Month: July 2026

Google previews Android Halo: smart agents could reach the status bar

Android Halo would give software agents their own place in the status bar, with live updates pinned at the top of your screen. Google has only previewed it so far, but reports say it’s slated to arrive later this year.

The idea is simple enough: you wouldn’t have to keep bouncing from app to app to see what an agent is doing. Halo sits there as a persistent, easy-to-glance-at dashboard. If an agent is booking something, checking on a request, or waiting for one last detail from you, it can show progress, ask a follow-up, and then deliver the result, all while making it clear whether it’s still working in the background, needs input, or is done.

Google seems to be treating Halo as part of Android itself, a built-in channel that could push things past the usual one-app-at-a-time model. And it isn’t limited to Google Gemini. Third-party agents are expected to plug into Android Halo too, which would give developers one shared way to surface services across apps.

If you already use assistants in a few different apps, this is one to keep an eye on. Google says Halo will depend on containerized access inside isolated virtual windows for security and privacy, along with AppFunctions API hooks and UI automation for apps that don’t support it directly. That combination could spread fast. It’s also the part that has privacy advocates uneasy.

You can’t download Android Halo yet. It’s coming to Android, it’ll almost certainly draw comparisons to Apple Live Activities, and reports say it could land later this year, possibly alongside Android 17.

Apple Watch drops Force Touch with watchOS 7

Apple has updated the Apple Watch to watchOS 7, and Force Touch is gone. It was originally there to make better use of the watch’s tiny display: press firmly and you’d bring up contextual menus, watch face options, and other hidden controls. Now Apple has switched it off across the system, even on older Apple Watch models that still have the hardware for it.

The iPhone got Haptic Touch when Apple moved on from 3D Touch. The Apple Watch doesn’t get that kind of replacement. A lot of those actions now live in visible menus, settings screens, or longer paths that take a few extra steps.

If you used firm presses regularly, you’ll notice the difference. Things that used to take one quick press can now mean more tapping and more scrolling, even if Apple had already been steering developers away from hidden actions and toward visible controls as Apple Watch screens got bigger.

It also feels like a divisive move, but a very Apple one. One of the Apple Watch’s early defining features disappeared almost overnight.

You can get watchOS 7 through the Watch app on your iPhone, as long as your Apple Watch model is supported.

Apple Hide My Email flaw reportedly remains unfixed a year later

Apple’s Hide My Email, the iCloud+ feature that lets you create email aliases, still appears to have a privacy flaw that could connect an alias back to a real address. Researcher Tyler Murphy reported it in June 2025, and more than a year later, the issue still hasn’t been fixed.

Apple has reportedly acknowledged the flaw. Beyond that, not much is public. The details are being withheld, so it’s still unclear how easy the bug is to exploit, whether it requires any user interaction, or how many people it could affect.

If you use Hide My Email for anything beyond filtering spam, pay attention.

A leaked alias can apparently be tied back to your identity through data brokers and people-search services. That matters a lot if the point is to avoid harassment, stalking, or doxxing.

And this isn’t some edge-case feature. Apple bundles Hide My Email with iCloud+, you can use it for sign-ups, and about 55% of iOS Mail users had it turned on in 2023. It’s useful, sure, but it shouldn’t be mistaken for real anonymity. Apple has also provided account-linked data in response to legal requests.

Hide My Email works through iCloud+ on Apple devices and on the web. New aliases are also expected to shift to @private.icloud.com, a change critics say could make those addresses easier to spot or block, so until Apple patches this, you may want to think twice about how much protection the feature really gives you.

Android 17 tightens lock screen security: guess limit drops to 20

Android 17 tightens up lock-screen security on supported phones by cutting failed passcode attempts down to 20 total. That’s a big drop from the current setup, where an attacker could stretch roughly 1,800 guesses over five years.

The new limits ramp up fast. You get about six wrong tries in the first minute, seven within six minutes, eight within 25 minutes, and around 12 across a full day. Hit 20 total failed attempts, and the device locks for good.

There’s one small exception: if you keep typing the same wrong PIN, Android 17 doesn’t treat every repeat as a separate attempt.

The target here is pretty obvious. Google wants to make brute-force attacks a lot less practical, especially against weak PINs like birthdays or easy patterns with repeated digits.

