A new analysis argues that Stack Overflow’s decline began years before AI tools delivered the “final blow” to the once-dominant programming forum. The site’s monthly questions dropped from a peak of 200,000 to a steep collapse that began in earnest after ChatGPT’s 2023 launch, but usage had been declining since 2014, according to data cited in the InfoWorld analysis.
The platform’s remarkable reputation system initially elevated it above competitors by allowing users to earn points and badges for helpful contributions, but that same system eventually became its downfall, the piece argues. As Stack Overflow evolved into a self-governing platform where high-reputation users gained moderation powers, the community transformed from a welcoming space for developer interaction into what the author compares to a “Stanford Prison Experiment” where moderators systematically culled interactions they deemed irrelevant.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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If you need a reminder that summer has finally landed, berries are here to remind you. Home gardens are spotted with tiny colored jewels of strawberries, currants, and oso berries. Cherries, raspberries and blueberries are beginning to blush with color as they ripen, just as the peonies and irises fade. Peas are popping off of tall vines, nasturtiums have begun to sprawl across garden beds, and spring-planted spinach and chard are sky high. This is your first chance to enjoy the spoils of your summer garden.
Within two weeks of your lilacs finishing blooming, you should consider pruning them back. This is when plants will determine blooms for the next season, and in some lucky cases, you can spur a second, fall bloom. You want to take as much as ⅓ of the plant’s stems, so you encourage new growth each year. This is the case for all your early summer blooming shrubs and trees, like azalea, forsythia, Japanese kerria, weigela, deutzia, mock orange, St. John’s wort, viburnums, and red or yellow dogwoods.
The pruning should extend to your tomatoes, now established in the ground. You’ll want to prune for suckers, depending on what kind of trellis system you have set up. If you’re allowing indeterminate tomatoes to only have one strong “leader” or stem, prune aggressively, but you’ll need tall trellises. Also be sure to cut away any diseased parts of the plant, but remember you only want to touch your tomatoes after the morning dew has dried, and with clean shears. Spray with Lysol or other disinfectant in between plants, so you are not spreading any disease.
Once your strawberries are done fruiting, mow them back and mulch them, so they won’t continue to spend their energy growing runners, but will focus on root growth for next year.
Your pears, apples, stone fruit—like peaches, plums, cherries and nectarines—and even fig trees will have set fruit by now, and also gone through fruit drop, a normal phenomenon where the trees drop what they can’t handle. With the fruit still on the tree, you must decide on quantity or quality. Thinning the fruit on each branch will allow the tree to create larger, tastier fruit. You can also shroud the fruit at this point, covering the fruit with gauze bags, to protect it from invasive bugs or animals. The same is true of grapes. Your vines should be well flushed out at this point, which means you can harvest grape leaves to use fresh or preserve for use later, and then shroud all your growing grape bunches. This will make them much easier to harvest, and also protect them from birds, raccoons, and rats.
It’s important to not simply water your vegetables in raised beds, but also feed them. In addition to plant -pecific fertilizer (tomato fertilizer, blueberry and azalea fertilizer, etc.), you should consider a weekly treatment of compost tea. If you don’t have a vermicomposter to make your own compost tea with, purchase compost tea bags and make some. Apply the tea with a sprayer folicularly (over the whole plant). Your tomatoes can also benefit from a treatment of Cal-Mag or Rot Stop, which will provide the plant more calcium to help prevent tomato blossom rot on forthcoming fruit. With most asparagus done harvesting by June, apply a nitrogen-heavy fertilizer for next year.
Your lawn should get a low-nitrogen-based fertilizer in June. Your roses should get a phosphorus-based fertilizer treatment after their first bloom, which should be about now. All your trees and shrubs should get a summer fertilizer before July 4. Your garden center can help you find the right fertilizers, since not all plants should get the same one—and fertilizer is heavy, so you’d do well to buy it locally instead of have it shipped to you.
Garden pests are absolute terrorists this time of year. Just this morning I noticed many bean seedlings peeking through the soil had been thwarted by slugs. Sprays won’t be the only solution at this point—you’ll need to manually remove the pests from your plants as well. Aphids may be sprayed off with water, but without a treatment like soapy water or a nearby trap plant like nasturtiums, they’ll be back. If you don’t have nasturtiums nearby, plant them now—the aphids will be more attracted to the nasturtiums and will choose them instead. You just leave the aphid-infested nasturtiums in place. Treatments like Sluggo can help reduce the slug population, but manual extraction is still necessary. Leave shallow lids of beer or yeasty bread starter around as a trap, and collect the slugs that run to it each day.
