Epic Games is now fighting a war on two fronts as Google has announced it is going to appeal a court decision from December that went against it.

The games developer took on the tech giant accusing it of stifling competition for its app store and a jury agreed.

But Google is fighting back, which leaves Epic Games facing round two with Google after just recently launching a legal attack on Samsung for allegedly blocking alternative marketplaces on its devices.

Accusations of Collusion Between Samsung and Google

Epic Games had argued in its newest spat that Samsung and Google had actually be colluding to made it tricky for anyone providing competition for their respective app stores.

In a statement announcing the decision to appeal, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, pounced on this accusation.

She says that the Android platform is open and offers developers “many options in how to distribute their apps”. She adds: “In fact, most Android devices come preloaded with two or more app stores right out of the box.”

She also points out that Epic Games’ Fortnite app is available to Android users through the Samsung Galaxy Store and the Epic Games Store but was not distributed through Google Play.

How Did Apple (Sort of) Win and Google Didn’t?

Mulholland’s strongest argument, though, is that a court threw out similar accusations from Epic Games against Apple.

The Supreme Court ruled that Apple’s business model didn’t violate antitrust laws. But Apple did get a telling off that the set up made it difficult for third party developers to reference and signpost to alternate, potentially cheaper, payment systems.

She argues that the Android platform is open in a way that the iOS simply isn’t.

Competing Platforms

“The Epic verdict missed the obvious: Apple and Android clearly compete”, she states and, as developers have finite resources, this verdict will put Android at a disadvantage. The changes that Epic Games has requested, “make it harder for developers to promote their apps, and reduce competition on devices,” she writes.

She explains that this will drive developers to Apple: “Like any business, Google wants developers to offer their best features for Android and to release them on Android first. So we build tools, run training programs and invest in making it as easy as possible to develop for Android. Apple of course does the same – competing to convince developers to prioritize iOS”.

Google also argues that this verdict ignores that Apple and Google are competing for customers. Mulholland writes: “Walk into a store that sells smartphones and you’ll see the options side-by-side — Android phones from companies like Samsung, Motorola and many others competing right next to Apple’s iPhone. People choose between these phones based on price, quality and security.” These changes requested “would put consumers’ privacy and security at risk”, she states, pushing customers to Apple.

The Google legal team is now asking the court to pause implementing the “remedies” requested by Epic Games. Meanwhile, Samsung is denying any wrongdoing and has made it clear that it intends to fight back.

A data breach at a former contractor firm has compromised the data of more than 200,000 Comcast subscribers.

Names, addresses, Social Security numbers and dates of birth are among the details that have been exposed.

A letter has now gone out to subscribers offering support, but comes only months after another huge data leak for the telecommunications service provider.

Comcast Offers Support for Data Breach Victims

The leak impacts subscribers whose data was held by a contractor called Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS).

Comcast actually stopped working with debt collection agency, FBCS, in 2020, according to Deadline. This means that the data is older but 237,703 subscribers are still impacted.

The company is offering support services, including free identity theft protection services like credit monitoring options – for at least a year.

Subscribers affected have already been contacted. FCBS adds that there is currently no evidence that the exposed data has been misused.

When Did the Comcast Data Breach Take Place?

Comcast was made aware of the data breach last March but was told by FBCS that its customers’ data was not impacted. But by July, FBCS came back to the telecoms company with its hands up and admitted it had now found that Comcast’s data had been exposed.

At this point, FBCS got the FBI involved. Comcast adds in its letter to subscribers that the breach “occurred entirely at FBCS and not at Xfinity or on Comcast systems” and “the compromised information about you [subscribers] dates from around 2021.”

How to Know if You’ve Been Affected

The number of customers affected by the leak is a small portion of Comcast’s total customers, although that’s small comfort to those who have had their data leaked.

If you have been unlucky enough to be caught up in the breach, Comcast should have already reached out to you. However, if you have any reason to suspect that your data may have been compromised, and haven’t heard anything, then we suggest contacting the company directly.

Comcast is offering services that will allow impacted subscribers to keep an eye out for any kind of fraud that could be related to this leak.

The company is also urging all customers to set up two-step verification, and “remain alert for unusual or suspicious emails or telephone calls”.

Comcast’s Earlier Data Breach

This latest breach is dwarfed by December’s data leak, which impacted more than 35 million Xfinity customers.

The Xfinity brand is owned by Comcast Cable Communications and was hit when hackers targeted cloud computing provider, Citrix. Two class lawsuits have followed and investigations continue.

However, while millions have been affected by Comcast’s earlier breach, it’s a drop in the ocean to the total number of victims of data breaches that companies have seen in 2023 and 2024.

Around the same time that mandatory mask wearing and social distancing began to be phased out, we saw an almost instant turn heel from companies that had previously been all in on remote work.

The new message was that workers were expected back at their desks, initially for a few days a week. Some companies are now putting their foot down, and demanding a full return, with Amazon and Dell calling employees back last month.

With gaming company Ubisoft also telling staff to return three days a week recently, is there really any logic in the cries of “collaboration” and “culture” that CEOs like to parrot, or is this just a convenient way for companies to shed staff without incurring major costs?

Amazon Primed for Office Return

Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, is not a fan of remote work. In February 2023, he kicked off what would turn out to be a long and vicious battle with employees over the companies remote work policy, by telling them that they needed to be in the office three days a week.

The response from staff was not positive. In fact it went down so badly that they staged a walkout in May 2023, to protest the new return to office (RTO) policy. However, things were only going to go from bad to worse for Amazon’s workforce.

In August, Jassy told staff who refused to return to the office that he “understood” it, but that “it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon.”

In the months that followed, Amazon threatened to fire staff that didn’t comply with the mandate, as well as telling them that potential promotions would be blocked.

This tug of war between Jassy and Amazon employees has been in play for over two years now, with the latest sharp tug from Jassy’s side being a full five day return to office, announced in September.

The justifications for the move shared by Jassy in a memo to staff reads like a greatest hits of RTO mandates: learning, collaborating, brainstorming and strengthening culture are all namechecked.

Don’t worry though – Jassy’s memo does mention that if your child is sick, you won’t be expected in the office.

Bad Deal for Dell Employees

Spare a thought for Dell’s employees, because they have had a tough time post-pandemic, with the company being relentless in dragging them back to the office.

It started slowly. In May 2023, staff that lived within an hour of the office were told that they had to return to their desks. In February 2024, that changed to everyone needing to come back to the office, regardless of where they lived.

A month later, the demands were upped again, with Dell stating that staff who didn’t return to the office would have promotions blocked (sound familiar?).

In May 2024, it was revealed that those who still refused to come back in were being ‘red flagged’ by HR, with a mark being placed on their record.

By July, staff morale had hit a low point, with the company’s own internal staff survey showing a massive drop in the number of employees who would recommend the Dell as a company to work for.

If your heart wasn’t already bleeding for the beleaguered Dell staff, in August the company hit them with a round of redundancies.

It was in September that the three day week requirement was upgraded to full five day week, although not across the entire company. At least not yet. For now, it’s the Global Sales Team who are required to be at their desks Monday to Friday.

The reasons for this? If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll already know. Bingo cards at the ready. An internal memo seen by Reuters stated that the reason for the move was to grow skills, and increase collaboration.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Dell and Amazon both announced their return to office plans within days of each other. They both appear to be using the same playbook when it comes to getting staff back to the office – ditch the carrot, go all in with the stick.

Ubisoft Not Playing Games

While Amazon and Dell are instantly recognizable brands, Ubisoft may not have quite the same global recognition, but it’s responsible for hit gaming franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Prince of Persia.

