Netflix to use AI “to serve the right ad to the right member at the right time”

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The next frontier for AI is advertisement. While some companies are already experimenting with AI-powered advertising formats, more and more will hop on the bandwagon to increase revenue and ideally make ads more lucrative for companies and better for users as well.

Netflix announced a push into AI-drive advertising, which it calls creative formats, just this week. The main idea is to improve advertising results with the help of generative artificial intelligence. The new ad-powered plans have pushed Netflix subscribers and revenue to new heights and there is seemingly no end to the growth just yet.

For users, the new formats could lead to more ads that try new tricks to get them to click and make a purchase.

Creative Ad-formats incoming

The first creative formats that come out of Netflix’s new modular framework for ads are interactive midrolls and pause ad formats. These introduce custom advertising creatives with “added overlays, call to action, second screen buttons, and more” to serve “the right ad to the right member at the right time”.

Netflix revealed that these new formats will become available in all countries in which the ad-supported Netflix plan is supported. The company plans to finish the rollout by 2026.

Does that mean that Netflix subscribers, who are subscribed to an ad-powered plan, will see more advertisement in the future? It sounds like it. Pause ads, for instance, are a new ad format that pushes advertisement to the screen when the viewer hits the pause button on the remote. That is one ad that has not been displayed before.

The new creative mid-roll ads, which Netflix says are interactive, are also new. It is possible that these are deducted from the hourly playtime of advertisement on Netflix, but Netflix has not commented on any of that at this stage.

Closing Words

AI-powered advertisement could introduce another issue to Netfix subscribers, besides increasing ads on the platform. AI may optimize ads and placements of ads to increase user engagement. In other words, it could lead to an increased spending by users by exploiting emotions or using other psychological tricks.

If you want my advice, it is better to sign-up for a single month or two of ad-free viewing on Netflix per year than to subscribe to the streaming service for an entire year. You could subscribe to other streaming services for a month or two as well each year. You will save quite a bit of money doing so, and the only downside is that you may not be able to view a particular show or movie when it comes out.

Now You: are you subscribed to ad-powered plans at Netflix or other streaming services? What is your take on these plans in general? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Windows 10 update may cause another Bitlocker recovery reboot issue

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

What is with Windows operating systems and issues with the default encryption software Bitlocker? Last year, Windows 11 users suffered from the issue after installation of certain updates for their systems.

Now, Microsoft is confirming a similar issue for users of the Windows 10 operating system.

The details:

  • The update in question is KB5058379, the May 2025 cumulative update for Windows 10, version 22H2.
  • It affects Windows 10 systems with Intel 10th generation or later vPro processors that use Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT)
  • An automatic repair is triggered on affected systems after installation of the update. This may require the entering of the BitLocker recovery key to proceed with the automatic repair.

Microsoft confirmed the issue on the official Windows 10, version 22H2 health dashboard. There, the company writes:

We are aware of a known issue on devices with Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) enabled on 10th generation or later Intel vPro processors. On these systems, installing the May 13, 2025, Windows security update (KB5058379) might cause lsass.exe to terminate unexpectedly, triggering an Automatic Repair. On devices with BitLocker enabled, BitLocker requires the input of your BitLocker recovery key to initiate the Automatic Repair.

Affected devices may enter one of two states according to Microsoft:

  • They may try to install the update for Windows 10 several times before Startup Repair rolls back to the previous version of Windows 10.
  • Startup Repair may run into an error on some devices, which ultimately will trigger the Bitlocker recovery screen.

The first state should not require extensive troubleshooting or frantic searching for the Bitlocker recovery key. You can consult this Microsoft support page that lists all options to look up the recovery key.

System administrators may notice the following additional symptoms on affected devices:

  • ​Event ID 20 might appear in the Windows Event Viewer in the System event log, with the following text: “Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x800F0845: 2025-05 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5058379).”
  • ​Event ID 1074 might appear in the System event log, with the text: “The system process ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe’ terminated unexpectedly with status code -1073740791.”

Microsoft is working on a resolution for the issue and plans to release an out-of-band update once that administrators may install on affected devices. The company says that it plans to release the update in the coming days on the Microsoft Update Catalog website.

Users and administrators should monitor the issue on the Microsoft Health dashboard website for updates.

Google Search

Chrome 136 update patches security issue that is exploited in the wild

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google released a security update for its Chrome web browser for the desktop and Android that fixes several security issue. One of the issues is rated high and already exploited on the Internet according to Google.

The details:

  • The update is available for Chrome on Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android.
  • It includes fixes for four security issues in total.
  • The update is a point update for Chrome 136.

