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Your Microsoft text codes are going away

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Your Microsoft text codes are going away

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If you have ever waited for a login code that never showed up, you already know the pain. You type in your password. Microsoft asks for a code. Then you stare at your phone like it owes you money. Now Microsoft wants to move even further away from that routine.

The company says it will phase out SMS codes as a sign-in and account recovery method for personal Microsoft accounts. Instead, Microsoft wants more people to use passkeys and verified email. This affects anyone who uses a personal Microsoft account. That can include Outlook, OneDrive, Windows, Xbox or Microsoft 365 users.

That may sound like another tech company forcing you to change your habits. In this case, though, there is a real security reason behind it. Text-message codes helped make account logins safer for years. They were never built, however, to protect your digital life. Crooks have learned how to abuse them, steal them and trick people into handing them over.

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Microsoft is phasing out SMS codes for personal account sign-ins and recovery, pushing users toward passkeys and verified email for stronger security. (Photo Illustration by Serene Lee/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

 

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Why Microsoft is moving away from SMS codes

Microsoft says SMS authentication has become a major source of fraud. Text messages can be intercepted, stolen through SIM-swap scams or captured through phishing attacks. That creates a real problem because your Microsoft account can unlock a lot. It may connect to Outlook, OneDrive, Xbox, Windows, Microsoft 365 and saved payment details.

Once a criminal gets into that account, the damage can spread fast. They may read your email, reset other passwords or look for private files stored in the cloud. SMS codes once felt like a strong extra layer. Today, they can give people a false sense of security.

A scammer may call your phone carrier and try to move your number to another SIM card. They may also send a fake Microsoft login page that asks for your code. If you type it in, the scammer can use it right away. That is why Microsoft wants users to move toward passkeys. Microsoft has not listed a universal cutoff date for every personal account. However, it says users who still rely on SMS will be guided to add a verified email and set up a passkey.

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What a Microsoft passkey does

A passkey lets you sign in without typing a traditional password. Instead, you use something already tied to your device. That may be your face, fingerprint, device PIN or a physical security key.

Here is the key difference. A passkey uses cryptography behind the scenes. One part stays with Microsoft. The private part stays on your device or inside your password manager. A scammer cannot simply trick you into reading a passkey over the phone.

That makes passkeys much harder to steal than SMS codes. They can also feel easier once you set them up. You may be able to sign in with your fingerprint or face instead of waiting for a text that may never arrive.

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Why Microsoft passkeys may feel confusing at first

Security upgrades can be annoying. SMS codes are familiar. Most people know how they work. Even when they are clunky, they feel simple. Passkeys can feel confusing at first. You may wonder where the passkey lives. You may also wonder what happens if you lose your phone or whether you need one for every device.

That confusion is real. It can get worse if you set up a new Windows PC, use a shared computer or switch devices often. The good news is that Microsoft says verified email will remain part of the account recovery process. So you should make sure your backup email address is current before you run into a lockout.

How to set up or add a passkey to your Microsoft account

Before you start, use a device you trust. Also, make sure your browser and operating system are updated.

  • Go to Microsoft’s account security page at account.microsoft.com/security and sign in.
  • Under Account Security, select Manage how I sign in.
  • Under Ways to prove who you are, look for Use a passkey.
  • If you already see a passkey listed, such as Apple iCloud Keychain, your account already has one set up.
  • To add another passkey or sign-in method, select Add another way to sign in to your account.
  • Choose Use a passkey or Face, fingerprint, PIN or security key, depending on the wording you see.
  • Follow the prompts on your device.
  • Choose where you want to save the passkey, such as Apple iCloud Keychain, a password manager, your phone, your computer or a physical security key.
  • Finish the setup process and confirm the passkey works.

Note: Microsoft’s support pages may say Advanced Security Options, or Add a new way to sign in or verify. However, in the current Microsoft account dashboard, many users may see Manage how I sign in and then Add another way to sign in to your account instead.

AMERICA’S MOST-USED PASSWORD IN 2025 REVEALED

The tech giant says text-message authentication is increasingly vulnerable to phishing attacks, SIM-swap scams and account takeovers. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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Microsoft account security steps to take now

Do not rush through this change. A few minutes of cleanup can save you a big headache later.

1) Add a backup email you still use

Your recovery email should be an account you can access today. If it points to an old work email or a forgotten inbox, update it.

2) Remove old phone numbers

Check whether your Microsoft account still lists an old number. If it does, remove it or replace it with your current number.

3) Turn on Microsoft Authenticator

Microsoft Authenticator can give you another secure way to verify your identity. It can also help if you have trouble with SMS or email.

