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.

After an unprecedented period of flexibility when it comes to remote working, many companies are calling workers back to their desks. As an upshot of this, some employees are being forced to move closer to the office, and losing money on their homes.

A new study has found that return to office mandates mean some workers need to choose between selling their homes or losing their jobs, with some unable to recoup the money spent on the property.

This week, IBM became the latest company to issue a return to office mandate, following the likes of Meta, Amazon and more.

Return to Office’s Impact on Property Market

New research from Redfin has revealed that return to office policies are causing around 10% of US home sellers to relocate.

In some cases, workers are losing money in the process, prioritizing selling up and moving at a loss, rather than being fired form their jobs. In one example given in the survey, a real estate agent mentions a client who currently lives in Boise, Idaho, being forced to relocate back to Seattle for three days a week for their job, and looking at losing $100,000 in the process.

Not only are workers losing money, but moving from more remote areas to city hubs where businesses are located can also mean a step down in living conditions, with much smaller properties commanding the same or even higher prices than larger homes further afield.

Just last week, a study from Fannie Mae showed that 22% of remote workers were willing to move to find more affordable housing. It seems that’s all well and good, as long as your company keeps its word on remote work.

It’s worth noting that Redfin, which commissioned the survey, asked its own workers who lived within 20 miles to come back to to office two days a week, but didn’t insist that anyone relocate.

Companies Calling Staff Back to the Office

Many companies are insisting that staff return to the office in 2023 – even those who sang the praises of remote work during the height of the pandemic. Amazon CEO, Andy Jassey, who had previously claimed to be a remote work believer, recently told employees who were reluctant to come back that “it’s not going to work out for you.”

Just last week, computing giant IBM told its staff to get back to their desks, with less than a week’s notice.

Apple, Comcast, Disney, Starbucks and numerous others have also been vocal about coming back to the office, despite the numerous studies and examples of the positive effects of remote work, such as those that work from home being happier, and possibly even living longer.

Such is some companies passion for getting people back in the office, many are even advertising roles with relocation assistance, hoping that by lightening some of the financial burden, the move back to the office is more appealing.

Plenty of Remote Roles Still Available

All this might make for grim reading for those who enjoy working remotely, but despite all the headlines about companies issuing return to office mandates, rest assured that there are still plenty of remote work opportunities.

Many companies still offer remote roles, and just this week, Tech.co named companies advertising  hundreds of remote positions in September.

The remote work debate looks set to rage on, and at the end of it, you can expect a clear division between those companies that have an open remote work policy and those that don’t. Those that don’t could well find themselves with a much smaller recruiting pool as a result, with workers looking for the additional benefits and the ‘luxury’ of living in affordable housing.

While the flurry of tech redundancies has slowed in recent weeks, it seems that tech workers aren’t quite safe yet, as Google announces big cuts to its recruitment teams.

Like many of its contemporaries, such as Microsoft and Meta, Google has already made big job cuts in 2023, cutting loose over 12,000 roles earlier in the year.

Google stated that its pace of hiring was slowing, hence the need for fewer recruiters.

Recruitment Teams Out at Google

Google announced yesterday that it was cutting the number of staff in its recruitment teams, with staff being told via a video meeting on Wednesday, a report from CNBC confirms.

The exact figures aren’t know at this time, but it is expected that hundreds of roles will be affected within the recruitment departments.

Google has stated that it has been slowing the pace of its hiring (as have many tech companies this year), and therefore its need for dedicated recruiters has diminished.

The company did confirm that those whose roles have been cut will have full access to their office this week, as well as online systems past that, following criticism in previous layoffs that redundant staff were almost instantly cut off.

Not Google’s First Layoff Rodeo

Google isn’t a stranger to layoffs – earlier in the year it laid off a huge 12,000 employees, around 6% of its workforce.

At the time, CEO Sundar Pichai said he took ‘full responsibility’ for the layoffs, which must have been slim comfort for all those affected, although the firm did offer severance and six months of health benefits and immigration support.

Three months ago, the company also laid off hundreds of employees from the Waze platform, which it purchased in 2013.

More Layoffs Coming at Google?

While the Google staff who escaped the job cuts this time are probably breathing a sigh of relief this morning, it doesn’t pay to comfortable in the tech industry right now. We’ve seen almost every major tech firm make huge cuts over the last year, with the one stand out being Apple, whose CEO Tim Cook calls layoffs ‘a last resort’.

Last month a leaked internal memo showed that advancements in Google’s AI Assistant program meant that the company was mulling making redundancies in this area.

Even those who get to keep their jobs at Google might be feeling slightly sour on the company, as it has repeatedly cut perks, such as onsite cooking and massage, and limiting travel expenses. It has also asked workers to share desks.

However, these losses might be a small price to pay for keeping your job.

Let’s be honest, some business executives just don’t get it. Whether it be their massive paychecks or their private jets, something is preventing these leaders of the business world from understanding what it’s like to be an everyday person.

As a result, these executives have a tendency to say the darndest things, on and off camera, that make them seem more out of touch than even the most celebrated of celebrities.

Luckily for you, we’ve collected some of the most egregious examples of tone-deaf executives unwisely opening their mouths and putting their feet in them.

Tim Gurner, CEO of The Gurner Group

Just this week, an Australian real estate CEO went viral for his almost-aggressively out of touch remarks on the economy at the Australian Financial Review conference.

“Employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around. We’ve got to kill that attitude, and that has to come through hurting the economy.”

At a time when average CEO pay is nearly 300 times larger than average worker pay and more and more everyday people are living paycheck to paycheck, the idea of getting unemployment to “jump by as much as 50%” to better your bottom line is so out of touch that we decided to write this article about it.

Mike Hopkins, Senior Vice President of Amazon Video and Studios

Over the last year, executives around the world have gotten rid of work-from-home policies, pushing return-to-office mandates like they’re going out of style.

Companies like Amazon naturally received a lot of backlash for the decision. Fortunately, the company had a lot of information and data to back up the decision to assuage employees that were greatly impacted by the added cost of commuting. Just kidding! They didn’t have any data beyond a hunch!

“I don’t have data to back it up, but I know it’s better.” – Hopkins

There’s no denying this tone-deaf statement would irk employees, and it did. In fact, the company has been battling with its workers since the mandate was established, and the errors in RTO rollout have caused serious issues for the ecommerce giant.

Elon Musk, CEO of X

Obviously, there are plenty of examples out there of Elon Musk — the controversial CEO of X, SpaceX, and Tesla — making it obvious that he’s out of touch with his many employees.

One prime example was his opinion on remote work. When he dismantled the flexible policies at Twitter and Tesla, he had some choice words about the policy that ruffled quite a few feathers.

“It’s not just a productivity thing. I think it’s morally wrong.” – Musk on remote work

We can all admit that calling remote work “morally wrong” is laughably incorrect. Not only has the post-pandemic shift towards flexible working arrangements been a boon for work-life balance, but it’s also improved productivity and even revenue for businesses around the world.

Bob Iger, CEO of Disney

For more than 100 days, writers and actors in Hollywood have been striking for fair pay. With streaming platforms and movie studios raking in hundreds of millions — sometimes even billions — of dollars for TV shows and movies, being able to offer fair wages seems like a no-brainer.

However, executives across the board of been flippant about the demands, with Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, stepping in it a few months ago when he described the efforts for fair pay like this:

“There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic.”

Considering Bob Iger’s yearly salary as the CEO of Disney is a whopping $27 million, it’s fair to assume that he might not have his finger on the pulse in regard to what is exactly realistic in this business.

