An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: AI-based assistants or “agents” — autonomous programs that have access to the user’s computer, files, online services and can automate virtually any task — are growing in popularity with developers and IT workers. But as so many eyebrow-raising headlines over the past few weeks have shown, these powerful and assertive new tools are rapidly shifting the security priorities for organizations, while blurring the lines between data and code, trusted co-worker and insider threat, ninja hacker and novice code jockey.

The new hotness in AI-based assistants — OpenClaw (formerly known as ClawdBot and Moltbot) — has seen rapid adoption since its release in November 2025. OpenClaw is an open-source autonomous AI agent designed to run locally on your computer and proactively take actions on your behalf without needing to be prompted. If that sounds like a risky proposition or a dare, consider that OpenClaw is most useful when it has complete access to your entire digital life, where it can then manage your inbox and calendar, execute programs and tools, browse the Internet for information, and integrate with chat apps like Discord, Signal, Teams or WhatsApp.

Other more established AI assistants like Anthropic’s Claude and Microsoft’s Copilot also can do these things, but OpenClaw isn’t just a passive digital butler waiting for commands. Rather, it’s designed to take the initiative on your behalf based on what it knows about your life and its understanding of what you want done. “The testimonials are remarkable,” the AI security firm Snyk observed. “Developers building websites from their phones while putting babies to sleep; users running entire companies through a lobster-themed AI; engineers who’ve set up autonomous code loops that fix tests, capture errors through webhooks, and open pull requests, all while they’re away from their desks.” You can probably already see how this experimental technology could go sideways in a hurry. […] Last month, Meta AI safety director Summer Yue said OpenClaw unexpectedly started mass-deleting messages in her email inbox, despite instructions to confirm those actions first. She wrote: “Nothing humbles you like telling your OpenClaw ‘confirm before acting’ and watching it speedrun deleting your inbox. I couldn’t stop it from my phone. I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb.”

Krebs also noted the many misconfigured OpenClaw installations users had set up, leaving their administrative dashboards publicly accessible online. According to pentester Jamieson O’Reilly, “a cursory search revealed hundreds of such servers exposed online.” When those exposed interfaces are accessed, attackers can retrieve the agent’s configuration and sensitive credentials. O’Reilly warned attackers could access “every credential the agent uses — from API keys and bot tokens to OAuth secrets and signing keys.”

“You can pull the full conversation history across every integrated platform, meaning months of private messages and file attachments, everything the agent has seen,” O’Reilly added. And because you control the agent’s perception layer, you can manipulate what the human sees. Filter out certain messages. Modify responses before they’re displayed.”

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While many of us iPhone owners just installed the recent iOS 26.3.1 bug patch, Apple is currently at work on another update altogether: iOS 26.4. This update is in beta testing, and brings new features and changes, like AI playlists for Apple Music and support for end-to-end encryption for RCS. But Apple’s most recent beta for 26.4 includes something new that most iPhone users will likely enjoy: eight new emojis.

These new emojis aren’t necessarily Apple’s creations. Instead, they’re based on the Unicode Version 17.0, an emoji standard released on Sept. 9, 2025. When the Unicode Standard releases new emoji standards, it’s up to developers to create their own art for their users. In this case, we’re seeing Apple’s interpretations of these new emoji standards. For their part, Google released its Unicode 17 emojis the same day the standard was announced.

Here are Apple’s new emojis for iOS 26.4

The new emojis in this standard are:

• Distorted Face: A fish-eye effect that shows a face with large eyes to the sides of its head, with an overall surprised expression. (I expect to see a lot of these in message threads and social media posts.)

• Fight Cloud: Something you might expect to see above a cartoon brawl.

• Ballet Dancer: A dancer balancing on one foot.

• Orca: What you’d expect from a killer whale emoji. (I’m honestly surprised this wasn’t an option already.)

• Hairy Creature: Bigfoot, now an emoji.

• Trombone: A trombone.

• Landslide: A large rock with falling rocks on its side. (I feel we could have put more effort into this one.)

• Treasure Chest: A reasonably detailed emoji showing a treasure chest bursting open to reveal a crown, gold coins, rubies, and a pearl necklace.

You can see all eight of Apple’s in the image embedded in the following post from Emojipedia on X:

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Unless Apple decides to push them off to iOS 26.5, these emojis will come out with iOS 26.4. There’s no set release date here, but seeing as iOS 18.4 dropped on March 31 last year, there’s a good shot that we’ll see the new emojis on our iPhones before April.