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4) Save recovery codes safely

If Microsoft offers backup codes, store them somewhere secure. Do not keep them in a plain note called “Microsoft password.”

5) Use a strong password manager

Even if you move to passkeys, a password manager still helps. It can store strong passwords, flag reused logins and help you avoid fake sign-in pages. Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at CyberGuy.com.

IF SOMEONE GETS INTO YOUR EMAIL, THEY OWN EVERY ACCOUNT YOU HAVE. THESE 3 MOVES LOCK THEM OUT FOR GOOD

Passkeys allow Microsoft users to sign in with a fingerprint, face scan, device PIN or security key instead of waiting for a text code. (Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Kurt’s key takeaways

Microsoft’s move away from SMS codes may feel inconvenient at first. However, the old text-code system has too many weak spots. A passkey will not make you invincible. No security tool can promise that. Still, it can make account theft much harder for scammers who rely on fake login pages, stolen codes and SIM-swap tricks. If your Microsoft account holds years of email, family photos or work files, this change deserves your attention. Set up a passkey, verify your backup email and remove old recovery options.

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Would you trust a text message to protect your most important account, or has that comfort become the risk? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.

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JMGO’s N3 Ultimate projector is the new portable 4K champ

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JMGO’s N3 Ultimate projector is the new portable 4K champ

Sorry Anker: JMGO now makes my favorite flagship portable projector.

The N3 Ultimate is an excellent portable 4K projector that defeats moderate ambient light at severe placement angles and can rival more expensive home theater installations at night. After a few weeks of testing, I think the raw adaptability exhibited by the JMGO’s N3 Ultimate justifies its current $2,399 price ($500 off its $2,999 list).

Modern all-in-one projectors built around Google TV are already super accommodating when it comes to placement. Set one down on a living room table or campsite rock and it will begin searching for a screen or blank wall while avoiding obstacles to project a focused, color-corrected image that’s properly aligned. But these techniques typically resort to digital optimizations that degrade image brightness, resolution, and responsiveness. To avoid this, it’s always best to place a projector directly in front of the projection surface.

Optimizing image placement is fast, effective, and fun.

JMGO’s N3 Ultimate projector promises “lossless placement” by mounting it on a motorized gimbal that rotates horizontally and vertically. That, combined with optical zoom and generous lens shift, increases off-center placement flexibility without resorting to digital trickery. You can even drag the image Wiimote-style to the exact spot you want it using the included remote control. Handy!

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The N3 Ultimate doesn’t live up to all of its marketing hype, however. It’s pitched as a 5800 ISO lumen projector that I found to be unwatchable in its brightest mode for reasons I will explain later. In modes you can actually use, you’re getting about 4,600 ISO lumens, which drops to 3,000 ISO lumens if you want more accurate colors — that’s noticeably brighter than Anker’s Nebula X1 flagship 4K portable running in comparable modes.

Even though the N3 Ultimate misses the advertised ceiling, its class-leading brightness and impressive picture could make this a television replacement for some.

$2399

The Good

  • Unbeatable physical placement options that preserve image quality
  • Incredibly bright, daylight-ready output
  • Excellent out-of-the-box color reproduction
  • Very good sound for a portable
  • Snappy menu navigation and native Netflix support

The Bad

  • Horribly green and loud at max brightness
  • Automatic eye protection is wonky and slow to react
  • Clumsy menus required to swap into Bluetooth speaker mode
  • It’s portable, so where’s the handle?

The first spec I look at on portable projectors is the lumen rating. If the number is listed as anything other than ANSI or ISO, I just assume they are lying. JMGO isn’t exactly lying with its 5800 ISO lumen spec, but it’s not being completely transparent, either.

The N3 Ultimate only comes close to hitting that incredibly bright mark (I measured closer to 5,200 ISO lumens) when running in Dynamic mode, which skews the colors horribly green and causes the cooling fans to roar. The colors produced by this triple-laser RGB DLP projector are most accurate in Movie mode, but at almost half the advertised brightness.

Display Mode

Calculated ISO Lumens

Movie 3,066
Office 4,209
Vivid 4,624
Dynamic 5,216

Out of the box, I found the colors and tones produced by the N3 Ultimate’s factory tuning to be more true to life than many projectors in this class. Typically, I’d select Vivid during the day and then switch to Movie mode in darkened rooms. Sometimes I’d forget because the differences weren’t always obvious. The projector’s brightness allows its Dolby Vision support to meaningfully improve picture quality in both dark and not-so-dark rooms.

I tested the N3 Ultimate for an unhealthy number of hours on displays as large as 110 inches and as small as 32 inches; on painted walls, a glossy tabletop, a matte-white screen that increased the intensity, and a gray Ambient Light Rejecting (ALR) screen that boosted the contrast. It adapted admirably to each scenario with little intervention.

