Apple WWDC Keynote 2026 Recap

Posted: June 8, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

MacOS-the next version…MacOS 27 is called Golden Gate

Adjust Liquid glass from clear to tinted with slider. Sidebars now expand to left edge of window. App Icons are sharper and better defined.

Under the hood, a lot of tweaks have speeded up loading of apps and pictures on Macs and iPhones.

For WiFi when you are moving around, you won’t have to manually switch to cellular and back to disconnect from like an airport or coffee shop WiFi or the pestering Xfinity general WiFi that always tries to auto-connect

Index has been improved…which it desperately needed….so search will work better. Email search is also improved. 

This is kinda cool…you can share photo albums with Android and Windows, and they can contribute to an album for say…a group or family trip. 

Trust and Safety features- Child safety features have been expanded. Apple says they have conferred with a number of groups who specialize in child development. 

Making the kid a Child Account blocks certain adult sites and enables parental controls. The kid can’t download an app without parental approval. Also, a new addition is ‘ask to browse,’ which works for kids under 13. 

You can limit a child’s screen time. Apple calls this Time Allowances. They are based on the child’s age. Social medial is not allowed by default, but the parents can override this (you know kids will figure a work around instantly for this.) 

Apple is launching a new website for parents to use the kid tools.

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AI and Apple

The real meat and potatoes of today’s keynote was all about the new, improved SiriAI. It was promised 2 years ago, but it is now here…at least for developers. The rest of us will have to wait until fall when the new operating systems are released. Apple’s Tim Cook says truly helpful AI must be centered around the user not just for its own sake. 

Apple Claims the new Siri AI will be much more responsive and deeply integrated. Apple is being clear they have partnered with Google and their Gemini. They are trying to do as much as possible on device for privacy. 

Higher accuracy dictation, and better language understanding are a welcome addition. I have gotten some pretty hilarious messages that Apple’s dictation mangled.

Personal context understanding…you can find items just by asking for them. Naturally, it can search the web, then boil down the info into an overview for you. 

Privacy first…Apple is emphasizing how AI privacy is on by default…data is either on device or on Apple private cloud, where even Apple can’t see it.

The improved Siri includes personal context understanding and understands what’s on your screen. There is a new dedicated Siri App. It appears in the little bubble Apple calls the Dynamic Island at the top of the screen… which expands to present the answer. 

You can have a picture on your screen, and ask Siri what and where it is and it will tell you. 

The Dedicated Siri App lets you sync chats with different Apple devices. You can start a conversation on iPhone and continue on iPad or your Mac. 

Camera gets a Siri mode…so you can aim cam at something and ask Siri what you are seeing…like foods, or use it on a restaurant ticket to split the bill. 

You can ask Siri to generate a document, then go into that document and type. It automatically proofreads and will do so systemwide in real time no matter what app you are using. 

A useful AI feature for Safari-it can organize your tabs into topics to make it easier to stay organized. Notify Me will monitor a site and bring that tab back when say, a product is back in stock. 

The clean up feature in photos can let you shift perspective and move people around…like if you didn’t get the person or people centered in a pic. The item remove feature has been improved, too.

Siri AI will be launched later this year in Beta. It won’t be available in the EU or China at first, until Apple works things out with those governments. 

I’m Clark Reid And you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Google Will Let Publishers Opt Out of AI Mode; Zuckerberg Wants AI Agents to ‘Run Your Whole Business’; Amazon’s Ring-Pay Americans for Scanning Faces; Microsoft Bows Scout-OpenClaw Clone

Posted: June 3, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

As we’ve covered here and others have as well, Google continues to make search more AI driven. A lot of people have complained about the ‘AI Overview,’ and how links are placed under it. 9to5google.com is reporting that Google is introducing a new opt-out toggle in the Search Console to determine whether a site appears in and is used to help ground generative AI features. Sites that opt out will not receive traffic or impressions from AI Overviews, AI Mode, or AI Overviews in Google Discover, but will otherwise continue to appear in regular Google Search results and the Discover feed. There is a big caveat…this doesn’t apply to the Gemini app. Google is giving website publishers new generative AI Search stats in Search Console. Insights include impressions metrics, which pages appear in AI responses, and in what countries. 

