Gmail

Did your McLovin!1976!@gmail.com email address seem funny at the time but less so now you are applying for dozens of jobs? Google has said it is giving US users a chance to appear more professional by letting them change their Google account username- whatever appears before @gmail.com in an email address- without losing access to their account.

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Tech

The time for tech has arrived.  Start your sentence here, then you need to use the rest of the article by clicking to get it here.

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Mars

Scientists believe intriguing leopard spots on a rock sampled by the Perseverance rover on Mars last year may have potentially been made by ancient life, NASA announced Wednesday. The team has also published a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature about the new analysis, though they say further study is needed. “After a year of review, they have come back and they said, listen, we can’t find another explanation,” said Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “So this very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars, which is incredibly exciting.”

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Sora

OpenAI is winding down Sora, the video generation app it launched to much fanfare last year that signaled a bigger push into creative tools and social media. OpenAI is shuttering the standalone app to focus on other priorities, the company said on Tuesday. “As we focus and compute demand grows, the Sora research team continues to focus on world simulation research to advance robotics that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement.

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iPhone

Apple has released iOS 26.4, along with a bunch of new iPhone features and eight new emoji. But the iOS 26.4 upgrade also comes with a warning to update your iPhone now, because it contains a whopping 37 fixes for security holes in the iOS software. Apple doesn’t provide much detail about what’s fixed in iOS 26.4, to allow as many users as possible to upgrade before attackers can get hold of the details.

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Meta Lawsuit

A jury in Santa Fe on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties after finding the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangered children... The verdict, reached after a six-week trial, found Meta liable on both claims brought by the state under its Unfair Practices Act. At $5,000 per violation-  the maximum allowed under the law-  the penalty may seem paltry for a company valued at $1.5 trillion by public market investors. But the dollar amount isn’t as important as the fact that this is the first jury verdict of its kind against Meta over harm to young people.

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Deaflympics

New technologies tested at the Deaflympics in Tokyo are creating new ways of experience the atmosphere at sporting events. Filming recently for BBC TechXplore, I learned that, at the Deaflympics, sound doesn't have to just be something you hear. It can be something you see. Something you feel. Sometimes, something you hold. For more than a century, the Deaflympics has been the pinnacle of elite competition for deaf athletes. Now, it is also one of the world's most important testing grounds for inclusive technology, where engineers, designers and deaf users collaborate to redefine how sport is experienced.

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iPhone update

Amid reports of powerful spyware targeting iPhones, Apple is urging users to update their devices as soon as possible. On Wednesday, researchers said they had found malware that can get into and take information from iPhones. Reuters reported that researchers determined the malware, dubbed “DarkSword,” was impacting iPhone users with iOS versions 18.4 to 18.6.2 who had visited one of dozens of Ukrainian websites.

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Tik Tok

TikTok is tracking you, even if you don't use the app. Here's how to stop it. TikTok is growing its data harvesting empire, and avoiding the app won’t protect you, but some easy steps can keep you safe. TikTok keeps track of everything you do on its app- no surprises there. What's less obvious is how the company follows you around other parts of the internet that have nothing to do with TikTok.  In fact, TikTok collects sensitive and potentially embarrassing information about you even if you've never used the app. 

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