If you still think that it's better to wait for a few months after a product launch to save some cash on electronics, you might be wrong. Samsung has quietly raised the price of some of its 2024 and 2025 devices on its official U.S. website. The list includes Galaxy Z Flip 7 in its 512GB configuration, the Galaxy S25 FE, the niche Galaxy S25 Edge, and almost the entirety of Samsung's tablet portfolio.

The 512GB Galaxy Z Flip 7, which originally debuted at $1,219.99, is now listed at $1,299.99. The Galaxy S25 FE (256GB) jumped from $709.99 to $749.99. But Samsung's tablet segment is where it gets the most brutal.

The base Galaxy Tab S11 saw a $100 bump across the board, while the premium 1TB Tab S11 Ultra ballooned from $1,619.99 to an eye-watering $1,899.99 overnight. Samsung's Galaxy Tab S series was the company's cost-effective answer to people also considering Apple's iPad Pro. But at nearly $1900 now, it is a much harder sell against the M5 iPad Pro, which is currently retailing at less than $1500 on Amazon. Even mid-range legacy models like the Tab S10 FE and Tab S10 Lite weren't spared with a price increase of around $50 to $70.

Here's the full list of devices that are now more expensive:

• Galaxy Tab S11 - from $799.99 to $899.99 (128GB)
• Galaxy Tab S11 - from $859.99 to $999.99 (256GB)
• Galaxy Tab S11 - from $979.99 to $1,199.99 (512GB)
• Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra - from $1,199.99 to $1,299.99 (256GB)
• Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra - from $1,319.99 to $1,499.99 (512GB)
• Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra - from $1,619.99 to $1,899.99 (1TB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 FE - from $499.99 to $549.99 (128GB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 FE - from $569.99 to $669.99 (256GB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus - from $649.99 to $699.99 (128GB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 FE Plus - from $749.99 to $819.99 (256GB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 Lite - from $349.99 to $399.99 (128GB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 Lite - from $419.99 to $489.99 (256GB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 Plus - from $999.99 to $1,099.99 (256GB)
• Galaxy Tab S10 Plus - from $1,119.99 to $1,299.99 (512GB)
• Galaxy Tab A11 Plus - from $249.99 to $299.99 (128GB)
• Galaxy Tab A11 Plus - from $309.99 to $379.99 (256GB)
• Galaxy Tab A11+ 5G - from $279.99 to $329.99

The reason all of this is happening is because of the highly volatile semiconductor market. As AI has boomed over the last few quarters, companies are building more and more data centers. Memory suppliers like SanDisk and SK Hynix reported massive revenue spikes, with SanDisk alone pulling in over $3 billion in Q2 2026.

With this, it's certain that Samsung is definitely willing to risk consumer backlash by raising prices on existing, months-old inventory. The launch price of upcoming devices is almost certainly going to rise, too. Devices such as the Galaxy Fold 8 and Z Flip 8, which are already expensive and are coming later this year, might see the same trend.

via PhoneArena

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Posted Wednesday 15 April 2026 at 7:28 am AEST (my time).

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The Vivaldi web browser development build for Android has just been bumped to version 4004.4 and is now available in the Google Play Store. The big feature introduced in this development build is the introduction of the native PDF reader, allowing you to open PDF files from web pages in Vivaldi’s browser tabs instead of needing to use a separate PDF reader app.

Aside from the native PDF reader, there are a whole host of changes, including Autofill-related improvements. Here is the full changelog:

• [New][PDF] Add support to the native PDF reader (VAB-11423)
• [Autofill] Third party autofill shows popup-error for non login input fields. (VAB-12696)
• [Bookmarks] Wrong bookmark editor opened after saving multiple tabs at once as bookmark (VAB-12758)
• [Daily Image] Move Image Credits into Sheet (VAB-12645)
• [Menu] In-app browser menu displayed near the top of the screen when Address Bar is at the bottom (VAB-12422)
• [Settings] Adding a desktop site exception doesn’t work (VAB-12247)
• [Settings] Autofill can’t be disabled when none of the third-party password managers is set as the default in Android settings (VAB-12755)
• [Settings] Display ‘Vivaldi isn’t your autofill provider’ on the Password Manager page (VAB-12738)
• [Speed-Dial] Artist credit for daily image is invisible in dark mode (VAB-12730)
• [Start page] only showing 7 top sites (VAB-12711)
• [Crash] Play Store crashes (VAB-12734)
• Upgraded to 146.0.7680.189

You can find the Vivaldi Browser Snapshot here on the Google Play Store, or just do a search yourself for Vivaldi Browser Snapshot and it should appear with a black Vivaldi logo. Vivaldi notes that there may be a delay between the announcement and the actual software being available as the Play Store pushes out the updates. If you don’t want to wait, check out the alternative downloads in the announcement.

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Posted Tuesday 14 April 2026 at 5:07 am AEST (my time).

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In the current world scenario, where people have tended to move from smart watches to smart glasses, there was a single dominating player, Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses. Apple has gained a lateral entry with its upcoming smart glasses, to be released in early 2027, with several frame styles and a unique camera design.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gunman, in his newsletter Power On, Apple is to make a debut in the smart glasses category with a display-free smart glass, internally code-named N50, within its Vision Products Group division.

Similar to the Meta Ray-Ban, Apple is developing glasses for everyday use, like capturing photos and videos, syncing with a smartphone, handling phone calls, and hands-free interaction using a voice assistant, among other features. While the former is using MetaAI as a voice assistant, Apple is using a significantly upgraded Siri coming in iOS 27.

While the glasses form a major part of the AI wearables triad, the others are new AirPods and a camera-equipped pendant, each of which is designed to use computer vision to give an idea about the user’s surroundings to Siri and Apple intelligence for features like turn-by-turn map directions and visual reminders.

According to employees working on this project, Apple’s blueprint to outsmart competitors is by tightly integrating glasses with the iPhone, with a superior build. The tech giant also plans to make use of vertical integration in terms of design, unlike Meta, which uses EssilorLuxottica SA for frames.

Some of the design, features, and color options in testing are:

• A large rectangular frame similar to Ray-Ban Wayfarers.
• A slimmer rectangular design, like the one worn by Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook.
• Larger oval or circular frames.
• A smaller, more refined oval or circular option.
• Vertically oriented oval lenses for the camera system.
• Color options include black, ocean blue, and light brown.
• High-end Acetate material is used for a luxurious feel.

Along with this, Apple’s brand, its in-house chips, huge retail presence, and deep iPhone integration may be deciding factors in determining who leads the race to dominate this particular market.

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Posted Monday 13 April 2026 at 1:04 pm AEST (my time).

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Microsoft has announced the complete retirement of Outlook Lite, several months after announcing its plan to retire the app. The Redmond giant said that the Outlook Lite app for Android will be fully retired on May 25, 2026, forcing users to switch to the Microsoft Outlook Mobile app, which better supports all mailbox features and compliance capabilities.

After that date, the Outlook Lite app will still open but mailbox access will be disabled and in-app navigation and functionality won’t work. The retirement shouldn’t affect too many users because Microsoft has purposefully prevented users downloading this app since October 6, 2025. If you do still have it, you should definitely migrate to Outlook Mobile so that you aren’t cut off in late May.

