Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.
The Picus whitepaper shows how breach and attack simulation tests your SIEM and EDR rules so threats stop slipping by detection.
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After lagging behind, Gov. Ferguson pushes for statewide school cellphone ban in Washington
Washington state Gov. Bob Ferguson on Tuesday announced that banning cellphone use in kindergarten through 12th grade throughout the school day will be one of his top priorities when lawmakers convene in January.
“More than half of states across the country are moving in one direction, and one direction only. They’re passing laws to keep cell phones out of classrooms,” Ferguson said. “Washington state is not one of them, and that must change in the next legislative session.”
Despite mounting concern, Washington has moved cautiously on the issue. Legislators passed a law in March requiring the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to study district phone policies, review research and gather student input for an analysis due at the end of 2027.
Ferguson is urging faster action, seeking all-day bans on the devices in public schools by the start of the 2027-28 academic year. Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal also supports a ban and is proposing a similar policy.
A study published in January from the University of Washington School of Medicine and others found that U.S. adolescents ages 13-18 spend more than one hour per day on phones during school hours, with “addictive” social media apps accounting for the largest share of use. Newly released documents reveal strategies employed by social media companies that aim to increase student use of the apps.
At the same time, the impact of phone restrictions are less clear. Recent research found that test scores did not improve at schools where cellphones were put away all day, but teachers observed fewer distractions and students reported a greater sense of personal well-being, per the New York Times.
Support among teachers is strong. At the Washington Education Association’s annual meeting in April, nearly 1,000 educators passed a resolution almost unanimously to ban cellphones during school.
“We support a statewide ‘away for the day’ cellphone policy, so that students can focus on learning, growing, and reaching their full potential,” said Larry Delaney, president of the WEA. “We owe it to our students to make this happen.”
The push comes as local districts are already acting. Last month, Seattle Public Schools instituted a district-wide policy requiring K-8 students to put phones away for the entire school day. High schoolers must store them during instruction time but have access during lunch and passing periods. Exemptions exist for health and educational needs.
Tuesday’s announcement was made at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, one of the first in the district to institute an all-day phone ban. The speakers included Zoe Taggart, a seventh grader at the school.
Taggart said that while she sometimes misses her phone, the benefits to students are clear. “We spend more time talking to each other, building friendships and relationships in the present day,” she said. “Instead of texting someone who’s right down the hall, we actually go down and find them and have a real conversation.”
The Phone-Free Schools State Report Card, which rates school cellphone policies nationwide, gives Washington and three other states a failing grade for lacking statewide regulations.
Four states have earned “A” grades for requiring phones to be fully inaccessible during the entire school day, or “bell-to-bell.” Twenty states plus Washington, D.C., have “B” grades for all-day restrictions, though in those cases devices are stored in lockers or backpacks, keeping them potentially within reach.
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Samsung’s new rugged smartwatch hasn’t changed much on the outside, but the biggest upgrades on the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 are all hiding inside.
It has a larger battery, more powerful processor and new adventure features to take you from the office to the trails without extra gear. At $700 ($50 more than the original Galaxy Watch Ultra), it’s the most expensive watch in Samsung’s lineup, but it’s also the most durable and arguably the most interesting.
I’ve spent the past week testing the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2, and while the verdict is still out on its long-term features, like health tracking and battery life, it’s clear that it can pull double duty as both an adventure-ready companion and a luxury smartwatch.
Whether its $700 price tag is justified depends on what you’re looking for. If you want Samsung’s most rugged watch with the biggest battery, brightest display and the most outdoor features, it could be worth the premium. But if the package matters less than the core smartwatch features, you may be better off getting the standard Galaxy Watch 9 (or even older models) for nearly half the price.
Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: First impressions
The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 looks identical to the original. It has the same premium titanium case, sapphire crystal display, signature squircle design and three programmable physical buttons. But look closer and you’ll notice a few subtle upgrades.
The display is slightly larger (1.52” compared to 1.5” on the original), even though the overall watch is smaller and lighter. Samsung also redesigned the bands, making them thinner and more breathable so the watch sits flatter against your wrist, which the company says improves sensor contact. The new clasp mechanism makes them easier to swap than traditional watch bands, though it also locks you into Samsung’s proprietary system.
The fact that I slept a few nights without ripping it off halfway through the night says a lot for a watch this size. I still wouldn’t choose to sleep with it long-term, but it’s noticeably more comfortable than I expected.
Samsung watches already have the best displays in the business, and the Ultra 2 kicks it up a notch with an even brighter, 5,000-nit display (vs 3,000 nits on the original) that looks flawless even in harsh mid-morning summer sun.
