TECH

Your Chevrolet key on your iPhone? Apple and GM are preparing

The promise of a future where wallets and physical keys become obsolete, replaced by your iPhone and Apple Watch, is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality. At its developer conference (WWDC) this year, Apple announced that 13 new car brands had committed to adopting its digital key feature, Apple Car Key. Now, new clues found in Apple's internal code suggest that one of the world's largest automotive companies, General Motors (GM), is about to "flip the switch."

The discovery, made by MacRumors, indicates that Apple has already prepared its infrastructure to support GM vehicles, meaning that in the near future, you'll be able to unlock, connect, and share your Chevrolet, Cadillac, or GMC using only the Wallet app on your iPhone.

For those unfamiliar, Apple Car Key is a feature that allows you to add a digital version of your car key to the Wallet app. In practice, your iPhone or Apple Watch becomes your key, offering a level of convenience and security that physical keys can't match.

The technology works in two ways, depending on the car:

-With NFC: In most compatible cars, simply hold your iPhone or Apple Watch close to the door handle to unlock it. To start the engine, place your smartphone on the car's wireless charging pad.

-With Ultra-Wideband (UWB): In more advanced models, the experience is even more magical. Thanks to UWB technology, which enables high-precision spatial location, you don't need to take your iPhone out of your pocket or bag. The car detects your approach and automatically unlocks, locking itself again when you walk away.

Besides convenience, the biggest advantage is sharing. You can send a digital key to a friend or family member via iMessage, with the ability to set restrictions, such as a speed limit—ideal for parents of young drivers. The recent discovery reveals that Apple added specific settings for General Motors vehicles to its "backend," the internal infrastructure that manages the Car Key feature. This is the equivalent of digitally "preparing the groundwork" for the arrival of GM cars.

The brands covered will be Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC, although it is not yet known which specific models will be supported. This is not an isolated discovery. In recent weeks, the same researcher found similar codes for other brands also announced at WWDC, such as Rivian, Smart, and Voyah, indicating that a large wave of new compatible vehicles is on the way.

A slow but increasingly inevitable adoption...The question many ask is: why has this technology, which has been around for a few years, seen such slow adoption? The answer lies in the complexity of the automotive world. Integrating a feature like this securely requires deep collaboration between the engineering teams at Apple and the car brands, and the development cycle for a car is much longer than that of a smartphone.

However, the fact that a giant like General Motors is taking this step, joining other brands like BMW, Hyundai, and Kia that already offer the feature, is a clear sign that the digital key is becoming an industry standard.

The final step, now that Apple has done its part, falls to GM. The company will have to release a software update for its compatible vehicles to activate the feature. While there's no official date, the presence of the code in Apple's system is the strongest sign yet that this update is coming. The future without keys in your pocket is getting closer.

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DIGITAL LIFE

Science's leap forward with AI: the map that reveals the secrets of viruses

For decades, understanding the true structure of a virus required years of laboratory work. Now, artificial intelligence models allow us to reconstruct its three-dimensional shape in just a few hours, accelerating the development of vaccines, antivirals, and precision therapies. This advance promises to transform biomedicine.

Just as an architect needs to know the plans for a building before repairing it, virologists need to visualize the exact shape of a virus to find its weak points. Until recently, this task could take months or even years, using complex protein crystallization and electron microscopy techniques. Today, artificial intelligence is radically changing this process.

An international consortium of scientists from Europe, the United States, and Asia has developed a deep learning model inspired by AlphaFold, created by Google DeepMind in 2021. Unlike previous tools, the new system analyzes not only isolated proteins, but also the interactions between different viral components—capsids, envelopes, and RNA complexes.

With millions of known sequences and structures, the algorithm was trained to predict the complete architecture of a virus in hours based solely on its genetic information. It also identifies critical regions where drugs or antibodies can block its action.

Key innovations of the AI-powered map:

-Massive expansion of the virosphere: Traditional methods for virus discovery are time-intensive and limited in scope. By contrast, LucaProt analyzed genetic information from more than 10,000 datasets, leading to the largest discovery of new virus species in a single study.

-Reveals the hidden "dark matter": The AI tool was designed to detect highly divergent RNA viruses that existing bioinformatics tools often miss, exposing a "viral dark matter" that represents a significant hidden portion of life on Earth.

