Microsoft has released a new small language model called Phi-4-mini-flash-reasoning, the main benefit of which is to enhance logical reasoning capabilities on devices with limited resources, be they smartphones, peripherals or embedded systems.
Category: Software
Browser Add-ons Widely Used as Distributed Scraping Network for AI Model Training
Security researchers from Secure Annex have identified a growing trend in browser add-on monetization. Developers are embedding a JavaScript library named mellowtel.js into extensions to form a distributed network of user systems for web content scraping. These systems act as proxies and bots that download website content upon receiving instructions from external servers.
Microsoft patched 137 vulnerabilities in July
This month, Microsoft closed 137 vulnerabilities as part of the periodical Patch Tuesday release. None of these vulnerabilities were under active attack at the time of disclosure. However, one zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server became publicly known before the patch was released.
Microsoft Authenticator Discontinues Password Management Functionality
Microsoft has announced that the Microsoft Authenticator app will no longer support password storage or autofill capabilities starting this July. Microsoft is quickly moving to passwordless authentication methods.
Microsoft Account Suspension Leads to Loss of 30 Years of Personal and Professional Data
A Reddit user "deus03690" has shared his unfortunate experience of how an unexpected suspension of their Microsoft account resulted in the permanent loss of over 30 years’ worth of personal and professional data. The incident occurred during a routine file migration between storage drives, during which the user temporarily uploaded files - including unique photos, documents, videos, and texts dating back to the 1990s - to OneDrive.
Microsoft Adds Steam Games to Xbox App for Windows
Microsoft starts testing a unified game library in the Xbox app for Windows, which will now display games installed from Steam and Battle.net.
Open Source WSL Has Received Its First 2.6.0 Update under the MIT License
Microsoft has announced the release of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) version 2.6.0. This update is notable for being the first release in which the WSL command-line tools, background processes, and virtual machine services have been made available under the MIT open-source license. Previously, only the Linux kernel and the wslg graphics stack were open-sourced, while the associated utilities remained proprietary.
LibreOffice 25.8 will completely drop support for Windows 7/8/8.1
Developers from The Document Foundation have launched LibreOffice 25.8 Beta 1 for public testing across Linux, macOS, and Windows. They plan to release the final stable version in late August 2025.
Windows 10 Task Manager for Windows 11 has been updated
A small update here. If you rely on the Windows 10 Task Manager for Windows 11, you must be annoyed by its crashes on version 24H2.
Version 2.0 of the TaskMgr package resolves the issues:
- It no longer crashes on right-click in the process list.
- It correctly starts from CAD/ctrl+shift+esc/taskbar right-click option.
The Windows 10 Task Manager is available for download from this link.
Special thanks go to our reader "gad".
Windows 11 Insiders Get New Versions of Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad
Microsoft has begun rolling out updated versions of Paint, Snipping Tool, and Notepad to Windows 11 Insiders using Dev and Canary builds. Each application has received several new features, including AI-powered innovations that enhance functionality and user experience.
