent act that involved the group and a similar collection of apps. It suggests the apps were also removed because they didn’t appropriately moderate user-generated content. To be offered in the Play Store, apps with user-generated content have to clearly define what is or isn’t objectionable content in their terms of service, and make sure those terms line up with Google’s definitions of inappropriate content for Google Play.
404 Media report specifically focuses on Red Dot, an app that both Google and Apple removed. Like ICEBlock, Red Dot designed to let users report on ICE activity in their neighborhood. Rather than just rely on user submissions, the app’s website says that it “aggregates verified reports from multiple trusted sources” and then combines those sources to determine where to mark activity on a map of your area. “Red Dot never tracks ICE agents, law enforcement, or any person’s movements” and the app’s developers “categorically reject harassment, interference, or harm toward ICE agents or anyone else.” Despite those claims, the app is not currently available to download from the Play Store or the App Store.
The pushback against ICE tracking apps seemed to begin in earnest following a shooting at a Dallas ICE facility that injured two detainees and killed another on September 24. According to an FBI agent that spoke to The New York Times, the shooter “had been following apps that track the location of ICE agents” in the days leading up to the event.
Apple pulled the ICEBlock app from the App Store yesterday following a request from US Attorney General Pam Bondi. In a statement shared with Fox Business, Bondi said that “ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed.” Apple’s response was to remove the app. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store,” Apple told the publication.
Google says it didn’t receive a similar request to remove apps from the Play Store. Instead, the company appears to be acting proactively. The test for either platform going forward, though, is if there’s a way that developers can offer these apps without them being removed again.
NBCUniversal and Google have reached a mulityear distribution agreement to keep NBC and NBCU’s suite of other networks on YouTube TV.
In addition to the current NBCU slate, under YouTube TV deal renewal, the streaming service will carry the newly relaunched NBC Sports Network (NBCSN). NBCU said that the new NBCSN, to launch later this fall, “will complement the prominent sports properties presented year-round on the NBC broadcast network.” The company had previously shut down NBCSN in 2021.
The deal announcement Thursday came after the companies’ previous agreement expired Sept. 30; the parties reached a short-term extension to hammer out final details. YouTube TV is the U.S.’s biggest internet pay-TV service, with an estimated 9.5 million customers as of the end of 2024, according to research firm MoffettNathanson.
The agreement continues YouTube TV’s carriage of NBCUniversal’s full portfolio of networks, including NBC, Bravo, CNBC, Golf Channel, E!, Oxygen True Crime, MSNBC, USA, Syfy, Telemundo and Universo. The company’s cable networks (excluding Bravo) will be part of the Versant spin-off, a transaction expected to close by the end of 2025.
In addition, the NBCU-Google deal calls for Peacock to be available in the coming months as a subscription through YouTube Primetime Channels, the platform’s third-party subscription offering (which is independent of YouTube TV). The companies also entered into a multiyear extension of Peacock’s availability across Google’s Android platforms, including Google Play and Google TV.
“Our new agreement with Google is a clear win for both our business and our viewers — underscoring the enduring value of our must-see shows, films, sports, and live events while expanding our reach to even more audiences,” Matt Schnaars, NBCU’s president of platform distribution and partnerships, said in a statement. “We’ve secured long-term access to our full portfolio of broadcast and cable networks on YouTube TV, and we’re advancing our Peacock strategy with an upcoming launch on YouTube Primetime Channels and ongoing presence on Google TV. This agreement positions us for continued growth and reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional entertainment to fans across platforms.”
Justin Connolly, VP, global head of media and sports at YouTube, commented: “This deal builds on our long-standing partnership with NBCU while addressing the evolving media landscape and recognizing the importance of making content available where and how viewers want to watch it. We are pleased to have reached this agreement and look forward to continuing our partnership to serve billions of viewers around the world.”
Other elements of the NBCU-Google deal include:
A long-term agreement for short-form clips, highlights and shows from NBCU’s premium programming on YouTube; and
An extension of the agreement making Universal Pictures Home Entertainment films and TV shows available to buy or rent on Google TV, YouTube TV and YouTube, as well as library films from NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution being available to stream via subscription VOD on YouTube Premium and ad-supported VOD through YouTube Free Primetime Content.
Google has released an urgent update for its Chrome browser to fix a newly discovered zero-day security flaw that hackers are already exploiting. This is the sixth zero-day Chrome has faced this year, highlighting just how quickly attackers move to take advantage of these hidden weaknesses.
Because zero-day threats strike before developers can patch them, your personal data and browsing activity could be at risk if you don’t update right away. If you use Chrome, now is the time to upgrade.
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Chrome users are urged to update immediately to block active zero-day attacks.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
A critical flaw in Chrome’s V8 engine
The newly patched vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-10585, stems from a type confusion weakness in Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) discovered and reported the bug on Tuesday, and the company shipped a fix the following day, Bleeping Computer reported.
Google confirmed that the flaw was being exploited in the wild, though it did not share technical details or name the groups behind the attacks. TAG has a history of uncovering zero-days tied to government-sponsored spyware campaigns aimed at high-risk individuals such as opposition leaders, journalists and dissidents.
The fix was delivered through Chrome version 140.0.7339.185/.186 for Windows and macOS, and version 140.0.7339.185 for Linux. These updates will gradually reach all users in the Stable Desktop channel over the coming weeks.
While Chrome typically updates automatically, you can apply the patch immediately by navigating to the ‘About Google Chrome’ section. Google stated that it is withholding full technical details until most users have installed the update, a precaution meant to prevent attackers from exploiting lagging systems.
