An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After acquiring VMware, Broadcom swiftly enacted widespread changes that resulted in strong public backlash. A new survey of 300 director-level IT workers at companies that are customers of North American VMware provides insight into the customer reaction to Broadcom's overhaul. The survey released Thursday doesn't provide feedback from every VMware customer, but it's the first time we've seen responses from IT decision-makers working for companies paying for VMware products. It echos concerns expressed at the announcement of some of Broadcom's more controversial changes to VMware, like the end of perpetual licenses and growing costs. [...] Every person surveyed said that they expect VMware prices to rise under Broadcom. In a March "User Group Town Hall," attendees complained about "price rises of 500 and 600 percent," according to The Register. We heard in February from ServeTheHome that "smaller" cloud service providers were claiming to see costs grow tenfold. In this week's survey, 73 percent of respondents said they expect VMware prices to more than double. Twelve percent of respondents expect a price hike of 301 to 500 percent. Only 1 percent anticipate price hikes of 501 to 1,000 percent. "At this juncture post-acquisition, most larger enterprises seem to have a clear understanding of how their next procurement cycle with Broadcom will be impacted from a pricing and packaging standpoint," the report noted.

Further, 95 percent of survey respondents said they view Broadcom buying VMware as disruptive to their IT strategy, with 46 percent considering it extremely or very disruptive. Widespread concerns about cost and IT strategy help explain why 99 percent of the 300 respondents said they are concerned about Broadcom owning VMware, with 46 percent being "very concerned" and 30 percent "extremely concerned." Despite widespread anxiety over Broadcom's VMware, most of the respondents said they will likely stay with VMware either partially (43 percent of respondents) or fully (40 percent). A smaller percentage of respondents said they would move more workloads to the public cloud (38 percent) or a different hypervisor (34 percent) or move entirely to the public cloud (33 percent). This is with 69 percent of respondents having at least one contract expiring with VMware within the next 12 months. [...] Top reasons cited for considering abandoning VMware partially or totally were uncertainty about Broadcom's plans, concerns about support quality under Broadcom, and changes to relationships with channel partners (each named by 36 percent of respondents). Following closely was the shift to subscription licensing (34 percent), expected price bumps (33 percent), and personal negative experiences with Broadcom (33 percent). Broadcom's history with big buys like Symantec and CA Technologies also has 32 percent of people surveyed considering leaving VMware. "The emotional shock has started to metabolize inside of the Broadcom customer base, but it's metabolized in the form of strong commitment to mitigating the negative impacts of the Broadcom VMware acquisition," said Kyle Campos, CTPO for CloudBolt Software, the company that commissioned the study.

He warned that Broadcom could see backlash continue "for months and even years to come."

Microsoft says it's making its new Recall feature in Windows 11 that screenshots everything you do on your PC an opt-in feature and addressing various security concerns. From a report: The software giant first unveiled the Recall feature as part of its upcoming Copilot Plus PCs last month, but since then, privacy advocates and security experts have been warning that Recall could be a "disaster" for cybersecurity without changes. Thankfully, Microsoft has listened to the complaints and is making a number of changes before Copilot Plus PCs launch on June 18th. Microsoft had originally planned to turn Recall on by default, but the company now says it will offer the ability to disable the controversial AI-powered feature during the setup process of new Copilot Plus PCs. "If you don't proactively choose to turn it on, it will be off by default," says Windows chief Pavan Davuluri.

California's proposed legislation to regulate AI has sparked a backlash from Silicon Valley heavyweights, who claim the bill will stifle innovation and force AI start-ups to leave the state. The Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Systems Act, passed by the state Senate last month, requires AI developers to adhere to strict safety frameworks, including creating a "kill switch" for their models. Critics argue that the bill places a costly compliance burden on smaller AI companies and focuses on hypothetical risks. Amendments are being considered to clarify the bill's scope and address concerns about its impact on open-source AI models.

