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MacworldAcross industries, its hard to avoid needing to build your own website once in a while. Most of the time, you have two options: you can learn to code (hard), or you can use something like WordPress and create a website that looks like a million others. Why not try a third option?MaxiBlocks is a WordPress plugin that keeps the familiar parts of building a WordPress site and adds a robust customization toolkit, and you never need to write a line of code. Pick up a MaxiBlocks lifetime subscription for just $59 (reg. $447).This powerful WordPress plugin offers over 2,300 block patterns and 280 page templates, making it easier than ever to build stunning websites without coding. The drag-and-drop interface is intuitive and seamless, letting you focus on creativity rather than technical hurdles. Advanced design options and full Gutenberg integration mean your websites work across devices and look good doing it.MaxiBlocks doesnt just give you templates. It provides a full toolkit, including 14,300 SVG icons and style cards for consistent, professional designs. Whether youre a beginner or an experienced web developer, youll appreciate how effortlessly you can create unique layouts that stand out.Updates and additional assets are included so your designs stay fresh and modern. Its like having a comprehensive design studio built into WordPress.Get a MaxiBlocks No-Code Webpage Builder lifetime pro plan for $59.MaxiBlocks No-Code Webpage Builder: Pro Plan Lifetime Subscription (3 Licenses) $59See DealStackSocial prices subject to change.

MacworldApples AirTag is a compact tracking device that can be attached to personal items to make it easy to find them. Unlike a GPS tracker, which requires cell service and may drain a battery quickly, an AirTag relies on the distributed Find My network of iPhones, iPads, and Macs that hundreds of millions of people around the world carry with them, and uses Bluetooth LE to send a signal to other devices.The concern is that there have been reports of people using AirTags to track others. In response to the early reports of this behavior, Apple added a feature that means if an unknown AirTag is detected near by, you will see an alert on your iPhone. For that reason people are obviously concerned if they see an AirTag has been detected near you alert. Of course its not always malicious. You might have found a device that someone had lost, or a pet with an AirTag in its collar might have taken a shine to you. You might even be the one who has lost their device and wants to know how to use the AirTag to track it down. Whatever your reasons to find an AirTag detected near you we will explain the process below. Apple AirTagRead our reviewAre AirTags safe?While there are a thousand positive and legitimate ways to use an AirTag, unfortunately, AirTags have been used to track people without their knowledge. For example, back in December 2021, the York regional police department in Canada announced that AirTags were being placed in hidden areas of target cars parked in public, and then tracked to the drivers residence, where the cars are stolen while parked in the driveway. In another incident, a woman claimed that she found an AirTag hidden in her wheel well after her iPhone alerted her to an AirTag moving with her. State governments in New York and Pennsylvania have issued warnings about the misuse of AirTags and similar tracking devices.Incidents like this are rare (at the time, York police said there had been five AirTag-involved thefts out of 2,000 in the region). Apple has put some safeguards in place so that an iPhone, iPad, and AirTag provide varying alerts and information if the owner who paired the AirTag with their iPhone or iPad isnt nearby. There are tools built into the iPhone to find and disable AirTags as well as an Android app that will scan for AirTags nearby. This is why you may have seen a warning that an AirTag has been detected near you. These warnings arent restricted to Apple devices: in May 2023, Apple and Google announced a joint initiative to allow Bluetooth location-tracking devices to be compatible with unauthorized tracking detection and alerts across iOS and Android platforms. Read: How to identify unwanted tracking by a compact Bluetooth device.Find the best AirTag accessories, key rings, holders, and bag tags weve tested. Also, read our Guide to the AirTag and find out when the new model is coming out. How an AirTag can track youBecause AirTags dont register proximity except to the owner, the only way it can be used to gather information about you is if it travels with you. An AirTag in your home, office, or classroom wont reveal anything to someone trying to keep tabs. That reduces the surface area of unwanted surveillance because the AirTag has to be in your clothes, wallet, or purse, something else youre carrying, or in a vehicle youre in and using exclusively or at least regularly.If youre traveling regularly through urban and suburban areas or on public transportation, other peoples devices will still pick up and relay location information about any AirTag thats with you. That can include something as innocuous as pulling over to a rest area on a highway, and someone 50 feet away has an iPhone, or even driving on a highway near other people who have iPhones or iPads connected to a cellular network.Bluetooth LEs range is surprisingly long. I found that an AirTag I temporarily placed in my car, parked two flights of stairs down from our ground floor and about 50 feet from the house still provided regular updates about its location via