The Netherlands’ military intelligence service and domestic intelligence agency have issued a join warning claiming that Russian hackers have launched “a large-scale global cyber campaign to gain access to Signal and WhatsApp accounts belonging to dignitaries, military personnel and civil servants.” According to the Dutch alert, hackers are imitating support chatbots to trick key targets into revealing their PINs for those communication platforms, which allows the bad actors to access incoming messages.

Last year in the US, the Pentagon advised members not to use Signal after the platform was subjected to similar phishing scams by Russian hackers. (Although the same US military leaders proved capable of creating their own security breaches without foreign interference just days prior.) 

Having another national government raise concerns about Signal and WhatsApp phishing scams offers yet another reminder to never provide security details or click links without a check on who is really asking for your info.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/dutch-intelligence-services-warn-of-russian-hackers-targeting-signal-and-whatsapp-203707202.html?src=rss

At this January’s massive NAMM music tech show in Los Angeles, six products won “best of show” awards. Several of them went to major music and electronic brands like Yamaha and Boss, but one of the six went to Neural DSP, a much smaller company started in 2017 by Chilean immigrants to Finland.

From its base in the Helsinki area, Neural has made itself an expert in the use of machine learning, robots, and impulse response technology to automate the construction of incredibly lifelike guitar amp modeling software. It quickly jumped into the top ranks of an industry dominated by brands like Universal Audio, Kemper, Line 6, and Fractal. For a hundred bucks, you could buy one of the company’s plugins and sound like a guitar god with a $10,000 recording chain of amps, cabinets, effects pedals, and microphones.

In 2020, Neural branched out into hardware, putting its tech not in your computer but in a floor-based box covered with footswitches and called the Quad Cortex. While the company’s plugins could each replace one entire pedalboard of gear—plus a few amps and cabs—the Quad Cortex could replace a Guitar Center-sized warehouse of devices, offering hundreds of amps, cabs, and effects.

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, who has led the upstart social platform since 2021, is stepping down from her role as its top executive. Toni Schneider, who has been an advisor and investor in Bluesky, will take over the job temporarily while Graber stays on as Chief Innovation Officer. 

“As Bluesky matures, the company needs a seasoned operator focused on scaling and execution, while I return to what I do best: building new things,” Graber wrote in a blog post. Schneider, who was previously CEO at WordPress parent Automattic, will be that “experienced operator and leader” while Blueksy’s board searches for a permanent CEO, she said.

Graber’s history with Bluesky dates back to its early days as a side project at Jack Dorsey’s Twitter. She was officially brought on as CEO in 2021 as Bluesky spun off into an independent company (it officially ended its association with Twitter in 2022 and Dorsey cut ties with Bluesky in 2024). She led the company through its launch and early viral success as it grew from an invitation-only platform to the 43 million-user service it is today. During that time, she’s become known as an advocate for decentralized social media and for trolling Mark Zuckerberg’s t-shirt choices. 

Nearly three years since it launched publicly, Bluesky has carved out a small but influential niche in the post-Twitter social landscape. The platform is less than a third of the size of Meta’s competitor, Threads, which has also copied some of Bluesky’s signature features. Bluesky also has yet to roll out any meaningful monetization features, though it has teased a premium subscription service in the past.

As Chief Innovation Officer, Graber will presumably still be an influential voice at the company going forward. And, as Wired points out, she still has a seat on Bluesky’s board so she will get some say in who steps into the role permanently. Until then, Schneider, who is also a partner at VC firm Tre Ventures, will lead the company. “I deeply believe in what this team has built and the open social web they’re fighting for,” he wrote in a post on Bluesky. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/blueskys-ceo-is-stepping-down-after-nearly-5-years-201900960.html?src=rss

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Rejoice, Peloton/Garmin users—you no longer need to double log your Bike workouts, nor use third-party apps to bridge the gap between the two devices. The latest Peloton app update now lets you sync Peloton workouts to your Garmin. A previous update enabled syncing the opposite way, but now we have both.

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How to enable syncing between Peloton and Garmin

To enable syncing, open up the Peloton app on your phone. Tap the person-looking icon in the bottom right (not your profile pic in the top left, which is different) and then tap the hamburger menu in the top right corner, and then Connected apps & devices. 