On September 17th it told its workforce of 19,000, across its sites worldwide, that it was implementing a return to office mandate. Unlike Dell and Amazon, the gaming giant stated that the goal was at least three days a week in person, with Ubisoft’s Chief Studios & Portfolio Officer, Marie-Sophie de Waubert, stating that “we will not go back to a 100% office-based model.”

The arguments Ubisoft put forward to a return to office aren’t any that we haven’t heard before, and many overlap with Amazon and Dell’s points: to boost creativity, foster collaboration (there’s that word again!), to learn and to solve problems.

To say the move has gone down badly is an understatement. As we’ve seen with other return to office mandates, the immediate reaction from staff is anger and action. Ubisoft employees are planning to down tools between October 15th and 17th.

It should be noted for context that Ubisoft has been struggling of late, with tentpole releases floundering (in a recent investor call, the company noted that its Star Wars Outlaws title had failed to to hit the commercial targets and critical reception it had anticipated), major releases delayed, and talks of an impending takeover.

However, a return to office may not be the magic bullet the company hopes for. Now it is dealing with strikes, disgruntled staff, and, if the Amazon fallout is anything to go by, its employees are looking elsewhere for jobs that offer the flexibility they’ve been accustomed to.

Are RTO Mandates Replacing Layoffs?

If you were to look at return to office mandates cynically, you could say that they are a good way to reduce headcount, weeding out the ‘none team players’ who refuse to bend to the company’s will, and reduce staff costs through natural wastage, rather than redundancies, which can be timely and expensive.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that both Dell, Amazon and Ubisoft have not only issued return to office mandates in the last two years, but also gone through rounds of redundancies. It’s no secret that many tech companies over-hired during the pandemic, as demands for their services ramped up, and the assumption was that this growth would only continue. When life got back to normal, and demand started to level out, many companies found themselves with too many staff. If a return to office mandate didn’t thin the herd, then you could argue that the next step would be mandatory redundancies, and this is the pattern that we’ve seen from these three companies.

As remote roles dry up, it will be the companies with flexible work policies that prosper, as they’ll naturally attract the disgruntled top talent from the RTO mandate organizations. We’re already seeing a huge number of staff at Amazon threatening to leave after September’s announcement – over 70%, according to a Blind survey. That’s quite a potential pool of talent for remote-friendly companies to draw from.

Is Collaboration to Blame?

Did you spot the same word come up in each company’s RTO memo? There’s plenty of crossover between all three, but the one that beams like a lighthouse in a storm is the C word – Collaboration.  Collaboration is the crutch for the return to office CEO, the one point that everything hinges on.

It would be foolish to deny that collaboration isn’t key to any company’s success, but there is an entire industry built around enabling employees to communicate, no matter where they are. Messaging tools such as Slack, and video conferencing systems like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, all allow real time conversations as good as being in the office meeting room. They can also be democratize the meeting process and ensure that everyone has their say, with a Zoom call giving everyone the same amount of screen real estate and tools, offering everyone the same opportunities to speak.

We’ve never been more available to our colleagues, so the idea that collaboration isn’t happening unless we’re in the office from nine to five rings slightly hollow.

There have also been multiple studies on remote work over the last few years, and the vast majority have shown that workers are more productive and work longer hours when allowed to work from home. They also live longer, but that doesn’t benefit CEOs so let’s not dwell on that one.

Ultimately, the pandemic threw a brick into the staid waters of the traditional nine to five office job, and the ripples are still being felt keenly today. Companies such as Amazon and Dell are attempting to pull ahead of the pack by implementing the old ‘normality’ of office life, under the belief that they’ll benefit in terms of ‘culture and collaboration’, which will translate into a more profitable company, allowing them to outpace their competition.

What they’ve found though, is that workers are resisting return to office mandates, proving that company culture doesn’t come from top down. You can’t implement a culture any more than you can order people to buy your product.

The return to office debate will continue to rage for some time, and it will be a while before the dust settles and we can declare the victor. In the meantime, CEOs and employees will continue to trade blows, both remotely and in the office.

It’s officially Fall. The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer, and the job market is booming.

As the year draws to a close, it’s a great time to take stock and evaluate whether you’re happy in your current role, or if you might be better suited to something else. Perhaps you’re looking for a bit more flexibility in where you work, rather than being tethered to a desk. After all, remote workers are happier than office workers.

That’s why we’ve put together a list of the hottest remote job prospects for October 2024. We’ve also provided a link to each company’s job portal, so you can get a closer look at the businesses you might soon be calling home.

Netflix

Despite Co-Founder Reed Hastings’ vocally anti-remote working stance, the streaming giant currently has a number of remote opportunities up for grabs. And with an impressive 4.2/5 on Glassdoor, we can think of worse places to ply your trade.

The perks aren’t bad either. You can expect 35 days paid leave a year, and when it comes to parental leave, new parents are told to “take care of your baby and yourself”, for up to twelve months (though most parents take four to eight months off, according to Netflix). In fact it even made our list of companies in the US with the best parental leave.

We’ve rounded up a few Netflix remote roles:

• Engineering Manager – ML Researcher Tooling (US)
• Security Software Engineer (L5), Security Incident Response Team (US)
• Software Engineer L5 – Full Stack Cloud Games Developer Tools (US)
• Data Visualization Engineer (L4) – Content & Studio (US)
• Site Reliability Engineer L4/L5 – Live Cloud Platform SRE (US)
• Analytics Engineer L5 (US)

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg – Netflix is offering dozens more fully-remote vacancies. Check out their job portal for the full breakdown.

Airbnb

Darling of the rental space, Airbnb is also no stranger to remote working, with a whopping 160 open roles currently available on its website. The company prides itself on its “Live and Work Anywhere” working arrangement, which has seen its Glassdoor score shoot up to more than respectable 4.2/5.

If you’re wondering what the “Live and Work Anywhere” policy is, Airbnb breaks it down into five points: Work from home or the office, work anywhere in the country, ability to temporarily work anywhere in the world, meet up regularly, work in a highly coordinated way.

If that sounds good to you, we’ve listed some of our favorites below:

• Android Software Engineer, Users, Listings & Platform (US)
• Backend Software Engineer, Search (US)
• Engineering Manager, Offline Data (US)
• Engineering Manager, Trust Experience (US)
• Frontend Web Software Engineer, Users, Listings & Platform (US)
• Integration Engineer (US)
• iOS Software Engineer, Users, Listings & Platform (US)

You’ll find over 100 more opportunities on the Airbnb careers portal. Why not have a look today?

Apple

A job at the world’s most valuable company is bound to appeal to many people, but the ability to do so from home really is the icing on the cake. The company has had a slightly tumultuous relationship with remote work, post-COVID, with some staff being called back to the office, to their disappointment.  However, look in the right place, and you’ll still find the fully remote roles.

The iPhone maker has 77 roles listed on its site with the location set to “Home Office.” This is Apple’s way of signaling whether or not a position is remote-friendly. Here are just a few highlights:

• Platform Architect, Sales and Business Development (Texas, US)
• Platform Architect, Sales and Business Development (Newark, US)
• Detection Tooling on Apple Silicon (Washington, US)
• Consulting Engineering Manager (California, US)
• Technical Project Coordinator (Texas, US)
• Threat Intelligence Analyst, SEAR (California, US)

On the careers page, Apple has listed many more roles that are eligible for remote work. See for yourself.

Meta

Meta has a love/hate relationship with remote working. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is on record as saying he believes teams work better when they’re together, but at the same time, Meta was very proactive in allowing its staff to work from home once the pandemic hit, being an early adopter of the WFH strategy that most of us fell in to.

