Wonder which cities are embracing the return-to-office movement more than others? A new study discovered where employees are losing out on flexible schedules the most.

As the pandemic gets further and further in the rear-view mirror, more businesses have announced return-to-office mandates, much to the chagrin of employees that got used to a bit of work-life balance.

If you’re working from home and have no intention of commuting any time soon, watch out for these cities, which have higher rates of office occupancy than any others.

Top 10 Return-to-Office Cities

Office occupancy is as good as a metric when it comes to measuring how employes are returning to their commutes, which is what Kastle Systems used for their Getting America Back to Work study.

According to their data, there are 10 cities that stand out above the rest. Here are the top 10 cities for office occupancy in September 2023:

1. Houston, TX – 61.6%
2. Austin, TX – 59.3%
3. Dallas, TX – 53.9%
4. Chicago, IL – 53.6%
5. New York, NY – 50.1%
6. Los Angeles – 49.4%
7. Washington DC – 47.9%
8. Philadelphia – 42.7%
9. San Francisco – 42.6%
10. San Jose – 41.5%

Suffice to say, if you want to keep your flexible work arrangements, you’re going to want to get out of Texas as fast as possible. Beyond that, though, it seems that these are merely a list of some of the largest hubs in the office, and that the overall trend getting rid of remote work.

The Labor Day Shift

Not only did the research from Kastle Systems — a credential and access administration systems company — point to the cities with the largest office occupancies, but they also noted how they changed over time.

More specifically, researchers noted that Labor Day has represented a massive increase in office occupancy after the long holiday week, as return-to-office mandates typically hit that Tuesday.

“This post-Labor Day jump in occupancy mirrors the pattern from the past three years. If the pattern continues, the Barometer may reach a new, higher base level as more workers return to the office.” – Kastle Systems researchers

The list of cities with the biggest change reads quite differently. From Wednesday, September 6th to Wednesday September 13th, for example, New York increased office occupancy from 42.5% to 50.1%, representing a 7.5% increase, making it the biggest shift in the country. San Jose, Philadelphia, and Washington DC all saw a 4.1% increase, which makes them all tied for second place.

Should You Get Rid of Remote Work?

As a business owner, you may feel a lot of pressure to get your employees back to the office. After all, big corporations like Amazon and Apple are doing it, and even if their employees are revolting, they must be onto something, right?

The reality is that getting rid of remote work does little more than alienate top talent and worsen employee well-being. In fact, some remote workers have had to sell their homes at a loss due to rushed return-to-office mandates, which many executives regret, based on recent studies.

All that to say, if your remote workers are productive, happy, and committed to getting work done, don’t throw a wrench in the works because you think it’s what you’re supposed to do.

A new study found that younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials are actually more likely to be the victim of online scams than older generations like Gen X and Boomers.

Online scams have become a common part of the digital world, with personal data and financial information being targeted everywhere from social media to messaging apps.

Well, despite all the memes about their inability to pronounce “Chipotle,” this study shows that older generations are actually keeping their information safer than younger generations.

Younger Generations More Victimized by Online Scams than Older Generations

The Annual Cybersecurity Attitudes and Behaviors Report from the National Cybersecurity Alliance looks at three types of online scams — phishing, identity theft, and romance scams — to determine which generations were most likely to fall victim to these kinds of cyberattacks.

According to their data, Gen Z is the generation most victimized by phishing scams, with 34% noting that they have been tricked by hackers into giving up their information. On top of that, Millennials were more often victimized by identity theft (20%) and romance scams (18%) than any other generation.

Comparatively, Baby Boomers seem quite technically proficient. Only 12% have fallen victim to phishing scams, as well as only 8% having their identity stolen and 4% falling for romance scams.

Why Are Younger Generations Getting Scammed?

While this study seems to debunk the popular theory that boomers are ripe for the picking when it comes to online scams, there are some clear reasons that younger generations would be more prone to getting scammed online.

For starters, the level of online usage from generation to generation plays a big role. 64% of Gen Z and 48% of Millennials respondents, for example, noted that they were “always connected” when it came to online presence. Comparatively, only 33% of Boomers said the same, with 60% saying they were only online “a few times a day.”

False confidence could also be playing a role, as thinking you’re secure when you’re not can leave you vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks. In the study, 47% of Gen Z and 52% of Millennials agree with the statement “I find it easy to be secure when I am online.” Conversely, only 30% of Boomers agree with that statement.

How to Stay Safe Online

The study noted that Gen Z and Millennials should be far more proficient when it comes to securing their data online, but that the complicated nature of cybersecurity and the desire for convenience over protection does a lot to impede their success.

As a result, the report states that supporting users with more easy-to-use tools like password managers to ensure that staying safe online is not only effective, but also simple to enact.

“Gen Zs and Millennials were found to be particularly at risk. Although around half of them have access to training, they reported the highest victimization rates across generations, while simultaneously rating cybersecurity to be less of a priority than other activities. This suggests more support—not more training—is needed to help younger generations stay safe online.” – National Cybersecurity Alliance researchers

All that to say, cybersecurity efforts and attitudes right now are far behind where they need to be to ensure that the online world is a safe place for everyone. But if you’re a Millennial looking to throw shade at older generations, you might want to keep the “ok boomer” to yourself.

Amazon is finally inserting itself more prominently in the generative AI discussion, announcing a collaborative partnership with Anthropic to the tune of a $4 billion investment.

ChatGPT and Bard have been a formidable one-two punch when it comes to AI platforms. The driving force behind their popularity have been their resource-laden backers, with Bard created by Google and ChatGPT partnered up with Microsoft in a big way.

Now, Anthropic has its own sugar daddy, but is Amazon too late to the party to seriously compete?

Anthropic and Amazon Enter Partnership

Announced in a press release, Amazon and Anthropic — the company behind the generative AI platform Claude 2 — have entered into a partnership that will see a $4 billion investment in the innovative technology.

“We have tremendous respect for Anthropic’s team and foundation models, and believe we can help improve many customer experiences, short and long-term, through our deeper collaboration.” – Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon

Much like OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft, this means that Amazon will now have a minority ownership position with Anthropic.

In addition to the $4 billion investment and minority ownership, Amazon Web Services (AWS) “will become Anthropic’s primary cloud for mission critical workloads, including safety research and future foundation model development.”

Anthropic will also use Amazon’s Trainium and Inferentia chips “to build, train, and deploy its future foundation models.”

How Will Amazon’s Investment Boost Anthropic?

Anthropic was founded in 2021 but has been noticeably behind the likes of ChatGPT and Bard due to its lack of resources. After all, when you’re competing with Microsoft and Google, it’s hard to keep up when it comes to finances and tech infrastructure.

Fortunately, this investment from Amazon should position the company to be more competitive, if only by increasing the bandwidth it will have to manage more and more users.

“By significantly expanding our partnership, we can unlock new possibilities for organizations of all sizes, as they deploy Anthropic’s safe, state-of-the-art AI systems together with AWS’s leading cloud technology.” – Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic

As a result, this new partnership makes it seem like the two-party system of AI chatbots could potentially turn into a free-for-all to see which big tech firm can lock down generative AI dominance in the future. However, the reality is a bit more complicated.

Anthropic’s AI Love Triangle

Life is much easier when you can separate entities into neat like boxes: Coke versus Pepsi, McDonald’s versus Burger King, Apple versus Android. However, when it comes to generative AI platforms, the waters are much murkier than many realize.

