Tech – Page 23

Microsoft changes Windows in attempt to prevent next CrowdStrike-style catastrophe

microsoft, Security, Tech, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, windows 11 24h2 / Kris Guyer / June 28, 2025

Working with third-party companies to define these standards and address those companies’ concerns seems to be Microsoft’s way of trying to avoid that kind of controversy this time around.

“We will continue to collaborate deeply with our MVI partners throughout the private preview,” wrote Weston.

Death comes for the blue screen

Microsoft is changing the “b” in BSoD, but that’s less interesting than the under-the-hood changes. Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft’s post outlines a handful of other security-related Windows tweaks, including some that take alternate routes to preventing more CrowdStrike-esque outages.

Multiple changes are coming for the “unexpected restart screen,” the less-derogatory official name for what many Windows users know colloquially as the “blue screen of death.” For starters, the screen will now be black instead of blue, a change that Microsoft briefly attempted to make in the early days of Windows 11 but subsequently rolled back.

The unexpected restart screen has been “simplified” in a way that “improves readability and aligns better with Windows 11 design principles, while preserving the technical information on the screen for when it is needed.”

But the more meaningful change is under the hood, in the form of a new feature called “quick machine recovery” (QMR).

If a Windows PC has multiple unexpected restarts or gets into a boot loop—as happened to many systems affected by the CrowdStrike bug—the PC will try to boot into Windows RE, a stripped-down recovery environment that offers a handful of diagnostic options and can be used to enter Safe Mode or open the PC’s UEFI firmware. QMR will allow Microsoft to “broadly deploy targeted remediations to affected devices via Windows RE,” making it possible for some problems to be fixed even if the PCs can’t be booted into standard Windows, “quickly getting users to a productive state without requiring complex manual intervention from IT.”

QMR will be enabled by default on Windows 11 Home, while the Pro and Enterprise versions will be configurable by IT administrators. The QMR functionality and the black version of the blue screen of death will both be added to Windows 11 24H2 later this summer. Microsoft plans to add additional customization options for QMR “later this year.”

Microsoft changes Windows in attempt to prevent next CrowdStrike-style catastrophe Read More »

Apple gives EU users App Store options in attempt to avoid massive fines

App Store, Apple, dma, EU, syndication, Tech / Mike M. / June 27, 2025

Apple is changing its App Store policies in the EU in a last-minute attempt to avoid a series of escalating fines from Brussels.

The $3 trillion iPhone maker will allow developers in the bloc to offer apps designed for the iOS operating system in places other than Apple’s App Store, the company said.

Apple has been negotiating for two months with the European Commission after being fined €500 million for breaching the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the landmark legislation designed to curtail the power of Big Tech groups.

Throughout the process, Apple has accused the commission of moving the goalposts on what the company needs to do to comply with the EU’s digital rule book.

Apple announced the measures on Thursday, the deadline for the company to comply with the bloc’s rules in order to avoid new levies. The financial penalties can escalate over time and reach up to 5 percent of average daily worldwide revenue.

Still, an Apple spokesperson said that “the European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store. We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal.”

In a reaction to the changes, a European Commission spokesperson said that “the commission will now assess these new business terms for DMA compliance.”

The spokesperson added that “the commission considers it particularly important to obtain the views of market operators and interested third parties before deciding on next steps.”

The decision on the new fines under the Digital Markets Act comes as Brussels and Washington near a July 9 deadline to agree on a trade deal.

The EU’s rules on Big Tech are a flashpoint between Brussels and US President Donald Trump. But commission leaders have indicated they would not change their rule book as a part of trade negotiations with the US.

Apple gives EU users App Store options in attempt to avoid massive fines Read More »

After a week, Trump Mobile drops claim that Trump phone is “made in the USA”

Policy, Tech, trump mobile, trump phone / Mike M. / June 26, 2025

The Trump phone was announced last week with a claim that the device would be made entirely in America, and people were rightly skeptical. Trump Mobile’s $500 T1 Phone “is a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier,” the Trump Organization said in a press release.

But with electronics supply chain experts casting doubt on the feasibility of designing and building an American-made phone in a short span of time, Trump Mobile’s website doesn’t currently promise an American-made phone. The website says the T1 is “designed with American values in mind,” that it is “brought to life right here in the USA,” and that there are “American hands behind every device.”