While the mailbox access will be disabled and navigation won’t work, Microsoft notes that user accounts won’t be disabled or deleted. It also said that all existing email, calendar items, and attachments will remain accessible when users sign in to Outlook Mobile.

This change will not require any action on the part of admins, however, it may still be a good idea to let users know that Outlook Lite will be inaccessible soon and guide them on switching to Outlook Mobile from the Google Play Store. Microsoft also suggests updating any affected internal documentation or helpdesk guidance if Outlook Lite is referenced.

Aside from going into the Play Store and finding Outlook Mobile manually, there is also an Upgrade option inside the Outlook Lite app which will send you off to the Play Store to get the latest update. Directing users here could be more straightforward for admins.

To learn more, head over to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and check under Message ID MC1276508.

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Posted Monday 13 April 2026 at 7:37 am AEST (my time).

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Motorola announced a new mid-range phone yesterday, the 2026 Moto G Stylus. It’s not exactly a game changer unless you demand a stylus with your smartphone. Despite little in the way of upgrades, the new G Stylus will debut at $500, which is $100 more than last year’s version. It’s now clear that higher pricing will be a trend in Moto’s lineup. Without so much as a peep, Motorola has enacted price increases of up to 50 percent on the rest of its 2026 Moto G lineup.

Prior to the G Stylus announcement, Moto had three 2026 G-series phones—the Moto G Play, Moto G, and Moto G Power. They used to sell for $180, $200, and $300, respectively. In the past day, the Moto G Play rose to $250, which is a 38 percent increase. The 2026 Moto G went to $300—a whopping 50 percent price bump. Finally, the top model in Moto’s budget lineup, the Moto G Power, is now $400. That’s a 33 percent jump, putting it close to Samsung’s latest mid-range phones and $100 shy of the new Moto G Stylus.

Seeing a higher price tag on the new Moto G Stylus wasn’t a surprise given current hardware conditions, and the phone does have a few small upgrades. The battery capacity is slightly larger, and the stylus has basic pressure sensitivity support now. However, that hardly justifies a $100 increase over last year’s model, which had the same display and memory. It makes more sense in the context of an across-the-board price increase for Moto’s budget lineup.

We’ve reached out to Motorola to inquire about why these phones have seen such substantial price increases, as well as whether its other phones will be getting more expensive. The reason seems clear, though. AI projects around the world are hoovering up every available memory chip, making all sorts of consumer electronics more expensive. If it has memory or storage inside, it’s probably more expensive today than it was a year ago, and heaven help you if you need to buy tens of gigabytes of RAM for a PC build

With memory prices through the roof, this trend is probably going to continue in 2026, and it’ll hit smartphones particularly hard. As people upgrade less often and demand more from their mobile devices, it has become harder for manufacturers to turn a profit. Those slim profits are now turning into losses. We’ve already seen Google release the Pixel 10a with almost no upgrades over last year’s model, but at least the price remained the same. Asus also decided to just stop making phones in this environment, and there are credible rumors that OnePlus will leave many markets, including the US.

The Moto G series occupies an important place in the smartphone ecosystem. Before the first-gen Moto G launched in 2013, phones that cost $200 were universally terrible. Motorola showed us that didn’t need to be the case. Relatively cheap hardware has kept the dream of a capable low-cost phone alive ever since, but you may have to make tough choices going forward.

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Posted Thursday 9 April 2026 at 5:39 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft has announced that it is bringing a "modernized" comments experience to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This update is currently rolling out to iPhone users running Version 2.106 (Build 26022013).

The updated Comments pane experience improves the clarity and usability of mobile commenting by making comment threads easier to find, read, and act on. With a more modern, streamlined user interface, you can more quickly understand what needs your attention, respond quickly, and stay engaged in collaboration as you review your files on the go.

To use it, open a document in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint on an iPhone. You can access the new pane by tapping any comment icon already in the file or by navigating to the Review tab. For Word and PowerPoint, Microsoft also added a shortcut directly to the bottom taskbar.

The new comments experience is not the only update Microsoft has brought to its Office apps in the past few months. Before this, the company updated the core applications to version 2.102 with a huge visual refresh that introduced a "Liquid Glass" design language to better match modern iOS aesthetics.

The old solid navigation bar was replaced by a floating "island" containing the Home, Create, and Browse tabs. The Search button also got relocated to the bottom of the screen for easier one-handed use. Microsoft has also been heavily pushing Copilot into its mobile apps for anyone with a license. In Word, for example, Copilot now has the ability to allow it to read and summarize long documents directly on an iPhone.

Despite regular touch-ups, the company has failed to take advantage of iPadOS desktop-class menu bars, keeping the mobile versions far lighter on features than their Mac counterparts. Power users still cannot run VBA macros in Excel or access deep contextual right-click menus, forcing them back to a laptop for heavy work. This gap has led to some speculation that Microsoft is intentionally holding the iPad apps back, probably to protect Surface sales.

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Posted Tuesday 7 April 2026 at 5:30 am AEST (my time).

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If you're a heavy user of the Samsung Messages app on your Galaxy watch, smartphone, or tablet, there's some bad news: Samsung is killing the app by July 2026. After that date, the application will no longer send or receive standard messages, except for emergency service numbers or emergency contacts defined in your device. The company is actively advising users to switch to Google Messages.

In its End of Service announcement, Samsung said an in-app notification will help guide you through the process of making the switch. For those who want to do it manually you will need to open or download Google Messages from the Play Store. When you first open it, a prompt asks to make it your default SMS app. Tapping that button and selecting Google Messages from the list makes the change permanent.

According to the Korean tech giant, killing its own messaging client is about its commitment to "maintain a consistent messaging experience on Android". The company says that by switching to Google Messages, users will enjoy things like powerful security through AI-powered scam detection and spam filtering.

The switch also brings universal RCS messaging, enabling high-quality media sharing and typing indicators with both Android and iOS users. You will also get expressive AI features powered by Gemini for remixing photos and generating smart replies, along with multi-device connectivity for syncing chats between your phone, tablet, or watch.

That said, users on Android 11 or lower will not be affected by this change. Samsung also noted that Galaxy watches launched before the Galaxy Watch4, which run Tizen OS, will no longer be able to view full message conversation histories in the app. These older watches can, however, still send and read new text messages as they arrive.

Samsung Messages has been the stock client on Samsung phones since the early days of the Galaxy line around 2009/2010. The app got a big upgrade with the launch of One UI in 2019, which introduced its now-famous one-handed focus and pitch-black dark mode.

But by 2021, it was already clear that the app might not be around for much longer as Samsung started making Google Messages the default messaging app out of the box, starting with the Galaxy S21 series. Then in July 2024, the company announced it would stop pre-installing Samsung Messages on newer devices in certain regions, starting with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6. Several months later, the Galaxy S25 series launched entirely without the Samsung Messages app pre-installed.

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Posted Monday 6 April 2026 at 6:44 am AEST (my time).

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Google has announced that it is extending its 64-bit app requirement, which already existed on mobile for several years, to Wear OS. The search giant said that all new apps and app updates that include native code will need to provide 64-bit versions, in addition to 32-bit versions, when publishing to Google Play. Apps that do not comply will be blocked from uploading new versions to the Play Console.