The security update changes the version of the Chrome web browser to the following versions:

  • Windows and Mac: 136.0.7103.113 or 136.0.7103.114
  • Linux: 136.0.7103.113
  • Android: 136.0.7103.125

Google lists just two of the fixed security issues on the official Chrome Releases blog. One of them is CVE-2025-4664, which is rated high and described as a “insufficient policy enforcement in loader” security issue.

Malicious users may exploit the issue to “leak cross-origin data via a crafted HTML page”. Google notes that it is aware of exploits in the wild, but does not provide additional information on the scope of the attacks.

Chrome users are encouraged to update their browser immediately to protect their data against potential attacks targetting the vulnerability.

Desktop users may select Menu > Help > About Google Chrome to run a check for updates. This should pick up the latest version and install it on the device. Android users can’t speed up the installation of the update unfortunately.

It is possible that other Chromium-based browsers are also affected by the issue. Expect security updates for these browsers in the coming hours and days as well.

Security

Firefox 138.0.3 fixes two crashes and some other issues

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Mozilla plans to release a new point update for its open source Firefox web browser later today. Firefox 138.0.3 is a non-security update that fixes three issues in earlier versions of the web browser, including one crash issue.

If you use Firefox on the desktop only, you may ask yourself if you missed the Firefox 138.0.2 release. You may have, as this special version was only released for Firefox on Android.

Firefox 138.0.3: the fixed issues

Firefox 138.0.3 fixes a WebGL-related crash. Mozilla notes that Firefox could crash when websites that use WebGL were opened. WebGL, which stands for Web Graphics Library, is used to render 2D and 3D graphics using JavaScript.

Web games and other interactive or animated content may make use of WebGL. So, if you ran into crashes while running the recent version of Firefox, there is a good chance that this was caused by the WebGL bug.

The update fixes a second crash. This one occurred on websites where certain SVG effects were applied to very small areas.

Firefox 138.0.3 fixes two additional issues:

  • Videos looked washed out on Linux under Wayland, if HDR was not supported on the system.
  • The keyboard shortcut Alt-C did not work as expected in the sidebar search.

Mozilla has not published the official release notes at this time. The release notes will be published shortly after the Firefox 138.0.3. You can access them here afterwards to check them out.

The new update is only available for the desktop versions of the Firefox web browser. Furthermore, Firefox ESR are not updated, as they appear to be unaffected by the issues.

Mozilla plans to release the next major version of Firefox and Firefox ESR on May 29th, 2025. The following versions will be released on the day:

  • Firefox 139
  • Firefox 115.24 ESR
  • Firefox 128.11 ESR

Now you: where you affected by one or several of the fixed bugs? How do you handle point updates usually? Do you install them right away, postpone their installation, or skip them? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Microsoft 365: Windows 10 continues to be supported, at least somewhat

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft plans to end support for several editions of Windows 10 this October. While customers may subscribe to extended security updates to extend support by one (home) or up to three (business / Enterprise) years, it was unclear how Microsoft would handle support for some of its other products and services running on Windows 10, including Microsoft 365.

Do Windows 10 customers, who run apps like Word or Excel after October 14th, 2025, get support when they run into issues? What about software updates? These customers pay Microsoft for access after all.

A new blog post by Microsoft provides answers to these questions and others that customers may have.

Will Microsoft 365 continue to work after Windows 10’s end of support date? Microsoft says yes. Apps like Word or Excel will continue to work. The company notes, however, that running the apps on an unsupported operating system may lead to performance and reliability issues. Microsoft recommends to switch to Windows 11 to avoid these.

For how long will Microsoft support Microsoft 365 on Windows 10? Microsoft plans to release security updates for Microsoft 365 apps under Windows 10 for three years starting the day support ends officially. This seems to imply that the applications won’t receive feature updates anymore. Whether that is indeed the case remains to be seen. Support will end on October 10th, 2028 either way.

Support is limited on Windows 10. While Microsoft promises to support Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 10 for another three years with security updates, it is limiting support in other areas. When customers encounter bugs that affect the Windows 10 version only, Microsoft support will ask the customer to make the switch to Windows 11.

Microsoft limited Office support in the past on Windows systems that ran out of support.

In closing, Microsoft 365 customers may continue to use apps like Word or Excel after support ends. Microsoft will provide security updates for three years, but does not guarantee much besides that.

Now You: do you use Microsoft Office or Microsoft 365? Are you affected by the end of support for Windows 10?