Galaxy Watch Ultra 2’s new trail running and diving features
The Ultra 2 edges closer to sports watch territory with a dedicated trail-running mode that surfaces real-time climb and elevation data, has offline trail map access and hydration reminders. I live near a regional park with hundreds of trail options, and I’ve been frustrated by traditional smartwatches that don’t account for uneven terrain or give me enough credit for the extreme elevation changes.
After a 5-mile trail run through the Northern California hills, I was impressed by two things: turn-by-turn audio navigation and real-time elevation tracking. I don’t like wearing headphones when I trail run because I prefer to stay aware of my surroundings, so hearing directions through the watch speaker is the perfect solution. It’s worth noting that getting a route onto the watch for those directions was tedious. Samsung says you’ll eventually be able to search for nearby trails directly from Google Maps, but that feature wasn’t ready during my testing, so I had to load a trail route from a .gpx file on my phone.
With real-time elevation tracking, the watch automatically broke my route into individual climbs and showed my progress. Having a live progress bar as I approach a hill gives me a tangible goal, making it easier to push through steeper sections.
I was less enthused about the hydration reminders. I’d traded my water bottle for my tripod that day, so the three reminders I received during my hour-long trail run mostly fell on deaf ears. Considering the heat, I probably should have listened. But because the reminders are based on AI estimates of hydration loss rather than a dedicated sensor that measures sweat loss directly, I found myself trusting them less.
The Ultra 2 also debuts a recreational diving feature developed in partnership with Italian diving company Mares. Because it doesn’t track gas or oxygen consumption, it’s not meant to replace a dedicated dive computer. Instead, it seems aimed at casual recreational divers who want basic dive information on a device they’re already wearing. The app won’t be available at launch, so I’ll reserve judgment until I can test it myself later this year.
Galaxy Watch Ultra 2’s raise-to-talk Gemini
My favorite feature, however, has nothing to do with rugged adventure sports. It’s Gemini. I’ve already raved about how useful Google’s AI assistant is on your wrist in smartwatches like the Google Pixel 4, and the new raise-to-talk feature makes it even better.
No button presses or wake words required, just raise your wrist and start talking. This added layer of convenience made me much more likely to use it and helped me get things done completely hands-free. At the risk of sounding like a trad wife, I use it a lot in the kitchen. I had meat sitting in the fridge that was about to go bad, so I asked for a simple slow cooker carnitas recipe, and it delivered. I didn’t even have to smudge the screen with meat juice to get the step-by-step instructions read aloud. It’s also been handy for settling debates with my endlessly curious 9-year-old before he loses patience and I have to dig my phone out of my pocket.
Better battery life in theory, in practice its still TBD
The Ultra 2 packs an 800-mAh battery, up from 590-mAh on the original, paired with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Wear Elite processor, which should be more power efficient. On-device AI that optimizes battery life as it learns your habits. Samsung rates it for up to 60 hours with the watch’s always-on display enabled.
It’s still too soon to know if that 60-hour claim is realistic because my initial results haven’t been great. That five-mile trail run chewed through nearly 30% of the battery, and I have yet to reach the watch’s promised 60-hour mark. I have gotten closer to 48 hours before needing to recharge, though.
Either way, don’t expect sports watch-level endurance. A Garmin Fenix 8 Pro, for example, can last more than a week on a charge. The Ultra 2 powers a brighter display, Wear OS and always-ready Gemini, all of which demand far more energy than what a dedicated sports watch.
Extra health and recovery tools
Both watches also get a new suite of health features, which feed into the redesigned Samsung Health app on your phone.
Vitals tracking can flag possible signs of illness by monitoring metrics like heart rate variability, resting heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen and skin temperature. There’s also a new Heart Health Score, Daily Cardio Load to help guide recovery, and a Fitness Index assessment that uses AI to build you a personalized training plan.
Many of these features require at least seven nights of sleep before they unlock (which I haven’t yet logged), so I’m holding off on judging for now.
I appreciate that Samsung isn’t putting these health insights behind a subscription the way companies like Whoop and Oura do. Some guided workouts and iFit content still require separate subscriptions, but the core health features are included with the watch.
Samsung also hasn’t confirmed whether these software features will come to older Galaxy Watches. So, for now, they’re another point in favor of upgrading.
Should you upgrade to the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2?
After a week of testing, the Ultra 2 feels like more of an upgrade than its familiar design would suggest. If you’re coming from an older Galaxy Watch and want the latest hardware with the peace of mind that it’ll hold up to the elements, this is the one I’d be looking at.
But I still have plenty left to test. Many of the health features haven’t unlocked yet, and I need to spend more time with the battery before delivering a final verdict. Battery life, in particular, will make or break my recommendation — both over the Galaxy Watch 9 and for anyone considering upgrading from the original Ultra.