For the time being, Google says that it won’t be changing its policy on 32-bit apps, so it will continue supporting 32-bit devices, but this change does make one wonder how long that will be the case. Google notes that most Wear OS developers have already made the shift and have 64-bit-compliant apps available. If you’ve not complied yet, Google notes that the effort to comply is small.

Many of the apps developed for Wear OS are written in Kotlin and Java, which are non-native. In these cases, you don’t need to make any code changes to target 64-bit devices. However, a dependency or SDK could be introducing native code, so you need to check for this.

To assess your app, you should use the APK Analyzer in Android Studio to check whether your APK or app bundle contains native code. Developers can also look for .so files within the lib folder. For ARM devices, 32-bit libraries are located in the lib/armeabi-v7a, while the 64-bit equivalent is lib/arm64-v8a. For a complete overview of tips for developers, check out Google’s announcement.

Google says that it is announcing these changes now so that developers have a six-month window to bring their apps into compliance before enforcement begins in September 2026. For additional information, you can check out Google’s in-depth documentation on supporting 64-bit architectures.

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Posted Thursday 2 April 2026 at 5:15 pm AEST (my time).

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Samsung released a new free app today called Hearapy, now available for Android devices through the Google Play store, that it claims can reduce the symptoms of motion sickness using just sound.

The app’s functionality is very straightforward. It plays a low 100Hz sine wave tone through a pair of connected headphones for 60 seconds. This is supposed to stimulate the vestibular system – the parts of the inner ear that are responsible for orientation and maintaining balance. The app allows the duration of the tone to be adjusted between 40 to 120 seconds, but a full minute of listening is supposed to provide relief from motion sickeness symptoms like nausea for up to two hours. It can be repeated as needed.

Samsung says the app was inspired by research conducted by Nagoya University in Japan released last year that found specific sound wavelengths helped to reduce “the staggering and discomfort felt by people that were asked to read a document in a moving vehicle.” It’s not a guaranteed cure, however, and the effectiveness may vary based on the headphones you’re using. Samsung recommends pairing the app with its Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, but while Hearapy works with most headphones or earbuds, they need to be able to reproduce the tone at an 80 to 85-decibel volume level for it to be most effective.

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Posted Wednesday 1 April 2026 at 6:25 am AEST (my time).

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The Google Pixel 9 walked so that the Samsung Galaxy S26 could run.

Google introduced AI editing tools to Photos slowly. It started with changes to the background — make the sky more blue, or remove crowds of tourists. Things got weird once the company added natural language requests and let you ask for basically any change. There were some guardrails, but in many cases it was easy to prompt your way around them into creating a potentially harmful image of something that never happened — helicopter crashes, smoking bombs on street corners, that kind of thing.

That’s the world Samsung’s updated Photo Assist steps into. At Unpacked in February, the company announced that its suite of AI editing tools in the gallery app on the S26 would add support for natural language prompts. It didn’t offer anything radically different from what you can already do in Google Photos, but the way that Samsung pitched it offered a more explicit departure from reality. Don’t like the shirt you’re wearing in that picture? Use AI to change it! Wish your dog was in the photo with you? Add him! It was a confident step forward into the next phase of “What is a photo?”: Photos are whatever the hell you want them to be.

Now that I’ve used Samsung’s AI photo editing for a while, I have good and bad news. On the positive side, its guardrails seem to be pretty strong. The big red flag words like “dead body” and “fire” don’t work, and some of the workarounds we used when we first tested AI photo editing on the Pixel 9 Pro don’t cut it, either. I couldn’t get it to remove clothing, add drug paraphernalia, or create a crime scene. The edits themselves are also just not very good, which is a pro or a con depending on how you feel. But my main takeaway here is not that Samsung has created a tool for harassment or mass disinformation — there’s Grok for that. No, this is a handy way to sloppify your photos, to somewhat harmless, if distasteful, effect.

Let’s say your job takes you to the Sphere in Las Vegas, where the Backstreet Boys just wrapped up a stretch of nightly shows. But you’re there to cover a tech keynote, so instead of your favorite early 2000s boy band jams, you have to listen to a billionaire talk about token generation. Embarrassing! But your friends don’t need to know. Why not take a picture of the stage and AI the Backstreet Boys into the image? Now your life looks exciting!

 

A CES keynote at the Sphere…

I was surprised at how willing Samsung’s AI tool was when I asked it to make that edit; it even added a graphic with the name of a previous Backstreet Boys tour without being specifically prompted to. But it doesn’t take a discerning boy band fan to spot the slop. It all looks a little too polished, verging on cartoonish, and the Sphere doesn’t look like the Sphere anymore — just a generic concert arena. Samsung adds a little watermark to the corner of the image indicating that AI was used, but that’s easily cropped out. There are also content credentials attached to the manipulated image identifying them as AI, but finding them requires some digging.

If you set the stakes a little lower, the S26’s AI does a more convincing job. I took a photo of my kid inside a space capsule play structure at the Museum of Flight, then prompted the S26 to change the background to make it look like he was in outer space. It actually did a decent job: Earth is visible through the capsule’s “window,” and it made an instrument panel glow. Personally, I find it a little corny, and I’d rather encourage my four-year-old to use his imagination than to show him an AI version of him in space. But it might be to someone else’s taste, and I don’t think there’s any great societal harm if you find this kind of thing to be on the right side of “slop.”

 

 

Regardless of your taste for reimagining photos, Samsung’s AI photo editor just whiffs occasionally. It’s supposed to let you add a subject from a “source” image if you want to AI something into a scene; in reality, this feature is inconsistent at best. I gave it a picture of myself as the source and prompted it to add me to a photo of my kid. It cloned him instead, and put that second version of him in the picture next to him like he’s sitting next to his twin. No thanks!

In less demanding applications, Samsung’s AI editor does much better. It takes care of the kinds of edits that AI is uniquely good at. You can take someone out of the background of a photo or clean up the smeared sauce on the edge of your plate to make your lunch look a little more presentable for your Instagram Story. Do those count as real photos? Should we feel weird about doing these things? I have no idea. That fuzzy area is getting fuzzier by the hour.

 

 

 

•  

 

Take a look at the next photo for an AI jump scare…

It’s kind of a relief that Photo Assist isn’t very good. Even in cases where it followed my prompt reasonably well, there’s a telltale kind of glossiness to its additions that make it easier to spot the fakery. Using Photo Assist also seems to degrade the quality of the whole image, too — the not-AI parts of my edited photos look crunchier, as if they’ve been compressed slightly by the tool. And there’s a weird tendency to overdo things, changing parts of the image that have nothing to do with your prompt. I had it remove people from the background of a photo of my kid holding some ice cream. It did, but it also removed some of the ice cream.

Last year, I asked Samsung’s executive vice president and head of camera, Sungdae Joshua Cho, that deceptively simple question: “What is a photo?” He remarked that was the hardest question he’d had to grapple with in his career. And he’d clearly continued thinking about it, because at a press briefing before this year’s Unpacked, he recalled my question and talked through a PowerPoint slide detailing Samsung’s five core pillars of photography. “Photography is communication,” he said. Now that I’ve seen and tested the AI tools that live right next door to Samsung’s camera app, it makes a kind of sense. If photos are language, a means to telling a story, then what’s the harm in a little embellishment?