devices I ownednot to mention those of neighbors walking or driving by.Everyones devices participate in relaying secured, privacy-protecting location information about their devices and AirTags unless they opt out of the Find My network. That makes everyone around you a potential participant in tracking you via an AirTag you dont know about.Once the AirTag is in your possession it will relay its location to the owner via the Find My network and other Bluetooth devices. How do you know if you are being tracked by an AirTag?Apple issues alerts to let someone know that theres an AirTag near them that isnt associated with their iCloud account. These alerts happen after some period of time or while youre moving and the AirTag is moving with you.Should an unknown AirTag be tracking you you will see an alert that will state: AirTag Found Moving With You. Apple will invite you to open the Find My app on your iPhone to go through various options to disable the tracking and locate the AirTag, discussed below. (Incidentally, you may also see an alert for other devices moving with you, such as AirPods and other Bluetooth trackers).Apple recognizes that it could be an innocent case of having borrowed an item from someone with an AirTag attached or inside it, so one of the options is to Pause Tracking Notifications. To make sure you will receive an alert like this follow these steps: You will need to have an iPhone or iPad running iOS/iPadOS 14.5 or later. Open the Find My app.Tap the Me tab.Tap Customise Tracking Notifications.Make sure the Allow Notifications slider is green (it should be by default).Via the alert, you can see how long this AirTag has been with you. You can also see a map of the locations where the AirTag has been tracked in your possession, which may give you an indication of where you picked it up. How to find an AirTagLuckily Apple makes it easy to locate an AirTag and find one that is tracking you. Heres what to do if you have seen a warning from Apple that an AirTag is detected near you.One option is to use Apples Find My app to manually scan for AirTags near you using the Items That Can Track Me option in the Items tab.If you have an Android phone, you can also check for unknown AirTags moving with you using the Tracker Detect app. Its far less robust than Apples Find My app and needs to be run manually.1. Play a sound to locate the AirTagYou may find that the tracking AirTag will play a sound once it has been separated from its owner for a time and then moves. This happens after what Apple calls an extended period of time away from its paired iPhone or iPad (the company has disclosed elsewhere that this is three days). After this period, an AirTag makes a beep whenever its moved. If you hear an unexpected beep from something youre carrying or within your vehicle, then its time to engage in the hunt for an AirTag.The audio alert winds up being less useful than one might hope. If a stalker or other person engaged in surveillance can come within range of the AirTag at least every three days, and they know you dont have an iPhone or iPad thats running 14.5 or later, they can reset that counter. The beep thats made isnt ongoing or particularly loud, and it can be muffled without blocking the Bluetooth signal substantially.If you havent heard a beep, or want to hear it again, you can force the AirTag to play a sound. If you have received an alert about an AirTag that is traveling with you and want it to make a sound follow these steps: Tap Apples Alert. Tap Continue. Tap Play Sound. You will have the option to play the sound again. You may find that there is no option to play a sound, in that case, the item may no longer be near you or it may be back in range of its owner. Another reason why you may not be able to find the AirTag is that it may have changed its identifier (which happens regularly). The Bluetooth ID produced by an AirTag, and by all Apple devices that participate in Find My crowdsourcing, changes on a regular basis to avoid becoming a reverse tracking item: if it were persistent, then someone could track your devices based on the anonymous Bluetooth ID. That means that your iPhone or iPad has to notice an AirTag moving with it over a relatively short period of time.Another possibility is that the AirTag speaker has been disabled. After reports of people disabling AirTag speakers, Apple announced that it would add a notification along with the sound on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch it is moving with. Apple also says it will adjust the tone sequence that plays when a user has an unknown AirTag traveling with them to make anunknown AirTag easier to find. In a 2022 firmware update version 1.0.301, Apple tweaked the unwanted tracking sound to more easily locate an unknown AirTag. If you own the AirTag it is easy to locate it using the Find My app on an iPhone or iPad to play an audible sound on the AirTag. As part of macOS 13.1, this feature also came to the Find My app on Macs. 2. Use Precision Finding to find the AirTagAs well as the option to play a sound the alert will also give you the option to use Precision Finding if that is available on your device. Your iPhone would need to support Ultra Wideband via the U1 chip to precisely locate an AirTag, which includes iPhone 11 and later. If Apples Alert gives you the option for directions tap Go and you should see directional arrows pointing you in the right direction and a guide to the distance between you and the device. This should help you locate it. So, for example, if you were trying to find an AirTag in your car you could use Find Nearby and follow