Windows 10 has five different official end of support dates

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

For years, Microsoft has warned Windows 10 customers that the operating system is reaching its end of support in October 2025. Did you know that this is only the cause for specific editions of Windows 10 and that there are numerous other editions that Microsoft will continue to support for years after 2025?

Depending on the Windows 10 edition, support may end in 2026, 2027, 2029, or 2032. That’s right, there is one edition that will receive updates for another 7 years.

The good folks over at Deskmodder have created a list of the different Windows 10 editions and their end of support. Here it is, translated into English:

October 14th, 2025:

  • Windows 10 (22H2) Home/Pro
  • Windows 10 (22H2) Enterprise and Education
  • Windows 10 2015 LTSB (First Windows 10 version)
  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise (First Windows 10 version)
  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB 2015 (First Windows 10 version)

October 13th, 2026:

  • Windows 10 2016 LTSB
  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB 2016

January 12th, 2027

  • Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021

January 9th, 2029

  • Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019
  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2019

January 13th, 2032

  • Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021

All listed Enterprise editions will continue to receive support until they reach their end of support date. This means that they do not need ESU, extended security updates, for that.

ESU is only for Windows 10 Home and Pro customers who want to extend support by a year, and for Windows 10 Enterprise or Education customers, who may extend support by up to three years.

Hacks circulated in the past that allowed users of out-of-support operating systems to install updates designed for still-supported versions and editions of the same operating system. It seems likely that hacks will be discovered to allow the same on Windows 10 machines.

Now You: Are you affected by the end of support for Windows 10? If so, what do you plan to do? If not, which operating system do you run on your devices?

Flickr restricting free account downloads to push Pro subscriptions

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

The photo hosting and community site Flickr has been a popular option for free and paying users from all over the world to back up their photos to online storage, share them with others, find new photos to download, and to interact with other community members.

The site changed its owner years ago and since have been getting worse for free users ever since. First, new owners SmugMug limited free users to 1000 photos, down from 1 terabyte of photo storage, and to 50 non-public photos.

Now, starting May 15th, 2025, free users face another limitation on the site. Their ability to download photos is limited to 1024 pixels and less in resolution. Means: free users can’t download the original resolution of a photo anymore nor the large version of it, including their own uploaded photos.

Why Flickr is making the change: Flickr says that it is implementing the change to address “the misuse of free accounts as cloud storage for original files”. This voilates Flickr’s terms of services and affects the performance for paying customers negatively.

The change does not affect the uploading of photos “of all accepted file sizes to a free account”. Flickr notes that creative commons photos can continue to be downloaded in all available sizes, provided that they are not set to private. Additionally, Flickr Commons members are also exempt from the change.

Photos will display in high quality on the site and “embeds and external links” won’t break either.

Flickr recommends upgrading to a paid Pro account to keep the downloading functionality.

Closing Words

Is Flickr still a popular option for photographers and still going strong community-wise? Many of the recent changes limit free users on the site, likely to push more users into subscribing to a Pro account. I can’t really say how well the strategy works, but the limitations are certainly driving some Flickr users to different photo hosting platforms.

Speaking of which, do you upload photos to online photography sites or photo storage sites? Or do you prefer to keep photos and images on your local devices and systems only? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Google Maps is getting a new feature that you either love or dislike

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Google Maps is quite the handy helper-app in many parts of the world. While it is not excellent everywhere, many use it to find restaurants, shops, places of interest, or for directions.

Soon, Google Maps is getting a new feature that is using Google’s Gemini AI to identify places in screenshots you take so that you can save them to a list.

Here is how Google describes the feature:

If you ever have trouble keeping track of all of the screenshots you take of travel blogs, news articles or social media posts when you’re researching places to go for an upcoming trip, you’ll want to try out this new Google Maps feature. It uses Gemini capabilities to identify places mentioned in your screenshots and helps save them to a list for you, making travel planning a breeze.

Taking screenshots? Identifying the locations of place? Adding them to Google Maps? It may sound like a niche thing for many.

Good news is that you need to enable the feature to start using it. If you do not, none of your screenshots get analyze by Gemini.

Here are Google’s instructions on using the new feature:

  1. Navigate to the You tab.
  2. At the top of the You tab, you’ll see a Screenshots list with a badge that says “Try it out!” Tap the badge. This will open a video showing you how the feature works — you’ll even be able to test it out alongside the video.
  3. You’ll see a request to allow Google Maps access to your photos. Choose when it has access. (There’s also a manual option if you don’t want to give Maps full access, more on that later.)
  4. Next time you take a screenshot that includes location information, head to Google Maps after.
  5. If Maps recognizes a place, a message will pop up telling you that it has places ready for you to review.
  6. Tap “review,” and decide if you want to save the image to your screenshots list or not. (You can add these images to other lists later, too, if you want.)
  7. You also have the option to upload screenshots manually: When you’re in the app select the Screenshots list under the You tab. From there, you can upload screenshots manually. The rest of the process is the same!
  8. You’ll see the saved places directly on your map or can get to the list through You tab to access while you’re on the go.