Photo Assist’s update for the S26 seems to be designed for these kinds of little white lies, and not the big ones, thankfully. But that invites another question: When is an AI-edited photo acceptable, and when is it slop? Like so many things in a world where computers can ingest and vomit back something resembling human-created work, it boils down to taste. And I think we’re all about to learn our threshold for the taste of slop.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge

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Posted Wednesday 1 April 2026 at 5:48 am AEST (my time).

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iPhone and Android users might be able to make interoperable video calls through their messaging apps — eventually. Last week, the GSM Association (GSMA) announced that the finalized RCS Universal Profile 4.0 standard will let users turn 1-to-1 or group RCS chats into video calls thanks to a feature called Messaging‑Initiated Video Calls (MIVC).

“MIVC will ensure the continuity of the conversation by allowing group members to join an ongoing video call that they could not accept when it started, as well as synchronise MIVC logs within the chat timeline,” the GSMA says. “When implemented, MIVC paves the way for the first natively supported video call experience that’s interoperable across a wide range of devices and networks.”

However, Apple and Google haven’t yet announced support for this feature, so it’s unclear if or when you might be able to turn chats across platforms into a video call right from your messaging app. Apple and Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

RCS Universal Profile 4.0 also supports text formatting, allowing users to add styles like bold, italics, and strikethrough to text in their messages, and it lets users share “higher quality” audio, video, and images.

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Posted Tuesday 31 March 2026 at 5:11 am AEST (my time).

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The launch of the Google Pixel 11 is still months away, but leaked renders shared by Android Headlines may give us an idea of what to expect. Based on the images, the Pixel 11 could come with slimmer bezels than its predecessor, along with a completely black rear camera bar.

The Pixel 10, which launched in September, places its rear camera lenses against a black background, while surrounding its flash with the same color as the body of the phone. Other than these tweaks, it doesn’t look like much else has changed visually between the two phones.

As noted by Android Headlines, the Pixel 11’s rumored 152.8 x 72 x 8.5mm dimensions are nearly identical to its predecessor. The new device is also expected to come with a Tensor G6 processor, a 6.3-inch OLED display, and a MediaTek M90 modem. Last year, a report from Android Authority revealed that the Pixel 11 could come with a more advanced, on-device version of a feature that brightens up videos shot in the dark.

We’ll have to wait a bit longer to see if these changes pan out, as Google will likely launch the Pixel 11 and a potentially thinner Pixel 11 Pro Fold in August.

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Posted Tuesday 31 March 2026 at 5:10 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft-owned SwiftKey keyboard for iOS and Android is about to change how user accounts work. On March 31, 2026, Microsoft will retire SwiftKey accounts as it moves users to Microsoft Accounts. As such, existing users are urged to migrate their accounts or back up their data.

Microsoft notified users that those who use Apple or Google accounts with SwiftKey should connect their Microsoft Account to continue backing up their typing data (custom dictionaries and typing models). If they fail to do so by March 31, 2026, all their data will be permanently deleted.

Connecting a Microsoft Account to SwiftKey will back up your typing data in OneDrive and allow you to browse saved files in a dedicated folder. With OneDrive, Microsoft promises better security, enhanced privacy protection, and easier access across devices. In addition, Microsoft will give you 1,000 Microsoft Reward points.

Of course, you can ignore the change and continue using SwiftKey as is. However, you will not be able to sync your data across devices, as everything will be stored locally and cloud data will be permanently deleted. Before May 31, 2026, you can also go to data.swiftkey.com to retrieve your data.

Microsoft acquired SwiftKey ten years ago, in February 2016. In 2022, the company decided to kill the iOS version of the keyboard, but later that year, SwiftKey returned from the grave. Microsoft resurrected its iOS keyboard citing "popular demand." Since then, the project has had little development feature-wise, and now, Microsoft is effectively forcing users to Microsoft Accounts if they want to continue backing up their data and sync it across devices.

Microsoft has a dedicated support article for SwiftKey sync and backup in OneDrive, which you can check out here.

Via @XenoPanther

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Posted Saturday 28 March 2026 at 5:55 am AEST (my time).

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Vivaldi has just launched version 7.9 for mobile users, dubbing it the “big one.” In this update, iOS finally gets “double-decker” Tab Stacks, while both Android and iOS get the daily image feature that makes your new tab page that much more interesting to look at each day. Also on Android, there are more DeX and Desktop Mode improvements.

Back in 2021, Vivaldi began allowing Android users to create two layers of tabs to keep more tabs a press away. Finally, after five years, it has arrived on iOS, a much more restrictive platform for developers. To use these two-level tab stacks, long-press the New Tab button, and choose “New Tab Stack”. From there, you can choose between two styles of tab stacking: Two-Level or Accordion. You can pick your style by heading to Settings > Tabs > Tab Stacking Style.

If bloating the upper part of your screen with billions of tabs isn’t your thing, then maybe you’re interested in the Daily Image feature. Each day, your Start Page background image will change to make your Vivaldi “feel a little more alive.” For iOS users, this feature includes an extra option to use the Daily Image directly as your wallpaper, keeping your desktop and browser in sync and refreshing each day without any effort on your part. To enable this feature, go to Settings > Start Page > Wallpaper > Use Daily Image. This feature is on iOS and Android.

In iOS, Vivaldi 7.9 makes it easy to import your browsing data from Safari, including bookmarks, passwords, store credit card info, and more. To import from Safari, just go to Settings and then tap “Safari import”. This eliminates the friction from switching to Vivaldi on mobile, which could help the small browser gain more users.

Lastly, on Android only, Vivaldi has continued to refine DeX and Desktop Mode support for Android power users. Desktop Mode on Android turns your phone into a desktop computer when connected to a screen, keyboard, and mouse. In this mode, Vivaldi gives you real tabs and panels for quickly accessing Bookmarks, History, Notes, Translate, and Downloads.

You can grab this latest update via your respective app stores.

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Posted Friday 27 March 2026 at 5:21 am AEST (my time).

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Meta said that after the new updates, users will be able to touch up images in the chat before sharing them with contacts or in groups using Meta AI.

The Writing Help feature enables users to quickly draft a response based on the active conversation, with Meta saying it uses Private Processing to ensure messages are completely private.

"Writing Help is built on top of Private Processing technology, which allows you to leverage Meta AI to generate a response without Meta or WhatsApp ever reading your message or the suggested re-writes," Meta states.

The company says WhatsApp now also helps find large media files in any chat, quickly freeing up space without deleting entire conversations.

Additionally, WhatsApp allows two WhatsApp accounts to be logged in at the same time on iOS (an option that was already available on Android devices), and its chat transfer feature now supports moving message history from iOS to Android (including individual and group chats, call history, channel and community history, and more).

"Now, with just a few taps, your conversations, photos, and videos easily come with you no matter what device you're using," Meta said.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp also introduced parent-managed accounts for pre-teens, a feature that allows parents to decide who can contact them and which groups they can join.

Meta also introduced new WhatsApp anti-scam protections that warn users when behavioral signals suggest an incoming device-linking request may be fraudulent.

These scam defenses were added soon after the Dutch intelligence agencies warned that Russian state-backed hackers had been targeting Dutch government employees in phishing attacks aimed at their Signal and WhatsApp accounts.

In January, Meta also began rolling out a new WhatsApp lockdown security feature designed to protect journalists, public figures, and other high-risk individuals from sophisticated threats, including, but not limited to, spyware attacks.

