It appears agentic AI is all the rage: OpenAI’s new agents, “Dots,” rolled out this week, while Meta’s Muse just passed five million downloads. Rather than just chatting with or using them to generate images, AI companies want users to start asking their bots to do things on their behalf, from managing their inboxes to ordering dinner.

But agents aren’t just the next logical step for AI as a technology. When implemented poorly, they can be wildly dangerous. AI agents are designed to run on their own, and, in order to do that, they often need near-total access to your devices and their data. Some people are now giving agents full use of their computers, including all of their messages, files, passwords, and accounts. That’s a lot of trust, especially when it’s not that difficult to “hack” one of these agents for malicious purposes with a poisoned prompt hidden on a website, which could lead your AI agent to hand hackers the keys to your bank accounts. That’s no good.

Apple is making it much more difficult for you to put yourself in this situation

How does Apple feel about this? The company is famously behind on the software side of AI—it only rolled out its AI-powered version of Siri in September—but its AI hardware business is booming. When the AI agent craze first took off with projects like Moltbot, customers bought Mac minis in droves in order to run those programs. Now, Apple advertises its various Macs with AI at the forefront: It doesn’t offer its own models like OpenAI or Anthropic, but it’s making plenty of money selling you the hardware to run those models.

Perhaps that’s why Apple seems quite concerned about the AI agent trend, particularly when it comes to the data users are exposing to run these programs. Apple is all about privacy and security, and as such, I can only imagine the company watching in horror as so many users willingly hand their Macs (and all of their data) over to automated AI bots.

Against that backdrop, the company posted an update on its developer forum entitled “Updates to Full Disk Access in macOS.” In it, the company highlights the dangers of developers asking users to grant “Full Disk Access” permissions to an app. Apple says this function has been traditionally reserved for backup apps that need to access the entire disk to function. (After all, if your backup app can’t access your entire Mac, how can it back up your entire Mac?) But now, Apple says developers are asking users to expose everything on their Macs, including messages, mail, browsing history, and more, without those users fully understanding the consequences. Apple even argues the privacy implications extend beyond the user, as communication apps that demand Full Disk Access compromise the people the user is chatting with, too.

And Apple appears to be doing something about it: While details are slim, the company says it will introduce “additional controls to ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action.” I’m guessing this means that in the future, once you download an agent to your Mac, you’ll have to click through a series of warnings and settings to “prove” to macOS that you really want to expose your entire Mac to the app and its AI. The company says it’s doing this now, as the threat will only grow as AI agents improve and become more autonomous.

The risks of AI are increasing across the board

I’m all for additional safeguards when it comes to AI. In the past, you needed some level of technical expertise to install an AI agent on your Mac. As such, you likely understood the risks involved, or willfully ignored all the warnings in order to do so. Now that running agents is as easy as installing Muse on your Mac, the barrier to entry is minimal. Anyone can do it, even if they don’t fully understand what they are actually doing. As the AI industry reckons with the risks its technology poses to humanity, companies like Apple should indeed be figuring out how to protect their users from AI’s current dangers—even if users can still choose to ignore those warnings.

Apple says it will tighten macOS Full Disk Access controls as increasingly capable AI agents raise the risks of apps gaining broad access to users’ files, messages, mail, and browsing history. TechCrunch reports: Days after a journalist claimed that Meta’s Muse app on Mac read their private messages — a claim that Meta disputed — Apple announced that it’s introducing additional controls around a setting called “Full Disk Access” on macOS. The feature was designed to allow backups to function properly, but AI agents have now increased “the risks associated with this level of access,” Apple said. […] In Muse’s case, the AI optionally allows users to enable Full Disk Access. This setting, Apple explains, gives an app permission to access files, mail, messages, and even browsing history.

“Some developers are using Full Disk Access in ways that could put users at risk, exposing everything on their systems… without users’ full knowledge and understanding,” Apple said in a new blog post aimed at developers. The company says that, going forward, it will introduce new controls aimed at ensuring that users who “genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access” can do so only with “every explicit user action.”

“Addressing this is critical. As AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially. We are committed to ensuring users clearly understand these risks before granting such access, so they can make informed decisions about their own data and privacy,” Apple wrote.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One argument that often comes up about climate change is that fossil fuels are good because they powered economic growth that has left most people better off overall. And, to an extent, that has been true, but it’s also an extremely limited perspective.

