The latest from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman points to Apple dropping its M4 Macs next week. Macrumors.com reports that it will likely be an online event like what Apple did with their ‘Scary Fast’ rollout last October 30th. Most Apple watchers are looking for a 14 inch entry-level MacBook Pro with M4 chip and one more Thunderbolt port than the present model. Also, 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros with M4 Pro and Max chip options. A freshened iMac is expected in the mix, too. Most of these new units won’t be in customer hands until November…as is typical for an Apple introduction…generally it is a week or 2  before the devices actually ship.

More and more spam and phishing has moved from email to messaging. Now, Google Messages is bowing new features to fight through all this crud. According to androidpolice.com, the new spam detection should help combat dangerous links, there’s a privacy upgrade for international messages, sensitive image warnings, and contact verification, too. Any message that Google Messages thinks might be scammy will give you a warning or automatically move the message into the spam folder. Besides the spam filter, they will block messages or send them to spam if they are from unknown senders and contain links. Google tested this system out in India, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore, before rolling the feature out worldwide…which will happen over the next couple months. “Sensitive Content Warnings for Google Messages”  will blur potentially sensitive images before viewing, and there will also be a new warning message when such images are being shared or forwarded. Like Google’s other protections, these scans all happen on-device, which means your privacy is ensured.

In a somewhat unsettling bit of news, Anthropic’s new AI model reportedly can have some control over your PC. Techcrunch.com notes that this was teased last spring, and now the latest upgrade of Claude 3.5 Sonnet can understand and interact with any desktop app. By way of a new ‘Computer Use’ API, which is in open beta, the model can mimic keystrokes, button clicks, and mouse gestures…basically emulating a person sitting at a PC. This is not an entirely new concept…it has been done for decades to an extent….but Anthropic is taking it to a new level entirely. Anthropic is not calling this an ‘agent,’ like Microsoft, Salesforce, or OpenAI….instead dubbing it an ‘action-execution layer.’ 

Previously, Elon Musk had asked the producer of Blade Runner 2049 about using imagery from the film…but he was turned down. Now, producer Alcon Entertainment is suing Elon for using what they call “AI-created images mirroring scenes from Blade Runner 2049, including one featuring a Ryan Gosling look-alike.” Engdget.com reports that the images were used in a slide presentation during Musk’s Cybercab event earlier this month. Alcon says in their complaint that the copied scenes made Elon’s event ‘more attractive to a global audience,’ and that he misappropriated “the Blade Runner 2049 brand to help sell Teslas.” One can imagine that if this suit gets into trial, we will see some interesting imagery in the court exhibits!

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