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Posted Friday 27 March 2026 at 5:16 am AEST (my time).

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Quantum computers are already being explored to solve problems in drug discovery, materials science, and energy that are difficult or impossible for today’s classical supercomputers. At the same time, these systems could potentially break the cryptographic technologies widely used across the industry. As a result, industry leaders and standards bodies have been working on post-quantum cryptography for several years.

Last year, Microsoft announced the general availability of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms in Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11 clients (24H2, 25H2) and .NET 10. Today, Google announced a 2029 timeline to secure the quantum era with post-quantum cryptography (PQC) migration. As part of this migration, Android is receiving PQC enhancements starting in the next Android 17 beta.

Android 17 will come with the following two major PQC improvements:

• Upgrading Android Verified Boot (AVB): The AVB library is integrating the Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (ML-DSA). This provides quantum-resistant digital signatures, ensuring the software loaded during the boot sequence remains highly resistant to unauthorized modification.
• Migrating Remote Attestation: Android 17 begins the transition of Remote Attestation to a fully PQC-compliant architecture under current standards. By updating KeyMint's certificate chains to support quantum-resistant algorithms, devices can securely prove their state to relying parties, maintaining trust in a post-quantum environment.

Apart from the above OS-level improvements, Android 17 will also help developers adopt PQC technologies. For example, Android Keystore will natively support ML-DSA, allowing developers to make use of quantum-safe signatures entirely within the device’s secure hardware. The new PQC SDK will allow developers to use both ML-DSA-65 and ML-DSA-87 in the standard KeyPairGenerator API.

Google also announced that Google Play will allow developers to automatically generate "hybrid" signature blocks that combine classical and PQC keys to sign Google Play apps and games. This will preserve current trust while adding post-quantum defenses to block unauthorized updates in the PQC era.

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Posted Thursday 26 March 2026 at 5:34 pm AEST (my time).

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The UK government has just issued some guidance to the public to help prepare users and businesses for the impending switch off of the 2G mobile network. It comes following the switch off of 3G between 2024 and early 2026, with o2 being the last holdout.

As a bit of background, the government, via regulator Ofcom, is switching off 2G and 3G networks to free up spectrum for 4G, 5G, and soon, 6G. While most readers will likely gawp at the fact that people are still using 2G devices, it is mainly elderly people who are doing so who may not be comfortable with smartphones. There are also some smart devices and personal equipment (medical pendants and fire alarms) that rely on the 2G network.

In its guidance, the government says that the 2G switch-off will take place between 2029 and 2033. It said that 2G-only devices will need to be upgraded to 4G/5G capable devices to maintain connectivity. After the switch-off, you will no longer be able to make voice calls, send text messages, or use data services.

It said that you should look for 4G or 5G on your phone screen while disconnected from Wi-Fi to figure out if your device will be OK after the shut off. If you do have a 4G/5G device, then you should also enable 4G or 5G calling to ensure there are no issues when 2G disappears.

In the UK, when you fallback to 2G connectivity, you usually see an E logo, which stands for Edge. It is also known as 2.75G as it was an improvement over older 2G standards. While you can probably load up very light webpages or send some messages on Messenger over 2G, you can’t get away with much else. Edge was first launched by Orange over 20 years ago in February 2006.

Realistically, most people won’t even notice this switch off, but it will require a small number of people to upgrade their devices. The most annoying effect of this update will be that it makes some medical devices like medical pendants, lift alarms, and fire alarms unusable and these could be more difficult to replace.

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Posted Wednesday 25 March 2026 at 5:22 am AEST (my time).

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Apple is reportedly preparing to bring ads to Apple Maps in the near future. According to a new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the idea of introducing sponsored placements inside the navigation app has been on the company's radar for quite some time. Now, it appears those internal discussions are finally turning into a reality.

The ad system inside Apple Maps is expected to work similarly to the App Store. Instead of displaying traditional banner ads that clutter the screen, the app will probably show sponsored listings. For example, when a user looks for a generic term like a local restaurant or a nearby repair shop, businesses will be able to pay for prominent placement at the top of the list.

Apple Inc. is preparing to introduce advertising in its Maps app, part of a broader push to generate more money from services. An announcement could come as early as this month, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Apple is reportedly looking to introduce ads to Apple Maps as part of its broader strategy to maximize earnings from its services. This means we could see some additional monetization methods, maybe ads, subscriptions, or something else, in other Apple software products in the near future.

We still have no info on when Apple plans to bring ads to Maps, but Gurman believes the ads “will begin appearing inside Maps as early as this summer.”

The decision to introduce ads to a native app might not sit well with some users, but the move is a standard practice in the navigation industry. Google Maps has featured sponsored listings and promoted pins for a very long time.

However, Google Maps still holds a significantly larger share of the market and has more leverage with its audience. People generally mind those ads less because the service is deeply entrenched in their daily routines. We’ll see the eventual effect ads will have on the Apple Maps user base. When rumors about ads inside Apple Maps started circulating, initial user reactions weren't exactly positive.

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Posted Tuesday 24 March 2026 at 10:42 am AEST (my time).

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Samsung has started rolling out support for Apple's AirDrop directly into its Quick Share feature. The update will first be available on the new Galaxy S26 devices in Korea before expanding to other regions, including Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Latin America, North America, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan.

When it lands on your Galaxy device, there will be a dedicated toggle labeled "Share with Apple devices" buried inside your Quick Share settings. Samsung does note that enabling the feature may temporarily disconnect your phone from its current Wi-Fi network.

The "Share with Apple devices" feature on Galaxy comes just a couple of months after Google shocked the world with an update for its Pixel 10 devices that introduced the exact same capability, as long as the receiving iPhone must be set to "Everyone for 10 Minutes."

Google managed to bring support for AirDrop to the Pixel without any official collaboration with Apple by reverse-engineering the closed protocol. The system uses Bluetooth Low Energy to broadcast its presence and scan for available devices in the area. Once a handshake is established, the connection cleverly switches to a high-speed peer-to-peer Wi-Fi link for the actual data transfer.

We do not know exactly how Apple will respond to this bold technical workaround from Google and now Samsung. Fans often tout AirDrop as one of the strongest reasons people stay inside the iOS ecosystem.

But regulators often see the technology as a prime example of Apple's anti-competitive "walled garden" strategy, arguing Apple deliberately closes it off to degrade the experience of using non-Apple devices. In 2024, the European Commission designated Apple a "gatekeeper" under its Digital Markets Act and, several months later, gave the company a strict deadline of the end of 2026 to open up nine specific iOS connectivity features, including AirDrop and AirPlay, to third-party developers and device manufacturers.

Perhaps the reason we're seeing this "AirDrop" arrive on Galaxy and Pixel devices right now is that both companies feel emboldened by the regulatory pressure the Cupertino tech giant is currently facing.

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Posted Monday 23 March 2026 at 5:22 pm AEST (my time).

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Why it matters: Anyone with an iPhone can now be the target of invasive malware that siphons off personal text messages, photos, notes and calendar data.

Driving the news: In the last month, researchers at Google, iVerify and Lookout uncovered two campaigns exploiting iPhone vulnerabilities.