It’s pretty obvious now that the growth they powered has come with very high costs that we’ve only recently started to pay, in the form of damages and disruptions from extreme weather events. With things like sea level rise expected to continue for centuries even if we hit net zero, it’s difficult to estimate how expensive that growth will eventually be.

But that perspective is also limited: We now have better ways to power our growth—ways that are less environmentally damaging now and won’t leave our descendants with a carbon debt that will be difficult to manage.

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California’s attorney general and three city attorneys announced a $272.5 million settlement with Lyft after allegations that the company “committed wage theft by misclassifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees” between 2016 and 2020, according to a Thursday statement.

The case dates back to May 2020, when then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who is now the Democratic candidate for governor, sued both Uber and Lyft. That lawsuit said the ridehailing companies evaded state law when they declared that their drivers were not employees.

Thursday’s settlement affects only Lyft, while the case against Uber continues.

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The US has arrested another suspect accused of smuggling high-end computer servers containing export-controlled Nvidia chips into China.

In a press release on Thursday, the Department of Justice accused 38-year-old Greg Lui of using false paperwork to mask shipments of servers worth more than $300 million that he allegedly knew were ultimately destined for China.

As the CEO of Earthmade Computer, Lui allegedly conspired with freight-forwarding firms in South Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore to illegally divert chip shipments into China, including Nvidia’s A100 GPUs and H100 GPUs, the FBI’s indictment alleged. These are not Nvidia’s most advanced chips. However, the chips can process large amounts of data and train large language models, which the US fears could pose national security risks if China suddenly gets access to enough chips to drastically advance its AI or strengthen its military.

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Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will operate under the Skydance name once their roughly $110 billion merger closes, which is expected on October 6. The combined company will bring together Paramount+, HBO Max, CBS, CNN, MTV and other networks, along with major franchises including The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, DC and Yellowstone.

Ellison said the Paramount and Warner Bros. brands will remain prominent. “We never wanted a new corporate identity to diminish, alter or overshadow either one. Instead, we wanted a name that would give the combined company an identity of its own while allowing Paramount and Warner Bros. — and all our extraordinary brands — to remain in the spotlight.”

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On Friday, Amazon committed to donating more than $1 billion over the next five years to communities neighboring data centers.

In a press release, Amazon Web Services’ CEO Matt Garman said that communities would decide how to prioritize funds across “education, job training, energy affordability, water, and energy preservation, and local priorities.”

Laying out other community commitments, Amazon also promised to ensure data centers wouldn’t increase power bills or wipe out local water supplies. Regarding the latter, Amazon promised to be “water positive” by 2030, while claiming that 75 percent of projects have already met this goal.

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The company also created its own smart home device, the Muse Home Link

COVID-19 made the weaknesses in our pandemic preparedness at national and global levels painfully clear. But a new study highlights that even at the first, local steps of an outbreak with pandemic-potential, we are worryingly underprepared.

Health officials in New York set up a regional test of healthcare facilities to identify and respond to a patient with a mystery infection that could pose a pandemic-level threat. But things didn’t go well. Overall, responses were slow, appropriate use of personal protective equipment was spotty, and only 60 percent of facilities passed the basics of the test—an overall failing grade.

“These drills identified needs for health care workers and health care facility staff member training to achieve earlier identification, masking, and isolation of potentially infectious febrile patients,” the officials wrote in the study, which was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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Batomon Showdown is like Pokémon meets Super Auto Pets.

If you’ve updated your iPhone to iOS 27, you might have already put Siri AI to the test or tried out some of Apple’s AI-powered photo editing features. But you may have also noticed something else: Your iPhone’s battery isn’t lasting as long between charges. While I can’t say this is a universal experience (I’m don’t believe my iPhone is dying faster on iOS 27 than it did on iOS 26), some users are adamant the update has had a detrimental effect on their battery life. And while there are many possible factors here, some think they have found the culprit: a feature called Connectivity Assist.

What is Connectivity Assist?

Connectivity Assist’s mission is noble. The feature is designed to tap into cellular data any time your wifi connection grows too weak. In theory, it should be particularly useful when you’re leaving an area with wifi; rather than deal with the slow loading times a weak wifi connection forces you to endure before it disconnects outright, your cellular network would kick in to maintain your speed. (Once you’ve left wifi range, you’d be back on cellular completely either way, of course.)