Each plant in your garden has a number of pests that are trying to feed off of it; a daily walk around your garden will help you notice what might be attacking your plants. Get a butterfly net, and use it to capture and kill the white cabbage moths flitting about the garden.
Gardens are highly susceptible to virus and fungus; one of the best ways to prevent them is to water at the root of plants, rather than overhead, which splashes onto the ground, causing water to spray back up onto plants. As you see blight or mosaic virus in your garden, you must cut it out quickly, dispose of those plants in the trash (not compost), and be sure you wash your hands and tools before moving onto the next plant. If you see powdery mildew on your plants, you can treat it with a diluted vinegar spray. Now is when you might catch sign of infections like leaf curl on your stone fruit trees, which can be treated if caught quite early with copper foliar sprays. Fungicides can go a long way to helping prevent problems like black spot on roses. You want to be very judicious when using fungicides and copper sprays: These are mostly preventative treatments, not reactive. If you’re questioning what you see in your garden, take a picture and head to the garden center.
The summer vegetables should all be in the ground by the end of June. Your tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and tomatillos need to be planted in early June, and if the weather hasn’t met planting conditions yet, you need to consider putting mitigations like Agribon in place and planting anyway. The Agribon tenting will create the warm conditions you need, and you can remove it when temperatures get warm enough on their own.
Beans, cucumbers, corn, edamame, eggplants, melons, okra, summer squash, and sweet potatoes should get planted this month. If it’s early enough, they can still be direct seeded, but by mid-June, you should plant starts instead.
You can still plant almost all your summer annual flowers, including zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, salvia, and celosia from seed or as starts. Planting them in waves ensures multiple successions of flowers later in the season. Remember when planting these flowers to check seed labels for heights, so you can vary them.
Now that your spring flowers are wilting, deadhead them appropriately. Your tulips need to have just the heads cut off, but no lower—remember they need leaves to mulch in place to return next year. Iris stems may be cut to the ground, but in a chevron, to ensure good growth next year. If you commit to religious harvesting of your sweet peas, you can make them last well into the summer. Each day, cut fresh blooms at the base of the stem, and you’ll notice that the stems get shorter and shorter. Once the sweet peas go to seed and produce pods, it’s time to pull the flowers out of the ground and plant something else. Deadheading your snapdragons will encourage the plants to branch, creating more blooms, but as soon as the snaps go to seed (the flowers will look like skulls), they should be cut to the ground, in hopes they might return the next year.
Through June, the best course of action is to take a walk through the garden once a day, even if it’s a quick one. Each morning, I wander the garden, grabbing weeds as I find them. Harvest what you can, take note of action items like pests or pruning, and be sure to take pictures and write in your garden journal. It’s the reason you planted the garden: to enjoy it.
Formula 1 held its annual Spanish Grand Prix this past weekend at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona. It’s a good place to test a modern F1 car, as you need great aerodynamics to be fast around here, especially now that the awkward chicanes are gone. You also need good mechanical grip. Races used to be processional here, but the re-profiled turn 10 and the flat-out nature of the last turn have changed all that.
This was to be the weekend of new front wings, the result of a “technical directive” meant to stop excessive flexing as part of the sport’s ongoing antipathy toward creatively movable aerodynamics outside a tightly described domain. The competitive order would be reset, some hoped, as their rivals would be forced to give up unfair advantages. In fact, the new wings turned out to be a nothingburger. McLaren’s advantage remains, and that was clear on a circuit that tests every aspect of a racing car.
But there’s only one story that anyone really cares about after Spain, and it’s the one about Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. For much of the race, Verstappen held onto third place, behind the too-fast McLarens. This required using one more set of tires than they did, and for his last stint, all that was left for the Red Bull driver was a set of the too-hard compound, giving him little in the way of grip.
Summer is almost here for those of us in the northern hemisphere, which means that you might be getting more active outdoors. One way to keep track of all your workouts en plein air is with the Apple Watch Series 10. The smartwatch is back on sale for $299, which is $100 off the regular price. It also matches a record low.
