Two new studies from ChatGPT developer Open AI and MIT show that increased use of the chatbot correlates with increased loneliness and less social time with other people, according to Bloomberg.ChatGPT users in the study also reported feeling increasingly emotionally dependent on the chatbot the more often they used it and they perceived their use as increasingly problematic.The first study followed close to 1,000 people for more than a month with varying levels of experience with ChatGPT. They were either given a text version of the chatbot or one of two voice-based versions, which they used for at least five minutes a day.Some were instructed to have open conversations about anything, while others were instructed to have either non-personal or personal conversations with the service. The researchers reportedly saw no difference in results between text-based and voice-based chatbots.The second study analyzed 3 million user conversations from ChatGPT and surveyed how users interacted with the AI tool. The results show that very few people use ChatGPT for emotional conversations.None of the studies have yet been reviewed by other researchers.

Beneath the hyperbole around Apple Intelligence and intensifying regulation, you might have missed that Apple recently introduced a newMacBook Air equipped with an M4 chip. Its a compelling upgrade to the worlds best-selling laptop, and Ive had time to put it through its paces.Its an important Mac, given that the Air is probably Apples biggest-selling computer. Its journey began back when Apples then-CEO,Steve Jobs drew the first ever model out of a brown paper envelope, stressing the power and portability of the system.We think that this is the future of notebooks. All notebooks will be like this someday, hesaid at that time.He was right, and also wrong, because I dont think theres anything else quite like the MacBook Air at this price.You see, these (from) $999 computers deliver almost equal computational performance when measured in Geekbench 6 to the M1 Max Mac Studio Apple introduced three years ago.I dont know how you see that, but to me, given the extent to which everyone was blown away by just how powerful those Studio Macs were, the fact that you can now put near-equivalent performance under your arm for less than $1,000 should make the M4 MacBook Air popular with consumers and business users alike.Ready for an upgrade?Thats something that matters as Microsoft ends support for Windows 10 later this year, giving lots of PC users a really good opportunity to upgrade to the Mac. Many already areCanalys recently reported that US Mac shipments in Q4 2024 increased 25.9%, year-on-year, even as the PC industry as a whole grew just 5.7%.The Windows refresh cycle provides fertile ground for Apple to target both consumers and businesses that may be open to switching operating systems, Canalys said. The fertility of that ground cannot have been far from Apples mind when it decided to add a 10-core M4 chip to the MacBook Air especially given the speed and energy efficiency that defines the range of every single M-series Mac released. That it managed to reduce the entry-level price by $100 just adds to the appeal.Performance comes at lower costLets roll out the Geekbench 6 benchmarks. They show that,iterationbyiteration, Apple is delivering compelling performance improvements that cement its reputation as the leading PC maker.M1 MacBook Air: 2,346 single-core; 8,356 multi-core.M2 MacBook Air: 2,588 single-core; 9,691, multi-core.M3 MacBook Air: 3,065 single-core; 11,959 multi-core.M4 MacBook Air: 3,833 single-core; 14,871 multi-core.Look at that data.Not only does it illustrate the extent to which Apple Silicon has transformed the Mac, it also shows us just how solid the companys processor development road map has turned out to be. Seeing is believing, and since the first M1 machines appeared, Apple has managed to deliver compelling upgrades on a near-annual basis. It will continue to do so, even as competitors flail in their attempts to catch up on machines that can match Apple on performance, price, and energy consumption.Thanks for the memoryOne big upgrade in this iteration is that Apple doubled the memory inside these systems. Ostensibly to run artificial intelligence in the form of Apple Intelligence, the inclusion of 16GB as the base memory makes for improved performance in everything else you do on your Mac. Dont underestimate the grunt here not only can it handle existing Apple Intelligence operations, but it is plain that once Apple does deliver contextual smarts in Siri, the new Air will be able to handle it, in part thanks to that memory.I also think the combination of a better processor with more built-in memory makes this model a compelling upgrade proposition, even if you are running an M2 MacBook Air, and certainly for M1 users. Of course, if you are using an Intel-based Mac of any kind, then any M-series Mac is a significant upgrade. (You also get a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera for those inevitable video meetings that punctuate most days.)Whats like blue, but not as heavy?Light blue is the new color to show off. Its quite a subtle blue nothing like a sky blue but pleasing all the same. To my mind, its more a blue-tinged silver. But the votes in my house are broadly positive for the new shade, which will no doubt appear in student halls, coffee shops, meeting rooms, and offices near you in the coming months.However, every silver lining comes wrapped up in its very own cloud, and the M4 MacBook Air is no different. The design hasnt shifted one iota its still aluminum, still beautiful, and now features more than 55% recycled content, including a 100% recycled aluminum enclosure. It also means a 13.6-in. display in my test unit, a 2,5601,664-pixel resolution, two Thunderbolt 4, headphone, and one MagSafe 3 port.If you want more display space, youve got it: the M4 Air will run up to two external displays in addition to the built-in Mac display. Once again, this means it can be the heart of all kinds of complex professional tasks; if you want even more performance youll choose a MacBook Pro.So, is this a Pro Mac at a consumer price?Yes, and no. First, it is worth noting that Geekbench currently lists the current M4 MacBook Pro as delivering 3,750 single-core and 14,707 multicores, which basically means the new Air offers close to pro performance, but there are some compromises.Those compromises include a smaller display (compared to a 14.2-in. display), a slightly slower chip with significantly fewer CPU, and GPU cores than in the Pro, less memory and storage upper capacity, and battery life that is four hours shorter. (Youll get 22 hours from a 14-in. M4 MacBook Pro compared to 18 hours from the new Air.)The MacBook Pro also offers much higher memory bandwidth, which means it can handle tougher tasks.The differences basically come down to this: If you are doing computationally intensive work in any profession, youll want to go pro. But if you occasionally need to do something demanding youll be able to achieve it on a MacBook Air, though it might take a bit longer.So, if you have a need for the most robust professional tasks, you should go up the scale, and if you want something thats equal to most challenging tasks, and more than equal for most of the things most people use their computers for, then this is it. It is faster than other PCs in its class with outstanding battery life and speakers smart enough to wrap your ears in a cocoon of spatially balanced sound when you need it.That focus on the user has always been a hallmark of the Air line-up, and the experience of using this one remains just as compelling as it was when that first one jumped out of that brown envelope back in 2010 one of the best in its class.Buying adviceWere running out of superlatives. This is a significant upgrade to an already excellent machine and the addition of an M4 chip just means the worlds best-selling notebook is an even better value than before. I dont believe a PC that offers the combined appeal of these Macs really exists, which means that if you are in the market for a computer upgrade, you should certainly take a look at this. The M4 MacBook Air maintains Apples tradition of notebook excellence.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn, andMastodon.

Non-tech companiestrying out AI agents in the fieldsaid the technology still has a lot ofchallenges to overcome before it can be used practically.Some of the early uses ofagentic AIare in the area of customer service, which was part of a panel discussion at NvidiasGTC conference, held last week in San Jose.The main problem is humans still prefer talking to humans because they dont trust machines, said Cameron Davies, chief data officer at Yum Brands, which includes brands such as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC.The company hopes to get to 100% digital ordering in five years, with agentic AI playing a role, Davies said.Specifically, Yum Brands wants to automate orders at drive-throughs, Davies said. One of the most challenging service jobs is running drive-through windows to take, fill and cash out orders and AI agents could lighten that load.But the main issue isnt technological, Davies said. Whats the greatest challenge in putting this into place, is that nobody wants to talk to a machine right now. And you have to ask yourself why is that the case?Yum Brands is also eyeing AI agents to reduce the cognitive load on human servers and employees. Scripted agents can do the role of upselling and asking about charity donations, Davies said.You do these things, then that person can now focus on being happier, making sure the order is right, getting the change right, etc., Davies said, adding that Yum Brands has been testing agents for back-office and HR functions, with mixed results.Beyond trusting AI systems, compliance and accuracy are concerns for Craig Daniels, the head of Mayo Clinics Smart Hospital and Unbound Project.Healthcare, by its nature, tends to lag other industries in adopting technology; Daniels is looking at the progress of AI agents at companies like Yum Brands to see what works.For Mayo, the challenge is for doctors and patients to gain a high level of trust in AI to assist in diagnosis and treatment. Then they can consider the role of agents in helping doctors and patients.Patients need to trust AI models just as they trust MRI machines without having to worry about the underlying technology, Daniels said.Mayo Clinic is creating its own data platform with anonymous patient information gathered from 61 different healthcare organizations in four continents. For example, one Mayo AI system trained on 7 million electrocardiograms can detect and diagnose heart failure.Theres a point at which we have to trust the model works, Daniels said. It generates novel insights and weve researched and we trust that and were using it with the human to make the final decision. Thats a wonderful advancement.The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will ultimately regulate AI in healthcare through medical-as-a-software device, which will require proven research, Daniels said.More than in other industries, Mayo will require a variety of guardrails be in place to deliver trustworthy results as theres no allowance for AI or agents to hallucinate. Many panelists also mentioned they were still in the process of figuring out those guardrails. We want to be safe, Daniels said.The panelists said that while customer service and chatbots arent new, theyre being revisited in light of the arrival of AI agents.Agents are expected to grow more human-like in reaction and voice, and theyre more flexible. Agents dont follow scripts like chatbots, and depending on the customer, they can connect to other agents to better serve customers.I can make it talk like a person. I can change dialects. I can do those things, and I want to control it, Yum Brands Davies said.Agents wont fully replace people any time soon, as human ingenuity is still required in many areas to supervise AI agents, modify them to be more effective, and be able to verify AI output and results.U.S. Banks first AI agents are augmenting human knowledge to service customers.Human agents for banking, mortgage or investments are subject matter experts that need information at their fingertips; this is where the bank is testing AI agents, said Sumitri Kolavennu, head of AI research and senior vice president at U.S. Bank.Keeping the human-in-the-loop in many [regulated] industries is really paramount, Kolavennu said. We love the advantages and autonomy aspects of AI agents, but we do want to keep the human in the loop.U.S. Bank is testing the effectiveness of agents by seeing how quickly problems are resolved.The biggest thing we are seeing is resolution on first call. When you call, you dont want the agent to say, Let me call you back tomorrow or something like that. Those are some of the things that we are seeing [AI agents] being able to do, Kolavennu said.

When generative AI (genAI) suddenly burst onto the tech scene with the arrival in late 2022 of OpenAIs ChatGPT, companies quickly embraced its potential for automating tasks such answering customer inquiries, handling support tickets, and generating content.A slew of rival chatbots followed ChatGPT. But they tended to be static tools; they didnt learn from user interactions or application integrations. Only their foundational large language models (LLMs) could be trained.Enter agentic AI. By leveraging technologies such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and contextual understanding, AI agents can operate independently, even partnering with other agents to perform complex tasks.Think virtual coworkers able to complete complex workflows, McKinsey & Co. explained in a report. The technology promises a new wave of productivity and innovation.According to the 2025 Connectivity Benchmark Report from Mulesoft and Deloitte, 93% of IT leaders plan to introduce autonomous AI agents within two years and nearly half have already implemented them.Like chatbots, AI agents have existed since the 1960s. However, it wasnt until advances in AI, ML, deep learning, and transformer models (such as GPT-3 and ChatGPT) that they became capable of adapting to tasks and learning from data. That dramatically expanded their use cases.Agentic AI systems typically use a transformer-based LLM as the core, enhanced with reasoning, memory, reinforcement learning, and tool integrations. The LLMs understanding of language allows it to interpret instructions and generate responses.In the simplest terms,an AI agentis the combination of an LLM and a traditional software application that can act independently to complete a task. They can operate autonomously, make decisions, plan, and take actions to achieve specific goals without constant human oversight.This is a way to deliver business value, and I think that is where the focus should be, to think about how youre going to disrupt the business process, said Samta Kapoor, a principal on Ernst & Youngs tech consulting team.For example, if an employee requests vacation time, an AI agent can automate the process of entering the dates into the HR system and ensuring all other systems are aware that employee will be away for the specified time. If the employee changes his or her mind and enters new dates, the agent can reschedule everything in the HR system autonomously. All it takes is a simple set of commands and away the AI agent goes, Kapoor said.AI agents can also autonomously write software code and offer that base code to a developer, who can then review it for accuracy and modify it if necessary. But there are also agents that can perform the code review, as well. And, best of all, it can all be done in seconds, not hours or days.AI-assisted code generation tools are increasingly prevalent in software engineering and, somewhat unexpectedly, have become low-hanging fruit for most organizations experimenting with generative AI (genAI) tools. Adoption rates are skyrocketing, because even if they only suggest a baseline of code for a new application, automation tools can eliminate hours that otherwise would have been devoted to manual code creation and updates.By 2027, 70% of professional developers are expected to be using AI-powered coding tools, up from less than 10% in September 2023, according to Gartner Research. And within three years, 80% of enterprises will have integrated AI-augmented testing tools into their software engineering tool chain a significant increase from approximately 15% early last year, Gartner said.Beyond coding, AI agents are designed to perceive their surroundings, make decisions based on that information, take actions, and sometimes learn and adapt over time to perform tasks autonomously. Reinforcement learning is key to agentic AIs ability to continue to grow in sophistication when performing tasks.If youre playing a game, you either win or lose. If you lose, you go back and evaluate why, and then play again but do it differently, Kapoor said. With agentic AI, there are a very defined set of KPIs that youre asking it to meet, so it would know whether it has met them or not. And then it goes back and it reinforces itself to do this task differently.For agentic AI, decision-making is structured around autonomy and goal-orientation. There is a reward system within agentic AI and this is frequently based on reinforcement learning, where the AI learns to maximize rewards through interactions with its environment, said Arun Gururajan, NetApps vice president of research and data science.The sense-think-act process and agent typesAgentic AI, Gururajan said, follows a cyclical sense-think-act process, which has the following steps:Perception: The system gathers input from its environment and/or the user.Reasoning and Planning: The central brain of the agent, typically a powerful LLM, reasons through the task and generates and evaluates possible actions.Decision-making: Reinforcement learning strategies, often supplemented by human feedback as well as the memory of past interactions, help select the optimal action.Execution: The chosen action is carried out, possibly by calling on internal/external tools via API integrations.Feedback loop: Outcomes are assessed and used to refine future decisions, creating a continual learning process.There are several types of AI agents that can be employed based on the complexity of the task. They include:Reactive agents: These only respond to their environment based on predefined rules. They dont store history or learn from it (e.g., simple game AI). The most basic of agents, theyre used in customer service bots or smart home devices that can adjust themselves automatically.Deliberative agents: These use an internal model and reasoning to make informed, long-term decisions. Theyre used in applications such as autonomous vehicles, supply chain management, and medical decision systems.Hybrid agents: These combine reactive and deliberative approaches for more efficient decision-making. For instance, a robot might react to immediate obstacles and plan its path to a goal simultaneously. Hybrid AI is used in automating business tasks, where reactive agents handle routine actions (e.g., responding to emails) while deliberative agents plan and optimize workflows for efficiency over time.In short, hybrid agents integrate both immediate reaction and thoughtful planning in their decision-making.Traditional AI or predictive AI is often tuned to solve a narrow and specific problem for example, predicting drive failure in storage systems, Gururajan said. Agentic AI is more dynamic; It can adapt, reason and strategize.Imagine, for example, agents managing a data storage system by monitoring dashboards, identifying bottlenecks, predicting failures, and proactively taking action to prevent errors, ensuring system SLAs are met.NetApp, for instance, sets up reward models based on objectives (such as maximizing uptime or minimizing energy use) that combine human preferences, real-time data, and instructions, enabling AI to optimize behavior and improve performance over time, according to Gururajan.Reasoning techniques like Chain-of-Thought prompting, which mirrors human thought, or ReAct prompting help break down tasks and plan actions. Memory modules store context and intermediate results for tasks requiring continuity. Reinforcement learning with human feedback fine-tunes the systems outputs to align with human values. Additionally, tool integrations enable the AI to perform complex tasks beyond text generation, such as web search and interacting with APIs.The growing use of API integrationsAPI integrations with AI agents are currently the pinnacle of use cases. In agentic AI, tools via API integrations allow agents to interact with the real world. When a task requires external information, the agent generates an API call, formats parameters, authenticates, and processes the response to complete the task or take further action.When an agent needs to perform a task that requires external information, such as searching a database, sending an email, executing another ML model, Gururajan said, it generates an API call based on its understanding of the task and the APIs documentation.Executing on an API involves formatting aspects with the correct parameters and authenticating with the API, which in turn, returns data (or performs actions); the agent processes the response and completes the task or takes subsequent actions if needed, Gururajan explained.Looking ahead, there are still improvements needed for agentic AI to mature, such as addressing challenges with API discoverability and adaptation, and dealing with issues such as a lack of standardization and documentation, Gururajan said.Change management also makes it difficult for agents to select the right APIs. And API security and authentication remain crucial, requiring robust protocols and access control to protect sensitive data. Implementing service-level credentials could provide more granular control, such as restricting agents to read-only access or specific actions.There is emerging research involving agents, such as multi-objective optimization, which focuses on solving conflicting task goals using goal-based programming. Additionally, system-level heuristics can be created as general rules reflecting core principles, constraints, or safety measures.Heuristics can be incorporated into the agentic framework by: (a) filtering goals (such as removing goals requiring restricted data), (b) modifying objectives (insuring safety overrides efficiency), and (c) integrating reinforcement learning to weight goals.Looking ahead, theres a need for agents to autonomously create their own APIs for tasks, as most agents currently rely on pre-existing ones. This would be a positive step towards Artificial General Intelligence or AGI, Gururajan said.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge, together with the Alan Turing Institute, Microsoft Research, and the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, have developed a new AI-based weather forecasting system Aardvark Weather that could revolutionize the field of meteorology.Aardvark Weather can apparently provide weather forecasts that are tens of times more accurate, while requiring dramatically less computing power than modern systems. Aardvark is thousands of times faster than all previous methods of weather forecasting, Professor Richard Turner of Cambridges Department of Engineering, who led the research, said in a statement.The AI system achieved this by replacing the entire process of weather forecasting with a single machine-learning model; it can take in observations from satellites, weather stations and other sensors and then generate both global and local forecasts.In the past, a forecast required several different models, each of which relies on a supercomputer and a support team to run. With Aardvark Weather, the same work can be completed in just a few minutes and with a standard desktop computer.The results were published in the journal Nature.