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Typically the projector ran whisper quiet — I had to strain to hear it. In warmer rooms and with adaptive brightness turned on, I could hear the fans kick up a notch to about 30dB from their usual 26dB, at a distance of one meter. At max brightness, the fans peaked at a very distracting 50dB.

Daytime watchable on this folded Ikea table when all those lumens are compressed into a 32-inch image.

Hank doesn’t like the new Ferrari, but he likes the 110-inch projected image on this ALR screen at midday.

This 90-inch image is watchable, but washed out when viewing it outside at dusk.

But soon, it looks great.

Optimizing image placement is a little tricky at first due to all the menu options and descriptions that aren’t exactly consumer friendly. Fortunately, there’s an optimization button right on the remote that removes the guesswork. Hold it down and you can drag the projected image around the room to center it wherever you want. Double-click the button and you’re presented with four menus that guide you through image-tuning options for Lossless Lens Shift, Gimbal Motion, Zoom, and Rotate. It’s very well done and makes the projector fast and easy to set up at new locations.

JMGO’s four optimization menus make fine-tuning image placement quick and easy.

JMGO’s four optimization menus make fine-tuning image placement quick and easy.

The sound is decent for a portable all-in-one of this size. It’s essentially an Anker Nebula X1 turned on its side, but lacking the optional satellite speakers that make Anker’s portable projector unbeatable for sound. Without those satellites, however, the Anker and JMGO sound roughly the same. The N3 Ultimate produced clear, detailed, room-filling sound with a respectable amount of bass. So, it’s a shame that JMGO doesn’t make it easy to quickly switch the projector into Bluetooth speaker mode from the shutdown screen like many portables — instead, you have to clumsily enable it through the settings menu.

The N3 Ultimate runs Netflix out of the box and menu navigation is snappy — two things you can’t take for granted with portable Google TV projectors. The one thing missing is an integrated handle, which makes this a two-handed portable. Fortunately, JMGO does ship the N3 Ultimate inside a reusable carrying case that came in handy when transporting it by car.

1/18

Dolby Vision HDR helps make scenes pop from Life in Color, with David Attenborough.
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I also found the projector’s automatic eye protection feature to be wonky. Even at the default sensitivity, it can be triggered for no reason. Worse, it’s slow to respond when eyeballs are actually at risk from the laser optics. And besides an on / off button, the N3 Ultimate lacks on-device controls — don’t lose the remote!

“Ultimate” is a dangerously high bar to set when naming your projector, but JMGO gets close to the mark. If audio quality is your absolute highest priority, Anker’s bulkier Nebula X1 speaker bundle remains a tempting alternative — though it will cost you significantly more cash. But if you are looking for class-leading brightness and unmatched physical placement flexibility from a 4K all-in-one projector, the JMGO N3 Ultimate at $2,399 is the way to go.

Listed Specs: JMGO N3 Ultimate

Display & Picture Quality
  • Light Source: MALC 5.0 Pure Triple Laser / RGB Laser
  • Resolution: 4K UHD
  • Brightness: 5800 ISO Lumens
  • Contrast Ratio: 20000:1
  • Color Gamut: 110% BT.2020
  • Color Accuracy: ΔE ≈ 0.7
  • HDR Formats: Dolby Vision, HDR10
  • Image Size: 40 to 300 inches
  • Display Technology: DLP

Optical & Placement System
  • Throw Ratio: 0.88–1.7:1
  • 3-in-1 Projection: Combines Optical Zoom, Lens Shift, and an AI Gimbal base
  • Projection Types: Front, Rear, Front Ceiling, Rear Ceiling

Smart Software & AI Features
  • Operating System: Google TV with native Netflix integration
  • Smart Features: Auto Screen Fitting, Auto Keystone, Auto Focus, Adaptive Brightness, and Wall Color Adaptation, Eye Protection
  • Custom Memory: AI Spatial Memory System to remember preferred walls, zoom levels, and shortcuts
  • Processor: MediaTek MT9679 chipset
  • Memory: 4GB RAM
  • Storage: 64GB ROM
  • Motion Tech: MEMC motion compensation
  • Speakers: Dual 12.5W stereo speakers (25W total output)
  • Sound Enhancement: Dolby Audio
  • Refresh Rate: Up to 240Hz
  • Input Lag: 1ms ultra-low latency
  • Extra Features: Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support and specialized game modes
  • Wireless: Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2
  • Wired Ports: 2x HDMI 2.1 (with one port supporting eARC) and 1x USB 3.0
  • Dimensions: 308.3 x 229.85 x 274.13mm
  • Weight: 6.95kg
  • Power Consumption: up to 300W

Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

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Fox News AI Newsletter: Sanders bill would seize 50% of stock in OpenAI, Anthropic for sovereign wealth fund

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Fox News AI Newsletter: Sanders bill would seize 50% of stock in OpenAI, Anthropic for sovereign wealth fund

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Welcome to Fox News’ Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.