The head of the world’s most popular CRM is encouraging a new approach to AI, with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff calling for trust and transparency when it comes to the new technology.

The evolution of AI technology over the last year has been nothing if not substantial. ChatGPT released in November 2022, and since then, virtually every business software provider has added generative AI features and functionality to their platforms.

Salesforce is, of course, one of those business software providers, but the company appears to be more committed to an ethical roll-out of AI technology than the rest of the tech industry.

Benioff: The AI Revolution Is a Trust Revolution

At the Dreamforce 2023 conference in San Francisco, Salesforce announced a wide range of new features that are aimed at helping businesses grow. Naturally, many of them employ AI technology like ChatGPT to provide predictive answers and automated actions aimed at saving time and money for growing enterprises.

However, during the keynote speech, CEO Marc Benioff took time away from promoting these new features and instead focused on the ethical aspects of the burgeoning technology, noting that the next level of AI development requires one particular feature: trust.

“The AI revolution is a trust revolution. Your data is not our product.” – Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce

The keynote speech pointed to the growing concerns about generative AI technology and how it will mesh with the business world and the global economy at large.

The Problem With Current AI Models

What did Benioff mean when he said that “your data isn’t our product” in his keynote speech? While it may seem like a shot at social media companies that offer free services in exchange for unfettered access to your personal data, it actually refers to generative AI services that seemingly collect endless sets of data from across the web to fuel their platforms.

“The data they get, they mostly have stolen. They just go out onto the net and get whatever they can get.” – Benioff

That’s one of the major problems with platforms like ChatGPT. They aren’t necessarily “generating” anything; instead, they’re collecting data from existing content and rejigging it into new content that fits your particular needs. And worse, it doesn’t even get it right some of the time.

“You get a lot of answers that aren’t exactly true. They call them hallucinations. I call them lies.” – Benioff

All that to say, this groundbreaking technology that is poised to transform the business world is still very much in its early stages. And as Benioff points out, if we aren’t careful, things could go south fast.

The Future of AI

While futuristic sci-fi movies like Terminator and Minority Report are obviously works for fiction, Benioff alluded to the popular films, noting in his speech that AI technology has the potential to make the world a worse place if not regulated in an effective and proactive manner.

“We all know and have in our mind what could happen if this AI thing goes really wrong. Let’s keep it going in the right direction.”

Benioff looks to position Salesforce as a protective layer between businesses that want to experiment with AI and those potential negative outcomes. Whether the world’s most popular CRM is up for the task, though, still remains to be seen.

Remote work has become an increasingly hot topic, and it seems that every week a company decides to drag its staff back to the office. This week it was IBM who told employees to get back to their desks.

However, while some companies are turning their backs on remote work, others are offering more and more positions that allow for working from home. Companies like Amazon, Airbnb and Spotify have all shown a commitment to the remote work lifestyle.

We’ve found hundreds of roles being offered by companies that you can apply for today.

Slack

Slack operates a generous remote work policy, and was one of the first to allow its staff to work from home remotely, spurred on by the pandemic, in July 2020. It’s former CEO, Stewart Butterfield, dubbed the company’s approach as remote first, rather than remote only. Not all Slack jobs are 100% remote, but plenty are.

Slack is owned by Salesforce, whose CEO, Marc Benioff, has spoken against remote work in the past, but there is no sign that Slack is planning on reversing its remote work policy.

Currently the company is offering a number of roles that allow for remote working, including:

• Product Direct Designer
• Engineering Manager
• Lead Product Designer
• Senior Staff Software Engineer
• Staff Technical Lead Manager

You can find full details of these jobs and others on the Slack website.

Zendesk

Zendesk is headquartered in San Francisco, but its staff are located worldwide, thanks to the company’s remote first policy.

There are currently over 131 positions available at Zendesk, so those looking for remote work have plenty of options. These include:

• Staff Data Engineer
• Machine Learning Engineer
• Marketing Manager
• Head of Automation
• Threat Prevention Engineer
• Security Risk Analyst

The Zendesk website lists all current roles available at the company.

Amazon

Amazon employs over 1.5 million staff globally, and while not all are remote, it does offer some work from home roles where applicable.

The company describes remote work as being key to its success, stating that by having staff in various locations and time zones, it’s able to best serve its customers.

There are currently 57 full time, and 1 part time position available remotely with Amazon:

• Robotics Process Compliance Manager
• Healthcare Privacy Manager
• Graduate Shift Manager
• Operations Engineer
• Pathways Area Manager
• Penetration Testing Engineer

Find a full list of roles and more information at Amazon’s recruitment site.

Reddit

Reddit is known as the front page of the internet, and it is home to thousands of communities. It also has a generous remote work policy, curated during the pandemic, and stating that staff are free to work from home, in the office, or a mix of both.

Reddit employees who choose to work from home are entitled to a stipend to spend on office equipment and perks.

It currently has numerous remote jobs available, including:

• Director of Engineering
• Content Curator
• Fullstack Engineer
• Senior iOS Engineer
• Staff Data Scientist
• Senior Revenue Accountant

Visit the Reddit jobs page for more information about these roles and others.

Spotify

If you’ve ever fancied working in the music industry but never taken the leap, perhaps a job at Spotify would appeal to you. Like some of the other companies we’ve mentioned, Spotify leaned into remote working during the pandemic, and offers its staff generous flexibility when it comes to working from home.

Spotify will also provide workers with the resources they need to ensure their home set up is practical and comfortable.

There are currently 82 roles available at Spotify, including:

• Product Manager, Ad Targeting
• Senior Payroll Manager
• Data Scientist
• Senior Backend Engineer
• Research Scientist

Find full details of these roles and others at the Spotify careers site.

The Tech.co guide to avoiding remote work scams

Airbnb

It makes sense that Airbnb would encourage remote work – after all its entire business model encourages travel and seeing the world. Even its CEO is living the remote work lifestyle, flitting from Airbnb property to property and using them as his base of operations.

Remote work at Airbnb is available to most US residents, but be aware that there are a select few states for which this isn’t an option. At the time of writing, these are Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, and Delaware.

There are currently over 82 jobs listed with Airbnb, including:

• Regulatory Response Ambassador
• Senior Software Engineer
• Staff iOS Engineer
• Staff Data Scientist
• Product Marketing Manager

More information can be found at Airbnb’s recruitment portal.

Dropbox

Dropbox states that it is a ‘virtual first’ company, and it really means it – employees are entitled to work remotely. Staff are expected to be 90% remote, and only asked to come into the office for events or big staff meetings.

The reason for this enthusiasm for working from home is that the company believes that as it designs products to enable people to work remotely, it should practise what it preaches.

There are many remote roles available at Dropbox right now, including:

• Product Operations Coordinator
• Support Engineer
• Full Stack Product Engineer
• Workday Extend Developer
• SEO Specialist

Full details of all Dropbox roles are listed on its website.

Toast

If you haven’t heard of Toast, it’s a Point of Sale provider based in Boston, but offers a selection of remote positions for certain job titles.

It gets better – if you choose to work remotely, the company pays your Wi-Fi costs, and it also offers unlimited vacation. One word of warning, the firm really loves its bread-based puns (it describes its jobs as ‘rolls’ and asks if you’re ‘bready’ for a change) – so if you have an aversion to puns you may want to stay away…

If you can stomach the puns, there are plenty of remote jobs currently on offer at Toast, including:

• Compliance Manager
• CPQ Systems Architect
• Director of Sales
• Engineering Manager
• Fullstack Principal Software Engineer

For full details of all Toast jobs, visit the company recruitment website.