There are a few variants on sale for this price at Amazon, but they all have a 42mm case and are GPS models with no LTE connectivity. If you’d rather have the larger 46mm case, several Apple Watch Series 10 configurations with that are also $100 off at $329.
Not only is the Apple Watch Series 10 a darn good fitness (and wellness) tracker, it’s our pick for the best smartwatch overall. Android wielders need not apply, unfortunately, since you need a paired iPhone to set up and use any Apple Watch. If you’re not looking for one for yourself, the Apple Watch Series 10 would also make for a great Father’s Day gift.
We gave this smartwatch a score of 90 in our review. It’s a fairly iterative update, so if you already have an Apple Watch Series 8 or 9 already, it might not be worth upgrading. At least in the US, the blood oxygen feature that was available in previous versions isn’t present in the Apple Watch Series 10 following a patent dispute. Some of the Apple Watch Series 10’s major features are found in other models too — the sleep apnea detection function is also available on the Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.
However, if you’re looking for your first Apple Watch or upgrading from a Series 7 or earlier, the Series 10 is probably the best way to go. It has a larger screen than its predecessors, so it’ll be easier to see notifications and such. The thinner frame looks rather fetching too.
Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-apple-watch-series-10-is-back-on-sale-for-100-off-142236780.html?src=rss
BorgBackup (Borg) is a highly acclaimed deduplicating backup program. We recommend the best GUI, TUI, and CLI front-ends for Borg.
The post 7 Best Free and Open Source BorgBackup Front-Ends appeared first on Linux Today.
Elden Ring Nightreign turns FromSoftware’s best-in-class boss fights into multiplayer affairs, so now your shame and frustration can be shared with others. But while lots of players have been going hours without beating the roguelite RPG’s first major encounter, others are in a race to be the sweatiest solo player out…
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The PlayStation 5 Pro just dropped to $649 from its original $699.99 on Amazon, and for anyone who’s been waiting on a price dip, this is the lowest it’s been so far (according to price trackers).
Sony didn’t reinvent the wheel with the Pro. The look is familiar, but inside it gets real upgrades: a more powerful GPU, faster memory, and a bigger 2TB SSD to hold more games without constant shuffling. Add in Wi-Fi 7 support, and you’re looking at better downloads and future-proofed networking—assuming your home wifi can keep up.
That said, that extra power mainly benefits games that have been optimized to take advantage of it, including Spider-Man 2, God of War Ragnarok, and Horizon Forbidden West. The good news is, even if a game isn’t optimized for the Pro, it’ll still play smoothly. And everything else that makes the PS5 great—fast loading, the clever DualSense controller, the huge game catalog—comes standard. PCMag gave the Pro an “Excellent” rating in their review, mostly for the power boost it brings over the regular PS5.
If you still buy physical games, there’s one thing to know—the PS5 Pro doesn’t come with a built-in disc drive. If you want to play your existing discs, you’ll need to spend another $79 on Sony’s external drive. For anyone already all-digital, this won’t be an issue. Overall, the Pro 5 is not a next-gen console (it’s more like a mid-cycle upgrade), but it’s designed for players who care about frame rates, visual upgrades, and faster loading times. And if you’re looking for extra power now instead of waiting around for a PlayStation 6, and you’re fine with downloading your games (or willing to add the drive later), this price drop makes the PS5 Pro a much easier choice.
A new business model has emerged across China’s major cities, El Pais reports, where companies charge unemployed individuals to rent desk space and pretend to work, responding to social pressure around joblessness amid rising youth unemployment rates. These services charge between 30 and 50 yuan ($4-7) daily for desks, Wi-Fi, coffee, and lunch in spaces designed to mimic traditional work environments.
Some operations assign fictitious tasks and organize supervisory rounds to enhance the illusion, while premium services allow clients to roleplay as managers or stage workplace conflicts for additional fees. The trend has gained significant traction on Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent to Instagram, where advertisements for “pretend-to-work companies” accumulate millions of views. Youth unemployment reached 16.5% among 16-to-24-year-olds in March 2025, according to National Bureau of Statistics data, while overall urban unemployment stood at 5.3% in the first quarter.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A couple months have passed since Apple released the iPad Air (M3) and our position remains the same: It’s the best iPad on the market for just about everyone. Now, it’s also a much more accessible option.
