1. From the department of super-genius ideas
Sergey Brin wants Googlers to work 60 hours a week in the office, so the company can develop AGI, which will then mean they can make more of their employees unemployed.
Sure, sounds like a great deal to me!
Of course, Brin also thought parachuting into the event where Google Glass was announced was also a great idea. So there is that.
2. Framework new stuff looks neato
Framework, which makes laptops which can actually be upgraded, repaired and generally played around with, has announced several new products, all of which look really quite good.
At some point in the not too distant future I will have to replace my old Linux laptop – it’s got a couple of years of life left in it, but it won’t last forever. At that point I’ll be getting a Framework.
3. Retreating from iCloud? This is why Proton is a good option
Proton, the Swiss company that makes privacy-focused email, storage and other services, has written about the UK’s lame attempt to get Apple to break its end-to-end encryption measures. They make it clear their approach would be different: they will not compromise their encryption, and will not prevent UK-based users from accessing their services.
The reason they can do is comes down to Switzerland:
We can take these stances because of the strong legal protections we receive as a Swiss company. The Swiss Federal Constitution explicitly establishes a right to privacy, and unlike other democracies, Switzerland has never considered legislation targeting end-to-end encryption. Switzerland is also not a part of EU or US jurisdiction, meaning that even if those governments pass laws that weaken end-to-end encryption, they would not be enforceable in Switzerland.
Proton aren’t the only company that still provides end-to-end encrypted storage, but they are one of the few which are effectively beyond the reach of laws like the UKs.
4. Xcode, (don’t) phone home
And speaking of privacy, which in these dark times we must, if you develop using Xcode on the Mac you may not be aware that the software is pretty-much constantly sending data to Apple.
Jeff Johnson was curious about some of the times that compiling his apps took, and found it was essentially spending 50 seconds of a 56.8 second build waiting for a response from an Apple server. The more he delved into the details of what Xcode was communicating, the worse it got.
In the end, he came to a simple conclusion: “Xcode is a developer analytics collection mechanism, whether you like it or not, which I don’t.”
5. So long Skype
In yet another chapter of tech's constant reshuffling of digital real estate, Microsoft has announced the retirement of Skype, a platform that once promised to revolutionise how we connected. Come May 2025, the service that introduced millions to video calling will fade into the digital sunset, replaced by the consumer version of Microsoft Teams. Yes. Teams.
The transition offers existing users a relatively painless migration path – contacts, message histories and group chats will transfer seamlessly to Teams with no new account required. Alternatively, users can export their data to venture elsewhere in the digital communications landscape.
What's notably vanishing is Skype's telephony functionality – the ability to call traditional phone numbers both domestically and internationally. Microsoft's executives frame this as responding to evolving usage patterns, with Vice President Amit Fulay noting that higher bandwidth and cheaper data plans have rendered such services increasingly obsolete as users shift to VoIP.
The retirement marks not just a product transition, but the quiet end of an era in digital communication. I remember when Skype first started offering plans which – for just a few bucks – gave you unlimited calls anywhere in the world. For a journalist who spent their life calling people up, that was a big deal.
6. All watched over by machines of venomous indifference
As millions of workers are summoned back to their offices, an unsettling surveillance infrastructure awaits them. Sophie Charara's WIRED investigation reveals a landscape where warehouse-style employee tracking has infiltrated white-collar environments. From under-desk sensors and ceiling-mounted cameras to WiFi networks that monitor movement patterns, employers are deploying increasingly invasive technologies to track productivity, attendance, and behaviour.
The justification—preventing "time theft"—masks deeper motivations: distrust, control, and preparation for AI-driven job cuts. Yet research consistently shows these systems damage trust, increase anxiety, and fundamentally misunderstand what makes knowledge work effective.
When employers begin from a position of suspicion, workers reciprocate with disengagement. As one expert notes, the relationship becomes purely transactional: "If you don't trust me, I'm not going to trust you." This erosion of workplace culture may be the surveillance state's most damaging consequence for business.
7. Grok blocks posts saying Trump or Musk spread misinformation
Grok, the AI part of X, got caught spinning responses in a way which prevented it from surfacing posts which accused either Elon Musk or Donald Trump of spreading misinformation:
Grok, Elon Musk’s ChatGPT competitor, temporarily refused to respond with “sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation,” according to xAI’s head of engineering, Igor Babuschkin.
Babuschkin promptly claimed this was an error, throwing an unnamed engineer under the bus:
In response to questions on X, Babuschkin said that Grok’s system prompt (the internal rules that govern how an AI responds to queries) is publicly visible “because we believe users should be able to see what it is we’re asking Grok.” He said “an employee pushed the change” to the system prompt “because they thought it would help, but this is obviously not in line with our values.”
There’s two different ways of looking at this, and a lot will depend on how you feel about Musk and/or Twitter/X. The first is positive – that Grok (unlike every other LLM you can think of) publishes their system prompts and so there’s a much greater level of transparency.
However, this depends on you actually trusting Musk/X – and a lot of people don’t trust him more than they can throw him. After all, could this just be a case of something being revealed that shouldn’t, but that’s actually in use in a hidden set of prompts?
Giving Musk the benefit of the doubt feels unwise, given the fact he consistently lies or uses half-truths about almost everything, from his involvement in the founding of Tesla through to how many kids he has.
8. Digital disillusionment
Joan Westenberg captures the exhaustion of faux technological progress, where "innovation" means forcing QR code menus and extractive apps into every crevice of daily life. She articulates a growing weariness with tech that promises efficiency while delivering complexity, surveillance, and isolation.
As she points out, what’s currently being positioned as heretical "Luddism" is actually a rational response to technology that's creating problems and then selling subscription solutions to fix them.
Joan rejects the false binary between embracing Silicon Valley's vision and returning to the 1800s—she'd happily rewind to 2003, before Facebook colonised our social lives.
This post will resonate with anyone who's ever longed for a world less mediated, less optimised, and more fundamentally human. She embraces tech skepticism as clarity, not fear. And she’s right.
9. A degoogle’d tablet that actually doesn’t suck
The iPhone remains a beautifully crafted digital fortress (unless EU regulations have opened your particular gate) whilst Android has largely abandoned its open-source promises, in spirit if not (yet in fact). For those concerned with digital privacy, this means installing alternative systems like GrapheneOS or Murena – essentially "de-Googled" versions of Android that return control to your hands.
Thankfully, this digital liberation isn't the technical gauntlet it once was. You can now purchase devices with these privacy-focused alternatives pre-installed, sparing yourself the technical tinkering. Whilst mobile phones led this quiet revolution, tablets have lagged behind – until now.
Murena has begun offering Google's rather impressive Pixel Tablet with its privacy-respecting operating system pre-installed. It comes with full warranty protection, ongoing support, and retains all the qualities that make the hardware quite good. It’s just not going to be telling Google exactly what you are doing every few seconds.