Or Lenchner, the CEO of Bright Data, one of the world’s largest web-scraping firms, says that his company’s bots do not collect nonpublic information. Bright Data was previously sued by Meta and X for allegedly improperly scraping content from their platforms. (Meta later dropped its suit, and a federal judge in California dismissed the case brought by X.)

Karolis Stasiulevičiu, a spokesperson for another cited company, ScrapingBee, told WIRED: “ScrapingBee operates on one of the Internet’s core principles: that the open web is meant to be accessible. Public web pages are, by design, readable by both humans and machines.”

Oxylabs, another scraping firm, said in an unsigned statement that its bots don’t have “access to content behind logins, paywalls, or authentication. We require customers to use our services only for accessing publicly available information, and we enforce compliance standards throughout our platform.”

Oxylabs added that there are many legitimate reasons for firms to scrape web content, including for cybersecurity purposes and to conduct investigative journalism. The company also says that the countermeasures some websites use do not discriminate between different use cases. “The reality is that many modern anti-bot systems don’t distinguish well between malicious traffic and legitimate automated access,” Oxylabs says.

In addition to causing headaches for publishers, the web-scraping wars are creating new business opportunities. TollBit’s report found more than 40 companies that are now marketing bots that can collect web content for AI training or other purposes. The rise of AI-powered search engines, as well as tools like OpenClaw, are likely helping drive up demand for these services.

Some firms promise to help companies surface content for AI agents rather than try to block them, a strategy known as generative engine optimization, or GEO. “We’re essentially seeing the rise of a new marketing channel,” says Uri Gafni, chief business officer of Brandlight, a company that optimizes content so that it appears prominently in AI tools.

“This will only intensify in 2026, and we’re going to see this rollout kind of as a full-on marketing channel, with search, ads, media, and commerce converging,” Gafni says.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Microsoft announced today that the Exchange Web Services (EWS) API for Exchange Online will be shut down in April 2027, after nearly 20 years.

EWS is a cross-platform API for developing apps that can access Exchange mailbox items, such as email messages, meetings, and contacts, retrieved from various sources, including Exchange Online and on-premises editions of Exchange (starting with Exchange Server 2007).

Microsoft will begin blocking Exchange Online EWS by default on October 1, 2026, but administrators can temporarily maintain access via an application allowlist. The final shutdown occurs on April 1, 2027, with no exceptions granted.

Administrators who create allow lists and configure settings by the end of August 2026 will be excluded from the automatic October blocking. Starting in September 2026, Microsoft will pre-populate allow lists for organizations that have not created their own, based on each tenant’s usage patterns.

The company may also conduct temporary “scream tests” that temporarily disable EWS to expose hidden dependencies before the final cutoff, and will keep IT admins informed via monthly Message Center notifications that provide tenant-specific reminders and usage summaries.

​However, it’s important to note that this retirement process affects only Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online environments, and EWS will continue to function in on-premises Exchange Server installations.

“Today we’re announcing we will use a phased, admin controllable disablement plan that starts in October 2026 and concludes with a complete shutdown of EWS in 2027,” the Exchange Team said on Thursday. “EWS was built nearly 20 years ago, and while it served the ecosystem well, it no longer aligns with today’s security, scale, or reliability requirements.”

Microsoft also advised developers using the EWS API to switch to the Microsoft Graph API until EWS is retired, since it has reached near-complete feature parity with EWS for most scenarios.

“EWS is not being retired on-prem. Hybrid scenarios vary depending on how apps access data. On-prem mailboxes may continue using EWS; cloud mailboxes must move to Graph. Autodiscover will help apps determine mailbox location automatically,” Microsoft added.

“But note that only Exchange SE will support Graph for calls to Exchange Online, so hybrid customers will have to use Exchange SE to host on-premises mailboxes.”

Today’s announcement comes after Microsoft revealed in September 2023 that it planned to begin retiring the EWS API in October 2026, and after a 2018 warning that EWS would stop receiving functionality updates.

