Author: News Room

Tax is rarely a subject people want to think about in their spare time. For many people in Leeds, it is something dealt with when a return is due, a payment needs to be made or an accountant requests information. The rest of the year is spent focusing on work, family and the practical demands of everyday life. That approach is understandable. However, modern financial lives are becoming more complicated. A person may have employment income, a side business and rental income. A company director may receive salary and dividends. A landlord may own property jointly with a partner. A…

Making a brand-new tech purchase doesn’t always carry the guarantee of a perfectly functioning unit. But a tiny Mac app called Screen Test can help you find a defect before it gets too late. Screen Test (version 1.1) is a native macOS utility containing more than 25 patterns and diagnostic tools for evaluating built-in and external displays. It can help reveal dead or stuck pixels, backlight bleeding, and other issues. The app works completely offline, so you don’t have to rely on browser tabs or an internet connection. Every pixel gets scrutinized Screen Test fills the display with carefully selected…

Microsoft is looking to improve the privacy protection of your sensitive PDFs by closing one of the more obvious loopholes in its document protection system. It is also giving businesses another reason to keep Microsoft Edge firmly installed. Starting next month, OneDrive and SharePoint will block screen captures when users open certain sensitivity-labeled PDFs through their web viewers in Microsoft Edge. The restriction applies to enterprise organizations using Microsoft Purview Information Protection rather than ordinary personal OneDrive accounts. Your ordinary PDFs will continue as usual The protection applies specifically to PDFs carrying a sensitivity label without the Copy, also described…

Clubbing used to mean losing yourself on a dance floor without a second thought. Now, according to a BBC report, a growing number of young people say they can’t fully relax on a night out because they’re constantly scanning the room for cameras. Smart glasses have made the problem harder to spot Multiple students told the BBC they stay “hyper aware” in clubs, dodging promoters filming content and worrying that an embarrassing moment could end up online within hours. And phones aren’t the only thing to watch for anymore. Meta’s smart glasses, which look nearly identical to ordinary eyewear, have…

A month after showing off its brightest smartphone displays, Samsung Display is turning up the brightness dial on laptop screens. The company confirmed today that it has begun supplying a new tandem OLED panel for laptops that meets VESA’s brand-new DisplayHDR True Black 1400 certification, the toughest brightness bar OLED panels have had to clear so far. If you ever felt that your laptop display looks washed out outdoors, this update is aimed squarely at you. What advancements does True Black 1400 bring to the table? Think of it as OLED’s usual deep, inky blacks, but paired with a serious…

The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 doesn’t have many secrets left, but a new leak has finally put a face to the rumors. Marketing images shared by tipster Evan Blass through his newsletter show off Samsung’s upcoming flagship smartwatch in two colorways, revealing details that all but confirm weeks of spec leaks. A bigger battery in a slimmer case The fresh leak corroborates a report from last month suggesting that the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 is getting a massive battery upgrade, going up from 590mAh on the current model to 800mAh. It further reveals that Samsung has somehow managed to achieve…

You open your inbox and see an alert claiming someone just logged into your X account from an unfamiliar device. Your first instinct is to click through and lock things down immediately. That instinct is exactly what a new phishing scam is counting on. As reported by The Guardian, a wave of fake X security emails is currently doing the rounds. They claim a new device has logged into your account and urge you to click a link to reset your password or review app access.  The advice itself sounds legitimate because it mirrors what X actually tells users to…

One of the biggest promises of augmented reality is blending digital objects seamlessly into the real world. Ironically, today’s AR glasses often make the real world harder to see. Researchers at the Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) in Japan, led by Assistant Professor Xiaodan Hu in collaboration with Dr. Yan Zhang and Professor Xubo Yang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, and Professor Kiyoshi Kiyokawa from Japan’s Nara Institute of Science and Technology, have developed a new AR display technique that aims to make virtual objects look realistic without reducing visibility of the real world. The study was published…

Apple discontinued the Mac Pro earlier this year, ending a 20-year run for a computer that once represented the very best of the company’s desktop lineup. However, Apple reportedly had much bigger plans for the machine before ultimately replacing it with the Mac Studio. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple developed an M3 Extreme chip that could have offered twice as many CPU and GPU cores as the M3 Ultra. The processor was intended to sit above the Ultra tier and could have finally given the Mac Pro the performance advantage it badly needed. Apple eventually abandoned the chip due…

Large language models are getting better at remembering us. Whether it’s your preferred writing style, recurring tasks, shopping habits or project deadlines, AI assistants are increasingly storing long-term memories to make future conversations feel more personal and useful. But according to new research, that same feature could become one of AI’s biggest security vulnerabilities. Researchers from New Mexico State University have demonstrated a new attack called GhostWriter, capable of secretly planting false memories inside AI agents. Rather than stealing information outright, the attack manipulates what an AI remembers, potentially causing it to make dangerous decisions long after the original attack…