Meta is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, with thousands of employees in every corner of the globe, and yep, many of them work remotely! You could join their ranks from the comfort of your own living room by applying to one of the below roles:

• Wearables Partnerships, Payer Ecosystem Business Development (California, US and Remote)
• Data Engineering Manager, Analytics (Multiple locations, including Remote)
• Software Engineer, Infrastructure (Multiple locations, including Remote)
• Software Engineer, Product (Multiple locations, including Remote)
• TPM Manager, XR Tech Foundations (California, US and Remote)
• Software Engineer, iOS (Multiple locations, including Remote)

The Meta job portal features an additional 100+ remote vacancies, so you’ll find plenty to sink your teeth into.

Capital One

Capital One counts itself in the top 5 credit card issuers by market share in the US. What’s more, the bank also boasts a favorable remote working policy, at least compared to some of its more staid competitors.

Rich Fairbank, founder and CEO of Capital One, does lean more towards a hybrid approach to work than fully remote, but there are still plenty of 100% WFH positions available, especially in specific roles. There are a total of 29 listed on its site at the time of writing, a few of which we’ve detailed below:

• Senior Software Engineer, Full Stack – Shopping (Remote, US)
• Lead Software Engineer, Full Stack – Shopping (Remote, US)
• Senior Associate, Process Management (Remote, US)
• Lead Full Stack Engineer – Capital One Software (Remote, US)
• Manager, Cyber Risk and Analysis – Capital One Software (Remote, US)
• Specialist Customer Solutions Architect – Databricks – Capital One Software (Remote, US)
• Manager, Offensive Security Operator, Red Team (Remote, US)

Check out the full selection on the Capital One careers page.

Is Remote Working Right for Me?

Remote working is more popular than ever, but it might not suit everyone. There are certain skills that are essential to being able to work from home, and not everybody has them.

Firstly, and the most obvious, is the ability to work in isolation. If you need the buzz of an office, or those water cooler chats, then remote work isn’t for you. It can be very isolating and lonely, and if you are a remote worker, it’s important to get your people fix in your free time, so you can connect with others. However, web conferencing tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams do a great job of allowing remote workers to join meetings and one to ones with colleagues.

You’ll also need to be a good time keeper, as with no distractions or reminders from others, you may quietly work away on one task when you should have already moved on. Which brings us onto another remote working skill: prioritization. Being able to identify and act upon the key tasks of the day without supervision, is a core skill for those working from home.

Similarly, problem solving goes a long way, and just reduces the amount of time you many need to lean on others, which could involve a long wait for them to get back to you on Slack or give you a call. Remember, when you’re working from home, you miss the immediacy of leaning across a desk to speak to someone.

You can read more about the sorts of skills you’ll need in our guide to creating the perfect remote work resume.

Peacock has found itself at the center of a class action settlement, alleging that it violated the law by automatically renewing user subscriptions.

The NBCUniversal company hasn’t admitted to any wrongdoing, but has put nearly $4 million in the payment pot for those affected.

Read on to find out more about the settlement, how to claim, and when the deadline is.

Peacock $3.7 Million Auto-Renewal Settlement

Peacock, the streaming service from NBCUniversal, has been accused of breaking the law, with allegations that it was issuing subscription renewals, with fees, without presenting the correct disclosures to users (Winston v. Peacock TV LLC).

For Peacock, this means a red face and almost $4 million being dished out in compensation. For you, it could mean a payday of almost $20 if you were a Peacock customer that was affected.

It’s worth noting that Peacock has denied any wrong doing, but has agreed to the pay out.

Want to work remotely? Check out our guide to remote data entry jobs.

Who is Eligible for Peacock Auto Renewal Settlement?

If you want to claim in the Peacock settlement, you’ll first need to make sure that you are eligible. You must:

• Have a California billing address attached to your Peacock account
• Were a Peacock customer between September 15th 2019 and February 27th 2024
• Charged for automatic subscription and paid auto-renewal fees.

If you meet the above criteria, you can claim.

Find out if you’re eligible for the Buzzfeed Facebook settlement

How To Claim in Peacock Auto-Renewal Settlement

If you’re eligible and want to claim in the Peacock settlement, you’ll need to complete the form on the official settlement website. You may be asked for a Class Member ID. If you don’t have one, and think you should, you can get it by contacting the settlement advisor on 1-888-546-2588.

If you don’t want to be part of the settlement, you need to raise your objection by November 13th 2024.

The pay out for each applicant is pro rata, and expected to be around $18.33.

You’ll need to get your claim in before the deadline of November 13th 2024. The final approval hearing is scheduled for November 21st 2024, barring any complications. Payment will follow after this date, to the payment method of your choice.

The FBI and Microsoft have moved to seize over 100 web domains purportedly belonging to Russian intelligence agency FSB, it has emerged.

According to an FBI affidavit unsealed on Thursday, the sites formed part of a “spear phishing campaign,” aimed at tricking US employees into unwittingly disclosing confidential details, such as email login credentials. Sought-after information included “sensitive United States government intelligence,” alongside information pertaining to media outlets that were critical of the Kremlin.

The news comes as tensions surrounding the looming US Presidential election reach fever pitch. Just a week ago, it was revealed that Russia is using AI to potentially derail the election, with Republican nominee Donald Trump the Kremlin’s favored candidate.

Russian Spy Sites Seized by US and Microsoft

The US Department of Justice, operating in tandem with tech giant Microsoft, have seized over 100 web domains that allegedly formed part of a Russian espionage campaign, as revealed by court documents unsealed on Thursday.

NBC News reports that the domains served as “staging grounds” for the Russian FSB agency to spy on certain targets, including the US Department of Energy, Russian nonprofit groups, and anti-Kremlin media outlets. The Justice Department seized 41 of the domains, while Microsoft was granted control of a further 66.

Said the affidavit: “The information targeted by the FSB and illegally accessed during the criminal conspiracy included sensitive information related to the identity of United States employees…all of which is particularly valuable to the Russian government’s efforts to engage in malign foreign influence operations within the United States.” The Kremlin has not responded to a request for comment.

Big Tech Integral to National Security

The US’s counterintelligence operation unfolded between January 2023 and August 2024, during which time Microsoft observed the Callisto Group – a cybercriminal group backed by the FSB agency – targeting “over 30 civil society organizations,” according to a blog published by the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit.

The Russians have been carrying out sophisticated cyberattacks since at least 2017, Microsoft alleges. Recent targets include nonprofits, think tanks, and officials who “provide support to Ukraine and in NATO countries.”

In December last year, the US charged Callisto Group members Ruslan Aleksandrovich Peretyatko and Andrey Stanislavovich Korinets with conspiracy to commit computer fraud over the spear phising attacks. Believed to be holed up in Russia, both are wanted by the FBI.

US Fears Russian Election Swing

With the US Presidential election just a month away, fears are growing that Russian interference could prove decisive in the showdown between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Various media outlets are reporting that Harris is narrowly leading in the polls at present, but the Kremlin-backed candidate is not out of the race yet.

It’s notable that, while the US routinely foils attempted foreign espionage, this is a rare instance in which it has leveraged its court system to publicly make an example out of malicious actors. And with top Justice Department official Matthew Olsen warning of an “onslaught of foreign election interference,” it would appear that the federal government is closing ranks ahead of one of the most hotly-anticipated elections in living memory.

Misinformation has never been higher on the agenda, with TikTok recently revamping its US Election Center in light of mounting concerns over truthfulness. These anxieties are stoked by the likes of Trump and X CEO Elon Musk, who continually call into question the reliability of mainstream media sources, seeding distrust and confusion.