Yes, ChatGPT and its creator OpenAI are partially owned by Microsoft, but the AI company is also partnered with Salesforce, Atlassian, Shutterstock, and a few others.

Anthropic is the same way. While this investment from Amazon is poised to be a primary focus for the company, Anthropic is still also partnered with Google since February this year. Suffice to say, the AI platforms like Anthropic are happy to play the field for the time being in hopes of becoming the go-to solution for users around the world.

The deadline for a recent class action lawsuit against Instagram is drawing to a close. Residents of Illinois may be eligible for a $68.5 million Instagram settlement, but only if they make a claim before September 27th.

According to the lawsuit, Instagram parent company Meta collected biometric data illegally. Meta has denied this and is paying a tiny fraction of its multi-hundreds-of-billions net worth to settle the issue.

To qualify, you must have used Instagram within Illinois between August 10th, 2015, and August 16th, 2023. That’s a lot of people! Here’s how to file your claim and when you might get paid.

What to Know About the New Instagram Settlement

The class action lawsuit is, “Parris v. Meta Platforms Inc, case no 2023LA000672” and claims that Meta Platforms, Inc. violated the Biometric Information Privacy Act when it allegedly collected and stored “biometric identifiers and/or biometric information” through Instagram without complying with that act’s requirements.

Since the Biometric Information Privacy Act is specific to Illinois, the settlement applies to its residents. You can read a notice summing up the details online.

The settlement gives everyone who is a member of the Settlement Class five different options, although the deadline has run out for a few of them. We’ll start with the easiest: Doing nothing. You’ll get no settlement, and you’ll also lose the right to bring your own lawsuit against Meta about these specific claims.

If that sounds a little unfair, consider your other options: You can attend a hearing to tell the court your opinion, or you can object in writing — although the deadline for objecting was August 16th, 2023, so the time has run out for that option. That’s something to bring up in your hearing, perhaps.

The option to request an exclusion has also run out, thanks to an August 16th deadline. But there’s one final option left that could land you a payout: Submitting a claim form.

Want to take a break from the app? Read our guide to deleting Instagram here.

How to Submit a Claim Form

You’ll get your portion of the $68.5 million settlement if you are eligible and you file a claim. To make that claim, visit the claim form.

Check your email inbox for an email about this claim — you will likely have received a Notice ID and Confirmation Code that can help you out when filing the claim.

You don’t need the email, though. Just fill out the form as normal and pick the payment method you prefer from the four options: Mastercard, Venmo, Zelle, or a paper check.

You’ll still be eligible even if you haven’t lived in Illinois since 2015, when the window of eligibility starts.

When Will You Get Paid?

The actual settlement comes after administration costs and taxes have been removed, and you’ll have to split it with every other member of the settlement class.

There’s no set deadline for when you’ll get paid quite yet, but the final hearing will likely be on October 11th. Pending final approval, eligible members should receive their payout within 90 days, or any time before January 9th, 2024.

It’s just the latest tech giant lawsuit settlement — we’ve covered similar tales for Google, Zoom, and Meta’s other top social platform, Facebook.

The average cost of an insider cybersecurity attack has sharply risen by 40% across the past four years, a new research report has found.

On top of that, the typical annual cost of these types of cyber threats has risen to reach $16.2 million per attack in the past 12 month period.

The biggest costs happen after the attack has occurred, which means that businesses everywhere should prepare their potential responses now in order to lose the least.

The Number and Costs of Insider Attacks Are Rising

“Insider” attacks, according to the new report, might be both malicious (Espionage, IP threat, sabotage, or fraud) or non-malicious (when an insider is negligent, mistaken, or outsmarted). The report, sponsored by insider cybersecurity firm DTEX Systems and out from the data privacy-focused Ponemon research institute, is titled 2023 Cost of Insider Risks Global Report.

It finds that insider threats are on the rise, and not just when it comes to the cost of each attack: The total number of insider incidents across 2023 rose to reach 7,343, up from just 6,803 the year before. 

Most of the incidents — 75% — were traced back to non-malicious insiders, often due mistaken insiders (55%).

The biggest costs: Containment and remediation, which on average account for $179,209 and $125,221 per incident, respectively. The longer a response takes, the greater the cost.

Why Cyber Budgets Aren’t Spent in the Right Places

Insider attacks are up. In other words, the call is coming from inside the house.

But businesses haven’t adjusted their budgets to account for this. 88% of them are still devoting 10% or less of their IT security budget to managing insider risk specifically… with 91.8% of budgets going towards external threats.

But social engineering, which targets insiders to phish or otherwise trick employees into leaking sensitive information on their own company, remains a huge concern. We lost a collective $6.9 billion to phishing attacks in 2021, and just last year the FBI declared phishing to be the most common form of cyber attack.

Staying Safe From Insider Threats

Change is coming, the report found. Nearly half of organizations, or 46%, are set to increase their investments in insider risk programs in 2024.

But what could that look like for you? Here are the top tips for avoiding a phishing attack.

• Use two-factor authentication
• Double-check the URL
• Don’t give out your login credentials
• Monitor your personal financial accounts

You can also consider a few extra security tools — we’ve ranked the top VPNs for businesses and the best password management tools to boot.

Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa will shortly be boasting a more human-like voice and more natural conversational tone, due to an integration with its very own generative AI large language model (LLM).

The update was announced in Amazon’s annual devices bonanza on Wednesday, where a slew of other software and hardware AI updates were also revealed.

Amazon’s Alexa’s new capabilities mark a massive leap forward in voice assistant technology, but with its unit recently weathering major cuts for poor product performance, the pressure for the AI-powered device to perform is definitely on.

Amazon’s Alexa Welcomes New Generative AI LLM

Just like every major tech company in 2023, Amazon has been busy cashing in on the power of generative AI, and this time the company is bringing it to its home devices.

At Amazon’s fall hardware event on Wednesday, Rohit Prasad, the company’s senior vice president and head scientist for artificial general intelligence announced the rollout of Alexa LLM — a generalized model that has been optimized for voice applications.

Alexa’s LLM can talk about any topic, respond to multiple queries at once, intuitively connect with the correct APIs, and even offer tailored recommendations based on recent purchases.

Aside from the device’s new LLM upgrade, it’s now even easier to activate Alexa devices, too. In addition to using code words, users can just look at the screen of a camera-enabled Alexa device to turn it on, and its acoustic processing helps it to determine whether a customer is speaking to the device or someone else.

Unlike its former iterations, Alexa will also be able to offer opinions, like which movies should have won an Oscar but didn’t, and which type of cuisine it prefers.

Alexa’s AI Demo Encounters Some Hiccups

While Amazon’s new generative AI features represent an exciting breakthrough in the company’s home devices unit, Wednesday’s demo wasn’t without its tribulations.

When devices chief Dave Limp was trialing the product’s new “Let’s chat” feature, Alexa lagged in response, and Limp had to repeat his question multiple times to get an answer.

Despite these slight shortcomings, Limp assured consumers that Alexa would be unlikely to display any form of AI hallucination — a phenomenon that other generative AI models — including Google Bard and ChatGPT have been guilty of exhibiting in the past.

Will Alexa’s AI Upgrade Be Enough to Recover Sales?

Despite being a major cash cow for Amazon, the Alexa team faced major cuts at the end of 2022 after the company’s Worldwide Digital unit lost over $3 billion in the first quarter of 2022.