The Trump Mobile website previously said, “Our MADE IN THE USA ‘T1 Phone’ is available for pre-order now.” The phone was initially supposed to be available in August, but the date was changed to September, and now the website simply says it will be available “later this year.”

The Verge pointed out the website’s vague claims in an article today. “One of the phone’s main selling points was that it was to be made in America,” but “sometime in the last several days, the Trump Mobile site appears to have been scrubbed of all language indicating the phone is to be made in the USA,” the article said, adding that the website previously had a “huge banner on the homepage that says the T1 is ‘MADE IN THE USA.'”

When contacted by Ars today, a Trump Mobile spokesperson said, “The T1 phones are proudly being made in America. Speculation to the contrary is simply inaccurate. We’re excited to launch the phones later this year.” Trump Mobile did not explain why it removed the “made in the USA” claim from its website. We also contacted the Trump organization and will update this article if we get a response.

After a week, Trump Mobile drops claim that Trump phone is “made in the USA” Read More »

Google’s spotty Find Hub network could get better thanks to a small setup tweak

android, bluetooth trackers, Google, Tech / Rejus Almole / June 26, 2025

Bluetooth trackers have existed for quite a while, but Apple made them worthwhile when it enlisted every iPhone to support AirTags. The tracking was so reliable that Apple had to add anti-stalking features. And although there are just as many Android phones out there, Google’s version of mobile device tracking, known as Find Hub, has been comparatively spotty. Now, Google is about to offer users a choice that could fix Bluetooth tracking on Android.

According to a report from Android Authority, Google is preparing to add a new screen to the Android setup process. This change, integrated with Play Services version 25.24, has yet to roll out widely, but it will allow anyone setting up an Android phone to choose a more effective method of tracking that will bolster Google’s network. This is included in the Play Services changelog as, “You can now configure Find Hub when setting up your phone, allowing the device to be located remotely.”

Trackable devices like AirTags and earbuds work by broadcasting a Bluetooth LE identifier, which phones in the area can see. Our always-online smartphones then report the approximate location of that signal, and with enough reports, the owner can pinpoint the tag. Perhaps wary of the privacy implications, Google rolled out its Find Hub network (previously Find My Device) with harsh restrictions on where device finding would work.

By default, Find Hub only works in busy areas where multiple phones can contribute to narrowing down the location. That’s suboptimal if you actually want to find things. The setting to allow finding in all areas is buried several menus deep in the system settings where no one is going to see it. Currently, the settings for Find Hub are under the security menu of your phone, but the patch may vary from one device to the next. For Pixels, it’s under Security > Device finders > Find Hub > Find your offline devices. Yeah, not exactly discoverable.

Google’s spotty Find Hub network could get better thanks to a small setup tweak Read More »

Looking at Framework’s progress on software support for its repairable laptops

framework, framework laptop, framework laptop 12, framework laptop 13, framework laptop 16, Tech / Tim Belzer / June 26, 2025

For the past five years, we’ve been paying a lot of attention to Framework, the upstart PC company focused on modular, repairable, upgradeable, and customizable laptop designs.

So far, Framework has done a solid job of offering a steady stream of hardware upgrades for its systems, particularly the original Framework Laptop 13. But the company’s track record on software support—including BIOS updates and driver updates with performance improvements, bug fixes, and important security updates—has been more of a mixed bag.

As of our piece in April 2024, multiple iterations of the Laptop 13 board had gone years without a BIOS update or updated driver package. The first iteration of the laptop still only had “beta” support for Windows 11, which had been out for 2.5 years by then, and the company was also struggling to provide Linux support and promised functional upgrades for other models.

We spoke with Framework CEO Nirav Patel for that article, who acknowledged the issues and provided some explanations—mainly, that Framework is a small company and that it relies on upstream hardware makers like Intel and AMD for some updates. But he also promised that improvements were coming.

Patel said that a dedicated team at Compal, the white-box PC manufacturing company that makes most of Framework’s hardware, had been hired and was being onboarded. And once that team was up to speed, the plan was to continuously cycle through Framework’s entire catalog of old and current products, making sure that no model was neglected for long.

Patel’s “mid-summer [2024]” timeline for making these changes turned out to be a bit optimistic, but it does seem as though the team has made real progress over the past calendar year or so.