Three years later, in October 2021, Microsoft revealed that it had deprecated the 25 least-used EWS APIs for Exchange Online and removed support for them in March 2022 for security reasons.

Modern IT infrastructure moves faster than manual workflows can handle.

In this new Tines guide, learn how your team can reduce hidden manual delays, improve reliability through automated response, and build and scale intelligent workflows on top of tools you already use.

Get the guide

Despite the hype about these agents being co-workers, from our experience, these agents tend to work best if you think of them as tools that amplify existing skills, not as the autonomous co-workers the marketing language implies. They can produce impressive drafts fast but still require constant human course-correction.

The Frontier launch came just three days after OpenAI released a new macOS desktop app for Codex, its AI coding tool, which OpenAI executives described as a “command center for agents.” The Codex app lets developers run multiple agent threads in parallel, each working on an isolated copy of a codebase via Git worktrees.

OpenAI also released GPT-5.3-Codex on Thursday, a new AI model that powers the Codex app. OpenAI claims that the Codex team used early versions of GPT-5.3-Codex to debug the model’s own training run, manage its deployment, and diagnose test results, similar to what OpenAI told Ars Technica in a December interview.

“Our team was blown away by how much Codex was able to accelerate its own development,” the company wrote. On Terminal-Bench 2.0, the agentic coding benchmark, GPT-5.3-Codex scored 77.3%, which exceeds Anthropic’s just-released Opus 4.6 by about 12 percentage points.

The common thread across all of these products is a shift in the user’s role. Rather than merely typing a prompt and waiting for a single response, the developer or knowledge worker becomes more like a supervisor, dispatching tasks, monitoring progress, and stepping in when an agent needs direction.

In this vision, developers and knowledge workers effectively become middle managers of AI. That is, not writing the code or doing the analysis themselves, but delegating tasks, reviewing output, and hoping the agents underneath them don’t quietly break things. Whether that will come to pass (or if it’s actually a good idea) is still widely debated.

Reddit suggested on Thursday that its AI-powered search engine could be the next big opportunity for its business — not just in terms of product, but also as a revenue driver impacting its bottom line. During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, it offered an update on its plans to merge traditional and AI search together and hinted that although search is not yet monetized, “it’s an enormous market and opportunity.”

In particular, the company believes that generative AI search will be “better for most queries.”

“There’s a type of query we’re, I think, particularly good at — I would argue, the best on the internet — which is questions that have no answers, where the answer actually is multiple perspectives from lots of people,” said Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

Traditional search, meanwhile, is more like navigation — it’s a way to find the right link to a topic or subreddit. But LLMs can be good at this, too, if not better, he said. “So that’s the direction we’re going.”

The exec also noted that weekly active users for search over the past year grew 30% from 60 million users to 80 million users. Meanwhile, the weekly active users for the AI-powered Reddit Answers grew from 1 million in the first quarter of 2025 to 15 million by the fourth quarter.

“We’re seeing a lot of growth there, and I think there’s a lot of potential too,” Huffman added.

Reddit said it’s working to modernize the AI answers interface by making its responses more media-rich, and pilots of this are already underway.

The company is also thinking about how it can position itself when it’s not just a social site, but a place people come for answers. Reddit told investors on the call that it’s doing away with the distinction between logged-in and logged-out users starting in Q3 2026, as it will aim to personalize the site — using AI and machine learning — and make it relevant to whoever shows up.

The company announced in 2025 it was planning to combine its AI search feature, Reddit Answers, with its traditional search engine to improve the experience for end users. In the fourth quarter, Reddit said it had made “significant progress” in unifying its core search and its AI feature. It also released five new languages on Reddit Answers and is piloting dynamic agents along with search results that include “media beyond text.”

