The long-awaited feature is rolling out in Benelux, so fire up your VPN if you live elsewhere and get your most creative prompts ready.

Even if you don't want to dive in and create AI videos using the latest Veo 3 model released by Google, you can sit back and marvel at (or be petrified by) the work of others: Flow TV is a new lean-back experience that lets you click through a seemingly endless carousel of AI-generated clips.Unlike the Flow video creator that is needed to create these videos, you don't need to pay Google a subscription fee to use Flow TV, and you don't even need to be signed into a Google account. It's a showcase for the best AI clips produced by Veo, though for now, it's limited to the older Veo 2 model rather than Veo 3.Google hasn't said much about the creators behind the videos in Flow TV, but it is described as an "ever-growing showcase" of videos, so presumably there are new clips being added regularly behind the scenes—and eventually we might see Veo 3 clips mixed in, the kind of clips that have already been fooling people online.Ready to take a break from content made by flesh and blood humans and see what AI is currently cooking up? Point your browser towards the Flow TV channel list.Channel hopping Flow TV gives you multiple channels to choose from. Credit: Lifehacker The channel list gives you some idea of what's available on Flow TV: We've got channels like Window Seat (views from train carriages), Unnatural (nature with an AI twist), and Zoo Break (animal adventures). Some of these play to the strengths of AI video, including It's All Yarn (self-explanatory) and Dream Factory (general weirdness).And do expect to be freaked out pretty regularly, by the way: Flow TV is not ideal if you're easily unsettled or unnerved, because these clips move quickly, and feature content that goes way beyond the norm. I didn't come across anything really shocking or disturbing, but this is AI—and Flow TV doesn't particularly focus on realism.There's also a Shuffle All option in addition to the individual channels, and whichever route you pick through the clips, there's a lot to watch—I wasn't able to get to the end of it all. You can also switch to the Short Films tab at the top of the channel list to see three longer pieces of work made by acknowledged creators.Whichever route you take through this content, you get playback controls underneath the current clip: Controls for pausing playback, jumping forwards and backwards between clips, looping videos, and switching to full screen mode. What you can't do, however, is skip forwards or backwards through a clip, YouTube-style.To the right of the control panel you can switch between seeing one video at a time, and seeing a whole grid of options, and further to the right you've got a channel switcher. Click the TV icon to the left of the control panel to see all the available channels again, and the Flow TV button in the top-left corner to jump to something random. There's also a search box up at the top to help you look for something specific.Prompt engineering Expect the unexpected from AI video. Credit: Lifehacker While you're watching the videos, you'll see a Show Prompt toggle switch underneath each clip. Turn this switch on to see the prompt used to make the video you're watching, together with the AI model deployed (which is always Veo 2, at least for now). It's an interesting look behind the scenes at how each clip was made.Here's an example one: "First person view. Follow me into through this secret door into my magic world. Documentary. Soft natural light. 90s." As you can see, Veo just lets you throw in whatever ideas or camera directions or style guidelines come to mind, without worrying too much about formal structure (or grammar).Revealing the prompts lets you see what the AI got right and what it didn't, and how the models interpret different instructions. Of course, it always makes the most generic picks from prompts, based on whatever dominates its training data: Generic swans, generic buses, generic cars, generic people, generic camera angles and movements. If you need something out of the ordinary from AI video, you need to ask for it specifically.Look closer, and the usual telltale signs of AI generation are here, from the way most clips use a similar pacing, scene length, and shot construction, to the weird physics that are constantly confusing (and are sometimes deliberately used for effect). AI video is getting better fast, but it's a much more difficult challenge than text or images represent.For now, Flow TV is a diverting demo gallery of where AI video is at: what it does well and where it still falls short. On this occasion, I'll leave aside the issues of how much energy was used to generate all of these clips, or what kinds of videos the Veo models might have been trained on, but it might be worth bookmarking the Flow TV channel directory if you want to stay up to speed with the state of AI filmmaking.

The company behind the Opera browser is launching yet another AI tool with Opera Neon, an agentic AI browser. This basically means that it's a browser with an AI agent built in, which can go beyond answering questions and will purportedly be able to browse the internet for you to help you get various things done. This includes helping you plan trips, booking vacations, and even creating web apps with simple natural language prompts. Oddly enough, this isn't Opera's first go at agentic AI, as it follows the announcement for the standard Opera browser's Browser Operator tool. Technically, Browser Operator isn't released yet, but it seems the difference is that Neon's use cases will be a bit broader, as the AI will supposedly even able to generate content in the cloud while you're offline.The catch is that Neon isn't free, and is currently invite-only. Opera says it'll require a paid subscription when it launches, and while the company hasn't revealed the pricing or the launch date yet, you can join a waitlist to get notified about details closer to release, plus get in line for an invite. Opera says you'll be able to use the integrated AI as a chatbot and it will be able to search the web to find answers for you. It'll also be able to handle repetitive tasks such as filling forms and shopping. The biggest draw seems to be its ability to create content, though. On the Opera Neon website, a sample screenshot shows a someone requesting the AI to make a "retro snake game" for them.One plus going for this product is that it claims to be able to analyze webpages without recording your screen all the time (looking at you, Recall). Opera also claims that your browsing history, website data, and login information will be stored locally on your computer, which is good for anyone with privacy concerns.It goes without saying that all of these features will only be as useful as the AI model is accurate. The last thing I'd want is to have a faceless AI model book an overpriced hotel in a shady location, so I'll be taking all these trip planning claims with a pinch of salt until I see Neon in action. While launching new products always gets more attention, the sheer number of Opera's recent releases means that its browser lineup is getting a bit confusing. Opera currently has the following browsers listed on its website: Opera Browser, Opera GX, Opera Air, and Opera Mini. This makes Opera Neon the fifth product in the lineup. Each has its own specialty, but I'm starting to feel a little choice paralysis here.