Longtime Slashdot reader MattSparkes shares a report from NewScientist: Quantum computing experts are baffled by the UK government's new export restrictions on the exotic devices (source paywalled), saying they make little sense. [The UK government has set limits on the capabilities of quantum computers that can be exported -- starting with those above 34 qubits, and rising as long as error rates are also higher -- and has declined to explain these limits on the grounds of national security.] The legislation applies to both existing, small quantum computers that are of no practical use and larger computers that don't actually exist, so cannot be exported. Instead, there are fears the limits will restrict sales and add bureaucracy to a new and growing sector. For more context, here's an excerpt from an article published by The Telegraph in March: The technology has been added to a list of "dual use" items that could have military uses maintained by the Export Control Joint Unit, which scrutinizes sales of sensitive goods. A national quantum computer strategy published last year described the technology as being "critically important" for defense and national security and said the UK was in a "global race" to develop it. [...] The changes have been introduced as part of a broader update to export rules agreed by Western allies including the US and major European countries. Several nations with particular expertise on quantum computer technologies have added specific curbs, including France which introduced rules at the start of this month.

Last year, industry body Quantum UK said British companies were concerned about the prospect of further export controls, and that they could even put off US companies seeking to relocate to the UK. Quantum computer exports only previously required licenses in specific cases, such as when they were likely to lead to military use. Oxford Instruments, which makes cooling systems for quantum computers, said last year that sales in China had been hit by increasing curbs. James Lindop of law firm Eversheds Sutherland said: "Semiconductor and quantum technologies -- two areas in which the UK already holds a world-leading position -- are increasingly perceived to be highly strategic and critical to UK national security. This will undoubtedly create an additional compliance burden for businesses active in the development and production of the targeted technologies."

Some artists are jumping ship for the anti-AI portfolio app Cara after Meta began using Instagram content to train its AI models. Fast Company explains: The portfolio app bills itself as a platform that protects artists' images from being used to train AI, and only allowing AI content to be posted if it's clearly labeled. Based on the number of new users the Cara app has garnered over the past few days, there seems to be a need. Between May 31 and June 2, Cara's user base tripled from less than 100,000 to more than 300,000 profiles, skyrocketing to the top of the app store. [...] Cara is a social networking app for creatives, in which users can post images of their artwork, memes, or just their own text-based musings. It shares similarities with major social platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram on a few fronts. Users can access Cara through a mobile app or on a browser. Both options are free to use. The UI itself is like an arts-centric combination of X and Instagram. In fact, some UI elements seem like they were pulled directly from other social media sites. (It's not the most innovative approach, but it is strategic: as a new app, any barriers to potential adoption need to be low).

Cara doesn't train any AI models on its content, nor does it allow third parties to do so. According to Cara's FAQ page, the app aims to protect its users from AI scraping by automatically implementing "NoAI" tags on all of its posts. The website says these tags "are intended to tell AI scrapers not to scrape from Cara." Ultimately, they appear to be html metadata tags that politely ask bad actors not to get up to any funny business, and it's pretty unlikely that they hold any actual legal weight. Cara admits as much, too, warning its users that the tags aren't a "fully comprehensive solution and won't completely prevent dedicated scrapers." With that in mind, Cara assesses the "NoAI" tagging system as a "a necessary first step in building a space that is actually welcoming to artists -- one that respects them as creators and doesn't opt their work into unethical AI scraping without their consent."

In December, Cara launched another tool called Cara Glaze to defend its artists' work against scrapers. (Users can only use it a select number of times.) Glaze, developed by the SAND Lab at University of Chicago, makes it much more difficult for AI models to accurately understand and mimic an artist's personal style. The tool works by learning how AI bots perceive artwork, and then making a set of minimal changes that are invisible to the human eye but confusing to the AI model. The AI bot then has trouble "translating" the art style and generates warped recreations. In the future, Cara also plans to implement Nightshade, another University of Chicago software that helps protect artwork against AI scapers. Nightshade "poisons" AI training data by adding invisible pixels to artwork that can cause AI software to completely misunderstand the image. Beyond establishing shields against data mining, Cara also uses a third party service to detect and moderate any AI artwork that's posted to the site. Non-human artwork is forbidden, unless it's been properly labeled by the poster.