A new Amazon sale sees Apple’s 11-inch iPad Air with an M3 chip drop to $499 from $599. The 17 percent discount is available on the 128GB model with Wi-Fi capabilities and no AppleCare+. We gave the new iPad Air (M3) an 89 in our review, thanks, in part, to that M3 chip. Its single- and multi-core scores came in 16 percent higher compared to its predecessor when tested with Geekbench.
The iPad Air M3 also has a much better screen and multitasking abilities this time around. Plus, it’s compatible with a much improved Magic Keyboard. The add-on is akin to the one you’d get with Apple’s iPad Pro M4 while also dropping by $30 from the previous model. But, it will still cost you $269 for the 11-inch model and $319 for the 13-inch one.
Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-m3-ipad-air-drops-to-a-record-low-price-133932775.html?src=rss
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The Dyson V12 Detect Cordless Vacuum Cleaner shows homethat power doesn’t have to come at the cost of portability—and right now, it’s $170 off at Walmart. Compared to bulkier cordless vacuums (and the rest of the Dyson line), the 5.2-pound V12 is great for small spaces, making it easy to lift, store, and maneuver. It’s effective on hard flooring, but just as efficient on carpeting or pet bedding. Despite its compact size, it doesn’t skimp on performance, which is automatically adjusted based on the volume and size of debris it detects.
One of its features is the built-in green laser light on the head, which illuminates hidden dust particles or reveals whether you’ve missed a spot. This feature is optional and can be turned off at any time. Unlike other Dyson models, it features an on/off button rather than the usual trigger that requires pressure to be applied at all times. The slim shape also features a low profile, making it easier to vacuum beneath beds or couches.
Reviewers also note that the battery life is impressive (especially on the Auto setting rather than Boost), but may require an additional charge for larger homes. Additionally, a smaller vacuum means a smaller bin, which you may have to empty more frequently—a potential frustration if you have a larger space.
If you have wrist issues, back trouble, or just don’t want to lug around a heavier vacuum around your house, the Dyson V12 Detect Cordless Vacuum Cleaner might fit the bill. It still isn’t cheap, but at $170 off, it’s easier to justify the splurge for a vacuum that delivers on both power and convenience.
For most of us, the words “Pokémon Cafe” mean that free-to-play video game, Pokémon Cafe Remix. But if you’re lucky enough to live in Osaka or Tokyo, it’s a real-life restaurant, that serves food that looks even more extraordinary than the fantasy concoctions in the game. That picture above? That’s a curry.
Into The Darkness is the latest story-driven, physics-based game to come to PC VR, entering Early Access on Steam last week.
After generating some considerable hype following the successful playtests some months ago, comparisons to giants like Boneworks have been inevitable. As such, Into The Darkness lands under the weight of high expectations. However, it’s worth stating clearly up front: this is an Early Access title, and it very much plays like one, so you should approach it with that in mind. For all the potential that the game possesses, it also has equal parts jank thrown in for good measure.
Set in a not-too-distant future, Into The Darkness casts players as an agent working for a corporate entity, sent to infiltrate a snowbound facility and extract critical data. Upon arrival, you quickly discover that the base’s robotic service droids have gone rogue and the mission becomes a tense, combat-driven mystery. This narrative setup does an adequate job of establishing an uneasy atmosphere and foreboding that loom over the player throughout the early stages of the game.
At launch, Into The Darkness has three levels, with the published roadmap stating that the full release will include six. Based on my experience, the levels take anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes, depending on how successful you are at your mission. That said, thanks to some issues with a particularly annoying boss, my playtime in the first level was considerably longer.
The early access release also offers a Sandbox mode where you can have fun experimenting with custom combat scenarios. Although this is fairly rudimentary in its current state, the developers mention planned improvements to this mode, as well as the addition of an “arcade mode,” in its list of upcoming features.
Into The Darkness is definitely a physics-forward game, and as such the physics engine shows flashes of brilliance (leaving trails through the deep snow is a nice touch) but it also exposes the limits of the game’s interactivity. Half the fun of most physics-lead games is messing about with the items and environment, but Into The Darkness is surprisingly shallow in this regard.
For the most part, objects you’d expect to pick up are simply static props which, for a game that leans so heavily into its physics system, is somewhat of a letdown. Worse, these limitations don’t seem to come with performance gains. Despite running on capable hardware, I had to drop the graphical settings to low to maintain a stable frame rate.
