iPhone Fold May Be on Track for September; Google Photos Adds ‘AI Enhance’ Button; Anthropic Launches Initiative to Prevent AI Cyberattacks; Spotify-Big Upgrade for Podcast Listeners

We have seen a couple reports that say Apple’s folding phone is being tested out right now after a small production run, but that it may not be out until around December. Now, techcrunch.com reports that highly reliable Apple tout Mark Gurman of Bloomberg says it is on track to bow in September along with the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. As with numerous brand new Apple products, it may not get into users’ hands until October, though. Apple apparently has resolved issues with screen quality and durability, and it has a notably less visible crease when it is unfolded. If it doesn’t cost over $2400, I’ll eat my hat…that is if I can find a nice, dark chocolate hat!

Google Photos gets an ‘AI Enhance button, and video playback speed controls. The features are being rolled out now according to 9to5google.com. The AI Enhance tool will work for Google Photos for all Android users. The button gives users an option to apply a magic fix to their photos, using AI, of course. It’s a sort of do-it-all button and gives users the option to skip over extensive editing with a quick fix that focuses on adjusting lighting and contrast levels. As for the video feature for Photos,  in each video, the three-dot menu will present “playback speed” among the other tools. Users can choose speeds from 0.25x to 2x. Google says this has been a long-requested feature. The video rollout isn’t global as yet…but should show up on Android devices everywhere shortly. 

Anthropic has launched Project Glasswing, which will use AI to try to prevent AI-powered cyberattacks. Engadget.com notes that they are joined in the effort by Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorganChase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks as partners. The participants will use Claude Mythos Preview, n unreleased, general-purpose model from Anthropic, to enhance their own security projects. Anthropic claims that this model has found thousands of exploitable vulnerabilities, “including some in every major operating system and web browser.” Let’s hope that this does help prevent or minimize AI cyberattacks. 

There is such a flood of podcasts out there, it’s hard to sift through all of them to find things that interest you. It’s kind of like scrolling through all the old movies on Netflix. Well, now Spotify has a potential solution. Androidpolice.com reports that they have expanded the Prompted Playlist feature to work with podcasts. You can create a playlist of podcasts with a text prompt. You give it a prompt, just like with music, and it uses AI to generate a playlist around it. The feature is rolling out to US users of Premium right now. You can set it up to refresh daily or weekly if you like. 

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


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