IN TODAY’S NEWSLETTER:

– Bernie Sanders unveils plan to take 50% stake in AI companies for government wealth fund

– College grads expect to earn $80,000 a year, but the math isn’t mathing

– Jensen Huang says Nvidia’s new RTX Spark chip will reinvent the PC

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Sen. Bernie Sanders reacts to questions from a Fox News Digital reporter about Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s resurfaced Reddit posts while walking through the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

SOCIALIST SHARE-UP: Democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is arguing that the federal government should establish a sovereign wealth fund that’s financed by taking possession of half of the stock in AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI, among others.

PAPER CHASE: If you want to understand what’s broken about higher education in America, look no further than one statistic.

According to a recent survey, the average college student expects to earn $80,000 a year shortly after graduation. The reality? The average starting salary is closer to $56,000. That’s a 30% gap between expectation and reality before a graduate even receives their first paycheck.

THE AGENTIC ERA: Nvidia on Monday unveiled a new chip that will bring artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities onto laptops and desktop computers.

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The new AI chip, known as RTX Spark, was built as part of a collaboration between Nvidia and Microsoft to make personal computers that are built to power AI tools.

A student walks across the campus grounds at Harvard University. (Zhu Ziyu/VCG via Getty Images)

CRACKED IN DAYS: Apple devices have earned a reputation for being tough to break into. That comes from Apple’s tight control over the hardware, software and many of the protections standing between you and an attacker. However, a new claim from security startup Calif shows how quickly the cybersecurity world may be changing.

FINANCIAL DYNAMITE: Billionaire Jeff Bezos just detonated a financial hand grenade in the middle of America’s tax debate.

The Amazon founder recently suggested that the bottom half of American earners should pay zero federal income tax. Not lower taxes. Not a temporary rebate. Zero. 

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BIG BROTHER BOSS: The NewsGuild of New York has accused The New York Times of using artificial intelligence technology to monitor and surveil the performance of unionized tech workers in violation of their collective bargaining agreement.

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The first Story-Rich showcase was packed with narrative-driven games

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The first Story-Rich showcase was packed with narrative-driven games

Fellow Traveller, the publisher behind games like Titanium Court and 1000xResist, just wrapped up its Story-Rich Showcase, which featured a bunch of narrative-driven indie games. With more than 20 games on display, there was a lot to follow, but we’ve pulled together some of the most notable announcements below. You can also catch the full show on Fellow Traveller’s YouTube channel.

Ambrosia Sky is getting its second and final episode

Ambrosia Sky, a sci-fi game about death where you have to clean up alien fungi, will be getting its second act as a free update on August 6th. The game was originally planned to have three acts, but developer Soft Rains announced in March that it would be brought down to two. When Act Two launches, the game’s price will go up from $14.99 to $24.99.

The Citizen Sleeper games are coming to Nintendo Switch 2

The sci-fi RPGs Citizen Sleeper and Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector are getting Switch 2 versions on June 25th. If you already own them on the original Switch, you can play the Switch 2 versions at no extra charge. Developer Gareth Damian Martin also says they will be revealing their next game during Sunday’s PC Gaming Show.

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Desktop Explorer, a spooky game about looking through an old computer, launches in July

This trailer for Desktop Explorer, a horror puzzle game where you click through a creepy version of an old, Windows-like operating system, might be the scariest way to use a computer. It’s launching on July 17th.

Demonschool is getting DLC and will launch on the Switch 2

The upcoming paid DLC for Demonschool, a tactical RPG from Necrosoft that channels Buffy and Persona, has a focus on “puzzle battles” where players work to clear out enemies using certain characters in one turn. Both the DLC and the Switch 2 version (which includes mouse support and an improved frame rate) will launch sometime this year.

The developers of a point-and-click thriller are making a fantasy game

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Powerhoof, the studio behind last year’s retro-styled mystery game The Drifter, is now working on The Telwynium, a “fantasy adventure epic.” “Book One” of the game is now available on Steam, though you can also grab it from Itch.io if you prefer.

The Mermaid Mask, a new detective game, is launching in July

SFB Games, the studio that made games like Tangle Tower and Crow Country, is releasing its next game, The Mermaid Mask, on July 16th. It’s a locked-door mystery that’s fully voice-acted and features hand-drawn animations — looks like a great story to settle into this summer.

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