California’s Senate has passed a bill that would require the presence of a human safety operator whenever a self-driving truck is operating on public roads within the state. In other words, it’s a ban on self-driving trucks.

But there’s one big catch. The bill will need to be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom before it goes into effect, and he’s more than likely to reject it.

The cases for and against the driverless truck ban are worth considering, since they sum up a lot of the arguments that surround the rise of artificial intelligence across plenty of other industries.

The Case for Driverless Trucks

The tech-positive argument for why we should embrace the rise of driverless vehicles is likely familar to anyone inside the wide-sweeping orbit of the larger tech industry.

Restricting the rise and disrupting force of a new technology undermines natural innovation, the argument goes, ultimately dinging the competitive tech economy that defines much of what makes California famous.

The bill, AB 316, passed the Senate floor with 36 votes in favor and just two votes against. But Newsom’s tech-friendly reputation is a big part of why experts predict he’ll reject the bill to keep on course for a driverless future.

The Case for Banning Driverless Trucks

The bill’s proponents argue that safety will fall by the roadside if driverless trucks are allowed to operate with no human supervision.

Plus, cutting truck drivers out of their job security may further dent the US economy, since there are an estimated 3.5 million truck drivers currently employed in the US. (This argument is reminiscent of a lot of the conversations surrounding AI, which can be used as a threat to ensure labor markets stay weak since employees fear AI replacement.)

Finally, trucking companies might have the wrong motives for rolling out driverless vehicles:

“AV companies have lost billions of dollars in the self-driving vehicle space over the last few years and are now trying to appease their investors by imposing unsafe, inadequate products on the public,” said Jason Rabinowitz, president of Teamsters Joint Council 7, in a statement covered by TechCrunch. “These corporate elites have no regard whatsoever for the safety or prosperity of the communities they will put in harm’s way. Gov. Newsom needs to do right by Californians — not these companies — immediately.”

The trucking industry already has plenty to complain about, from rising fuel costs to supply chain disruptions that have made vehicle replacements even more of a slog than normal. Even if this bill is vetoed — which, again, seems likely — most commercial fleets won’t have the resources to immediately adapt a host of driverless trucks.

Granted, Safety Should Probably Come First for the Trucking Industry

One pretty compelling argument for regulation is that driverless vehicles have yet to be perfected, and this is an industry in which mistakes can be deadly.

We already regulate truckers’ hours of service with the ELD mandate, alongside tracking emissions and fuel taxes. When it comes to letting 4,000 pounds of metal drive itself around at 60 miles per hour down a public freeway, intense safety precautions just make sense.

It’s also true that the kinks have yet to be worked out for AI far beyond the trucking industry — and we don’t yet have firm evidence that they ever will be. Artificial intelligence “hallucinations” can result in confident falsehoods from any generative AI on the market, and even the big names like ChatGPT are dealing with product-market fit concerns that could potentially tank them.

Driverless cars have been on the horizon since the first successful pilot took place in 1995. Maybe if we wait another 28 years, the technology will work perfectly.

TikTok has now launched “TikTok Shop” across the US, giving users a new way to buy, sell, and earn affiliate marketing cash through the popular social platform.

TikTok Shop is the term for a whole set of different products, including: The “Shop Tab,” a marketplace within the app, an option for affiliate video creation that lets users earn comissions from products sold, and a shipping arm, “Fulfilled by TikTok,” which lets merchants on the platform deliver their products.

TikTok has been chewing over ways to bringing shopping to its platform for years, but this is their biggest move yet. Can the average TikTokker profit off of it? Here’s what to know.

Talking Shop

TikTok’s new “Shop Tab” is likely the most visible new feature for the average user. With it, they’ll be able to view and buy a business’s products.

TikTok even fulfills shipping logistics as well as handling payments, so merchants selling through the Shop Tab will have their core ecommerce needs met from the start.

TikTok will likely take a commission from Shop Tab products down the road, but appears to be in growth mode right now: A New York Times article cites one seller who says he is “not sure when TikTok might start taking a commission.”

It’s a potential opportunity for the savvy drop shipper. And presumably, anyone selling a digital service or product — like, say, a tutorial on how to use Excel — can simply skip all the shipping and earn an even higher margin than they would otherwise.

If you have an impressive-enough following, you’ll be able to get in on selling even without any products of your own, however: Affiliate videos give some users an option to monetize. Plenty of small and large influencers will be able to recommend the best products relevant to a vast range of niche interests.

TikTok Shop Stats

Online shopping via social platforms in the United States is an estimated $69 billion market. And it’s one that plenty of websites, ecommerce businesses, and social platforms have been jostling for a big slice of for decades, from Facebook’s recently killed “live shopping” feature to eBay’s auctions to Shopify’s link-in-bio tool.

TikTok is a heavy weight in social media, and it has already announced a few interesting statistics related to it’s new ecommerce-oriented pivot. Here’s what Yahoo! Finance recently reported:

• Registered for TikTok Shop: More than 200,000 sellers
• Using affiliate program: More than 100,000 content creators
• 92% of TikTok users said they take action after watching a product in TikTok.
• 90% of US shoppers “claim to be satisfied with their experience when TikTok was a part of their purchase journey.”
• Followers you’ll need before you qualify for the affiliate program: 5,000 or more
• Amount of users who can already access the Shop Tab on their home screen: 40%

The TikTok Shop features are still being rolled out gradually to US users for another month, so you may not see them yourself until early October.

TikTok’s Shaky Future?

TikTok has over a billion monthly active users, which makes it a massive success of a social platform. And with a renewed focus on ecommerce, the platform is well positioned to turn all that attention into soaring stock prices, while helping out millions of side-hustlers in the process.

But TikTok has some other problems: Governmental oversight. For one thing, any aspiring TikTok merchants that live in Montana are in for a rude awakening on January 2024, when that US state becomes the first to ban TikTok for regular users.

Other states are considering bans, too, based on the premise that the Beijing-based app could be leaking private data to its own government.

We’ll have to wait to see whether TikTok can continue staying in use in the US long enough to corner the market on social platform ecommerce. But any online merchant worth their salt can tell you that this is just the latest reminder of the age-old industry advice: Diversify your revenue streams. TikTok Shop could be a great source of income, but it shouldn’t be the only one.

Salesforce continues to push the AI envelope: The software giant’s latest advancement is the Einstein Copilot Studio, which will allow any Salesforce user to customize their own Einstein AI bot to fit their needs.

Most business software solutions will simply offer AI tools. But if this new tool works as advertised, Salesforce will be giving businesses the features they need to build their own AI.

AI is easily the biggest tech buzzword of 2023, with an avalanche of news centering on everything from the ChatGPT vs Bard rivalry to the potential economic impact of generative AI across all major industries.

What Does the Einstein Copilot Studio Do?

Salesforce announced the new Einstein Copilot Studio during its annual Dreamforce conference this week, and further explained the details in a press release.

Users who take advantage of the feature will be able to customize their “Einstein Copilot” bot using “specific prompts, skills, and AI models.”

The benefits? Closing deals faster, boosting customer service efficiency, and even automatically creating websites “based on personalized browsing history.”

The customization tools will also allow businesses to make Einstein Copilot available across consumer-facing channels, allowing for real-time automated responses in chat, Slack, WhatsApp, or SMS.

When Will Einstein Copilot Studio Be Available?

You’ll have to wait a bit: The Einstein Copilot Studio is coming to Salesforce users “this fall.”

However, it will only be available as a pilot program at first, so there’s a chance we’ll see some growing pains for a while after it becomes available.