Were now in the century sci-fi writers made their fortunes writing about and hardware manufacturers seem keen to explore new products and processes that make some of those predictions a reality. Just asMinority Reportcomes pretty close to predicting visionOS and Spatial Computing, so too will a whisper ofRingworldbe reflected in the hard but soft metal substance Apple might use in future devices, principally thefolding iPhone.Liquid Metal has been around in the Apple-verse for a long time. Its a zirconium- and titanium-based alloy stronger than steel and more flexible than aluminium; the company has licensed it since around 2010 for use as the SIM card removal tool that looks like it wants to be a paper clip and once found in the box with iPhones. While it doesnt shareallthe same qualities as Larry Nivens Unobtanium used to make the Ringworld space station, it does at least deliver resilience and flexibility and its the latter that matters according to Apple analyst,Ming-Chi Kuo.He says Apple will use liquid metal to make the foldable hinge in the so-far-unannounced or confirmed folding iPhone it hopes to introduce next year.Pour me anotherKuo explains that Apple wants to use the substance to build a folding device that is flatter and more durable than existing devices of its type, as well as having a hardly discernible crease. Bloombergs Mark Gurman has previously told us that Apple really wants to build a fold mechanism that isnt visible when unfolded anddoes not deterioratein use. To achieve this, key iPhone fold components including hinges will be crafted from liquid metal. The analyst predicts Android device makers will soon follow suit, which is good news for exclusive liquid metal supplier, Dongguan EonTec, the analyst said. Apples 21st-century take on a folding device is likely to be thin, like the iPhone 16e, and almost certainly built to the high-end design aesthetic Apple maintains across its product range. It will also have a high-end price to match, which implies this will be the device to slam ostentatiously on the table during board meetings.Et tu, Siri?While the hardware seems to be coming into view, its clear that one essential component isnt yet in place, and thats Siri. Only two weeks ago, Kuo told us Apple wants to position the device as a true AI-driven iPhone, with the power of artificial intelligence artfully combined with the large display. The snag? Siri isnt ready yet, which has made forbig staffing changes within Apples Siri team. Reflecting the strategic importance of AI to Apple, CEO Tim Cook has put Apples best product designers in to sort Siri out, moving former Siri boss John Giannandrea aside to make way for genius engineer Mike Rockwell, who led Vision Pro development. (Giannandrea hasnt left the company, incidentally, but seems to have been given a more limited sphere of responsibility and is no longer reporting directly to Cook, who has lost confidence in his ability to execute on product development.)Apples Game Of Thrones is interesting, but what it truly represents is the importance the company attaches to Siri on iPhones and not just iPhones. Apple has a number of additional products in the pipeline, including a home control device, some of which have allegedly also been delayed due to contextual Siris no-show. In that light, the fact that a folding iPhone is expected to become a poster child for AI on a mobile device depends on what the new Siri team can build.No pressure, then.Whatelse do we know about the folding iPhone? In development intermittentlysince at least 2014, Apples hardware engineers now seem to feel the tech and the time is right for the device. Kuo tells us to expect a 7.8-in. display when unfolded and a 5.5-inch display at rest. Youll have rear and front camera, eSIM,Apples C2 5G modem,and Touch ID as a side button. The device should be as slim as 9mm when closed but isnt expected to appear until next years main iPhone refresh cycle in late 2026. Final specifications will be set in stone later this year. Apple will likely follow this up by developing and optimizing the manufacturing process in preparation for mass production next year.But a lot depends on getting those Siri improvements in place. You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn, andMastodon.

In a strategic move that could reshape the future of computing, Nvidia is establishing the Nvidia Accelerated Quantum Research Center (NVAQC) in Boston, where the worlds of quantum hardware and AI supercomputing will converge to tackle what many consider computings final frontier.The initiative represents one of the most significant corporate investments in quantum computing to date, potentially accelerating the timeline to practical, real-world quantum applications.

When it comes to managing and supporting Apple devices in business and enterprise environments, the most common tool or service that comes to mind is mobile device management (MDM). While MDM is one of the most powerful and necessary tools Apple IT pros need and getting even more powerful with the addition of generative AI it should never be thought of as the only tool.Thats because supporting a fleet of Macs is more complex than doing so with iPhones or iPads.The Mac has been around a lot longer and has traditionally been a much more open device/platform. Users can install software without relying on Apples App Store; its possible to work with the underlying technology with access to tools and the command line; macOS supports scripting and automation in multiple forms; deploying content and apps to Macs can be done in multiple ways, depending on specific needs; and macOS supports multiple user accounts (network user accounts, in particular).In a nutshell, thats a lot to manage. With that in mind, Ive compiled a list of 60 tools yes, 60 across all parts of the Mac environment that could be useful for IT admins, depending on their environment and needs. Apples toolsApple provides a number of important tools for enterprise IT, so lets start with them.Support App Support is an iOS app that walks you through troubleshooting steps for a variety of issues. It also lets you speak or chat with AppleCare. This is aimed mostly at consumers, but still has a place as a worthwhile troubleshooting tool.AppleCare for Enterprise As the name suggests, this is a business focused version of Apples standard AppleCare support and warranty extension service.Disk Utility Built into macOS, Disk Utility lets you view the various volumes and partitions and drives (internal and external) connected to a given Mac. It allows you to edit, reformat and attempt to repair them if theres an issue with a particular device or volume. Its a real workhorse and the first tool to reach for to deal with storage issues.Apple Business Manager Apple Business Manager is the hub for creating and managing users based on an external directory like Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) or Google Workspace. It also is a hub for deploying and managing devices (including for zero-touch deployment), implementing MDM, and managing other deployment tasks. Its use is essentially mandatory.Apple Business Essentials A stripped down version of Apple Business Manager that provides similar user and device management; its intended for smaller organizations.AppleCare Enterprise Is another one where the name says it all. This is a subscription that allows you to get business and enterprise level support, including priority on-site service and next-day device replacement.Activity Manager Preinstalled on all Macs, this app does exactly what it says: it shows you real-time information on the apps and service running on Mac, and allows you to kill processes if necessary.Pkgbuild, productbuild (and hdiutil ) Pkgbuild is a command line utility for creating package files that can be used to deploy apps, settings and content to Apple devices. Similarly, productbuild can create installers focused on a single app with no extraneous content. Hdiutil, on the other hand, allows you to manipulate disk images.Apple Configurator There are two versions of this tool.One runs on Macsand configures multiple Apple device simultaneously, the other isan iPhone version that allows you to quickly enroll Macs in an MDM service.Feedback Assistant As youd expect, this allows you to send feedback to Apple. It also serves a source of major news about new releases, including the full release notes for software updates.Network and directory toolsOne of the chief realities of supporting Apple devices in the enterprise is that they will need to integrate well with tools designed around a Windows-centric mindset. Apple does an excellent job making its products good multi-platform enterprise citizens, but these tools can help fill some gaps.Parallels Mac Management/Microsoft SCCM Parallels Mac Management is a software plug-in that allows users to manage Mac and Windows computers using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). It can also be used to manage Parallels Desktop virtual machines (VMs).NoMAD Short for No More Active Directory, it describes itself as a project to create a macOS menu bar application that provides all the functionality of being bound to AD, and more, without having to be bound.UMAD UMAD (Universal MDM Approval Dialog) is open-source software that provides a custom interface to simplify migrating from one Mac MDM to anotherXcreds XCreds enhances the Mac login window to allow users to login with Azure, Google Cloud, Okta, or any OpenID Connect passwords. XCreds verifies the user identity provider and saves tokens to the user keychain for validation that the cloud password is in sync with the local password.Certificate Request Certificate Request is a utility for macOS that allows you to request and install digital certificates directly from Active Directory. It makes requesting and managing certificates a one-touch process for use in configuring wireless, Mail, VPN, and other services on macOS that require certificates issued by Active Directory.Signing Manager Signing Managerprovides a system for securing code and package-signing certificates, including iOS, macOS, watchOS, and iPadOS app signing without disrupting the current workflow.Diagnostic, maintenance, repair and optimization toolsLike most hardware, Macs and other Apple devices require periodic maintenance to perform at their best and to troubleshoot anyproblems.Atomic This is a tool for examining a Macs on-board RAM and identifying problems with installed memory. Since Apple Silicon uses a unified SOC, this is more often a useful tool for Intel-based Macs.Techtool Pro This is a comprehensive set of tools that support disk/volume repair and testing for underlying hardware problems.Parallels Toolboxis a suite of 50 diagnostic tools for the Mac created by Parallels as an independent product separate from the companysvirtualization and SCCM-integration tools.Disk Drill Disk Drill is a data recovery solution for macOS and iOS.Paragon This is a set of suites/apps designed to detect hardware-induced problems on Apple devices and provide comprehensive disk/volume management beyond whats available in Disk Utility. It also provides for secure data removal as well as iOS device storage management.DiskWarrior For decades, Disk Warrior has remained arguably the best disk and data recovery tool available for techs to use in repair and recovery efforts.Drive Genius Prosofts Drive Genius provides disk monitoring tools as well as storage management and recover options; it can also automate problem and malware detection.DaisyDisk DaisyDisk is a tool for visualizing the current disk usage on Macs; it can help determine whats taking up shard drive pace and what can be removed to reclaim disk space.Clean My Mac MacPaws Clean My Mac is useful for performing all manner of maintenance tasks and fully removing unneeded apps and data to keep a Mac running at its best. It can also be used to troubleshoot problems and prevent some security threats.Clean My Mac for Business The enterprise version of Clean My Mac is designed to accomplish the same tasks as its consumer counterpart but for an entire fleet of Macs. It can be an adjunct to MDM or, for smaller organizations without dedicated IT staff, it can perform several key functions of MDM.Clean My Phone MacPaws Clean My Phone does the same kinds of tasks as Clean My Mac, except on the iPhone.CCleaner CCleaner provides a range of maintenance and support tools that are available for macOS, iOS, and other computing platforms.Disk Clean Pro Available in the macOS App Store, this utility provides automated monitoring and management of storage, file, and image use on a Mac.Mac Cleaner Pro This tool helps visualize, manage and free up storage space on a Mac. Pear Cleaner is the companion app that allows you to do the same on an iOS device.Malware/Threat detection toolsCybersecurity is one of the biggest challenges IT departments face. There was a time (when Apple devices commanded so little market share) that they had security by obscurity because it wasnt worth the effort for malicious actors to target them. Thats no longer the case.Pareto Security Pareto focuses on the small-business market with a non-invasive malware and security threat monitoring where traditional MDM might not be an available option for your small business.Suspicious Package A package management solution that allows you to create, edit and inspect packages.Intego Intego provides a number of different security tools, including malware detection, secure device wipe, network traffic content monitoring, and VPN service.AVG Security AVG is a well-known player in the device and data security management. For Macs, it provides malware-detection tools and additional security features to block potential phising attacks, content blocking and firewall features.Avast Like others on this list, Avast provides malware detection, content filtering, accessory (webcam) blocking, and ad blocking.Norton 360 Norton is a veteran of the cybersecurity battle. One of the most respected enterprise security vendors, it sports a wide range of personal, small business and enterprise security solutions for Apple and other devices.Bit Defender Bit Defender is an anti-malware company focused on the small business (and consumer) markets.Sophos Another veteran of the security crusade, Sophos provides enterprise malware detection.Kanji EDR Kandji is one of the top Apple-specific MDM providers; itsdeveloped a solution that uses AI to monitor device traffic for patterns of malware or a device-based security threat. It can proactively take corrective action, if possible.Remote support toolsRemote access tools are essential in todays IT landscape, particularly as were still in a time when remote work remains at relatively high levels. These tools offer various levels of remote support:Putty;Apple Remote Desktop;HelpWise;TeamViewer;GetScreen; and Apples Face Time.Deployment toolsMunki Munki and its related tools are excellent options for deploying software and packages to Macs in an enterprise environment.MIST Mist is a Mac utility that automatically downloads macOS firmwares and installers.Payload-free Package Creator A tool for creating, inspecting and managing macOS packages.ProfileCreator An open-source macOS app, Profile Creator offers a way to create standard or customized configuration profiles.InstallApplications InstallApplications is an open-source tool that can dynamically download packages for use with InstallApplication. This is handy for DEP bootstraps, allowing you to have a significantly reduced initial package that can easily be updated without repackaging the original.S.U.P.E.R.M.A.N. S.U.P.E.R.M.A.N. optimizes the macOS update experience for businesses.OnboardingtoolsDFU Blaster This tool from TwoCanoes can be used to put a Mac into DFU mode with the press of a single button and restore any version of macOS the Mac system can support.DEP Notify DEPNotify is a small, light-weight notification app that was designed to let your users know whats going on during a DEP enrollment.MDS Also from TwoCanoes, this tool can set up and provision Macs out of the box; it sports zero-touch configuration, similar to whats available with MDM or Apple Business Essentials. It can also manage local storage and Recovery mode/volumes.Backup and restoreErase-install This open -ource script automates downloading macOS installers and optionally erasing or upgrading macOS in a single process.Carbon Copy Cloner The grandaddy of back up, restore and disk cloning, Carbon Copy Cloner from Bombich has been a trusted Mac support tools for decades. CCC Mobile Backup is the iOS sister to Carbon Copy Cloner; it the handles volume management, encryption, verification, and backup versioning.User self-service optionsSelf-service options that allow users to find the answers they need on their own (and that allow IT to communicate directly with users), have become key tools as users have grown more technically literate. Responding this way saves a lot of overhead, and it gives users a safe/curated resource instead of something random they might find by searching Google or asking ChatGPT for help.Hello-IT Hello-IT is a set of self-support apps that can be provided by IT services to end users.swiftDialog Another open-source tool, swiftDialog creates user-focused messaging and notifications.Virtualization toolsVirtualization is at a crossroads on macOS at the moment. Intel Macs could easily virtualize Windows to run Mac and Windows apps side by side. But Apple Silicon Macs, since they arent x86-based, pose problems. Its possible to virtualize the ARM version of Windows and Parallels has announced an emulation feature to run x86 Windows versions, but the feature is in an early beta state at the moment.Virtualization can also be used to create macOS VMs for testing and related purposes. This ability continues on Apple Silicon, but there are some limitations, particularly if you need to virtualize older macOS versions.VirtualBox VirtualBox is Oracles free virtualization tool. It isnt anywhere nearly as full featured as other options, but it avoids potential costs. There are preview builds of the software for Apple Silicon, but they currently only support running ARM-based Linux distributions.Parallels Desktop Parallels makes the premier virtualization software for macOS and has even been named an authorized and trusted solution by Microsoft. The company offers various versions of Parallels Desktop, including Pro, Business and Enterprise editions that deliver varying feature sets and remote deployment and management of VMs in a business or enterprise environment. You can use Parallels to virtualize ARM versions of Windows with, as mentioned, support for x86 versions a work in progress.VMWare Fusion Fusions feels like the forgotten middle child of virtualization. It gets more updates than VirtualBox and can run ARM-based versions of Windows and Linux (though not macOS), but its feature set isnt as robust as Parallels particularly for enterprise environments.Ill admit that this list is quite long (and took a while to compile), but every tool here will be useful in some way to many enterprise operations, big and small. The key is to find the tools that you need as an Apple IT Pro and decide which works best in your specific environment.