• Earlier this month, Google researchers said they identified a sophisticated iPhone hacking toolkit, called Coruna, originally built for an unnamed government customer that later ended up in the hands of a Chinese cybercriminal group. TechCrunch later reported that defense contractor L3Harris created the spyware for the U.S. government.
• Hackers deployed Coruna on fake Chinese-language crypto and financial platforms, infecting vulnerable iPhones that visited the sites — no clicks or downloads required.
• On the same server, researchers said Wednesday they found another iPhone hacking kit, dubbed DarkSword, that can instantly infect iPhones visiting a specific set of websites, including Ukrainian news and government sites, as part of a so-called "watering hole attack." 

Zoom in: Researchers have linked DarkSword to a Russian-based hacking group, though it's unclear whether the group is tied to a government agency or a proxy cybercriminal gang.

• Once on a device, DarkSword exfiltrates nearly everything, including messages sent from iMessage, WhatsApp and Telegram, location data, phone contacts, call histories, WiFi configurations, browser history and cookies, according to iVerify.
• Although DarkSword itself was targeting visitors to Ukrainian websites, Lookout researchers say its developers left the underlying JavaScript code on the server unobscured, meaning even low-level cybercriminals could copy and reuse the tool for a broader range of targets.

Yes, but: Apple spokesperson Sarah O'Rourke said that the company has already patched the underlying iOS vulnerabilities that the spyware targets through new versions of iOS in recent years.

• Apple also rolled out an emergency software update last week for older devices that aren't able to download newer version of the operating system.
• Apple's Safari is now blocking the malicious URL domains identified in Google's research, she added. 

Threat level: Replicating or acquiring these tools, built on rare and highly valuable iPhone vulnerabilities, was once limited to well-funded government customers.

• State actors have used such tools to monitor activists, journalists and foreign politicians.
• Now, cybercriminals can get their hands on them, lowering the barrier to launching these kinds of attacks and widening the range of potential targets.
• "With the huge influx of investment in commercial spyware vendors, an ecosystem has been created around mobile exploitation that makes these tools, frankly, abundant," Rocky Cole, iVerify's co-founder and COO, told Axios. 

The big picture: Apple has long marketed iPhones as highly secure devices, attracting users who prioritize privacy or need to protect sensitive communications.

• But the recent research suggests the devices might not be as secure as once thought, Cole said. "Every single iPhone user has to worry about this now."
• O'Rourke, the Apple spokesperson, said that Apple devices are designed with "multiple layers of security in order to protect against a wide range of potential threats," and that "Apple's security teams around the world work tirelessly to protect users' devices and data." 

The intrigue: Justin Albrecht, Lookout's global director of mobile threat intelligence, told Axios the actors behind DarkSword likely used a large language model to help develop parts of their hacking kit, based on how some files are named.

 Inside the code used for data exfiltration, one file was simply labeled "DarkSword file receiver," he said.
"No one who's doing any kind of (offensive security) would leave that up there with that name," Albrecht said. "I'm not convinced that this group is even very technically capable." 

The bottom line: Lockdown Mode, Apple's security mode for preventing spyware infections, would have prevented just parts of the DarkSword exploit, according to iVerify, and all of Coruna, which is designed to halt if Lockdown Mode is enabled.

• While there's no foolproof defense against these watering hole attacks, Albrecht recommends keeping devices updated, enabling Lockdown Mode and using third-party mobile security tools.
• "Those are great steps you can take, but unfortunately, there's very little that you can do as a user even to detect it," he said. 
• Go deeper: Researchers uncover possible iPhone spyware campaign inside U.S.

Go deeper:  Researchers uncover possible iPhone spyware campaign inside U.S.

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Google is planning big changes for Android in 2026 aimed at combating malware across the entire device ecosystem. Starting in September, Google will begin restricting application sideloading with its developer verification program, but not everyone is on board. Android Ecosystem President Sameer Samat tells Ars that the company has been listening to feedback, and the result is the newly unveiled advanced flow, which will allow power users to skip app verification.

With its new limits on sideloading, Android phones will only install apps that come from verified developers. To verify, devs releasing apps outside of Google Play will have to provide identification, upload a copy of their signing keys, and pay a $25 fee. It all seems rather onerous for people who just want to make apps without Google’s intervention.

Apps that come from unverified developers won’t be installable on Android phones—unless you use the new advanced flow, which will be buried in the developer settings.

When sideloading apps today, Android phones alert the user to the “unknown sources” toggle in the settings, and there’s a flow to help you turn it on. The verification bypass is different and will not be revealed to users. You have to know where this is and proactively turn it on yourself, and it’s not a quick process. Here are the steps:

• Enable developer options by tapping the software build number in About Phone seven times
• In Settings > System, open Developer Options and scroll down to “Allow Unverified Packages.”
• Flip the toggle and tap to confirm you are not being coerced
• Enter device unlock code
• Restart your device
• Wait 24 hours
• Return to the unverified packages menu at the end of the security delay
• Scroll past additional warnings and select either “Allow temporarily” (seven days) or “Allow indefinitely.”
• Check the box confirming you understand the risks.
• You can now install unverified packages on the device by tapping the “Install anyway” option in the package manager.

The actual legwork to activate this feature only takes a few seconds, but the 24-hour countdown makes it something you cannot do spur of the moment. But why 24 hours? According to Samat, this is designed to combat the rising use of high-pressure social engineering attacks, in which the scammer convinces the victim they have to install an app immediately to avoid severe consequences.

You’ll have to wait 24 hours to bypass verification.

Credit: Google

“In that 24-hour period, we think it becomes much harder for attackers to persist their attack,” said Samat. “In that time, you can probably find out that your loved one isn’t really being held in jail or that your bank account isn’t really under attack.”

But for people who are sure they don’t want Google’s verification system to get in the way of sideloading any old APK they come across, they don’t have to wait until they encounter an unverified app to get started. You only have to select the “indefinitely” option once on a phone, and you can turn dev options off again afterward.

Choice vs. security

According to Samat, Google feels a responsibility to Android users worldwide, and things are different than they used to be with more than 3 billion active devices out there.

“For a lot of people in the world, their phone is their only computer, and it stores some of their most private information,” Samat said. “Over the years, we’ve evolved the platform to keep it open while also keeping it safe. And I want to emphasize, if the platform isn’t safe, people aren’t going to use it, and that’s a lose-lose situation for everyone, including developers.”

But what does that safety look like? Google swears it’s not interested in the content of apps, and it won’t be checking proactively when developers register. This is only about identity verification—you should know when you’re installing an app that it’s not an imposter and does not come from known purveyors of malware. If a verified developer distributes malware, they’re unlikely to remain verified. And what is malware? For Samat, malware in the context of developer verification is an application package that “causes harm to the user’s device or personal data that the user did not intend.”

So a rootkit can be malware, but a rootkit you downloaded intentionally because you want root access on your phone is not malware, from Samat’s perspective. Likewise, an alternative YouTube client that bypasses Google’s ads and feature limits isn’t causing the kind of harm that would lead to issues with verification.

Google says sideloading isn’t going away, but it is changing.

Credit: Google

Google is proceeding cautiously with the verification rollout, and some details are still spotty. Privacy advocates have expressed concern that verification will create a database that puts independent developers at risk of legal action. Samat says that Google does push back on judicial orders for user data when they are improper. The company further suggests it’s not intending to create a permanent list of developer identities that would be vulnerable to legal demands. We’ve asked for more detail on what data Google retains from the verification process and for what length of time.