Large Reasoning Models (LRMs), trained from LLMs using reinforcement learning (RL), demonstrated great performance in complex reasoning tasks, including mathematics, STEM, and coding. However, existing LRMs face challenges in completing various puzzle tasks that require purely logical reasoning skills, which are easy and obvious for humans. Current methods targeting puzzles focus only on designing benchmarks for evaluation, lacking the training methods and resources for modern LLMs to tackle this challenge. Current puzzle datasets lack diversity and scalability, covering limited puzzle types with little control over generation or difficulty. Moreover, due to the success of the “LLM+RLVR” paradigm, it has become crucial to obtain large, diverse, and challenging sets of verifiable puzzle prompts for training agents. Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) has emerged as a key method for improving models’ reasoning capabilities, removing the need for reward models by directly assigning rewards based on objectively verifiable answers. Puzzles are particularly well-suited for RLVR. However, most prior RLVR research has overlooked the puzzles’ potential for delivering effective reward signals. In puzzle reasoning of LLMs, existing benchmarks evaluate different types of reasoning, including abstract, deductive, and compositional reasoning. Few benchmarks support scalable generation and difficulty control but lack puzzle diversity. Moreover, the improvement of LLMs’ puzzle-solving abilities mainly falls into two categories: tool integration and RLVR. Researchers from ByteDance Seed, Fudan University, Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have proposed Enigmata, the first comprehensive toolkit designed for improving LLMs with puzzle reasoning skills. It contains 36 tasks across seven categories, each featuring a generator that produces unlimited examples with controllable difficulty and a rule-based verifier for automatic evaluation. The researchers further developed Enigmata-Eval as a rigorous benchmark and created optimized multi-task RLVR strategies. Puzzle data from Enigmata enhances SoTA performance on advanced math and STEM reasoning tasks like AIME, BeyondAIME, and GPQA when trained on larger models like Seed1.5-Thinking. This shows the generalization benefits of Enigmata. The Enigmata-Data comprises 36 puzzle tasks organized into 7 primary categories, including Crypto, Arithmetic, Logic, Grid, Graph, Search, and Sequential Puzzle, making it the only dataset having multiple task categories with scalability, automatic verification, and public availability. The data construction follows a three-phase pipeline: Tasks Collection and Design, Auto-Generator and Verifier Development, and Sliding Difficulty Control. Moreover, the Enigmata-Eval is developed by systematically sampling from the broader dataset, aiming to extract 50 instances per difficulty level for each task. The final evaluation set contains 4,758 puzzle instances rather than the theoretical maximum of 5,400, due to inherent constraints, where some tasks generate fewer instances per difficulty level. The proposed model outperforms most public models on Enigmata-Eval with 32B parameters, showing the effectiveness of the dataset and training recipe. The model stands out on the challenging ARC-AGI benchmark, surpassing strong reasoning models such as Gemini 2.5 Pro, o3-mini, and o1. The Qwen2.5-32B-Enigmata shows outstanding performance in structured reasoning categories, outperforming in Crypto, Arithmetic, and Logic tasks, suggesting effective development of rule-based reasoning capabilities. The model shows competitive performance in search tasks that require strategic exploration and planning capabilities. Moreover, Crypto and Arithmetic tasks tend to provide the highest accuracy, while spatial and sequential tasks remain more difficult. In this paper, researchers introduced Enigmata, a comprehensive suite for equipping LLMs with advanced puzzle reasoning that integrates seamlessly with RL using verifiable rule-based rewards. The trained Enigmata-Model shows superior performance and robust generalization skills through RLVR training. Experiments reveal that when applied to larger models such as Seed1.5-Thinking (20B/200B parameters), synthetic puzzle data brings additional benefits in other domains, including mathematics and STEM reasoning over state-of-the-art models. Enigmata provides a solid foundation for the research community to advance reasoning model development, offering a unified framework that effectively bridges logical puzzle-solving with broader reasoning capabilities in LLMs. Check out the Paper, GitHub Page and Project Page. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 95k+ ML SubReddit and Subscribe to our Newsletter. Sajjad AnsariSajjad Ansari is a final year undergraduate from IIT Kharagpur. As a Tech enthusiast, he delves into the practical applications of AI with a focus on understanding the impact of AI technologies and their real-world implications. He aims to articulate complex AI concepts in a clear and accessible manner.Sajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Multimodal Foundation Models Fall Short on Physical Reasoning: PHYX Benchmark Highlights Key Limitations in Visual and Symbolic IntegrationSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Meta AI Introduces Multi-SpatialMLLM: A Multi-Frame Spatial Understanding with Multi-modal Large Language ModelsSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Can LLMs Really Judge with Reasoning? Microsoft and Tsinghua Researchers Introduce Reward Reasoning Models to Dynamically Scale Test-Time Compute for Better AlignmentSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/NVIDIA AI Introduces AceReason-Nemotron for Advancing Math and Code Reasoning through Reinforcement Learning

Claude 4’s “whistle-blow” surprise shows why agentic AI risk lives in prompts and tool access, not benchmarks. Learn the 6 controls every enterprise must adopt.Read More