-Predicts viral evolution: Other AI tools, such as the EVEscape model developed at Harvard and Oxford, use genetic and structural data to predict how viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and influenza will mutate to evade the immune system. This capability can help scientists design "future-proof" vaccines and therapies by anticipating future variants.

-Unlocks viral protein structures: By leveraging AI models like AlphaFold, researchers can predict the protein structures of viruses at scale, which is difficult to do with traditional genome analysis alone. This structural mapping reveals deep, distant evolutionary connections that are often hidden by rapid viral mutations.

From prediction to medical impact...The results are impressive: over 90% coincidence between the structures predicted by AI and those confirmed in the laboratory. This paves the way for rapidly mapping emerging viruses—such as coronaviruses, influenza, or hemorrhagic viruses—and anticipating their vulnerabilities before global expansion.

In addition to guiding more effective vaccines, the technology can guide the development of precision antivirals capable of binding to specific points in the viral structure. It will also be possible to test thousands of pharmacological compounds in digital simulations, reducing the time and cost of biomedical research.

A revolution comparable to the human genome...The scientists who published the study in Science compare the breakthrough to the decoding of the human genome. Now, structural biology is entering a new era: the possibility of exploring the "structural universe" of viruses, understanding how they fold, how they evolve, and which regions remain stable over time.

This approach even allows us to predict future mutations and how they might alter the virus's shape, helping to anticipate resistance to antivirals or immune escape from existing vaccines.

Limitations and upcoming challenges...Despite this leap, the authors emphasize that AI does not replace traditional experiments. Its predictions need to be validated with techniques such as electron microscopy or X-ray diffraction. The challenge now is to expand the model to more complex viruses, such as those with double-stranded DNA, and to unify global databases.

A new map to face microscopic enemies...The researchers describe this achievement as having, for the first time, a "Google Earth of viruses": a three-dimensional and dynamic map of the invisible enemy. With this resource, science will be able to anticipate outbreaks, develop more specific vaccines, and better understand viral evolution. As the authors state: "Knowing the exact shape of a virus is half the battle. The other half is knowing how to use that information to protect human health."

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DIGITAL LIFE

AI Girlfriends: the new frontier of digital desire and the old standard of female submission

Platforms offering "virtual girlfriends" promise innovation and safety in the adult market, but draw criticism for reinforcing gender stereotypes and trivializing intimacy. Under the guise of ethics and technology, these artificial companions may be shaping—and distorting—the way we understand love, power, and consent.

The artificial intelligence revolution has reached the desire market. Websites and apps now sell simulated relationships with "AI girlfriends," offering conversations, videos, and personalized experiences for a subscription. Companies defend the model as safer and more ethical than the traditional adult industry, but critics warn that behind the technological promise lurks a dangerous update of old standards of female submission.

At recent conferences like TES 2025, held in Prague, the topic dominated the debates: the number of websites focused on "relationships" with AI-created female characters is growing rapidly. These platforms offer text, voice, and image interactions, often with explicit sexual content on demand. Users pay subscriptions or buy virtual tokens to "date" digital avatars that react, compliment, and obey their commands.

For the developers, this is an "ethical evolution" of the adult market, as it eliminates human exploitation. "You'll never have an AI girl trafficked or coerced into a humiliating scene," said Steve Jones, founder of one of the companies cited by The Guardian.

Programmed stereotypes...Despite the innovative rhetoric, most available profiles follow the same pattern: young, white, docile women with predefined professions and personality traits.

Among the most popular categories are "Submissive: obedient and happy to follow orders" and "Innocent: optimistic and naive." Users can adjust their appearance, voice, and behavior to suit their fantasies. For writer Laura Bates, a gender equality expert, this type of programming not only reflects but perpetuates ideas of domination and control. "These companions are designed to say exactly what the user wants to hear. It's a simulation of affection without autonomy," she told The Guardian.

The dilemma between fantasy and reality...In addition to the gender implications, experts point to a broader ethical risk: the gray area between reality and artificiality. Some websites allow characters to be configured with a youthful appearance and school uniforms, triggering alerts for possible illegal practices.