My desktop uses an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, an Intel i9-11900 processor, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB Gen4 M.2 SSD. For PC VR, this was conducted using a Quest 3 via Virtual Desktop. You can find the minimum and recommended specs on the Steam Page to learn more.
The combat is where the physics system shines and the early encounters will see players punching, stabbing and shooting through a small array of mechanical meanies. Enemies can even be torn apart in a way that makes one think someone on the team asked, “What if Robo Recall, but also Boneworks?”
It’s quite satisfying when it works, thanks in no small part to the excellent sound design that contributes as much to the combat’s satisfying weight as the physics system. However, fluidity isn’t always there when engaging in melee, as enemies have a tendency to clump together in a way that feels like prototype AI behavior that’s somehow stayed in the game.
Gunplay is fairly solid, again thanks to chunky audio design that makes each shot feel impactful, particularly headshots which have a delightfully pleasing clonk. That said, aiming can sometimes feel inconsistent and holstering weapons is so diabolically unreliable that any sense of fluid action hero flow is drowned out in the staccato of enforced deliberacy.
Unfortunately, Into The Darkness in its current state is weighed down by a raft of technical problems. In the four hours I spent with the game, the first 90 minutes were sacrificed to a cursed run that was so bugged that I decided to abort and start fresh.
Despite my second attempt being a considerably more solid experience, both saves saw their fair share of glitches. From broken rope physics that turned a simple hand over hand climb into a nightmarish Bucking Bronco, to puzzles that loaded in missing key items, Into The Darkness wears its Early Access status on its sleeve.
There were also broken mantling mechanics that stopped me from progressing after a climb, moments where I clipped through the environment and plummeted to my death, not to mention corrupted saves that saw me restart without my weapons.
Presently, there’s a solid foundation and a clear vision with a promising roadmap outlining upcoming features, levels, and much-needed fixes. If development follows this path, Into The Darkness may one day take its place among the pantheon of fantastic physics-first games. However, it is currently very tough to recommend. VR enthusiasts who like supporting promising projects or enjoy watching a game evolve in real-time might find enjoyment here. But for most players seeking a finished product, it’s worth waiting a little while longer.
Into The Darkness is out now on Steam Early Access.
If you’re a grown-ass person confused by the un-grown-ass among us, I hope this week’s trip down the rabbit hole of Gen Z and Gen Alpha culture brings you a step closer to enlightenment. Allow me to tell you why man-on-man phone calls are so popular and hilarious right now, the meaning of the word “fambush,” and why you’re seeing so many disturbing videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti.
A couple weeks ago, TikToker Miranda Faye posted this video of her boyfriend calling his friends to say “goodnight.” (I love the guy who answers, “What’s up, bitch boy?” immediately. So dude.)
Overall, it’s a poignant video that really says something about how men relate to one another. It’s also hilarious, and exactly the kind of thing that kicks off a trend. It didn’t take long for dudes all over to start calling their friends for no reason other than to say “good night” and/or “sweet dreams,” resulting in videos like this one:
I love the guy who responds, “The fuck are you talking about?” and how all of his friends seem ready to call the police; this is how unusual it is for men to call each other at bedtime to say “good night.”
Here’s my absolute favorite example:
The dude trying to keep from laughing, paired with his friends’ reactions, is gold. If you want to enjoy an endless stream of these videos, waste some time on the #goodnight hashtag.
A lot of commenters on TikTok connect this to the “male loneliness epidemic” or view friends calling friends as something men should do. But I think that’s looking into it too deeply. For the most part, the friends in these videos immediately ask the callers “are you ok?” with real concern—I’m not seeing a lot of male loneliness here. And there’s something great about the trait of not talking to your friends about personal things unless it’s really important. The real male loneliness sufferers are the many guys out there who don’t have any pals they can gently prank on video.
Since I’m covering wholesome trends this week, let’s talk about fambushing. The word combines “family” and “ambush” and refers to young people checking where their parents are on location-sharing apps so they can get some free food—you see mom at Chipotle, you’re gonna ask for a burrito. Starbucks too:
According to a rep from family-location-sharing app Life360, teenagers who use the app are more likely to check what their parents are doing than parents are to check their kids’ locations. This seems wholesome and encouraging at first, but if I project back to my own youth (long before cell phones) I’d probably be using to check where my parents were so I wouldn’t get caught doing whatever I was doing.