In the latest earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg intimated that Meta had major plans for AI agents. Now, there’s some movement in that direction. According to engadget.com, they have launched AI agent tools for businesses that rely on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. Meta Business Agent will let business owners delegate many daily tasks, like interacting with customers and booking appointments. Meta even claims that the agent will have the ability to ‘close sales’ and recommend products. Meta does note that the human business owners can jump into interactions at any point. Zuckerberg says the ultimate goal is for the agents to ‘eventually help you run your whole business.’ It’s a freebie, right? Well, not for long. Meta will place the feature into one of its subscription offerings ‘in the coming months.’

A class action suit has bee filed against Amazon which looks for damages for millions of Americans whose faces may have been recorded by Ring cameras since the Familiar Faces feature was rolled out late last year. Arstechnica.com notes that the suit lists $5 million in damages, but that is just the legal threshold…and the plaintiffs will seek far more. What is the uproar about? Ring’s Familiar Faces feature is designed to identify people who appear at one’s door and provide alerts to the owner of the camera. Amazon says Familiar Faces is not enabled by default but that owners of Ring cameras can turn it on. Ring camera users can create a “personal directory of up to 50 familiar faces” so they can be alerted when one comes to the door. A personal note here…I have a Ring, and while the feature isn’t on by default, the app pesters you each time you check it to activate the feature. The lawsuit claims that the feature ‘violates basic notions of consumer privacy.’ Besides money damages, the suit seeks an injunction against Amazon, praying for the court to change Amazon’s behavior with regards to the Familiar Faces feature. Amazon has not commented on the suit so far. 

OpenClaw, which has stormed into computers as an AI assistant, has gotten a lot of attention from the AI and tech communities. After OpenAI scooped up the founder of OpenClaw, techcrunch.com reports that Microsoft has dropped their own AI assistant…which operates similarly. Microsofts’s Scout is designed to bring what they are calling ‘power and flexibility’ to the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It is an always-on agentic assistant, and it’s intended to work alongside the user, mimicking the user’s style and identity. Scout is available through Microsoft’s Frontier program, which if for early adaptors. It requires an GitHub Copilot subscription to use. Microsoft claims Scout will come with a built-in “policy conformance system” that will continuously check whether the system is operating according to set guidelines, and each conformance check will produce its own audit trail.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Prime Day (Week) in June; User-Replaceable Batteries; Microsoft Surface Ultra-Their 1st MacBook Pro Competitor; Florida Sues OpenAI & Sam Altman

Posted: June 2, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon has moved summer Prime Day up a month to June…June 23rd, specifically. Now, zd.com notes that Prime ‘Day’ has ballooned to 4 days…up from two the last few years. Amazon has Prime Big Deal Days in October, and Big Spring Sales in March…but the summer sale is their biggest. They will offer Big Deal Drops at 12 am, 8 am, and 1 pm Pacific…with generally up to 50% off on brands like LG, Ninja, and Stanley…as well as others. Amazon will also have 60% off on Alexa devices, and up to 65% off on Kindle, Echo, Ring, Fire TV, Blink, and eero devices. 

The US government has been very hands-off on this, but the Europeans have been steaming right along, passing regulations on electronic devices that benefit consumers. Think of USB charging ports..which even made Apple give up their proprietary charging ports. Now, Theverge.com says the EU is stepping things up on reparability. New rules go into effect on February 18th, 2027. Users have to be able to remove and replace batteries with basic tools, or specialized tools that are provided with the product for free, and compatible spare batteries must be sold for at least five years. The tool requirement means swapping the battery doesn’t need to be as simple as popping off a clip-on cover, but can’t be much more complicated than removing a few standard screws. The regulation applies to headphones, e-readers, portable game consoles, laptops, and more. If it’s got a battery, it’s probably covered. There are two huge exceptions. Smartphones and tablets. They are covered by other laws. As a lot of phones are water resistant or even waterproof, the requirements only mandate that batteries must be replaceable by professional repair shops…but the batteries must be available to them to do the repairs. This is a real win against the ‘planned obsolescence’ the tech gadget manufacturers have borrowed from auto makers.