This loss in sales has been attributed to a “collateral failure of imagination,” by one former employee working in the division, while even Amazon’s own CEO Andy Jassy is reportedly less excited about the division than former chief executive Jeff Bezos.

Even analysts at UBS announced that Amazon could improve its North American margins by reducing investments in “moonshots” like Alexa, according to the Financial Times.

However, while experts may remain skeptical about Alexa’s latest upgrade, leveraging generative AI is an excellent way to bring the device’s capabilities into 2023, and the only way the hardware manufacturer will be able to compete with fellow top dogs Google and Microsoft.

Google recently confirmed that its Calendar application, a key part of its larger Google Workspace productivity suite alongside Google Meet, suffered a widespread outage on Thursday, September 21.

The internet giant’s Workspace status dashboard first logged reports of a problem at 14:17 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), which is 11:14am US Eastern time and 8:14am PT on the West coast that day.

It subsequently updated the page with more information at 14:35 UTC, or 11:35am ET / 8:35am PT, it which it provided additional details of the problems being experienced by Google Calendar users.

Very shortly thereafter, at 11:49am ET / 8:49am PT, Google said the problem had been resolved.

Right now, Google Calendar is not down – but we’ll update this page with any future problems that may arise, as soon as they happen.

Google Calendar Down: How Thursday’s Outage Evolved

Thursday’s unexpected Google Calendar outage was owned early on by Google, with the following information coming direct from the Mountain View-based tech giant about the outage.

The company said: “The affected users are able to access Google Calendar, but are seeing error messages, high latency, and/or other unexpected behavior.”

It chimed with reports on social media, where people were saying that their Calendar events were suddenly deleting events and other similar problems.

In a further update on Google Calendar being down, Google suggested that customers instigate a browser refresh as a potential workaround to any issues being experienced, adding that its engineers hoped to have a timeframe on the problems being resolved by 16:00 UTC (12pm ET / 9am PT). This was successfully achieved, according to both Google and general user reports.

The IT team at our publishing company also independently verified the outage by way of a team services update.

Thousands Report Google Calendar is Down in September

Reports first started surfacing about Google Calendar being down on Thursday, September 21 on the Down Detector website, which crowdsources and compiles user reports of outages of various popular services.

As you can see from the below graph, Calendar incidents starting spiking mid-afternoon, and at the time of writing had run into their thousands.

Stay tuned, as we’ll continue to update this article with the latest on Google Calendar being down as soon as more information becomes available.

Related News: Google Calendar Now Lets You Log Paid Appointments

Google Calendar Downtime Resolved

Google then updated its status dashboard at 12:05pm ET, noting that the problem was still persisting for some, but that a fix was likely coming soon that would fully resolve the issue.

“Google Calendar service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 1 hour.”

Google stated that “this time frame is an estimate and may change” but users were pleased to see that it didn’t and Google Calendar was no longer down.

AI research lab OpenAI has just unveiled DALL-E 3, the third iteration of its AI image generator with even more potential for interpreting nuance and detail than DALL-E 2.

Currently in research preview, DALL-E 3 also integrates directly with ChatGPT. This allows the chatbot to do the heavy lifting by creating prompts, opening its use up to a less tech-savvy audience.

OpenAI’s soon-to-be-launched image creator also boasts enhanced safety measures to reduce algorithmic bias and the generation of harmful content. But whether DALL-E 3 is doing enough to assuage the concerns of independent creators remains yet to be seen.

OpenAI Unveils DALL-E 3: its User-Friendly, Advanced AI Image Creator

ChatGPT creators OpenAI recently launched its first official preview of DALL-E 3 – its most sophisticated and easy-to-use image generation program to date.

According to its new release page on OpenAI’s website, the text-to-image generator understands “significantly more nuance and detail” than previous systems, making it easier than ever for users to translate ideas into accurate images.

Unlike all previous iterations of DALL-E, this new model integrates with the company’s chatbot, ChatGPT, too. This allows users to use ChatGPT to create tailored and detailed prompts, making it easier for users with less technical know-how to bring their ideas to life.

“Modern text-to-image systems have a tendency to ignore words or descriptions, forcing users to learn prompt engineering. DALL·E 3 represents a leap forward in our ability to generate images that exactly adhere to the text you provide.” – ChatGPT website

OpenAI has also taken additional steps to limit DALL-E 3’s ability to generate violent, adult, or hateful content, and improved safety performance in risk areas like harmful biases around over and under-representation.

Since OpenAI launched its seminal text-to-image generator DALL-E in January 2021, the market has become rife with a number of high-quality copycats. A number of platforms like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion have gained more notoriety than DALL-E due to their enhanced image quality and customization options.

However, OpenAI believes this product update could cement DALLE-3 in prime position, due to its powerful ability to generate output that adheres exactly to the text the user provides.

Is DALL-E 3 More Friendly to Creatives?

Since DALL-E’s initial launch in 2019, its training process, and potential to infringe on copywritten work, have been the source of much controversy.

Similarly to ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 was trained on millions of images scraped off the web without necessarily gaining the consent of their owners. While this unlocked an abundance of rich source material, it also sparked a debate over the ownership of AI-generated images, as well as a number of lawsuits brought about by disgruntled artists and image creators.

To avoid these ethical quandaries, OpenAI is doing things a little differently with DALL-E 3. The text-to-image generator will reject requests that ask them for an image created in the style of living artists. The tool is also allowing creators to opt their images out from training their future image generation model.

OpenAI efforts clearly mark a step in the right direction, especially for creatives looking to remove their art from DALL-E’s training set permanently. However, for those who believe their art has already been stolen through OpenAI’s invasive scraping practices, these amendments do little to quell their concerns.

When is OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 Available?

DALL-E 3 is currently limited to research preview, which means that its use is currently not available to the public.

However, DALL-E’s newest version will be released to ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise users throughout October, shortly followed by research labs and its API service later in the fall.

OpenAI has not commented on when a free version of DALL-E 3 will be released.

Social media platform TikTok is becoming “flooded” with Elon Musk-themed crypto scams designed to coax people into handing over their hard-earned cash, according to a new report.

Elon Musk scams have started to make the headlines more frequently since the billionaire’s tumultuous takeover of Twitter in November 2022, with digital con artists attempting to leverage the tech mogul’s success, fame, and perceived eye for a good deal to make their shady schemes look authentic.

Elon Musk Deepfakes Flood TikTok

According to a recent report authored by Bleeping Computer, streams of TikTok videos that appear to show Elon Musk talking about lucrative cryptocurrency investment opportunities are making their way around the social media platform.

The videos show Musk being interviewed by Fox News and other media outlets, overlaid with AI-generated audio designed to mimic Musk’s voice. The original audio is either heavily edited or removed completely. Similar videos have been circulating on Facebook and Instagram, with similar tactics used by some mobile games and online casino apps.

In a lot of these videos, it’s very obvious that the clip of Musk is fake – but the scammers are hoping that not everyone is paying close attention to the clips.

How the Crypto Scam Works

The TikToks in question contain links to fake crypto websites, which encourage users to sign up and enter promotional codes posted alongside or within the videos.

If you enter one of the codes, the site will say that cryptocurrency worth thousands of dollars will shortly be deposited into your wallet.

However, the website will demand a relatively small “activation” fee in order to withdraw the money. When Bleeping Computer went along with one of the scams to see how it functioned, this fee totaled $132.