Salesforce notes that the whole studio will operate within the Einstein Trust Layer, their term for the AI architecture that allows Salesforce tools to power generative AI without exposing sensitive company data.

The tool can be split into three sections: A prompt builder, a skills builder, and a model builder, according to recent statements by Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, to TechCrunch.

“Companies also have the ability to control and designate which workflows they want Copilot to have access to and run,” Shih says, citing a competitor analysis or objection handling as possible tasks an AI could be optimized for.

Will the AI Revolution Pay Off?

Salesforce has an appealing pitch with its new Studio: After all, the main selling point of any AI is that it can do your thinking for you, and an extra-customized, hyper-specific AI that’s just for your business seems like a natural extension of that idea.

Still, there are plenty of pitfalls in the AI arena. AI can often think a little too much for itself, coming up with “AI hallucinations” that can force businesses to start asking who’s responsible for any falsehoods or misrepresentations that an AI could come up with on its own.

Plenty of AI innovators are still trying to find their feet: Even ChatGPT could go bankrupt by next year if it doesn’t lock down a sustainable business plan.

Salesforce has some of the most exciting AI tools around. Let’s hope their investment works out well for everyone.

As is often the case ahead of its major hardware launch events, the Apple Store went down recently in preparation for the arrival of the iPhone 15, Apple Watch Series 9 and other new products. It’s back up now, though, so you can nearly pre-order the iPhone 15.

Normally, the Apple Store being down would be more mysterious, like when ChatGPT is down. In this case, history tells us that Apple always takes its online store offline ahead of its September launch event, which is why a “Be right back.” message took over its website temporarily on Tuesday, September 12.

It has come back now, complete with a range of new gadgets to tempt you. Not all are available to buy just yet, though: iPhone 15 pre-orders open on Friday, September 15 by way of example. Other new iToys are available to buy right away, namely the Apple Watch Series 9.

Apple Store Down as iPhone Launch Looms

The latest Apple Store downtime was entirely planned by Apple, who pulls the same stunt every year when it’s about to launch its next generation of iPhones.

This year’s models fall under the iPhone 15 banner as expected, while the headline software news is the release of iOS 17 into the wild not long after things wind down at Apple Park later today.

Among other things, the iPhone 15 line-up has now adopted a standard issue USB-C charging port, as Apple moves away from its proprietary Lightning port – nudged every so gently by new regulations in Europe.

What Else To Expect at iPhone 15 Launch

That’s not all we’re expecting Apple to have up its sleeve, either. Speaking of sleeves, the smart money is on a pair of new Apple Watches being revealed at today’s press event, with the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 being their potential names based on current convention.

We’ve also been told to expect a raft of new iPhone, Apple Watch, and even AirPods accessories – namely a new USB-C charging case for the AirPods Pro as Apple looks to update multiple products in line with EU requirements.

As ever, the iPhone 15 isn’t likely to be a single device but rather a line-up of new 2023 Apple smartphones, with the standard handset joined by two rumored Pro models. These could feature everything from a new super lightweight titanium frame and thinner bezel to Wi-Fi 6E support and – on the expect top iPhone 15 Pro Max model – up to 6x optical zoom.

Read our iPad guide to find out which one is right for you

When Was the 2023 iPhone Launch Event?

Usually, the Apple Store goes back online just after Apple launches new products. With that in mind, it’s definitely worth knowing when today’s Apple event is taking place.

The iPhone 15 launch took place on Tuesday, September 12 and kicked off at 10:00am local PT / 1:00pm ET in the US, which is 6pm BST in the UK and 7pm in many European countries.

After the proceedings get underway then, all eyes are back on the Apple Store – complete with the option to order or pre-order the latest Apple gadgets.

Also In The News: Dreamforce 2023

Other than getting a job at one of the companies that offer a 4-day work week, landing a position at Google is one the holy grails of modern employment. Is it really all it’s cracked up to be, though? A new report shedding light on how much Google employees earn may have the answer that question.

According to leaked data, Google salaries vary dramatically depending on who you are and where you’re based, with one of the biggest differentiators being a disturbing one: race.

The data shows that Black Google employees earn on average $20,000 less annually than their white co-workers. In addition, women are consistently paid less than men at the company, despite it outwardly priding itself on diversity and inclusion.

The Truth About Google Salaries in 2023

News of Google paying its minority and female staff less was first revealed by Insider and is based on data gleaned from an internal company spreadsheet. The document was compiled independently by Googlers and saw over 12,000 US employees voluntarily share their salary data, along with other relevant information relating to their background, gender, location, job role, and level of seniority.

The numbers were then crunched by Insider to show clear trends in how employees were compensated by Google. On the whole, it doesn’t make for pretty reading, with the average base salary of participating Black/African Google staff sitting at $147,000. This is over $20,000 less than the average salary for employees of White/European descent, which was $171,000.

The same ugly fact reared its head when analyzing average salaries for specific roles. Insider noted that software engineers were particularly well represented in the dataset and used the role as an illustrative example. There, White/European software engineers earned on average $175,000 annually, compared to just $151,500 for their Black/African coworkers.

Google: Data is “Old” and “Inaccurate”

Google, of course, is not exactly thrilled by the report and its findings.

In a statement, the tech giant said that its salaries were based purely on job level and said that the data central to the report wasn’t as trustworthy as its own annual pay equity process.

“We compensate Googlers based on what they do, not who they are. We run a rigorous pay equity analysis every year to make sure salaries, bonuses and equity awards are fair. This spreadsheet has old, self-reported data that has not been verified and is not an accurate representation of compensation across our workforce.” – a Google spokesperson.

If discrepancy were to exist, it would be because there are more senior white software engineers than Black ones, assuming final pay grades are down to seniority and nothing else (as Google would seem to be implying). This is hardly a mitigating factor, however, and points to the wider issue of minorities being underrepresented in leadership positions, as evidenced most visibly by the appalling lack of Black head coaches in the NFL.

Women Also Underpaid at Google?

The data also reveals a significant gender pay gap at Google, with the average female staff member earning a base salary of $165,000 compared to their male counterpart earning $172,500. Equally concerning is the fact that those who identified as neither male or male (so transgender and non-binary Googlers) earned less still, with average base pay of $154,070.

In fairness to Google, it’s worth mentioning that one of the most specific comparisons in the breakdown of Google salaries — between the role of “Male Engineering Manager” and “Female Engineering Manager” — showed a lesser gender pay gap of $1,000. A lesser pay gap is still a pay gap, while also noteworthy in the bigger picture is how much higher Google’s salaries are than that of the average American. Recent Bureau of Labor stats put this at around $57,000.

Google has courted its fair share of controversy recently. It currently stands on the brink of a historic antitrust trial brought by the US Department of Justice, and on the comparatively mundane front of flexible working, has threatened to penalize remote workers if they fail to comply with its return to office mandate.

Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference is underway and it’s one of the biggest events in the tech industry. Here’s everything you need to know about the big Salesforce shindig, including the latest Dreamforce 2023 news, dates, agenda, speakers, last minute ticket details, live stream options, party info and more.

This year, the city of San Francisco is welcoming over 40,000 visitors for the event, with up to 180,000 total Dreamforce attendees as it looks to move back towards pre-pandemic levels of fanfare.  The theme of Dreamforce 2023 is undoubtedly AI, so expect to hear plenty about how one of the best CRMs on the market is adding new features leveraging the technology.

Specifically, Salesforce and larger-than-life CEO Marc Beinhoff promise an opening keynote that will show you how and why it’s poised to “transform the future of your business” with features like EinsteinGPT, its generative AI chatbot that was launched earlier in the year. No pressure, then.