I did the workout in the right-hand screenshot on a Peloton Bike, with no Garmin watch present at all.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki

You’ll see Garmin Connect as an option under the list of apps. Tap this, and then you can set up your Garmin/Peloton connection. You’ll need to log in to your Garmin account, and then you have two options: 

• Turn on Auto-import activities if you want your Garmin activities to show up in your Peloton history. You can choose to only import some activity types if you don’t want them all.

• Turn on Send to Garmin Connect if you want your Peloton activities to show up in your Garmin history. Again, you can select activity types if you don’t want everything syncing. 

These are two separate toggles because you may not want everything synced both ways. For example, if I have Peloton sharing my rides to Strava, I don’t necessarily want to sync Peloton rides to Garmin to also be shared to Strava from there. 

Why the new syncing between Peloton and Garmin is an improvement

Previously, if you wanted Peloton rides logged on your Garmin, you probably did this one of two ways. The most straightforward way was to just wear your Garmin watch and also log a workout on the watch. This way you had two entries (one in each app). The main drawback of this is that you don’t have all of Peloton’s data: no power, cadence, output, and so on. Syncing the ride from Peloton to Garmin now means you get all that data and the name of the ride (“5 min Warm Up 60s” in my example here).

If you’ve been double logging, there’s one thing you should know about switching over: The workout logged by the Peloton won’t include heart rate data unless you have some kind of heart rate monitor paired to the Peloton device. Fortunately, you can probably use your Garmin for this, without starting a Garmin workout. Just tap the Broadcast heart rate item in your watch’s control panel in your Forerunner or other compatible watches. Here’s the instructions for setting this up on the Forerunner 570; for other models of Garmin watch, check your device manual to see whether you have this feature and where to access it.

The other common way was by using SyncMyWorkout, a paid service that syncs data between your Garmin and Peloton accounts. This service may have just become obsolete for many users, although it does seem to have a historical data import feature that the Peloton/Garmin integration does not. 

Apple’s M5 Pro and M5 Max make deceptively large changes to how Apple’s high-end laptop and desktop chips are built.

We’ve already covered those changes in some depth, but in essence: The M5 Pro and M5 Max are no longer monolithic chips with all the CPU and GPU cores and everything else packed into a single silicon die. Using an “all-new Fusion Architecture” like the one used to combine two Max chips into a single Ultra chip, Apple now splits the CPU cores (and other things) into one piece of silicon, and the GPU cores (and other things) into another piece of silicon. These two dies are then packaged together into one chip.

M5 Pro and M5 Max both use the same 18-core CPU die, but Pro uses a 20-core GPU die, and Max gets a 40-core GPU die. (Because the memory controller is also part of the GPU die, the Max chip still offers more memory bandwidth and supports higher memory configurations than the Pro one does.)

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber is stepping down after overseeing the platform’s growth from a Twitter research project into a 40-million-user alternative to X. “As Bluesky matures, the company needs a seasoned operator focused on scaling and execution, while I return to what I do best: building new things,” Graber wrote in a statement.

She will be transitioning to a new Chief Innovation Officer role while Venture capitalist Toni Schneider will serve as interim CEO until the board searches for a permanent replacement. Wired reports: Graber joined Bluesky in 2019, when it was a research project within Twitter focused on developing a decentralized framework for the social web. She became the company’s first chief executive officer in 2021, when it spun out into an independent entity. She oversaw the platform’s remarkable rise and the growing pains it experienced as it transformed from a quirky Twitter offshoot to a full-fledged alternative to X. Schneider tells WIRED that he intends to help Bluesky “become not just the best open social app, but the foundation for a whole new generation of user-owned networks.”

Schneider, who will continue working as a partner at the venture capital firm True Ventures while at Bluesky, was previously CEO of the WordPress parent company, Automattic, from 2006 to 2014. He also served as its CEO again in 2024 while top executive Matt Mullenweg went on a sabbatical. During that time, Schneider met Graber and became an adviser to Bluesky’s leadership. In a blog post announcing his new role, Schneider said he plans to emphasize scaling, describing his job as “to help set up Bluesky’s next phase of growth.”

This isn’t the end for Graber and Bluesky. She will transition to become the company’s chief innovation officer, a role focused on Bluesky’s technology stack rather than its business operations. The position was created for her. Graber, who began her career as a software engineer, has always sounded the most enthusiastic when discussing Bluesky’s technology rather than its revenue streams. Bluesky’s board of directors will appoint the next permanent CEO. The members include Jabber founder Jeremie Miller, crypto-focused VC Kinjal Shah, TechDirt founder Mike Masnick, and Graber. (Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was originally part of the board but quit in 2024.) This means Graber will have input on her successor. The talent search is still in early stages.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Trump administration agreed to stop pursuing a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster as part of a settlement that blindsided state attorneys general in the middle of a trial. Attorneys general from 27 states and the District of Columbia are continuing to pursue the case without the US government, at least for now.

