Social media giant Meta has agreed to a $18bn settlement with US states and territories to resolve claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children.

A California judge approved the settlement, which Meta must pay to 48 states, plus the District of Columbia and three US territories, marking the company's largest payment over child safety litigation to date.

Meta will also implement a host of changes aimed at better protecting kids online, which the states had demanded, including default daily time limits and night-time blocks.

"This is a major moment to clean up an industry that has been hurting our kids," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said.

Meta has denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement and said on Wednesday that the payment it agreed to "will be distributed in annual instalments over a 10-year period".

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved the settlement, writing that it "reflects a fair, reasonable, comprehensive, and good faith approach not only to provide monetary relief, but importantly, to change conduct in a way that attempts to meaningfully address the negative impacts of the social media platforms at issue".

Meta's $18bn settlement may hasten reckoning for social media on child safety

While the settlement includes almost the entire US, the initial lawsuit was filed in 2023 by 29 states accusing the company of numerous violations of federal and state child privacy laws.

One of the states that was not part of the settlement was New Mexico.

Last month, a federal judge there handed down a historic ruling against Meta, finding it to be a "public nuisance" on par with air pollution and ordering it to pay combined fines of almost $1bn.

Reuters The blue Meta logo, which looks like an infinity sign, outside Meta's HQReuters
As a jury trial kicked off last week in an Oakland, California, federal court, state lawyers argued the tech company knew that millions of 11- and 12-year-old users were on Instagram and Facebook over the years, yet "did little to keep them off" the platforms.

Although the trial had only gone on for five days, state lawyers relied heavily on information found in millions of internal Meta documents provided in the case. They included internal research, employee emails, and chat logs that went all the way up to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.

One piece of internal research on Instagram stated: "Teens have an addict's narrative about use." Still, the states argued, Meta targeted young users.

"The trial did not go well for Meta," Bonta said on Wednesday.

Meta maintained throughout the brief trial that it had worked extensively over the years to make its platforms safer for its youngest users, pouring resources into testing and research, and building new features.

"We're always working on teen safety," head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said during an hour of court testimony on Tuesday.

The case was settled and court adjourned before he could reappear before a jury.

Before Mosseri's testimony, a former researcher at Meta, George Volichenko, appeared and with lawyers went over various internal communications he had been a part of regarding Meta's work on safety.

Volichenko said he struggled to understand when he was at the company in 2022 why the team he worked on wasn't given more freedom to better test and implement new safety features.

One of those was "quiet mode", which muted notifications for teen users during the night. His team knew such a feature would be much more widely adopted if Meta turned it on by default.

He recalled his manager telling him he "shouldn't worry too much about the adoption figures being low, because the team exists partially to protect the company against the upcoming lawsuits".

As part of the Wednesday settlement, however, a feature called "night mode", which blocks notifications between midnight and 6am, will now be on by default - meaning they will be turned on automatically. The settings are also designed only to be turned off by a parent or guardian.

"The framework we've negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms," CJ Mahoney, Meta's chief legal officer, said.

Other features for teen users being implemented as part of the deal include:

A default two-hour daily time limit (cumulative across Instagram and Facebook) that teens can only turn off with a parent's permission.
Likes will be hidden, on teens' profiles and those that they interact with.
"School mode", or a mute on notifications between 08:00 and 15:00 during school days.
Prompts noting when a teen has hit 15 minutes of continual use. Then notifications when cumulative use has hit 60 and 90 minutes.
The ability to choose a feed that is not driven by an algorithm.
The ability to turn off autoplay for videos and content.
Extreme make-up filters will no longer be accessible.
As for the new daily time limit for teen users, that will be reduced to one hour of total daily use should other social media platforms like TikTok, Snap and YouTube also agree to implement new restrictions for young users.

Bonta urged such platforms to do so, saying the settlement with Meta "is a good blueprint" for other companies to follow.

Should they not, he suggested on Wednesday that his office would now be "more focused" on bringing changes to the entire social media industry.