It sounds as if the image needs to have location information for the feature to work, but Google also says that the feature uses Gemini to identify locations. Google added several safeguards to the process to block users from using the feature unknowingly.

So, who is this feature for? Google gives the answer in the introduction. It is for people how take screenshots of travel blogs, news articles, or social media. It may also work for users who save images that they find, as they can upload them to Google Maps to see if Gemini can identify the locations.

It can be handy, if you do your research mostly in apps like Instagram or TikTok, especially if location information is not revealed by the poster.

Those who do not can safely ignore the feature, as it needs manual activation.

Note: Google may gain access to all screenshots that you take on your devices, if you enable the feature.

Now You: what is your take on the feature? Handy and you would use it, or something that you would not want to use no matter what?

Windows Search will return Store apps soon

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

When you use the built-in search in Windows, you may get a variety of resuts, depending on how search is configured. By default, Windows Search runs the search on the Internet as well to return Internet results and local results, including cloud content results.

You can turn this off, if you want local-only results. Depending on where you live, it may be as easy as flipping a switch, or complicated. Users from the European Union, for instance, may remove the web search app in Windows 11 to disable web-based search results.

Windows Search finds Microsoft Store apps

Soon, Windows Search may also return Windows Store apps and let users install them directly from the search results. The idea is not particularly new, but it took Microsoft some time to implement it.

Giorgio Sardo published a screenshot of the new functionality on X.

The new feature will improve the discoverability of applications on the Microsoft Store and it might also increase installations of Store apps in general.

Microsoft’s built-in store suffered from a low application count and support from developers from the very first day onward. Microsoft never managed to turn it into a Google Play or Apple App Store like store for Windows apps.

Up to this day, you find only few Windows apps listed and it seems unlikely that this is changing anytime soon.

Could the feature help push the Store and increase its attractiveness for developers and users alike? It is possible, but it seems unlikely.

Microsoft has not revealed if there will be an option to turn off the functionality. It would make search quite the unpleasant experience if you won’t be able to turn it off.

What is your take on this? Good move by Microsoft or nothing that you care about? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Microsoft continues to warn customers about Windows 10’s end

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Windows 10’s support is going to end in a few months. That is a message that Windows 10 users will see in an ever increasing frequency in the coming months. Note that Microsoft plans to end support for Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 10 on the same day.

Just a few days ago, Microsoft added the information to the official Windows 10 known issues and notifications page.

There, Microsoft writes:

On October 14, 2025, Windows 10 will reach end of support*. After this date, devices running Windows 10 will no longer receive fixes for known issues, time zone updates, technical support, or monthly security and preview updates containing protection from the latest security threats. 

While the information is not new, anyone who follows this blog or any other tech blog must have read about it a dozen times already, it marks the beginning of the final phase in Windows 10’s support lifecycle.

Up until now, Microsoft suggested two courses of action:

  • Upgrade the Windows 10 PC to Windows 11, if the upgrade is supported officially.
  • Buy a new Windows 11 PC, preferably a Windows 11 Copilot+ PC.

But with this new warning, Microsoft finally added the third official option to the list of recommendations: Extended Security Updates (ESU).

Businesses and end users may purchase a support extension. While end users are limited to a single year, businesses may extend support by up to three years.

Microsoft plans to chargeg $30 for the one-year extension from end users. This may be enough for some, for instance to continue using the Windows 10 PC for just another year before buying a new one or switching to Linux.

Unofficial options are available as well. 0Patch will support Windows 10 with security patches until at least 2030. This costs $30 per year as well and is limited to critical or exploited issues, but it improves security significantly for users who can’t or don’t want to switch to Windows 11 or Linux.

The second option applies a patch so that ESU-updates are installed, even if no ESU subscription is active on the device. If the Windows 7 ESU hack is anything to go by, it will extend support for Windows 10 for many years to come.

There you have it. Expect to see plenty of warnings and announcements in the coming months regarding Windows 10’s end. It is good that Microsoft is finally revealing the ESU option to Windows 10 customers, as it was abesent in previous warnings.

Now You: Do you still run Windows 10 on your devices? If so, what is your plan going forward? Feel free to leave a comment down below.