Tech layoffs have continued in 2025. Much of that is being blamed on a combination of a slower economy and the adoption of automation via artificial intelligence. Nearly four in 10 Americans, for instance, believe generative AI (genAI) could diminish the number of available jobs as it advances, according to a study released in October by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. And the World Economic Forum’s Jobs Initiative study found that close to half (44%) of worker skills will be disrupted in the next five years — and 40% of tasks will be affected by the use of genAI tools and the large language models (LLMs) that underpin them. In April, the US tech industry lost 214,000 positions as companies shifted toward AI roles and skills-based hiring amid economic uncertainty. Tech sector companies reduced staffing by a net 7,000 positions in April, an analysis of data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed. This year, 137 tech companies have fired 62,114 tech employees, according to Layoffs.fyi. Efforts to reduce headcount at government agencies by the unofficial US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) saw an additional 61,296 federal workers fired this year. Kye Mitchell, president of tech workforce staffing firm Experis US, believes the IT employment market is undergoing a fundamental transformation rather than experiencing traditional cyclical layoffs. Although Experis is seeing a 13% month-over-month decline in traditional software developer postings, it doesn’t represent “job destruction, it’s market evolution,” Mitchell said. “What we’re witnessing is the emergence of strategic technology orchestrators who harness AI to drive unprecedented business value,” she said. For example, organizations that once deployed two scrum teams of ten people to develop high-quality software are now achieving superior results with a single team of five AI-empowered developers. “This isn’t about cutting jobs; it’s about elevating roles,” Mitchell said. Specialized roles in particular are surging. Database architect positions are up 2,312%, statistician roles have increased 382%, and jobs for mathematicians have increased 1,272%. “These aren’t replacements; they’re vital for an AI-driven future,” she said. In fact, it’s an IT talent gap, not an employee surplus, that is now challenging organizations — and will continue to do so. With 76% of IT employers already struggling to find skilled tech talent, the market fundamentals favor skilled professionals, according to Mitchell. “The question isn’t whether there will be IT jobs — it’s whether we can develop the right skills fast enough to meet demand,” she said. For federal tech workers, outdated systems and slow procurement make it hard to attract and keep top tech talent. Agencies expect fast team deployment but operate with rigid, outdated processes, according to Justin Vianello, CEO of technology workforce development firm SkillStorm. Long security clearance delays add cost and time, often forcing companies to hire expensive, already-cleared talent. Meanwhile, modern technologists want to use current tools and make an impact — something hard to do with legacy systems and decade-long modernization efforts, he added. Many suggest turning to AI to will solve the tech talent shortage, but there is no evidence that AI will lead to a reduction in demand for tech talent, Vianello said. “On the contrary, companies see that the demand for tech talent has increased as they invest in preparing their workforce to properly use AI tools,” he said. A shortage of qualified talent is a bigger barrier to hiring than AI automation, he said, because organizations struggle to find candidates with the right certifications, skills, and clearances — especially in cloud, cybersecurity, and AI. Tech workers often lack skills in these areas because technology evolves faster than education and training can keep up, Vianello said. And while AI helps automate routine tasks, it can’t replace the strategic roles filled by skilled professionals. Seven out of 10 US organizations are struggling to find skilled workers to fill roles in an ever-evolving digital transformation landscape, and genAI has added to that headache, according to a ManpowerGroup survey released earlier this year. Job postings for AI skills surged 2,000% in 2024, but education and training in this area haven’t kept pace, according to Kelly Stratman, global ecosystem relationships enablement leader at Ernst & Young. “As formal education and training in AI skills still lag, it results in a shortage of AI talent that can effectively manage these technologies and demands,” she said in an earlier interview. “The AI talent shortage is most prominent among highly technical roles like data scientists/analysts, machine learning engineers, and software developers.” Economic uncertainty is creating a cautious hiring environment, but it’s more complex than tariffs alone. Experis data shows employers adopting a “wait and watch” stance as they monitor economic signals, with job openings down 11% year-over-year, according to Mitchell. “However, the bigger story is strategic workforce planning in an era of rapid technological change. Companies are being incredibly precise about where they allocate resources. Not because of economic pressure alone, but because the skills landscape is shifting so rapidly,” Mitchell said. “They’re prioritizing mission-critical roles while restructuring others around AI capabilities.” Top organizations see AI as a strategic shift, not just cost-cutting. Cutting talent now risks weakening core areas like cybersecurity, according to Mitchell. Skillstorm’s Vianello suggests that IT job hunters should begin to upgrade their skills with certifications that matter: AWS, Azure, CISSP, Security+, and AI/ML credentials open doors quickly, he said. “Veterans, in particular, have an edge; they bring leadership, discipline, and security clearances. Apprenticeships and fellowships offer a fast track into full-time roles by giving you experience that actually counts. And don’t overlook the intangibles: soft skills and project leadership are what elevate technologists into impact-makers,” Vianello said. Skills-based hiring has been on the rise for several years, as organizations seek to fill specific needs for big data analytics, programing (such as Rust), and AI prompt engineering. In fact, demand for genAI courses is surging, passing all other tech skills courses spanning fields from data science to cybersecurity, project management, and marketing. “AI isn’t replacing jobs — it’s fundamentally redefining how work gets done. The break point where technology truly displaces a position is when roughly 80% of tasks can be fully automated,” Mitchell said. “We’re nowhere near that threshold for most roles. Instead, we’re seeing AI augment skill sets and make professionals more capable, faster, and able to focus on higher-value work.” Leaders use AI as a strategic enabler — embedding it to enhance, not compete with, human developers, she said. Some industry forecasts predict a 30% productivity boost from AI tools, potentially adding more than $1.5 trillion to global GDP. For example, AI tools are expected to perform the lion’s share of coding. Techniques where humans use AI-augmented coding tools, such as “vibe coding,” are set to revolutionize software development by creating source code, generating tests automatically, and freeing up developer time for innovation instead of debugging code.  