The scam will also try to obtain victims’ KYC (Know Your Customer) information, which is used to verify the legitimacy of users and perform due diligence when someone sets up an account.

How to Avoid Crypto Scams

There are some simple steps you can take to avoid online cryptocurrency scams – even when AI is making them a lot more difficult to spot.

First up, treat companies or products that claim to be endorsed by uber-rich celebrities like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, or Jeff Bezos with extreme caution – even when video “evidence” is provided. This goes for any advertisement or any product you run into online.

Secondly, this specific scam uses a common tactic of withholding the “bait” – in this case, a large amount of cryptocurrency – until you send over a small amount of money. Never send money to an unknown source, and certainly not one that promises that a larger amount will be sent back.

Lastly, remember that almost all crypto giveaways are going to be completely fake – so entertaining the offers of any organization or individual claiming to be giving anything away for free is not worth the risk.

If you’re an avid Fortnite player and have been playing the game since its release, you might find yourself entitled to some compensation. Developers Epic Games have agreed to pay $245 million to users as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which recently hit Microsoft with a multi-million dollar fine.

The news follows on from recent Instagram and Facebook settlements, which also gave users the opportunity to claim a small fraction of a much larger amount agreed upon during legal proceedings.

There are likely to be other big tech companies paying out soon too as governments seem increasingly inclined to hold them accountable for violating different consumer rights.

Why Is Fortnite Paying Users Back?

In December 2022, Fortnite developers Epic Games settled two US lawsuits, one of which alleged the company had used deceptive methods to ensure users were purchasing in-game products. This lawsuit specifically will cost the company $245 million.

The FTC says that “the company charged parents and gamers of all ages for unwanted items and locked the accounts of customers who disputed wrongful charges with their credit card companies.”

Around 37 million users are thought to have been impacted by the first lawsuit and may qualify for compensation.

As part of a separate settlement, $275 million will be paid to the US government for compiling the personal information of individuals under the age of 13 without their parent’s consent.

Although the case was settled more than eight months ago, the claims process has only just opened up, which is why it’s been hitting the headlines again.

How to Claim Your Fortnite Settlement Compensation

The claims process is now open, and you can make your settlement claim here. You have to be over the age of 18 to apply, but if you aren’t, a parent can complete the form on your behalf.

However, the FTC says that you have to satisfy at least one of the below conditions if you want to be considered eligible for a claim:

• You were charged in-game currency for items you didn’t want between January 2017 and September 2022
• One of your children made charges to your credit card between January 2017 and November 2018 without you knowing about it
• You were locked out of your account between January 2017 and September 2022 after you made your credit card company aware of the wrongful charges

When submitting your claim, make sure you have a claim number – which you will have received by email – or your Epic account ID close to hand.

When Is the Deadline to Apply?

You don’t have to rush to apply for your portion of the settlement money right this second – you’ve got almost three full months to apply, with the deadline being January 17, 2024.

But if you were a Fortnite player active between the above-listed dates – and you experienced issues relating to deceptive or unauthorized payments – then it’s definitely worth going through the short application process for.

Google is always announcing major expansions of its ChatGPT competitor, Google Bard. One recent update allows users to ask Bard questions about information contained within their Google Workspace, as well as videos hosted on YouTube.

Although Microsoft-funded ChatGPT remains the most popular chatbot on the web, Bard has provided stiff competition since its February 2023 release, and actually performs better when presented with a number of different scenarios.

Roughly three billion people use Google Workspace worldwide, dwarfing Microsoft Office’s 270 million users.

Google Bard Extensions: What You Need to Know

Google announced the launch of Bard Extensions this week. The tech giant described it as “a completely new way to interact and collaborate with Bard” in a recently published blog post.

Bard’s new capabilities mean the chatbot is now on hand to assist users with tasks relating to information, documents, and files stored within the full suite of products and services offered by Google.

“With Extensions”, the tech giant says, “Bard can find and show you relevant information from the Google tools you use every day – like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights and hotels – even when the information you need is across multiple apps and services.”

This will allow users cut down on the time they’re spending on consuming tasks like summarizing meeting notes and building resumes.

Google explains that you can now use Bard to plan trips in a more comprehensive way, too.

For example, you could task Bard to find dates that work for everyone in your party via Gmail, source flight and accommodation information, compile Google Maps directions to and from the airport, and watch YouTube videos in order to provide sightseeing recommendations.

How to Use Google Bard Extensions

Using the new features is really simple. All you have to do is ask Bard questions, just like you normally would – the only difference being that you need to preface your question with “@[the extension you’d like to use]”.

For example, you can get Bard to scan your email inbox and find specific information by prefacing your question with “@mail”, or get it to perform a task that requires information from Google Maps by starting your query with @Google Maps.

To find and enable your Bard extensions, open Bard and click on the Extensions icon located in the top right corner of the Bard interface. This will bring you to a list of the extensions currently available to you. To access Google Workspace extensions, you’ll have to be logged into your Google Workspace account.

Other Google Bard Updates

Excitingly, users will now be able to continue specific conversations with Bard after they’re been sent links to them by other users.

Another interesting update being rolled out is a “Google it” button designed to make it easier for users to check the chatbot’s responses on the internet.

Users will also be able to access more of Bard’s English language features, like Search images in responses, in a wider range of languages.

Are There Any Privacy Concerns?

As a lot of companies use Google Drive to store sensitive client, customer, and employee data – and with privacy concerns a major issue for the chatbot market, it’s only natural if users are a bit apprehensive about deeper integration between Bard and their Google Workspace tools.

However, Google has confirmed that Bard will not be using any Google Workspace information it has access to for training, and human reviewers won’t have access to or be able to view any information being processed by Bard.

Users can turn off Bard Extensions at any time, so it’s possible to find out what they’re capable of before you officially incorporate them into your workspace. For the billions that now have access, however, this is a very exciting development.

Amazon is hiring for the festive season – and they’re not holding back. The ecommerce giant announced this week that it’s planning to hire a staggering quarter of a million staff to work in its customer fulfillment and transportation teams.

The tech behemoth has opened over 50 new fulfillment centers and delivery stations in the past 12 months and is now investing $1.3 billion to expand its payroll. However, none of the 250,000 roles are remote working positions.

Amazon has created more jobs in the United States than any other employer over the last five years and is now the second-largest employer in the country after Walmart.

Amazon Jobs: How to Apply

“The holiday season is always a special time at Amazon and we’re excited to hire 250,000 additional people this year to help serve customers across the country,” explains John Felton, Amazon’s SVP of Worldwide Operations, in a recent blog post.

Many of the full-time, part-time, and seasonal roles – available in “hundreds” of US cities and towns – are currently listed on the Amazon Jobs portal.

Hourly opportunities include Grocery Warehouse Associate, Sortation Center Associate, Amazon Flex delivery partner, and roles in Amazon pharmacies.

At present, there are only four remote roles currently open at Amazon, and they’re all customer service-related roles that aren’t part of this recruitment drive.

Amazon Warehouse Hiring Day

Along with the company’s wider hiring initiative, Amazon will be hosting an Amazon Warehouse Hiring Day on September 22, 2023. It’s the company’s biggest hiring event of this year.

On that date, there are hiring events taking place at Amazon warehouses in Ohio, Utah, Michigan, Kansas and New York, as well as a number of other states.

