Bad Luck Windows 10 Users; Apple Watch Saves Another Life; Man Uses AI Avatar for a Lawyer and It Doesn’t Go Well … and More!
Every day, we scan the tech world for interesting news, sometimes from outside the tech world. Every Thursday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Thursday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
Bad luck, Windows 10 users. No fix yet for ransomware-exploited bug
A novel way to encourage upgrades? Microsoft would never stoop so low
Patch Tuesday has arrived, and Microsoft has revealed one flaw in its products under active exploitation and 11 critical issues in its code to fix.
Redmond delivered fixes for more than 120 flaws this month; none are rated with a CVSS severity score of nine or higher.
The one that deserves most attention is CVE-2025-29824, an elevation of privilege (EoP) hole in the Windows Common Log File System Driver, because it is already being exploited.
In a separate note, Microsoft explained the vulnerability is being exploited by a crew it has designated as Storm-2460, which uses the bug to deliver ransomware it’s dubbed PipeMagic. Victims have been found in the US, Spain, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia…
Apple Watch saves another life by helping detect woman’s fast-spreading cancer
There are countless heartwarming stories about different ways the Apple Watch has helped saved people’s lives. In addition to the emergency SOS and fall detection features, the Watch offers a suite of insights which can help identify precursors to life-threatening diseases. Recently, a similar story made news when a woman’s cancer was caught, thanks to active alerts from an Apple Watch 10.
Amanda Faulkner, a consulting psychiatrist from New Zealand, recently narrated her story where her Apple Watch 10 helped diagnose a rare form of blood cancer, which, if left undiagnosed, would have left her dead in a matter of few days. Faulkner told the New Zealand Herald that her Apple Watch notified her of her unusually high resting heart rate of around 90 beats per minute — which would typically be around 55 for her.
Despite being a physician and a psychologist, Faulkner brushed the alerts off, thinking of them as a result of probably just being stressed at work…
A 74-Year-Old Needed a Lawyer, So He Used an AI Avatar in Court. It Didn’t Go Well.
The plaintiff said he didn’t have a lawyer and turned to AI to deliver his argument in a polished way, without stammering or pausing.
A New York courtroom came face-to-face with artificial intelligence last month when a plaintiff attempted to use an AI-generated avatar to present a case.
Jerome Dewald, a 74-year-old plaintiff in an employment case, submitted an AI-generated video for his argument without telling judges beforehand.
The video featured an AI-created person who didn’t exist and was used to speak in his place.
On March 26, the video played before five baffled New York State judges who were listening to the case at the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department. The judges expected Dewald to speak on video, but the video he presented to them showed a young man in a button-down shirt and sweater.
“May it please the court,” said the AI-generated avatar. “I come here today a humble pro se before a panel of five distinguished justices.”
One of the judges, Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels, interrupted the presentation immediately before the avatar could speak another word…
Unironically, I can’t wait to hand all my files over to Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft is rolling out a significant update to the Copilot app for Windows Insiders. The update enables the file search feature and Copilot Vision, which were originally announced late last year. Microsoft says Insiders in the US will get Copilot Vision, while Insiders around the world will have access to file search. As usual, Microsoft is slowly rolling out these updates to Insiders before a broad release. You can download the update through the Microsoft Store; version 1.25034.133.0 or later of the Copilot app has support for both features.
The big update here is file search, which allows Copilot to find files on your PC through the chat window. You can ask it to dig up your resume, or find a presentation you were working on a week ago. It might not seem like a big deal, but searching for files in Windows is currently a nightmare. You have to search through FIle Explorer, it takes forever to search, even within a specific folder, and if you have to search for a file across multiple drives, you might as well take a break and make yourself a cup of coffee while the results populate…
Russian cable attacks ‘threaten to cut off world’s internet’
Rise in sabotage incidents is putting critical services at risk, say telecoms companies
Military chiefs at Nato have been warned of global internet blackouts following a string of suspected Russian attacks on subsea cables.
Telecoms companies including Vodafone, O2 owner Telefonica and Orange have written to UK, EU and Nato officials warning that a rise in sabotage incidents was putting critical services at risk.
In an open letter, they wrote: “The repercussions of damage to subsea cables extend far beyond Europe, potentially affecting global internet and power infrastructure, international communications, financial transactions and critical services worldwide.”
It comes after a spike in incidents relating to fibre optic cables on seabeds that carry huge volumes of data, voice and internet traffic between countries…
Thanks for reading this week’s Thursday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful.