Meta also said TikTok and YouTube should implement the same safety features for their younger users.

"Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us," Meta's Mahoney said.

YouTube and TikTok have been contacted for comment.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb called the Meta deal a "monumental public health victory".

He added: "The safety features Meta is required to install will fundamentally and immediately change how young people use Instagram and Facebook."
Via bbc uk Pic via Google

Windows 12 (or whatever the next version of Windows is called) will probably arrive someday, but not any time soon. Microsoft didn't say anything publicly about it at Build or CES, and when I recently spoke with some executives involved in Windows development, they told me the company has no plans to release Windows 12 this year.

That said, the representatives did discuss some plans for the future of the world’s most popular desktop operating system, so I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Windows 11's eventual successor. Below are predictions you can count on.

1. Don't Expect Windows 12 Before 2027
Six years passed between the launch of Windows 10 and Windows 11 in October 2021, so we’re technically due for a new version of Windows in 2027. If that's the actual plan, Microsoft would likely announce it in the summer of 2027. However, this doesn't seem likely to me. Microsoft is still dealing with the mess it created by stranding many existing PCs on Windows 10, and the company is in no hurry to repeat that mistake by launching yet another edition.

Sources tell me that Microsoft employees are debating the value of naming a new version of their operating system Windows 12 versus continuing to improve Windows 11. (The latter continues to get major updates annually in the fall.) I've also learned that the support life cycle is a major consideration: If Microsoft releases Windows 12, it could trigger an end-of-life timer for Windows 11. Companies would have to upgrade or lose security updates, and Microsoft would be dealing with another Windows 10-style mess. Thus, Microsoft seems motivated to improve the Windows 11 experience in the near term.

2. Windows 12 Won't Require a Subscription
Rumors that Windows will one day require a subscription have persisted for years. There’s no evidence Microsoft will require a subscription to use Windows 12. In fact, the company is moving in the opposite direction: After previously announcing that Windows 10 users would have to pay to continue receiving security updates after the operating system reached the end of mainstream support in October 2025, it repeatedly waived this requirement and continued to offer years of free security updates. Microsoft clearly doesn’t want to tell home users they need a subscription to continue using their PCs (even if businesses must).
Yes, the words “subscription edition” and “subscription status” appeared in Windows builds in 2023, but these were likely in reference to business-focused editions, such as Windows 365 (a cloud-hosted Windows desktop that runs on Microsoft’s servers) or subscription-based licensing for businesses. Many companies have volume licensing contracts with Microsoft that are essentially subscriptions for the operating system and security updates.

A subscription requirement would be disastrous, as no other desktop operating system requires one. It would be a massive mistake to go this route, when Windows faces competition from Apple’s macOS and the forthcoming Googlebooks to desktop Linux, SteamOS gaming systems, and existing versions of Windows that don’t require a subscription. Still, Windows 12 may get deeper integrations with Microsoft’s other subscription services. To that end, Windows 11 already shows your Microsoft 365 subscription status in the Settings app and encourages you to upgrade for more OneDrive storage. Windows 12 might introduce more powerful AI features that require a Copilot subscription, but it will almost certainly be optional.

3. Most Windows 11 PCs Should Run Windows 12
If Microsoft does release Windows 12 in the next few years, it likely won’t bump the operating system’s hardware requirements. As mentioned, Windows 11’s stringent hardware requirements have resulted in a large number of ineligible Windows 10 PCs that the company feels obligated to continue supporting.

Microsoft is also de-emphasizing its Copilot+ PC branding. Copilot+ PCs include AI features such as Click To Do and Recall, and require a computer with a neural processing unit (NPU). The company is expanding AI efforts beyond those machines, activating AI features on PCs with Nvidia GPUs and debuting Aion small language models that can run on CPUs at Build.

Windows 12 probably won’t require more than 8GB of RAM, either. After pushing for 16GB of RAM as the minimum for Copilot+ PCs, Microsoft is now making Windows more efficient to address the RAM crisis and better compete with Apple’s MacBook Pro. Microsoft recently released new Surface devices with only 8GB of RAM. It has also said that it will continue offering versions of Windows on both Arm and x86 hardware, unlike Apple, which ended support for Intel-powered x86 Macs after macOS Tahoe.