You can find a full list of warehouses holding events, as well as the vacant roles available at each location, on Amazon’s Warehouse Hiring Day portal.

How Much Will You Be Paid to Work for Amazon

Amazon’s recent $1.3 billion investment, the company says, means they can now offer an average wage of $20.50 per hour to customer fulfillment and transportation staff.

Some locations will offer up to $28 per hour to employees, but no other information is provided on precisely which centers offer the highest wages.

The ecommerce giant says on their jobs portal that “most” roles now offer over $21 per hour, but there are very few roles listed for over $20.50. However, knowing Amazon, they won’t have trouble filling them.

Rumors have swirled that Elon Musk has plans to make all Twitter/X users pay for access to the system. Is it true or is has the controversial CEO been somewhat misquoted?

Many believe that Musk has done nothing good for X since taking over, not the least of which includes ditching the decades-old brand name for a single letter, a true nightmare for anyone remotely familiar with SEO.

However, Musk does not appear to have plans to charge all Twitter users a fee to scroll the popular social media app, but rather plans on adding a more affordable tier for its Verified plan.

Lower Tier Pricing Coming to Twitter/X?

In a one-on-one discussion with Benjamin Netanyahu streamed live on X, Elon Musk mentioned that the company was “moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the system,” which many believed was a reference to an all-user fee was coming.

However, if you watch the video, you’ll notice the emphasis on “small” appears to refer to a more affordable version of the Verified plan, which is already in place for $8 per month.

This would make Twitter/X very similar to other business software on the market, which offers tiered pricing that unlocks a wide range of different features, while for the time being, preserving the free plan.

Why Would Twitter/X Charge a Subscription Fee?

So, why does Elon Musk want to provide a more affordable pricing tier for Verified accounts on X?

Well, the most obvious reason is that the company isn’t making any money. Reports have noted that the company is still down big when it comes to ad revenue. On top of that, Musk keeps picking legal fights and getting fined, which surely can’t be helping the financial woes of the social media company.

However, Musk insists that his go-to scapegoat, “bots,” remains the drive force behind this controversial decision.

“The single-most important reason we’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.” – Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter/X

As for the confusion surrounding whether Musk wanted to charge all users a fee, take it as a lesson on why firing your entire PR department is a bad idea.

Will More Affordable Options Save Twitter/X?

There’s no denying that Twitter/X is having trouble right now. Beyond its fast-dropping ad revenue, the platform is consistently losing users and regularly experiencing technical difficulties, likely due to the waning number of employees from layoffs.

Plus, with Musk getting rid of most content moderators for the platform, reports have shown that instances of antisemitism, sexism, racism, and general hate speech have increased, which is steadily driving more and more users away.

Even worse, the X rebrand hasn’t gone as planned for Musk, with the majority (69%) of users still calling it Twitter months after the change.

All that to say, a more affordable version of a service widely lambasted by the majority of Twitter users is likely not the answer to the social media platform’s woes.

Think twice before using ChatGPT to build your resume or write your next cover letter, as recruiters are saying the practice may hinder your chances at landing a job.

ChatGPT, Google Bard, and other AI tools have been all the rage over the last year. They’ve been used at businesses around the world for everything from coding to returning emails and are continuously being added to popular software like Salesforce and Microsoft 365.

However, these tools obviously have their limitations, and it appears that getting you a job is one of them.

Recruiters: Don’t Use AI for Cover Letters and Resumes

A report from ABC Gold Coast in Australia found a number of recruiters pointing out that the increase of AI tools has led to more and more cover letters sounding “robotic.”

Even if ChatGPT can get you in the door, you’ll still have to get through the interview process, which makes it even more painfully obvious that your words weren’t your own.

“The downfall could be when the applicant is progressed to the interview, where they fail to articulate themselves the same way, or are unable to provide examples of their experience to accurately reflect what ChatGPT produced for them in the cover letter.” – Kelly Charity, a recruiter in Gold Coast Australia

Beyond that, online services that can detect when content is produced by AI have become more and more common, which means recruiters can easily eliminate candidates that use AI tools as a shortcut.

How to Use ChatGPT to Get a Job

As is often the answer when it comes to the use of ChatGPT, a light touch is the best touch. Don’t allow ChatGPT or any other AI tool to do all the work for you. Yes, you can allow it to provide you with helpful prompts and jumping off points, but you need to ensure that your personality comes through more than anything.

“I believe that personal connection and that human touch is irreplaceable.” – Pam Foster, career coach

The reality is that most recruiters and businesses in general are looking for culture fits more than wrought proficiency. Show them that you can add value to the business in a human way, and you’ll have that offer letter before the end of the week.

How to Use ChatGPT to Make Money

If you aren’t looking for a new job, but you still want to use ChatGPT to make money, you’ve come to the right place. Our guide in the above link can help you come up with a wide range of methods for building your finances with the help of AI.

From creating a website to building a Chrome extension, you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy some passive income, all thanks to generative AI technology like ChatGPT.

Still, if you’re looking to get a job, your best bet remains sticking to the personal, human side of things to convince recruiters you’re up to the task.

The benefits of remote work keep rolling in, with a new study discovering that that working from home cuts carbon emissions in half.

From improving work-life balance to earning more money, there’s no denying that remote work has generally improved the lives of employees around the world.

Now, it appears the popular workplace perk is also beneficial to the environment, which should give business decision makers pause before enacting any return-to-office mandates.

Remote Work: Could Reduce Carbon Footprint by 54%

A study from peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that “remote workers could have a 54% lower carbon footprint compared to onsite workers.”

On top of that, hybrid workers that are working from home between two and four days per week can cut emissions by between 11% and 29%.

However, when it comes to hybrid workers that are only working one day a week at home, the numbers drop all the way down to 2%, further illustrating that more flexible accommodations are better in the long run.

Is Remote Work Environmentally Friendly?

By itself, remote work is clearly good for the environment. As the research points out, that office energy use and commute travel — two of the primary contributors to climate change — decrease dramatically when any employee is fully remote.

However, when considering external factors, the answer gets a bit murkier. Remote and hybrid workers typically move out of big cities, increasing general vehicle ownership and non-commute-related travel. Additionally, remote and hybrid workers typically live in bigger homes and earn more money, which can increase residential energy usage.

“While remote work shows potential in reducing carbon footprint, careful consideration of commuting patterns, building energy consumption, vehicle ownership, and non-commute-related travel is essential to fully realize its environmental benefits.” – PNAS researchers

All in all, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to whether or not remote work is actually environmentally friendly, but it’s certainly a worthy cause to put in the effort.

Should You Get Rid of Your Flexible Work Policy?

Given the wide range of corporations trying to get employees back in the office, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the popular workplace perk become more of a hindrance than a benefit. After all, if companies like Apple and Amazon are willing to go to battle with their employees over return-to-office mandates, it must be for a good, data-driven reason.

However, many executives have admitted to regretting the decision to rush return-to-office mandates, with a senior vice president from Amazon admitting that there was “no data” to back up the decision for the ecommerce giant.

The reality is that remote work is a boon for employees and employers alike. Studies have shown that companies with flexible arrangements are more productive and attract better talent overall. Just saying, if you’re thinking about forcing employees back to their commute, you better have a good reason.

Remote workers are likely to be the first to start losing their jobs to AI, academics at the internationally renowned Oxford University have warned.

A draft paper penned by Professors Carl-Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne cautions that tasks able to be completed remotely are also the easiest to automate, making home workers more vulnerable to being replaced by AI systems.