There’s so much more to Dreamforce than just the opening keynote, though, with a jampacked agenda featuring an eclectic line-up of big name speakers: from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Dr Jane Goodall. Then there’s the infamous circuit of Dreamforce parties, headlined by the official Dreamfest bash and Foo Fighters concert today. Read on for full details of this and everything else Dreamforce 2023, including the headline news from this week’s big keynote.

Latest Dreamforce 2023 News: Days 1 and 2

It has been a busy start at Dreamforce 2023, with the Salesforce news coming in fast from San Francisco by way of Tuesday’s keynote from CEO Marc Benioff.

The major announcement out of the Dreamforce keynote on day 1 was that Salesforce has a new generative AI assistant, Einstein Copilot. The Salesforce chatbot will be coming to all of the applications that make up its popular CRM suite and builds further on its recent AI launches, most obviously its initial EinsteinGPT offering, but also SlackGPT and the recently announced Salesforce and IBM AI partnership.

What’s more, enterprise customers will be able customize its Einstein Copilot in Einstein Copilot Studio, which is made up of three elements: a custom prompt builder, skills builder, and model builder. All are interesting, but it’s Skills Builder that’s immediately caught our eye, as it essentially lets you associate specific actions with your custom prompts.

As of day 2, the blockbuster product news may be behind us, but there’s still plenty going on at Dreamforce. The biggest news today, of course, is that Foo Fighters are headlining the Dreamfest 2023 party at the Chase Center. All Dreamforce tickets include entry to the event, though it does have a maximum capacity, so get down early to avoid disappointment.

Don’t miss any more of the Dreamforce action – read on for details of the Dreamforce schedule, parties and more.

Dreamforce 2023 Agenda, Dates and Speakers

Dreamforce 2023 takes place Tuesday, September 12 to Thursday, September 15 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Registration, badge pickup, and certification opens a day earlier on Monday, September 11.

Here’s a quick rundown of the most important Dreamforce 2023 dates and times. All times are Pacific Standard Time (PST).

• Mon, Sept 11: Badge pickup opens (12pm)
• Tues, Sept 12: Main keynote with Marc Beinoff and “special guests” (10-11am)
• Weds, Sept 13: Dreamfest and Foo Fighters concert (6-9.30pm)
• Thurs Sept 14: Dreamforce closes (5pm)

In that time, the Dreamforce agenda is absolutely packed and Salesforce recommends downloading its Salesforce Events app, available for iOS and Android devices, to help you manage your schedule.

Some of the big names speakers at Dreamforce 2023 are Dr Jane Goodall, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, actor Viola Davis, director Spike Lee, actor and Salesforce spokesperson Matthew McConaughey, actor Rainn Wilson, author and businesswoman Arianna Huffington, and many more. You can find the full Dreamforce agenda and schedule here.

Dreamfest 2023: The Biggest Dreamforce Party is Here

The biggest and best Dreamforce event? While we know everyone loves the learning and networking at the main event, it’s always Salesforce’s annual Dreamfest party that steals the show. It’s taking place today (Wednesday, September 13) at the Chase Center and being headlined by a Foo Fighters concert. Tickets for this are included in your main Dreamforce ticket, though note that the concert venue operates different policies to Moscone and the main Dreamfest conference.

Along these lines, our top tip is to get to Dreamfest early, as the Chase has a maximum capacity of around 20,000 for concerts and it’s therefore possible that entry will be closed at some point on Wednesday night.

More Dreamforce 2023 Parties

The other key consideration when finalizing your Dreamforce agenda is Dreamforce parties. You don’t want to miss these, and this week in San Francisco you’ll find everything from free rooftop drinks (the Argano Sunset Social) to breakfast pickleball, boat parties, and a wine and cheese soiree. Credit where credit is due, head to Salesforce Ben for a full list of Dreamforce 2023 parties.

Dreamforce Tickets: Can I Still Attend Dreamforce 2023?

Yes, as of Wednesday morning a handful of “Last Chance” tickets were still listed on the Dreamforce website.

Salesforce pricing has these available for $2,299, which is nearly a grand more than the first batch of “Early Bird” tickets that went on sale at $1,499 earlier in the year. That’s a heck of a lot for two-thirds of the show, but then again it does include a Foo Fighters gig, so who’s really counting?

The only other option you have is try and convince a colleague to let you go in their place. Substitutions were free of charge until the end of August, but will now cost $100 per ticket. That’s still a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a last-minute pass, though.

If all else fails, know that you can still attend Dreamforce digitally using the Salesforce+ service explained above. While we’ll be the first to admit this doesn’t match the experience of seeing the Foos live, it is a free and easy way to follow all of the action from Dreamforce, no matter where you are in the world.

Dreamforce Live Stream: How To Watch Dreamforce 2023 Online for Free

If you’ve missed out on Dreamforce tickets or can’t convince your manager to let you go, don’t worry: it’s easy to get a Dreamforce live stream free online. Dreamforce is very much a hybrid conference with hundreds of thousands expected to tune in virtually, so you’ll be in good company.

This all happens through the Salesforce+ platform, which is 100% free to sign up for and is the digital home of all things Dreamforce 2023. As Salesforce puts it, it’s your “free front-row seat to our biggest global events, like Dreamforce.” All you have to do is sign up with a few basic details and you’re in!

This means you can watch Dreamforce online from the comfort of your home, and as the live stream is coming direct from Salesforce, it’s less essential to use a secure VPN compared to using less reputable streaming sources. That said, there a many other good reasons, from data privacy to finding the best flight deals, to use a VPN for all your online activity.

IBM is the latest big tech firm to issue a return to office mandate, telling employees within 50 miles of a company office to be at their desks at least three days a week starting today.

While there are still plenty of companies that offer remote working, the overall industry trend now seems to be toward a hybrid model, with Big Blue joining fellow tech giants Apple, Google and Meta in issuing the return to office call.

News of IBM’s move comes by way of an internal company blog post dated last week, in which senior executives from its software division put staff on notice of the new requirement and attempt to explain the corporate thinking behind it.

IBM Wants Staff To Have “More Meaningful Time” Together

News of IBM’s return to office mandate comes by way of an internal company blog post seen by the The Reg. Dated September 5, it’s attributed to IBM Software Senior VP for Product Management, Kareem Yusuf, and Senior VP for Products, Dinesh Nirmal.

The executive duo emphasize to staff that they’re “setting the tone” at IBM and that they “must be better stewards of getting into the office” if they want to preserve flexible hybrid working as a whole.

The timeline? IBM employees have scarcely had time to say goodbye to their cat, with the mandate coming into force with just a week’s notice, meaning it kicks off today.

“Starting next week, all IBM Software employees will be required to spend at least 3 days in the office each week. The decision on which days will be left to managers and individual project teams,” the blog adds.

Improved Productivity Behind Shift

As often seems to be the case with corporate return to office mandates, there’s a strong suggestion in IBM’s internal blog that improving productivity is one of the primary motivations for suddenly enforcing physical office time.

“It is vital to our culture and our shared goals – tripling development output, building winning products, and winning new clients – that we spend more meaningful time together, in-person,” the executives write.

What that means in practice is that IBM expects the majority of its software employees to dust off their slacks and be back in the office more often than not over the next few weeks.

“Right now, 1 in 4 of you are working in the office three days a week. By October, we want to see that number closer to 3 in 4. We appreciate your attention and support,” Yusuf and Nirmal say.