4. Agentic AI Will Define Windows 12
Microsoft has been clear that agentic AI is the future of Windows and computing in general, showing off AI agents at Build. If it does release a splashy new Windows 12 operating system, it will almost certainly focus on agentic AI features that can use your apps for you and carry out tasks independently.

Microsoft is already working on agentic AI features that run on Windows 11; the company doesn’t want to limit them to only a handful of devices. Instead, it thinks “every Windows 11 PC is an AI PC.” I expect the vast majority of Microsoft’s latest AI features to roll out to all Windows 11 PCs rather than in a future version of the OS.

Additionally, Microsoft already created a new AI-first operating system experience called Project Solara, which it debuted at Build. Rather than a Windows 8-style approach of replacing the traditional desktop with something entirely new, Microsoft is keeping its experimental AI-first interface off of Windows for now. Microsoft’s Project Aion interface from 2024 appears to have been an experimental project, and I don't expect it to be a blueprint for Windows 12.

5. Windows 12 Will Feel More Familiar Than New
Microsoft’s Windows team isn’t acting like it’s about to unveil a completely new interface, as it did with Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11. Instead, developers have been polishing the Windows 11 desktop. Microsoft is working on restoring features to the taskbar and speeding up File Explorer, for example. Recent changes in Windows Insider builds focus on modernizing the interface, replacing older Windows 8-style dialogues with Windows 11-style ones, and porting options from the Control Panel to the Settings app.

Additionally, Microsoft is committing to its current application platform. At Build, the company announced that its WinUI 3 application framework for developers would now be called WinUI without the version number. Microsoft’s Chris Anderson, vice president of software engineering, said the company has no plans to make a massive shift and wants to deliver a stable application platform for developers.

Based on Microsoft’s actions, a new version of Windows with a fresh application platform and redesigned desktop is almost certainly not just around the corner. Thus, if Microsoft does launch something branded “Windows 12,” it is likely to feel like an update to Windows 11 with more agentic AI features rather than an overhaul. In other words, Windows 12 might turn out to be more of a marketing effort than a transformative shift.

6. Watch the Windows Insider Program for Early Clues
Microsoft is developing much of Windows in public. The revamped Windows Insider program has a variety of channels, including an Experimental (Future Platforms) one. Microsoft says these builds “represent platform changes early in the development cycle.” Major changes in these experimental builds might give us an idea of what to expect when a new version of Windows is on the way.

After the company polishes Windows 11 with the 26H2 release in the fall of 2026, perhaps it will shift to more future-looking changes to Windows 11 that might ultimately be the foundation of Windows 12 rather than a prospective 27H2 Update.
Via pcmag.com / Pic: (Credit: Zain bin Awais; Microsoft)

Microsoft’s next Patch Tuesday, launching on September 8, 2026, focuses on letting users customize their experience, with new options to move the Taskbar, resize the Start menu, and remove unwanted Search suggestions. If your PC has the update, you can find these new customization features in Settings, under Personalization and Taskbar, so it’s easy to try them out for yourself.

The main focus is the Start menu
I can’t believe it’s taken Microsoft this long to let us control how our Start menu behaves
While some users may have found the app suggestions and recommendations helpful for discovering new tools or features, many of us have had to deal with a Start menu filled with unwanted suggestions and algorithmically generated recommendations for years, and it’s just so messy and convoluted to use nowadays, at least in my opinion.

The September update includes dedicated toggle switches in the Personalization settings that let people switch off any sections they don't want. For example, go to Settings > Personalization, then select Start to see the new toggles—just turn one off to instantly remove suggestions or sections you don't want.

With this first Patch Tuesday update, users can choose whether the recent items section includes newly installed apps, recent files, or tips, and adjust the menu's overall size by selecting a small or large option. Even better, there’s a new toggle that lets you hide your username and picture from the interface, making it look much cleaner and more streamlined.