It’s a good day to be a Google Gemini Pro user, with the search engine and AI powerhouse quietly replacing the plan’s large language model (LLM) with a newer, smarter, and faster model.

The changes are pretty noticeable, too. Not only does the plan boast better conversational features – making it more capable of engaging in complex topics in a human manner – but it’s also much faster, cutting down the time you’ll need to wait for a response.

We discuss the details of Gemini Pro’s new makeover, and also compare its toolkit to its free tier, to help you figure out if now is the right time to splurge on the ChatGPT competitor.

Google Gemini Pro Has Just Got a Lot More Human-Like

Not normally one to shy away from public fanfare, Google’s Gemini has just undergone a pretty major makeover, and you could’ve easily missed it if you weren’t paying attention.

The AI chatbot’s advanced plan has switched out its Gemini 1.50 Pro LLM for a new version called 1.5 Pro-002. This LLM, which Google first released on September 24, has a one-up on the previous model for a number of reasons.

One of its biggest strengths is its enhanced chat features. The new 1.5 Gemini Pro LLM is optimized for conversation and is better at engaging with more complex topics in a natural way. The new and improved model also enables you to send off multi-step instructions without Gemini losing the thread and getting confused.

The difference is noticeable too, with a number of different users on a Google Dev AI discussion forum praising the 1.5 Pro-002 model for being better and “exhibiting more human-like qualities,” compared to previous versions.

Gemini Pro’s New LLM Is Smarter and Faster Than Previous Model

For the software developers out there, the upgrade makes Gemini Pro more capable of solving writing, and editing complex code. In fact, benchmark tests show that the LLM is 20% better at math skills, while also displaying significantly improved coding capabilities.

“Whether you’re providing detailed, multi-step instructions, or tackling advanced mathematical calculations, Gemini Advanced will help you navigate these challenges with greater ease.” – Release update from Gemini

Thanks to continuous model training and “valuable user feedback,” Gemini Pro has also been able to reduce processing speeds. Specifically, Gemini Pro 002 can produce output two times faster and has three times lower latency than the previous generation. Google was able to achieve this by reducing the output length by 5-20%, without compromising quality.

Is It Worth Upgrading to Gemini Pro?

Now Gemini Pro has arguably achieved one of its biggest glow-ups to date, you’d be right in thinking now would be a good time to upgrade, if you haven’t already. If you rely on Gemini Pro heavily for professional reasons, its faster responses will end up saving you valuable time, while its enhanced mathematical skills will make it easier for you to manage complex tasks.

However, in all honesty, $19.99 per month is quite a big expense, especially because Gemini’s free plan is already pretty useful. The tier has impressive reasoning capabilities, can generate images, and even lets you augment the service with additional plugins. What’s more, with Google recently releasing its conversational AI assistant, Gemini Live, to all users for free, the basic tier will be more than enough if you use the app for personal reasons or to help you out with odd tasks at work.

If you’re interested in sampling Google Gemini Pro’s shiny new LLM without shelling out, you’re in luck too. Check out this guide to find out how to use the chatbot’s advanced tier for completely free.

There’s a new AI platform from Google that can be used to create out a podcast out of thin air, as long as you know how to prompt it.

In 2024, AI can do a lot. It can write poems, summarize emails, generate professional headshots, and perform a wide range of tasks that used to require the human hours to get the job done.

Well, you can officially add podcasting to the list of AI functionalities, with NotebookLM making it possible to generate an entire podcast, with all the “ummm” and “wells,” without picking up a microphone.

What Is NotebookLM?

NotebookLM is the experimental product from Google that allows users to access reliable sources of information to generate content. In its own word, NotebookLM is a personalized AI research assistant.

As for what’s powering NotebookLM, the AI research assistant currently utilizes the Gemini 1.5 Pro large language model to generate responses and provide users with valuable insights.

It works like any other chatbot on the market today, although it adds a bit more authority than the error-prone AI iterations we’ve seen over the last few years. Instead of simply using all the information available to it online, users can add documents, notes, and other information to NotebookLM, so it has something to go off of before answering questions and summarize key points.

This kind of functionality has a lot of helpful use cases, one of which may be particularly interesting to those looking to get into the world of podcasting.

How to Make a Podcast with NotebookLM

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, how on Earth does an AI research assistant help me create a podcast out of thin air? A fair question, and obviously the reason why we’re explaining it to you.

Firstly, you’ll have to be signed into your Google account to get started. Then, you’ll have to find your source material, which can come in many forms, including a Google Doc, Google Slide, copied text, or a link to a website or YouTube video. We used a link to our Companies That Have Ended Fully Remote Work guide to generate a podcast.

Once you’ve added the link, you can generate a lot of content based on the source, including FAQs, table of contents, study guides, timelines, and briefing documents.

If you’re looking to make a podcast, though, which we know you are, all you have to do is click on the Generate button that is directly underneath the Audio Overview section on the NotebookLM interface. Once you’ve done so, the platform will take a few minutes to generate your podcast, and then you’ll be able to download or share it directly from NotebookLM.

How to Get the Most Out of NotebookLM

To be clear, you can’t just input whatever you want into NotebookLM, push the generate button, and get an award-wining podcast that people want to listen to. Like all the AI platforms out there, it takes a bit of fine tuning to get exactly what you’re looking for.

With NotebookLM, your best bet is to add as much data into the platform as possible. You can easily add sources with the little add box in the upper left corner of the interface, and the more the merrier, as it gives the AI more information to go on. In our test, we noticed it was clearly taking some information from other sources to fill the gaps, so really pile it on if you can.

Another tip for creating podcasts with NotebookLM is to check and recheck what has been generated. As we mentioned, AI is frequently making errors, or “hallucinations,” and given that NotebookLM is powered by Google Gemini, it’s definitely worth it to do a bit of editing.

Apple Intelligence may not be widely available just yet, but you can get access to the AI platform right now, if you really want it.

If you didn’t know, Apple has finally thrown its hat in the AI ring, announcing a platform that will operate on Apple devices like the iPhone and the MacBook. As is often the case, Apple took its time getting on the AI bandwagon, but now the launch is right around the corner.

Still, if you’re a bit impatient and want to get that Siri update sooner rather than later, there is a public beta program that can get the functionality on your phone today.

What Is Apple Intelligence?

Announced in June at WWDC 2024, Apple Intelligence is the AI platform designed by the tech giant to compete with the likes of Google’s Gemini and Samsung’s Galaxy AI. The AI will offer a wide range of generative AI functionality and will be built into Apple devices, like the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook.

When announced, Apple Intelligence was set to be released with iOS 18, the iPhone operating system that launched on September 20th alongside the iPhone 16. However, Apple revealed in July that the new AI features would not be ready and would instead be available in the iOS 18.1 update.

Users are still waiting on the new update to drop, but in the meantime, Apple has opened the beta program to the public, so anyone can get access to the AI features. That is, if they’re willing, able, and knowledgeable about how to do so.

How to Get Apple Intelligence Right Now

As we’ve mentioned, Apple Intelligence is not readily accessible just yet for everyday users, because iOS 18.1 is not currently available to download.

However, Apple has officially opened up the beta program to the public, so you don’t have to be a developer to get your hands on the sought-after AI features. You’ll just have to sign up for the beta with your Apple Account and follow the instructions below to get your iPhone enrolled in the program.

Settings –> General –> Software Update –> Beta Updates –> iOS 18.1

If you want to get the AI features on other Apple devices, you’re in luck. The beta program also applies to iPads and MacBooks, and you just need to follow the instructions above to get started.