Though Reddit sees value in its AI answers, it’s not been keeping that to itself. The company’s content licensing business, which allows other companies to train their AI models on its data, is growing, too. That business revenue is reported as part of Reddit’s “other” revenues (i.e., its non-ad revenue). This “other” revenue increased by 8% year-over-year to reach $36 million in Q4 and was up 22% to reach $140 million for 2025.

People frequently claim that the Blink Video Doorbell (2nd Gen) is the best value around, and recent reviews tend to support this. It’s available in a package with the Sync Module Core for around $35.99, which is almost half the original price of $69.99. Meanwhile, Google Nest and Arlo devices cost $100, $130, or more, and include an additional sensor or two, albeit at a hefty price.

Getting it up and running is rather simple, as the doorbell runs on batteries, or a pair of 3AA lithium batteries that may last up to two years, so there is no need to bother about wiring. Simply install the device on the wall using the provided mounting kit, and they’ll serve as the corner accessory for getting the angles correct, and you can have everything up and running in a matter of minutes using the app. Users frequently mention how easy it is, especially when contrasted to wired setups that require some actual electrical labor.

Sale

Blink Video Doorbell (newest model) – Head-to-toe HD view, two-year battery life, and simple setup….

• Video Doorbell is our second-generation smart security doorbell with up to two years of battery life, an expanded field of view, and improved security…
• Last longer with two-year battery life — Experience up to two years of continuous security coverage with three AA Energizer lithium batteries and a…
• See more at your door — Greet guests and watch packages get delivered, day and night, with head-to-toe HD view and infrared night vision. Use…

The video quality is good enough for pretty much everyday use. The camera gives you a nice overhead shot in a square 1:1 aspect ratio, with a 150 degree view that captures people right up to their feet & spots packages on the ground pretty easily. The resolution is a decent 1080p HD, (although some tests suggest it’s actually got more like 1440p clarity when it counts) & infrared night vision works just fine in the dark. You can even have a two-way conversation with whoever is at the door, and the motion alerts are timely to say the least.

One of the most notable features is the battery life, which may last up to two years, allowing you to avoid needing to twist and spin them every few months as you would with some other products. As an added plus, it’s fairly weather resistant, withstanding a bit of rain and dust in most locations without blinking.

You have storage and extras without breaking the bank. The included Sync Module Core allows you to save clips locally on a drive you add separately, eliminating the need for cloud fees for basic recording, but if you want a little more, the Blink subscription is only $3/month for one device or $12 for unlimited – which includes cloud storage, person detection, and all that other good stuff. Which is significantly less expensive than Ring’s $5+ plans or Nest’s higher-tiered options.

Soft skills are as important to long-term success as hard skills, and online courses can be a great way to learn.

Since the start of the new year, SiliconRepublic.com has covered soft skills in a variety of ways, for example in pieces covering meta skills and the must-have soft skills for 2026. So, what better way to continue that trend than to explore some of the free and relatively inexpensive courses that can enable a professional to sharpen up those soft skills?

Alison

Online learning platform Alison has a free Soft Skills for Professionals course aimed at professionals looking to either find a role or excel in one via a range of interpersonal skills. The course description states that participation will teach students 10 soft skills that professionals will need in their working lives, for example in communication, adaptability, flexibility and negotiating, among others.

There are four modules and the average time it takes to complete the course is typically between one and three hours. To complete the course and receive a certificate, students will need to achieve more than 80pc in their assessments. 

Coursera

While payment down the line may be required, learning platform Coursera offers several free trials for its soft skills courses. Professionals can avail of courses such as Developing Interpersonal Skills, Foundations for Interviewing with Confidence, People and Soft Skills: Essential for Professional Success, and People and Soft Skills Assessment.

Depending on the course, the time needed to complete learning could range from one week to several months, with the free trial giving you time to figure out if a course matches your ambitions. Courses are aimed at everyone from beginners all the way through to those looking to learn specialist knowledge. 

Great Learning

For professionals in the IT space, Great Learning’s Soft Skills for IT module is an ideal learning opportunity. Modules include: an introduction to soft skills; soft skills and their importance; soft skills to possess; effective communication; and team work, alongside others.