With vibe coding, developers use natural language in a conversational way that prompts the AI model to offer contextual ideas and generate code based on the conversation. By 2028, 75% of professional developers will be using vibe coding and other genAI-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. A report from MIT Technology Review Insights found that 94% of business leaders now use genAI in software development, with 82% applying it in multiple stages — and 26% in four or more. Some industry experts place genAI’s use in creating code much higher. “What we are finding is that we’re three to six months from a world where AI is writing 90% of the code. And then in 12 months, we may be in a world where AI is writing essentially all of the code,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a recent report and video interview. “The real [AI] transformation is in role evolution. Developers are becoming strategic technology orchestrators,” Mitchell from Experis said. “Data professionals are becoming business problem solvers. The demand isn’t disappearing; it’s becoming more sophisticated and more valuable. “In today’s economic climate, having the right tech talent with AI-enhanced capabilities isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s your competitive edge,” she said.

Touchscreens were really cool 15 years ago, when the iPad first came out. Now that the novelty's worn off, more people seem to realize that navigating submenus sucks. Manufacturers, particularly automotive ones, love touchscreens because it reduces their production costs. But the user experience suffers for it, and leaves many craving physical knobs, buttons, dials and switches.A Bulgarian company called Enhance manufactures an aftermarket knob for the Tesla. In keeping with the puerility of the target market, it's called the S3XY Knob. The retrofittable knob, which comes in a housing flanked with four programmable buttons, communicates with the car via Bluetooth and Tesla's API. It's mounted in the center console and allows drivers to access the climate control, media playback, drive modes and more without needing to fuss with the touchscreen. Visual feedback comes via a small circular screen atop the knob.Here's a demo of what it can do:The company also makes standalone S3XY Buttons for Teslas that are user-programmable. They come with stickers of various functions. The knobs run about $450, and buy-in for the buttons starts at $330 for a four-pack.The question is whether these objects will proliferate, or if manufacturers will listen to customer feedback and give people the kinds of controls they actually like.

How far would you go to keep yourself private online? There’s little doubt that advances in technology over the past three decades have eroded traditional concepts around privacy and security: It was once unthinkable to voluntarily invite big companies to track your every move and decision—now, we happily let them in exchange for the digital goods and services we rely on (or are hopelessly addicted to). Most people these days either tolerate these privacy intrusions or outright don’t care about them. But there’s a growing movement that believes it’s time to claim our privacy back. Some are working piecemeal, blocking trackers and reducing permissions where they can, while not totally ditching modern digital society as a whole. Others, however, are as hardcore as can be—a modern equivalent of "going off the grid."  We put out a call looking for the latter—people who are going to great lengths to protect their privacy in today’s mass surveillance world. We received a number of insightful, fascinating, and unique situations, but for this piece, I want to highlight four specific perspectives: "Ed," "Jane," "Mark," and "Jay."Ed is "ruthless" with app choices and permissionsThe first respondent, I’ll call Ed, since their privacy journey began with the Edward Snowden leaks: “I'd known something was likely up…as early as 2006[.] I remember headlines about AT&T possibly spying, but high school me didn't take it too seriously at the time. The Snowden leaks, when I was in college, really opened my eyes. Ever since, I've taken steps to protect my privacy.”Ed says the biggest step they’ve taken towards a digitally private life has been their Proton account. If you’re not aware, Proton is a company that offers apps designed for privacy. Their email service, Proton Mail, is the most famous of the company’s products, but Proton makes other apps as well. Ed uses many of them, including Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, and Proton Drive. Ed pays for Proton Ultimate, which costs them nearly $200 every two years (a new account is now billed yearly at $119.88). You don’t have to pay for Proton, but your experience is much more limited. That’s not totally dissimilar to Google’s offers, which gives you more features if you pay, but most people can definitely get by with a free Google Account. I'm not so sure the reverse is true. Speaking of Google, Ed does have a Google Account, but rarely logs into it. They don’t keep anything attached to it, however—Ed stores all files, for example, in Proton Drive or Tresoirt (another end-to-end encrypted service).Ed uses SimpleLogin for throwaway email addresses. That’s not just for the times Ed wants to avoid giving their email address to someone. According to them, they use an alias anytime an organization asks for their email, and frequently delete it when it’s no longer useful. Each online purchase gets its own alias, and that alias is deleted once the purchase is complete. Whenever Ed travels, they use an alias for any flights, hotels, and rental cars they use. Once the trip is up, they delete the alias. If one of those aliases receives a spam message, they delete it as well.Ed’s smartphone of choice is iPhone, and although Apple arguably has the best reputation for privacy in big tech, Ed is no fan: “Apple is no bastion of privacy of course, but they seem to be the least-worst of the big tech companies.” Ed doesn’t use iCloud for any backups: Any iPhone files are kept in Tresorit. That iPhone, of course, contains apps. But each app is there for a reason, and no app gets access to permissions unless it requires it: “I'm ruthless about apps and app permissions. If I'm not going to use the app regularly, I uninstall it. I grant only those permissions I think the app reasonably needs.” Ed protects his mobile internet traffic with Proton VPN, and only accesses the web via Firefox Focus, a special version of Firefox designed for privacy. Location services are always off on Ed’s iPhone, unless they’re using Apple Maps for navigation. Once