With the New Nvidia RTX Spark we just reported on, the upcoming Microsoft Laptop Ultra, which bows later this year, is expected to be Redmond’s first laptops that will really be able to compete with Apple’s MacBook Pro line. According to arstechnica.com, the new Ultra will be priced above the other laptops Microsoft sells, and will have plenty of accessory slots…USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, and also an SD card slot and headphone jack. For comparison, the MacBook Pro I write these reports on is several years old. It has Apple silicon, and besides a charging port, it rocks 3 USB-C ports, headphone jack, HDMI port, and and SD card slot. I use 3-4 of these slots regularly, so I think Microsoft has something here…all the slots you need, and a very powerful processing system that will run AI apps right on the machine. For those that are in the PC world and don’t love Macs, but need the power…the Ultra may be just the thing. 

Florida is suing OpenAI and Sam Altman personally over the safety of ChatGPT. Thenextweb.com reports that there will likely be other states that will be suing OpenAI and Altman. This suit accuses OpenAI of violating product liability laws, engaging in deceptive trade practices, and releasing ChatGPT while knowing it was harmful to users. The state is seeking civil penalties and a court order blocking the company from collecting data from children under 13 without parental consent. This is the first government action that names Altman personally…seeking to hold him liable for what Florida calls “reckless and willful conduct” and “utter disregard for the risk to human life.”  Stay tuned, there will be more of these filed by other states. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Nvidia Takes on Apple Silicon-New RTX Spark PC Chip; Meta’s AI Pendent; Duck Duck Go Eases Access to “NO-AI” Search Engine; BYD Assumes Crash Liability if You Use Self-Driving 

Posted: June 1, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nvidia is coming for Apple with their new RTX Spark PC chip. Macrumors.com reports that Nvidia claims it is ‘the most efficient PC chip ever built.’ Nvidia says its RTX Spark Superchip is purpose-built to run AI agents that can work proactively across apps and run in the background as a personal “teammate.” The RTX Spark is ARM based, rocking a Blackwell RTX graphics processor with a Grace CPU. Microsoft’s new 15 inch Surface Laptop Ultra will be one of the first machines to ship with the integrated silicon. Pricing hasn’t been announced for either the chip or the Surface Laptop Ultra…which will land later this year…but Nvidia has indicated that the first wave of RTX Spark machines will target the premium end of the market.

Meta is working on an AI pendant…because of course they are. According to techcrunch.com, the device will begin getting tested out nest year. Apparently, the gadget can either be worn on a necklace or be attached to a shirt to record conversations. Meta also intends to expand their line of AI glasses and plans to launch a business subscription called Wearables for Work. Meta is hoping all these AI wearable concepts will prove more popular than other wearables that have been tried in the past and failed. Meta’s hardware focused Reality Labs has lost $4 billion the first quarter of this year. 

DuckDuckGo has seen a surge of usage with the Google changes to make their search even more AI focused than it has been. Now, Techcrunch.com notes that the scrappy search engine is making it even easier to set up their no-AI search engine with new extensions. You can just use the link noai. duckduckgo.com as your default search engine. Once enabled, you are directed to DuckDuckGo’s AI-free search page. No prompts, no AI-assisted answers, and fewer AI images in the search results. The extensions are available for both Firefox and Chrome. 

A big issue with self-driving vehicles is the one of financial responsibility. Is the owner responsible, or the driver…even if they aren’t driving or touching controls? Is the maker of the self-driving vehicle on the hook? Now, at least in China, that question has been answered by BYD. Engadget.com reports that BYD will offer full-damage coverage for anyone using the Urban Navigate or Autopilot feature on its latest God’s Eye 5.0 driver assistance program. According to BYD, the company will “directly cover all resulting economic losses” if a driver uses the Urban Navigate on Autopilot feature in compliance with all regulations and gets into an at-fault accident. With it’s patchwork of mainly state insurance regulations, it will remain to be seen if this is ever adopted here in the US, but it would make a lot of sense. On the other hand, universal health coverage also makes a lot of sense…and where is that in the US?

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

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