The free course starts at beginner level, takes around 1.5 hours, tests users with a range of quizzes and awards the student with a certificate upon completion of the course. Great Learning states that the course will help professionals to be noticed by recruiters, earn a job and showcase their skills online. 

Skills Connect

Skills Connect, which is an initiative developed by Skillnet Ireland, offers a number of free programmes designed to enable jobseekers to get back into the workplace. The strategy offers free training to help jobseekers develop the technical and soft skills that employers are looking for today. Additionally, some of the programmes offer practical work placements or projects. To apply, participants will have to meet certain criteria, which can be found on the group website. 

OpenLearn

OpenLearn, a free educational platform operated by The Open University, has a diverse range of free soft skills courses open to students and professionals. Courses are relatively flexible, but the website suggests committing roughly three hours a week to study for a period of around eight weeks. However, you can commit as much or as little time as you have available, as materials exist online. Course titles include Succeed in the Workplace and Effective Communication in the Workplace. 

According to OpenLearn, professionals and students will come away able to properly and effectively communicate in the workplace, with the ability to manage different personality traits, social attitudes and scenarios that require emotional intelligence. Its website says: “Everyone can benefit from some focused training and development to help them realise their full potential. OpenLearn has a number of courses you can study to enhance your soft skills right now”.

So, if you have the time and want to expand your professional capabilities and workplace relationships, why not consider taking up a course in soft skills? You might soon find that it gives you an unexpected edge.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

People without coding backgrounds are discovering that they can build their own custom apps using vibe coding — solutions like Lovable that turn plain-language descriptions into working code.

While these prompt-to-code tools can help create nice prototypes, launching them into full-scale production (as this reporter recently discovered) can be tricky without figuring out how to connect the application with external tech services, such as those that can send text messages via SMS, email, and process Stripe payments.

Ilan Zerbib, who spent five years as Shopify’s director of engineering for payments, is building a solution that could eliminate these back-end infrastructure headaches for nontechnical creators.

Last summer, Zerbib launched Sapiom, a startup developing the financial layer that allows AI agents to securely purchase and access software, APIs, data, and compute — essentially creating a payment system that lets AI automatically buy the services it needs.

Every time an AI agent connects to an external tool like Twilio for SMS, it requires authentication and a micro-payment. Sapiom’s goal is to make this whole process seamless, letting the AI agent decide what to buy and when without human intervention.

“In the future, apps are going to consume services which require payments. Right now, there’s no easy way for agents to actually access all of that,” said Amit Kumar, a partner at Accel.

Kumar has met with dozens of startups in the AI payments space, but he believes Zerbib’s focus on the financial layer for enterprises, rather than consumers, is what’s truly needed to make AI agents work. That’s why Accel is leading Sapiom’s $15 million seed round, with participation from Okta Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Array Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Coinbase Ventures.

“If you really think about it, every API call is a payment. Every time you send a text message, it’s a payment. Every time you spin up a server for AWS, it’s a payment,” Kumar told TechCrunch.

While it’s still early days for Sapiom, the startup hopes that its infrastructure solution will be adopted by vibe-coding companies and other companies creating AI agents that will eventually be tasked with doing many things on their own.

For example, anyone who has vibe-coded an app with SMS capabilities won’t have to manually sign up for Twilio, add a credit card, and copy an API key into their code. Instead, Sapiom handles all of that in the background, and the person building the micro-app will be charged for Twilio’s services as a pass-through fee by Lovable, Bolt, or another vibe-coding platform.

While Sapiom is currently focused on B2B solutions, its technology could eventually empower personal AI agents to handle consumer transactions. The expectation is that individuals will one day trust agents to make independent financial decisions, such as ordering an Uber or shopping on Amazon. While that future is exciting, Zerbib believes that AI won’t magically make people buy more things, which is why he’s focusing on creating financial layers for businesses instead.