When Will Apple Intelligence Be Widely Available?

If you don’t want to go through all the effort of signing up for and installing the iOS 18.1 beta, we don’t blame you. In addition to being a bit of a hassle, beta programs are understandably less secure with a lot of glitches and bugs that hamper your overall experience.

So, when does iOS 18.1 and the Apple Intelligence features that come along with it actually launch for everybody? There is no firm date set in place just yet, but Apple has hinted at an October release date, so this new AI functionality should be here sooner rather than later.

Suffice to say, most users — particularly those without the technical knowledge to install and operate a beta — should probably just wait it out. Still, if you really have to get your hands on Apple Intelligence, now you know.

McKinsey & Co, the planet’s biggest management consulting firm, has told staff in North America that it is reviewing how the company will approach remote working.

With its global workforce of over 40,000 people, a senior partner at McKinsey wrote to staff to tell them that its expectations would be renewed and emphasized the benefits of colleagues “spending time in person” with one another.

With some major companies – Amazon and Dell for example – ending remote work and requiring a full time return to office while others, such as Microsoft, are persevering with a hybrid model, the jury remains hung as to the most productive approach for companies following the COVID pandemic.

“Renewed Set of Expectations”

McKinsey’s potential push towards more hours in the office was reported by Bloomberg (paywall), with company executives reinforcing rhetoric from town hall staff meetings with a memo to staff in North America on Tuesday.

Eric Kutcher, Senior Partner and Chair for McKinsey in North America and the Bay Area, wrote a memo to staff that said the company will “define a renewed set of expectations” around the time employees spend in the office.

He specifically emphasized, however, that there were no plans at present to establish a new company “policy” in this regard.

“Our approach will balance the best of in-person apprenticeship and connectivity with what we have learned over the past few years.” – Eric Kutcher, McKinsey & Co

Stronger Client Impact?

In a further statement, Kutcher said: “We know that spending time in person — in client team rooms and in our offices — leads to better apprenticeship, stronger client impact, more innovation and a stronger social fabric.”

Studies, however, reveal the mixed results seen by both companies and individuals.

There are plenty of statistics that prove return to office (RTO) mandates don’t work, and it’s been seen that remote workers are happier than office dwellers.

But other research has shown that flexible working is harming social aspects of the workplace, with 78% of survey respondents saying that it negatively impacts office culture. While a further study suggests that working from home decreases innovation.

Amazon vs Microsoft

That’s all food for thought for companies like McKinsey as it finesses staff working arrangements. Many companies are making their own response to the research and internal performance, but a recent KPMG survey of 1,300 CEOs shows that the majority expect a full RTO in the next three years.

A number of big players have already got ahead of the punch in that respect. Elon Musk is well known for enforcing RTO at his companies, while September saw Amazon announce the end of hybrid work and Dell demand staff return to the office five days a week.

Conversely, it has been reported that Microsoft won’t force a five day RTO, with staff being told that it would do whatever is necessary to make its staff feel “more engaged, more productive, and more connected”.

The war drums have already starting beating after Reddit announced a new policy change.

Moderators will now need Reddit’s permission to turn subreddits private or not-safe-for-work (NSFW).

There were site-wide protests last year when Reddit decided to increase API access costs; and moderators took it upon themselves to make thousands of forums private or read-only.

What Is the New Policy?

Reddit’s VP of community, who uses the handle Go_JasonWaterfalls, made the announcement in a post and it’s already receiving criticism.

He explains that “updating Community Type settings” will now require moderators to submit a request. “This applies to Public/Restricted/Private and SFW/NSFW changes,” he writes. He adds that temporarily going restricted is exempt from the new rule, which means that moderators can continue to instantly restrict posts and/or comments for up to 7 days using Temporary Events without submitting a request.

He also states that if a community has fewer than 5,000 members or is under 30 days old, the request will be automatically approved. For other requests, he promises admins will respond in “under 24 hours, seven days a week and 365 days a year.”

Shutting Down a Protest Tactic

The move is largely being seen as a way to head off protests like the one that took place last year, says Ars Technica. Reddit’s post makes no qualms about this, pointing the finger squarely at those who took action.

“When a public community goes private, all redditors (even members of that community) lose access to the community and its content. Outside of extenuating circumstances, communities should honor the expectations they set – public communities should remain accessible to all; private communities should remain private. The same principle applies to SFW and NSFW spaces.” -Reddit’s VP of community.

Like a teacher scolding their students, Go_JasonWaterfalls continues: “Historically, moderators have been able to change Community Type at will. But the ability to instantly change Community Type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules. We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health, and we cannot allow actions that deliberately cause harm.”

Redditors Rebelling

The post already has more than 500 responses, including accusations of the site ignoring its moderators’ needs.

One commenter suggested that this is a blatant attempt to appease shareholders. baltinerdist writes: “Look, this is a not-quite-public platform. We don’t own it, you do. Well, more specifically, your stockholders do. And they are not going to want to see the share price go down the next time there is a major disruption instigated by the users. So the only way to prevent that is to take power away from the users. We all know this.”

However, this policy does see their power to protest curtailed. The climbing number of comments on this would suggest that Redditors are not happy, and may well think of other tactics to continue making their voice heard.

Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice has ruled that the suspension levied on X can be lifted once the social media platform has paid a final fine.

The ban was put in place at the end of August and led to a furious tirade by X’s owner, Elon Musk.

While it was five judges who ruled unanimously to enact the suspension citing obstruction of justice, criminal organization and incitement to crime, it was Minister Alexandre de Moraes who faced Musk’s wrath and was called an “evil tyrant.”

Defiance to Compliance

Ironically, it is de Moraes who has now made the decision that X is in compliance with the original court order.

Brazil’s G1 Globo has reported that X has to pay a new fine of 10 million reals (about $2 million) for two additional days of non-compliance with the court’s orders.

CNBC adds: “X’s legal representative in Brazil, Rachel de Oliveira, is also required to pay a fine of 300,000 reals.”

Nationwide Ban

The case has been rumbling on since April, when the Brazilian Government first started investigating X amid allegations of obstruction of justice.

The social media platform was told to take down certain accounts, but Musk dug his heels in. And more than this, he closed down the company’s offices in Brazil and ranted that the US Government should stop all foreign aid to the country.

However, by closing the offices, Musk also left the company without legal representation in Brazil and this is a requirement for all technology platforms. By the end of August, the Brazilian courts were threatening suspension if a legal representative wasn’t appointed and if the offending accounts weren’t removed.

X Remains Unrepentant

The night before the decision, X published a statement in which it said: “X is committed to protecting free speech within the boundaries of the law and we recognize and respect the sovereignty of the countries in which we operate. We believe that the people of Brazil having access to X is essential for a thriving democracy, and we will continue to defend freedom of expression and due process of law through legal processes.”

This may have just been Round One!

Fresh from its fight with Google, Epic Games is taking on Samsung.

The games developer is accusing the tech giant of making it harder for Samsung phone owners to download its apps.

At the beginning of the year, Epic Games was still involved in a long-running battle with Apple over in-app purchases, but the feisty company is now gearing up again for another fight.

A History Fraught With Legal Battles

This latest fight is a follow-on from a multimillion-dollar battle between Epic Games and Google. In December last year, a jury in San Francisco determined that Google had been stifling competition for its app store.

As Wired reported: “Epic Games had accused Google of restricting smartphone makers, wireless carriers, and app developers from providing any competition to the Play store, which accounts for over 95 percent of all downloads onto Android phones in the US.” The case was first filed in 2020.