Signal is standing its ground to protect its apps security, threatening on Wednesday to leave France if encryption backdoor requirements are enacted, just as it said it would do in Sweden.Those hyping this bad law have rushed to assure French politicians that the proposal isnt breaking encryption. Their arguments are as tedious as they are stale, as they are laughable. For those catching up, lets review the basics: end to end encryption must only have two endssender and recipients. Otherwise, it is backdoored, wrote Signal CEO Meredith Whittaker in a post on X. Whatever method is devised to add a third endfrom a perverted PRNG in a cryptographic protocol, to vendor-provided government software grafted onto the side of secure communications that allow said government to add themselves to your chatsit rips a hole in the hull of private communications and is a backdoor.The Signal CEO added: This is why, as always, Signal would exit the French market before it would comply with this law as written. At this moment especially, there is simply too much riding on Signal, on our being able to forge a future in which private communication persists, to allow such pernicious undermining.Whittaker shared similar thoughts when government officials in Sweden last month attempted a similar end run around encryption.Like all legislative bodies, the French legislators are debating various approaches to encryption and its not yet clear whether they will end up demanding an encryption backdoor.But even setting aside the French authorities ultimate decision, Whittakers argument about the cybersecurity disaster that will result from undermining encryption is valid.Communications dont stay within jurisdictional boundaries, which means a hole created in France becomes a vector for anyone wanting to undermine Signals robust privacy guarantees anywhere, Whittaker wrote. Instead of contending with unbreakable math, they only have to compromise a French government employee, or the vendor-provided software used to sideload government operatives into your private chats.This encryption backdoor argument is also hitting many other governments globally. Apple, for example, is currently appealing an encryption backdoor demand from the UK, and the United States is chiding those same UK officials for even trying to demand an encryption backdoor.The underlying issue here is not limited to government encryption backdoors. If either side of an encrypted conversation is intercepted, the same problem occurs. The Ukrainian military, for example, is now fighting an aggressive phishing campaign that plants malware, oftentimes a keylogger, that bypasses the encryption even more effectively than would a backdoor.Endpoint interception has also turned around and bitten the cyber crooks themselves. Europol officials in December stumbled on a cyberthief that cleverly used an app that made messages disappear a few minutes after being read. But, given that experienced thieves know enough to not trust other thieves, one of the recipients screen-captured a discussion about money-sharing with his colleagues. That act made all of his encrypted messages readable for law enforcement.Many issues with backdoors, say analystsAnalysts are concerned about the growing demands for backdoors. Aisling Dawson, digital security industry analyst at ABI Research, saw Whittakers post and said that many government encryption proposals fail to display an understanding of the technical implications of such a backdoor and that these governments face the prospect of increasing numbers of organizations exiting their marketspace, triggering economic losses and reducing the number of security vendors within the ecosystem, or creating the potential for legal and judicial challenges to proposed regulatory action.Dawson also saw the encryption backdoor attempts as dangerous.The use of terms like side-client scanning within these proposals are complicating and perhaps deliberately obfuscating governments intentions with regard to these new proposals which is, at its core, a desire for more backdoors into vendors secure communications, Dawson said. Piercing through vendors cryptographic wall to create a governmental backdoor creates a hole, and it seems fantastical to believe cybercriminals and malicious attackers wont also attempt to exploit that hole.Dawson also argued that there are legal issues raised by backdoors, above and beyond cybersecurity and privacy concerns.Frances proposal raises challenges when it comes to prospective defendants challenging any evidence obtained via surveillance through an encryption backdoor, given that the bill inhibits disclosure of any surveillance operations to defendants, Dawson said. This fundamentally runs against defendants right to hear and challenge evidence placed against them per their ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] Article 6 fair trial rights.Other analysts shared similar concerns.Fred Chagnon, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group, said the encryption backdoor approach being debated by the legislators in France is somewhat different than what some other governments are considering.France wants to take a different approach with a ghost participant, which would allow government entities to silently join encrypted conversations, basically creating a backdoor in real time, Chagnon said. Governments need to engage with these [encryption] providers to find a solution that doesnt fundamentally weaken security instead of pushing for regulations that force companies to break their own encryption.And Anshel Sag, a principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, has more general concerns about the government activities throughout Europe around encryption.I think this is an unsettling trend were starting to see from European governments, the UKs request of Apple being a similar issue. Backdoors are inherently problematic because they simply give bad actors opportunities to take advantage of those backdoors as well, Sag said. Additionally, they create a false sense of security and safety that is no longer there because of the backdoor. Backdoors are simply antithetical to the security and safety that so many of these companies have built their reputations on.

Adobe is working with Microsoft to develop anAI agentthat can generate graphics and design content from within the Microsoft 365 interface.The Adobe Express Agent, still under development, will allow users to create and embed graphics directly within productivity applications such as Word and PowerPoint, according to Aubrey Cattell, vice president for Adobes Creative Cloud Developer Platform and Services.Thecompany touted the moveduring this weeksAdobe Summit, but has not said when the generative AI (genAI) tool would be released; it will ultimately be available to Microsoft 365 customers as a Copilot plugin.Were building it in partnership with [Microsoft] as they kind of build out their strategy for all third-party agents, Cattell said.The agent can create an image for the document, suggest options to generate images, or ask questions. Users can specify within the 365 chatbot interface what images they wantto embed in documents, and the tool will then generate them.Adobe already has a cloud-based Adobe Express app, which uses generative AI (genAI) to create content for documents, flyers, social media posts and resumes. The tool runs in browsers and mobile devices.The Adobe Express Agent is different, as it takes cues from a Word or PowerPoint document and can understand user intent, allowing it to create something thats more visual here to express ideas, Cattell said in an interview.You can draw the context from whats in the document to help you generate something thats more germane, Cattell said.Once users request an image, the agent relies on Adobes Firefly text-to-image and text-to-design generative AI model to create content. For example, users might have a concept of a social media post or an ad campaign, which can be described to the Adobe Express Agent. It would generate that image and you could just drag it right into your document or into your PowerPoint presentation, Cattell said.A basic version of Adobe Express is already available for free. (Adobe has also integrated itinto Wix for website creation, and in Box to store and edit images.)Adobe has also shipped an Adobe Express custom GPT for ChatGPTwhere users can request an image using the conversational interface. But theres an advantage to integrating the agent with the Microsoft 365 interface.Its literally a Copilot to the artifacts that knowledge workers are creating [it] is super powerful and definitely levels us up, Cattell said.She stressed that Adobes platform strategy is to be where our users are in the places where theyre getting work done.Besides creating more engaging content, Adobes tools are designed to be safe, understanding that organizations or creators cant afford oops moments, said Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research.These are truly agentic additions to a workers day, Miller said. For Adobe, agents are interactive, they reason, they are autonomous, they take action. This definition is wildly important, not just for Adobe but for their customers as well.

If you want to understand why making it impossible to encrypt your iCloud data is a huge invitation to organized crime, I have two stories to share. The first involves a surveillance-as-a-service firm getting pwned, the second relates to a new wave of phishing focused malware migrating from Windows to macOS.These twin tales emerge in perfect step tomaniacal government attemptsto insert back doors inside encrypted data, arguing that doing so will make us safer. They wont, of course theyll just make cybercrime easier, particularly for criminals armed with phished credentials who want to insert their own surveillance software inside your unencrypted online data stack.This comprises a perfect storm, a cauldron of misery, all being mixed up and destined to doom users everywhere.Not the first, not the last: SpyXTechCrunchcaught theHave I Been Pwnedstory that a consumer-grade spyware outfit called SpyX was breached last year. The 25thin a series of mobile surveillance-as-a-service firms to be breached since 2017, the company had almost two million records when the breach occurred, including data concerning Apple users.SpyX didnt report the breach when it happened in June 2024, which is why Have I Been Pwned exposed it.What is SpyX? In this particular manifestation, the stalkerware is sold as a service so parents can track their kids. (It is apparently also used by suspicious partners to spy on their significant others.)In the Apple ecosystem, the way SpyX reportedly works is to tap into peoples iCloud backups, where it quietly grabs any of your most personal unencrypted information. While this exploit also requires assailants to get hold of the targets Apple Account data, it is important to note that in the UK government spooks seem to be demanding access without that key.But for surveillance-as-a-service firms, the fact that you cant use Advanced Data Protection to secure iCloud data in the UK makes undermining account security the essential next step.Have you been pwned?The thing is, your Apple Account ID can protect your data from such attacks, which is why you should always use a complex alphanumeric one and never share it.However, as everyone with the even slightest bit of interest in security knows, security is only as secure as the weakest part usually the human using the device.That, in a nutshell, is why phishing attacks are so popular, and why those attacks are becoming more and more sophisticated. Criminals know that if they can find some way to scam your account login details out of you they can jump inside your digital shoebox and grab lots of yummy information about you, your life, even your financial situation.They dont even need to use this data themselves; this stuff sells for good money on the Dark Web. Apples systems are renowned for being secure, which is why Apple IDs were being sold there for$15 a pop back in 2018.Get a MacIf youve been paying attention, you might have noticed that Apple experiencedover 25% growth in Mac sales in Q4 2024, far ahead of the PC industry average, which reflects a growing Mac market share for the company.If market analysts know that, and we know that, then well-resourced criminals are certainly cognizant of this data, which is why theyre moving to Mac. (To be fair, they have been for a while, its just that Windowsseems to be an easier target.)But that gravy train is switching platforms, and so are the bad guys. Cybersecurity firmLayerXrecently identified a new scareware campaign jumping from Windows to Mac. These attacks are basically a phishing attack designed to trick users into entering their credentials into fake Microsoft security alerts served up via compromised websites. The idea is to scare users into sharing their login details.Jaron Bradley, director ofJamf Threat Labs, explained how Mac users should approach this new attack vector. Users should never enter their iCloud credentials outside of the official Apple website. They should also be cautious when encountering flashing warnings that prompt them to call a phone number to resolve a supposed threat. These calls often lead to scammers who promise to fix a fake issue in exchange for a fee and credit card information, he wrote.Open upHes right, because once criminals get your code, they can access your iCloud data (if left unencrypted). They can, in theory, then also infest your iCloud with the kind of scary surveillance software SpyX sells, instantly crafting a backdoor to your digital existence.Rogue nations in which iCloud data cannot be encrypted, (not that we know who they are), leave their populations wide open to such attacks, closing the best door to protect against them. And as these twin tales show, these threats arent even imaginary, theyre already here. Moral of the tale? Perhaps its time to return to on-device iPhone backups and to make use of Apples own tools to encrypt databeforeyou put it in iCloud.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn, andMastodon.

The European Commission has concluded that Googles search service violates the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) by favoring its own products and services at the expense of competitors.The commission also considers the Google Play app store to be in breach of the DMA, partly because fees are too high and partly because developers are not allowed to steer consumers to other distribution channels.Oliver Berthell, Googles competition director, fired back after the decision by writing a post EU competition rules hurt consumers and businesses on the official blog The Keyword.Googles parent company Alphabet now risks fines of up to 10% of its global turnover, equivalent to nearly $35 billion. EU regulators also hit out at Apple in the second of Wednesdays two rulings.

I live in the future, at least as far as language translation technology is concerned.During the past couple of months, Ive spent most of my time in Italy and Mexico. During all that time, I understood Italian and Spanish thanks to theLive Translation feature of my Ray-Ban Meta glasses.Announced in September, Live Translation is based on MetasLlama 3.2 AI modeland is currently limited to US and Canada users enrolled in Metas Early Access Program.The feature translates audible French, Spanish, and Italian into audible English in the glasses and typed English on the app and shows the wearers English translated into the selected language.When I first arrived at the Catania airport in Sicily, I turned on Live Translation by saying, Hey, Meta: Start Live Translation.The first thing I heard using this feature was airport employees directing travelers. They spoke in Sicilian-accented Italian, but I heard: European passport holders please enter this line; all others go here.From that point on, I turned on Live Translation from time to time and was able to understand simple things people might be telling me. In a few cases, I translated my own words into Italian (first speaking in English, then reading the translation in the app in Italian).Its not perfect. It also translates English into English (and sometimes mistranslates English to English). It can fail to translate words spoken nearby. At other times, it will translate words spoken across the room when people are talking to each other, not to me.Ray-Ban Meta glasses also do another neat translation trick. While using Live AI, another Early Access feature, you can look at a sign in a foreign language and ask what it means in English, and it will speak the English translation.Despite the language glitches, this is a clear glimpse of the future for all of us the very near future.Apple AirPodsBloomberg reportedon March 13 that Apple will add live language translation to iOS 19 for AirPod users.According to the report, the users AirPods capture foreign language speech and speak the English translation into the ears of the AirPod wearer. Then, when the user speaks English, the iPhone speaker plays the translation into the foreign language via Apples Translate app.The feature is expected to be announced at Apples Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June and released in the fall.The languages to be supported have not been reported, but Apples Translate app supports 20.And Apple is by no means first to market with language translation earbuds.Google Pixel BudsGoogle has includedlive translation through itsPixel Buds and Pixel Buds Proearbudssince October 2017.The feature does what I described for the Apple AirPods: It delivers translated foreign-language speech through the Pixel Buds while outputting translated English words through the phone speaker. Thats what happens in Conversation Mode. When users switch to Transcribe Mode, they can get a live transcription of the translated foreign language, which is useful for listening to business presentations, attending speeches, or watching movies.The Pixel Buds language translation feature works via the excellent Google Translate app. In Conversation Mode, it supports more than 100 languages; Transcribe Mode, however, only supports four languages: French, German, Italian, and Spanish.Language translation requires an Android device running Android 6.0 or later thats Google Assistant-enabled, including non-Pixel phones. However, if you do have an advanced Pixel phone, the translation gets much better.Compatible Pixel phones (especially models with a Tensor processor) offer Live Translate with text messages, through the camera, in videos, and even during phone calls.A world of translation productsLanguage translation features that go in the ears come in many varieties.The TimeKettle WT2 Edge/W3 is highly rated. It supports 40 online languages and 13 pairs of offline languages, enabling two-way simultaneous translation that eliminates the need for alternating speech patterns. The system achieves up to 95% translation accuracy through its AI platform, according to the company.The Vasco Translator E1 supports an impressive 51 languages and uses 10 different AI-powered translation engines. The system allows up to 10 people to join conversations using the mobile app.The Pilot by Waverly Labs translates the wearers words to others and also translates replies back to the wearers language.Smart glasses that translate are also available.The Solos AirGo 3 Smart Glasses perform real-time language translation via the SolosTranslate platform and OpenAIs ChatGPT.Brilliant Labs Frame AI Glasses are open-source AR glasses that can translate languages seen in the environment, recognize images and provide information about them, and search the internet for results. The glasses use augmented reality to display translations directly in the users field of vision. They integrate with OpenAI, Whisper, and Perplexity technologies.TCL AR Glasses can live-translate conversations, offering an integrated heads-up display for showing the translation.Other form-factors exist, too, including the TimeKettle X1, K&F Concept Language Translator Device, ili Wearable Translator, Vasco Translator E1, TimeKettle WT2 Edge, and Timekettle ZERO Language Translator.All these products demonstrate that the technology for traveling the world and being able to hold conversations, read signs and understand people in foreign languages is already here, and has been for a while.Going mainstreamWhats about to change is the arrival of this feature in totally mainstream products. Something like 100 million people use their Apple AirPods almost every day. Meta expects to sell more than 10 millionRay-Ban Meta glassesby the end of 2026, by which time Live Translation and Live AI will be offered to all users globally.Whats really happening is that were heading for a world in which every wearable speaker earbuds, headphones, smart glasses, and more will give us live language translation on command or even automatically.The worst thing about this emerging trend is that, in the future, far fewer people will bother to learn foreign languages, relying instead on AI.But the upside is that language barriers between people on our planet will be essentially erased, and people will more easily understand one another. Thats got to be a good thing.In the meantime, live translation tech has been a radical and welcome game-changer for me as I travel the world as a digital nomad. Partnering with AI, I can speak foreign languages I never learned.

An industry generative artificial intelligence (genAI) alliance, the AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), on Wednesday announced that xAI, Nvidia, GE Vernova, and NextEra Energy were joining BlackRock, Microsoft, and Global Infrastructure Partners as members. But given that the announcement specified no financial commitments or any other details, analysts doubted it would make much of a difference.Still, even though the massive global momentum behind genAI is unlikely to be changed by the announcement, the addition of the two energy companies to the group was an implicit acknowledgement that the ever-increasing power requirements of genAI data centers need serious attention.Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, said that the massive resources behind this initiative, including Blackrock, which reported in January that it held assets worth $11.6 trillion, making it the worlds largest money manager, can make the difference.