Real improvements

Framework’s BIOS and driver update status page as of June 25, 2025. Every single one of Framework’s laptops has gotten at least one BIOS and driver update in the past calendar year, a big improvement over the state of things in April 2024. Credit: Framework

This thread on Framework’s Reddit gives a high-level overview of the release dates for Framework’s driver packages and BIOS updates, and, for all its products going back to 2021’s 11th-gen Intel Core version of the first Framework Laptop, the company has shipped at least one BIOS update in the past eight months. Most models have seen at least one update in calendar 2025. The driver packages tend to be a bit older, but the oldest ones are from June 2024, and the Core Ultra Framework Laptop and all AMD models have gotten at least one driver package update in 2025.

Looking at Framework’s progress on software support for its repairable laptops Read More »

Gemini CLI is a free, open source coding agent that brings AI to your terminal

AI, Gemini, Google, Google Gemini, Tech, Terminal, vibe coding / Mike M. / June 25, 2025

Some developers prefer to live in the command line interface (CLI), eschewing the flashy graphics and file management features of IDEs. Google’s latest AI tool is for those terminal lovers. It’s called Gemini CLI, and it shares a lot with Gemini Code Assist, but it works in your terminal environment instead of integrating with an IDE. And perhaps best of all, it’s free and open source.

Gemini CLI plugs into Gemini 2.5 Pro, Google’s most advanced model for coding and simulated reasoning. It can create and modify code for you right inside the terminal, but you can also call on other Google models to generate images or videos without leaving the security of your terminal cocoon. It’s essentially vibe coding from the command line.

This tool is fully open source, so developers can inspect the code and help to improve it. The openness extends to how you configure the AI agent. It supports Model Context Protocol (MCP) and bundled extensions, allowing you to customize your terminal as you see fit. You can even include your own system prompts—Gemini CLI relies on GEMINI.md files, which you can use to tweak the model for different tasks or teams.

Now that Gemini 2.5 Pro is generally available, Gemini Code Assist has been upgraded to use the same technology as Gemini CLI. Code Assist integrates with IDEs like VS Code for those times when you need a more feature-rich environment. The new agent mode in Code Assist allows you to give the AI more general instructions, like “Add support for dark mode to my application” or “Build my project and fix any errors.”

Gemini CLI is a free, open source coding agent that brings AI to your terminal Read More »

Philips Hue bulbs will be even more expensive in July. And it may not end there.

Philips, philips hue, signify, Smart Home, Tech / Rejus Almole / June 25, 2025

Philips is upping the prices of its popular and already-expensive Hue series of smart lighting products starting July 1. The company is blaming tariffs for the changes and has suggested that prices could go up even higher after the initial bump in July.

Philips started informing its customers via an email marketing message earlier this month that prices would go up and urged people to buy Hue lighting sooner rather than later.

In a statement to the Hueblog website, Philips’ parent company, Signify, explained why people in the US will pay more for Hue products soon:

Signify will increase prices on our Philips Hue portfolio in the US, effective July 1, 2025, as a direct result of tariffs. We remain committed to providing consumers with high-quality products and features that make smart lighting extraordinary.

Signify didn’t confirm how much Hue products would cost after June but noted that more changes could follow.

“Signify reserves the right to modify prices based on new or additional tariffs becoming effective in the future,” the company told Hueblog.

As noted by Hueblog, some Hue products are already more expensive in the US than in other geographies. The Hue Smart Button, which came out this month, costs $33, compared to 22 euros in Europe and $25 for its predecessor. The Hue Play wall washer is $220 in the US, compared to 200 euros in Europe. Typically, Hue’s products have “converted euro prices almost 1-to-1,” Hueblog reported.

Philips Hue bulbs will be even more expensive in July. And it may not end there. Read More »

Microsoft extends free Windows 10 security updates into 2026, with strings attached

Tech, Windows 10, windows 10 22h2, windows 11 24h2 / Paul Patrick / June 25, 2025

Freeupdates

It’s worth noting that the Windows Backup and Microsoft Rewards methods for getting these updates require the use of a Microsoft Account, something Microsoft has been pushing with slowly increasing intensity in Windows 11. Windows 10 pushed Microsoft Account usage in various ways, too, but it was generally easier to create and sign in with a local account; for those people, the “free” update offer seems like another effort from Microsoft to bring them into the fold.

The Windows Backup option seems intended to ease the migration to a new Windows 11 PC when the time comes. The company may be offering a short reprieve for Windows 10 users, but the goal is still to shift them to Windows 11 eventually.