In an interview with PCWorld's Mark Hachman, Google's ChromeOS chief said the company is cautiously exploring a Recall-like feature for Chromebooks, dubbed "memory." Microsoft's AI-powered Recall feature for Windows 11 was unveiled at the company's Build 2024 conference last month. The feature aims to improve local searches by making them as efficient as web searches, allowing users to quickly retrieve anything they've seen on their PC. Using voice commands and contextual clues, Recall can find specific emails, documents, chat threads, and even PowerPoint slides. Given the obvious privacy and security concerns, many users have denounced the feature, describing it as "literal spyware or malware." PCWorld reports: I sat down with John Solomon, the vice president at Google responsible for ChromeOS, for a lengthy interview around what it means for Google's low-cost Google platform as the PC industry moved to AI PCs. Microsoft, of course, is launching Copilot+ PCs alongside Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite -- an Arm chip. And Chromebooks, of course, have a long history with Arm. But it's Recall that we eventually landed upon -- or, more precisely, how Google sidles into the same space. Recall is great in theory, but in practice may be more problematic.) Recall the Project Astra demo that Google showed off at its Google I/O conference. One of the key though understated aspects of it was how Astra "remembered" where the user's glasses were.

Astra didn't appear to be an experience that could be replicated on the Chromebook. Most users aren't going to carry a Chromebook around (a device which typically lacks a rear camera) visually identifying things. Solomon respectfully disagreed. "I think there's a piece of it which is very relevant, which is this notion of having some kind of context and memory of what's been happening on the device," Solomon said. "So think of something that's like, maybe viewing your screen and then you walk away, you get distracted, you chat to someone at the watercooler and you come back. You could have some kind of rewind function, you could have some kind of recorder function that would kind of bring you back to that. So I think that there is a crossover there.

"We're actually talking to that team about where the use case could be," Solomon added of the "memory" concept. "But I think there's something there in terms of screen capture in a way that obviously doesn't feel creepy and feels like the user's in control." That sounds a lot like Recall! But Solomon was quick to point out that one of the things that has turned off users to Recall was the lack of user control: deciding when, where, and if to turn it on. "I'm not going to talk about Recall, but I think the reason that some people feel it's creepy is when it doesn't feel useful, and it doesn't feel like something they initiated or that they get a clear benefit from it," Solomon said. "If the user says like -- let's say we're having a meeting, and discussing complex topics. There's a benefit of running a recorded function if at the end of it it can be useful for creating notes and the action items. But you as a user need to put that on and decide where you want to have that."

Google will delete everything it knows about users' previously visited locations, the company has said, a year after it committed to reducing the amount of personal data it stores about users. From a report: The company's "timeline" feature -- previously known as Location History -- will still work for those who choose to use it, letting them scroll back through potentially decades of travel history to check where they were at a specific time. But all the data required to make the feature work will be saved locally, to their own phones or tablets, with none of it being stored on the company's servers.

In an email sent by the company to Maps users, seen by the Guardian, Google said they have until 1 December to save all their old journeys before it is deleted for ever. Users will still be able to back up their data if they're worried about losing it or want to sync it across devices but that will no longer happen by default. The company is also reducing the default amount of time that location history is stored for. Now, it will begin to delete past locations after just three months, down from a previous default of a year and a half. In a blogpost announcing the changes, Google didn't cite a specific reason for the updates, beyond suggesting that users may want to delete information from their location history if they are "planning a surprise birthday party."

An anonymous reader shared a report: Amazon has agreed to acquire key assets of Indian video streaming service MX Player from the local media powerhouse Times Internet, the latest step by the e-commerce giant to make its services and brand popular in smaller cities and towns in the key overseas market.

[...] Times Internet acquired MX Player in 2018 for $140 million. The app, which originated in South Korea, gained immense popularity in India due to its unique local video playback feature. This functionality allows the app to support a wide range of video file formats, making it highly compatible with affordable Android smartphones that are prevalent in developing markets.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Google parent Alphabet must face a lawsuit worth up to $17.4 billion for allegedly abusing its dominance in the online advertising market, London's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled on Wednesday. The lawsuit, which seeks damages on behalf of publishers of websites and apps based in the United Kingdom, is the latest case to focus on the search giant's business practices. Ad Tech Collective Action is bringing the claim on behalf of publishers who say they have suffered losses due to Google's allegedly anti-competitive behavior.

Google last month urged the CAT to block the case, which it argued was incoherent. The company "strongly rejects the underlying allegations", its lawyers said in court documents. The CAT said in a written ruling that it would certify the case to proceed towards a trial, which is unlikely to take place before the end of 2025. The tribunal also emphasized the test for certifying a case under the UK's collective proceedings regime -- which is roughly equivalent to the United States' class action regime -- is relatively low. "Google works constructively with publishers across the UK and Europe," Google legal director Oliver Bethell said in a statement. Bethell added: "This lawsuit is speculative and opportunistic. We'll oppose it vigorously and on the facts."