Although companies claim to use automatic filters to prevent abuse, human rights organizations question the effectiveness of these tools—especially when the product's logic is to offer total control to the user.

This lack of boundaries also raises psychological concerns. Simulated relationships, in which the "partner" is programmed to obey without resistance, can reduce empathy and distort expectations about real bonds based on reciprocity and consent.

Coded love and power...Beneath the technological veneer, "AI girlfriends" reveal an uncomfortable mirror of digital society: the attempt to transform affection into service and desire into algorithm.

The phenomenon, though still in its infancy, points to a future where the boundaries between intimacy, consumption, and power become increasingly blurred—and where love, programmed to please, may cease to be human before it even ceases to be real.

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TECH

PLA gears fail to fail in 3D printed bicycle drivetrain

Anyone who has ever snapped a chain or a crank knows how much torque a bicycle’s power train has to absorb on a daily basis; it’s really more than one might naively expect. For that reason, [Well Done Tips]’s idea of 3D printing a gear chain from PLA  did not seem like the most promising of hacks to us.

Contrary to expectations, though, it actually worked; at the end of the video (at about 13:25), he’s on camera going 20 km/h, which while not speedy, is faster than we thought the fixed gearing would hold up. The gears themselves, as you can see, are simple spurs, and were modeled in Fusion360 using a handy auto-magical gear tool. The idler gears are held in place by a steel bar he welded to the frame, and are rolling on good old-fashioned skateboard bearings–two each. (Steel ones, not 3D printed bearings.) The healthy width of the spur gears probably goes a long way to explaining how this contraption is able to survive the test ride.

The design was modeled entirely in Fusion 360 using an automatic gear tool. These are simple spur gears mounted on a steel shaft. The hobbyist uses standard skateboard ball bearings for the bearings—made of steel, not printed. The entire system is based on a fixed gear ratio, which further increases the load. Despite these limitations, the manufacturer achieved a speed of around 20 km/h during his test.

A decisive factor in durability is likely the relatively large width of the gears. This increases the contact area and distributes forces better. The rear wheel drive sprocket was partially reinforced with a steel part from the original cassette, as the flat grooves of the freewheel hub were not suitable for PLA. During the test ride, a grinding noise occurred—possibly due to a lack of lubricant or the straight profile of the teeth. Switching to helical teeth could solve this problem.

While experience shows that PLA can withstand higher loads in the short term, the material is not yet suitable for functional drive elements. Studies and practical experience show that PLA wears quickly due to friction and heat. Nylon or carbon fiber-reinforced filaments would be significantly more robust for permanent applications.

The drive gear at the wheel is steel-reinforced by part of the donor bike’s cassette, as [Well Done Tips] recognized that the shallow splines on the freewheel hub were not exactly an ideal fit for PLA. He does complain of a squeaking noise during the test ride, and we can’t help but wonder if switching to helical gears might help with that. That or perhaps a bit of lubricant, as he’s currently riding the gears dry. (Given that he, too, expected them to break the moment his foot hit the pedal, we can’t hardly blame him not wanting to bother with grease.)

We’ve seen studies suggesting PLA might not be the best choice of plastic for this application; if this wasn’t just a fun hack for a YouTube video, we’d expect nylon would be his best bet. Even then, it’d still be a hack, not a reliable form of transportation. Good thing this isn’t reliable-transportation-a-day!

by: Tyler August

DIGITAL LIFE

Why are young people "resurrecting" old technologies?

Teenagers and 20-somethings may have grown up with cell phones in hand, ordering food in just a few clicks and using ride-hailing services, but some have grown tired of it. Driven by a desire to escape the constant use of screens, they're bringing back digital cameras, flip phones, CDs, and even records. This information is from The Wall Street Journal.

And even artists are adapting to this. Popular musicians among younger people—including Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Alex Warren, and Chappell Roan—sell various formats of nostalgic physical media on their websites: CDs, vinyl records, and cassette tapes. Some, like Carpenter and Troye Sivan, even sell CD singles—a format practically forgotten since the early 2000s. Even TikTok is full of videos about Bluetooth CD players, flip phones, and digital cameras. "People, especially Gen Z, are tired of not owning anything," Hunter White, a 25-year-old data engineer and self-proclaimed member of the "internet music nerds," told the Wall Street Journal. White said he collects CDs to escape the dominance of streaming services, which he says pay artists little and have inconsistent catalogs. He finds records at garage sales, thrift stores, record stores, and flea markets, and listens to them all on a device released by Sony in 2002.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't use technology. To share his love of CDs, White launched an app called Dissonant late last year. The platform boasts a library of 800 records and about 350 members, most of whom are White's age. They pay to receive a CD in the mail, along with a handwritten note about the album. They can keep the CD or return it for a free one.