“To help make your move to a Windows 11 PC, as simple and secure as possible, we recommend using Windows Backup—built right into Windows 10,” writes Microsoft Consumer Chief Marketing Officer Yusuf Medhi in Microsoft’s blog post. “It’s an easy way to help you safely and securely transfer your data, personal files, and most settings and applications, so everything’s ready for you the moment you sign in.”

People with existing Microsoft Accounts who don’t want to use Windows Backup may already have the 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points you would need to enroll in the ESU program; my Microsoft account has 3,411 points attached to it for some reason despite an 18-month expiration window and even though I’ve never taken any intentional steps toward earning any. Users creating a new account for the first time can accumulate that many points fairly trivially over the course of a few days, including by downloading the Bing app and doing various Bing searches.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Ars that Microsoft Account sign-in will be required to enroll a PC into the ESU program. If you reset or reinstall a fresh copy of Windows on a new Windows 10 PC, you’ll need to sign back in with a Microsoft account to re-enroll the PC in the ESU program.

But “once a Windows 10 PC is enrolled in ESU, it remains enrolled in the program,” the Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. Once enrolled, if you sign out of your Microsoft Account, or if you stop using the Windows Backup app, your PC will continue to receive the security updates afterward.

Microsoft extends free Windows 10 security updates into 2026, with strings attached Read More »

Data-recovery firm tests $28, 500GB HDD from Amazon and gets surprising results

hdd, SSD, Storage, Tech / Paul Patrick / June 25, 2025

Ars was unable to confirm if UnionSine and Toshiba have any formal business relationship. UnionSine’s website says that its full company name is Shenzhen Union Integrity Technology Co., Ltd., a Shenzhen-based company launched in 2014 with “more than 50 employees.” It doesn’t list Toshiba as a partner. Toshiba also doesn’t mention any collaboration with UnionSine on its website. Neither company responded to requests for comment ahead of publication. Interestingly, there’s at least one account of someone finding a Western Digital drive inside their UnionSine HDD’s enclosure.

Rymko said that Secure Data Recovery couldn’t confirm if the Toshiba drive was refurbished but also emphasized the drive’s nearly 10 years of age:

Our internal data indicates that the average lifespan of a drive is approximately three-to-five years, depending on the brand, capacity, and other factors. Our data found that the average ‘power-on’ hours of failed drives was about two years and 10 months. With the right tools, the ‘power-on hours’ data can be reset. This could mean the drive may last a few years; I can’t say for sure.

There are better storage options

Rymko told me that UnionSine “seem[s] like a legitimate company” and noted that Secure Data Recovery has recovered data from UnionSine drives before. He also said that for $28, “the drive performs well and provides good value;” it also “meets expectations for speed and reliability.” Still, he has some concerns about long-term use:

We haven’t identified any major issues with this device, but as with any budget drive, long-term durability and sustained performance under heavy use are potential concerns to watch for. It’s always a good idea to back up important data regularly.

But there are still reasons to look elsewhere for storage.

For one, UnionSine doesn’t have a clearly posted warranty policy for its HDDs. As Rymko mentioned, the long-term durability of its drive is dubious, making the lack of a clear warranty concerning.

Further, there are bigger and roomier storage options than a 500GB HDD. If you’re opting for an HDD over an SSD to save money, it can be prudent to put at least some of those savings toward more storage space. A roomier HDD will cost more, but the price-per-GB may not differ much, depending on the drive.

When storing valued files, you can rest easier by following the 3-2-1 backup rule and by buying from a reputable brand with a solid warranty. Losing important data is frustrating enough, and that frustration is exacerbated when a company doesn’t take accountability for a potentially faulty device.

Data-recovery firm tests $28, 500GB HDD from Amazon and gets surprising results Read More »

Google’s new robotics AI can run without the cloud and still tie your shoes

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Gemini, gemini robotics, Google, Tech / Paul Patrick / June 24, 2025

We sometimes call chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT “robots,” but generative AI is also playing a growing role in real, physical robots. After announcing Gemini Robotics earlier this year, Google DeepMind has now revealed a new on-device VLA (vision language action) model to control robots. Unlike the previous release, there’s no cloud component, allowing robots to operate with full autonomy.

Carolina Parada, head of robotics at Google DeepMind, says this approach to AI robotics could make robots more reliable in challenging situations. This is also the first version of Google’s robotics model that developers can tune for their specific uses.