Sometimes Gens Z and A dig up a delightful piece of popular culture from the past to highlight how awesome it is. That is not the case with Cher and Future’s cover of Sly’s “Everyday People.” Nine years ago, these two very different artists collaborated with producer Zatoven on a Gap-sponsored ad featuring hilariously awkward chemistry, a total lack of effort from all involved, with an entirely cynical vibe. It’s so terrible that it quickly becomes fascinating. The more times you watch it, the more cringe details you notice, and before long you’ve fallen into a rabbit hole of awful from which you cannot escape.
Anyway, the video made no ripple when it was produced and quietly slept on YouTube for nearly a decade. But a few weeks ago, the kids noticed. And they started tearing it apart.
“I love the way future sings in lower case and she’s just yelling in his face,” posted TikToker Maliha Zahid. “Why does future sound dehydrated 😭” asks @jae._m1ll1y. “He looks like he’s listening to granny tell a story,” posted @vvs.lizvrd. Ouch.
The song so captured the imaginations of young people that they started re-enacting it in videos like this:
and this:
Even the Zaytoven’s son started clowning on it:
What does it mean? Nothing, really, but it reminds me of a show business saying: “Behind every bad movie there’s a good mortgage.”
There comes a time in people’s lives, usually around when they turn 30, when they stop noticing changes in fashion. Concerns like “I have to work all the time” and “is this mole cancer?” take over that brain-space. So for everyone who’s ever been advised by a clerk at the Gap (Cher and Future’s favorite store!) to “try a looser fit,” the “Outfits I Wore in High School” trend on TikTok will make you feel as old as the Cryptkeeper. Or even as old as Cher.
In these videos, twentysomethings reveal their younger, more misguided selves by showing pics of outfits that I (and probably you) find indistinguishable from what anyone is wearing today. It’s partly a symptom of the nostalgia cycle collapsing in on itself—kids are getting misty-eyed over the “good old days” of 2017—and partly the first blush of generational panic: “Wait… am I getting older too?”
It’s all very cute until you realize the joke is on you. Your fashion mistakes aren’t nostalgic, they’re prehistoric—not even worthy of parody. You’ve aged out of relevance. It’s comforting in a way.
Back in 2023, Reddit user u/chaindrop created an AI video made with Stable Diffusion featuring Will Smith eating spaghetti. It went viral for being a grotesque, surreal nightmare that frightened everyone who saw it. A year later, Will Smith himself posted an actual video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. A few weeks ago, Google released Veo 3, an AI video generation tool that creates realistic clips, complete with dialogue and sound. So of course it was used to make a video of Will Smith eating pasta. Check out how far AI has come:
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It’s not perfect visually—it still has traces of the unnatural sheen and rubberiness of AI videos—but it’s getting there. The audio, though, needs work. I’ve heard of pasta al dente, but AI Will Smith’s spaghetti is crunchy.
It sounds absurd that “Will Smith Eating Spaghetti” is the baseline test for AI video generation, but it’s actually a worthy challenge for artificial intelligence: humans eating and pasta are both hard things to “generalize” in an AI way. I also can’t deny that’s it’s technically amazing, but I’m not looking forward to the “we can’t tell real from fake” future that will probably be here in about six weeks.
If you use Microsoft Authenticator as your password manager, you need to find an alternative in the next few weeks. Microsoft is ending password storage and autofill in its Authenticator app, and users have until July to export saved data before it becomes unavailable. This comes amidst Microsoft’s transition to a “passwordless by default” approach to its own accounts.
Microsoft Authenticator is a mobile app that supports secure sign-on via various multi-factor authentication methods like time-based one-time passwords and biometrics, though users could also set it up as a password manager.
As Bleeping Computer reports, Authenticator’s autofill feature is being deprecated, and Microsoft is now notifying users of the impending deadlines to transition either to Microsoft Edge or another password storage option. Starting in June, users will be unable to save passwords in Authenticator. Microsoft will shut down autofill in July, and saved passwords and stored payment information will no longer be accessible in the app in August.
Authenticator will continue to support passkeys.
According to a Microsoft support page detailing the change, saved passwords are synced to your Microsoft account and can be autofilled with Microsoft Edge, so users who have Edge enabled as their autofill provider on mobile will have easy access to their data.
To do this, you’ll have to download the Microsoft Edge browser on your device and then select it as the default autofill option (Settings > General > Autofill & Passwords > Autofill from > Edge on iOS or Settings > Autofill > Preferred Service > Change > Edge on Android). You can access passwords when you’re signed into Edge by tapping the three vertical lines to open Settings > Passwords.
If you don’t want to continue with Edge, you can export your data and transition it to a secure third-party password manager, such as Bitwarden or 1Password. Open Authenticator and go to Settings > Export Passwords (under the Autofill section) and select Export. Choose a folder and hit Save. This creates a CSV for upload into a different password management tool. Note that your data is no longer encrypted in this format, and you should delete the export file as soon as you’ve uploaded it elsewhere.
You can also copy and paste addresses by tapping and holding, but you cannot copy or export saved payment information—that will have to be recreated manually for security reasons.
Microsoft’s dates for each step of deprecation are vague, so your best bet is to export your passwords as soon as possible, and definitely by July 1.
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I stepped off the cow milk train ages ago and I haven’t looked back. I dabble in oat milk at cafés, but at home, I exclusively use almond milk. While I don’t make my own almond milk on a regular basis, the power of the Vitamix Ascent X5 (which I recently reviewed) and the ease of using the plant milk preset does encourage me to do so more often.
I’ve had great success cooking hot soups in my Vitamix Ascent, making peanut butter and walnut butter, and just recently I made an ice cream that rivaled the likes of any single-duty ice cream maker. It’s no surprise, then, that making almond, cashew, macadamia, and oat milk with this beast of a blender is pretty quick and easy.
The amount of time for soaking depends on what kind of milk you’re making. The goal is to soften the ingredient which allows it to blend easier and distribute its delicious plant qualities to the water in the blender. Oats don’t need to soften for very long but nuts do, for example. Most almond milk recipes ask you to soak the nuts in cold water overnight or for 24 hours. I cheated and steeped my almonds in just-boiled water for 15 minutes. You live your best life and I will live mine.
Once your ingredient is softened, drain and rinse it. You don’t want any of that dusty old soaking water in with your finished plant milk. (I’ve tried it, and it’s not good.) Add the nuts or oats to the Vitamix container. You don’t have to do this, but I pop the almond skins off before adding them to the container. It’s a little annoying but they release easily. I find that the flavor of the finished milk is more pure, and I save the remaining almond meal for baking. Taking the skins off is nice for that product too.
Add cold, filtered water to the container. I used one cup of almonds and I added three and a half cups of water to the container. If you like flavored milk, now is the time to experiment with additional ingredients. Add cocoa powder, cinnamon, vanilla extract, or sweetener if you like.
Plug in the blender and flip the power switch on. The digital display will show a number 1 as its default speed. Press the three-line “burger menu” button for the presets. Use the rotating knob to click over to the preset that looks like a carton with a little almond in the center. Once you’ve navigated to it, take one last glance to make sure the lid is on, then press the start button.
This setting starts on a medium-low speed for a few seconds and then ramps up quickly to speed 10 for about 50 seconds. Et voilà. Plant milk in less than a minute.
Models aside from the Ascent X5 may not have a preset for plant milks. Don’t worry, you can mimic the timing and speed. Start with the speed dial down on level two or three for about five seconds, then turn up the speed dial all the way to the highest speed and leave it there for about 50 seconds. The liquid should look opaque white and be a little frothy on top. There should not be any visible pieces of nuts or oats. Turn off the blender.
After the machine is off, set up your straining station. Many recipes mention using a mesh strainer or cheesecloth, but I think nut milk bags are absolutely superior. Other blenders might not do this, but the Vitamix will nearly powderize the almonds or oats you’re using. The other two straining options won’t catch the fine particles like a nut milk bag will. They’re really affordable and worth it if you’re making milks or even for cold brew. Here’s the one that I use.
I set the nut milk bag into a wide mesh strainer (more for support than for straining) on top of a large measuring cup. Pour the liquid into the bag and let the liquid run through into the measuring cup. Squeeze the pulp in the bag to get all of the moisture out. You can discard the pulp or freeze it to use later in muffins, cakes, cookies, or biscuits.
From here, pour the plant milk into a container that has a tight-fitting lid. I poured my almond milk into a mason jar, and I’ll use it in smoothies and coffee. Homemade almond milk should be kept in the fridge and used within five days, but I’ve heard that oat milk might be best used within three.
Explore adding different extracts and flavors for more interesting coffee, or an amazing batch of overnight oats.