they arrive at their destination, Ed disables location services again. They also have an interesting trick for getting back home without revealing their actual address:  “Additionally, when I'm navigating home, I don't enter my home address. I enter the address down the street just as an extra layer so I'm not entering my actual home address…I'll end navigation and turn off location while still driving…if I know the rest of the way home myself."Most of us deal regularly (if not daily) with spam calls. Not Ed: They use the “Silence Unknown Callers” setting on iOS to send all numbers not in the Contacts app to voicemail. They then review all voicemails, and if they didn’t leave a message, they block the number. Our initial call out for this piece referenced how using a VPN can sometimes block incoming phone calls, but Ed isn’t bothered by that: “Since most calls these days are scams or telemarketing, and most people I do want to talk to aren't going to call me anyway, I see this as more of a feature than a bug.” For their desktop computing needs, Ed uses Windows. They admit they aren’t privacy experts when it comes to Microsoft’s OS, but they do what they can, including changing all privacy settings and uninstalling all programs they don’t use. (That includes OneDrive and Edge.) They also run a clean version of Windows 11 after following Lifehacker’s guide. Firefox is their go-to PC browser, and they use a variety of extensions, including:ClearURLs: removes trackers from links.Decentraleyes: blocks data requests from third-party networks. Disconnect: blocks trackers from "thousands" of third-party sites.Firefox Multi-Account Containers: separates your browsing into siloed "containers" to isolate each session from one another.PopUpOFF: blocks pop-ups, overlays, and cookie alerts.Privacy Badger: blocks invisible trackers.Proton VPN: Proton's Firefox add-on for its VPN.uBlock Origin: popular content blocker.Ed didn’t say how much of an impact this array of extensions and settings has on their browsing, save for YouTube, which they admit does sometimes give them trouble. However, Ed has workarounds: “When YouTube wants me to 'sign in to confirm you're not a bot,' changing VPN servers usually does the trick.” Ed also uses the audible clues for ReCAPTCHA prompts, rather than the pictures, since they don’t want to help train Google’s “braindead AI.”Ed deleted all their social media accounts, including Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Though they’ve never had TikTok installed on their phone, they will watch it in Firefox when a friend sends them a video. Jane uses an open-source smartphone OS designed for privacyWhile Edward Snowden may have kicked off Ed’s interest in personal privacy, "Jane" has many strong beliefs motivating their desire for privacy. They are concerned about data brokers and Meta’s practices of tracking internet activity, and how these companies build profiles based on that data to sell to third-parties; they’re concerned about the possibility of telecommunication companies tracking our locations via cellular towers; they worry about US law enforcement and agencies reviewing citizens’ social media accounts accounts and tracking people. Their focus on privacy is fueled by true concern for their own well-being, not only the value of privacy as a concept.      Jane uses a VPN on all of their devices. Instead of Proton, however, Jane opts for Mullvad. They enable ad and tracker blocking, as well as a kill switch, which blocks your internet if you lose connection with the VPN—thus protecting your connection from being leaked out of the secure network.I’m a big advocate for strong and unique passwords and proper password management, but Jane definitely beats me when it comes to secure credentials. Jane uses six to eight-word passphrases generated by diceware, a tactic that chooses words based on dice rolls. Something like this diceware generator will roll a die five times, then find a word in a bank based on that five-digit number. You can repeat this as many times as you want to come up with a passphrase built up with random words. Jane saves all of their passphrases to a password manager, except for the ones for important accounts, like their bank. They commit those to memory, just in case someone breaches their password manager.     Like Ed, Jane uses Mullvad, but instead of just using their VPN, they opt for the web browser, which has those protections built in. Mullvad’s strict privacy settings break persistent logins on websites, so any sites Jane wants to stay logged in on are kept in Brave browser. For both Mullvad and Brave, Jane uses uBlock Origin.“From time-to-time I do run into sites that will block access due to being on a VPN or blocking ads and trackers. Instead of disabling [my] VPN completely, switching my connection to one of Mullvad's rented servers instead of ones they own usually helps. Barring that, I occasionally go into [uBlock Origin] and temporarily whitelist a needed [URL] ([ReCAPTCHA] etc). This works for me to get around site blocks most of the time.”  Jane uses a Mac, and configured macOS based on various privacy guides. But instead of an iPhone, Jane opts for a Google Pixel. That might surprise readers who assumed hardcore privacy enthusiasts would break away from Google entirely. But X doesn’t run Android: Instead, they installed GrapheneOS on their Pixel, an open-source OS designed for privacy. Following a restart, Jane configured the Pixel to only unlock with a seven-word dice passphrase—for general use, they use a fingerprint scan and a six-digit PIN. If the don’t unlock their Pixel for a while, their phone automatically reboots to put it back into this “First Unlock” state. They also keep airplane mode on at all times to disable the phone’s radio communications, but maintain a wifi connection with timed automatic Bluetooth and wireless disabling. Jane also deleted all their social media accounts after downloading all data associated with those platforms.Mark uses phone and credit card masks“Mark” is perhaps the least hardcore of the respondents in this story, but that makes their experience both interesting and relatable. Unlike most of the people we spoke to, Mark is still on Facebook and Instagram. That’s due to their job, which requires them to be on the platform, but they’ve been “systematically” deleting everything they can over their 19-year Facebook history and saving the data to an external hard drive. Mark doesn’t follow anything that isn’t relevant to their job, and only uses Facebook and Instagram inside the DuckDuckGo browser. They don’t react to posts they see, and following their privacy tactics, Facebook doesn’t show them relevant ads anymore. “If there is