Robotics is a unique problem for AI because, not only does the robot exist in the physical world, but it also changes its environment. Whether you’re having it move blocks around or tie your shoes, it’s hard to predict every eventuality a robot might encounter. The traditional approach of training a robot on action with reinforcement was very slow, but generative AI allows for much greater generalization.

“It’s drawing from Gemini’s multimodal world understanding in order to do a completely new task,” explains Carolina Parada. “What that enables is in that same way Gemini can produce text, write poetry, just summarize an article, you can also write code, and you can also generate images. It also can generate robot actions.”

General robots, no cloud needed

In the previous Gemini Robotics release (which is still the “best” version of Google’s robotics tech), the platforms ran a hybrid system with a small model on the robot and a larger one running in the cloud. You’ve probably watched chatbots “think” for measurable seconds as they generate an output, but robots need to react quickly. If you tell the robot to pick up and move an object, you don’t want it to pause while each step is generated. The local model allows quick adaptation, while the server-based model can help with complex reasoning tasks. Google DeepMind is now unleashing the local model as a standalone VLA, and it’s surprisingly robust.

Google’s new robotics AI can run without the cloud and still tie your shoes Read More »

Google rolls out Street View time travel to celebrate 20 years of Google Earth

Google, Google Earth, Tech / Paul Patrick / June 24, 2025

After 20 years, being able to look at any corner of the planet in Google Earth doesn’t seem that impressive, but it was a revolution in 2005. Google Earth has gone through a lot of changes in that time, and Google has some more lined up for the service’s 20th anniversary. Soon, Google Earth will help you travel back in time with historic Street View integration, and pro users will get some new “AI-driven insights”—of course Google can’t update a product without adding at least a little AI.

Google Earth began its life as a clunky desktop client, but that didn’t stop it from being downloaded 100 million times in the first week. Today, Google Earth is available on the web, in mobile apps, and in the Google Earth Pro desktop app. However you access Earth, you’ll find a blast from the past.

For the service’s 20th anniversary, Google was inspired by a social media trend from last year in which people shared historical images of locations in Google Maps. Now, Google Earth is getting a “time travel” interface where you can see historical Street View images from almost any location.

Google Earth historical — Historical Street View images will be added to Google Earth. Credit: Google

While this part isn’t new, Google is also using the 20th anniversary as an opportunity to surface its 3D timelapse feature. These animations use satellite data to show how an area has changed from a higher vantage point. They’re just as cool as when they were announced in 2021.

Google rolls out Street View time travel to celebrate 20 years of Google Earth Read More »

Apple releases new beta builds of all its flashy new Liquid Glass-ified OS updates

Apple, beta, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, macos developer beta, Tech / Mike M. / June 24, 2025

Should you install these betas?

Selecting from among several beta OS versions in the Settings app on iOS 18. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

We are not highlighting this second round of developer betas because we think you should go out and install them on the Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches that you use daily. These are still early versions, and they’re likely to have significant performance, battery, and stability problems relative to the current publicly available versions of the software.

But generally speaking, these second developer builds are the first ones I install on my secondary test devices—a collection of mostly older devices that have been replaced but are still considered current enough to run the new update. The initial builds are usually little more than a tech demo and can have major show-stopping bugs (an M1 iPad Air with the first developer beta on it simply stopped responding to any input, including a hard restart, and I needed to set it aside so its battery could drain all the way before I could do anything else with it), but the second betas tend to be somewhat more amenable to normal everyday use.

The new iOS and iPadOS betas will run on just about any hardware that can currently install and run iOS and iPadOS 18, with a couple of older exceptions. The macOS beta will run on any Apple Silicon Mac and on a handful of Intel Macs released in 2019 and 2020. The other betas will generally run on anything that supports the current versions, with some caveats (Liquid Glass effects only show up on newer Apple TV 4K boxes, for example, while the first-gen Apple TV 4K and the old 1080p Apple TV will run the update but without Liquid Glass).

If you don’t have spare devices you can dedicate to testing, we’d recommend waiting until the public beta in July before you even think about running any of these betas, and only after backing up all the important data on those devices. Rolling back to an older software version is doable, but a bit of a pain. Alternatively, those with Apple Silicon Macs who want to test the latest versions could try setting up a virtual machine using an app like VirtualBuddy or one of the others that leverages Apple’s built-in Virtualization framework.

Apple releases new beta builds of all its flashy new Liquid Glass-ified OS updates Read More »