Android 17 also brings clearer lockout messages that show wait times in minutes, plus a recovery shortcut right on the lock screen. And this sits inside a wider security push from Google: a tougher Mark as lost feature in Find Hub with biometric locking, on-device Live Threat Detection, tighter parental controls, and new rules around local network permissions.

If you’re still using a simple PIN, this is an update you’ll probably want. The trade-off is that the stricter lockouts could be a pain if you’re the one who forgets your code.

These changes arrive as part of Android 17 once the update rolls out to supported Android devices.

PlayStation Store on PS3 and Vita is shutting down: worldwide by 2027

Sony has now put a timetable on the end of the PlayStation Store for PS3 and PS Vita. Starting in August 2026, new digital purchases on both older platforms will be phased out by region, with the rollout beginning in select countries and ending in a worldwide shutdown in July 2027.

PlayStation App Download

The first round starts in August 2026 in Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Later in 2026, Sony will expand the closure to more markets across Latin America and the Middle East. By July 2027, the shutdown goes global. Once your regional store closes, you won’t be able to buy games, DLC, or any other digital content through it.

Sony says games and media you’ve already bought should still be available to download for the foreseeable future. Its explanation is pretty simple: the older hardware no longer fits current e-commerce and payment requirements, and the company is shifting resources toward PlayStation 5. The move also brings back the same concerns people raised in 2021, when Sony tried to shut these stores down and then reversed course, especially for digital-only PS3 and PS Vita games. That matters even more with new physical disc releases ending in January 2028.

If you still use a PS3 or PS Vita for digital-only games and add-ons, it’s probably worth picking up anything you’ve been meaning to buy while you still can. You can keep buying from the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita storefronts on the consoles themselves until your region hits its cutoff date. After that, Sony says you should still be able to re-download the stuff you already own.

PlayStation confirms digital-only games from 2028: new discs will end

Starting in January 2028, PlayStation says all newly released first-party and third-party games on its platforms will be digital only. New disc releases are ending.

PlayStation App Download

Sony ties the decision to the way people already buy games. In fiscal Q4 2025, 85% of full PS4 and PS5 game sales were digital, according to the company. Going all-digital also cuts out the cost of manufacturing discs, printing packaging, shipping stock, and selling through retail, while giving Sony tighter control over pricing and promotions. Once the cutoff arrives, the boxed PlayStation games you see in stores will likely turn into code-in-box products. Grand Theft Auto 6 could be one of the first major examples, if reports about a physical edition with only a download code turn out to be accurate.

If you still buy discs regularly, this matters. A smaller disc market means a weaker used-game business, and it brings back the usual concerns around digital ownership: in a lot of cases, you’re buying a license rather than permanent ownership. Sony’s earlier StudioCanal removals already showed how that can play out. Preservation gets harder too if storefronts shut down, games are delisted, or rights change hands.

The switch will also hit harder in parts of Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, where large downloads can be expensive or unreliable. Same goes if you rely on offline installs, or if you simply prefer collecting and archiving your games.

PlayStation says the policy applies to new PlayStation game releases starting in January 2028.

OD reportedly survives Xbox reset: Kojima’s horror project stays safe

Kojima PrODuctions’ OD, the Xbox-backed horror project, reportedly made it through Microsoft’s 2024–2025 cuts, according to several reports, even as the company keeps reshaping its gaming business.

Xbox Download

Those same reports say the Kojima Productions game is still moving ahead under Xbox through the 2024–2025 cuts. That’s happening while at least five studios are reportedly facing closure or a sale, IO Interactive’s publishing deal for Project Fantasy has reportedly been dropped, and neither Microsoft nor Kojima Productions has publicly confirmed where OD stands.

For anyone watching Xbox closely, OD looks like one of the clearest projects to survive. Sources cited by established outlets say Microsoft is treating it as a prestige exception. The reasoning is pretty easy to follow: Kojima Productions is attached, Jordan Peele is involved, the project has marquee value Microsoft may want to keep inside its own ecosystem, and the cloud-based concept was originally pitched as a showcase for Microsoft tech.

The pressure behind these cuts is hard to miss. Reports point to Microsoft’s fiscal Q3 2026 gaming revenue falling 6.6% year over year, with Xbox hardware down 33%. Other reports cite an internal memo saying annual gaming revenue had fallen by nearly $500 million over five years. Margins were said to be around 3%, and Microsoft has already gone through thousands of layoffs.