Saturday’s rollout of news and trailers at San Diego Comic-Con wrapped up three days of big reveals, and CNET was in attendance to keep up with it all. Marvel’s Hall H presentation was highly anticipated, but there aren’t any new teasers to share.
Still, we want to make sure you’re clued in to all the biggest trailer drops and release dates for upcoming movies and TV shows. Though fans got an early round of official trailers for Clayface, Other Mommy and Avengers: Doomsday ahead of the convention, Apple TV, Warner Bros., Prime Video, Paramount and more studios continued to push out sneak peeks and thrilling teasers for their slates.
What are the must-watch trailers so far? All of them, basically. You can catch Carrie, The Rings of Power, Lanterns, Avatar: Seven Havens and others, and also be sure to scroll through all the SDCC merch reveals that you may’ve missed, too.
Carrie
Stephen King gave his stamp of approval and is an executive producer for Prime Video’s Carrie TV series that’s set to premiere on Oct. 7. From director Mike Flanagan, the show drops Carrie into a modernized world where cell phones and the internet give bullies a larger audience. But just because the novel took place in 1974 and it’s 2026 now, it doesn’t mean this new take won’t have Carrie’s telekinetic abilities setting things on fire.
Lanterns
When the Earth-heavy Lanters teaser dropped from DC a few months ago, it felt pretty full. There was Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan challenging John Stewart’s worthiness to carry a Green Lantern Corp. ring, desert-bound conspiracy vibes, flashbacks to John’s childhood and even a flash of Guy Gardner on screen. DC teased the ring’s powers, but with its new Comic-Con trailer released on Friday, things ramp up when Manhunters arrive on the planet to take out the Lanterns. Take a look at the interstellar enforcers and Sinestro in the trailer, and prepare for the series to land on HBO Max on Aug. 16.
Blade Runner 2099
Several years in the making, Blade Runner 2099 will debut on Nov. 25 on Prime Video. The eight-episode limited series is a sequel to the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 and stars Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer, along with Sheila Atim, Katelyn Rose Downey, Dimitri Abold and Daniel Rigby among the cast.
Set in an alternate version of LA where replicants run things, and the humans play second fiddle, the series sees Yeoh’s replicant Olwen chasing down outlaw replicants who’ve gone missing. With her own shelf life on a ticking clock, the stakes are high for her and for her human fugitive partner, Cora (Schafer).
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Season 3
Remember in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, all that talk of “the One Ring to rule them all?” Well, season 3 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is going to be all about that. These episodes take place five years after season 2, and by the looks of things, Sauron’s war with the elves is going strong, and he’s expanded his power across the majority of Middle-earth. Now all Sauron has to do is forge that pesky One Ring so he can, well, rule them all.
Jamie Campbell Bower joins the cast as the elven lord Celeborn, Galadriel’s husband and noble warrior in the fight against Sauron. This season will also introduce Nazgnagôl, better known as the Ringwraiths, in an early form of the corrupted ringholders in the story. The new season debuts on Nov. 11 on Prime Video.
Reacher, season 4
Season 4 of Reacher, which is based on Gone Tomorrow, the 13th book in Lee Child’s hit novel series, finds Jack Reacher traveling from rural America to the streets of Manhattan. Switching gears from previous seasons, the new installment finds Reacher immersed in a political conspiracy, leaving him with few people he can trust.
Stuck on the streets of New York, with the FBI and CIA on the hunt for Jack Reacher, this season finds our hero once again immersed in a mission to bring evildoers to justice. It just so happens that this time, that bad guy is apparently running for president. Alan Ritchson is back as Reacher alongside series newcomers Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette, Sydell Noel, Agnez Mo, Anggun and Kevin Corrigan.
Neagley
Maria Sten’s Neagley has been one of Jack Reacher’s fiercest and most skilled protégés. Now in her own spinoff show, she’ll be taking shots in the name of justice and ends up uncovering something grimmer than imagined. Season 1 of the action series debuts on Prime Video on Sept. 16.
Queen of the Damned
AMC’s Interview With the Vampire series is poised to slide into its fourth season with a focus on the vampire Akasha and has titled the new season as Queen of the Damned. Season 3 (titled The Vampire Lestat) brought her into the story and introduced actor Sheila Atim as the very first vampire. Atim, along with co-stars Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman and Eric Bogosian, appeared in Hall H to share the news.
Matchbox The Movie
Kids who played with Matchbox cars when they were young grow up and learn their friend is a CIA agent who gets them caught up in a case. That’s the premise of Apple TV’s new comedy film starring John Cena as the spy and Jessica Biel, Teyonah Parris, Sam Richardson and Arturo Castro as said friends. You can stream the movie on Oct. 9.
