Tech News – Page 26 – by Arlin Schaffel

The annual app recaps for 2025: all Wrapped up

Spotify may have popularized the Wrapped user recap trend, but more companies are jumping on that bandwagon every year. From rival music streaming providers like Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and Deezer, to completely unrelated services across tech, gaming, and other industries, a huge range of companies are using fun visuals, stats, and personalization features to show how you’ve been using their platforms over the last 12 months.
https://www.theverge.com/news/837280/spotify-wrapped-2025-recap-annual-best-of-data

Apple’s new Font Book icon is upsetting designers

Font Book, macOS's built-in font manager, has seen its icon hugely simplified. Gone are the various typefaces depicting the letter, 'A', replaced with a single clean sans-serif character. Many have complained that it's no longer clear what the app does. "I get the modern take, but this is disappointing, I'd rather have it say 'Aa' than just 'a'," one Redditor comments. Another adds, "hmmm yeah this is upsetting."
https://www.creativebloq.com/design/logos-icons/apples-new-font-book-icon-is-upsetting-designers

Browser extensions pushed malware to 4.3M Chrome, Edge users

A seven-year malicious browser extension campaign infected 4.3 million Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge users with malware, including backdoors and spyware sending people's data to servers in China. The attackers, which Koi named ShadyPanda, played the long game: publishing legitimate extensions, accumulating thousands or sometimes millions of downloads over several years, and then pushing a malware-laden update that auto updates across the entire user base.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/01/chrome_edge_malicious_browser_extensions/?td=rt-3a

Netflix kills Google Cast support on ‘most TVs,’ still charges more for Chromecasts

In a wild turn of events, Netflix has killed support for Google Cast on the vast majority of products. Netflix says: Netflix no longer supports casting shows from a mobile device to most TVs and TV-streaming devices. You’ll need to use the remote that came with your TV or TV-streaming device to navigate Netflix.
https://9to5google.com/2025/12/01/netflix-google-cast-support-removed/

‘Slop Evader’ Lets You Surf the Web Like It’s 2022

[Slop Evader is] a new browser tool that filters your web searches to only include results from before November 30, 2022 — the day that ChatGPT was released to the public. Created by artist and researcher Tega Brain, who says she was motivated by the growing dismay over the tech industry’s unrelenting, aggressive rollout of so-called “generative AI”—despite widespread criticism and the wider public’s distaste for it.
https://www.404media.co/slop-evader-browser-extension-pre-generative-ai-search-filter/

Hackers exploit 3D design software to target game developers, animators

Israel-based cybersecurity firm Morphisec said in a report this week that it had blocked several campaigns over the past six months in which attackers used Blender project files to deliver the StealC V2 infostealer. The attackers relied on malicious files posted on platforms such as CGTrader, an online marketplace for 3D models.
https://therecord.media/hackers-blender-software-malware

Google: No, We’re Not Secretly Using Your Gmail Account to Train Gemini

Google has hit back at claims circulating on social media that accuse the tech giant of training its Google Gemini AI on users' emails without their permission. In a statement shared with The Verge, Google called reports "misleading," saying that the company has “not changed anyone’s settings. Gmail Smart Features have existed for many years, and we do not use your Gmail content for training our Gemini AI model.”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-no-were-not-secretly-training-gemini-on-your-gmail-account