With its latestDigital Markets Act(DMA) action against Apple, the European Commission (EC) proves it is bad for competition, bad for consumers, and bad for business. It also threatens Europeans with a hitherto unseen degree of data insecurity and weaponized exploitation. The information Apple is being forced to make available to competitors with cynical interest in data exfiltration will threaten regional democracy, opening doors to new Cambridge Analytica scandals.This may sound histrionic. And certainly, if you read theECs statementdetailing its guidance to facilitate development of innovative products on Apples platforms youd almost believe it was a positive thing. Gee, you might think, now those no-mark, cheap not-so-smart watches will offer some of the features Apple invented. But the positive spin of a press release puts a gloss over a tide of darkness.What Europe wantsDevice manufacturers and app developers will be provided with improved access to iPhone features that interact with connected devices (e.g. displaying notifications on smartwatches), faster data transfers (e.g. peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connections, and near-field communication) and easier device set-up (e.g. pairing).To force this interoperability, developers will gain improved access to technical documentation on featuresnot yet availableto third parties, timely communication and updates, andamore predictable timeline for the review of interoperability requests.The words, not yet available do a lot of heavy lifting in the above. They basically require that, when developing new features, Apple must also develop those features to be compatible with competitive system for no cost. Thats going to raise the cost of development and slow the introduction of new features in the EU.The specification decisions are legally binding. Apple is required to implement them in accordance with the conditions set out in the decisions,European regulators explained, adding that Apple still has the right to independent judicial scrutiny.I dont know whether Apple will exercise that right, but it should.Seriously, if commissioners really believe this will be good for tech, innovation, or competition across the region, their hallucination shows the extent to which our political classes are utterly disconnected from the reality most of us endure. It is also noteworthy that Apple is the only tech firm these demands are being made of.Europe gives your privacy awayIm not just talking about the notion that Apple must permit sideloading on iPhones and offer support for app services outside of the App Store. Ive almost accepted theres merits to that. There might even be solutions to the dangers it also provides. But in this case, Im looking at a reprehensible set of additional demands being levied against the company in the region.One of the worst of these is that notifications, until now end-to-end encrypted on your devices, will be shared with manufacturers of connected devices in unencrypted form.Ostensibly, that is so manufacturers can work with those notifications and weave them into their own product experiences. But in practice, it means your notifications can be exfiltrated from your device and transported to servers beyond your control.Once that information is out there, it is no longer protected and will give those with access to it (likely including data-mining firms) even closer insight into what you do, where you go, and who you are.Its a measure that absolutely conflicts with GDPR rules, which is why companies with an at-best questionable record on respecting customer privacy such as Metahave been requesting such access. Apple also claims some companies are making interoperability requests that abuse the DMA system.A threat to security?You wont need to dig deep to see how this kind of data was abused before. Now it will be again, this time using more powerful generative AI (genAI) technology to generate insights, results, plans, personalized posts and highly targeted ads.Dont even get me started on how the exfiltration of data could also be used by foreign intelligence services. Im sure the Commission spent time considering that before it decided to carve a massive hole at the heart of privacy and security on the worlds most trusted and secure mobile platform.Why wouldnt the kind of information gathered by data brokers using these connected devices be of use to, say, a hostile intelligence service attempting to track troop or munitions movements?Apple can protect us against this kind of threat, you say?Not under the DMA. Because when it comes to security patches for services/on-device features used by competitors, Apple will need to not only test its patches on its own devices, but on theirs (at its own expense).In some cases, such as when attempting to put a stop to hostile data extraction, third-party developers may complain, Apple will have to investigate, and the complaint may end up on the desk of some European mandarin for final adjudication. As a result, sometimes essential software updates might take days, weeks, or even months to gain approval, leaving customers exposed to abuse in the meantime.Is that what you call security?Thats not Apples fault, either, its how this part of the DMA implementation has been designed.What Apple saidApple isnt at all happy. In a statement, it said: Todays decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apples ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who dont have to play by the same rules. Its bad for our products and for our European users. We will continue to work with the European Commission to help them understand our concerns on behalf of our users.There are several other iniquitous measures contained in Europes flawed judgement. For example, Apple will be forced to hand over access to innovations to competitors for free from day one, slowing innovation. This is going to make product introductions in Europe much slower. The implementation also gives unqualified European officials the power to micromanage what Apple does and what software it gets to release.Its a field day for Apples biggest competitors.It is noteworthy that Apple is the only company to have such demands made of it under so called Specification Tools provided to European regulators under the DMA.What makes this weird is that even though other companies are also subject to the DMAs interoperability requirements, it is only Apple that is being forced to share its innovations. It means Apple must give away its intellectual property to competitors for free even though those competitors are not obliged to follow the same rules. That seems to be an incredibly one-sided application of process that ignores the 250,000+ APIs Apple already offers developers so they can build products on its platforms.Who pays for all of this?You users worldwide will pay for Europes folly. You see, while Apple will now be forced to pay staffers to test software changes across all its own devices and across third-party and competing services and products in Europe, it will not be able to pass on that charge to those competitors.To get some scale to this, Apple already has 500 engineers in Europe working on DMA compliance.The new DMA findings mean it will need to hire even more, and if the competitors arent paying for those people, and Europe is not paying for those people, then it will be you paying for those people.This likely means more expensive Apple products, as Apple users globally are forced to pay to support rules that actually make their digital lives less secure, while also opening up access to their personal information to some of the worst companies in the world.What about business?This affects enterprise users as well. Sure, some companies (particularly one household name) will make billions exploiting this personal information. But others will immediately find themselves struggling with a newly inflated threat environment that means theyll have to, among other things, limit what employees do with the devices they use and put policies and protections in place against casual data exfiltration.Endpoint security, already a challenging space, will become even more difficult to guarantee, as that harmless seeming smart home device with seemingly benign access to your notifications turns out to be sending your notifications and location data to rogue nation states.How does that protect your business? It doesnt.How does that help your business grow? It wont.Better use Lockdown Mode until Europe bans it.State-sponsored failureIve always been pro-Europe. The freedom to move between member states and the opportunity to settle in them was an important benefit for most of my life, until it was thrown away with Brexit. But this new set of European rules absolutely illustrates the dumb decision-making that drove so many in my country to vote to leave the bloc. Its yet another chink in the battle-weary armor of privacy and security. Its yet another in what seems an unyielding series ofstate-mandated enshitificationsthat erode platform security, damage personal privacy, and threaten business and commerce globally, not just in Europe.The effect of this mass data exfiltration is a threat to democracy. The only beneficiaries will be dodgy AI firms trying to monetize your data for their advantage. None of this is good. All of it is wrong. And globally, we are all poorer for it.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn, andMastodon.

Sales of virtual reality (VR) headsets fell by 12% in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to a new report from analyst firm Counterpoint. The decline markers the third year in a row sales have fallen and it is mainly on the consumer side that demand is low.The best performer is Meta, which has a 77% market share, followed by Sony, Pico, DPVR, and Apple.When it comes to Apple, interest in the pricey Vision Pro has increased among business users. But the headset, which went on sale just over a year ago, is still only available in 13 countries and territories.Counterpoint expects demand for VR headsets to remain low this year, though interest in smart glasses with augmented reality (AR) capabilities is expected to increase significantly.

When you receive an email with an invoice, wouldnt it be nice if it automatically saved the file to your finance folder, logged the amount in your tracking spreadsheet, and notified your manager? Thats exactly what Microsoft Power Automate can do, along with a host of other automated actions.Like its competitors IFTTT and Zapier, Power Automate allows business professionals of all stripes to create automated workflows involving a series of tasks across certain applications or services even those from different vendors that send notifications, ask for and offer approvals, and handle rote tasks automatically, with no coding required. The automation tool is part of what Microsoft calls its Power Platform, a suite of AI-enabled and AI-enhanced process automation tools.Power Automate taps into enterprise apps and services via components called connectors. Microsoft offers more than 1,000 prebuilt, certified connectors, and you can build custom connectors to other apps.While anyone with a Microsoft account can use Power Automate for free on a limited basis, business users will need a paid subscription to access key connectors and tools. Power Automate is included with most Microsoft 365 enterprise plans, so you may well already have access to it; if not, separate Power Automate plans start at $15 per user per month.Heres what you need to know to get up and running with Power Automate.In this article:Understanding the basicsGetting startedYour first automation: Email filingAdding AI power: Copilot and AI BuilderMaking your flows reliableThe last wordUnderstanding the basicsOften with a service like Power Automate, you get a bit of the writers staring at a blank page syndrome, where you dont even know where to begin. Whats even possible? Fortunately, Microsoft offers templates that show a bunch of a different possibilities: surf over to its templates gallery to get a sense of what you can do, from saving email attachments in a SharePoint library to recording form responses from a Google Sheet (yes, really!).But the templates are just a starting point. Youll want to write something customized for your own workflows, Im sure. Before we dive into building automations (or flows as theyre called in Power Automate), lets get comfortable with what were working with.Think of Power Automate as your personal digital assistant that can work across your applications. There are three main types of automation you can create:Cloud flows are like having an assistant in the cloud, constantly watching for things to happen in your online apps like Outlook, SharePoint, or Teams. There are actually three types of these cloud flows: automated, instant, and scheduled, which do about what you think theyd do.Desktop flows are like having someone sit at your computer, clicking and typing for you in desktop applications like Excel or specialized business software.Business process flows are more like having a guide that walks you through complex procedures step by step, ensuring nothing gets missed.Each type serves a different purpose, and youll likely use a combination of them as you become more comfortable with automation.Getting startedLet me walk you through setting up Power Automate for the first time. The process is straightforward, but there are a few important details to pay attention to.First, open your web browser and go to microsoft365.com. If youre not already signed in, use your work email and password. Youll know youre in the right place when you see the Microsoft 365 app launcher (a square icon with nine dots) in the top left corner.Click the app launcher; this opens a panel showing all your available Microsoft 365 apps. Dont worry if you dont see Power Automate right away scroll down and look for it. The icon looks like a multicolored right arrow. If you dont see it, use the search bar at the top of the app launcher pane.Click on Power Automate to open it. The first time you open it, you might see a brief tutorial. Feel free to go through it or click Skip if you prefer to dive right in. When the whole app opens, youll see a welcome screen with templates and suggestions.Power Automates Home screen is brimming with suggested flows and tutorials.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryTake a moment to look at the left navigation bar: this is where youll find your flows, templates, and connections later.Your first automation: Email filingYou probably noticed in the previous screenshot that Copilot, Microsofts generative AI tool, is now integrated with Power Automate. That means you can describe an automation youd like to create in natural language, and Power Automate will generate a flow based on your prompt. But Copilot isnt available to all Power Automate users, and its helpful for everyone to know how to build a flow from scratch; thatll make it easier to adjust and improve any AI-generated flows.So, lets start with something everyone needs: automatically organizing emails. Lets assume youre in charge of receiving applications for something at work maybe it is an internship, or perhaps youre running a scholarship program and you are managing the entries. Ill show you how to create a flow that stores files attached to emails in SharePoint and tracks them in a neat, centralized list. This is a perfect first flow because its both useful and teaches several important concepts.From the Power Automate home page, look for the button in the left navigation bar labeled Create and click it. (You can alternatively click My flows first, then look for the New flow button up top.)Youll see several options. For this flow, we want the whole automation to run without us having to start it, so select Automated cloud flow.Choose Automated cloud flow on the left for your first flow.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryThis opens the flow creation wizard. Name your flow Scholarship Applications.Next, you choose a trigger, which is the event that will start your flow. In the trigger search box, type Outlook new email and select When a new email arrives. You will be able to add conditions to make it more specific later.Name the new flow and choose a trigger.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryClick Create to continue. The trigger appears in the middle of a blank canvas in Power Automate.Next, we add steps. The flow executes one step at a time, and each step is an action that the flow will perform once triggered. But first we need to configure the start of our sequence and add a couple of parameters so we can nail down which types of emails were looking for and what about them we want Power Automate to do.Click the When a new email arrives trigger and look at the parameters tab. Youll want to add four important advanced parameters, which youll be able to see in the window by clicking Show all.Adding advanced parameters to the new email trigger.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryYou want to add the following:Include Attachments: set to YesSubject Filter: type in Scholarship applicationFolder: set to Inbox (click the folder icon and select Inbox from the pop-up menu)Then just click back over on the canvas area to save those changes.Lets keep adding actions. Click the + sign below your When a new email arrives trigger, and the Add an action pane appears.Lets add our new action by searching for Create item. It will have the SharePoint logo attached to it to let you know its related to SharePoint Online. Click on Create item to add it to your canvas. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?quality=50&strip=all 936w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?resize=300%2C188&quality=50&strip=all 300w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?resize=768%2C481&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?resize=268%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 268w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?resize=134%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 134w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?resize=767%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 767w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?resize=575%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 575w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-05-add-action-screen.png?resize=399%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 399w" width="936" height="586" sizes="(max-width: 936px) 100vw, 936px">Adding an action after the trigger will tell the flow what to do next.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryNow you can configure the action a little more granularly. You need to give the SharePoint Create item action a couple of parameters, because otherwise it wont know what SharePoint site you want to use for this flow, nor will it know which list to use and augment as new emails and attachments arrive. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-06-configuring-create-item-action.png?quality=50&strip=all 936w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-06-configuring-create-item-action.png?resize=300%2C135&quality=50&strip=all 300w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-06-configuring-create-item-action.png?resize=768%2C345&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-06-configuring-create-item-action.png?resize=150%2C67&quality=50&strip=all 150w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-06-configuring-create-item-action.png?resize=854%2C383&quality=50&strip=all 854w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-06-configuring-create-item-action.png?resize=640%2C287&quality=50&strip=all 640w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-06-configuring-create-item-action.png?resize=444%2C199&quality=50&strip=all 444w" width="936" height="420" sizes="(max-width: 936px) 100vw, 936px">Configuring the SharePoint action item.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryGo ahead and select the SharePoint site you want to use, and then select the list you want for this flow. You might need to go over to your SharePoint site first and create a new list for use with this flow; once you do, it should appear in a drop-down list automatically when you click the List Name field. (It may take a few minutes to show up.) Youll also want to add a text column in your SharePoint list called Message Content this is where the automation will store the body of the email message for you.Youll also want to add a couple of advanced parameters to your Create item action:Click Show all to show the choices.Under Limit Columns by View, select All Items.Under Title, type / (slash) and select Insert dynamic content from the pop-up menu. On the pane that appears to the right, select From under When a new email arrives.Under Message Content, type / and select Insert dynamic content, then select either Body or Body Preview under the Outlook When a new email arrives list in the pane on the right. (Body Preview might not be immediately visible. To find it, type body in the search box up top and it will appear among the options.)Under Content type Id, select Item.Setting up advanced parameters of the SharePoint action item.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryClick the canvas to close the parameters screen and save your changes.Next, we need to add a condition. A condition affects the behavior of an action when another factor is true or false. In this case, we want the condition to say that the next two actions have output from the previous action applied to them specifically, we want the attachment from the new email received to be applied to each of our next two subsequent actions.Click the + sign under the Create item action. On the Add an action screen, search for apply to each and then click the Apply to each option that comes up under Control.Adding an Apply to each control.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryIn the Select an output from previous steps field, type / and select Insert dynamic content, then select Attachments to the right. This tells Power Automate to use the attachment for each of the next actions its going to take.Attaching the attachment to the next actions.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryClick on the canvas to save the Apply to each control. At this point, your flow should look like the figure below. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?quality=50&strip=all 614w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?resize=243%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 243w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?resize=565%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 565w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?resize=136%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 136w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?resize=68%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 68w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?resize=389%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 389w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?resize=292%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 292w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-10-partially-built-flow.png?resize=203%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 203w" width="614" height="757" sizes="(max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px">Our flow now has a trigger, an action, and a condition.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryNext, click the + sign below the Apply to each action and add another action. (This ought to be a pretty familiar routine for you at this point.)Here, we need to get the attachment but we need to use the Outlook Get Attachment and NOT the SharePoint Get attachments. This is a key distinction. So when you search for get attachment, make sure to pick the one in the Outlook subsection.Then, in the parameters section, hit / and choose Insert dynamic content in each field, and add Message Id to the Message Id field and Attachments Attachment ID to the Attachement [sic] Id field. Both of these items are under the Outlook When a new email arrives list in the pane that appears on the right, but they might not be immediately visible. To find them, type the first few letters of each in the search box up top and choose the item from the list that appears.Filling out the parameters for the Get Attachment action.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryClick back on the canvas when youre done to save your changes.Now, for the final action, click the plus sign below the Get Attachment item, search for add attachment, and choose Add attachment from the SharePoint list. Here, you need to add parameters again, which you should be getting used to as well. Youll want to add:Site Address: pick your SharePoint site.List Name: pick the SharePoint list.Id: hit the / key, choose dynamic content, and select ID from the SharePoint list.File Name: hit the / key, choose dynamic content, and then choose Attachments Name from the Outlook list.File Content: hit the / key, choose dynamic content, and then choose either Content Bytes or Attachments Content from the Outlook list.Filling in the parameters for the Add attachment action.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryFinally, click Save in the top right of the overall Power Automate window to keep the flow saved in your account. The final flow should look like this: srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?quality=50&strip=all 629w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?resize=212%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 212w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?resize=493%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 493w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?resize=119%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 119w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?resize=59%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 59w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?resize=340%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 340w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?resize=255%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 255w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-13-complete-flow.png?resize=177%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 177w" width="629" height="889" sizes="(max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px">Our first flow is complete!Jonathan Hassell / FoundryYour flow is now ready to test. Use the Test button to try it out. Youll be asked how you want to test select Manual, and then send yourself an email with an attachment and put scholarship application in the subject line. The flow will report back to you onscreen and show you how long it took to process and what happened at each step.Note: you may receive errors about a duplicate filename. This relates to the fact were not trying to rename individual attachment names when we save them into SharePoint, so if you get a bunch of PDFs from different individuals all called application or something similar, Power Automate is telling you the names are duplicated and it isnt renaming them. This is fine for our purposes, since we are saving the attachments to individual list items, so well always know who theyre from regardless of the filename.Other errors may result from how your specific Microsoft 365 tenant is configured, but you can often find a workaround. For example, using the Body item in the Message Content field in this flow works fine in my tenant, but when my editor tested it in her tenant, the flow failed, flagging item/MessageContent as the source of the error. When she substituted Body Preview in that field, the flow ran flawlessly. So if you hit an error when you start building your own flows, its worth looking for a similar item you can substitute.Youll know the flow is working when you get green arrows at each step. You can also head over to your SharePoint list, and you should see your message added to the list. The email address of the sender will be in the first column, the message body in the second, and then when you click the individual item, youll see the attachments listed there just click on them to open them up.Viewing the final result of the automation in SharePoint.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryVoila! Youve just made your first flow and organized a bunch of stuff out of your inbox into a single place where you can share the load with co-workers.Adding AI power: Copilot and AI BuilderNow lets make things really interesting by adding artificial intelligence to your flows. This is where automation becomes truly powerful, handling tasks that traditionally required human review.In this example, lets ask Copilot to create a flow that automatically processes invoices using AI Builder, a Power Platform feature that creates AI models that automate your business processes. Whats cool about this example is that youre going to build it simply by describing what you want in natural language, and as part of the resulting flow, Power Automate will integrate AI Builder actions, which use generative AI to review and extract information from existing data and then do something with it.Note: Youll need an AI Builder credit allocation or a premium Power Automate license to work with this section.Create a new flow in Power Automate, and then click Describe it to design it. Youll get the following screen as a result:Type in natural language to have Copilot generate a workflow based on your prompt.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryNow, in the large box in the center of the screen, just describe the flow you want to create. Ill give you some language here, which you can either cut and paste yourself into the wizard, or you can change any part of it you like simply by customizing the prompt.Example: When a new invoice file is created in SharePoint, I want to use AI Builder to extract information from the invoices. Specifically, I want to extract the invoice number (highly recommended), date, total amount, vendor information, and line items (if needed). Once that information has been extracted, I want the information to be added to a list in SharePoint, with the AI-extracted fields mapped to list columns, and also including the processing date and status. I also want to send an email to accounting to notify them of the presence of the invoice, and that email should include extracted data in the email body, have the original invoice file attached, and should also have links to the SharePoint entry. I also want some error handling to check if AI extraction succeeded, and if it didnt, I want an email to notify me of the failure and also to create a task for manual review.Once youve got the prompt set, click the arrow at the bottom right of the prompt window to enter it. Depending on how you customized your prompt, youll get something like the following flowchart, reflecting Power Automates interpretation of your prompt:You can take an AI-generated flow and then expand and fine-tune it.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryThats it! You can click Next below the suggested flow and then click each action as we did before to configure the specific SharePoint libraries, lists, and files involved as well as the email contents and bodies.Making your flows reliableReliability is the cornerstone of successful automation. While creating flows is exciting, ensuring that they continue to work flawlessly is what separates effective automation from frustrating setbacks. Let me walk you through how to build robust, dependable flows that you can trust.First, think about error handling as you build your flow. After each major action, take a moment to consider what might go wrong. Maybe an email wont send, a file wont upload, or data wont process correctly. These potential failure points need safeguards.This is where Run after settings become your best friend. You can create an action that responds to what happens during a previous step in the sequence: when the step is successful, when it fails, when its skipped, when it times out, or some combination of the above. Think of this as your flows safety net.For example, you could set up an action that sends you an email notification if a previous action fails, is skipped, or times out. Click the + sign after an action to add a new step. Search for and select Send me an email notification. Type in a subject line for the notification (which could include the Subject line from the original email, via the / key, dynamic content pane) and some body text indicating that the flow did not complete successfully.Next, right-click the new action in the flow and select Run after from the pop-up menu. The actions pane opens to the Settings tab. Scroll down to the Run after section. Youll see the name of the action immediately above it in the flow. Click that action to expand it, then check Has timed out, Is skipped, and Has failed. Uncheck Is successful.If you like, you can add other previous actions to this list by clicking Select actions and selecting the actions you want, then expanding and checking/unchecking the status options under each action. In this way, you can set up a single Run after step for all the previous actions in a flow, or you can create different Run after steps for different actions in the flow. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-17-run-after-actions.png?quality=50&strip=all 936w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-17-run-after-actions.png?resize=300%2C145&quality=50&strip=all 300w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-17-run-after-actions.png?resize=768%2C371&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-17-run-after-actions.png?resize=150%2C72&quality=50&strip=all 150w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-17-run-after-actions.png?resize=854%2C412&quality=50&strip=all 854w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-17-run-after-actions.png?resize=640%2C309&quality=50&strip=all 640w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/power-automate-17-run-after-actions.png?resize=444%2C214&quality=50&strip=all 444w" width="936" height="452" sizes="(max-width: 936px) 100vw, 936px">Setting up Run after actions and options.Jonathan Hassell / FoundryBy setting up Run after responses, youll be prepared when something does go wrong. Set up notification actions to alert you immediately if a step fails. Create incident tickets so your team can track issues. Keep a log of errors in a spreadsheet for pattern analysis. And dont forget about retry logic sometimes a second attempt is all thats needed to succeed.Parallel branches are another powerful tool for reliability. By clicking the + symbol between steps and choosing Add parallel branch, you can create simultaneous operations. This is perfect for running independent processes, maintaining backup procedures, or sending out secondary notifications. Think of it as having multiple backup plans running simultaneously.Finally, lets talk about monitoring your early warning system for potential issues. Create a daily monitoring flow that runs automatically. Have it check your flow history and look for any failures. Set it up to send you a daily digest summarizing whats working and what needs attention. Include success rates so you can spot trends before they become problems.Your monitoring system should also include smart alerts. Set up notifications for critical failures that need immediate attention. Configure warnings when performance starts to slip. Track usage statistics to ensure youre making the most of your automation resources.Remember, reliability isnt about preventing every possible problem its about having systems in place to catch issues early and resolve them quickly. With these practices in place, you can build flows that dont just work today but continue working reliably long into the future.The last wordMicrosoft Power Automate provides a service like Zapier and IFTTT that is well integrated with both Microsoft 365 and many other popular cloud services used by individuals and businesses alike. While Im not exhaustively comparing Power Automate to IFTTT and Zapier, Microsoft shops and especially organizations already in bed with Microsoft 365 may find integrating flows into their daily work easier and more user-friendly.Whatever the situation, using flows can mean the difference between forgetting subtle but critical details in business workflows and having all of your bases covered.This article was originally published in October 2019 and updated in March 2025.