an ad I'm actually interested in I'll search it up in a different browser rather than click it.”Mark has had four Google Accounts in their time online, and has deleted two so far. Like Facebook, they have to use Google for their job, but they delegate all their work to Chrome. All other browsing runs through Firefox, DuckDuckGo, or Tor. The latter is perhaps best known for being the browser of choice for browsing the dark web, but what makes it great for that is also what makes it a great choice for private browsing.Unlike others in this story, Mark hasn’t de-Googled themselves completely. In addition to using Chrome for work, Mark has a phone mask through Google, and has their contacts, calendar, and maps tied to the company—though they are moving away from Google as much as they can. They've been running through their old emails to find and delete outdated accounts they no longer use. Any accounts they do need now use an email mask that forwards to a Mailfence account, an encrypted email service.   Mark was the only respondent to talk about entertainment in relation to privacy: “I've also been switching to physical media over streaming, so buying CDs and DVDs, locally as much as possible. I'm lucky to have a local music store and a local bookstore...one of the owners of our bookstore wrote a book on how to resist Amazon and why. Any book I want, I can either order through them or on Alibris. For music, I use our local record store and Discogs.”When shopping online, Mark uses a credit card mask, but still uses the card itself when shopping in person. They want to start using a credit card mask in retail locations like Janet Vertesi, an associate professor of sociology at Princeton University, but they haven’t quite gotten there yet.   What really piqued my interest most about Mark, however, wasn’t their perspective on their own privacy concerns, but the concerns around the privacy of their kids: “They each have a Gmail, two of them have Snapchat. Their schools use Gaggle and Google to spy on them. I don't even know how to start disconnecting them from all this...I was a kid during the wild west of the internet and this feels like getting back to my roots. My kids are end users who understand apps and touchscreens, not torrenting their music or coding a basic website. (Is this my version of "I drank out of the garden hose"?) I feel like Big Data has its grip on the kids already and I don't have a guidebook on navigating that as a parent.”  Mark’s current focus on their kids’ privacy includes deleting their health data from their local health system. That’s in part due to a data breach impacting the health system, but also the language about autism from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Secretary of Health and Human Services.Jay de-googled their life and uses a VoIP phone number"Jay's" origin story with personal privacy dates back to 2017. That year, Equifax suffered a major hack, where nearly 148 million Americans had sensitive data stolen and weren’t notified about the breach for months. Jay was frustrated: You don’t choose to give your data to Equifax, or any credit bureau, and yet so many people lost their data. They also felt that companies were not properly held responsible for these events, and lawmakers were simply too out of touch to do what was necessary to protect citizens’ privacy, so they took it upon themselves to protect their own data. Ever since this incident, Jay freezes their credit: “It was frustratingly difficult back then, but nowadays, it is very easy (it just requires an account, which I use a burner email for)...The freeze will not allow anyone to pull credit for large purchases in your name, even if they have your social security number (and because of the data breach, someone probably does). I decided I wanted to pursue some privacy for the things I do have a choice over.”  From here, Jay de-googled their life, including both Google Search as well as YouTube. They’ve found no issue with using alternative search engines, and, in fact, sees Google getting worse, as it tries to show you results based on what it thinks it knows about you, not what is most relevant to your actual query: “The internet was supposed to be a place you went to find information, not where you became the information that companies take instead."Jay uses tools to prevent fingerprinting, where companies identify you and track you across the internet, but worries that going too far with things like ad blockers puts a target on your back as well. Jay chooses to pick “a couple of effective tools,” and runs with those.For their smartphone needs, Jay goes with Apple. Like Ed, Jay doesn’t believe Apple is perfect, and even considers their privacy policies a bit of a gimmick, but sees them as the better alternative to Android. Jay likes the security of the App Store, and the array of privacy features in both Safari and Apple Accounts as a whole. They highlight Safari’s “Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection” feature, which helps block trackers as you browse the web; iCloud’s Private Relay, which hides your IP address; and “Hide My Email,” which generates email aliases you can share with others without giving your true email address away.Most of us are plagued with spam calls, but following the Robinhood data breach in 2021, Jay started receiving a flood of them. They decided to change their phone number and made a point of never sharing it with businesses. For the times they need to give out their number to parties they don’t trust, they use a number generated by My Sudo, which, for $20 per year, gives them a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone number. It works with most services that rely on SMS, but it won’t function for two-factor authentication. (Which is fine, seeing as SMS-based 2FA is the weakest form of secondary authentication.) My Sudo lets you change your number for an additional $1, so if Jay’s number ever was compromised or started receiving too much spam, they could swap it.        Jay, like many respondents, deleted all social media services: “It has its place in society for a lot of people, and is no doubt a great way to connect. However, I found that the fear of deleting it was a lot worse than actually deleting it. The people you care about won’t forget you exist.” That said, Jay doesn't mind any of the obstacles this lifestyle does throw their way: “It is a challenging topic, as most people consider you a little bit 'out there' if you take steps to make your life a little less convenient, but more private. The modern world sells you convenience, while pretending it is free, and harvesting your data for so much more than you actually get out of your relationship to them.”      