onscreen directions to locate the AirTag. It should display distance and direction so you can find the AirTag in your car (although, in this case, it would probably be easier to play the alert sound.)3. Search for the AirTagIf you didnt manage to get it to make a sound and Precision Finding wasnt the answer for you you will need to look for the AirTag. An AirTag (underside)AppleThe first step is to get familiar with what it looks like. If you havent seen an AirTag before,consult Apples site. They have a rounded white top and a silver base, are somewhat larger than an American quarter or a dollar/pound/single unit coin in many countries, and about three to four times thicker. As we mentioned earlier, the AirTag has to be moving with you for Apple to have sent the alert, so look inside things that you have with you when you move around:Check pockets:In clothing, not just pockets but also check inside the lining or anywhere it could have been sewn in. Check bags: Look inside purses, luggage, messenger bags, and other items, unzip and also feel for an AirTag thats been placed or sewn in.Check belongings: Someone could have posted you an item with an AirTag in it. Examine your car:A car may have a number of locations that are unreachable or hard to check. Because an AirTag has as long as a years worth of power, someone might wrap it in cotton (to stifle the beep it may make; see below), slit a fabric seam, slip it in, and sew it back up. Parking your car away from homes and businesses and using a Bluetooth scanner can help you pinpoint if one is in your car.Even if someone doesnt have access to your home, work, school, or vehicle, and you dont receive mail at the address at which you liveyou might use a P.O. box or another persons addresssomeone could ship you an item with an AirTag in it, and when you take that home, they could have your location. If youre in that specific situation, you may need to examine all packages received elsewhere before bringing them home.4. Find the AirTag using a Bluetooth scannerBecause AirTag regularly emits Bluetooth signals that Apple devices can pick up, you can use a simple Bluetooth tracker for iOS or iPadOS to scan the area around you and see if an AirTag is nearby. While these tracking apps cant identify AirTag as suchAirTag changes its Bluetooth ID regularly to avoid being trackable themselvesthe apps give you the lay of the landscape. That includes the names of Bluetooth devices that do label themselves in their broadcasts.BLE Scanneris a limited but free app that provides a list of Bluetooth devices your iPhone or iPad can detect, and offers a mapping feature that roughly sorts them by signal strength into distance away. This is particularly useful if youre checking out whether a car has a hidden AirTag; less so inside when there may be dozens of your own and neighbors devices close enough to register. Regular Bluetooth devices typically identify themselves generically (like my HP OfficeJet Pro 9010 series printer) or specifically, as with the sharing name of your Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, FitBit trackers, and so on.Bluetooth BLE Device Finder(free to download, but $4.99 to unlock needed features) has the advantage of letting you drill down into Bluetooth technical details, which may give additional clues about which devices are legitimate and not.Bluetooth scanning apps can provide cues about unknown devices near you, which may include AirTags.If you can eliminate all known Bluetooth devices, including by powering down equipment that youre unsure of, and whats left has no associated name, it can be worth looking further by hand.How to stop an AirTag tracking youThere are a number of ways you can stop the AirTag from tracking you. Well run through them all below including how to find an AirTag in your car and what to do if there is an AirTag detected near you but you cant find it.1. Opt out of the Find My network While you cant stop other iPhone, iPad, and Mac users from relaying the location of the AirTag, you can at least opt yourself out of the Find My network, though this removes your ability to track your own lost or stolen iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, or an AirTag through this extended network. Earlier versions of iOS and macOS dont include support for the Find My network.In iOS 13 or iPadOS 14 or later go toSettings > Account name > Find My > Find My iPhone/iPad, and disable Find My network.In macOS 10.15 Catalina or later, go to the Apple ID preference pane, select the iCloud link at left, click the Options button to the right of the Find My Mac item, and uncheck Offline Finding or Find My network (the text varies by macOS version).Disabling the Find My network prevents your devices from tracking AirTags or other Find My items and devices near you.2. Get the AirTags serial number and associated phone number If you find an AirTag, you can safely determine more information about it without disclosing to the person who planted it that youve done so. The AirTag includes NFC, useful both for pairing the device initially and for letting any smartphone or tablet with an NFC reader pull up a URL from the device. That includes Android phones and other hardware, as it uses an industry standard for NFC encoding. On following the URL, youre taken to a page that contains the AirTags serial number. That page can also show a phone number set by the owner if they marked it lost. The owner isnt notified in any fashion about the page being loaded, and Apple preserves the owners privacy by providing no direct linkage at all.An NFC transmitter lets you pick up information