Exactly what the cost will be to Google has yet to be determined, but The Verge writes: “Google says the reputational damage can’t be calculated – but that it’d take 12 to 18 months and upwards of $60 million to build and maintain the technical underpinnings [to fulfil Epic’s demands].”

Conspiracy Theories

Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, has launched this latest battle, arguing that phone manufacturers – in this case, Samsung – are still making it tricky for gamers to use alternative marketplaces.

More than that – Sweeney is accusing Samsung of conspiring with Google to block out his company, and others like it.

The grievance is based around the Samsung Auto Blocker, which is a feature on some newer Samsung phone models. Samsung argues this is there to protect users against “applications from unauthorized sources” and “malicious activity.” However, the Fortnite developer says that it just makes it harder for users to install its games.

Wired reports that it takes the process from 15 to 21 steps, which Epic Games argues will put some users off.  “It is not about reasonable measures to protect users against malware,” Sweeney told reporters ahead of the lawsuit filing. “It’s about obstruction of competition.” He added: “We are going to continue to fight until there is a level playing field.”

Samsung Denies Foul Play

Samsung, however, is denying any wrongdoing. In a statement, it said: “Contrary to Epic Game’s assertions, Samsung actively fosters market competition, enhances consumer choice, and conducts its operations fairly.

“The features integrated into our devices are designed in accordance with Samsung’s core principles of security, privacy, and user control, and we remain fully committed to safeguarding users’ personal data. Users have the choice to disable Auto Blocker at any time. We plan to vigorously contest Epic Game’s baseless claims.”

Huge changes may be afoot at OpenAI, including a restructure to become a fully for-profit venture.

While there is no official statement as yet, CEO Sam Altman has confirmed that the company is considering this change, just as it seeks billions in investment.

But the potential change is reported to be causing concern among employees still reeling after the shock departure of its chief technology officer and two top researchers.

The Next Stage

It was at a talk during Italian Tech Week that Altman signaled that a huge change may be on the cards, reports BusinessInsider. He said that a restructure and move towards for-profit status was being discussed as part of a plan for “what it takes to get to our next stage.”

The statement has sent the rumor mill into overdrive, not least because it came one day after chief technology officer, Mira Murati, and top researchers, Barret Zoph and Bob McGrew, all announced they would be leaving the company.

Murati had been with the company for six and a half years and departs with a cryptic note on X that she is leaving to “create the time and space to do my own exploration.”

It was Murati who stepped into the CEO role when Altman was temporarily ousted by his board.

Dissent in the Ranks

These departures come after a turbulent 18 months for the company. As well as the drama with Altman, there have been other high-profile departures. Safety Lead Jan Leike and Co-Founder John Schulman both left for rival Anthropic. There was also the acrimonious exit of Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, who pointed damningly to safety concerns.

This seems to be a growing concern among employees as Altman pushes for growth. Altman was a dissenting voice against the AI Safety Bill that Governor Gavin Newsom has just blocked. However, rival Anthropic, had given its support to the bill as did 113 employees or former employees of some of the biggest names in the AI space, including OpenAI.

Change of Governance

With a change to a for-profit model, there is the concern that the new governance model will be less stringent. Altman has stepped down from the company’s oversight commitee, but employees past and present are still asking questions about accountability; and some obviously have concerns enough to leave.

Telecommunications giant T-Mobile has been hit to the tune of $31.5 million following an investigation into significant data breaches that took place over the course of three years.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the settlement at the conclusion of the long running probe into the anomalies taking place from 2021 to 2023.

The $31.5 million sanction is split equally between a straightforward civil penalty and a commitment to invest in future cybersecurity measures. T-Mobile previously settled a class action lawsuit from affected customers for a reported $350 million.

T-Mobile’s ‘Foundational Security Flaws’

The FCC announced the news with a press release on Monday, focusing as much on the requirement for T-Mobile to improve its cybersecurity as it did the hefty civil penalty it had set.

It said that the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau had been investigating multiple cybersecurity incidents involving T-Mobile in 2021, 2022 and 2023 that “were varied in their nature, exploitations, and apparent methods of attack”.

It found T-Mobile’s data breaches responsible for impacting millions of American cell phone users.

It also said that the company had “agreed to important forward-looking commitments to address foundational security flaws, work to improve cyber hygiene, and adopt robust modern architectures, like zero trust and phishing-resistant multifactor authentication.”

Enforceable Commitments to Cybersecurity

In order to achieve that aim – and in addition to the $15.75 million civil penalty payable to the US Treasury – the network has agreed to pledge $15.75 million into cybersecurity investment, which would be enforceable by the terms of the settlement.

The changes to be made by T-Mobile include improvements to corporate governance, the introduction of modern zero-trust architecture, and more robust identity and access management.

As well as stabilizing T-Mobile’s own data security, the FCC was eager to point out that the settlement should also encourage other companies to ensure their processes are as protected as possible.

“Today’s mobile networks are top targets for cybercriminals,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman of the FCC. “Consumers’ data is too important and much too sensitive to receive anything less than the best cybersecurity protections.”

“We will continue to send a strong message to providers entrusted with this delicate information that they need to beef up their systems or there will be consequences.” – Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC Chairwoman

Compromising Sensitive Data

Loyaan A. Egal, chief of the Enforcement Bureau, said that the result of the T-Mobile investigation was a significant step forward in protecting the data millions of phone customers across the US.

“With companies like T-Mobile and other telecom service providers operating in a space where national security and consumer protection interests overlap. We are focused on ensuring critical technical changes are made to telecommunications networks to improve our national cybersecurity posture and help prevent future compromises of Americans’ sensitive data.” – Loyaan A. Egal, chief of the Enforcement Bureau

It continues a move to hold big tech companies to account for their data breaches. Only a couple of weeks ago, DNA testing company 23andme agreed to compensate data breach victims $30 million.

Household names such as Dell, U-Haul and Ticketmaster have all been implicated in major data breaches this year.

A software developer has spent a year investigating commercial platforms used by hundreds of courts, government agencies, and police departments across the country; and his findings are chilling.

The analysis revealed that 19 of these platforms are vulnerable and could result in some serious consequences, from voting fraud to exposure of sensitive medical information.

With AI enabling more sophisticated and relentless attacks from cybercriminals, this investigation is a wake-up call.

Basic Failings with Dire Consequences

Software developer turned security researcher Jason Parker has meticulously documented his year-long investigation, which he took on as a volunteer.

What he found were vulnerabilities that would allow an attacker to add, delete, or change official documents and have access to the most personal of information.

Critical flaws included one in the voter registration cancellation portal for the state of Georgia. This vulnerability allowed anyone who visited the portal to cancel another person’s registration if they simply knew their name, birthdate, and county of residence. As the election approaches, this is one flaw that Georgian authorities scrambled to fix.

Other flaws were found in the document management systems used in local courthouses across the country. These allowed unauthorized people to see court documents including sealed psychiatric evaluations. Not only this but in one situation, this unauthorized person could then give themselves the privileges necessary to create, delete, or change filings – privileges reserved for clerks of the court.

Parker singled out a platform called Granicus GovQA, which is used by government agencies for managing public records. He found that attackers can reset passwords “without verifying a user’s identity” and “could gain access to usernames and emails by simply manipulating web addresses.”

Making It Too Tasy

Parker has made his findings public in a Medium post and says, alarmingly:

“Vulnerable systems seem to be the norm more than the exception.”

To give a sense of scope, the investigation looked at both in-house Government platforms such as those used by a staggering five of Florida’s counties and platforms created by contracted companies.