Windows comes loaded with a lot of applications, but to be honest, they arent all thebest. There are better tools out there, and you dont have to spend any money to get them.These are must-have applications I always find myself installing on any new PC theyre all free, open source, and will instantly upgrade any Windows experience. Even better, they can boost your productivity at work or just streamline the way you use your PC at home.Each of these is also lightweight and bloatware-free:No annoying featuresthat get in your way,no ads bothering you, and no heavy application grinding away slowly while you wait for it to open just a collection of useful, community-created tools that respect you and do their jobs well. Now,thisis what PC computing was meant to be.Want more useful Windows apps and PC-related tips?Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Plus, Ill send you free Windows Field Guide downloads as a bonus when you sign up!1. EverythingEverythingis the best file-search tool on Windows, hands down. Unlike the built-in file search feature in the Start menu or File Explorer, Everything finds, well,everything, in aninstant. And while those search results are just for file names, its still an incredibly fast and lightweight way to find anything on your PC. I find it absolutely indispensable.Everything is the best Windows file search tool bar none.Chris Hoffman/IDG2. PowerToys (especially PowerToys Run)Microsoft PowerToysis an incredible collection of tools I recommend to everyone. There areso many useful PowerToysin this package, and many of them feel like upgrades to built-in Windows experiences like the Advanced Paste tool that lets you convert text you copy from Microsoft Word to Markdown formatting as you paste it to FancyZones (which is basically theWindows Snap featureon steroids).But the best upgrade in the package just might bePowerToys Run. Its an alternate launcher for Windows you could use it instead of the Start menu, pressing a key combination (likeWindows+Space) to open it.And, unlike the Start menu, PowerToys Run actually respects your choice of default web browser and search engine, rather than forcing you to use Bing and Edge. Thats reason enough to use it, though it can also do so many other things such as finding notes in your OneNote notebooks, switching to windows by their name, searching your browser history, and more.PowerToys Run is the launcher Windows should include.Chris Hoffman/IDG3. Open-Shell (but Start11 is more polished)Dont like the standard Windows Start menu?Open-Shellis a completely free, open-source replacement that will work well on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.That said, Open-Shell isnt the most feature-filled application.Start11is definitely thebestStart menu replacement if youre willing to spend $10 to $15. (Its the one application Im mentioning here that isnt open source, but its inexpensive and very polished.)Whichever option you choose, you can customize and personalize your Start menu and you wont see ads or forced changes as Microsoft keeps updating Windows and tweaking the menu. Its a great way tomake Windows 11 behave more like Windows 10, too.4. EarTrumpetDo you find yourself adjusting the volume of individual apps? I do especially when participating in online meetings. Windows has this functionality, but it takes a few clicks and some scrolling to find.EarTrumpetmakes it much easier. After installing it, youll get a convenient system tray icon where you can access application volume sliders in just a single click. Simple.EarTrumpet lets you control application volumes in a snap.Chris Hoffman/IDG5. ShareX (or Greenshot for quick screenshots)The Windows Snipping Tool is getting pretty good, especially on Windows 11, where it also has built-in screen recording features. ButShareXis still more powerful and it also brings easy screen recording to Windows 10.ShareX is packed with useful features. It can take a scrolling screenshot of a document, or record a video and save it as an animated GIF. It lets you annotate images and you can even configure it to automatically upload the images you capture to a server when youre done. Its a serious power-user tool for capturing screenshots.Greenshot, another classic screenshot tool, is still a great pick for quick screenshots. However, its no longer actively updated like ShareX.6. Sumatra PDFSumatra PDFis an incredibly lightweight app for viewing PDF files. It launches with lightning fast speed, and its a nice minimal tool. It doesnt include the serious security features Adobe uses to sandbox PDF code, but it doesnt need to. Instead, Sumatra PDF stays secure by refusing to support scripting and other advanced document features that make PDFs more like web pages than traditional documents.In other words: If you want to complete an interactive government form with built-in code, youll want another PDF reader. But if you just want to read a PDF document the old-fashioned way? Sumatra PDF is perfect and fast.Sumatra PDF helps you avoid those PDFs getting lost in a pile of browsers, too. It can even read eBook files!For simple and minimal document viewing, Sumatra PDF is the best.Chris Hoffman/IDG7. NanaZip (or 7-Zip)7-Zipis a classic free file archiver tool a nag-free alternative to WinRAR and WinZip. It can open nearly anything you can throw at it, including RAR files, 7Z files, and TAR files. But 7-Zip is getting a little long in the tooth, and it shows the interface just feels outdated.Thats one reason why I preferNanaZip, which is based on the same underlying 7-Zip code, but offersa more modern interfacethat feels at home on the latest version of Windows. More importantly, NanaZip automatically updates itself, unlike 7-Zip, ensuring youll always have the latest security patches installed without micromanagement.8. Notepad++The classic Notepad application is much too basic. On Windows 11, its more powerful with features such as tabs but it also asks you to sign in with your Microsoft account. Itsweird.Notepad++is a major upgrade. This lightweight text editor has tabs even on Windows 10 and it sports syntax highlighting for programming and scripting. Its useful even if you just need to tweak HTML regularly, like I do, and the Find and Replace feature works well. Plain and simple, its packed with useful features that will come in handy for when you need to work with plain-text files.Notepad++ is the best plain-text editor for Windows PCs.Chris Hoffman/IDG9. Paint.NETMicrosoft is making Paint more powerful, but if I am being honest, it is starting to feel like an AI image generation playground.Paint.NET, on the other hand, is an incredible tool and a secret weapon Ive used my entire career: a completely free, easy, and lightweight way to quickly edit images and screenshots.Paint.NET ispacked with features that Paint doesnt have, and it feels more like a tool for getting image work done.10. VLC media player (and MusicBee)Microsofts bundled Media Player app is fine, butVLC media playeris even better. It can play nearly any type of video or audio file you throw at it no configuration necessary. Its alsojam-packed with useful features, but you dont have to use them. Out of the box, its just a simple, practical media player.And if you still have a local music library?MusicBeeis the best library-style player for managing that MP3 collection.More classic Windows-tweaking appsThere is no need to settle for a PC that doesnt work exactly how you want it sometimes, all you need to take your PC to the next level is knowing where to look for the right apps. For more ways to improve your Windows experience, check out this guide onthe easiest way to install apps on a new Windows PC.Want even more Windows productivity and tweaking tips?Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Ill send you three new things to try each Friday. Plus, youll get free copies of Paul Thurrotts Windows Field Guides as a special welcome gift.

New PCs introduced Tuesday by Dell sport high-powered Nvidia GPUs designed to help workers test AI models before deployment.The new AI PC lineup includes laptops and desktops with Nvidias latest Blackwell Ultra and Blackwell GPUs, which provide the muscle needed to test compute-intensive AI models.AI PCsare designed to run generative AI tools and models more efficiently than standard PCs.These AI developer PCs will make it much easier for developers to prototype, to test and even scale their models into production environments, said Kevin Terwilliger, vice president and general manager for consumer, commercial and gaming PCs at Dell.The announcement coincides with Nvidias rollout of its latest GPU Blackwell Ultra at theGTC conferencein San Jose. The GPU is the successor to the red-hot Blackwell GPU, which racked up $11 billion in sales in the most recent quarter.The Pro Max series of workstations bring hardware previously used in data centers to desktops. These systems will redefine AI developer experiences by really bridging the gap between desk side experimentation and enterprise scale AI deployment, Terwilliger said.The new Pro Max with GB300 packs the tightly coupled Blackwell Ultra GPU and Grace CPU, both made by Nvidia. It includes 784GB of unified system memory 288GB HBM3e memory and 496GB of LPDDR5X memory.Developers can test and prototype AI models with up to 460 billion parameters on the Pro Max with GB300. The system delivers 20 petaflops of performance with the FP4 data type, which is a low-precision measure for inferencing.The Pro Max with GB10 includes Nvidias Blackwell GPU a generation behind the Blackwell Ultra and the Grace CPU. Developers will be able to work with AI models with up to 200 billion parameters on aPC that delivers 1 petaflop of FP4 performance.The systems are slated to be available later this year, include Nvidias DGX Base OS or Ubuntu Linux, and will be preconfigured with Nvidias AI software.Desktop prototyping makes it easy to determine the size and performance of AI models, according to Terwilliger. Once you right size it for the data set, then its appropriate to then scale it into the data center, he said.Some Dell customers need a secure test environment where they can tune some of their own data, said Matt Toolan, a Dell spokesman. For example, customers have tested different digital assistants to determine whether chat capabilities and responses were meaningful and on target, Toolan said.Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, was skeptical about Dells claim of using Pro Max PCs to scale AI models to data centers.Instead, the AI tools more about making the deployments of on-device AI smoother, Sag said. I dont really think PC workloads are really useful for data-center scale deployments. I do believe Dell is uniquely positioned to enable hybrid AI that are entirely on-premise, Sag said.Dell also announced Pro Max laptops with RTX Pro GPUs based on the Blackwell architecture. The company claimed the PCs will be up to 36% faster than the previous-generation Precision PCs.The Dell Pro Max laptops have tandem OLED displays, haptic touchpads, lattice-less keyboards and 8-megapixel IR cameras. The systems come with Intel Core Ultra Series 2 or AMD Ryzen processors, offer screen sizes from 14-in. to 18-in., and will ship later this year.Dell did not provide pricing information for the systems.