There is also concern that developers living in sanctioned nations might be unable to verify due to the required fee. Google notes that the verification process may vary across countries and was not created specifically to bar developers in places like Cuba or Iran. We’ve asked for details on how Google will handle these edge cases and will update if we learn more.

Rolling out in 2026 and beyond

Android users in most of the world don’t have to worry about developer verification yet, but that day is coming. In September, verification enforcement will begin in Brazil, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand. Impersonation and guided scams are more common in these regions, so Google is starting there before expanding verification globally next year. Google has stressed that the advanced flow will be available before the initial rollout in September.

Google stands by its assertion that users are 50 times more likely to get malware outside Google Play than in it. A big part of the gap, Samat says, is Google’s decision in 2023 to begin verifying developer identities in the Play Store. This provided a framework for universal developer verification. While there are certainly reasons Google might like the control verification gives it, the Android team has felt real pressure from regulators in areas with malware issues to address platform security.

“In a lot of countries, there is chatter about if this isn’t safer, then there may need to be regulatory action to lock down more of this stuff,” Samat told Ars Technica. “I don’t think that it’s well understood that this is a real security concern in a number of countries.”

Google has already started delivering the verifier to devices around the world—it’s integrated with Android 16.1, which launched late in 2025. Eventually, the verifier and advanced flow will be on all currently supported Android devices. However, the UI will be consistent, with Google providing all the components and scare screens. So what you see here should be similar to what appears on your phone in a few months, regardless of who made it.

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Posted Friday 20 March 2026 at 4:56 am AEST (my time).

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iPhone hacking techniques have sometimes been described almost like rare and elusive animals: Hackers have used them so stealthily and carefully against such a small number of hand-picked targets that they're only rarely seen in the wild. Now a recent spate of espionage and cybercriminal campaigns has instead deployed those same phone-takeover tools, embedded in infected websites, to indiscriminately hack phones by the thousands. And one new technique in particular—capable of taking over any of hundreds of millions of iOS devices—has appeared on the web in an easily reusable form, putting a significant fraction of the world's iPhone users at risk.

Researchers at Google and cybersecurity firms iVerify and Lookout on Wednesday jointly revealed the discovery of a sophisticated iPhone hacking technique known as DarkSword that they've seen in use on infected websites, capable of instantly and silently hacking iOS devices that visit those sites. While the technique doesn't affect the latest, updated versions of iOS, it does work against iOS devices running versions of Apple's previous operating system release, iOS 18, which as of last month still accounted for close to a quarter of iPhones, according to Apple's own count.

“A vast number of iOS users could have all of their personal data stolen simply for visiting a popular website,” says Rocky Cole, iVerify's cofounder and CEO. “Hundreds of millions of people who are still using older Apple devices or older operating system versions remain vulnerable.”

The iPhone-hacking campaign that used DarkSword has come to light just two weeks after the revelation of another, even more sophisticated and fully featured hacking toolkit known as Coruna was found in use by what Google describes as a Russian state-sponsored espionage group and other hacker groups. Although DarkSword appears to have been created by different developers from Coruna, the researchers found that it was used by those same Russian spies. Like Coruna, it too was embedded in components of otherwise legitimate Ukrainian websites, including online news outlets and a government agency site, to harvest data from visitors' phones.

Beyond this Russian spy campaign, according to Google, DarkSword was spotted earlier when hackers used it to compromise the phones of victims in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Malaysia. In the case of the Turkish and Malaysian targets, Google writes in its blog post that customers of the Turkish security and surveillance firm PARS Defense appear to have used the intrusion tool. All of that suggests that DarkSword has already proliferated to several different hacking groups, Google says, and more are likely to adopt it.

In fact, iVerify cofounder and researcher Matthias Frielingsdorf notes that the Russian hackers who most recently used DarkSword in their espionage campaign left the full, unobscured DarkSword code—complete with explanatory comments in English that describe each component and include the “DarkSword" name for the tool—available on those sites for anyone to access and reuse. That carelessness, he says, practically invites other hackers to pick up the tool and target other iPhone users. “Anyone who manually grabbed all the different parts of the exploit could put them onto their own web server and start infecting phones. It's as simple as that,” says Frielingsdorf. “It's all nicely documented, also. It's really too easy.”

WIRED reached out to Apple for comment on the researchers' findings, but the company didn't provide comment. Google declined to comment beyond the blog post it released about its DarkSword findings. WIRED also reached out to PARS Defense via its X account but didn't immediately receive a response.

According to Lookout, DarkSword is designed to steal data from vulnerable iPhones that include passwords and photos; logs from iMessage, WhatsApp, and Telegram; browser history; Calendar and Notes data; and even data from Apple's Health app. Despite the apparent espionage focus of the hacking campaign, DarkSword also steals users' cryptocurrency wallet credentials, suggesting the hackers may have carried out a possible side business in for-profit cybercrime.

Rather than install spyware that persists on users' phones, DarkSword uses stealthier techniques that are more often seen in “fileless” malware that typically target Windows devices, hijacking the legitimate processes in an iPhone's operating system to steal data. “Instead of using a spyware payload to brute force your way through the file system—which leaves tons of artifacts of exploitation that are pretty easy to detect—this just uses system processes the way they're meant to be used,” iVerify's Cole says. “And it leaves far fewer traces.”

That fileless technique also means that a DarkSword infection doesn't persist on a phone after it reboots, Cole says. Instead, it steals data from the phone within the first few minutes after it's hacked—what he calls a “smash-and-grab” approach.

While the Coruna iOS hacking toolkit exposed earlier this month works against iOS versions 13 through 17, DarkSword works against most versions of iOS 18, the previous version of Apple's mobile operating system before the company released iOS 26 last fall. (In fact, DarkSword contains two distinct exploit “chains" that take advantage of different vulnerabilities in earlier and later versions of iOS 18, depending on which one a target device is running.) That means many more phones remain at risk to DarkSwords than Coruna, especially given the relatively slow adoption and unpopularity of iOS 26, which has been criticized for new features such as a “liquid glass” interface some users have complained is overly animated and reduces legibility.

Both Apple itself and StatCounter, which tracks operating system adoption, released numbers last month showing that close to a quarter of iPhone users remain on iOS 18. To update your iPhone, tap Settings, then General, then Software Update. (And you can find steps for limiting liquid glass here.) Both iVerify and Lookout say their security apps also can detect if a phone is compromised with DarkSword in the form they've observed it.

Who created DarkSword remains a mystery. But the researchers who found it agree it almost certainly wasn't built by the Russian hackers who deployed it. They instead suspect a “broker” firm that buys and sells hacking techniques. Aside from the English-language comments in DarkSword's code—probably written to explain its use to a customer—the clearest clue about its origin is its association with Coruna: TechCrunch reported last week that Coruna was created by Trenchant, a subsidiary of US government contractor L3Harris that creates hacking techniques for the US government. Former Trenchant employee Peter Williams pleaded guilty last year to selling the company's tools to a Russian broker firm called Operation Zero, which has since been sanctioned by the US government.