Parker also states that the vulnerabilities these systems harbor “could be exploited with ease — even by attackers with minimal technical expertise, thus underscoring the fragility of systems meant to safeguard our most sensitive public records.” He pointed specifically to weak permission controls and poor validation of user inputs.

Call for System Overhaul

Parker teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to notify all of the system vendors and responsible parties of his findings. He also reports that all of the vulnerabilities have been fixed.

However, he says this is simply not enough.

“Fixing these issues requires more than just patching a few bugs. It calls for a complete overhaul of how security is handled in court and public record systems.”

Parker signs off with a stark warning: “This series of disclosures is a wake-up call to all organizations that manage sensitive public data. If they fail to act quickly, the consequences could be devastating — not just for the institutions themselves but for the individuals whose privacy they are sworn to protect.”

A harmful ransomware attack has caused an IT outage at a Texas hospital, which has resulted in the need to redirect patients to other facilities.

A UMC Healthcare System hospital in the city of Lubbock in the west of the Lone Star State first reported the issue last Thursday, with the impact still continuing to be felt.

Not the first cyberattack to be directed at medical organizations in the last few months, a second health center in Texas has now also begun to report its own IT issues.

IT Systems Hit by Ransomware

The news of the outage was originally reported on the website of local newspaper the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

At that point, it said that UMC was diverting both emergency and non-emergency patients to other health facilities nearby while it tried to get to the bottom of the issue.

The hospital – which is a regional Level I Trauma Center, meaning it operates 24/7 and provides total care for every aspect of injury – said that it had “detected unusual activity within our IT systems,” which they determined to be “connected to a ransomware incident”.

The knock-on effect was that other local centers had to take their own measures to handle the sudden influx of additional patients. Covenant Health System roughly 1 mile south, for example, said that it would accept all patients to the emergency department but that anybody whose medical issues wasn’t “emergent” (e.g. minor infections, mild allergic reactions, cuts, sprains, bites, etc.) should go instead to a urgent care clinic.

Services Restored But Diversion Continues

On Monday, UMC confirmed that it had made progress through the weekend to restore services following, what it called, a “cybersecurity incident”.

It reported that healthcare facilities such as its emergency centers and physician clinics remained open and that it was now accepting patients via ambulance, but that redirecting of certain patients would continue:

“However, out of an abundance of caution, the Emergency Center continues to divert a select number of patients until all UMC resources are fully functioning.”

It also said that the investigation into the ransomware incident was still ongoing.

Second Facility Potentially Hit

Following the confirmed cyberattack at UMC, a second Texan healthcare facility began to report its own IT issues yesterday.

The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) said in a Facebook post that electronic resources were not available, which would mean “limited clinical operations and no academic operations at TTUHSC campuses and sites”.

At the time of writing, it has not been confirmed whether TTUHSC’s IT outage has been caused by a cyberattack.

Cyberattack Scourge

A report released last year suggested that cyberattacks targeting government and the public sector were on the rise – that’s seriously concerning when you see the kind of impact it can have on organizations like UMC, and when you consider the amount of sensitive data held by such entities.

A little over a year ago, a cyberattack on IBM’s MOVEit app exposed data of 4 million US patients.

While the health records of 12.9 million Australians were exposed when MediSecure’s database was breached in July.

Nearly 80% of US corporate CEOs are predicting a full return to the office (RTO) within the next three years.

Not only this, but a recent survey has revealed that they believe employees who push back could see their careers falter.

This survey comes at a time when companies are now sharply dividing between those embracing flexible working; and those mandating strict RTO policies.

Dramatic Shift in RTO Views

The KPMG survey took in the views of 1300 CEOs, 400 of which are US-based, and covered everything from AI investment to net-zero goals.

But it is the hard line on hybrid working that has caught attention. This is because a KPMG survey carried out earlier this year recorded only 34% of CEOs saying that there would be a full return to the office. That figure is now 79%.

Of those interviewed, only 17% said that roles that had traditionally been office-based might be hybrid, which was a climb down from 46% in the earlier survey. And only 4% envisaged roles being fully remote.

Wave of RTO Mandates

As Inc.com states, the shift seems to be driven by the increasing number of multinational companies, which are taking a tough stance on getting their employees back into the office.

Elon Musk’s employees at Tesla and X were given their RTO mandates more than two years ago; and the execs at Tesla have adopted extreme measures including tracking office attendance and even turning up at the homes of sick employees.

Despite widespread anger among employees, Dell has pushed ahead with a five-day RTO policy as has Amazon, whose employees will start their return to full time office attendance from January.

Non-compliance to be Punished

In a move that also mirrors the big tech players, 86% of the CEOs surveyed revealed that they “will reward employees who make an effort to come into the office with favorable assignments, raises or promotions”.

While companies including Dell and X seem to have taken more of a stick than a carrot approach, companies both small and huge are signaling that not being present in the office may hinder an employee’s career progression.

However, some companies are opting for a RTO policy but still supporting flexible hours. What remains to be seen is whether enough companies will offer hybrid and flexible working policies that employees facing strict mandates may have the option of looking elsewhere.

For many people, working remotely is one of the best job perks available, saving them hours of rush-hour commute time and giving them the flexibility they need to stay on top of other duties, from cleaning their bathroom to weekly grocery shopping.

For others, however, the ability to work from home is even more crucial. Many Americans can’t afford to pay the steep cost of childcare or elder care during work hours, so young parents or those caring for older family members might find remote work practically a matter of life and death. Those with disabilities are in the same boat.

One thing’s for sure: None of them are getting jobs at Amazon any time soon. That doesn’t mean they don’t have options, though. Here, we’ve rounded up all the best remote-first job application boards.

Read on for all of your new favorite job search website bookmarks — and, if you stick around through the entire list, we’ll even tell you our single weirdest piece of advice for finding a remote job.

The Best Remote Job Boards

Here are all the remote-only or remote-first job boards worth combing through. Open each of these links up, and you can search for the exact job description or keywords relevant to your career.

Once you find the perfect custom-fitted search results, you can bookmark the page and return on a daily basis in order to ensure that you’re among the first applicants for any position that you’d love.

We Work Remotely

Type of job: Remote, any industry

You’re likely familar with We Work Remotely if you’ve been looking for remote work in the past: In its own words, this platform is “home to the largest remote work community in the world with 4.5M visitors.”

This site is popular online for the wide range of jobs you’ll be able to look through. Marketing, social media, design, and plenty of other white collar positions are open on the site now, so you won’t be limited to software engineering positions.

Currently, the website says it hosts 33,261 open positions — all remote.

NextCommit

Type of job: Remote, tech

NextCommit took off on Product Hunt, which is another way of saying that tech nerds love it. The job board uses AI to comb the internet for the latest remote tech job openings. It also says it helps you with finetuning your CV, as well.

You can download NextCommit as an app. It’s free to use, but it also includes a paid tier (€3.90/week) that expands your access to all job postings on the app, not just the most recent.

Remote.co

Type of job: Remote, any industry

This board handles a wide range of industries, from accounting to data entry to design to healthcare. Each market segment gets its own page, with the newest openings listed at the top of each one. Along with the usual filtering options like part-time or full time, you’ll be able to filter for “High-paying,” and “International” positions, if you’d like.

Remote OK

Type of job: Remote

Remote OK is used by over two million remote workers, so it’s doing something right. It’s filtering options are more complex than most boards, with a sliding scale that you can adjust to the exact salary range you’re on the market for.

You’ll even be offered a range of must-have benefits that you can pick and choose from during the filtering process, from standards like a 401(k) or insurance to next-level benefits like a 4-day work week or unlimited vacation. There’s even an option for “no politics at work,” if that sounds appealing at all.