Technically, this feature isn’t new. Before iOS 27, Apple called it “Wi-Fi Assist,” but it worked a bit differently. In iOS 26, Wi-Fi Assist simply switches over to cellular when your wifi signal is too weak. With iOS 27’s Connectivity Assist, it seems your iPhone can tap into both networks at the same time. If so, that may play some role in why this rejiggered feature seems to be dragging down people’s batteries more than it used to.

There’s another new addition with Connectivity Assist that could also be part of the problem: Unlike Wi-Fi Assist, Connectivity Assist sends DNS requests over cellular data, which can bypass the rules that ad blockers put in place to stop pop-ups from making their way into your iPhone. As such, even Apple recommends that you disable Connectivity Assist if you use an ad blocker. So, if your iPhone is constantly sending out DNS requests while on cellular data, bypassing your active ad blockers, that could be putting extra strain on your battery, too.

How to disable Connectivity Assist in iOS 27

Reddit user ZoteTheMitey shared their experience on the r/iPhone subreddit, claiming that their iPhone 15 Pro Max, with 89% battery health, was only lasting for three to four hours following the switch to iOS 27. Once they disabled Connectivity Assistant, they claim their battery usage time jumped to seven hours. Some users in the thread shared similar experiences, and one even claimed disabling the feature fixed an issue with their device overheating.

If you want to try the potential solution yourself, here are two ways to disable Connectivity Assist: First, you can disable it on a per-network basis. To do so, head to Settings > Wi-Fi, then tap the (i) next to your network name. Here, scroll down, and make sure the toggle next to “Use Connectivity Assist” is turned off. That was, you can make sure your battery isn’t experiencing faster drain when you’re away from a charger—say, at a cafe you frequent.

If you’d rather disable the feature globally for your iPhone, head back to the Wi-Fi settings page and ensure the toggle next to “Connectivity Assist” is set to off. Note: if this feature was previously enabled, you’ll be able to see the amount of cellular data the feature has used to date, which will give you an idea of how often it has been active on your device. More data could mean more potential battery drain.

Line go up (bad version).

There’s an increasingly high cost to convenience.

AmiMoJo shares a report from heise online: Anyone buying used hardware for a gaming PC needs to be careful: not just whether the components are still in order but also what the previous owner did with them. A case on Reddit shows this. Someone installed a used AMD processor, a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, in their PC. Because the previous owner was caught cheating, the new owner cannot start several online games.

The problem was noticed in the first-person shooter “Valorant” from the development studio Riot. Right from the first start, the new owner was kicked out directly, according to their statement. Riot support confirmed that the previous owner had cheated. The processor is therefore on an internal blacklist — and, with its installation in the PC, now apparently also some other components like the mainboard. Riot support does not remove such entries manually.

In addition to “Valorant,” all other PC games from Riot are affected: the strategy game “League of Legends,” the auto-battler “Teamfight Tactics,” the card game “Legends of Runeterra,” the fighting game “2XKO,” and likely future titles as well. Riot’s “Vanguard” anti-cheat system traditionally runs deep in the Windows kernel and starts with the PC, but a June 2026 update allows it to launch with a game if security features such as TPM and Secure Boot are enabled.

It’s unclear how Riot uniquely identifies processors, though possibilities include hardware fingerprinting based on chip behavior or storing identification hashes in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which Vanguard accesses in the newer mode.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Making things more complicated than they need to be: it’s human nature. Or at least my human nature. “You’re barely human.” Or natural. This is a video of Joseph of Joseph’s Machines building and demonstrating (in front of a live audience!) a Rube Goldberg machine that (with minimal effort on his part, but still more effort than should be required from a Rube Goldberg machine) gets him out of bed, washes his face, dresses him, then feeds him a banana, a breakfast sandwich, and a bowl of cereal. Or, rather, dunks his face into a bowl of cereal. Now I’ll be the first to admit I’m terrible at building Rube Goldberg machines (I’ve never made one that didn’t end waiting for first responders), but the face washing step probably should have come after that one. That’s like washing your hands before going to the bathroom, but not after. Most men don’t do either though, which is why I don’t shake hands or fist bump anymore, only wink.