AI PCs devices that directly integrate AI capabilities into hardware and software are rapidly taking over the PC market; some analysts have gone so far as to designate 2025 the Year of the AI PC.HP is the latest vendor to join the fray. It announced today at its HP Amplify 2025 partner conference that it has completely redesigned its mobile and desktop computers to meet the demands of mainstream enterprise workers, and its fully revamped portfolio is now populated with AI PCs.The way we work now is more demanding than ever, Cory McElroy, HPs VP for commercial product management, said in a press pre-briefing. The expectations are different. Its not enough that devices work well; we need our devices to anticipate our needs and actually help us through our day-to-day.The new enterprise devices include both laptops and desktops. Heres a brief look at the offerings:ProBook 4 AI PCsThe HP ProBook 4 G1i and ProBook 4 G1a (the i and a indicate whether the device is powered by an Intel or AMD processor) target remote workers and road warriors who, HP said, need to get productive with advanced tech, AI workstyles, and multi-layered security.They offer up to 32GB SDRAM and up to 1TB of storage, with the option to add a second SSD of up to 256GB to the AMD version. Each processor version can be configured with a 14 inch or 16 inch display.EliteBook 6 AI PCsThe EliteBook 6 G1i and EliteBook 6 G1a are designed for frontline professionals and office support staff, HP said, and offer multiple display sizes: 13 inch, 14 inch, and 16 inch screens for the Intel model, and 14 inches or 16 inches for the AMD versions.Although they dont qualify as Copilot+ PCs, they are robustly configured with up to 64GB of DDR5 SDRAM and up to 2TB of storage.Both Intel and AMD models are equipped with enhanced conferencing and collaboration features, including Poly Camera Pro, which now uses the NPU for many of its advanced features to save power.EliteBook 8 AI PCs The EliteBook 8 series offers neural processing unit (NPU) options capable of up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS), qualifying some models to be designated Copilot+ PCs and, HP said, providing up to 224% better power efficiency and 43X faster AI image generation than previous generations without NPUs. The series offers up to 64GB DDR5 memory, up to 2TB of storage, and, as with all of HPs PCs, endpoint security is built in.McElroy pointed to new levels of serviceability and intentional design, as the mobile devices are modular. Once the bottom cover is removed, vertical components such as battery, fans, storage or other key elements can be much more easily removed than in previous traditional designs, he explained, to make it easier for enterprise IT to maintain the devices.HPs desktop series, EliteDesk 8, is now AI-powered as well, and the company also said it is the worlds first business desktop PC portfolio to protect against quantum computer hacks.Further, the new HP EliteStudio 8 AiO G1i is the first commercial all-in-one PC with integrated keyboard-video-mouse (KVM) ability through HP Device Switch, allowing users to control, toggle between, and manage multiple devices via a single console. HP calls it an ideal tool for employees constantly moving around the office.Select models of EliteBook, EliteDesk and EliteStudio also qualify as Copilot+ PCs, making them particularly appealing to enterprise buyers looking to refresh to Microsoft 11. Microsoft has strict requirements for machines designated Copilot+ PCs: They must run Windows 11, have an NPU capable of 40-plus TOPS, at least 16GB of RAM and a minimum of 256GB of solid state drive (SSD) storage or universal flash storage (UFS).An onboard AI CompanionThe new devices come with a built-in AI Companion that can retrieve, filter and summarize files and create content, among other tasks, all without the need for an internet connection.Users can leverage the AI Companion in two ways: In on-device mode, the companion uses a local large language model (LLM) for the most private AI experience or when the user needs to work offline, McElroy explained. Alternatively, they can switch to cloud mode when they need the latest and greatest from industry-leading models online.The companion allows users to snip an image from their screen and use that snip as a prompt. Other new capabilities planned for the spring include what HP called intuitive voice and text commands, and built-in keylogger protection to help keep data secure.When you have the right tools, work doesnt have to feel like work, McElroy noted. By enabling new AI experiences, new ways of working and the ability to do things faster, were powering dynamic change so the entire company can be more productive and fulfilled for their day to day.

If youre looking for an AI PC, why wouldnt you be looking for a Mac?After all, Apples systems are built for privacy and security and, thanks to Apple Silicon, are now quite capable of running big generative AI (genAI) models swiftly in-house and at a fraction of the energy costs of Windows-based systems. While a move to Apple wont suit every company or even every situation, its absolutely true that the platform is aviable one for AI, and has remained so for some time.To understand how viable Macs are for running AI in your business, consider therecently-launched M3 Ultra Mac Studio. Apple made impressive claims for these systems on launch. It told us its highest-end Mac Studio was 16.9 times faster than the M1 Ultra Mac Studio at generating tokens using a large language model (LLM) with hundreds of thousands of parameters. That neat claim was recently put to the test whenYouTuber Dave Leeshowed us that the most highly specified M3 Ultra Mac Studio is capable of running a671-billion-parameter AI model natively on the system at under 200 watts of energy. (He usedDeepSeek RI, of course.)A supercomputer on your bookshelfThats an amazing statistic; it means you can run a powerful genAI models using DeepSeek on a system that fits on a shelf above your desk, which must be a compelling proposition to any enterprise purchaser considering deployment of an in-house self-hosted system for AI. Its even more impressive when you consider that comparable performance on traditional PCs would require multiple GPUs and consume 10 times as much energy.(You might be able to find some way to put together a PC-based cluster to deliver the same kind of performance, but it is arguable that youll still spend the $14,000 youd need to drop to get the most powerful Mac desktop. (In some cases, you might not need quite as much of a system.)What this all means or should mean is that the enterprise landscape is ripe for Apple.After all, the companys devices are private by design, secure by nature, and deliver performance and energy consumption advantages other PCs at the same price points dont match. Not only do they deliver this, but they also have the processor horsepower it takes to run AI natively.If you just need to run smaller AI models, then an M4 MacBook Air also has you covered, allowing most businesses to now consider Mac-based and self-hosted AI deployments for a range of use cases.Apple, the perfect endpoint AI solutionWhile buffeted by bad news elsewhere in its business, the Mac has become a bright star for Apple, thanks to Apple Silicon. While Apple Intelligence might havelet the company down, Apple Silicon has not. That matters quite a lot, given arecent report from IDC Researchclaiming that four-in-five (80%) of PCs sold this year will be AI PCs, though there are some challenges to that.Apple helps meet those challenges, of course. IDCs survey revealed that while nearly all organizations are using or intend to use cloud-based AI platforms, the security and data privacy inherent to these systems remains the biggest challenge to broad deployment, even more than cost.While most business users are looking at the ever-expanding plethora of enterprise-focused cloud-based AI systems, they are really concerned about what happens to their data when shared in the cloud, particularly in regulated industries where compliance matters, such as healthcare.Thats driving many enterprises seeking to deploy AI to search for solutions that let them deploy genAI tools on endpoints self-hosted AI that runs natively on a device they own and have in their own office, in other words.That, of course, is what Apples Macs and certainly its Mac Studio aremore than capableof doing.AI models for the fewTheres a lot more to running AI in business than text summaries, automated writing tools, Microsoft Copilot, or evensuper-smart Webex AI bots; enterprise users are seeking to build or buy their ownbespoke AI packagescapable of learning from their own heavily curated business data and helping them with their business. Thats not software that necessarily comes in a box (digital or otherwise), but is software that, at best for ultimate privacy and security, runs natively on the device. Apple Silicon is more than up to the task. (And you get an annual free OS upgrade of what isarguably the most secure operating system, too.)You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn, andMastodon.

Finding and summarizing information may not sound like the sexiest task for generative AI until you need an article you posted on social media but cant remember the exact word or phrase you used, or you want to answer a quick how-to question without plowing through a lengthy software manual.There are a lot of ways to set up large language models (LLM) to answer queries based exclusively on information you give them. One of the easiest, which involves no coding at all, is to use a service like Googles NotebookLM or ChatGPT Projects.Below Ill take a look at four genAI web platforms, the strengths of each, and how they perform on sample tasks like searching through a software manual.4 sample tasksI tested several platforms on four different types of questions:Querying software documentationSearching my own LinkedIn postsFinding a variable ID for a specific topicGetting information about professional conferences4 generative AI platformsThere are an increasing number of options for no-code chat with your data. I looked at four of the best known and most popular: Googles NotebookLM, OpenAIs ChatGPT Projects, Anthropics Claude Projects, and Perplexity Spaces.NotebookLM is a dedicated app; the other platforms are more general chatbots that allow users to group and save chats, additional files, and custom instructions related to topics of their choice. These groups are called projects or spaces, depending on the service.Google NotebookLMNotebookLM has several advantages:Theres a free version.You dont have to write special prompts for it to search specifically through the info you upload.It returns citations along with its answers by default, so you can see the source text excerpts it used for its responses.You can give it URLs to read as source material.NotebookLM is probably best known for generating realistic audio podcasts from your notes, but its also quite good at answering questions.Workflow: Upload your content into a notebook and start asking questions.Users with free accounts can upload files of up to 500,000 words per source and 50 sources per notebook, or 200MB total for local uploads. And free accounts can have up to 100 notebooks and ask 50 questions per day. Paid Plus users get 500 notebooks, 300 sources per notebook, and 500 queries per day.Privacy: Google says it wont use your uploaded files or chat to train its models. Enterprise NotebookLM users via Google Cloud also wont have their feedback reviewed by human reviewers. Regardless of any privacy policies, though, know your employers AI policies for any work-related items.Sharing: Free users can share full notebooks, which include complete source documents, with specific users. Paid users can share either full notebooks or chat-only notebooks with specific users. Number of allowable shares depends on your account level.How it performed: Tied for the top spot at 4.5 out of 5.OpenAI ChatGPT ProjectsChatGPT Projects is available to all paid subscribers Plus, Enterprise, and Pro. OpenAI says projects are good for ongoing work, or just to keep things tidy.Until recently, projects could only use the GPT-4o LLM; but lately o3-mini and o3-mini-high have shown up as options. Free users without access to Projects can upload files to regular chats and bookmark those to get a somewhat similar experience.Unlike NotebookLM, ChatGPT probably wont give you links to see the original text cited in its answer unless you give it specific instructions to do so. (And even then, it might not.) In return, though, its answers will likely be more nicely formatted and arranged.Workflow: Create a new project by finding Projects in the left nav (youll only see this if youre a subscriber), hovering over it, and clicking the + sign. Give your project a name, and youll see a chat interface along with options to add files and custom instructions.There is a limit to the number of files that can be uploaded, according to ChatGPT help files, but that limit isnt specified.Privacy: You can opt out of having your data used to train OpenAI models in account Settings > Data Controls.Sharing: Projects arent shareable. Use Custom GPTs, which can use instructions, extra knowledge, and any combination of skills, instead. Those require paid accounts and can be made public or shared to anyone with the link.How it performed: Tied for the top spot at 4.5 out of 5.Anthropic Claude ProjectsIm a big Claude fan for a lot of use cases, as I like its writing style, its ability to write R code, and how it follows instructions. But Claude Projects, available only to paid subscribers, has some drawbacks for cases like this.Anthropic says, Each project includes a 200K context window, the equivalent of a 500-page book. That sounds like a lot, but Claude projects have a smaller capacity than the other options I tested. And the answers can degrade if you push up against the limits. Claude Projects is only available for paid accounts.If you program and use GitHub, Claude can connect to your GitHub account, making it easy to pull in coding or documentation files, which can be very handy. However, if you are interested in using online information in your queries, Claude Projects cant yet access the internet beyond GitHub or your own Google Docs.Alexey Shabanov at Testing Catalog reports that Anthropic is testing a feature called Harmony, which would let Claude access a local directory of files allowing the AI to read, index, and analyze content within the directory. How that might expand context for project queries isnt clear.Workflow: Create a new project by clicking on Projects toward the top of the left navigation or going straight to claude.ai/projects and then the Create Project button at the top right. Name the project, describe its purpose, click Create, and youll get a conventional chat interface on the left and an area to add project instructions and files on the right.Privacy: Anthropic says its default is to not use your chats and data to train its models.Sharing: Theres no sharing unless youre a Claude Teams subscriber.How it performed: 3 out of 5, largely because it got a 0 for one test when my data exceeded its project storage limit.Im not sure I would pay $20/month just for projects here, but I subscribe for other reasons and appreciate having them.Perplexity SpacesPerplexity also has a free version, which excels at targeted searches of information thats already on the web, such as software or hardware documentation. You can give Perplexity a domain, for example https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/, and it will search all the content there. (NotebookLM also accepts URLs but for individual pages, not a domain.) This is extremely useful when online software documentation is scattered across many small files on the web.You need a paid subscription to upload your own files to Spaces and to use top-tier LLMs. If you dont want to pay, you can upload files to a regular Perplexity chat (maximum of 10 per day).Workflow: Create a new space by clicking on Spaces in the left nav or by going directly to perplexity.ai/spaces and clicking the Create a Space box. A dialog box pops up asking for a Space title, optional description, and optional custom instructions. Theres a chat interface on the left and context section on the right that includes your custom instructions, a files upload section, and a links upload section.Privacy: You can opt out of having your data used to train Perplexitys own models in your profile settings.Sharing: Paid users can have up to 5 collaborators; Enterprise Pro, unlimited.How it performed: 2.5 out of 5. To be fair, though, my tests didnt look at Perplexitys major strength: web search. If you want to combine you own data with web searching, Perplexity would do much better.During testing, it also felt like Perplexity was least able to figure out what I wanted, at least when using its default Auto LLM. Its always good to be as specific as possible with LLM queries, but I found this to be especially true with Perplexity.Tests and resultsHeres a summary of how the tools performed in my tests. Read on for details.TaskNotebookLMChatGPT ProjectsClaude ProjectsPerplexity SpacesSimple tech docs search1110.5Vague social media query10.510Variable ID lookup1101Find a conference0.510.51Find conference sessions110.50Ranking4.54.532.5 1 = correct response, 0.5 = partially correct, 0 = incorrect or no responseTest 1: Simple tech documentation searchQuestion: Whats the easiest way to get rid of extra white space in text?Info source: Documentation for the stringr package in the R programming. Stringr includes a handy str_squish() function to delete excess white space.Results: Claude, NotebookLM, and ChatGPT answered with str_squish(), which I consider the correct answer. Perplexity assumed I only cared about space at the beginning and end of the text and not in the middle. After a follow-up question, it also found the best function.Test 2: Somewhat vague search of my social media postsThis was a more difficult task, but something similar to what people might want help with in the real world.Question: I really liked an article about LLMs written by Lucas Mearian at Computerworld. Please tell me the specifics based on my LinkedIn posts that I uploaded.Info source: 2 years of my LinkedIn posts.Results: NotebookLM and Claude nailed their responses, each offering two options including the one I wanted. ChatGPT gave me somewhat related articles, but not the one I wanted. (Id been looking for What are LLMs, and how are they used in generative AI?)Perplexity with its default Auto LLM didnt give me anything useful, claiming there is no specific mention of an article about Large Language Models (LLMs) written by Lucas Mearian.Test 3: Find a US Census table ID for a specific topicA lot of businesses use the US Census Bureaus American Community Survey (ACS) for demographic information. With thousands of available data variables, it can be hard to find one that has the information you want. This type of query could represent a lot of other data lookups businesses might want to do with their own data.Question: What is the best variable to use to find information about the percent of workers who work from home?Info source: I downloaded and filtered several listings of ACS table variable IDs (filtered because a couple of the lists were too large), along with a general explanation of ACS tables from the Census Bureau website. Since some of these platforms dont accept CSV files in projects, I saved the variable data as tab-delimited .txt files.Expected response: Kyle Walker, director of the Center for Urban Studies at Texas Christian University and author of the tidycensus R package, used the DP03_0024P variable in one of his examples, so thats what I was expecting in a correct answer.Results: NotebookLM, ChatGPT, and Perplexity all gave me results I could use. (Unexpectedly, I learned that there is more than one correct answer ChatGPT and Perplexity both found other variables that include the percent of people working from home.)Claude couldnt compete on this one, since my three .txt files with data totaling less than 800KB exceeded its project knowledge limit.Test 4: Ask about professional conferencesThis test featured two questions for two different data sources: Ask about a conference that might fit my needs, and then ask about conference sessions at one specific conference.Question 1: Im looking for IDG events that will talk about artificial intelligence. Id like them to be within a 2-hour flight or so from Boston.Info source: The IDG global events calendar PDF.Expected result: The most complete correct answer would cite FutureIT New York in July and FutureIT Toronto April 30 May 1. Work+ in Nashville at a 2:50 flight would also be a reasonable suggestion.Results: ChatGPT nailed it with both its more advanced o3-mini-high model and its general 4o LLM, returning the two events that exactly match the criteria.Perplexitys Sonar LLM returned both events as well as the CIO100 conference in Arizona, although acknowledging that one is beyond a 2-hour flight.NotebookLM got it partially right, suggesting FutureIT New York and Work+ in Nashville (which it accurately said was reasonably close to Boston true, its less than 3 hours away). However, it missed Toronto.Claude with its older Sonnet 3.5 model returned both matching events, along with UK Events for reference, though outside your travel range but did not include Nashville. Claude with its newer Sonnet 3.7 in its default setting was worse, finding only one that matched, a couple of others in the US, and two in Europe (noting that those were outside the travel range). When I changed Sonnet 3.7 from its default to extended reasoning, it gave a better response: both the New York and Toronto events as well as a virtual event.Question 2: Tell me all the sessions at the NICAR conference for people who are already proficient in spreadsheets that is, they are not beginners, but they want to improve their spreadsheet skills.Data source: Text file of the full NICAR data journalism conference schedule.Results: NotebookLM gave me more than a dozen interesting suggestions involving Google Sheets, Excel, and Airtable, with only one that might not have been relevant. It was definitely more than I would have found by simply searching the conference web page for Excel and Sheets. Plus, because I could click to zoom into the exact schedule text it cited, it was easy to check for hallucinations.Brainstorming is one area where many experts say LLMs can shine. I plan to upload other conference schedules to NotebookLM in the future to make sure I dont overlook potentially useful sessions.ChatGPT also came up with 12+ sessions that could be of interest, arranged by date and time and more nicely formatted. Claude proposed slightly fewer, but all seemed to match.Perplexity was disappointing, claiming: While the provided information does not explicitly list sessions for those proficient in spreadsheets, several sessions at the NICAR 2025 conference could be beneficial for improving spreadsheet skills or learning advanced data analysis techniques. It suggested only three.RecommendationsGenerative AI cloud services can be a helpful, no-code way to answer questions about your own information both finding info you know exists and helping you discover new insights.If you want a platform thats easy, free, and cites sources so you can check for hallucinations, Googles NotebookLM is an excellent choice.If you already subscribe to ChatGPT, its projects are worth a test. Theyre set up to handle a wider range of requests than simply Q&A, and ChatGPTs responses are often better formatted and easier to read than NotebookLMs. If youre a free user, you can upload files to conventional ChatGPT chats and get similar capabilities.Claude may be a good option if you dont have large amounts of data per project and youre already subscribing, especially if you want it to answer questions about data in a GitHub repository. If one response is unsatisfactory, try changing model settings.I found Perplexity to be more compelling for answering questions about information on the web, especially for use cases like software help where the info is spread over a lot of different files within a domain such as slack.com/help. However, Id probably go with NotebookLM or ChatGPT for local data.