What else is coming in September’s Patch Tuesday?
Along with the redesign of the Start menu, users can now also move the Taskbar. Instead of being fixed in the default position at the bottom, as it was when Windows 11 first launched, users can go to the Taskbar settings menu and move the bar to the top of the screen. The ability to change the position is accompanied by a new option to adjust the size, which allows the Taskbar and its associated icons to be shrunk, freeing up valuable vertical screen space.

Windows Search is also getting a major feature overhaul, prioritizing local files and installed applications over web content. Users can now switch off web search results so that the Bing integration will not fill in local searches, and turn off suggestions for Microsoft Store apps, which often overwhelm the search home screen. This is combined with a simplified search home user interface that makes it easier to access recent searches and shows clearly whether a particular result is a local file, a system setting, or an application.

Remember, Microsoft is expected to begin rolling out these features gradually, starting with the September update, so you might not have them on your device right away. To check if the update is available for your PC, go to Settings, select Windows Update, and then click Check for updates. This will let you see if the new features have been installed on your device. Keep checking back regularly if you do not see them right away.
Source makeuseoff.com

Security teams have spent years hardening authentication, with controls like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and conditional access now commonplace. While stronger authentication can make traditional credential theft less effective, it doesn’t solve every identity problem.

There are several points in the identity lifecycle where trust is established or re-established:

   ■ When a new employee joins.

   ■ When someone loses access to their account.

   ■ When a password or MFA factor needs to be reset.

   ■ When the service desk is asked to make a sensitive change to an account.

Rather than stealing credentials or bypassing MFA, an attacker can instead try to convince the service desk that they are the account holder, using social engineering to exploit legitimate processes.

That puts greater pressure on organizations to secure both the login as well as the processes around account creation and recovery.

How Attackers Exploit Identity at Onboarding and Recovery

In late July 2026, the US Department of State and allies including Japan, Canada and the UK issued a joint alert warning that North Korean IT workers were impersonating foreign nationals to secure employment.

Their tactics focus on falsifying identity documents, such as using images supplied by a third party based in another country to register accounts. The North Korean then carries out the actual work.

These workers typically target technology companies, so the important point is not that every organization should expect the same type of campaign. It is that onboarding creates a moment when trust is established for the first time.

If identity checks fail at that stage, the attacker can enter the environment with access that appears legitimate.

The same issue can occur during the recovery process. Threat actor groups like Scattered Spider are proficient at social engineering, impersonating employees and calling the service desk to reset passwords that gift access to an account.

This tactic was linked to the 2025 M&S ransomware breach, which contributed to an estimated $400 million hit to the retailer’s operating profit through lost sales.

The security question in these scenarios is the same: how confidently can the organization verify that the person making the request is who they claim to be?

Strong Authentication Still Depends on Strong Identity Checks

When someone calls the service desk claiming that they’ve forgotten their password or lost access to their authenticator, the agent needs to be able to confidently verify the person calling is the real account owner.

However, in many organizations identity checks can still rely on relatively weak signals. A service desk might ask for an employee ID or phone number. Security questions are still common, asking the caller the name of their first pet or where they went to school.

The problem is that many of these checks can be researched, stolen or manipulated. Attackers can find personal information through data breaches or social media.

Even in instances where stronger checks are in place, the North Korean remote worker campaigns demonstrate how documents and other identity evidence can be altered or fabricated.

AI is making impersonation more convincing, too. Attackers can use synthetic profiles, manipulated images, cloned voices and deepfake video to support a false identity or make a social engineering attempt more believable.

All of these make it harder for agents to act with confidence. As it’s vital for organizations to verify users during onboarding and recovery events, they need stronger measures to deliver that verification.

Strengthen Verification During High-Risk Identity Events

Solutions like Specops Verified ID add another layer of assurance and helps service desk agents confidently confirm identity before sensitive actions take place.

It does this by combining government document scanning and validation with biometric liveness detection.