Office-based work is harder to replace, they add, as AI is unable to replicate the value of in-person conversations and meetings. It’s certainly food for thought, as many employees continue to fight companies ending fully remote work.

AI Can Do It All – Except Replace the Office

The Oxford University professors are experts when it comes to the risks posed by AI to human jobs. Back in 2013, they warned that automation would lead to the loss of millions of job, saying that a shocking 47% of roles in the US could be at risk in the future. While we haven’t reached those alarming levels just yet, data suggests that 4,000 US jobs were replaced by AI in May alone.

Now, they are warning that people intent on only working for companies still hiring for remote working roles may want to rethink their position. This is because of the emphasis employers place on “real-life interactions” and the fact that things like ad hoc brainstorming sessions can’t be easily replaced by AI as the kind of tasks able to be completed at home.

“It now looks like AI may be able to replace human labour in many virtual settings, meaning that if a task can be done remotely, it can also be potentially automated. In-person interactions remain valuable, and such real-life interactions cannot be readily substituted,” Professor Frey notes.

Latest AI Chatbots Can Replicate “Social Intelligence”

Can AI replace workers? That’s the big question and the Oxford academics are clear: if you only work remotely, then yes. Central to their report, which is due to be published in the Brown Journal of World Affairs, is the fact that the new generation of chatbots like ChatGPT and its alternatives can complete tasks that “previously required human social intelligence.”

“The potential scope of automation has expanded in that many virtual social interactions can now be automated,” their report argues, noting that bots are now able to do things like analyze language, negotiate, and write persuasively.

This could help to explain why so many companies are now operating enforced return to office policies – Zoom being perhaps the most infamous example, given its leading role in promoting and facilitating home working during the pandemic years. Some of the other big names to go down this route include IBM, whose return-to-office mandate came into force recently, as well as Facebook owner Meta, Amazon, Apple and many others.

World of Work at a Crossroads

Fears of AI job replacement for remote workers may be concerning, but there are still plenty of companies that offer remote roles, as well as remote jobs requiring no qualifications. In addition, the backlash to companies that are insisting staff return to the office shows a real passion for remote work, such as when Grindr recently issuing a return to office mandate, and losing nearly half it’s staff in the process.

That said, Professors Frey and Osborne aren’t alone in sounding the alarm. Some recent reports suggest AI will have replaced 2.4 million jobs by 2030, while even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admits AI will result in job losses for many. All of which is further cause for concern in already uncertain economic times.

In 2023, it seems that everything to do with work is at a crossroads. Between those who enthusiastically embrace AI and those who fear it. Between those who stand by remote working and those pushing for a return to pre-pandemic, office-first norms. Between those sticking to their 9-to-5, Monday to Friday guns and those who see real 4-day work week benefits.

Now, you can add a further layer to wider debates around AI, home working, and the future relationship between the two.

The US needs to seriously consider the benefits of a 4-day work week as it looks to halt a decline in average American life expectancy, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told CNN in an interview over the weekend.

Sanders said that events such as the recently announced UAW (United Auto Workers) strike highlight the need to have a real and frank discussion about reducing the hours involved in the typical work week. He added the recent technological developments in the field of artificial intelligence should make it possible to work less but accomplish more.

On Friday, the UAW union began strike action against three of the nation’s biggest automakers: Ford, GM and Stellantis. At the heart of the dispute is the new contract being sought by the UAW, which includes a demand for a 32-hour, four-day work week alongside improved pay and retirement benefits. It’s also sparked a larger discussion across the country about the four-day work week.

Sanders Backs UAW’s Four-Day Work Week Demands

Sanders was speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday about the UAW strike, which began on Friday, September 15. While the general theme of the discussion was President Biden’s response to the strike, it also featured the independent Vermont senator talking at length about his support for the four-day work week.

“As a nation, we should begin a serious discussion – and UAW is doing that – about substantially lowering the work week,” Sanders said.

He added that the recent “explosion” in AI means that “worker productivity is going to increase significantly” and put the country in a position where adopting a four-day work week is no longer a pipedream. For example, the best AI website builders  show how previously time consuming tasks can now be automated to generally good effect.

“It seems to me that, if new technology is going to make us a more productive society, the benefits should go to the workers,” Sanders continued. “It would be an extraordinary thing to see people have more time to be able to spend with their kids, with their families, to be able to do more in cultural activities, get a better education.”

4-Day Week Movement Gathers Steam, But…

Senator Sanders’ comments add to the recent buzz surrounding the progressive four-day work week movement. A number of recent trials have returned promising results, including one boasting a 100% success rate, with the result that now some US states are considering a 4-day work week.

At the same time, while there are a handful of companies offering a 4-day work week, there is still general wariness of the trend in corporate circles. If anything, 2023 has seen big business as a whole revert to pre-pandemic norms, with many high-profile companies ending remote work entirely in 2023. If organizations are struggling to trust their employees to work from home effectively, how realistic is it for them to rubber stamp shorter working hours?

There will be a great many eyes on the result of the UAW’s negotiations, therefore, with four-day week advocates no doubt hoping a result in the automotive industry could be the start of something much bigger. The latest there has UAW President Shawn Fain telling NPR this Monday that there was still a “long way to go” in conversations between the union and the auto overlords in Detroit.

A Tipping Point for Employee Well-Being?

Among the many varied points made by Sanders in his CNN interview, was the fact that recent data shows life expectancy declining at an alarming rate in the US.

Sanders made the link between this and the stress people are under at work, as well as the other social and economic issues currently affecting the American people.

“People in America are stressed out for a dozen different reasons, and that’s one of the reasons why life expectancy in our country is actually in decline…People are overwhelmed. They’ve got to take care of their kids. They’ve got to worry about healthcare. They’ve got to worry about housing. They’re worried,” the progressive senator said.

No one’s saying that a four-day work week would somehow make housing more affordable again, but what it just might do is give people the extra time to come to terms with some of the more challenging realities of life in 2023.

An increasing number of companies are offering a 4-day work week, but is it really better and is the model right for your business? Here’s what you should know if you’re considering a four-day work week trial, based on the experience of a company that’s successfully implemented one.

The buzz around the progressive workplace trend has really taken off this year, after various trials returned impressive results and some US states started moving towards a 4-day work week entirely. However, shortening the number of days your company works isn’t guaranteed to be a success, and as clear as some of the advantages of a four-day work week are, there are a number of things you need to consider before taking the jump.

To really understand the pros and cons of the four-day work week, we attended a keynote by Cat Goulbourne, HR and Recruitment Manager at UK-based SEO agency SEOMG!, which has introduced a four-day week and has never looked back. As well as appreciating the complexities of the four-day week from an employer and managerial position, she has personal experience of how one can benefit employees, having suffered from chronic illness and burn out in the past.

With the mental health and physical well-being of employees never more important than it is today, let’s take a look at if a four-day work week is the “game changer” your business needs.

4-Day Work Week: Pros, Cons and Key Points

Before we go into more detail, let’s take an overview of the four-day work week, what is has to offer, and what common pitfalls you should be aware of, according to Goulbourne, before diving head first into the new way of working.