Neuromancer
Apple TV’s sci-fi shows tend to be top-notch, and the cyberpunk-themed Neuromancer looks like it could be a remarkable addition. Callum Turner is Case, a hacker who gets drawn into a dangerous life-or-death game involving espionage, artificial intelligence and deceit. Based on William Gibson’s 1984 novel, the TV adaptation will have 10 episodes and premiere on Jan. 22, 2027.
Coyote vs. Acme
Formerly shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery, the film is an animation-meets-live-action story that Ketchup Entertainment picked up and will open in theaters on Aug. 28. Fed up with Acme’s unreliable products, Wile E. Coyote decides to hire a lawyer and sue the company. Will Forte plays Kevin Avery, who represents Coyote in his case, with John Cena as Buddy Crane, corporate counsel for Acme. The movie also features Lana Condor along with a host of Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn and Granny (who gets dinged by an anvil).
Percy Jackson and the Olympians, season 3
A host of new gods and demigods are set to descend in season 3 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, including Aphrodite and the children of Hades. The new eight-episode installment will premiere on Nov. 20.
Back in January, Disney Plus gave viewers a tease of what’s to come when it dropped with a scene of Percy (Walker Scobell) and Annabeth (Leah Sava’ Jeffries) hitting the dance floor at a middle school dance. But things get a little darker and more dangerous this time for the Camp Half-Blood kids.
Based on the third book in Rick Riordan’s series, The Titan’s Curse, this season takes Percy and crew on a rescue mission to save the goddess Artemis (played by Dafne Keen). Viewers will be introduced to the titan Atlas (Holt McCallany), Annabeth’s human dad (Jesse L. Martin), and Olympian gods Hera (Ming-Na Wen), Demeter (Jennifer Beals) and Apollo (Hubert Smielecki). Kate McKinnon plays Aphrodite.
Ebenezer
Johnny Depp made a surprise appearance at Comic-Con, donning a costume as Ebenezer Scrooge for the upcoming movie, where he plays Charles Dickens’ legendary miser. The film, due in theaters on Nov. 13, also features Rupert Grint, Ian McKellen, Daisy Ridley and Sam Claflin in a star-studded cast.
Avatar: Seven Havens
From the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender, this new series picks up after The Legend of Korra and follows a pair of twin avatars, one of whom is Korra’s successor. Marked as an omen of destruction during a time when the spirit world and physical world are imbalanced, Pavi — and her sister Nisha — will need to look to the past to discover who they are and find a way to save the Seven Havens. The animated series debuts this fall on Paramount Plus.
Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO
Kenji Kamiyama is directing the new anime film from Sola Animation, which will serve as a sort of prequel. Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO takes place about 100 years before Gundam Rogue Orbit, breaking down the origins of the world that fans are familiar with. Guided by Kamiyama’s vision, the 2027 movie will also tie in with a video game universe.
Regular Show: The Lost Tapes
An extended sneak peek for the new season of Regular Show: The Lost Tapes is now out for our consumption. When the show was revived as The Lost Tapes, it gave viewers new adventures with Mordecai and Rigby through the lens of Pops keeping up with them from the afterlife. Well, there are more VHS tapes to dig through when the next season lands on Cartoon Network and HBO Max this September.
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe
HBO Max’s spin-off of The Big Bang Theory follows Kevin Sussman’s Stuart as he tries to undo the damage he caused after breaking one of Leonard and Sheldon’s inventions. A multiversal, reality-hopping, trippy joyride ensues, where viewers see alternate versions of characters they know and much more. The first episode debuted on July 23, but a clip was shared during the show’s Comic-Con panel. You can stream new episodes on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
Dark Matter, Season 2
Apple TV’s panel also included a preview of Dark Matter’s second season, which draws the Dessen family deeper into the mysteries of The Box. Their stability is threatened, as is that of Amanda and Ryan when the series returns on Aug. 28.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 4
During Star Trek’s 60th anniversary celebration in Hall H on Saturday, the crew gave the audience a sneak peek of what’s coming in season 4 of Strange New Worlds.
GitHub and PyPI (Python Package Index) have introduced a time-based mechanism in the Dependabot dependency management tool to protect against supply-chain attacks and to limit their impact.
Specifically, Dependabot comes with a default three-day cooldown setting, while PyPI will reject new files uploaded to releases older than 14 days.
The measure comes after the two development ecosystems experienced multiple high-profile attacks over the past year. Some notable examples include the ‘chalk’ and ‘debug’ attacks, the “s1ngularity” operation, the Shai-Hulud campaign, and the GhostAction supply-chain attack.