Apple has quietly added a Thread radio to nearly all of its newest iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs. The Verge reports: While the company doesn't list Thread on the specs of any of these products, FCC reports indicate that many of Apple's latest devices have had Thread radios tested for compliance. Generally, you don't test a radio that's not there. We found evidence of Thread testing in the following models: iPad Pro 13-inch (M4) (Wi-Fi + Cellular), iPad Pro 11-inch (M4) (Wi-Fi + Cellular), iPad Pro 11-inch (M4) (Wi-Fi), iPad Air 11-inch (M2) (Wi-Fi + Cellular), iPad Air 13-inch (M2) Wi-Fi, MacBook Air 15-inch (M3), MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3), MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro or M3 Max), MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Pro or M3 Max), iMac (M3, two ports), and iMac (M3, four ports).

The FCC requires manufacturers to list every radio contained in a device and to test them in every possible scenario to make sure they comply with its transmission regulations. Tom Sciorilli, director of certification for Thread Group, told The Verge that the FCC reports reference FCC 15.247, "which confirms the device will essentially 'stay in its lane' and not interfere with other radios when operating." The reports we found are tests of the IEEE 802.15.4 transmitter functionality -- 802.15.4 is the radio standard Thread runs on. While it supports a number of technologies, the reports mention Thread explicitly.

Thread is the primary wireless protocol for the new smart home standard Matter, which Apple helped develop and that is now the underlying architecture for its Apple Home smart home platform. A low-power, low-bandwidth, mesh networking protocol specifically designed for IoT devices, Thread is shown to be faster than Bluetooth and offers better range, making it ideal for connecting products like smart lights, locks, thermostats, and sensors. [...] So why is it there? The Apple Home app runs on Macs and iPads, and Thread radios could allow them to communicate directly with smart home devices and act as Thread border routers. It's possible Apple is planning to turn your Mac or iPad into a home hub, but iPads used to be home hubs, and the company discontinued that capability for its new Apple Home architecture. Those iPads didn't have Thread radios, though.

Richard Speed reports via The Register: A study has found that software projects adopting Agile practices are 268 percent more likely to fail than those that do not. Even though the research commissioned by consultancy Engprax could be seen as a thinly veiled plug for Impact Engineering methodology, it feeds into the suspicion that the Agile Manifesto might not be all it's cracked up to be. The study's fieldwork was conducted between May 3 and May 7 with 600 software engineers (250 in the UK and 350 in the US) participating. One standout statistic was that projects with clear requirements documented before development started were 97 percent more likely to succeed. In comparison, one of the four pillars of the Agile Manifesto is "Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation."

According to the study, putting a specification in place before development begins can result in a 50 percent increase in success, and making sure the requirements are accurate to the real-world problem can lead to a 57 percent increase. Dr Junade Ali, author of Impact Engineering, said: "With 65 percent of projects adopting Agile practices failing to be delivered on time, it's time to question Agile's cult following. "Our research has shown that what matters when it comes to delivering high-quality software on time and within budget is a robust requirements engineering process and having the psychological safety to discuss and solve problems when they emerge, whilst taking steps to prevent developer burnout." [...] Projects where engineers felt they had the freedom to discuss and address problems were 87 percent more likely to succeed. Worryingly, workers in the UK were 13 percent less likely to feel they could discuss problems than those in the US, according to the study.

Michael 'Mike' Karels, one of the authors of "The Design and Implementation of the 4.4Bsd Operating System" and a part of the Computer Systems Research Group at Berkeley, who received the USENIX Association Lifetime Achievement Award, has died. Longtime Slashdot reader bplipschitz shared the news.

The FreeBSD Foundation issued a statement in memory of Karels: "We are deeply saddened about the passing of Mike Karels, a pivotal figure in the history of BSD UNIX, a respected member of the FreeBSD community, and the Deputy Release Engineer for the FreeBSD Project. Mike's contributions to the development and advancement of BSD systems were profound and have left an indelible mark on the Project. Mike's vision and dedication were instrumental in shaping the FreeBSD we know and use today. His legacy will continue to inspire and guide us in our future endeavors."

The Marubo people, an isolated Indigenous tribe in the Amazon, have gained high-speed internet access through Elon Musk's Starlink service, drastically altering their traditional way of life. While the internet has brought significant benefits like improved communication and emergency response, it has also introduced challenges such as social media addiction, exposure to inappropriate content, and cultural erosion. The New York Times reports: After only nine months with Starlink, the Marubo are already grappling with the same challenges that have racked American households for years: teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography. Modern society has dealt with these issues over decades as the internet continued its relentless march. The Marubo and other Indigenous tribes, who have resisted modernity for generations, are now confronting the internet's potential and peril all at once, while debating what it will mean for their identity and culture.

The internet was an immediate sensation. "It changed the routine so much that it was detrimental," [admitted one Marubo leader, Enoque Marubo]. "In the village, if you don't hunt, fish and plant, you don't eat." Leaders realized they needed limits. The internet would be switched on for only two hours in the morning, five hours in the evening, and all day Sunday. During those windows, many Marubo are crouched over or reclined in hammocks on their phones. They spend lots of time on WhatsApp. There, leaders coordinate between villages and alert the authorities to health issues and environmental destruction. Marubo teachers share lessons with students in different villages. And everyone is in much closer contact with faraway family and friends. To Enoque, the biggest benefit has been in emergencies. A venomous snake bite can require swift rescue by helicopter. Before the internet, the Marubo used amateur radio, relaying a message between several villages to reach the authorities. The internet made such calls instantaneous. "It's already saved lives," he said.

In April, seven months after Starlink's arrival, more than 200 Marubo gathered in a village for meetings. Enoque brought a projector to show a video about bringing Starlink to the villages. As proceedings began, some leaders in the back of the audience spoke up. The internet should be turned off for the meetings, they said. "I don't want people posting in the groups, taking my words out of context," another said. During the meetings, teenagers swiped through Kwai, a Chinese-owned social network. Young boys watched videos of the Brazilian soccer star Neymar Jr. And two 15-year-old girls said they chatted with strangers on Instagram. One said she now dreamed of traveling the world, while the other wants to be a dentist in Sao Paulo. This new window to the outside world had left many in the tribe feeling torn. "Some young people maintain our traditions," said TamaSay Marubo, 42, the tribe's first woman leader. "Others just want to spend the whole afternoon on their phones."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation. The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials said. The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and the documents. The campaign began in October and remains active on the platform X. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers, particularly ones who are Black and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel's military.

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles. The Israeli government's connection to the influence operation, which The New York Times verified with four current and former members of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and documents about the campaign, has not previously been reported. FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, identified the effort in March. Last week, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, said they had also found and disrupted the operation. The secretive campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza.

Humane is telling AI Pin owners today that they should "immediately" stop using the charging case that came with its AI gadget. From a report: There are issues with a third-party battery cell that "may pose a fire safety risk," the company wrote in an email to customers. Humane says it has "disqualified" that vendor and is moving to find another supplier. It also specified that the AI Pin itself, the magnetic Battery Booster, and its charging pad are "not affected." As recompense, the company is offering two free months of its subscription service, which is required for most of its functionality. The development follows Humane's AI Pin receiving not-so-great reviews after much hype and the startup, which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars, exploring a sale.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: As we're currently seeing with AI, when a new technology becomes buzzy, companies will do almost anything to cram that tech into their products. Trends fade, however, and corporate priorities shift -- resulting in bricked gadgets and buyer's remorse. That's what's happening to some who bought into Oral-B toothbrushes with Amazon Alexa built in. Oral-B released the Guide for $230 in August 2020 but bricked the ability to set up or reconfigure Alexa on the product this February. As of this writing, the Guide is still available through a third-party Amazon seller.

The Guide toothbrush's charging base was able to connect to the Internet and work like an Alexa speaker that you could speak to and from which Alexa could respond. Owners could "ask to play music, hear the news, check weather, control smart home devices, and even order more brush heads by saying, 'Alexa, order Oral-B brush head replacements,'" per Procter & Gamble's 2020 announcement. Oral-B also bragged at the time that, in partnering with Alexa, the Guide ushered in "the truly connected bathroom."

On February 15, Oral-B bricked the Guide's ability to set up Alexa by discontinuing the Oral-B Connect app required to complete the process. Guide owners can still use the Oral-B App for other features; however, the ability to use the charging base like an Alexa smart speaker -- a big draw in the product's announcement and advertising -- is seriously limited. The device should still work with Alexa if users set it up before Oral-B shuttered Connect, but setting up a new Wi-Fi connection or reestablishing a lost one doesn't work without Connect. Oral-B owner, Proctor & Gamble, said in a statement: "The Oral-B Connect app was originally developed to support Oral-B Guide and Oral-B Sense electric toothbrushes, which were discontinued ... While some features are no longer supported on these brushes, the Oral-B app does remain compatible with both devices. Consumers are invited to contact Oral-B customer service where they can get additional support for these brushes."

Meanwhile, an Amazon spokesperson told Ars: "The Oral-B Guide still has Alexa built-in and customers can keep using the Alexa experience on devices that were set up through the Oral-B Connect app. The Oral-B Guide is currently sold by an independent seller on Amazon.com. Please contact Oral-B for any further questions about their app."

Meta Platforms withheld information from federal regulators during their original reviews of the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions, the US Federal Trade Commission said in a court filing as part of a lawsuit seeking to break up the social networking giant. From a report: In its filing Tuesday, however, the FTC said the case involves "information Meta had in its files and did not provide" during the original reviews. "At Meta's request the FTC undertook only a limited review" of the deals, the agency said. "The FTC now has available vastly more evidence, including pre-acquisition documents Meta did not provide in 2012 and 2014."

Meta said that it met all of its legal obligations during the Instagram and WhatsApp merger reviews. The FTC has failed to provide evidence to support its claims, a spokesperson said. "The evidence instead shows that Meta faces fierce competition and that Meta's significant investment of time and resources in Instagram and WhatsApp has benefited consumers by making the apps into the services millions of users enjoy today for free," spokesperson Chris Sgro said in a statement. "The FTC has done nothing to build its case over the past four years, while Meta has invested billions to build quality products."

Google has acquired software virtualization company Cameyo to enhance ChromeOS's support for virtualized Windows apps. The acquisition follows a partnership between the two companies last year, which aimed to provide businesses with a seamless virtual application experience on ChromeOS devices. With Cameyo's technology, Google seeks to attract more enterprises to adopt ChromeOS by offering enhanced compatibility with legacy Windows applications while maintaining the simplicity and security of the ChromeOS ecosystem.

The companies didn't reveal the financial terms of the deal.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Popular app Bartender was quietly bought, and a shady certificate replacement, insertion of invasive telemetry, and a lack of transparent responses by the new owners has shaken confidence in the Mac community. Menu bar organization tool Bartender has been around for a long time. For most of its life, it had an excellent reputation, and a responsive developer who communicated clearly with users. That appears to have changed, recently. It all started with a quiet pair of app certificate shifts which went mostly unnoticed.

That is, until app monitoring service MacUpdater found out, and started asking questions. They posted a warning about the app, saying that "The company and developer behind Bartender was replaced in a silent and dubious matter." But, there's a lot more to the story than just that warning. CoreCode, the developer of MacUpdater, did a great deal of research on the new owners and the app situation prior to posting the warning. They detailed their discoveries in a Reddit thread on the matter. Research performed before the warning pointed out that blog entries on the Bartender website shifted to heavily search engine optimized content. This is in contrast to the prior informational entries previously posted by original developer Ben Surtees.

Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 in October 2025, but the company is now taking the unusual step of reopening its beta program for Windows 10 to test new features and improvements. From a report: Windows 10 already got the AI Copilot feature that was originally exclusive to Windows 11, and it may well get other features soon. "To bring new features and more improvements to Windows 10 as needed, we need a place to do active feature development with Windows Insiders," explains Microsoft's Windows Insider team in a blog post. "So today, we are opening the Beta Channel for Windows Insiders who are currently on Windows 10."

Microsoft hasn't revealed what additional Windows 10 features it plans to test next, but Windows Insiders can opt into the beta channel to get them early. Crucially, the Windows 10 end of support date of October 14th, 2025 is still unchanged. "Joining the Beta Channel on your Windows 10 PC does not change that," says Microsoft.