about an AirTag you discover.However, in the case of unwanted tracking, the serial number may help if you pursue civil action, want to obtain a restraining order, or contact law enforcement. Because AirTag tracking requires device pairing, an iCloud account, and an iPhone or iPad thats logged into the account, anyone actively tracking you is also producing a trail of information stored on their phone, across the cellular network, and in other places.A found AirTag displays its serial number via the NFC link and Apple provides instructions on how to disable it.Apple uses end-to-end encryption to protect the location information sent from an arbitrary device to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, which has to use the Find My app to view it. But the information isnt secured in the same way on the device. Police and national investigators would be able to create a close association of logins and access, as well as prove that an AirTag was paired with a specific iPhone or iPad. This may deter abusers and others somewhat if theyre aware of how easily they can be tracked back.3. Disable the AirTagOnce youve found the AirTag and obtained the information you want from it, you dont need a hammer or rock to disable it. Unlike most of Apples hardware, the AirTag has a removable battery. Use pressure to rotate the AirTags metal underside counter-clockwise (from upper right to upper left).Remove that plate.Then remove the battery.What to do if you are being tracked by an AirTagYou probably know already if youre a candidate for involuntary tracking: someone in your life (or formerly so) or a family member may show up at unexpected times in unexpected places when they have no reason to know youre there. They may comment in person, via email, or otherwise about your activities or whereabouts. Or youre in the middle of or long past a nasty break-up of a relationship or marriage or have broken off contact with a parent or family members.Whatever the case, if youre in need of help, consult one of these U.S.-based services theNational Domestic Violence Hotlineormore specialized resourcesfor victims of domestic abuse, stalking, and other violence listed by theNational Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Local law enforcement, the FBI, or national police in other countries also offer resources.For our recommendations of Mac Antivirus Software that we have tested see: Best Antivirus for Mac 2024: Top Security Software Compared.

Apple has already seized a leadership position with Apple Silicon. Now, it seeks to build a second bridgehead in networking chips so it canmake the 5G chip, the Wi-Fi chip, and Bluetooth chips used inside its devices.Why? Cutting component costs might be part of its calculation, but improving performance, battery life, and the integration of these very different networking components might well yield a greater prize.Apple now aims to introduce the first combined Wi-FI/Bluetooth chip in Apple TV and HomePod mini in early 2025, with the component set to appear in iPhones later next year. Macs and iPads will reportedly gain the new networking component in 2026. Current supplier Broadcom will continue to supply Apple with RF filters and is now working with it on development of AI chips for Apples Private Cloud Compute servers. (Broadcom and Apple also have some relationship ondevelopment of 5G modemsfor Apples devices.To some extent, much of this was known. Apples silicon development teams have been working on multiple chips for use in Apple devices for some time, including M-, A-, S- and R- series chips used in Macs, iPhones, iPads, the Apple Watch and Vision Pro.It also makes the W-series processors that manage Bluetooth and battery use on Apple Watch; the H-series chips (which are more efficient than W-family processors) inside AirPods; and the U-series family of UWB processors. There may be a handful of additional Apple-designed silicon components still in play in some older devices it also made the T-series system management processors in late period Intel Macs.Apple is also amember of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, which defines the Bluetooth standard.Apples big plan?Development takes a lot of investment. Apple now has thousands of highly qualified engineering staffers working on silicon design for its fleet of devices. In Munich, Germany alone, the company nowemploys more than 2,000 peopleand we know it has others working on silicon development at key locations worldwide, including in the UK, where Apple CEO Tim Cook paid a visit this week.All this activity and speculation Intel might try to poach Johny Srouji, Apples senior vice president for hardware technologies represent the degree of investment Apple has been making in this sector.Really, and truly, Apple has gone from zero to hero in processor design since it first invested in PA Semi. These investments mean the company now competes at the top of the silicon design industry and has the processors it needs to design and manufacture devices that just werent possible with other chips, opening doors for new types of hardware, wearables, and various forms of home/enterprise computing.But while it isnt clear how Apple can make a version of Wi-FI and Bluetooth that makes an inherent difference to its customers, the opportunities the project brings to product design seem a little clearer.What benefits does this bring?Thats the strategic benefit of what Apple has done so far in terms of core processor design (CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, etc). Now, Apple seems to want to achieve similar benefits in networking. What