GitHub announced last month changes to tackle supply chain threats, and the hardening process progresses with the new measures.
GitHub adds Dependabot cooldown
Dependabot is GitHub’s dependency-update service that reads files containing information about new package versions and opens update pull requests to notify software maintainers.
The tool now delays the package update process for 72 hours to reduce the risk of automatically adopting newly published malicious packages.
In many recent cases, malicious npm packages were detected and flagged by security tools within minutes of being published.
However, quick detection alone does not remove the threat, as repository maintainers and vendors must still take action to remove the packages, leaving a window during which developers and projects may download and incorporate the malicious code.
While GitHub explained that the period of three days was chosen as a balanced point between avoiding risky releases while keeping up with the latest upgrades, it noted that users still have the option to configure a shorter or longer delay through Dependabot’s ‘cooldown’ configuration option.
GitHub highlighted Dependabot’s cooldown limitations against longer-term compromise, recommending the use of lockfiles for dependency pinning, restricted-scope tokens, and disabling unnecessary installation scripts in CI.
PyPI blocks release poisoning with 14-day cutoff
PyPI announced that it now blocks maintainers from adding new files to a package release after 14 days have passed since its publication.
The measure is intended to prevent attackers who compromise publishing tokens or workflows from poisoning old, trusted releases.
The platform found that only a very small percentage of projects legitimately uploaded more than two weeks after publishing a release.
It should be noted that no known past attacks on PyPI have been confirmed to use the said release poisoning technique that this new measure blocks, but the platform is acting preventatively in this case to block a dangerous possibility.
Emma Woodhouse discusses her role in manufacturing and supply chain systems, the skills that keep it all moving and how pets have no regard for work deadlines.
Accenture’s Emma Woodhouse, a manufacturing and supply chain systems manager for manufacturing execution systems (MES), specialises in designing and implementing electronic batch records that help improve efficiency, quality and compliance for global pharmaceutical clients, bringing their production processes into the digital age.
“No two days are the same in my role as a manufacturing execution systems designer, which is one of the things I enjoy most about the job,” she told SiliconRepublic.com.
“One thing I’ve learned is that no matter how carefully you plan your day, there is always potential for a new challenge to appear when you least expect it. That’s part of what keeps the role interesting.
“Managing workload requires balancing multiple tasks and deadlines across different projects. Technical documentation, testing activities and troubleshooting are also important parts of the role, helping to ensure that solutions are delivered to a high standard and also perform as expected.”
What types of projects do you work on?
The nature of MES projects can vary based on the specific requirements of the client. Some projects may be on a large global scale where a client is looking to roll out MES implementation across multiple or all of their manufacturing sites around the world. This presents an opportunity to pursue a standardised approach in terms of the design of the electronic batch records.
These projects challenge me to think creatively about how processes can be simplified, standardised and made more efficient while still meeting the needs of different manufacturing sites. I enjoy working through complex requirements and finding solutions that can be reused and scaled across a wider program.
Alternatively, a project may be on a smaller scale working with one manufacturing site to implement or improve master batch records, often due to a new product introduction, new equipment introduction or some other driving force for process improvement. These types of projects often allow project teams to form a tight-knit group which aids collaboration.
Some of the most rewarding projects have been those where I have been involved from the initial design stages right through to testing and deployment. Seeing a solution go from a concept on paper to a system that is actively supporting manufacturing operations is incredibly satisfying.
What skills do you use on a daily basis?
My role draws on a combination of technical, analytical and interpersonal skills every day.
Problem-solving and attention to detail are particularly important, as I am often translating complex manufacturing processes into electronic workflows while ensuring compliance with strict quality and regulatory requirements. I also use project management and organisational skills to balance multiple priorities, meet deadlines and co-ordinate activities across different workstreams.
While the technical aspects of MES are important, a significant part of the job involves working with people from different backgrounds and areas of expertise. I regularly collaborate with manufacturing operators, engineers, quality specialists, validation teams and project managers, all of whom may have different perspectives and priorities. Being able to listen, ask the right questions, and clearly explain technical concepts has become just as important as the technical knowledge itself.
Manufacturing environments are constantly evolving and projects can change direction as new requirements emerge. Being able to learn quickly, think creatively and adjust to new challenges has been invaluable.
What are the hardest parts of your working day and how do you navigate them?
One of the most challenging aspects of my role is balancing the need for focused, uninterrupted work with the demands of collaboration.
Designing and configuring MES solutions often requires significant concentration, yet projects also involve regular meetings and stakeholder interactions across multiple functions, all of which are essential to delivering the right solution.