In order to help achieve this, IBM will apparently be appointing “Software Executive Focals,” which is code for in-office staff tasked with encouraging their co-workers to make a more “concerted effort” to spend time in the office. Hall monitors, basically.

Some IBM Staff Exempt – For Now

IBM’s return to office mandate is applicable to employees that live within 50 miles of an IBM office. Anyone who lives further is “exempt at this time” from the directive, though the language here suggests it’s only a matter of time.

The blog notes that local employment laws will also be taken into account for the mandate, as it applies globally, with schedules of office days to be determined by managers on an individual team and project basis.

At present, it’s unclear if IBM is planning to implement the return to office mandate for the entire company, or if it will stay confined to the software division. It’s also unknown how IBM plans to monitor its return to office push, beyond individual managers and the specially designated staff for each its physical locations.

Watch this space, as return to office mandates tend to have a habit of precipitating further tech layoffs, as there are typically some staff unwilling to comply with such measures.

Apple has released a security update to address a newly discovered system flaw that’s being ‘actively exploited’ to deliver Pegasus malware to iPhones and iPads.

The invasive spyware was developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group, and has previously been used to access the devices of journalists, and political dissidents.

Toronto’s Citizen Lab, the researchers that discovered the vulnerability, is urging users to update their devices “immediately”. Read on to learn more about the NSO Group’s latest exploit and for instructions on how to install the update.

Apple Releases Security Update to Block Pegasus Spyware

Apple is urging iPhone and iPad users to update their devices to iOS 16.6.1 to protect themselves from a software vulnerability known as BLASTPASS.

According to researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the flaw can be exploited by Pegasus spyware, giving attackers full control of devices, and allowing them to gain access to victims’ text messages, call recordings, camera rolls, and even data from encrypted apps like Signal and WhatsApp.

Pegasus exploits “zero-click” vulnerabilities, meaning that Apple users don’t even need to install software to prompt the attack. The malware can be delivered through images attached to PassKit, sent from a fake iMessage account, making it very hard for users to tell when they’re being surveilled.

“This latest find shows once again that civil society is targeted by highly sophisticated exploits and mercenary spyware.” – Citizen Lab

Citizen Lab first discovered the security gap when they were checking the device of a Washington DC-based civil society employee. After discovering Pegasus’ mercenary spyware on the device, they immediately disclosed their findings to Apple.

The NSO Group first developed Pegasus back in 2011, and the Israeli spyware has since claimed a number of high-profile victims including the president of France Emmanual Macron, and the president of the European Council Charles Michel.

Pegasus tends to be deployed against political opponents and dissidents, making it unlikely for regular users to be targeted. However, if you’re not keen on taking chances, here’s how to protect yourself from the spyware.

How to Install Apple’s Emergency Update

Luckily, installing Apple’s latest security update is very straightforward. All you need to do is:

1. Open up Settings on your iPhone or iPad
2. Select “General” then “Software Update”
3. Click on the iOS 16.5.1 software update

If the update isn’t available on this screen, check your iOS version number under “General” and then “About”. Your device will already be protected if it’s running on the 16.6.1 version.

If you’re serious about evading threats like Pegasus, we’d also recommend using a VPN for an additional layer of security. Read our guide to the best VPNs for iPhone and iOS to discover our best-rated options.

China has reportedly banned government agency officials from using iPhones and other foreign devices, as part of a broader cybersecurity led directive to switch to domestic technology.

News of the ban, alongside China-based Huawei’s unexpected smartphone launch, has been bad news for Apple — with the company’s stock price tumbling by 6.4% in just two days.

This is the latest development in China and the US’s proxy war over technology, with a number of US states taking similar actions to ban TikTok from Government devices this year.

China Extends iPhone Ban For Government Officials

Chinese authorities have ordered officials at government agencies not to bring iPhones and other foreign-branded devices into work with them, according to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal.

Employees were given instructions by their superiors in workplace chat groups or in-person meetings, and the prohibition is reportedly coming into effect this month people familiar with the matter have revealed.

It’s unclear how widely the policy will be implemented, but the order expands on a ban on all foreign smartphones, computers, and operating systems that’s been in place in Beijing-based agencies since 2019.

This latest ban is also more stringent than past crackdowns, representing an increasingly hard-line approach the Chinese government is taking to limit the flow of home-grown data traveling outside of the country.

As China-US relations grow increasingly hostile, Chinese President Xi Jinping has implemented a number of measures in recent years aimed at safeguarding national information. For example, this July, the National People’s Congress (NPC) revised its anti-espionage law, giving Beijing more power than ever before to penalize perceived threats to China’s national security.

How Badly Has Apple Been Hit?

Unfortunately for Apple, China’s latest development has hit its stock evaluation pretty hard. Following China’s latest clampdown, $200bn has been knocked off Apple’s share price, representing a 6% drop.

The news has impacted manufacturers hard too, with the shares of Qualcomm – the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier – dropping by 7% on Friday, and South Korea’s SK Hynix falling by 4% on Friday.

But China’s iPhone ban for government workers isn’t the only hurdle Apple’s faced this month. Last week, Chinese-based smartphone manufacturer Huawei unexpectedly launched its Mate 60 Pro smartphone – an iPhone rival with a powerful new 5G Kirin 9000s processor.

The Seattle-based manufacturer still boasts the world’s highest stock evaluation, so despite stock market turbulence it’s safe to say its monopoly isn’t going away any time soon.

However, with iPhone sales continuing to dip, and Beijing reportedly preparing to invest $40 billion in its chip-making industry, it’s likely that Apple will face growing competition from China’s Huawei going forward.

US and China’s Proxy War Continues

While China has been taking a hastened approach to data security for years, it’s likely its latest order is in retaliation to similar measures deployed by US officials.

In March, the US government came one step closer to banning the Beijing-based social media platform TikTok over concerns that the app is a threat to national security. If the proposed bill is put through, US President Joe Biden will have the authority to prohibit its commercial use across the country.

Due to the explosive popularity of the app, most experts believe a nationwide ban will be unlikely. But with several US states including Texas, New York, and Nebraska already banning TikTok on state-issued devices, it’s clear the US is matching China’s hardline approach to national data security.

If you’re a white-collar worker, now might be a good time to assess your career options — with new research from Forrester predicting that 2.4 million US jobs are expected to be replaced by generative AI by 2030.

Those with salaries over $90,000 stand the greatest chance of having their job replaced altogether, with legal, scientific, and administrative professions being identified as the highest risk.

In a rare win for creatives, the report found that artistic fields are much more likely to incorporate AI into their current roles, while blue-collar professions in construction and transportation may remain virtually untouched. Read on to see what Forrester’s report reveals about the fate of your job:

White Collar Workers: AI is Coming For Your Job

The AI takeover may not be as bad as once feared — unless you’re working a white-collar job — according to a new report by IT research company Forrester.

The company’s 2023 Generative AI Impact Forecast predicts that 2.4 million US jobs will be replaced by 2030, a dwarfed figure in comparison to the 300 million full-time jobs that Goldman Sachs forecasted would be lost to automation in April of this year.

However, those on salaries of $90,000 or more will be bearing the brunt of AI much more than those on lower incomes due to the high automation potential of professional tasks.

For example, the research found that 78% of legal occupations could become obsolete by 2023, with this potion dropping to 61% for science researchers and 57% for administrative roles.

Percentage of roles likely to be lost to AI by 2023. Source: forrester.com

Forrester’s latest findings don’t come as a major surprise, with mounds of previous research highlighting the impact AI will have on many white-collar workers. Yet, with the research company likening the deep social challenges that may result to those experienced in the postindustrial Rust Belt, the report is still likely to raise alarm bells for many US high-salaried workers.