Document checks help confirm that the ID being presented is legitimate, while liveness detection helps verify that a real, present person is completing the process rather than relying on a static image or other replayed evidence.

During onboarding, this gives organizations a stronger way to verify new employees before granting access to corporate systems. That can reduce the risk posed by fraudulent applicants and impersonation attempts, including tactics seen in North Korean remote worker campaigns.

The same approach can be applied when high-assurance verification is needed, such as password resets for privileged accounts.

Rather than adding complexity to every identity event, Specops Verified ID applies stronger verification where the consequences of getting it wrong are highest.

Protect Your Service Desk with Specops

Strong authentication remains essential, but attackers will continue looking for ways around the controls that are hardest to break. Increasingly, that means targeting the processes used to establish or recover identity rather than attacking the login itself.

Whether an organization is onboarding a new employee or helping an existing one recover their account, the challenge is ensuring the right person is granted access.

Specops Verified ID adds government ID validation and biometric liveness detection to these high-risk identity events, helping organizations make that decision with greater confidence.

source

Windows 11 will silently remove GPU drivers after prolonged Eco Mode use, requiring manual driver reinstallation.

The tech enthusiast community is certainly a great place to be for nerds. Here, users can learn and discover all sorts of interesting things, both for software and hardware. For example, earlier today we covered the tale someone who came to know of CompactOS, an official Windows feature that helps save disk space. While that was something we already knew, another user, also on Reddit, discovered an entirely new thing that caught many, including us, by surprise.

The affected user found that Windows 11 can quietly delete your graphics driver if your device is kept in "Eco Mode" without any apparent warning. The problem could be limited to the Asus ROG laptops where it took place, or it could be a widespread issue affecting all such systems that feature similar power settings.

As a reminder, Microsoft had been previously known to downgrade Windows graphics drivers, something that's finally being fixed as part of the new Driver Quality Initiative (DQI), this new issue of complete removal of drivers went totally unnoticed.

For those wondering what exactly happened, the user was running a ROG Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU and had kept the machine in Eco Mode for several weeks. This mode effectively power-gates the discrete GPU, seemingly leading Windows to believe as if the device has been disconnected.

Interestingly, this seems to trigger a Windows maintenance process called pnpclean.dll that can remove devices that have been absent for a certain period. The DLL in question, as the name suggests, is said to handle Plug and Play (PnP) clean-up tasks on Windows, basically maintaining unused device drivers by removing them when they appear to no longer be connected.

According to the user's investigation of the setupapi.dev.log file, his GPU had a 15-day timeout. Once that period passed, Windows removed the device and subsequently removed its unused Nvidia driver package as well. The default timeout is reportedly 30 days.

Consequently, switching back to Standard Mode caused the GPU to reappear as a new device, but without its proper driver. It instead showed up as the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter, with the user also reporting a Code 10 error and Nvidia's software claiming that the installed driver was incompatible.

The discovery may not be limited to Nvidia hardware either. The user believes AMD GPUs could be affected as well if Windows considers them absent for long enough. Other users have also reported seeing similar behavior with older G14 models.

Following this discovery, G-Helper, which is a lightweight control tool for Asus laptops, has added an advisory on how to deal with the situation. It says:

"If your dGPU stays disabled (in Eco mode) for a long time (15 days for Nvidia), Windows decides that device is gone for good and silently removes it together with its driver during automated disk cleanup. Next switch to Standard mode brings GPU back as Microsoft Basic Display Adapter (error 10 or 28 in Device Manager), and only reinstalling the Nvidia driver fixes it."

To prevent this you can turn off that specific cleanup. Run in PowerShell (as admin):

Set-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\VolumeCaches\Device Driver Packages' -Name Autorun -Value 0

Setting the DWORD value to 0 essentially stops the automatic silent pass. In case you don't want to deal with that, G-Helper has recommended users to periodically switch to Standard mode once in a while to reset the 15-30 day timer.

Source: Ok-Horse-3169 (Reddit) via G-Helper (GitHub)

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