To navigate this, I prioritise my workload carefully and try to structure my day around key objectives. I set aside dedicated time for tasks that require focus, while also ensuring I remain available for collaboration and support when needed. Having a clear understanding of priorities helps me stay productive and prevents smaller tasks from distracting me from the most important deliverables.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is also important.
Working in a fast-paced industry means there can always be another task to tackle, but I’ve learned the value of stepping away from work and recharging. For me, spending time on my own hobbies such as DIY, coding and music production is a great way to switch off after a busy day.
My three dogs are also very effective at enforcing work-life balance. They have little interest in project deadlines, but they’re extremely committed to their walk and fetch schedules.
Taking that time to disconnect helps me return to work with a fresh perspective and ultimately helps me be more effective in my role.
How has this role changed as the sector has grown and evolved?
When I explain my job to friends and family, many are surprised by how digital modern pharmaceutical manufacturing has become. The reality is that technology now plays a central role in ensuring medicines are produced safely, efficiently and consistently.
Historically, many manufacturing processes relied heavily on paper-based documentation and manual data entry. Today, there is a much greater focus on digital systems, automation, data integrity and real-time access to information, which has expanded both the scope and impact of the role.
As technology has advanced, MES designers have become more involved in designing connected, data-driven solutions that support efficiency, quality, and compliance across the manufacturing life cycle. There is also a growing emphasis on standardisation, scalability and leveraging data to drive continuous improvement. This means the role now requires not only technical expertise but also a strong understanding of business processes, regulatory expectations and how different digital systems interact within a manufacturing environment.
One of the most exciting developments has been the increasing use of digital technologies to simplify complex processes and reduce the administrative burden on manufacturing teams.
As the sector continues to evolve, we’re seeing growing interest in areas such as AI-assisted workflows, advanced analytics and greater systems integration across manufacturing operations. These developments have the potential to further improve efficiency, support faster decision-making and help teams extract more value from manufacturing data.
What do you enjoy most about the job?
What I enjoy most about my role is the opportunity to solve complex problems and see the real-world impact of the solutions I help create.
I enjoy solving puzzles, and that’s often what the role feels like, except the puzzles involve manufacturing processes, technology, regulations, and occasionally several competing opinions in the same meeting. I enjoy the variety that comes with the role and the fact that there is always something new to learn.
Equally important are the people I work with. MES projects bring together experts from many different disciplines, and I enjoy the collaborative nature of the role. Working with colleagues to overcome challenges, share ideas and deliver successful outcomes makes the job both enjoyable and fulfilling.
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Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of July 19, 2026.
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Most popular stories on GeekWire
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Phone screens are better than they’ve ever been—bigger, sharper, and brighter—but they don’t always offer the best displays for extended reading sessions. If you’ve got a lot of text to get through, you might find yourself turning to a Kindle instead, or even a good old-fashioned physical book.
There are ways to tweak the screen configuration on your iPhone or Android phone, however, to make it more suitable for reading. These changes will reduce the chance of causing you eye strain while minimizing clutter to create a more pleasant reading experience. You won’t transform your phone into something that rivals an e-reader or the printed page, but you can certainly get closer to it.
Tweak the Display Settings
You’ve actually got more control over the font sizes, styles, and colors used by your phone than you might have realized—you can make text easier to read and create a more Kindle-like experience with just a few taps via the main Settings panel.
If you’re on Android, the menu labels will vary from model to model, but on Pixel phones head to Display size and text. The next screen lets you adjust the size of the default font and other on-screen elements to make text bolder, and there’s also a Dark theme option that you might find reduces eye strain.
Adjusting the font size on Android.Courtesy of David Nield
Over on iOS, open up Display & Brightness from Settings: Here you’ll find a Text Size slider you can adjust, as well as a Bold Text toggle switch. As on Android, there’s a dark mode option here via the theme selector at the top of the screen—select Dark to dim the colors all across the iOS interface.
Both Android and iOS also have a night reading mode that reduces the blue light emitted from your phone and makes the whole display warmer—which should make for a more pleasant reading experience. On Android Pixel phones, choose Display and touch > Night Light from Settings, and on iOS pick Display & Brightness > Night Shift. In both cases you can enable the feature manually or via a schedule.
Use Your Browser’s Reading Mode
Much of the reading you’re going to be doing on your phone will be through its web browser, and most modern mobile browsers come with a dedicated reading mode you can use. These modes will reduce onscreen clutter, simplify the color scheme, and bring the main article text to the fore.
If you’re using Google Chrome as your default browser on Android, tap the three dots (top right), then Show Reading mode to switch views for the article you’re currently reading. Swipe up on the panel at the bottom of the screen to change the font and color options. Tap the reading mode icon (just to the right of the address bar) to return to the normal browser view.