But fortunately, not all job replacements will come at a loss. The research firm also predicts that the technology will be able to fill many workplace gaps that have existed in frontline industries since the 2020 pandemic.

Creative Industries Are Safe for Now

Forrester’s research also found that generative AI is likely to influence a grand total of 11 million jobs by 2023, making the tech 4.5 more likely to reshape a role than stamp it out altogether.

Generative AI is expected to transform jobs in a number of ways, including by giving workers opportunities to upskill and retrain, as well as simplifying business workflows through automation.

According to the report, creative professionals like poets, writers, and editors are less likely than white-collar workers to have their jobs replaced altogether as their skill sets are harder to replicate. Instead, Forester predicts that the nature of these jobs will evolve as AI tools become further embedded in our daily practices.

How to Get AI Implementation Right

AI is already uprooting the business landscape in major ways, with our own research revealing that 47% of business leaders are currently considering using AI over new hires.

But while failing to embrace AI fast enough is a valid concern, doing so without adequate guardrails could open your business up to numerous risks including poor AI performance, negative employee experiences, and security issues.

While it’s impossible to account for every contingency, to sidestep major pitfalls Forrester outlines the importance of building an informed generative strategy. According to the research firm, here are some major factors businesses should consider:

• Invest in the robot quotient (RQ) – RQ is a measure that evaluates your company’s readiness for robotic process automation. Self-assessing your team under this criteria will help you focus on which areas will benefit the most from AI automation.
• Prioritize augmentation – Enhancing roles with AI tools instead of replacing roles with technology will have a much more beneficial outcome on your business.
• Identify which jobs will benefit from AI the most – AI doesn’t assist all roles evenly. Analyzing which jobs will benefit the most will ensure that experience and precision don’t get lost in your transformation efforts.
• Hire or upskill to fill AI gaps – Most companies currently lack adequate AI know-how, so hiring or upskilling workers with relevant skills like prompt generation will be a solid return on investment.

To learn more about how to get AI implementation right, read our guide on important AI principles, guidelines, and frameworks to consider in 2023.

In April 2013 I launched a Tumblr for science fiction art from the 70s. I had no social or mobile presence, I had no marketing experience, and no one knew who I was on the site.

A few months ago, 70s Sci-Fi Art passed 350,000 followers, right around the time my art book on retro science fiction book cover illustration, Worlds Beyond Time, launched. Across all my social media accounts, I’m inching closer to a million followers, with around 900,000.

These days, with traffic on Twitter/X continuing a steady decline, many of the most internet-poisoned among us are reconsidering our approach to social media. Should we even bother finding another platform to doom-scroll through, allowing its engagement-optimized algorithm to bombard us with contextless emotion-ridden content?

There’s another way: Pick a quieter social platform, and reach for success with a sustainable, less frenetic environment. Start a Tumblr blog.

Flashback to the Mid-2010s: Another Era in Social Media

In 2015, 70s Sci-Fi Art reached 50,000 followers after growing steadily for two years. Tumblr was possibly 2015’s hottest social network, although this is something that I don’t recall many people highlighting at the time.

But just look at the numbers: Tumblr topped 100 billion posts on January 3rd of 2015; it was Buzzfeed’s biggest source of content (Remember The Dress? That was in 2015, and they found it from Tumblr); and over 70% of Tumblr’s audience fell into the coveted 16–34 demographic.

Despite Tumblr’s obvious worth, it was (and still is) often overlooked by brands with the requisite accounts on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram. Tumblr has a problem: it’s insular.

Anyone can start a Tumblr blog in five minutes, but they’ll have no followers. They can’t import any from Facebook or Google; they must either tag their posts and hope someone randomly searches Tumblr for them, or they must like and reblog others in the hope that those users will notice them. The operative word here? “Hope.”

Sure, regular and high quality content will always grow a Tumblr, just as quality works on any platform. But even then, growth is slow, with more small niches than large blogs.

Some specialty Tumblrs have taken off quickly, but a trajectory that takes a user   from zero to 50,000 followers in two years  is very rare. Tumblr doesn’t release statistics on individual blogs, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it usually takes years for a moderately popular Tumblr user to break 1,000 followers.

My journey that started with Tumblr ten years ago, has led to the publication of my book, Worlds Beyond Time.

It’s Tumblr’s lack of traffic-driving infrastructure that deters marketing professionals.

But in 2023, we’re all tired of nonstop news feeds: Tumblr’s insularity is starting to look a lot more like a feature than a bug. And you can still go viral on the platform, even if that looks different.

A Few Tips for Blogging Success on Tumblr

Now, as you can tell from the title, this isn’t a guide to success on Tumblr.

I could write one. Post between seven and ten times a day, emphasize images, keep a 50/50 ratio of reblogged to original content, and use the ‘queue’ feature extensively. But those are only best practices. I didn’t become a success by following any of them.

The truth is, I can’t tell anyone how to replicate my success… and that’s a problem for anyone who wants to explore Tumblr.

That doesn’t mean I can’t shed some light, though. Here’s my attempt to break down the nebulous secret to true popularity among specialty Tumblrs.

1. Winning concept

I know, right? This isn’t actionable at all. You need a concept that everyone wants to see, but no one else has invented yet. Good luck!

For my Tumblr, a couple factors worked in my favor: a hint of nostalgia and eye-catching visuals. More importantly, no one else had recognized my exact niche.

I probably wouldn’t have picked up speed as fast if I had focused on “retro” instead of “70s” art. The added specificity creates curiosity, and since I care about the difference between the two, I was able to prove that 70s sci-fi art deserves its own venue.

One more note: all the reasons my concept worked were the same as the reasons I wanted to start it in the first place. Make sure you’re as passionate as you hope your audience will be.

2. Digestible format

Whatever your concept, it must be clear, and I mean crystal clear. I didn’t name my url “spaceandstarships” or “thefutureofyesterday.” Keywords are a must.

This is most important on social media even when compared to related forms of writing. My art book has a less clear title, Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-fi Art Of The 1970s, although that subtitle includes the same keywords.

For a time, 70s Sci-Fi Art was the first result for a Google search of “sci-fi art” (It’s currently in the top five), and I wouldn’t have gotten that with a less specific name.

Users need to be able to instantly understand what your Tumblr does, either from the url or from the first post they see.

3. Branch out

Sticking with one social media platform is putting all your eggs in a single basket. And you never know when a weird billionare will buy that basket for $40 billion and make a bunch of bad business decisions with it.

I added Facebook and Twitter in 2015, using an IFTTT app to auto-post from my Tumblr. I’ve since added Instagram and even Pinterest, although I have switched away from IFTTT as their free tier was pared down, and I now use a full-blown social media management service to handle it all, complete with image alt text.

Having a big audience on one platform makes it a lot easier to grow an audience on another. I now have over 900,000 followers across all platforms, and all without much more work than I would have done for one platform. That audience helped me sell my art collection: Publishers are looking for safe bets now more than ever.

And that’s all my advice. It’s vague and slightly recursive, but hey, I told you that I couldn’t show you exactly how to shoot to the top.

Follow those three rules perfectly, add the best Tumblr practices you can find elsewhere, and you have truly done all you can.

You may never take off, but if you have a fun idea and a little spare time one evening, I’d recommend giving it a try anyway. You don’t need to have dozens of thousands of followers to enjoy running a bizarre Tumblr about, say, rejected newspaper headline puns.

This article is an expanded, updated version of an article that first ran on Medium in 2015.