Here are the key four-day work week benefits:

• Better physical and mental health
• Fewer sick days filed
• Improved staff retention
• Positive impact on recruitment and company PR 
• Employees save money on travel
• Staff independently upskill in free time

Businesses should also be aware of the main challenges of implementing a four-day work week, which are:

• Team and project collaboration is harder
• 5-day week still the global standard
• Many companies expected to offer 5-day service
• Planning brings new complexities, e.g. staff schedules and holidays
• Attract some questionable applicants
• Failed trials undermine staff morale

Now, let’s dive a little deeper and look at the benefits of a four-day work week in more detail.

4-Day Work Week: Benefits and Advantages

There are clear advantages to a four-day work week for both workers and their bosses. What’s really interesting to note is how closely the two are linked.

For employees, the main benefits of a four-day work week are improved health and mental well-being. This because it provides additional time to get life admin done, which if neglected can cause stress, as well as for things like physical exercise and rest in general.

In turn, this helps employers, as healthy and well-rested staff are less likely to take sick days, while happy employees are less likely to leave the company. There are also less obvious benefits, such as saving employees money.

“As a chronically ill person, I cannot tell you life-changing it is, not to have to take leave to attend a hospital appointment I have no choice over,” Goulborne says in her keynote, adding, “The less obvious things are helping the cost of living. If you are someone who has young children, and you are home one more day a week, that’s one less day of childcare.”

Moreover, the buzz around four-day work weeks doesn’t just help retain staff, it helps attract the best talent in the first place, as being seen to be at the forefront of this progressive workplace trend is great PR for organizations. It’s also been proven time and time again that happy employees are the most productive ones, while managers might also find that staff with more free time on their hands are able to independently upskill as well as look after themselves.

The Challenges of a 4-Day Work Week

Of course, if the four-day work week was perfect, every company would be adopting it. While there is convincing evidence that the system works well for many, it’s not a perfect fit for all. Goulbourne emphasizes that companies must be realistic about the suitability of a four-day work week at their business.

“Does the four-day work week work? Yes it does. But not for everyone.  Some companies in some industries simply can’t. You have to be prepared for the challenges. It adds a level of complexity you have to be aware of. Be really honest with yourself,” she says.

Goulbourne’s experience suggests that the biggest challenge of a four-day work week is planning, and she notes that even in the convincing UK study, “100% [of participating companies] didn’t say they were going to carry on with it.”

With the five-day week still standard in most countries and many industries, companies that want to adopt the four-day week need to assess if they can deliver their product in a shortened timeframe. In some cases, this just won’t be possible. In others, it might be – but you’ll still be responsible for providing a five day service in a four-day window.

In practice, this means more complicated time and people management – and most likely implementing some kind of staff schedule. You’ll need to figure out how to ensure your business works a five day week, even if individual employees don’t, and it’s not easy ensuring the right personnel are working the right times on a reduced schedule. Holidays need to be staggered even more precisely in a four-day system, too, so it’s far from a case of simply saying: “Everyone now gets Friday off!”

With teams getting less face time with each other, collaboration can also take a hit. The hours you shed in adopting a four-day week might well be at the expense of meetings or project standups. Having the right tools can help you stay on point and make life a whole lot easier, so consider if you’re using the best project management software for your needs, as these kinds of solutions will be doubly important

While operating a four-day work week can be great for luring top talent away from competitors, it can also attract the wrong type of applicants. While many potential hires will be the kind of hard workers you want at your organization, Goulbourne warns that a handful will be “disingenuous” and “just want to work for you because you have a four-day week.”

4-Day Work Week: An Insider’s Verdict

Listening to Goulbourne share her experience of a four-day work week, it’s clear both how positive a change it can be, but also how important it is for businesses to be realistic about if the model is right for them.

This is because a failed four-day work week trial will be devastating for company morale, so she concludes “trying it and it not succeeding is going to be a lot worse” than not trying it at all.

“It is a great benefit for your employees, but there is nothing worse than jumping on a bandwagon when you haven’t thought it through. Starting a trial and failing, it’s not a good way to go about it,” she explains.

As home truths go, it’s one that’s underlined by the current rush of companies ending fully remote work, often to disastrous effect for staff who have moved or taken on big commitments like pet ownership based on home working.

That’s not to say that companies shouldn’t try it. Just that those making the decisions need to know that U-turning in two years’ time if the four-day week hype train slows down isn’t acceptable.

Tim Cook and co stuck to the script at the recent Wanderlust event. The Apple Store went down, a healthy amount of whooping from the stage in Cupertino followed, and before you knew it we had the new iPhone 15 family launched and up for pre-order. Alongside these devices, we also got a full and final reveal for Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 17.

It’s available to download now, but installing a fresh new OS and actually knowing what to do with it are two different things. With so much noise around new iOS 17 features, we’re here to highlight the ones that are the biggest deal for business users – and show you how to download iOS 17 if you’re not 100% sure. iOS 17 was released on September 18, and we have a list of supported devices below. The short version is most newer iPhones are fine – you have to go back to handsets like the iPhone XS and XR to get the bump.

When it comes to new iOS 17 features, the best of the best to help you in your work life include new Safari profiles, NameDrop, and offline Apple Maps. Read on for full details of these and stay tuned for more, as we’ll be updating this guide with more as we spend more hands-on time with iOS 17 now it’s out in the wild.

Best New iOS 17 Features To Try Today

Once you’ve downloaded iOS 17 on your device, the next question is what do you do with it? There are plenty of eye-grabbing new iOS 17 features to take in, from Contact Posters to Visual ID expanding to quickly jump from a sexy food snap to the recipe that’s going to help you turn it into that night’s dinner.

iOS 17 isn’t just a great update for the weekend, though, and there are a handful of really useful new iOS 17 features relevant to business users.

Safari Profiles

The first one worth mentioning is Safari profiles. This is somewhat self-explanatory, but it’s also a big deal. Basically, in iOS 17 Safari is adding the ability to create user profiles. This means you’ll be able to more easily configure your iPhone to separate your work and your personal life. More specifically, having a separate profile means easier access to all of the bookmarks, tab groups, extensions and cookies you use for your job – the latter being particular useful as means you can separately store your work account logins on your iPhone.

Find the best iPad for you with our comparison guide

NameDrop

When it comes to using iOS 17 for work-related stuff, one new feature stands head and shoulders above the rest: NameDrop.

NameDrop is an extension of AirDrop that lets you share your contact details with another iPhone just by holding your device near to it. Whatever information you set to be shared – whether it’s your name, telephone number, email address and even your Contact Poster (once you inevitably make one) – will then be sent to the receiving iPhone in the blink of an eye.

With this feature, iOS 17 is basically bringing the business card into the 21st century. The usefulness of NameDrop at professional networking events and on work trips cannot be understated, not least because it could save millions of physical cards being printed unnecessarily.

We’d add that NameDrop looks like iOS 17’s killer feature in every context, not just work. How many times have you scribbled a number down on the back of a napkin, only to throw it out when you empty your pockets thinking it’s just another piece of trash? It’s particularly crippling when you finally go on a Hinge date that doesn’t end in disaster, or at least that’s what we’ve been told.

Offline Apple Maps

When Apple launched its Google Maps rival back in 2012, it was widely ridiculed and for pretty good reason. It would tell you to drive through the ocean, move your favorite sub shop to a different continent, and once infamously placed Berlin somewhere in middle Antarctica.

Fast forward to 2023 and Apple Maps is actually worth using – especially now it has followed in Google’s footsteps and added offline maps.