The exciting part of buying a ‘broken, for parts’ off a site like EBay is that you rarely know exactly just how ‘broken’ it truly is. Even if the seller insists that it’s thoroughly buggered, you just might be able to eke out a fix with some out-of-the-box thinking and plucky ingenuity. Such was the case for [Dieter Vansteenwegen] who gambled on a cheap Canon 7D Mark II DSLR body that was sold for a mere €180 on account of broken condition.
After confirming that the DSLR’s condition was basically as described by the seller, with nothing on the LCD or HDMI output and the auto-focus not working while partially pressing the trigger button, but still taking a picture when fully pressed. Sometimes it would also show a standard maintenance message on the LCD, so clearly it ought to be working. Maybe the camera’s processor was just being chronically unhappy about something, in which case an easy fix might be possible.
As anyone who has ever taken a digital camera apart knows, you do not simply pop them open for a quick look. Somewhere in the nightmarish contraption of flatflex cables, PCBs and endless sub-assemblies there might be a fault, but where to start? Fortunately with some support from the custom Canon firmware community Magic Lantern and the website Photo Parts UA for reference images he was able to start tracing a number of pertinent signals.
With the auto-focus hint as guide, this was traced back to the MPU, which turned out to have a floating signal on the auto-focus pin that got interpreted as ‘active’. Likely the internal pull-up got damaged due to the use of an external trigger module as there’s no real protection on these lines. One bodge wire later to create an external 3.3 V pull-up the DSLR happily sprung back to life.
In terms of parts this definitely was a cheap repair, but it comes with the prerequisite of having the skills and equipment to perform said repair. Still, massive props and congratulations to [Dieter] for saving this DSLR from being merely a device to be picked over for parts.
After OpenAI recently admitted that one of its models had breached the systems of AI platform Hugging Face, Hugging Face’s CEO Clem Delangue posted on X that he was flying to San Francisco to have “a little chat with that ‘rogue agent.’”
Then, in a follow-up post on Saturday, Delangue outlined what he’d asked for from OpenAI. He said he called for “radical transparency,” asking OpenAI to “release the traces from the ‘rogue’ agents so the entire research community can study what happened.”
And he also wants “more capabilities for defenders,” calling for OpenAI to commit $100 million worth of computing power “to help the Hugging Face community build powerful cyber defenses with the best open and closed models.”
Delangue added, “The first autonomous agent cyberattack is an unprecedented event. It deserves an unprecedented response!”
Despite the autonomous nature of the attack, cybersecurity experts suggested that it could also be blamed on human error — namely, OpenAI’s apparent failure to properly configure what should have been a fully isolated testing environment.
Security
(Security) hole-ier than thou
Click To Pray, a prayer app endorsed by the Pope with hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, has leaked people’s names and email addresses for months – or longer – according to an ethical hacker who said she found and reported the security vulnerability six months ago to no avail. This app needs to take a vow of silence when it comes to your personal information.
The app, available in seven languages and on iOS, Android, and clicktopray.org, is the official app of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. It connects users across the globe to pray for the Holy Father’s intentions, and as of July 2026, it has 719,517 registered accounts.
It’s also very leaky, according to security sleuth BobDaHacker, who says she spotted and disclosed the vulnerability to the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network on January 3.
“The vulnerability is still live,” the hacker said in a Friday blog. “Nobody has ever responded. I guess my email wasn’t in their prayers.”
The Reg readers likely remember BobDaHacker for her previous research exposing a free-food flaw in McDonald’s ordering system and open controls on Chinese robot manufacturer Pudu Robotics.
This latest security hole stems from an Insecure Direct Object Reference (IDOR) bug in the prayer app. This is a very common and easy-to-exploit type of flaw that occurs when a website or an app blindly accepts user-provided input to view or modify resources without checking to see if the user is actually authorized to retrieve the data.
“You ask for your own data, the server gives it to you,” BobDaHacker explains. “You ask for someone else’s data, the server gives you that too. Thou shalt not authorize, apparently.”
When you sign up for a Click To Pray account, the app assigns you a sequential numeric user ID. As BobDaHacker uncovered, the API endpoint GET https://api[.]clicktopray.org/user/users/{id} will return user data for any account – not just your own account – so long as you supply a valid, five-digit user ID.
It doesn’t perform any authorization check or ownership validation. “Just increment the number and get someone else’s data,” she wrote.
This data includes users’ email addresses, first and last names, country, dates of birth, and whether the account has been deleted, and the API exposes all 719,517 accounts on the prayer site. “With sequential user IDs and no rate limiting, an attacker could enumerate every single account on the platform,” the hacker explained. “One GET request per user. for i in range(1, 719518): scrape(). That’s it. That’s the exploit.”