If you were worried OD might be next, this is at least a sign it may not be, though nothing official has been said yet. Hideo Kojima has said other companies thought the idea was too “crazy,” but Phil Spencer’s Xbox went for it. For now, OD is still an Xbox project.

The Odyssey gets an official Roblox game today: a free, 18+ tie-in

The Odyssey: Defy the Gods, a free survival sailing adventure on Roblox, went live today as Universal’s official tie-in to Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey.

Roblox Download

In The Odyssey: Defy the Gods, you sail through rough seas and run into threats pulled from Homer’s epic. It doubles as an early glimpse at the world of The Odyssey, Nolan’s first movie since Oppenheimer. The cast includes Matt Damon, Tom Holland, and Zendaya, and the film hits theaters on July 17, 2026.

What’s getting more attention, though, is the age rating. Roblox has marked The Odyssey: Defy the Gods as 18+, in line with The Odyssey’s R rating, even though the platform is still packed with younger players. Roblox says it has age verification, parental controls, and content labels in place. Critics don’t think those safeguards fully solve the problem, and the response so far has split in two directions: some people find the whole pairing kind of funny, others are uneasy about how moderation will hold up.

For anyone who keeps an eye on movie-game crossovers, this one is probably worth a look. Universal has already used Roblox for How to Train Your Dragon and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Hollywood keeps coming back to Roblox and Fortnite when it wants a promotional push.

You can play it now on Roblox for free.

Qustodio Download

Total War: Warhammer 3 gets Update 9.0: End Times crises are here

Creative Assembly has pushed Total War: Warhammer 3 to version 9.0, and the big change is in Immortal Empires. The late game has been reworked around a new End Times system.

The old endgame crises mostly just dumped extra armies onto the map. Total War: Warhammer 3 now gives Immortal Empires something with more shape and more personality: an upgraded Vermintide, a Nagash-focused crisis, and an Archaon-led invasion. Archaon is brutally hard to kill until his lieutenants are dealt with, he can turn provinces into uninhabitable wastelands, and he can confederate any Chaos faction.

If you’re playing as Archaon in Total War: Warhammer 3, you can turn yourself into the campaign’s final boss, complete with a world-destroying win condition. Every legendary lord also gets objectives that feel more tailored to who they are in the setting, with lore-driven goals tied to confederations, grudges, and landmark conquests rather than the usual generic campaign victories.

Update 9.0 also gives the Vampire Counts a rework. Raise Dead now scales with battle casualties, and vampires are stronger, but unlocking that power takes lair and resource investment. The patch also ties straight into the upcoming Lords of the End Times DLC, which adds Nagash. If the late game has felt like a slog, this looks like an update worth grabbing, and the early reaction has been pretty positive.

You can pick up Update 9.0 for Total War: Warhammer 3 on PC, with all of these world-altering changes built directly into Immortal Empires.

ARC Raiders now requires Denuvo Anti-Cheat for all players

Embark Studios has updated ARC Raiders and fully rolled out Denuvo Anti-Cheat. What began as a limited test is now mandatory for everyone playing ARC Raiders.

Steam Download

The studio says this won’t be the last step in its fair-play effort, either. A broader update on anti-cheat measures and enforcement is still on the way as Embark tries to cut back on cheating, suspicious third-party tools, and exploit abuse in a game where loot, progression, and tense extraction runs can swing hard when someone bends the rules.

Embark also says it’s already been acting on that front. The team has pushed patches, carried out investigations, and handed out warnings and suspensions over exploit abuse, including a major duplication glitch that disrupted the in-game economy. So this rollout isn’t a one-off change. It’s one piece of a larger moderation plan.

If you play ARC Raiders often, this is something to keep an eye on. Denuvo Anti-Cheat isn’t the same thing as Denuvo DRM. It runs at the kernel level, which lets it look for deeper tampering such as aimbots and wallhacks. Embark says it’s monitoring performance, and Denuvo says the anti-cheat only runs while the game is open. Even so, player feedback has been mixed, and there still isn’t any solid public data showing that cheating has dropped in a measurable way.

ARC Raiders is still available through its usual storefronts, and Embark is expected to share more on its fair-play plans soon.