Latest Technology News

Six-hundred-forty-four in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft announced the deprecation and removal of the Maps app by July 2025 from the Microsoft Store. The app won't be uninstalled on user machines, but it won't receive updates anymore and can't be installed again if it is removed by the user after July 2025.

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Every organization, sooner or later, writes itself a policy. It gets stapled into onboarding packs and waved about during training, and then quietly forgotten. It’s not that people mean to ignore it. It’s just that rules don’t always make themselves felt when the Wi-Fi’s down or the finance team’s in a rush. But culture -- that’s different. Culture settles into the way people think and work and react. It turns guidelines into instincts. That’s when you know security has taken root.

Understanding this shift often begins with a question: what, exactly, are we securing -- and how do we keep track of it all? Which is where you'll find DSPM explained in any sensible conversation. Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) refers to the ongoing process of identifying, monitoring, and reducing risks across sensitive data. It’s less about locking everything up and more about seeing clearly -- knowing where the data is, who can access it, and what it’s doing. The benefit isn’t just technical; it’s cultural. 

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As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape industries, data privacy and security concerns are escalating. The rapid growth of AI applications presents new challenges for companies in safeguarding sensitive information.

Emerging advanced AI models like Deepseek, developed outside the US, underscore the risks of handling critical data. We spoke to Amar Kanagaraj, CEO of Protecto -- a data guardrail company focused on AI security and privacy -- to get his insights on the most pressing AI data protection challenges.

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Facebook is so far removed from the platform it first started as, it is hardly the same product. Many users would say it is not even the same platform it was a couple of years ago, and one of the biggest changes -- and irritants -- is the sheer volume of worthless content.

By this, we mean spam-like rubbish rather than stuff you’re just not interested in, and Meta has announced that it is finally taking action that it hopes will effectively reduce and discourage “spammy content”.

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Despite making claims to the contrary, Microsoft is not really thought of as being a company that takes much notice of user opinion. All too often it seems that incredibly unpopular options, features and changes are introduced with little regard for what users actually want.

But, to buck the trend, Microsoft has apparently been listening to feedback from people who are unhappy about the encroachment of Copilot into... well, pretty much everything, really. The decision to include a physical Copilot key on keyboards has been one such unpopular move, and the reaction from Windows 11 users has forced Microsoft’s hand.

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Subtitles for shows and movies serve many purposes. As well as helping those with restricted hearing, they’re also handy for watching without the need for the volume to be too high, as well as addressing the problem of mumbled dialog.

Now Netflix is introducing what it describes as “a new way to experience subtitles”. To tie in with the launch of the latest season of YOU, viewers have the option of using subtitles that show only dialog and omits reference to other audio events. Here’s what you need to know about what this means for you.

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Volkswagen is making a serious push into the world of autonomous vehicles, and it is teaming up with Uber to help drive that effort forward. The two companies have announced a partnership that will put Volkswagen’s ID. Buzz AD vans (fully autonomous, all-electric versions of its iconic Microbus) on American streets as robotaxis. The rollout will begin in Los Angeles, with testing set to start later this year and commercial service planned for 2026.

While the plan is for these vehicles to operate without drivers, don’t worry -- there will still be human operators on board during the early phases of testing and launch. This approach is designed to help fine-tune the technology and ensure rider safety while waiting on necessary regulatory approvals.

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Lexar is looking to shake up the solid state drive market with the debut of two new high-performance NVMe SSDs. The company has released the NQ780 PCIe 4.0 SSD and the Professional NM1090 PRO PCIe 5.0 SSD, both aimed at gamers, content creators, and anyone who demands fast storage. Even better, both drives are available for purchase on Amazon right now.

The NM1090 PRO stands out as the flagship option, pushing PCIe Gen 5 storage to impressive new heights. Depending on which capacity you choose, this SSD can hit read speeds up to 14,000MB/s and write speeds up to 13,000MB/s. The 2TB and 4TB models both offer up to 2100K IOPS for random reads, while random write speeds can reach as high as 1800K IOPS. Even the 1TB model holds its own with 14,000MB/s reads and 10,000MB/s writes. It’s built using a 6nm controller to help keep heat in check and performance stable.

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If we are lucky, Artificial intelligence might one day help scientists understand the human brain the same way language models predict the next word in a sentence. And now, that future is closer to becoming reality thanks to a new project from Google Research, Harvard University, and HHMI Janelia. You see, these teams have introduced the Zebrafish Activity Prediction Benchmark, better known as “ZAPBench,” which could help researchers create more accurate models for predicting brain activity.

ZAPBench isn’t just another dataset, folks. Actually, this new tool is based on two hours of brain recordings from larval zebrafish, capturing how roughly 70,000 neurons fired in response to different virtual reality scenarios. These tiny fish were shown various environmental changes, including shifting light patterns and moving water currents, while researchers recorded brain activity at an impressively detailed scale.

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Enterprises are grappling with an increasing compliance burden, subject to multiple frameworks and more regulatory mandates that stretch resources and drive-up costs.

Misconfigurations can further complicate things, often leading to non-compliance and regulatory penalties. Plus time-consuming tasks like auditing, reporting, and system remediation are prone to human error.

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A new study shows that 92 percent of IT leaders believe the new era of digital transformation will increase digital friction and that less than half (47 percent) of employees have the requisite digital dexterity to adapt to technological changes.

The report from digital employee experience (DEX) specialist Nexthink, based on a survey of 1,100 IT decision makers worldwide, shows a further 88 percent expect workers to be daunted by new technologies such as generative AI.

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A new study from Backslash Security looks at seven current versions of OpenAI's GPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini to test the influence varying prompting techniques have on their ability to produce secure code.

Three tiers of prompting techniques, ranging from 'naive' to 'comprehensive,' were used to generate code for everyday use cases. Code output was measured by its resilience against 10 Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) use cases. The results show that although secure code output success rises with prompt sophistication all LLMs generally produced insecure code by default.

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Berlin-based O&O Software GmbH has unveiled a major new release -- and edition -- of its backup software for Windows. O&O DiskImage 21 Premium is a new entry into the DiskImage family, aimed firmly at home users.

The application, which can back up everything from individual files to entire drives, is relaunched with a brand new interface as well as several new features. As with previous releases, the app is sold with a lifetime license as opposed to a time-limited subscription.

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Security teams know they need to test their main applications, but they often struggle to identify which other assets to cover. On average, organizations can miss testing nine out of 10 of their complex web apps.

Security testing platform Detectify is announcing the launch of its new Asset Classification and Scan Recommendations capabilities which enable organizations to easily identify and swiftly act on their complex web applications.

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Most Linux users assume their security tools will catch bad actors before damage is done -- but sadly, new research suggests that confidence may be misplaced. You see, ARMO, the company behind Kubescape, has uncovered what could be one of the biggest blind spots in Linux security today. The company has released a working rootkit called “Curing” that uses io_uring, a feature built into the Linux kernel, to stealthily perform malicious activities without being caught by many of the detection solutions currently on the market.

At the heart of the issue is the heavy reliance on monitoring system calls, which has become the go-to method for many cybersecurity vendors. The problem? Attackers can completely sidestep these monitored calls by leaning on io_uring instead. This clever method could let bad actors quietly make network connections or tamper with files without triggering the usual alarms.

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