Driving for business purposes is commonplace, whether it’s a courier service, the trucking industry, or trying to get to an offsite meeting on time. For instance, some but not all of the best dash cams for truckers feature GPS functionality. In other cases, your organization might be relying on people using every day apps like Apple Maps for directions and navigation.

There’s nothing more frustrating than entering a GPS dead zone, which is why having offline access to maps becomes so important. Now Apple Maps has them in iOS 17, it becomes a truly viable option for commercial use cases and you can rely on it for work, not just to get you to your kid’s soccer game at the weekend.

How To Download iOS 17 and Supported Devices

Apple is now letting users download iOS 17 in the usual way, which is via an over-the-air update. This is when a new system download magically becomes available to download on your iPhone at a given time, and is how Apple delivers all of its software to mobile devices these days. That means when we talk about the iPhone and iOS 17, the same holds true for iPad tablets and its closely related new operating system, iPadOS 17.

Supported iOS 17 devices – that’s the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, iPhone SE 2, iPhone 11 series and above – will be prompted to download at some point after the release becomes available, but you can also manually check. Just follow the Settings > General > Software Update path on your iPhone and you’ll be able to see as soon as iOS 17 becomes available for your device.

That should be the case by now, though bear in mind early iOS 17 download times can be agonizing as everyone tries to install the new software at once.

Elon Musk’s X is finally attempting to settle a lawsuit brought by ex-Twitter employees over allegedly unreceived severance pay when the billionaire fired nearly two-thirds of the company late last year.

Musk announced his arrival as Twitter’s head honcho in 2022 by instigating one of the most dramatic rounds of tech company layoffs seen to that point, slashing the firm’s workforce from 8,000 to 2,000 staffers. Now, following the social network’s rebirth as X, it could be ready to pony up to those who claim to have been cheated by the process.

According to a new memo, lawyers have succeeded in getting Twitter to the negotiating table, some 10 months after Musk’s layoffs began in November 2022. At the time, Musk said there was no alternative to the mass firings, as the company was losing $4 million a day. The South African billionaire promised affected employees three months of severance pay, something the 2,000 former Twitter employees filing suit say they never received.

Musk Could Settle Twitter Lawsuit in December

Bloomberg News reports that a memo from lawyers representing the ex-Twitter employees reveals that Elon Musk and X are ready to settle at last. The note was apparently shared with the outlet one of the former staff taking part in the lawsuit.

“After 10 months of pressing them in every direction we have succeeded in getting Twitter to the table. Twitter wants to mediate with us in a global attempt to settle all claims we have filed,” attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan is quoted by Bloomberg as writing.

The article adds that private mediation talks will take place on December 1 and 2 this year, at which point a settlement figure could be agreed. If that happens, it would mark the end of a particularly long and complicated layoff saga for Musk, X, and the ex-Twitter employees.

A Brief History of the Twitter Layoffs Lawsuit

The trouble started when Musk took over Twitter last October, after which the firings began and approximately 6,000 staff lost their jobs. Musk said Twitter would be paying out three months of severance pay, but the initial lawsuit filed in November 2022 notes that California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) laws require employees be given 60 days’ advance notice of large-scale layoffs. Some of these plaintiffs say they weren’t paid the severance at all.

Fast forward to January 2023 and Twitter was granted a motion to force ex-staff into arbitration who hadn’t opted out of it in their contracts with their company. This created a further issue, as Musk and Twitter refused to pay for the arbitration, despite insisting on it and the Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services requiring employers to foot the bill when that’s the case.

By summer 2023, Liss-Riordan had therefore filed an additional lawsuit against Twitter for refusing to pay for and move forward with 891 arbitrations, having also taken on representation of the ex-Twitter staff forced into these proceedings. Additionally, the lawsuits now included further allegations that Twitter’s layoffs discriminated “against employees on the basis of sex, race, age and disability” and that it had failed to pay out promised bonuses.

Will the Real Elon Musk Please Stand Up?

In the court of public opinion, Musk has hardly helped himself throughout the process. Among other things, he has told Twitter staff to work longer hours or quit, and specifically fired staff responsible for policing hate speech on the platform.

At around the same time as he started the mass firings in late-2022, he also killed Twitter’s remote working policy, which was once a progressive calling card for the social media company. This was slightly ahead of 2023’s larger trend of companies ending remote work, though you can still find plenty of great remote working jobs right now if that’s what you’re looking for.

The Elon Musk narrative took a further twist with the publication of a new biography about the tech magnate this week, which attempted to paint a more nuanced portrait of the Tesla and X Corp supremo: one who likes to publicly throw shade at Bill Gates, whilst privately revealing his softer side over a relaxing game of Dungeons and Dragons. As you were, haters…

A new survey has shown that many of us are worried that a lack of AI knowledge, and not understanding tools like ChatGPT, could be causing us to fall behind our colleagues at work.

We’re also apparently trying to to hide our lack of understanding in the workplace by pretending to know more than we actually do.

With plenty of ways to get up to speed with AI, including free courses, we tell you what to do if you’re suffering from AI anxiety.

LinkedIn’s AI Workplace Study

If  you’re worried that you don’t know your ChatGPT from your Bard, then you’re not alone. New research from LinkedIn has revealed that almost half, 49%, of workers are worried that they are slipping behind when it comes to AI skills.

40% of respondents to the global survey said that they felt overwhelmed by AI, and struggle to keep up with developments, which is understandable, given the technology’s constant progress and development.

56% said that they simply didn’t know how to use AI at work, pointing to a lack of education from employers when it comes to training and best practice, that’s assuming the company you work for even allows you to use AI at all. Some, like Apple and Samsung, have banned some AI platforms internally through fear of sensitive data leaking out.

Not wanting to feel left out, 40% of respondents claimed to bluff their way through conversations about AI at the workplace, pretending they knew more than they actually did.

Getting Yourself Up to Speed with AI

It’s quite easy to be daunted by AI – after all, until this year it didn’t come into the conversation at work for many of us, and now it’s literally everywhere, even threatening millions of jobs.

The good news is that there is still plenty of time to learn how to use AI efficiently, and, judging by the results of this survey, half your colleagues are none the wiser anyway.

Take a free online AI course

One of the easiest ways to learn about AI, is to take an online course. There are plenty of free options available, from companies such as Google and Microsoft, and even Harvard has it’s own free course.

There are plenty of topics to choose from, from introductions to AI, to more complex courses such as TensorFlow for machine learning (if that means nothing to you, start with an introductory course!).

Read more details in our detailed guide to the free AI courses available.

Use AI prompts to be more efficient at work

Once you’ve got to grips with the concept of AI, you can start experimenting with using the platforms like Bard and ChatGPT. So you’re not starting from scratch, we’ve created 40 ‘prompts’ (essentially, instructions for AI) to give you a headstart.

Take a look at our guide to the best ChatGPT prompts to save you time at work.

Play around with the platforms

There’s really no better way to learn something than to get stuck in, so whether you want to try Bard, ChatGPT, or other AI platforms, all of which have a free version, we suggest having a play and seeing what you can do.

Start with something simple, even fun. Ask AI to suggest a recipe, or a place to go for a weekend trip. Get used to the settings and how to use it, and then think about how it could improve processes for you at work.

Choose tools with integrated AI

Many work platforms are already integrating AI, such as website builders and online store fronts, so you might already be using the tech without even realizing it.

Take these steps, and next time you’re at the water cooler, you won’t need to be the 40% that pretends to know about AI.