Safe Mode has a lot of utility when it comes to troubleshooting Android phone problems and protecting your device from malware. When an Android is in Safe Mode, all third-party apps are disabled, and Airplane Mode is activated. This means it's much easier to isolate a new app that may be causing problems like lag or battery drain. And if you're concerned about an application being malicious, you can easily delete it without interference or backend issues caused by the app.

Activating Safe Mode is simple: when on the power options menu, if you hold the Power Off button, a Safe Mode option will appear that you can select. Once you do, your phone will restart in Safe Mode. However, because it's so quick to activate, it's also easy to put your phone in Safe Mode when you don't mean to. A phone stuck in Safe Mode when you aren't trying to troubleshoot can be incredibly annoying — seeing all your apps grayed out when you're simply trying to use your phone as usual isn't something anyone user wants to deal with. Luckily, it's an issue that doesn't take long to resolve.

How to turn off Android Safe Mode



To turn off Android's Safe Mode on your phone, you have a few different options:

Turn off Safe Mode by restarting

 1. Access the power options screen, either by holding down the power button, or the power and volume down button, depending on your model of Android

2. Select Restart

3. When your phone restarts, Safe Mode will be turned off.

Turn off Safe Mode through the Notification Menu

1. Swipe down from the left side of the screen to access the Notification Menu

2. Find the notification that says your phone is in Safe Mode

3. Tap it the notification, and there will be an option to turn Safe Mode off

Airplane Mode may still be active after your phone is out of Safe Mode — you'll be able to tell by the airplane icon on the status bar. If so, it can be turned off by swiping down from the right portion of your screen to access the Quick Settings menu, then tapping the icon that looks like a plane.

Safe Mode isn't the only tool implemented on Android to protect users that can sometimes cause issues — Google Play Protect can also be a source of frustrating phone limitations, but thankfully it's also an easy fix.

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The same model sold for over $671,000 in 2013.



A piece of Apple history is headed to auction... again. The "Hatfield" Apple I computer, which sold for $671,400 in 2013, will be back on the block this fall. This time, auction house Bonhams expects it to sell for between $500,000 and $800,000 — just slightly higher than its original retail price of $666.66.

This particular Apple I is nicknamed for its original owner, Fred Hatfield, who bought it during Apple's inaugural year. The still-working machine is listed at No. 48 on the Apple I Registry. There are reportedly fewer than 75 surviving Apple I computers today, and even fewer that are still operational. The motherboard is signed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who designed the computer.

Apple's debut product



It's hard to see the Apple I as a consumer-friendly product by today's standards. After all, buyers had to supply their own power supply, keyboard and monitor. It had a whopping 4KB of RAM. But in the mid-1970s, a machine that came with a fully assembled motherboard and built-in video output was as approachable as a computer got. Only around 200 Apple I computers were produced.

Today, the Apple I is valued more for its historical significance and scarcity than its status as a world-changing product. It wasn't until the Apple II that the company broke away from the hobbyist market to become the household name it is today.

'Steven Jobs - Vice President, Operations'



Alongside the autographed Apple I, the well-heeled buyer will also receive a letter signed by Steve Jobs. In addition to being a grade-A collector's item in its own right, the letter illustrates that, in the '70s, Jobs apparently handled at least some of the company's customer service.

Hatfield had contacted Apple to complain about the lack of software for the first-generation computer. In the 1978 letter, Jobs responded with a trade-in offer. "This letter is confirm our conversation of January 16th," Jobs wrote. "You are hereby authorized to send to Apple Computer Inc. your Apple I (without memory) and a check for $400.00 and in return are to be sent an Apple Il 4K board. We hope to be hearing from you soon."

Hatfield declined and later sold the Apple I to a collector for $40,000. That's a fraction of what it's worth today, but at least the original owner used the money to pay for good dinners and nights of music in New Orleans.

Bonhams plans to take the Apple I on a tour before the October 14 auction. The auction house will showcase it in Los Angeles from September 9 to 11, Boston from September 21 to 23, San Francisco from September 30 to October 1, and finally New York during its October sale.

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Its customization options are pretty much infinite.

Android Auto is easily one of the most useful tools drivers have today, but most people only use it with default settings, missing out on some really cool features. You connect your phone, the interface loads up and you accept whatever Google decided to serve you. That's an understandable starting point, but there's so much more to Android Auto — so many more features that can help you optimize it for your particular needs.

The truth is, Android Auto has a surprisingly large number of settings and features. With a few precise adjustments, you can meaningfully change how the platform performs, reducing distractions, improving safety and making your car feel more like yours. From cleaning up a cluttered home screen to unlocking hidden developer options, controlling media playback and switching to Google's Gemini assistant, there are loads of simple changes that can have a big impact.

With over 250 million cars using Android Auto worldwide, there are just as many options to make the most out of what this app has to offer, whether you're a Sunday driver or a daily commuter. Let's go through some of the simple things you can do to improve your Android Auto experience.

What cool things can Android Auto do?

There are so many things you can use Android Auto for. Primarily, of course, you can use it to pop up the map you need to get to work, your vacation spot or whatever other destination you need to reach. It can also become the interface you need to take on calls, reply to messages and generally stay in touch with the world. A few small tweaks can make Android Auto a million times better, so let's go through a few of the best ones.