State-mandated paid leave plans are on the rise across the US: Colorado is the latest state to create regulation surrounding this job benefit, with laws set to kick in next year.

By 2026, four more states – Delaware, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota – will have joined as well, bringing the total number up to 18 states across the nation.

If your own state isn’t on that list, it might be next. That’s why smart businesses are already looking at adding or expanding their paid leave programs in order to stay ahead of the legally mandated minimums.

What Paid Leave Laws Tend to Focus On

The exact paid leave coverage will vary by state — the “seriousness” of an employee’s health condition might be tracked in different ways, although injury and maternity are typically covered.

Some state laws cover a set period of time following a child’s birth, adoption, or fostering, and states are increasingly likely to cover paid leave taken on behalf of a family member who is dealing with a serious health issue of their own.

Speaking at a Disability Management Employer Coalition webinar that was recently covered by HR Dive, Tom Foschino, vice president of accident and health at Arch Insurance Group, discussed the rising number of states with mandated paid leave.

“You can see this is really starting to catch on more and more here. There are a lot of things that you as an employer need to be looking out for when you have employees across these different states.”

Will We Get a Federal Paid Leave Law Anytime Soon?

No, we’re probably not getting a nationwide paid leave mandate, at least in the near future.

That’s not for a lack of trying. Most recently, a paid family leave provision was slipped into the “Build Back Better Act,” which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2021. It was replace by a condensed version after Senator Joe Manchin rejected the original, and even that shortened edition of the provision didn’t ultimately make its way into law.

Sadly, we’ll be stuck with the much more complex raft of state-by-state regulator sticking points and loop holes for the foreseeable future — making the US the only industrialized country in the world to lack national paid leave regulations.

Don’t Forget to Bring Up Paid Leave at Your Next Job Interview

By 2026, the number of US states with mandated paid leave requirements will reach 18.

That’s enough to set an expectation for bolstered paid leave everywhere in the nation, particularly for any companies that have a workforce on the same payroll across more than one state.

If your company isn’t leaving all the HR management protocols to a third-party company like an EoR or hiring agency, you’ll have to figure out how to navigate all the new mandates yourself.

Online retailers offering deals is nothing new. In fact, it’s one of the biggest ways technology impacts our daily lives in 2023. However, upstart Chinese-owned digital retailer Temu is selling stuff so cheaply it has bargain hunters worrying it’s too good to be true. Is Temu legit or a scam? That’s the question many shoppers are asking right now, so read on as we bring you up to speed on the viral megastore and what Temu is.

You’ve probably seen Temu ads pop up in your social media feed and Google searches by now, even if you haven’t realized it. Thanks to its rock bottom prices, the retailer’s popularity has boomed since its launch in late-2022 and it’s currently the top shopping app on the iOS and Android app stores, sitting ahead of ecommerce giants like Amazon, eBay and Walmart.

Like Amazon, it sells pretty much anything (legal) you can imagine, just at ludicrously low prices. To use the humble USB cable as an example, you can get an Amazon Basics one for around $10-20, but on Temu you’re talking $2 or $3. That’s why so many people are skeptical of it. Now let’s dive a little deeper and explain Temu and how legitimate it is in the bigger picture.

Temu Primer: Why is Temu So Cheap?

Temu is a super cheap online retailer that sells everything from electronics and clothing to car accessories, garden furniture, and cosmetics.

It’s based out of China, where it’s owned by a company called PDD Holdings. It’s so cheap because its business model sees it working with a network of direct suppliers to offer goods to consumers at wholesale prices, which allows it to undercut the competition. But as we explore more later, it’s also thought that Temu is so cheap because it’s using a “loss leader” strategy where it’s OK with losing money in exchange for market share.

As well as being ultra-affordable, it has quickly established itself as a global player, with shipping offered to the US, most of Europe (including the UK), Australia, and much of Asia. It has doubled down on its push for international exposure by way of its savvy “Shop Like a Billionaire” marketing campaign, paying for a high profile Super Bowl spot in addition to its regular social media and Google ads.

Of course, that doesn’t make Temu legit and there’s plenty you probably want to know before ordering from it. Now let’s answer the big question: is Temu safe?

Is Temu Legit and Safe To Order From?

That’s the big question and the short answer is yes, Temu is legit. Among other things, this is indicated by the fact it sits atop the iOS and Android app store rankings. An out-and-out fraudulent retailer would have been removed by now, but instead Temu has tens of thousands of positive reviews. It has plenty of negative ones, too, but it’s safe to say that Temu is not a scam.

In fact, it looks just like any other online retailer in 2023, complete with its Temu Credits loyalty and referral scheme. If you order from Temu, it’s likely you’ll get what you paid for. We say “likely” because there’s an element of risk involved in all online shopping, especially when it comes to shipping and the timely delivery of your products.

Based on our research into Temu, the main thing you should be aware of it that its shipping times are much longer than those of Amazon. What you’re getting is, in all likelihood, coming from China, so you won’t be getting it those knock off AirPods the next day – you’re probably looking at closer to 10 days in total, as a general rule of thumb.

Temu Shipping Times and Delivery Reviews

Temu clearly advertises shipping times on individual listing pages and while delays aren’t exactly unheard of, most products are delivered on time – around 80%, based on our experience browsing Temu for lip balm mega savings. It also compensates for late deliveries, according to its website. There are plenty of complaints about Temu on the Better Bureau Business website, but it’s worth noting here that most people who post there aren’t satisfied customers, whatever the company. Along these lines, Temu’s 2.51/5 rating is actually better than that of Amazon, which is a measly 1.16/5 at the time of writing.

Rather than just rely on third-party reports, though, we’ve ordered a car charger from Temu and will update this article based on our experience of the retailer soon.

A final caveat here is that Temu is allegedly losing millions to establish itself in the US and elsewhere. A “loss leader” strategy is when a company accepts not making a profit immediately, as long as it’s gaining market share. It’s a common but risky strategy when businesses first enter a competitive market. While it’s backed by a Chinese tech giant (PDD), that’s not to say it can’t fail, and retailers shuttering have a much more mixed track record when it comes to delivering on promises.

What’s Not Legit About Temu?

Well, that depends on who you ask.

Much suspicion around Temu revolves around the fact its parent company, PDD, also owns Pinduoduo. It’s another global Chinese retailer that specializes in cheap agricultural equipment, but its reputation has been tarnished by a suspension from the Google Play Store over malware and concerns about working conditions after two employee deaths went viral a couple of years ago.

The US government has previously raised concerns over the human cost of Chinese “fast fashion” in general, highlighting that just because Temu is safe, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily ethical. It’s doubly true if you believe in supporting independent retailers, as the latest data shows online mega stores like Amazon squeezing smaller ecommerce businesses to the point of collapse.

All of which ties in with broader suspicion in the US over Chinese companies, with Montana Governor Greg Gianforte listing Temu as among the “foreign adversaries” whose apps should be banned on all government issued devices over data privacy fears. With cars tracking their owners sex lives, it’s a fair enough thing to wonder.

Are Temu Products Good Quality?

Sure, though they’re also what you would expect from goods that only cost a few bucks.

Much of what’s for sale on Temu is generic, meaning that while goods might look a bit similar to name brand items, they’re usually not. Unless you get really lucky at TJ Maxx, you probably won’t get a real pair of Nike sneakers for under $50, so don’t expect the same quality.

Where Temu does sell name brand goods, these are designated with a blue checkmark. Beyond that, there’s plenty of cool and useful stuff available on Temu, just don’t expect it to be made by anyone you’ve heard of.

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