Remotive

Type of job: Remote, international

Most of the other job boards on this list are focused on US-based remote locations. Remotive, however, has options for a selection of other countries as well: You can apply to work remotely from the UK, Canada, Germany, and France.

Companies like Square, Stripe, and Shopify all hire through this site, making it a handy portal to remote-friendly tech companies that are nice to have on your resume.

Wellfound

Type of job: Remote and in-person, Startups

Wellfound — previously known as Angel.co — focuses heavily on offering startup jobs. Companies with just a handful of employees are always looking for their next hire through this website, which means that it’s a great job board for ambitious go-getters to want to move fast and maybe nab some stock options in the bargain.

Granted, this board offers in-person roles as well, but just the fact that it focuses on startups means that it will always have a healthy amount of remote-only positions. Startups don’t have the same resources as the biggest tech companies, and so they’re much more likely to lean into remote-first workplaces in order to find an edge over their competition.

Built In

Type of job: Remote and in-person, tech

Another tech-and-startups-focused board, Built In offers in-person as well as fully remote positions. This website does a lot: In addition to job openings, you can check out its learning portal for online courses, read through articles, or see what the average base salary is for your job category, title, and location (including remote).

USA  Jobs

Type of job: Remote and in-person, government

USA Jobs is the employment portal for the US government, and can be a great way to bag a remote role working for Uncle Sam. One of the best things about the site is that it actually lists salaries for all positions. Phew, what a concept! Government roles might also be appealing too, as they tend to offer good benefits and pensions.

The site isn’t exclusively for remote jobs, but you can exclude in-office positions. At the time of writing we found there there were hundreds of work from home positions available, from chemist to cyber-security consultant.

Workster

Type of job: Remote, US only

This one seems cool, but we stuck it at the bottom because you only get one 7-day free trial before you have to pay $14 per month to access it. Paying in order to get the chance to be paid full-time? Yeesh.

Our Weirdest Advice? Look Up Job Listings in the Town of Remote, Oregon

“Remote” is the name of an unincorporated hamlet in an Oregon state county. It’s a tiny location with just a handful of buildings, but it pops up on job boards all the time: Job providers often accidentally list it when they’re trying to say that their open job position can be worked remotely instead.

What this means is that virtually any job listed at an in-person position located in Remote, Oregon, is actually a fully remote position that’s unlikely to have many applicants: Your competition scrolled right past the listing, since it’s not remote.

Take the time to look through any job posting for Remote, Oregon. If it fits your skillset and you need a remote position, you should definitely apply. You might just be the only person who bothered.

Forget Amazon and to hell with Dell. Microsoft has decided that – for the time being at least – it does not intend to instill a mandatory five day per week return to office (RTO) policy.

The tech giant’s reassurances to staff that it isn’t about to end the option for hybrid working flies in the face of decisions made by a number of the industry’s biggest players, with Amazon ending hybrid working and demanding staff return to office in a decision announced two weeks ago.

Microsoft has stopped short of guaranteeing that it won’t take more drastic steps in future, however, saying that hybrid working will remain in place all the while productivity levels remain.

No Full-Time RTO at Microsoft

According to a report from by Business Insider (paywall), an executive-level member of the Microsoft staff made the reassurances during an internal meeting.

Anonymous sources within the organization told Business Insider that Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Cloud + AI Group, let company employees know that the company would only remove the right to hybrid working if productivity levels fall.

Further follow-up from the website with Microsoft resulted in a spokesperson confirming that its flexible work policy remained in tact.

“More Engaged, More Productive, More Connected”

Microsoft’s continued commitment doubles down on previous rhetoric coming out of the company in relation to hybrid, remote and other flexible working arrangements.

Only last month we saw that there was a total of 530 fully remote jobs that you could apply for at Microsoft. That’s significantly more than the likes of Google and Apple, and included roles as wide and varied as Product Marketing Manager, Senior Software Engineer and Healthcare Data & AI Technical Specialist.

And in August Keith Boyd, Senior Director in Microsoft Digital, published a post on the company’s Inside Track blog titled “Reinventing Microsoft’s employee experience for a hybrid world”.

In it he talks about how the shift to hybrid work during and after the COVID pandemic “served as an accelerant to our efforts to revolutionize the employee experience for our employees and customers”, while acknowledging the risks posed by the lack of in-person collaboration.

“The change isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. If you make the time to do it right, your employees will be more engaged, more productive, and more connected, even when they’re miles away.”

Ultimately, however, he reinforced the idea of hybrid working as a necessary step for companies like Microsoft to take to prevent good employees from wanting to “leave for a competitor who has a more sophisticated and flexible model than you do”.

The Big Return to Office

In the years since the COVID pandemic, many tech companies have ended fully remote work and some major players are now even beginning to bring an end to hybrid working arrangements.

Amazon was one of the most recent example of this. From January, its workers will be expected to go into the office full time.

Dell followed suit last week, but with a shorter deadline. The computing manufacturer has demanded that staff return to the office five days a week beginning yesterday (September 30th).

Smartphone brand Nothing and video game company Rockstar are other examples where employees have been forced into a full time RTO.

Passwords: Love them or hate them, we all need to use them. Now, according to a new survey, the internet users of the world are starting to get fed up with the entire idea.

75% of respondents to a global study on technology fears and concerns have stated that they “want changes to how they login to apps and websites,” with the hassle of keeping track of passwords emerging as the top problem.

The average person has 100 passwords, we found out last year. Given the seemingly endless onslaught of data breaches and ransomware attacks, it’s understandable that people are starting to feel like they’re putting in a lot of effort without getting the security they need.

Nearly 9 in 10 Consumers Hate Tracking Their Passwords

The survey, out from Ping Identity and covering responses from 8,000 consumers worldwide, found a shockingly high number of consumers (89%) complain about tracking passwords.

Other stats from the same survey highlight the average internet users’ growing wariness of identity fraud or other cyber threats. Here are the top takeaways:

• 87% of consumers are concerned about identity fraud.
• 89% are concerned about AI impacting their identity security.
• 54% have stopped using an account or online service because they became frustrated when trying to login.
• 97% have concerns about their personal data being online.
• 36% have been the victim of identity fraud.
• 85% state barriers to adopting a digital wallet on their personal mobile device.

Small business owners in particular should take note of how over half of internet users have turned away from an online service when they couldn’t log in quickly enough. That’s a big potential barrier keeping your ecommerce website from converting causal viewers to buyers.

The Downsides of Passwords

Honestly, everyone is right to complain about how hard passwords are to remember. They’re all supposed to be unique for every website, they’re all supposed to be a lengthy string of letters and numbers, and we need to remember them at a moment’s notice.

Humans simply don’t have the brain capacity for modern password expectations, and the studies prove it: A 2022 survey found that a quarter of the consumers polled say they recall passwords by logging them on a digital device, while about a third (32%) write the password down on a piece of paper. This opens them up to security risks. Plus, since 41% of consumers just rely on their memory, weak passwords are common.

Naturally, hackers are taking advantage. In just one example, one of the largest hotel groups in the world lost a ton of data to a few hackers who claimed that they were able to access the databases by trying out the simple password “Qwerty1234.”

Worse, one audit from early last year found that one in five federal agency passwords are weak and easy to crack.

A Passwordless Future?

Tech giants are trying to move away from passwords. Apple, Google, and Microsoft have been pushing towards passkeys — tech that relies on biometric data like face ID or fingerprints — for several years now.

The shift is slow, however, and biometric data simply can’t be used for every website. Many consumers are relying on password management tools instead. We’ve rounded up the best password managers in the past.