Another person who decided to distance herself from new technologies was Lucy Jackson, 17, a college student who uses a cell phone that does little more than make calls and send text messages. For her, who uses paper maps and calls the taxi station when she needs to get around, the challenges of a low-tech life are a small price to pay for what she gains in return.

“I’ve come to value things I can’t easily access with a touch, like any kind of media,” said Lucy, who serves on the board of the Luddite Club, a nonprofit that encourages smartphone breaks.

Jackson remembers getting her first iPhone in elementary school. According to the student, social media made her feel like she was living a double life. “There was the 3D version, in real life, where I was happy—and there was this 2D world where I was showing an image of myself,” she said. “It was all so fake.”

In her freshman year of high school, she met people with the same idea of ​​ditching their smartphones and bought her first flip phone. "The way I listened to music changed drastically," she said. "Navigation became a real problem. For school, I had to be really organized," she told The Wall Street Journal.

The digital camera was also one of the "rediscovered" technologies. There's even a recurring joke on TikTok that in every group of friends, there's "the digital camera friend"—the one who gets everyone together to take photos and takes care of SD cards and adapters. Kendall Jenner recently appeared with a Canon PowerShot in an Instagram post.

Tumasi Agyapong, 26, said she became interested in digital cameras about two years ago, driven by nostalgia and the quality of the images. She loves that they serve a single purpose—without the distractions of a smartphone. "It really comes from this desire to detox from my phone being everything," she said. According to a 2023 survey by The Harris Poll, 80% of Gen Z respondents said they believe young people are overly dependent on technology, and 60% said they wish they could "go back to a time when nobody was connected."

"They're doing this curious balancing act," said Clay Routledge, whose team at the Human Flourishing Lab conducted the survey in partnership with The Harris Poll. "They like technology, but they feel like they're missing out and want more control over how they use it."

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DIGITAL LIFE

This habit increases your chances of falling for an online scam, study shows

A common habit can increase your risk of phishing, according to a new study by researchers at Binghamton University and the State University of New York. Phishing is a type of cyberattack that uses fraudulent emails, text messages, phone calls, or websites to carry out scams.

According to those responsible for the study, published in the European Journal of Information Systems, approximately 3.4 billion scam emails are sent each day. Multitasking increases your chances of becoming a target, the scientists concluded.

“When working with multiple screens, your attention is never fully focused on one of them, especially when dealing with urgent tasks. If you want to respond quickly to an email, it's easy to ignore the warning signs of a phishing message,” said Professor Jinglu Jiang, co-author of the study, in a statement. The study suggests that multitasking online significantly impairs phishing detection because, when overloaded with information, people lose their ability to spot suspicious signs.

To reach this conclusion, experiments were conducted with 977 participants who simulated common scenarios in which they had to complete everyday tasks. At certain points during the activity, the volunteers were asked to analyze potential phishing messages.

However, the study also points to a surprisingly simple solution: timely reminders that help redirect attention. While attention to phishing detection plummeted when working memory load was high, when brief reminders were introduced, participants' performance improved even in multitasking scenarios.

"We designed a very simple notification system to alert people to risk factors, so that phishing messages don't get lost in the rush and people can detect them more efficiently," says the professor.

For example, while switching between spreadsheets and messaging apps, the email interface would display a colored banner at the top of a suspicious message. Occasionally, the system would also issue notifications warning: "This message may be fraudulent, please take a second look."

"The techniques used by these scammers are becoming more sophisticated every day; they create fake accounts and, in many cases, mask the sender's identity. Our study shows that phishing detection can plummet during multitasking, and that threat- and loss-based messages are the hardest to identify. But these little reminders, these nudges, can be truly helpful," concludes the study's author.

For employers, IT managers, and security professionals, the study's leaders offer recommendations:

Incorporate reminders into everyday tools, from banners in Outlook to integrations in Slack or Teams.

Personalize based on content: Offer more reminders for scams based on attractive rewards.

Train for reality: Most phishing training assumes focused users, but in the real world, employees are always multitasking—and training should reflect that.

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TECH

IBM bets on agentic AI and cloud unification

At its annual developer event, TechXchange 2025, IBM unveiled a suite of new software and infrastructure capabilities designed with a clear goal: taking companies beyond the artificial intelligence experimentation phase. The announcements focus on solving some of the biggest obstacles to large-scale AI adoption, such as the fragmentation of hybrid cloud environments and the complexity of governing autonomous systems.

The company's strategy is based on three fundamental pillars: the orchestration of agentic AI with WatsonX Orchestrate, the unification of infrastructure management with Project Infragraph (the first major synergy from the HashiCorp acquisition), and the acceleration of developer productivity with a new AI-native development environment, Project Bob.

The concept of "agentic AI"—AI systems capable of performing complex tasks proactively and autonomously—was at the heart of the announcements. IBM positions its WatsonX Orchestrate product as the brain of this new era, an agnostic platform capable of orchestrating multiple agents and tools.

The big news is AgentOps, an integrated governance and observability layer. In practice, AgentOps functions as a control tower for AI agents. IBM uses an HR agent as an example: without AgentOps, the IT team has no visibility into how the agent is enforcing internal policies or handling sensitive data; with AgentOps, all actions are monitored in real time, allowing anomalies to be corrected immediately.

To facilitate the creation of these agents, IBM announced two improvements:

-Agentic Workflows: Allow developers to sequence multiple agents and tools through standardized, reusable flows, avoiding the fragility of custom scripts.

-Integration with Langflow: A visual drag-and-drop tool that allows non-technical teams to build an AI agent in minutes. The integration is expected to be available at the end of October.

Following its recent acquisition of HashiCorp, IBM unveiled Project Infragraph, its answer to the complexity of managing multicloud environments. The project aims to replace the proliferation of monitoring tools with a unified, intelligent control plane.

Currently, when a critical vulnerability is discovered, the remediation process is manual and time-consuming. With Project Infragraph, IBM promises a centralized, real-time view of the entire infrastructure and security posture, both inside and outside the HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP). The platform will allow for the instant identification of all components affected by a vulnerability, without the need for manual processes.

Project Infragraph will be available as a feature of HCP, with a private beta program scheduled for December. In the future, IBM plans to expand its connectivity to other solutions in its portfolio, such as Red Hat Ansible, OpenShift, and WatsonX Orchestrate. The Future of Development with Project Bob

IBM also unveiled the first preview of an ambitious new tool for developers: Project Bob. Described as a "first-generation AI-powered integrated development environment (IDE)," its goal is to go beyond current code assistants.

Project Bob is designed to be an active partner for developers throughout the development lifecycle, from writing and testing code to large-scale application modernization and security assurance. Its capabilities include:

Application Modernization: Automating system updates and context-aware code refactoring across massive code bases.

Intelligent Code Generation: The assistant understands enterprise architecture patterns, security, and compliance requirements.

Secure Development: Integrating vulnerability scans and remediation directly into the developer's workflow ("shift-left").

To combat the risk of vendor lock-in, IBM has strengthened its commitment to an open AI ecosystem. The main development in this field was the announcement of a new partnership with Anthropic, a leading player in language model development.

IBM will integrate Anthropic's Claude models directly into some of its software products, starting with Project Bob. This collaboration embodies IBM's strategy of offering flexibility to its clients, allowing them to choose the most appropriate AI models for each task, rather than limiting them to their own ecosystem.

Conclusion...The TechXchange 2025 announcements paint a clear picture of IBM's strategy for the era of enterprise AI. Rather than focusing solely on language models, the company is building an integrated platform that spans the entire AI lifecycle, from the infrastructure that supports it (Project Infragraph), to the tools that create it (Project Bob), to the orchestration and governance of the agents that execute it (WatsonX Orchestrate). It's a holistic and pragmatic approach focused on solving the real problems of complexity, security, and fragmentation that companies face when trying to operationalize artificial intelligence.

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