As BobDaHacker points out, many of these users are likely older individuals, not all that tech savvy, and very trusting of anything Vatican related, making these exposed accounts a “phishing goldmine.”
“Imagine getting an email that says ‘The Holy Father requests your urgent attention’ with a Vatican-looking link,” she wrote. “Grandma is clicking that. Every time.”
And then it gets even worse.
The signup endpoint, POST https://api.clicktopray.org/user/users/sign-up, returns the account’s validation_hash directly in the response body, and that value is the same UUID used in the email verification link. This means someone could sign up using any email address and verify the account before the confirmation message reached the inbox.
Plus, BobDaHacker’s email client flagged the real verification email with a warning that it had failed the domain’s authentication requirements and might have been spoofed or improperly forwarded.
“So not only is the API leaking 700,000 email addresses that could be used for phishing, but the real emails from Click To Pray already look like phishing,” the hacker noted. “An attacker wouldn’t even need to try hard. They could send a pixel-perfect phishing email and it would have the same level of email authentication as the real thing: none. God works in mysterious ways.”
The Register reached out to the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network and did not receive any response. BobDaHacker says she’s still praying for one, too.®
Your battery is continually losing charge.
Even though smartphone batteries are getting bigger and more efficient, there’s always that inevitable event when you get a low battery notification at the worst possible time. You might think powering down the phone entirely is a way to make your smartphone last longer. But like with any battery-powered device, a phone’s battery will slowly deplete when you’re not actively using it, and even when it’s completely powered down.
Of course, the battery drains much more slowly when turned off, so it’s not a bad idea to power down the phone to conserve battery. That might be before a plane takes off, for example, and you want to ensure you have power when you arrive at your destination. If you leave an old phone in a drawer for weeks or months then decide to use it, however, you’ll find that the battery isn’t still at the same percentage it was when you left it.
Why the battery depletes
Why does this happen? One thing that draws battery from your phone while it’s off is a clock-and-wake circuit, which uses a tiny amount of current so that the power button responds when you want to turn it on and so the phone immediately knows the right time and date once it boots back up. But the biggest battery drain is something called a self-discharge, a chemical release of the lithium-ion batteries used in phones. The battery will lose about 1-2 percent of its power every month or so when turned off. If you store it in a spot that’s above room temperature, it will deplete even faster than that.
If you leave the phone on and don’t use it, the battery will logically drain much more quickly. I have left Android phones I’m testing untouched for up to a week, for example, and they easily go from about half charge to completely dead in that time. That said, if you’re giving a phone a break, it’s still a good idea to power it down completely. While there’s still that self-discharge, it will be much slower than if you leave the phone on. When the device is on, the screen lights up for notifications, the radio remains active and latched onto signals, and background apps are using power.
Keep it half charged
If you plan to keep a phone tucked away long-term, like if you upgraded and you’re waiting for your pre-teen to become of age so they can use it, it’s wise to keep the device charged consistently to avoid damage. Apple recommends not fully charging your phone before you put it away for an extended period, suggesting you charge an iPhone only to about 50 percent. Then recharge it every so often (Apple recommends every six months) so it’s always topped up and not lying completely dormant.
This prevents something called a deep-discharge state, which can happen when a device’s battery has been completely dead for a long period of time. If it gets to this point, the phone’s battery’s copper current collector can dissolve, redeposit, and permanently impact the phone’s battery capacity, or even potentially cause a short circuit. At the very least, the loss in battery capacity means the phone wont last as long per charge going forward.
Tips for keeping the battery healthy
To recap, if you’re storing a phone, power it down when the battery is at about 50 percent and charge it back up to this point at least every six months. Most importantly, don’t throw it in a drawer completely dead nor fully charged. Don’t forget to store it in a cool, dry place with temperatures below 90°F.
All that said, leaving a phone lying around for months isn’t a total death sentence. I have left some of the best Android phones released over the last five years powered down for months and charged them for comparative reviews. They work fine even if the battery capacity isn’t as good. I even recently found an old BlackBerry PlayBook tablet that hadn’t been booted up since 2011. I plugged it in and it successfully charged and works! But it’s clear the battery life has lessened as it barely lasts a day before I need to recharge it.
The bottom line is that if you power down your phone, it won’t have the same charge state when you power it back up, especially if weeks or months have gone by. It might still show the same battery percentage if you’ve only powered it down for a 12-hour flight, but the battery is still draining through self-discharge and the clock-and-wake circuit, albeit so slowly you won’t notice after such a short period of time. However long you turn off the phone, powering down doesn’t mean the phone’s battery is completely on pause until you use it again. But it can help conserve what battery life you have left in a pinch.
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