Abigail Avery

Microsoft Project vs Smartsheet: Best Choice for 2026

Important update: Microsoft Project Online will retire on September 30, 2026.  Project for the web, along with Project and Roadmap apps in Microsoft Teams, will transition to Microsoft Planner.  If you are evaluating Microsoft Project, consider how these updates may affect long-term use and feature availability. I’ve used both Microsoft Project and Smartsheet extensively, and…

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Siri AI Hands On: A Smart, Helpful Assistant

I quickly found that Siri AI’s bite-sized replies don’t drone on endlessly like many contemporary AI assistants, often sticking to a single paragraph. When I verbally asked for a nice beach hike route to see the sunrise near the Golden Gate Bridge, it succinctly recommended a popular trail in the Presidio neighborhood as well as…

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Signal’s Meredith Whittaker wants you to remember that AI chatbots ‘are not your friends’

Asked about the privacy implications of chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude, Signal President Meredith Whittaker answered, “These are not your friends. These are not conscious beings. These are not sentient interlocutors.” Whittaker made those comments in a broader interview with Bloomberg about policy, privacy, and Signal. She acknowledged that she uses AI tools “to format…

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Microsoft to end support for Office 2021 this year

It’s official: Microsoft is terminating future support for its popular Office 2021 suite of productivity applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. While the computing giant claims that your apps “may continue to function,” it also warns of exposure to “serious and potentially harmful security risks” if you continue using their now unsupported software after Oct….

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Apple Patches Beats Studio Buds Wiretap Flaw

Your earbuds should not become someone else’s microphone. Apple released Beats Firmware Update 1B211 on June 16 to fix a Bluetooth vulnerability in Beats Studio Buds that could have let an attacker within range listen through the earbuds’ microphone while the device was unpaired and actively seeking a connection. The issue, tracked as CVE-2025-20701, highlights…

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Apple fixes a Beats Studio Buds flaw that let hackers listen to conversations

In its most recent firmware update for Beats headphones, 1B211, Apple fixed a terrifying security flaw that allowed malicious actors to potentially eavesdrop on private conversations within Bluetooth range of the brand’s popular Studio Buds.  According to reporting by Sead Fadilpašić of TechRadar, it was actually the third-party security firm ERNW and its researchers, Dennis…

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