What it takes to be private on the modern internetThere's no one way to tackle personal privacy. Every one of the respondents to our query had something unique about their approach, and many had different motivations behind why they were so concerned about their privacy.There are plenty of common through lines, of course. Most privacy people love Proton, which makes sense. Proton seems to be the only company that offers a suite of apps most closely resembling Google's while also prioritizing privacy. If you want your email, calendar, word processor, and even your VPN all tied up nicely under one privacy-focused umbrella, that's Proton. But not everyone wants an ecosystem, either. That's why you see respondents using other VPNs, like Mullvad, or other private storage options, like Tresorit. These apps and services exist—they might just not be owned by one company, like Apple or Google (or Proton).Google and Meta are more commonalities, in that most privacy enthusiasts ditch them entirely. Some, like Mark, haven't been able to fully shake off these data-hungry companies. In Mark's case, that's because they need these platforms for work. But while most hardcore privacy people delete their Google and Meta accounts, most of us have trouble de-Googling and de-Metaing our digital lives. In general, though, the keys to privacy success include the following: Use a VPN to protect your internet traffic; prioritize privacy in your web browser, both through the browser itself, as well as extensions that block ads and protect your traffic; shield your sensitive information whenever possible, by using email aliases, alternate phone numbers, or credit card masks; use strong and unique passwords for all accounts, and store those passwords in a secure password manager; use two-factor authentication whenever possible (perhaps passkeys, when available); and stick to end-to-end encrypted chat apps to communicate with others. While there's always more you can do, that's the perfect storm to keep your digital life as private as reasonably possible. Some might read through the examples here and see steps that are too much effort to be worth it. It might seem out of reach to ditch Gmail and Instagram, break certain websites, and force your friends and family to learn new numbers and email addresses to protect your privacy, especially if you don't feel your privacy has that much of an impact on your life. But even if you aren't sold on the concept of privacy itself, there are real-world results from sticking with these methods. Jay no longer receives spam calls and texts; Mark no longer sees ads that are freakishly relevant to their likes. It's a lifestyle change, to be sure, but it's not just to serve some concept of privacy. You can see results by changing the way you interact with the internet, all without having to actually disconnect from the internet, and, by extension, the world at large.

Published June 1, 2025 10:00am EDT close Microsoft claims a big leap forward in forecasting Just in time for hurricane season, Microsoft is unveiling a new AI-powered weather prediction system. Infostealer malware has been on the rise recently, and that's evident from the billions of user records leaked online in the past year alone. This type of malware targets everything from your name, phone number and address to financial details and cryptocurrency. Leading the charge is the Lumma infostealer.I have been reporting on this malware since last year, and security researchers have called it one of the most dangerous infostealers, infecting millions. There have been countless incidents of Lumma targeting people's personal data (more on this later), but the good news is that Microsoft has taken it down.The Redmond-based company announced it has dismantled the Lumma Stealer malware operation with the help of law enforcement agencies around the world. Illustration of a hacker at work   (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)What you need to knowMicrosoft confirmed that it has successfully taken down the Lumma Stealer malware network in collaboration with law enforcement agencies around the world. In a blog post, the company revealed that its Digital Crimes Unit had tracked infections on more than 394,000 Windows devices globally between March 16 and May 16.Lumma was a go-to tool for cybercriminals, often used to siphon sensitive information like login credentials, credit card numbers, bank account details and cryptocurrency wallet data. The malware’s reach and impact made it a favored choice among threat actors for financial theft and data breaches.MASSIVE DATA BREACH EXPOSES 184 MILLION PASSWORDS AND LOGINSTo disrupt the malware’s operation, Microsoft obtained a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, which allowed the company to take down key domains that supported Lumma’s infrastructure. This was followed by the U.S. Department of Justice stepping in to seize control of Lumma’s core command system and shut down marketplaces where the malware was being sold.International cooperation played a major role as well. Japan’s cybercrime unit helped dismantle Lumma’s locally hosted infrastructure, while Europol assisted in actions against hundreds of domains used in the operation. In total, over 1,300 domains were seized or redirected to Microsoft-managed sinkholes to prevent further damage.Microsoft says this takedown effort also included support from industry partners such as Cloudflare, Bitsight and Lumen, which helped dismantle the broader ecosystem that enabled Lumma to thrive. HP laptop   (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)More about the Lumma infostealerLumma is a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) that has been marketed and sold through underground forums since at least 2022. Over the years, its developers have released multiple versions to continually improve its capabilities. I first reported on Lumma in February 2024, when it was used by hackers to access Google accounts using expired cookies that contained login information.Lumma continued targeting users, with reports in October 2024 revealing it was impersonating fake human verification pages to trick Windows users into sharing sensitive information. The malware wasn’t limited to Windows. In January 2024, security researchers found the infostealer malware was targeting 100 million Mac users, stealing browser credentials, cryptocurrency wallets and other personal data. Windows laptop   (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)6 ways you can protect yourself from infostealer malwareTo protect yourself from the evolving threat of infostealer malware, which continues to target users through sophisticated social engineering