While there's no clear sign that DarkSword was also created by Trenchant or built for use by the US government, its deployment by the same Russian hackers who likely bought access to Coruna suggests that DarkSword, too, may have been sold by Operation Zero or another broker in hacking techniques. (Operation Zero didn't respond to WIRED's request for comment.) Beyond the Russian spies who used it, Coruna was also later used by cybercriminals to steal cryptocurrency from Chinese-speaking victims, an even more reckless use of an iPhone hacking toolkit—and a potential sign that Operation Zero will resell its offerings to any hacker group willing to pay.

The back-to-back appearance of two different, powerful iPhone hacking techniques, possibly both sold by a broker firm with little discretion, suggests an increasingly active market for the resale of exploits that once were considered extremely rare and used only for highly targeted attacks against individual victims.

“People assumed that it was just going to be journalists or activists or maybe an opposition politician that was targeted, and that this wasn't a concern for a normal citizen," says Justin Albrecht, who leads mobile threat intelligence at Lookout. “Now that we see iOS exploits being delivered through an unscrupulous broker, there's a whole market here for this to get to cybercriminals” who will use it with far less discretion.

iVerify's Cole argues that the fact that DarkSword was put to use so brazenly, with no real attempt to prevent its discovery on the sites where it was embedded, also suggests that iOS hacking techniques are now attainable enough on that black market that hackers are willing to use them indiscriminately—even if the result is their exposure.

“If this one gets burned, I'll just go get another one,” Cole says, describing the hackers' apparent thinking. “They know there's more where this came from.”

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You may have heard that leaving your smartphone charging overnight—either plugged in or atop a wireless charger—can damage your battery.

But is it actually harmful or dangerous to do that? Or is this one of those persistent phone battery myths that refuses to go away?

The simplest and most straightforward answer, according to most experts, is that you can leave your smartphone charging all night as long as you are aware of some limitations and details.

The practice of leaving your phone to juice up through the night is not as problematic as it used to be. Starting in 2010, manufacturers have made it customary to integrate power management chips into their designs that choke the power coming in when the battery reaches 100 percent. The first such chips—called power management integrated circuits, or PMICs—began to peep out from the mid-2000s but became standard in phones somewhat later.

When integrated into a motherboard, the PMIC manages things like battery charging, the system's sleep, wake, and power cycle events, and the voltage and current used by the display, processor, memory, and other components. It optimizes all of these things to reduce the overall power consumption and extend the device's battery life. These chips also prevent phones from overheating too much, and they consequently reduce the fire risk to near zero.

It can't do all of that by itself, though. You still need to take care of your battery. The best way to keep batteries from incurring too much wear is to keep the cell charged between about 30 percent and 80 percent. Doing this reduces the thermal and chemical stress on the lithium-ion cells. Apply common sense to this advice; don't always just recharge every night, but mix in some more controlled daytime charging to keep the battery healthy.

And while leaving the phone charging all night is not a problem, it would be good to pay attention to where that charging is taking place. Leaving the phone under blankets, pillows, or near other heat sources increases the temperature and can accelerate battery degradation.

Tips for “Defensive” Charging

The phone's PMIC can really only function properly if you use the phone's original charger or a certified replacement. If you plug into a cheap power supply you bought from an untrusted source, the chip may not be able to perform all of its safety checks.

Specifically, only use chargers with the proper safety certifications. In Europe, the product should have the CE marking, which is a basic requirement to market power supplies in the European Union. In North America, look for the UL mark, which is a third-party safety certification check carried out by Underwriters Laboratories.

Also, make sure the numbers match up. A charger capable of outputting 18 to 30 watts can provide fast charging for most phones, and some newer phones can benefit from a high-end charger of 45 to 65 watts for even faster charging. Check your phone to see what's compatible. Always avoid older chargers offering low power like 1 or 2 amps or less than 5 watts, as well as models with exceedingly high power ratings of 140 to 240 watts, unless your smartphone explicitly supports them, such as the Motorola Edge 40 Pro, which is capable of 125-watt wired charging. Mainstream phones from Samsung and Apple work at much lower thresholds.

We also suggest turning on “optimized charging” features in iOS and Android if you haven't already. This will slow down or postpone overnight charging to keep the phone between 80 and 90 percent for most of the night, only allowing the battery to go all the way to 100 percent toward the time you typically get up in the morning.

It's even better for your battery's health if you have the option to unplug the phone when it gets just above 90 percent. This becomes more important if your phone is more than just a couple of years old, since devices tend to heat up more during charging as they get older.

This story was originally published by WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.

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Posted Wednesday 18 March 2026 at 6:33 am AEST (my time).

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Google is finally rolling out a dedicated bookmarks bar for Chrome on Android tablets and foldables. An integral part of every browsing experience, that’s been present in desktop browsers since day one, will now make searching the web on handhelds more practical.

The new bookmarks bar works, well, like bookmark bars we’re all familiar with. The interface element sits directly below the main address bar and spans the entire width of your display. It populates your saved sites using their recognizable favicons alongside the actual web page names. You can even interact with your saved folders directly within the bar itself. Also, if you long-press a specific bookmark, it will show the full URL.

If you have an excessive number of saved pages, a simple right-facing chevron will appear at the edge of the screen, which you can tap to reveal anything that cannot fit. Tapping the primary bookmarks button will still launch the traditional full-screen browsing menu, which allows for better management of bookmarks.

Google also specifically coded this update to remain hidden on standard smartphones so users do not lose any precious vertical viewing space. But for larger devices, which are naturally used in the horizontal orientation, a bookmarks bar makes much more sense.

The bookmarks bar for Chrome on Android is currently rolling out with version 146 of the browser. To enable the bookmarks bar, go to Settings > Appearance > Show bookmarks bar.

Apparently, there’s a trend with tech giants to bring the most basic features to their well-established product. For example, Microsoft is bringing the ability to pin Edge profiles as desktop shortcuts. All the recent technological breakthroughs, especially in the field of AI, are fine, but it’s the little things like this that keep the user base satisfied.

Source: 9to5 Google

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Posted Tuesday 17 March 2026 at 5:12 pm AEST (my time).

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Apple’s rumored foldable iPhone will come with an iPad-style interface that will allow users to view apps side-by-side, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman also reports that the outer display will be around the size of a small iPhone. The inner display will reportedly come with a wider aspect ratio, similar to Google’s first-generation Pixel Fold, but not foldable flagships currently on the market, like the Pixel Fold 10 or Galaxy Z Fold 7.

Though the updated layout could make multitasking easier, Gurman reports that the folding iPhone won’t run existing iPad apps. Still, Apple is reportedly trying to take advantage of the phone’s larger screen real estate by updating its “core” apps with a sidebar on the left side of the screen. It will also give developers the ability to make the iPhone versions of their eapps more iPad-like, according to Gurman.

The folding iPhone could have a wider inner display, similar to the original Google Pixel Fold.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Instead of using Face ID, Apple’s foldable could integrate Touch ID into the device’s side button, as the “front panel is too thin to accommodate the Face ID sensor array,” Gurman reports. That means in place of the pill-shaped housing for the front-facing camera and Face ID, Apple will reportedly add a small-hole punch camera instead. Gurman has previously reported that the foldable could look like two iPhone Airs stuck together.

Even without the pill-shaped notch, Gurman reports that the folding iPhone will still include Apple’s Dynamic Island feature, which lets users keep tabs on real-time events. The device will also reportedly have two rear cameras and a price tag of around $2,000.

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Posted Thursday 12 March 2026 at 12:30 pm AEST (my time).

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