The US Department of Justice and most US states sued Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary in 2024, during the Biden administration. The lawsuit alleged that Live Nation has a monopoly on “the delivery of nearly all live music in America today,” and asked a federal court to order the divestiture of Ticketmaster.

The case went to trial, and testimony began last week in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. But the US and Live Nation informed the court of a proposed settlement on March 8, taking state attorneys general by surprise. The judge presiding over the case reportedly said in court today that the way the settlement was announced “is absolutely unacceptable.”

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Mark Gurman at Bloomberg is back with the latest rumors about what’s afoot with Apple’s future plans, and how its ongoing difficulties with artificial intelligence seem to be creating further delays for its next wave of product launches. His sources say that Apple is expected to postpone the debut of its smart home display until later in 2026, likely September when it often introduces new gadgets. Although the hardware has reportedly been finished for months, this delay is being credited to the company’s AI-centric overhaul of Siri still not being complete.

The device, internally known as J490, has been one of Apple’s many poorly-kept secrets. Rumors about a HomePod smart speaker coupled with a screen first emerged back in 2022 and have resurfaced from time to time in the interim, often with promises that the device’s arrival was imminent. The latest claims anticipated that the official announcement was coming this spring, possibly as soon as this month. However, appears to Apple once again be hamstrung by an AI strategy that has left it scrambling to catch up to other industry leaders.

Apple has been working to incorporate more AI capabilities into Siri for more than a year as part of its Apple Intelligence package. Gurman reports that the new timeline from Apple aims to have the revamp completed for the launch of the iPhone 18 Pro, which is also expected for September. Apple may unveil this long-awaited Siri-as-chatbot during its WWDC keynote in the summer before it shows up in any devices.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/apple-reportedly-delays-its-planned-smart-display-launch-to-fall-194539082.html?src=rss

Back in January, I wrote about Meta’s plans to test subscription services for some of its platforms. The idea is to keep the current experience of each app the same (that is, free of charge), while adding new features users can access for a monthly fee. It’s not a bad compromise—if you hate the idea of paying for Instagram or WhatsApp, you can keep using the apps as you always have. If you like the new features, you can pay for them. Heck, maybe Meta will make enough money from subscriptions to end its data collection business! (Hey, a guy can dream.)

Now, it seems that Meta is moving forward with WhatsApp’s premium subscription. According to WABetaInfo, the company is working on “WhatsApp Plus,” an optional paid plan that adds extra features to the messaging app. There are a number of new features on offer, but not as many as I expected for a subscription version of an app that’s always been available for free. (That said, there’s no indication of what WhatsApp Plus will cost, so it’s possible these features are coming for something like $1 a month.)

What features are coming to WhatsApp Plus?

If you choose to pay for WhatsApp, Meta will offer you 14 new icons to choose from, and over a dozen options to change the app’s theme. Free users can currently pin up to three threads to the top of the Chats window; paid users will be able to pin up to 20. (A screenshot from WABetaInfo shows that if you try to add too many pins, you receive a pop-up warning you “You can only pin 20 chats.” Only 20!) Many of us keep our smartphones on vibrate or silent all of the time, but for anyone who doesn’t, paying for WhatsApp will unlock a new set of ringtones. WABetaInfo says that each new ringtone “has its own distinctive style,” though didn’t share any of the sound files.

Those are the features currently in testing, but WABetaInfo says that WhatsApp has more features planned for its Plus service. That could include exclusive stickers that free users will not get, and reactions could be “more immersive and interactive.”

How to try WhatsApp Plus early

There’s no official timeline for WhatsApp Plus’ launch, so it’s difficult to say when Meta plans on rolling out it. However, WABetaInfo does say that the latest WhatsApp beta for Android (version 2.26.9.6) adds a banner, either within the sticker keyboard or at the top of the settings menu, to enroll in the WhatsApp Plus waitlist.

If you’re comfortable with that, sign up for the WhatsApp for Android beta, update your app to install it, then check either of these locations within the app. Note that when you sign up for the waitlist, that doesn’t require you to subscribe. It only gives you the option to do so when Meta rolls out WhatsApp Plus. If you decide you don’t feel like paying, you can simply ignore the option.