You can clean up the Android Auto home screen

For exactly no good reason, Android Auto pushes about a dozen apps into the home screen. Mine inexplicably had an icon to open Adobe Acrobat and another for IFTTT. Now, don't get me wrong, these are fantastic apps to use on your smartphone, but will I ever use them in my car? Absolutely not! By going to Android Auto > Customize launcher, you can decide which apps stay and which get hidden away. Keep the absolutely necessary there and ditch the rest — there's no good reason to scroll through so many icons if you're not going to use them. Keep the navigation app of your choice, the call and messaging tools and your media playback. That's it.

You can also take this chance to sort the apps however you need them most, pushing those you know you use more often to the top so you can access them more easily. The last thing you want to do is spend unnecessary time scrolling on the car's infotainment screen while you're supposed to be focused on traffic.

Unlock Android Auto's developer settings

Listen, Android Auto offers some great settings to fiddle with, but more are buried away. Developer mode isn't just for engineers, and you can surface hidden options that can help with troubleshooting and customization.

1. Open Android Auto on your phone and scroll all the way down. When you see About or Version at the bottom, tap it around 10 times until a confirmation message appears.

 2. Now you can tap on the three-dot menu at the top and go to Developer Settings.

If you want to ensure Android Auto always connects to your car wirelessly, you can check the box for it. This feature will rapidly deplete your phone's battery, however, and there's some lag you should be well aware of. If you want to stick to a wired connection, you can just uncheck the box. The Developer Settings is also the place where you can go and force video resolution to certain values if you want to ensure everything looks crisp even when the internet is slower.

Force the Android Auto theme

For your Maps app, Android Auto automatically swaps between the night and day modes. If you prefer one or the other, however, back out of Developer Settings and you can force the theme to either one. We get it — dark mode is perfect for night driving; it's easier on the eyes and reduces screen glare, so you might want to use that during the day too.

Ensure Android Auto starts when you get in the car

One of the features you can easily access in Android Auto will ensure the app loads up on your car's infotainment as soon as you get in the car, without having to unlock your phone. That's particularly useful if you use the wireless version since you won't have to dig around for your smartphone. It also means you'll be on your way faster, which can very well be a safety improvement. This works whether your car has native wireless Android Auto access or if you use an adapter. 

Control automatic media playback

By default, once Android Auto connects, your media playback resumes. That's great... most times. Other times, not so much. If you left your volume way up the night before, you could very well get a scare as the music starts blasting. You might also not want your book or podcast to resume automatically in the morning while the kids are loaded up in the car.

To adjust this, open Android Auto, scroll down to Start music automatically and toggle the feature on or off, according to your preferences.

Put Gemini to use

Google's Gemini AI assistant has been available in Android Auto for the better part of the year, as the company will retire its old Assistant this fall. You can get ahead of the switch and change it yourself if you haven't already. Go to Android Auto > Digital Assistant > Manage your digital assistant > Digital assistants from Google and pick Gemini. This is also the menu where you can choose the Gemini voice you want to use, where you can choose to simply talk to interrupt Gemini's ramblings and to give Google's AI more insight into your life for better results (by allowing it to analyze on-screen text and images, for instance).

So how exactly can you put Gemini to use? Well, that's the cool part. Go back to Android Auto > Customize launcher and tap Add a shortcut to the launcher > An Assistant action. You can even leave this on your Android Auto screen if you want to.

Type your desired command for the assistant, give it a name and test it out before saving. One that I have set up is this: "Navigate me home, check my current ETA and text [Husband's name] to say I am on my way and should arrive around [ETA]." This sets my home as the target destination and fires off a WhatsApp message to my husband telling him when I should arrive. You can take things further and ask it to check the traffic on your route, play a specific playlist on Spotify and read you your daily calendar. If you have smart gadgets at home, you can include them in the routine by asking the robot vacuum to run just as you leave for work, or have the thermostat start working so you get home to the perfect temperature. The possibilities are endless, especially since you can add as many of these as you want.

None of these changes require third-party tools or advanced technical knowledge. They're easy to implement and can improve your Android Auto experience quite a bit. They add up to a smoother, safer and more personalized driving experience, and that's exactly what we all want.

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Microsoft confirms Windows hotpatch devices must restart for September and October 2026 updates, with regular hotpatching resuming in November.

Microsoft announced the availability of hotpatch updates for Windows 11. For those unaware, this allows enterprise PCs enrolled in this program to install a baseline update through a restart once every quarter and not have to restart to apply security updates for the next couple of months. It's a neat little feature that ensures minimal disruption of business processes and workflows. However, Microsoft has now announced that your hotpatch PC will, in fact, restart to apply security updates for the next couple of months.

In Message Center advisory MC1462918, Microsoft has confirmed to IT admins that a restart will be necessary when applying the security updates for September 2026, unfortunately. This is because this update contains some security features for components that necessitate a restart.

This affects all enterprise devices enrolled via Windows Autopatch, Windows 11 hotpatch, and Windows Server hotpatch. After these PCs restart following the application of security updates in September 2026, they will be continue to remain enrolled for future hotpatch updates. No configuration changes are being made to hotpatching itself. And, of course, devices not enrolled in hotpatching are unaffected, because they require a restart anyway, so they won't notice anything different.

There is another catch though. While September 2026 mandates a restart due to the requirements of the security update, it is important to keep in mind that October 2026 will force a restart too, since it is the quarterly baseline release which necessitates a restart anyway.

What this means is that "proper" hotpatch updates will begin in November 2026 next. Microsoft has urged IT admins to inform affected users about this unexpected behavior, review maintenance windows, and actively monitor the deployment of the update once it begins rolling out. It is slightly unfortunate that hotpatch PCs will have to force-restart for the next couple of months, but it hopefully won't result in major disruptions to business activities.

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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