A recent Windows 11 security update is causing unexpected issues for enterprise customers, including the unintentional removal of Microsofts Copilot AI assistant from affected systems, creating potential workflow disruptions for organizations that have integrated the AI tool into their operations.The update, KB5053598 (OS build 26100.3476), released during Marchs Patch Tuesday, applies to all editions of Windows 11 version 24H2 and was primarily intended as a security fix. However, Microsoft has acknowledged it contains a flaw that causes the Copilot app to be unintentionally uninstalled and unpinned from the taskbar on some devices.Were aware of an issue with the Microsoft Copilot app affecting some devices. The app is unintentionally uninstalled and unpinned from the taskbar, Microsoft said in an advisory.Impact on enterprisesFor organizations relying on Copilot integration, Microsoft recommends that affected users reinstall the app from the Microsoft Store and manually pin it to the taskbar while a permanent fix is developed.The company clarified that the Microsoft 365 Copilot app remains unaffected by this issue, which may provide some relief to enterprise customers who have invested in the premium AI assistant version.More concerning for enterprise IT administrators, the update conflicts with Citrix Session Recording Agent (SRA) version 2411, potentially removing January 2025 security updates from systems running this enterprise software.This regression in security posture could leave systems vulnerable to already-patched exploits, creating additional workload for IT departments that must now carefully manage the update process.Devices that have certain Citrix components installed might be unable to complete installation of the January 2025 Windows security update, the advisory added. Affected systems may initially apply the security update but fail during restart with an error message stating, Something didnt go as planned. No need to worry undoing changes.This issue presents a significant challenge for enterprise customers who rely on Citrix virtualization solutions. IT departments must now choose between maintaining security patches and ensuring the operational continuity of critical business applications.However, the software major stated that this issue likely affects a limited number of organizations as version 2411 of the SRA application is a new version.The company emphasized that home users are unlikely to be affected by Citrix-related problems, as the software is primarily deployed in enterprise environments.Broader implicationsThe incident highlights the ongoing challenges of maintaining operating system integrity while rapidly deploying new features and security patches. For enterprise customers, who often maintain strict change management protocols, unexpected application removals, and conflicts can cause significant operational disruptions.Many organizations have been gradually adopting Copilot as part of their productivity strategy, with some still evaluating its enterprise value. This unintended removal may give pause to IT decision-makers considering broader deployment of AI assistants within their environments.The bug also underscores the complexity of modern operating system updates, which must account for countless hardware configurations and third-party software interactions. Enterprise customers often delay updates precisely to avoid such issues, creating a delicate balance between security and stability.Workarounds and solutionsFor organizations affected by the Copilot removal, Microsofts temporary solution requires manual intervention, potentially creating additional work for IT support teams in large deployments. The company has not provided an estimated timeline for a permanent fix.Regarding the Citrix compatibility issue, Microsoft recommends that enterprise customers running SRA version 2411 delay the installation of KB5053598 until a resolution is available. For organizations that have already deployed the update and encountered problems, a rollback to the previous version may be necessary.The update also affects Windows on Arm users who play the Roblox game.The Microsoft advisory said that such users will be unable to download and play the game from the Windows Store after installing this update, though Microsoft notes the game remains accessible via direct download from Robloxs website.While this may seem like a minor issue, it demonstrates how seemingly unrelated applications can be affected by operating system updates.Microsoft indicated that it is working on a resolution to address this issue. The company typically addresses such conflicts through subsequent patches, though enterprise customers may need to implement temporary workarounds in the meantime.This incident serves as a reminder for enterprise IT departments to maintain robust testing environments and phased deployment strategies for Windows updates, particularly when running specialized software like Citrix SRA. Organizations should also consider documenting their custom application configurations to better identify potential conflicts with future updates.

The launch this weekend by Baidu of a native open-source multimodal foundation model called ERNIE 4.5 and a reasoning model, ERNIE X1, could lower AI adoption barriers, intensify competition, and reshape pricing strategies across the industry, an analyst said Monday.In order for that to occur, said Thomas Randall, research lead for AI at Info-Tech Research Group, the success of these models will depend on performance validation, developer adoption, and enterprise trust. However, they signal a global AI race where cost-efficiency and accessibility become as important as raw capability.The Chinese tech giant said in a release that the introduction of the two offerings pushes the boundaries of multimodal and reasoning models, adding that ERNIE X1 delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price.

Apple has a lot of challenges these days. Would Steve Jobs really be handling these problems better than current leaders?The problems, some are long-term, others short-term, include (but are not confined to):Chinese consumersturning to domestic brandsin response to the US trade war.US customers feeling the impact of tariffs andanticipated increase in product prices.Regulators in every nation seemingly intent onchipping awayat the services empire Apple built from thin air.Apples recently-disclosedfailure to launchwith Apple Intelligence.Supply chainproblems, partly in response to trade wars and partly exposed during Covid, when single-source supply chains collapsed overnight.Decliningconsumer trustin technology.These challenges are in addition to the tasks Apple has always had to manage maintaining hardware and software quality, developing new products and services that surprise and delight customers, building consumer engagement, and inventing the best hardware in the world. A look at therecently introduced Mac Studio and M4 MacBook Air show the company still has the ability to do that. Both are the best computers in the world in their class.Challenges everywhereBut the central problem Apple has is mirrored in its own actions.You see, reports claim the companys marketing teams insisted on promoting Apple Intelligence and its much-vaunted contextual understanding of users, even though the feature wasnt ready. They not only insisted on it, but they also went large on pushing it, helping build just the right environment to create a crisis of belief when it was revealed the company would be unable to make the grade. (Subsequent reports suggest the feature is already working, but just not consistently enough; perhaps Apple should introduce it as a public beta to show how far its come.)What problem does this mirror?Just as Apples own teams focused on a service that wasnt ready, the rest of us out here continue to seek solace in impossible dreams. We live in a world of confusion in which populists, snake oil salesmen, and fake thought leaders thrive. Lack of belief, combined with a search for easy answers, means we choose the answers that seem easy. Thats what happened with Apple Intelligence so great was the need to seem to occupy space in AI, the company chose to market a feature it hadnt got working yet.It took an easy road, rather than a hard one, and in doing so reflected the muddy waters of our times.Thats not how things were when Jobs introduced the iMac, iPod, or iPhone. Back then, we thought tech would help us, social media hadnt yet been weaponized against wider public good, and many still wanted to believe global governments would meet the goals ofAgenda 21, rather than using1984as aninstruction manual. Conflict hadnt yet exposed the deep rifts underlying thefragile global consensus, and Apple under Jobsspoke a language of hope and optimismthatreflected a more optimistic zeitgeist.Apple today cant cling to that past.A new language for a new timeThat aspect of the brand no longer seems to match the existence so many of its customers experience. And its arguable whether senior management, ensconced in the Silicon Valley bubble, is exposed enough to identify a product design and marketing language that resonates in our new, highly complex, polarized, conflicted reality. While Apple has done extraordinarily well as the ultimate aspirational brand and enthusiasm for its products will remain among those who can reasonably afford them. But declining sales means declining profits, and in a world set up to mirror Wall Streets irrational belief that perpetual growth is possible on a finite planet, decline is unacceptable.Thats true even for the most successful company in human history.Thats a lot of pressure for Apples top brass to handle. Plus, of course, in every case, the answers they have available to them appear to be least-worse responses, rather than good ones. Adding additional complexity, the challenges are themselves intertwined as societies everywhere undergo significant structural change, as political forces of various hues attempt to hold things together with false narratives of a history that never really happened.Just how can the future look better tomorrow when its based on a past that never existed?The journeyAll the same, the more complex things become, the harder we work just to stand still. And with myriad connected challenges, its not at all certain even Steve Jobs would be able to visualize an easy way through. The simple answer is to keep hope alive, but the uncomfortable truth is that, just as it did with the iMac, Apples biggest challenge now is to find a consumer product truly emblematic of its time, something that speaks to us of who are we, what we need, and where we are going.In that light, perhaps the failure of the launch of Apple Intelligence really reflects the time were in.We can see the mountain but cant yet make it to the top.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn, andMastodon.

It is now clear that Google Assistant will be replaced by generative AI (genAI) tool Gemini in most Android-based phones. The process is expected to begin shortly and be completed before the end of the year, according to the official Google blog The Keyword.Mobile phones running Android 9 or earlier will not be affected by the decision, as they would likely run into problems using Gemini.In addition to smartphones, Gemini will also be integrated into tablets, smart watches, televisions, monitors, cars and headphones, according to 9to5Google.

Cisco is adding new features to its Webex collaboration tool as it expands its adoption ofagentic AI.The latest tools include an AI Agent and an updated AI Assistant for the companys Webex Contact Center, a collaborative tool that helps companies handle customer service calls. The AI tools are designed to bolster customer service experiences.The announcements came on the opening day of theEnterprise Connectshow in Orlando, FL.The Webex AI Agent, slated to be available at the end of this month, should make customer service calls smoother by using AI alongside human agents. The goal is to reduce wait times and use intelligent ways to resolve issues.According to Cisco, the Agent will allow companies to tackle complex real-time customer service queries by handling more dynamic conversations. The tool can also run scripted agents with preconfigured responses, Cisco said.One use case highlighted by Cisco, for example, could help airline customers change flights in real-time by querying timing preferences, providing a range of flight options, and completing the call by making the booking. The agent uses AI technology to connect corporate information systems to customer queries.The company also added new Cisco AI Assistant features to its Webex Contact Centers. That tool is an assistant for customer service agents that can make recommendations for answering customer queries.The agent, originally rolled out in February, uses a number of tools to understand customer intent and then provides appropriate recommendations. The goal is to help human agents provide better responses.For example, one new tool can allow accurate transcription of calls, making it easier to understand speakers with accents or unusual speech patterns. It can also provide context for complex discussions, along with real-time recommendations on actions or responses, Cisco said.Some of the previously added tools can provide summaries on dropped calls or interactions with virtual agents before calls are transferred to human agents. Still other tools can measure customer satisfaction or pull information from past calls and topics to improve customer service experiences.Cisco also announced it has integrated Apples AirPlay on Cisco Devices for Microsoft Teams Rooms, which enables instant wireless content sharing from iPhone, iPad or Mac to Cisco Devices.

Googles generative AI chatbot, named Gemini, is available as a web app. But you can also access most of Geminis AI tools in a side panel as youre using Google Workspace apps including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, and Gmail. Using the Gemini sidebar within a Workspace app is much more convenient and contextual than copying and pasting between browser tabs.When youre in one of these five main Workspace apps, open the Gemini side panel by clicking the nova star icon thats next to your user profile icon at the upper-right corner. From this side panel, you can instruct Gemini to generate new content (such as text, tables, or slides), make changes to your current document or other file, or analyze its content to provide context.The Gemini side panel in Google Docs.Howard Wen / FoundryKeep in mind that, like all genAI tools, Gemini can make mistakes, so its always advisable to check the output carefully for errors. Whats more, the copy it writes is often generic and flat, but it can be a useful starting point for you to refine and add color to. As youll see, Geminis real strengths lie in taking away drudge work such as summarizing a long document or extracting a key piece of information from a sea of emails. This guide explains how to use these AI capabilities from the Gemini side panel in the Google Workspace apps. Who can use Gemini in Google Workspace appsThe Gemini AI tools that include this side panel are now included with paid Google Workspace plans from the Business Standard plan and up. If you have a regular Google personal account, you can subscribe to Google One AI Premium to have access to these tools. Or, for no cost, you can sign up for access to Google Workspace Labs with your Google account to be permitted to try out Gemini in the Workspace apps.Get started: Use a suggested prompt or type in your ownIn the Gemini side panel, youll usually see suggested prompts these are action links you can click that instruct the AI to do something, such as creating an outline.Many of these suggested prompts will be the same, or similarly phrased, across the five Workspace apps that you can use the Gemini side panel in. But they can also vary from app to app and sometimes depend on whether you start with a blank document or open an existing one.Suggestions in the Gemini side panel for Gmail, Sheets, and Slides.Howard Wen / FoundryIn Docs, for instance, Gemini might prompt you to brainstorm a list of ideas, whereas in Slides it might prompt you to create a slide to pitch an idea. In some cases, prompts might be customized for you based on the emails in your Gmail account or files in your Google Drive. (If you want to see additional suggested prompts, click More suggestions in the panel.)To choose a prompt, click it, and it will appear in the entry box at the bottom of the window, where you can customize it for your needs. When its worded the way you want, press Enter.Or you can skip the suggested prompts: just type your own prompt inside the entry box and press Enter.Next steps: Insert, copy, retry, or refineAfter you enter your prompt, Gemini generates a result, which appears in the side panel. Like all genAI tools, Gemini sometimes makes errors, so youll want to carefully check over its output.If youre happy with the result, you can click the arrow icon on the toolbar below it to insert the generated text, image, or other content into your document, email draft, slide, or spreadsheet. Or you can click the Copy button to copy it to your PC clipboard.Geminis generated result appears in the side panel.Howard Wen / FoundryIf you want to see what the result will look like in your document before inserting it, click the vertical three-dot icon (More options) and select Preview. If you wish, you can send Google feedback on the result by clicking the thumbs up or thumbs down icon on the toolbar.Right above this toolbar, you may see a link labeled Sources. When clicked, this action will list the sources (your documents, emails, presentations, spreadsheets, etc.) that Gemini used to generate the content.If youre not happy with Geminis generated result, you can instruct it to generate a fresh result from your original prompt by selecting More options > Retry or More options > Retry with Google Search in the toolbar.Below the toolbar you might see one or more additional prompt suggestions. Click a suggestion, and Gemini will generate a second result that builds on the first one.Another option is to instruct Gemini to refine the current result rather than starting over from scratch. To do so, just type how you want the result refined into the entry box and press Enter.A few additional tips for using the Gemini side panel:To erase your previous prompts and results from the panel, click the three-dot icon (More options) at the top of the Gemini side panel and click Clear history.To make the side panel larger so you can see the results better, click the Expand button immediately to the right of the More options button at the top of the panel.To close the side panel, click the X in its upper right corner.7 useful tasks to try via the Gemini side panelNow that you know how to use the side panel, lets look at some specific use cases. There are too many possible actions to cover in this article, and Google adds new capabilities all the time. But here are some common examples of what you can prompt Gemini to do.1. Summarize documents and emailsGemini can quickly summarize your emails and files stored in Google Drive in a variety of ways.In Docs, Sheets, and Slides: Open a document, spreadsheet, or presentation, then open the Gemini sidebar. When you do, Gemini automatically generates a summary of the file, provided that it has enough text or data content. The summary appears near the top of the Gemini panel; you may need to click the three-dot icon (View more) to see the whole thing.Gemini can instantly summarize the contents of a document.Howard Wen / FoundryIn Drive: Select a document or other file, then click Summarize this file on the toolbar above the file listing. This will open the Gemini side panel, and a summary for the contents of the file will be generated if possible.Gemini can summarize documents stored in Google Drive.Howard Wen / FoundryYou can summarize all the contents of a folder in Google Drive in the same way. Navigate to the folder in Drive, select it, and click Summarize this folder on the toolbar above the listing.Another method to summarize files in Drive is to open the Gemini sidebar first, then write a prompt in the entry box telling it what you want it to summarize. Type summarize @ and start typing the documents filename. A small menu of suggested files will open, and you can select the one you want.If you cant remember the filename, you can try describing the document or file, and Gemini may be able to determine which file youre referring to. You can also instruct Gemini to summarize more than one document or file together.Examples:Summarize the meeting notes from the July meetingSummarize @Office Budget Winter and @Office Budget AnnualIn Gmail: Open an email or email thread first. Then, in the Gemini side panel, you can click a suggested prompt to generate a summary of the email or thread.You can also prompt Gemini to summarize multiple emails, even if theyre not in a single thread. To do so, open the Gemini sidebar and describe what you want it to summarize in the entry box.Give me a summary of the emails that Saulo sent me regarding our upcoming meetingSummarize the emails I sent to Mona over the last weekGemini can also summarize multiple emails based on a description you provide.Howard Wen / Foundry2. Extract specific info from files or emailsInstead of asking Gemini to summarize an entire document or email, try asking it questions about your files in Drive or about your emails in Gmail to extract specific information.What are the key points in @Business Plan: IT Consulting for Restaurant Management?How much is allocated for new technology purchases @Office Budget Annual?How much has [business name] charged me this year?Ask Gemini for specific information from your emails and files.Howard Wen / Foundry3. Create a tableGemini can generate a table template with headings, placeholder text, and even formulas in its cells. After you insert it into your document, email draft, slide, or spreadsheet, you fill out the table with your own data.Gemini works best at designing tables for project management, so try describing a table that has dropdowns, lists, task lists, or to-dos. It can also generate a data table that you can insert into a spreadsheet and then create a chart from it.Make me a table depicting 12 months with 3 categories per monthCreate a table with dropdowns with selections that include Greek, Japanese, Italian for a business luncheonA generated table template in Sheets.Howard Wen / FoundryWhen you create a table in Sheets, it will appear as an overlay on the spreadsheet. Click the Insert button below it to insert it in the spreadsheet.Note: In Sheets, when you launch a new, blank spreadsheet, the Tables side panel will automatically open on the right. To switch to the Gemini side panel, either click the Help me create a table button in the Tables side panel or just click the nova star icon at the top of the screen.If the spreadsheet you open already has data in the cells, and theyre not organized in a formal way, try clicking one of the Create a table suggested prompts. Gemini will generate a table with this data arranged in a neater fashion.Finally, its worth noting that Sheets has another table template tool called Help Me Organize that weve covered previously. See How to use Gemini AI to make templates in Google Sheets for details on how to use it, along with ideas for crafting successful table prompts that would work in the Gemini sidebar as well.4. Create an imageDescribe the kind of image that you want Gemini to generate. In Slides, you can prompt Gemini to generate an image based on the content of the slide that youre currently viewing in the main window.Create a cartoon of a giraffe reading a menu while seated at a restaurant tableCreate an image based on the current slideIn Slides, Gemini can create images related to the current slides content.Howard Wen / Foundry5. Write a text draftYou can use the Gemini side panel to generate a first draft for an email or document. In Docs or Gmail, open the side panel and type a prompt describing the kind of text that you want Gemini to generate.Create an opening paragraph pitching my IT consulting service for restaurant ownersCreate an email to send to Eric Jones in which I suggest we catch up at the tech conference in San Diego next weekUsing email as an example, from the main page of your Gmail account, open the Gemini side panel and enter your prompt. If you like Geminis generated draft, click the Insert button, and a composition window for a new email will open with the generated text inserted into it. You can add or make changes before sending it out, or leave it in your Drafts folder to work on later.A new email draft generated by Gemini.Howard Wen / FoundryThe Gemini side panel will also present suggested prompts that you can click to guide you through refining or rephrasing your document or email draft.All that said, a better way to generate and redo text is to use the Help Me Write tool (which is also powered by Gemini). See our story How to use Gemini AI to write (and rewrite) in Google Docs and Gmail for full instructions on using Help Me Write.6. Create a formula in SheetsDont know most of the formulas that you can use in Sheets, or want some ideas? Describe to Gemini the kind of calculation you want, and the AI will try to generate something workable. You can then insert the formula into a cell on your spreadsheet.Formula for the sum of Column B divided by 10 and then multiplied by 1.67Formula to calculate compound interest at 3.5% over 3 yearsIn Sheets, Gemini can help you create a formula.Howard Wen / Foundry7. Create a slide in SlidesIn Slides, describe a slide that you want Gemini to generate.You can even ask Gemini to create a slide based on the content of a document, spreadsheet, or other file in your Google Drive.Create a slide that introduces an annual business budget reportCreate a slide using @Office Budget WinterGemini can create a slide based on a document or other file.Howard Wen / FoundryThis is just a sampling of what you can ask Gemini to do in Google Workspace apps. Once you start experimenting, youll likely find numerous ways it can help you in your work.[ See more Google Workspace tips and tutorials ]

For so few patches from Microsoft this month (57), we have seven zero-days to manage (with a Patch Now recommendation for Windows) and standard release schedules for Microsoft Office, Microsoft browsers (Edge) and Visual Studio.Adobe is back with a critical update for Reader, but its not been paired (at least for now) with a Microsoft patch.To navigate whats changed, the team from Readiness has crafted this usefulinfographicdetailing the risks of deploying these updates to each platform. (And heres a look at the last six months of Patch Tuesday releases.)Known issuesMicrosoft is still dealing with reported gaming issues (Roblox) and has two new known issues for this release cycle, including:Windows 11: After installing the March update, USB-connected dual-mode printers supporting bothUSB Print and IPP Over USBmay print random text, network commands, and unusual characters, often starting with POST /ipp/print HTTP/1.1. This issue can be mitigated using Known Issue Rollback (KIR).Windows 10: After installing Windows updates from Jan. 14, 2025 or later, the Windows Event Viewer might log an error related toSgrmBroker.exeas Event 7023, though this does not trigger any visible notifications. This error occurs because theSystem Guard Runtime Monitor Broker Service, originally part of Microsoft Defender and no longer in use, conflicts with the update during initialization. According to Microsoft, this reported issue does not impact system performance, functionality, or security, as the service is already disabled in other supported Windows versions.Following previous reports of Citrix-related update issues, devices with Citrix Session Recording Agent (SRA) version 2411 could (still) be unable to complete the installation of the January 2025 Windows security update, causing the system to revert to previous updates after a restart. Affected devices might initially download and apply the update, but an error message stating Something didnt go as planned appears during installation. This issue is expected to affectonly a limited number of organizations, as version 2411 of SRA is newly released, and home users are not affected. Dont count on this issue being fixed soon, folks.Major revisions and mitigationsMicrosoft has not released or documented any mitigations or workarounds for the current set of updates. As of now, the following Chromium patches have been revised and re-released:CVE-2025-1920: Type Confusion in V8 (Chromium)CVE-2025-2135: Type Confusion in V8 (Chromium)CVE-2025-2136: Use After Free in Inspector (Chromium)CVE-2025-2137: Out of Bounds Read in V8 (Chromium)CVE-2025-24201: Out of Bounds Write in GPU on Mac (Chromium)Windows lifecycle and enforcement updatesMicrosoft isretiringseveral products this month:Microsoft SQL Server 2019, which ended mainstream support on Feb. 28.Microsoft Skype, which will be terminated (with prejudice) inMay.Windows Remote Desktop, which will be replaced next month with theWindows App. (Note: there are still some missing features andseveral known issuesreported in this release.)Over the next few weeks, several Microsoft products are scheduled to reach their end-of-life (EOL), and will no longer receive security updates, non-security updates, or technical support including:April 2, 2025:Dynamics 365 Business Centralon-premises (2023 release wave 2, version 23.x).April 8, 2025:Dynamics GP 2015/Dynamics GP 2015 R2.April 9, 2025:Microsoft Configuration Manager, Version 2309.Each month, the Readiness team analyzes the latest Patch Tuesday updates and provides detailed, actionable testing guidance based on a large application portfolio and a comprehensive analysis of the patches and their potential impact on Windows and application deployments.For this release cycle, there are no reported functional changes. However, feature level testing will still be required, especially for system drivers and core libraries. Due to these low-level system (kernel) changes, a full reboot/restart test will be required for all Windows UI elements including Explorer, desktop shell and Internet Explorer.We have grouped the critical updates and required testing efforts into different functional areas, including:File System componentsCommon Log File System: Test by creating a BLF and multiple container files, appending logs using `ReserveAndAppendLog,` and then deleting the containers.Core System drivers (ntfs.sys, exfat.sys & fastfat.sys): Test mounting, dismounting, and performing file operations on ExFAT volumes.Networking and remote servicesIf using a Routing and Remote Access Service(RRAS) server, test `netsh` scenarios to confirm commands work as expected.FAX: Validate TAPI initialization, shutdown, and key functions like `lineInitialize` and `lineMakeCall.` Stress test for stability and error handling.Storage and device interactionFocus on storage subsystem tests, including operations on virtual/physical disks and storage enclosures.Test how Search Connector files interact with various network paths (UNC, SMB, and file system paths).Validate all camera-related scenarios.Audio, video and UI componentsVerify audio/video recording with internal and external devices.Test apps like Teams and Camera that use virtual features (for example, Phone Link, Windows Studio Effects).Affected Versions for this update cycle include the following Windows desktop and server builds:Windows 11 24H2, 23H2, 22H2, Windows 10 1607, Windows 10 RTM.Windows Server 23H2, Azure Stack OS 22H2, Windows Server 2022Each month, we break down the update cycle into product families (as defined by Microsoft) with the following basic groupings:Browsers (Microsoft IE and Edge)Microsoft Windows (both desktop and server)Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft Exchange and SQL ServerMicrosoft Developer Tools (Visual Studio and .NET)Adobe (if you get this far)BrowsersMicrosoft released 10 low-profile (no rating) updates to its Chromium-based Edge browser. These changes can be added to your standard release calendar.Microsoft WindowsThe followingWindows product areas have been updated with five critical patches and 32 others rated important for this months cycle:CVE-2025-24035: Windows Remote Desktop Services Remote Code Execution VulnerabilityCVE-2025-24064: Windows Domain Name Service Remote Code Execution VulnerabilityCVE-2025-24084: Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) Kernel Remote Code Execution VulnerabilityCVE-2025-26645: Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution VulnerabilityUnfortunately, three of these updates (CVE-2025-24984,CVE-2025-24984andCVE-2025-24984) have been reported as exploited. Add these Windows updates to your Patch Now schedule.Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft released a single critical update (CVE-2025-24057) and 10 patches rated important for the Office platform. All of the important updates affect Microsoft Word, Excel and Access with no reports of disclosures or exploitation. Add these Microsoft Office updates to your standard release calendar.Microsoft Exchange and SQL ServerThere were no updates for either Microsoft Exchange or SQL Server this March update cycle.Developer toolsMicrosoft released five patches, all rated important, that affect Microsoft Visual studio and ASP.NET. Add these updates to your standard developer release schedule.Adobe (and third-party updates)This month, Adobe released a security update (APSB25-14) for Acrobat and Reader for Windows and macOS that addresses six critical and three important vulnerabilities. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution and memory leak. Adobe is not aware of any exploits in the wild for any of the issues. For some reason this update was not included in this Microsoft patch cycle. Maybe thats as it should be.

Imagine a world of the near future where Android and Apple iOS users can message one another with the certainty that their communication is secured against eavesdropping by end-to-end encryption (E2EE).And it would not only be for one-to-one chats, but across large groups of employees and users, something that is impossible to guarantee today without resorting to standalone apps such as WhatsApp.These capabilities might soon be a reality, thanks to a technical specification released this week, the GSM Associations RCS Universal Profile version 3.0.In development since 2007 as a replacement for SMS, Rich Communication Services (RCS) already allows a range of features including read receipts, typing indicators, and media sharing. But E2EE security, a much more complex technical feat, has always proved elusive.Thanks to some IETF-backed magic inside RCS 3.0 called the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, that is about to change. Specifications may come and go, but history suggests that the addition of security to a spec is always a significant moment when people start to feel more positive about its adoption; at least thats what the GSMA is hoping.This is especially true for businesses, which value two features above all: absolute certainty about messaging security, and the ability for employees to communicate in large groups. RCS 3.0 with MLS delivers on both fronts, said GSMA technical director, Tom Van Pelt.[This ensures] that messages and other content such as files remain confidential and secure as they travel between clients, he said.RCS will be the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable E2EE between client implementations from different providers. Together with other unique security features such as SIM-based authentication, E2EE will provide RCS users with the highest level of privacy and security for stronger protection from scams, fraud, and other security and privacy threats, said Van Pelt.RCS fragmentationRCS 3.0s big feature is interoperability, which makes it easier for different apps to implement the same features consistently. Today, while RCS is widely implemented by OS platforms, mobile networks, and device makers, each does it in their own way. This has led to fragmentation, hindering uptake.The result is that if you want to send a secure RCS message between Android devices, you need to use Googles own Messages app at both ends; it implements E2EE using the well-worn Signal protocol. Similarly, Apple adopted RCS in iMessage last year, but with a proprietary implementation of E2EE.In short, its a confusing jumble. This is one reason why alternatives such as WhatsApp and Signal, both of which also use the Signal protocol, have become so popular; you get E2EE out of the box without compatibility worries, and they allow groups of up to 1,024 members.Having a single protocol, MLS, covering E2EE changes the story. Now RCS with MLS can offer a range of advanced features including large groups, which are critical for businesses which need many-to-many communication. Right now, if even one user in a group is using an RCS app without compatible E2EE, the security of the whole group chat can be compromised. MLS gives every app maker one IETF standard to aim for.The WhatsApp effectGoogle has said it plans to adopt MLS inside Messages, which means replacing the proven Signal protocol that struggles to handle larger groups. That will take time, during which it will probably support one with a fallback to the other. Apple, too, said it is committed to MLS.We will add support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messages to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS in future software updates, said Apple spokesperson Shane Bauer, in support of the GSMA.As the two biggest platform apps, these names are important. However, one thats not on the RCS list yet is WhatsApp, an app for both Android and Apple that, with three billion users, operates in a parallel world to RCS-enabled apps.WhatsApp is in no hurry to adopt MLS. For parent Meta, the real prize is to turn WhatsApp into a secure business communications platform that dominates the messaging space across multiple types of engagement. Despite that, it will eventually have to adopt MLS in some form, not least to comply with the EUs Digital Markets Act, which mandates greater app interoperability.Its questionable if and when WhatsApp and Signal are going to support this protocol, as both have already implemented end-to-end encryption within each respective ecosystem, commented Arne Mhle, CEO of secure email provider Tuta Mail.As an encrypted email service, we can also say that interoperability is a challenge, he added. It comes with complications such as spam and phishing attempts, an issue that WhatsApp has had to fight hard against. This will get even worse once the app starts allowing people to chat with their friends on other platforms as well.But E2EE was only todays privacy issue. Soon, he predicted, messaging platforms will need to evolve to counter the ability of quantum computers to undermine the security of public key encryption.The GSMA protocol needs to be updated with quantum-resistant encryption keys, said Mhle.Ironically, a major uncertainty is E2EE itself. This is now being probed by the UK government, which has decided to use Apple as its test case in a campaign to introduce backdoors into the encryption used in iCloud services. So far, Apple is resisting, choosing to disable security rather than allow surveillance. Talks are reportedly ongoing.E2EE, which stores keys on devices rather than centrally, isnt part of this effort, but might come under fire if the UK government reheats its controversial idea of client-side scanning (scanning messages before they are encrypted on-device).