Google races to patch the sixth major browser flaw discovered in 2025.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
A growing list of zero-day attacks in 2025
This marks the sixth zero-day flaw patched in Chrome this year. In March, Google addressed CVE-2025-2783, a sandbox escape bug exploited in espionage attacks against Russian organizations. In May, it pushed emergency updates for CVE-2025-4664, which let attackers hijack user accounts.
Then in June, another flaw in the V8 engine, CVE-2025-5419, was patched after being spotted by TAG. July saw the release of a fix for CVE-2025-6558, which allowed attackers to bypass Chrome’s sandbox protection. With this latest patch, Google continues a busy year of racing to secure its browser against rapidly emerging threats.
How to update Google Chrome on a desktop
Updating Chrome only takes a minute, whether you’re on Mac or Windows. Here are the steps.
Open Chrome.
Click the three dots in the top-right corner.
Go to Help > About Google Chrome.
Wait while Chrome checks for updates.
Click Relaunch when the update finishes.
How to update Chrome on iPhone
Open the App Store on your iPhone.
Tap your profile icon in the top-right corner.
Scroll down to see pending updates.
Find Google Chrome in the list.
Tap Update next to it (or Update All if you want to update everything).
How to update Chrome on Android
Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer.
Open the Google Play Store on your Android device.
Tap your profile icon in the top-right corner.
Select Manage apps & device.
Under “Updates available,” look for Google Chrome.
Hackers are already exploiting the bug to steal data from unprotected devices.(Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
5 ways to stay safe from Chrome zero-day attacks
Updating Chrome is essential, but there are additional steps you can take to stay safe from attacks.
1) Be cautious with links and downloads and use strong antivirus software
Many zero-day attacks are delivered through malicious websites or email attachments. Avoid clicking unknown links or downloading files from unverified sources, especially if they prompt you to disable security settings. Also, use strong antivirus software to add another layer of defense to detect malicious code that tries to run through compromised browsers. A strong antivirus can spot suspicious activity before it takes hold. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.
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2) Enable two-factor authentication (2FA)
Even if attackers manage to steal your login details through a browser exploit, 2FA makes it much harder for them to break into your accounts. Use an authenticator app instead of SMS when possible for stronger protection.
3) Rely on a password manager
If attackers exploit the browser to steal login data, a password manager keeps your credentials safe and helps generate unique, complex passwords. Even if one account is targeted, it prevents a domino effect across your logins.
Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our #1 password manager (see Cyberguy.com/Passwords) pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials.
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4) Limit browser extensions
Some extensions can be abused to make attacks worse. Stick to extensions from trusted developers, review permissions carefully and uninstall anything you no longer need.
5) Keep your operating system updated
Chrome updates are critical, but attackers can also exploit holes in Windows, macOS, Android or iOS. Regular OS updates patch vulnerabilities across the system, reducing the chances of a browser exploit spreading further.
Kurt’s key takeaway
The fact that Chrome has already faced six zero-day attacks this year shows how relentless attackers are and how even the most popular software can have serious gaps. These flaws are not just bugs, but opportunities for hackers to exploit millions of users before fixes roll out. The pattern also highlights the growing sophistication of threat actors, including state-backed groups targeting high-risk individuals. No browser is completely safe, and the battle to secure widely used software is ongoing and far from over.
Do you think Google is reacting fast enough to keep your data secure? Let us know in the comments below. Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com/Contact
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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
The so-called “godfather of AI”, Yoshua Bengio, claims tech companies racing for AI dominance could be bringing us closer to our own extinction through the creation of machines with ‘preservation goals’ of their own.
Bengio, a professor at the Université de Montréal known for his foundational work related to deep learning, has for years warned about the threats posed by a hyperintelligent AI, but the rapid pace of development has continued despite his warnings. In the past six months, OpenAI, Anthropic, Elon Musk’s xAI, and Google’s Gemini, have all released new models or upgrades as they try to win the AI race. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even predicted AI will surpass human intelligence by the end of the decade, while other tech leaders have said that day could come even sooner.
Yet, Bengio claims this rapid development is a potential threat.
“If we build machines that are way smarter than us and have their own preservation goals, that’s dangerous. It’s like creating a competitor to humanity that is smarter than us,” Bengio told the Wall Street Journal.
Because they are trained on human language and behavior, these advanced models could potentially persuade and even manipulate humans to achieve their goals. Yet, AI models’ goals may not always align with human goals, said Bengio.
“Recent experiments show that in some circumstances where the AI has no choice but between its preservation, which means the goals that it was given, and doing something that causes the death of a human, they might choose the death of the human to preserve their goals,” he claimed.
Call for AI safety
Several examples over the past few years show AI can convince humans to believe nonrealities, even those with no history of mental illness. On the flipside, some evidence exists that AI can also be convinced, using persuasion techniques for humans, to give responses it would usually be prohibited from giving.
For Bengio, all this adds up to is more proof that independent third parties need to take a closer look at AI companies’ safety methodologies. In June, Bengio also launched nonprofit LawZero with $30 million in funding to create a safe “non-agentic” AI that can help ensure the safety of other systems created by big tech companies.
Otherwise, Bengio predicts we could start seeing major risks from AI models in five to ten years, but he cautioned humans should prepare in case those risks crop up earlier than expected.
“The thing with catastrophic events like extinction, and even less radical events that are still catastrophic like destroying our democracies, is that they’re so bad that even if there was only a 1% chance it could happen, it’s not acceptable,” he said.
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