tactics, consider taking these six essential security measures:1. Be skeptical of CAPTCHA prompts: Legitimate CAPTCHA tests never require you to press Windows + R, copy commands or paste anything into PowerShell. If a website instructs you to do this, it’s likely a scam. Close the page immediately and avoid interacting with it.2. Don’t click links from unverified emails and use strong antivirus software: Many infostealer attacks start with phishing emails that impersonate trusted services. Always verify the sender before clicking on links. If an email seems urgent or unexpected, go directly to the company’s official website instead of clicking any links inside the email.The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.3. Enable two-factor authentication: Enable two-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible. This adds an extra layer of security by requiring a second form of verification, such as a code sent to your phone, in addition to your password.4. Keep devices updated: Regularly updating your operating system, browser and security software ensures you have the latest patches against known vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals exploit outdated systems, so enabling automatic updates is a simple but effective way to stay protected.WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?5. Monitor your accounts for suspicious activity and change your passwords: If you’ve interacted with a suspicious website, phishing email or fake login page, check your online accounts for any unusual activity. Look for unexpected login attempts, unauthorized password resets or financial transactions that you don’t recognize. If anything seems off, change your passwords immediately and report the activity to the relevant service provider. Also, consider using a password manager to generate and store complex passwords. Get more details about my best expert-reviewed Password Managers of 2025 here.6. Invest in a personal data removal service: Consider using a service that monitors your personal information and alerts you to potential breaches or unauthorized use of your data. These services can provide early warning signs of identity theft or other malicious activities resulting from infostealer malware or similar attacks. While no service promises to remove all your data from the internet, having a removal service is great if you want to constantly monitor and automate the process of removing your information from hundreds of sites continuously over a longer period of time. ​Check out my top picks for data removal services here. Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web.Kurt’s key takeawayMicrosoft’s takedown of the Lumma Stealer malware network is a major win in the fight against infostealers, which have fueled a surge in data breaches over the past year. Lumma had become a go-to tool for cybercriminals, targeting everything from browser credentials to crypto wallets across Windows and Mac systems. I’ve been tracking this malware since early 2024, and its ability to impersonate human verification pages and abuse expired cookies made it especially dangerous.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPDo you feel tech companies are doing enough to protect users from malware like this? Let us know by writing us atCyberguy.com/ContactFor more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/NewsletterAsk Kurt a question or let us know what stories you'd like us to coverFollow Kurt on his social channelsAnswers to the most asked CyberGuy questions:New from Kurt:Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com.  All rights reserved.   Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on "FOX & Friends." Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Long-time 9to5Mac readers will remember that the native Shortcuts app started as an indie project called Workflow, a clever, approachable tool that made automation fun and accessible to less technical users. Today, Shortcuts remains a powerful utility, particularly on the Mac. However, compared to how agentic AI tools have reshaped how we think about automation, it’s feeling a bit stagnant. That may be about to change. As reported by Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter, Apple is preparing a significant overhaul of its Shortcuts app, integrating AI capabilities through its Apple Intelligence initiative: “A revamped version of its Shortcuts app, which today lets users create actions such as launching certain features within apps or playing a particular playlist. The new version will let consumers create those actions using Apple Intelligence models. (This had long been planned for 2025, but delays may push it to 2026.)” In other words, an AI-based Shortcuts app might allow more natural language interactions, further lowering the barrier for automation-curious users who might find the current interface a bit challenging to navigate. This move aligns with broader industry trends where AI is increasingly integrated into system-level functionalities. Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs, for instance, feature an AI agent capable of performing actions and daisy-chaining system adjustments based on user requests through natural language commands. Imagine combining this capability with AI-generated automations triggered by simple voice or text prompts, such as: “When I start a Zoom, Teams, Meet, or FaceTime call, activate Do Not Disturb, dim the screen, and open Notes. During the meeting, capture participant names, job titles, and key discussion points. After the call, draft an email summarizing the meeting and outlining each person’s action items.” This might be trivial for you, but it sure isn’t for most users. And having this sort of stuff one voice command away could be really powerful. I’ll say it again: MCP And then there’s Anthropic’s MCP, an open standard designed to facilitate seamless integration between AI assistants and external data sources and tools. Against all odds, it has been adopted by major players, including Google and OpenAI (who also offer their own solutions), in a rare case of cross-industry collaboration. While it’s uncertain whether Apple will ever embrace MCP, its adoption would absolutely benefit users by enabling automation even further, beyond just system settings and limited local app control. Given Gurman’s report that this AI-powered Shortcuts feature, initially planned for 2025, might be delayed to 2026, it’s unlikely we’ll see it showcased at the June 9 WWDC keynote. Still, it’s a relief to know that Apple has been paying attention to this aspect of agentic AI. Whether it will deliver on its promise remains to be seen. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel