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Siri gets overhaul as Apple goes all in on AI connected to ChatGPT

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Siri gets overhaul as Apple goes all in on AI connected to ChatGPT

Apple held its annual developer’s conference on Monday, announcing new software upgrades for all of its devices. 

IOS, which is the operating system that runs on your iPhone, has received what can be considered the biggest upgrade to date. 

Apple has infused it with artificial intelligence, meaning it is now more capable and feature-rich. IOS 18 is also more customizable than ever, giving you the ability to tweak your home screen and more. 

Apple has also announced the macOS 15, iPadOS 18, watchOS 11 and more.

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New software upgrades on all Apple devices (Apple)

iOS 18: What’s new in the latest software

Apple has officially announced iOS 18. While the software will not be released to the public until September, it does bring some features that every iPhone user should be aware of.

The update includes new home screen customization, giving you a theming option for app icons. You can now place app icons anywhere and automatically tint icons with dark mode. You can also swap the new controls onto the lock screen, replacing the flashlight and camera icons.

The list of new iOS 18 features is long, but Apple’s new features for iMessage and texting, in general, are worth noting. The app now lets you respond to messages with any emoji or sticker, not just the old Tapbacks. You can also schedule texts, add effects and format them with underlining, strikethrough and more. Plus, iPhone 14 and 15 users can send messages via satellite even without Wi-Fi or cell service. iOS 18 will also add RCS, reminders integration in Calendar, an option to make your home screen icons bigger, and more.

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HOW TO PROTECT YOUR IPHONE AND IPAD FROM MALWARE

‘Apple Intelligence’: All about Apple’s AI efforts

Apple has been struggling to maintain its dominance in the smartphone market, losing market share to companies like Samsung and facing significant challenges in important markets like China. However, the company’s latest AI capabilities, collectively called Apple Intelligence, might help it overcome these issues.

Apple Intelligence is a “personal intelligence” system that puts generative AI at the heart of the Apple device ecosystem. However, it only works with the latest and greatest Apple devices. To use Apple Intelligence on an iPhone, you need an iPhone 15 Pro or later. On iPads and Macs, you need at least the M1 chip.

Apple Intelligence introduces solid improvements to Siri, the virtual assistant on iPhones and iPads. The new Siri has been supercharged with AI, and it understands context, so you don’t have to repeat information. Apple says, “Siri will be able to find and understand things that it never could before.” That’s good news for those who noticed that both Alexa and Google Assistant have surpassed Siri’s capabilities for some time.

Siri will have on-screen awareness about what you are currently looking at and have the ability to take in-app actions. For instance, if you are filling in a form asking for your driving license number, Siri will automatically be able to find a picture of your driving license and extract the relevant number to fill in the field on your behalf. The Cupertino, California, company has also teamed up with OpenAI to let you use ChatGPT within Siri.

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Apple Intelligence also brings new features like Writing Tools, which help you rewrite, proofread and summarize text, and Image Playground, which lets you create images in apps such as Messages and Notes with unique styles like Sketch, Illustration, and Animation.

However, these features also encourage you to alter reality and create fake images, made-up rewrites of your own words, and encourage you to read its chosen summaries instead of the whole message sent to you.

For example, Apple showed how to create fake AI images of people in your photos and contacts like a birthday photo with a fake version of your friend surrounded by balloons.

Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, terms Apple Intelligence as “profound new intelligence capabilities.” I call Apple Intelligence with ChatGPT a leap forward with significant privacy and security questions. It may be more private than other services, but it is now encouraging less private activity with your personal data.

Apple Intelligence (Apple)

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macOS 15: The Mac software gets upgraded

Alongside iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, Apple has also made macOS 15 official. The new software is named after a California landmark: Sequoia. This continues Apple’s tradition, as previous versions were also named after places in California.

The new OS makes it even easier to connect your Mac and iPhone. Now, you can not only mirror your iPhone screen on your Mac but also control your iPhone directly from your Mac. You can even drag and drop between macOS apps and the iPhone screen.

Apple has also added a standalone Passwords app in macOS 15 Sequoia, so you can manage your passwords without needing third-party apps. Safari is now smarter, using AI to automatically highlight useful info like map directions or videos on a web page. macOS 15 also gets Apple Intelligence AI features. It can generate text in apps and help you create images.

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Everything else Apple announced at WWDC 2024

Apple’s WWDC 2024 was filled with new announcements. While I detailed the major stuff above, here’s everything else the company announced.

1. iPadOS 18: It shares many home screen and Control Center configurations with iOS 18. The iPad operating system has also received various enhancements to how iPad apps function, including the addition of a new calculator app, which was previously missing. In the Notes app, the Apple Pencil now offers more powerful handwriting capabilities with the Smart Script feature. If you’re not a fan of your handwriting, you can use this feature to improve its appearance.

2. WatchOS 11: This is the latest operating system for Apple Watches. It offers interactive widgets that provide convenient actions and new watch faces and automatically presents the best photos to “surprise and delight” you according to Apple’s marketing spin.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

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3. tvOS 18: Apple TVs have been upgraded with tvOS 18, which adds a new Insights section that includes additional information such as actor names and music titles. Apple also added support for 21:9 formatting for viewing widescreen films.

4. VisionOS 2: Apple also unveiled VisionOS 2, the first major upgrade to its software that runs Apple Vision Pro. VisionOS 2 enhances the Photos app with Spatial Photos and Spatial Personas for shared photo viewing. It also adds new hand motion commands for easier navigation, like tapping to reach the home screen and turning wrists to see battery levels.

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Kurt’s key takeaway

Apple has made significant changes to its software platforms, which ideally should allow users to get more out of their Apple devices. However, the new AI features being locked to newer devices force consumers to spend more money to buy the latest devices. Apple’s new AI, coming in iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS 15, has some amazingly powerful tools to put the information coming and going in our lives in a more easily usable context. These tools can also be easily misused to spread misinformation and engage in creating fake realities. I appreciate the progress and innovation. At the same time, I am asking some bigger questions about this leap into AI.

What happens when AI is altered to summarize a narrative other than your own? What are we losing by allowing AI to think for us, to tell us what to think about an email, document, poem and love note?

Do you think smartphones and other gadgets really need AI integration? And would you splurge on the newest Apple gear just for those AI features? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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Here’s your first look at Kratos in Amazon’s God of War show

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Here’s your first look at Kratos in Amazon’s God of War show

Amazon has slowly been teasing out casting details for its live-action adaptation of God of War, and now we have our first look at the show. It’s a single image but a notable one showing protagonist Kratos and his son Atreus. The characters are played by Ryan Hurst and Callum Vinson, respectively, and they look relatively close to their video game counterparts.

There aren’t a lot of other details about the show just yet, but this is Amazon’s official description:

The God of War series storyline follows father and son Kratos and Atreus as they embark on a journey to spread the ashes of their wife and mother, Faye. Through their adventures, Kratos tries to teach his son to be a better god, while Atreus tries to teach his father how to be a better human.

That sounds a lot like the recent soft reboot of the franchise, which started with 2018’s God of War and continued through Ragnarök in 2022. For the Amazon series, Ronald D. Moore, best-known for his work on For All Mankind and Battlestar Galactica, will serve as showrunner. The rest of the cast includes: Mandy Patinkin (Odin), Ed Skrein (Baldur), Max Parker (Heimdall), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Thor), Teresa Palmer (Sif), Alastair Duncan (Mimir), Jeff Gulka (Sindri), and Danny Woodburn (Brok).

While production is underway on the God of War series, there’s no word on when it might start streaming.

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300,000 Chrome users hit by fake AI extensions

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300,000 Chrome users hit by fake AI extensions

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Your web browser may feel like a safe place, especially when you install helpful tools that promise to make your life easier. But security researchers have uncovered a dangerous campaign in which more than 300,000 people installed Chrome extensions pretending to be artificial intelligence (AI) assistants. Instead of helping, these fake tools secretly collect sensitive information like your emails, passwords and browsing activity.

They used familiar names like ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Assistant. If you use Chrome and have installed any AI-related extension, your personal information may already be exposed. Even worse, some of these malicious extensions are still available today, putting more people at risk without their knowing.

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More than 300,000 Chrome users installed fake AI extensions that secretly harvested sensitive data. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

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What you need to know about fake AI extensions

Security researchers at browser security company LayerX discovered a large campaign involving 30 malicious Chrome extensions disguised as AI-powered assistants (via BleepingComputer). Together, these extensions were installed more than 300,000 times by unsuspecting users.

Some of the most popular extensions included names like AI Sidebar with 70,000 users, AI Assistant with 60,000 users, ChatGPT Translate with 30,000 users, and Google Gemini with 10,000 users. Another extension called Gemini AI Sidebar had 80,000 users before it was removed.

These extensions were distributed through the official Chrome Web Store, which made them appear legitimate and trustworthy. Even more concerning, researchers found that many of these extensions were connected to the same malicious server, showing they were part of a coordinated effort.

While some extensions have since been removed, others remain available. This means new users could still unknowingly install them and expose their personal data. Here’s the list of the affected extensions:

  • AI Assistant
  • Llama
  • Gemini AI Sidebar
  • AI Sidebar
  • ChatGPT Sidebar
  • Grok
  • Asking ChatGPT
  • ChatGBT
  • Chat Bot GPT
  • Grok Chatbot
  • Chat With Gemini
  • XAI
  • Google Gemini
  • Ask Gemini
  • AI Letter Generator
  • AI Message Generator
  • AI Translator
  • AI For Translation
  • AI Cover Letter Generator
  • AI Image Generator ChatGPT
  • Ai Wallpaper Generator
  • Ai Picture Generator
  • DeepSeek Download
  • AI Email Writer
  • Email Generator AI
  • DeepSeek Chat
  • ChatGPT Picture Generator
  • ChatGPT Translate
  • AI GPT
  • ChatGPT Translation
  • ChatGPT for Gmail

FAKE AI CHAT RESULTS ARE SPREADING DANGEROUS MAC MALWARE

These malicious tools were listed in the official Chrome Web Store, making them appear legitimate and trustworthy. (LayerX)

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How the fake AI Chrome extension attack works

These fake extensions pretend to offer helpful AI features, such as translating text, summarizing emails, or acting as an AI assistant. But behind the scenes, they quietly monitor what you are doing online.

Once installed, the extension gains permission to view and interact with the websites you visit. This allows it to read the contents of web pages, including login screens where you enter your username and password.

In some cases, the extensions specifically targeted Gmail. They could read your email messages directly from your browser, including emails you received and even drafts you were still writing. This means attackers could access private conversations, financial information and sensitive personal details.

The extensions then sent this information to servers controlled by the attackers. Because they loaded content remotely, the attackers could change their behavior at any time without needing to update the extension.

Some versions could also activate voice features through your browser. This could potentially capture spoken conversations near your device and send transcripts back to the attackers.

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If you installed one of these extensions, attackers may already have access to extremely sensitive information. This includes your email content, login credentials, browsing habits and possibly even voice recordings.

We reached out to Google for comment, and a spokesperson told CyberGuy that the company “can confirm that the extensions from this report have all been removed from the Google Web Store.”

BROWSER EXTENSION MALWARE INFECTED 8.8M USERS IN DARKSPECTRE ATTACK

Once installed, the extensions could read emails, capture passwords, monitor browsing activity and send the data to attacker-controlled servers. (Bildquelle/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

7 ways you can protect yourself from malicious Chrome extensions

If you have ever installed an AI-related Chrome extension, taking a few simple precautions now can help protect your accounts and prevent further damage.

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1) Remove any suspicious or unused browser extensions

On a Windows PC or Mac, open Chrome and type chrome://extensions into the address bar. Review every extension listed. If you see anything unfamiliar, especially AI assistants you don’t remember installing, click “Remove” immediately. Malicious extensions depend on going unnoticed. Removing them stops further data collection and cuts off the attacker’s access to your information.

2) Change your passwords

If you installed any suspicious extension, assume your passwords may be compromised. Start by changing your email password first, since email controls access to most other accounts. Then update passwords for banking, shopping and social media accounts. This prevents attackers from using stolen credentials to break into your accounts.

3) Use a password manager to create and protect strong passwords

A password manager generates unique, complex passwords for each account and stores them securely. This prevents attackers from accessing multiple accounts if one password is stolen. Password managers also alert you if your login credentials appear in known data breaches, helping you respond quickly and protect your identity. Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at Cyberguy.com.

4) Install strong antivirus software and keep it active

Good antivirus software can detect malicious browser extensions, spyware, and other hidden threats. It scans your system for suspicious activity and blocks harmful programs before they can steal your information. This adds an important layer of protection that works continuously in the background to keep your device safe. Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.

5) Use an identity theft protection service

Identity theft protection services monitor your personal data, including email addresses, financial accounts, and Social Security numbers, for signs of misuse. If criminals try to open accounts or commit fraud using your information, you receive alerts quickly. Early detection allows you to act fast and limit financial and personal damage. See my tips and best picks on how to protect yourself from identity theft at Cyberguy.com.

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6) Keep your browser and computer fully updated

Software updates fix security vulnerabilities that attackers exploit. Enable automatic updates for Chrome and your operating system so you always have the latest protections. These updates strengthen your defenses against malicious extensions and prevent attackers from taking advantage of known weaknesses.

7) Use a personal data removal service

Personal data removal services scan data broker websites that collect and sell your personal information. They help remove your data from these sites, reducing what attackers can find and use against you. Less exposed information means fewer opportunities for criminals to target you with scams, identity theft or phishing attacks.

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

Get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web: Cyberguy.com.

Kurt’s key takeaway

Even tools designed to make your life easier can become tools for cybercriminals. Malicious extensions often hide behind trusted names and convincing features, making them difficult to spot. You can significantly reduce your risk by reviewing your browser extensions regularly, removing anything suspicious and using protective tools like password managers and strong antivirus software.

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Have you checked your browser extensions recently? Let us know your thoughts by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

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Anthropic refuses Pentagon’s new terms, standing firm on lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance

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Anthropic refuses Pentagon’s new terms, standing firm on lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance

Less than 24 hours before the deadline in an ultimatum issued by the Pentagon, Anthropic has refused the Department of Defense’s demands for unrestricted access to its AI.

It’s the culmination of a dramatic exchange of public statements, social media posts, and behind-the-scenes negotiations, coming down to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desire to renegotiate all AI labs’ current contracts with the military. But Anthropic, so far, has refused to back down from its two current red lines: no mass surveillance of Americans, and no lethal autonomous weapons (or weapons with license to kill targets with no human oversight whatsoever). OpenAI and xAI had reportedly already agreed to the new terms, while Anthropic’s refusal had led to CEO Dario Amodei being summoned to the White House this week for a meeting with Hegseth himself, in which the Secretary reportedly issued an ultimatum to the CEO to back down by the end of business day on Friday or else.

In a statement late Thursday, Amodei wrote, “I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies, and to defeat our autocratic adversaries. Anthropic has therefore worked proactively to deploy our models to the Department of War and the intelligence community.”

He added that the company has “never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner” but that in a “narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values” — going on to specifically mention mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. (Amodei mentioned that “partial autonomous weapons … are vital to the defense of democracy” and that fully autonomous weapons may eventually “prove critical for our national defense,” but that “today, frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons.” He did not rule out Anthropic acquiescing to the military’s use of fully autonomous weapons in the future but mentioned that they were not ready now.)

The Pentagon had already reportedly asked major defense contractors to assess their dependence on Anthropic’s Claude, which could be seen as the first step to designating the company a “supply chain risk” – a public threat that the Pentagon had made recently (and a classification usually reserved for threats to national security). The Pentagon was also reportedly considering invoking the Defense Production Act to make Anthropic comply.

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Amodei wrote in his statement that the Pentagon’s “threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.” He also wrote that “should the Department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions. Our models will be available on the expansive terms we have proposed for as long as required.”

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