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AppWizard
July 31, 2025
Users expressed frustration on social media about outages affecting banking applications, particularly on payday. Lloyds Bank acknowledged the issues and asked customers to be patient while they worked on a fix. Outages were also reported by HSBC, Halifax, and the Royal Bank of Scotland. A Treasury Committee report revealed that nine of the UK's largest banks had experienced over a month of unplanned technical outages in the past two years, with 158 incidents of IT failures reported between January 2023 and February 2025. Common causes of these outages included problems with third-party suppliers, system changes, and internal software issues. Downdetector is a platform that tracks service disruptions across various services, allowing users to report issues.
AppWizard
July 29, 2025
One-Eyed Likho is a game set in Eastern Europe that draws on Slavic mythology, where players take on the role of a village smith alongside a tailor to explore the concept of 'evil.' The gameplay is primarily puzzle-based, requiring players to ignite objects to progress. The game features a black-and-white aesthetic reminiscent of silent films and employs straightforward mechanics, with players navigating limited environments to collect items and solve puzzles. The narrative includes introspective monologues from the smith, reflecting on Biblical figures and existential themes. Influences from the game Pathologic are present, and the game balances surreal elements with moments of intensity. Players engage with the narrative while exploring themes of evil through various settings, including a forest and a dilapidated house.
AppWizard
July 28, 2025
A comprehensive investigation by Which? and Hexiosec analyzed 20 popular Android applications, revealing that all request permissions that could compromise user privacy. The Xiaomi Home app had the highest number of permission requests at 91, followed by Samsung SmartThings with 82, Facebook with 69, and WhatsApp with 66. While some permissions are necessary for functionality, the excessive requests raise concerns about digital surveillance. TikTok faced scrutiny for its audio recording and device file access requests, while Temu was criticized for excessive promotional emails linked to its location access. Amazon defended its camera access requests as enhancing user experience, and Meta stated that its apps do not use the microphone without user involvement. The investigation highlights the trade-off between free services and the collection of personal data.
AppWizard
July 28, 2025
The European Union's new app verification framework requires that apps be downloaded from the Google Play Store, licensed by Google, and installed on devices meeting specific security criteria to pass verification. Apps that are sideloaded, compiled from source, or installed from alternative app stores will not qualify for the EU's age verification system. If adopted without modifications, this framework will bar any non-compliant Android apps from operating within the EU, potentially excluding many third-party or custom-built applications. The system aims to enhance protections for minors while prioritizing user privacy by not collecting further usage data after a one-time age verification. Similar age verification initiatives are also emerging in the United States. The EU's approach may limit user autonomy and the openness of the Android platform, and Android users in Europe should prepare for potential restrictions.
BetaBeacon
July 24, 2025
The game Pokémon Friends combines puzzles and plush collecting, with beloved Pokémon characters featured in engaging puzzles. The free version of the game has a paywall that limits gameplay, but making a one-time purchase unlocks more content and makes the game more enjoyable. The game avoids excessive microtransactions and offers periodic updates to introduce new plushies, providing a lighthearted and engaging experience for fans of Pokémon.
Winsage
July 22, 2025
Microsoft has introduced new Copilot+ experiences for AMD and Intel-powered PCs through recent Windows Insider Builds. The "describe image" action in Click to Do has been made available to these users starting with build 26200.5710, after previously being accessible only to Snapdragon X-powered devices. This feature provides detailed descriptions of images, charts, and graphs to enhance accessibility, particularly for blind and low-vision users. The Narrator tool has also been improved to generate rich descriptions of visual content. Users can activate this feature by pressing the Narrator key + Ctrl + D. Additionally, Microsoft is collecting logs to address performance issues and has updated the lock screen widget experience for Windows Insiders. A new section in Settings allows users to see which third-party applications have recently used generative AI models. There is a noted disparity in feature rollout between Snapdragon X and AMD/Intel-powered PCs, with Snapdragon devices receiving updates first.
Winsage
July 21, 2025
The forthcoming 25H2 update for Windows 11 aims to address performance issues reported by users since the operating system's launch in October 2021, particularly concerning hybrid CPUs during gaming and overall sluggishness compared to Windows 10. Microsoft is actively seeking user feedback to identify and resolve these issues, utilizing a new test build that automatically collects performance logs from Windows Insiders. In 2023, Microsoft has implemented several performance enhancements, including increased speed for the Taskbar and notifications area, improved functionality of the quick settings panel, and reduced performance impact from startup applications. The previous 24H2 update also improved performance on older hardware. Additionally, Microsoft plans to enhance Windows drivers with new requirements for developers, including mandating static analysis for driver certification to identify potential issues before deployment.
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