form could those benefits take? There are some obvious possibilities:Lower cost components:One way to keep retail costs stable is to control manufacturing costs.Better integration:Think of it as the whole widget approach.Energy use:Better heat dissipation and energy use should make for ever slimmer designs, potentially including the rumored iPhone 17 Slim.Optimization:Better integration should make for improved networking stability.Commodification:Apple gets to augment core networking features with Apple-only additions to benefit users.Licensing:While unlikely, the company might want to license its networking technologies (even on a FRAND basis to improve its hand when negotiating other licenses). It may also want (or be forced) to put a Made for Apple licensing system in place to open up any Apple-only features to third-parties.Innovation:While Apple isnt ready to do so yet, combining networking components on a single chip or even eventually on a single SOC should enable new opportunities, such as improved support for satellite communications. (Satellite is evidently part of Apples vision for networking, as will be HomeKit and biometrically controlled digital key deployments.)Independence:Apple wants to reduce its reliance on third-party manufacturers for strategic components used in its devices.Of course, these are just some of the possibilities. But to my mind, the biggest motivation will be to apply further differentiation to Apples hardware.Thats not going to mean Apple will attempt to sell its devices on the merits of its own Bluetooth chip thats not Apples way. Its approach is to market its products on the basis of the features they bring. I think this means the integration of network services will form the foundation for new hardware features and services somewhere down the line, the most obvious being built-in LAN enhancements and satellite messaging.On the latter, it is interesting just how many of the stories circulating in recent weeks seem to leadtoward satellite, giving me a chance to grab my copy of Eddy RamosBook of Laughsand say that when it comes to Apples future networking silicon adventures, you really should watch the skies. Unless you live inNew Jersey or Oregon, where you may prefer to keep your eyes down to protect your sanity.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

A new premium version of Googles NotebookLM AI assistant is now available to Google Workspace customers.Googleunveiled NotebookLM last year, initially under the name Project Tailwind, and began testing the AI-powered notebook with select users. NotebookLM lets users upload multiple documents and other sources Google Docs, PDFs, audio files and web URLs, for instance that are analyzed by Google language models. Users can then query via a generative AI (genAI) chatbot interface.Google has added several features since NotebookLM was first unveiled, includingAudio Overviews, whichgenerates a podcast-style audio discussionfrom the contents of uploaded documents.A free version of the app has beenavailable to Google Workspace customers since September, and an early access pilot for an enhanced business version of NotebookLM wasannounced in October.Google also announced the launch of its new NotebookLM Plus. This is available to Google Workspace users that pay for the Gemini for Workspace add-on (which starts at $20 per user each month on top of Workspace subscriptions), as well as a standalone version via Google Cloud. Google didnt immediately respond to a request for pricing for the standalone version of the app.The premium version removes some of the usage limitations with the free version. That means five times more Audio Overviews, queries, notebooks, and sources per notebook. There are also customization options for style and tone of user notebooks, and shared notebooks for teams with usage analytics.Google highlighted enterprise-grade protections for business customers: employee uploads and queries entered intoNotebookLM Plus wont be used to train models and are not reviewed by humans, Google said.Your data remains your data and any files uploaded, queries and responses are not shared outside your organizations trust boundary, a Google spokesperson said in a blog post.NotebookLM users get access to a redesigned the user interface, too.From the start, we wanted NotebookLM to be a tool that would let you move effortlessly from asking questions to reading your sources to capturing your own ideas,Steven Johnson, editorial directorforGoogle Labs,saidin a blog post. Today, were rolling out a new design that makes it easier than ever to switch between those different activities in a single, unified interface.Theinterface is organized into three components:asources panel that manages information related to a users project; a chat panel,where you can query the NotebookLM chatbot about the contents of uploaded documents; and the studio panel, where new documents such as study guides, briefing docs and audio overviews, can be created with one click,Google said. Each component can be expanded and resized to help focus on a particular part of the app.Theres also a new feature under development: the ability for a user to interruptan AI-generated Audio Overview conversation mid-flow and ask questions. Using your voice, you can ask the hosts for more details or to explain a concept differently, said Johnson. Its like having a personal tutor or guide who listens attentively, and then responds directly, drawing from the knowledge in your sources.Google noted that NotebookLM will beembedded in Agentspace, a new tool for interacting with AI agents for work tasks.