News
- Digital scams are now perceived as just as much of a threat as other crimes
- Avast survey claims 1 in 3 Brits have fallen victim to online scams
- Phishing has seen a 466% rise quarter-on-quarter
If you think digital scams are on the rise, you’re not alone - a new survey from Avast and Neighbourhood Watch has revealed 92% of Brits believe that cybercrime is as much of a threat as other types of crime.
Just over one in three respondents say they have been personally victimised by cybercriminals, and many of these have suffered financial loss at the hands of digital scammers.
In particular, phishing scams are on the rise, with a 466% rise quarter-on-quarter. The rise in phishing scams is largely attributed to AI, with criminals leveraging AI tools in order to send more frequent and more sophisticated social engineering attacks. With AI, it takes fraudsters just a few minutes to craft campaigns that would have previously taken days.
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More financial lossUnsurprisingly, Brits are losing more money too, with 59% of victims losing up to £500. Women more commonly lose under £500, and men are more likely to suffer higher losses (between £501 and £2000, and £2000+).
“As cybercriminals use increasingly sophisticated tactics, staying vigilant online is no longer optional - especially as scams are becoming harder to spot and now lurking around every digital corner,” said Luis Corrons, Security Evangelist for Avast.
To protect yourself from cyberattacks, especially engineering attacks, the key is staying vigilant. Make sure to thoroughly check any unsuspected communications, especially emails or texts that include a call to action (i.e. ‘change your password now’).
Be very wary of anyone claiming to be a family member or friend, especially given the developments in deep-fake technologies. Voice and images can be cloned or faked, so don’t send money to anyone you aren’t 100% sure is real.
Particularly important is to remember to never click any links or attachments that you don’t trust, and if you need recommendations on how to create a secure password, we’ve listed some of our top tips here.
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- Microsoft Teams rolling out keyboard shortcuts for users
- New addition should mean faster and more effective typing for all
- All Microsoft Teams users should benefit upon launch
Unlocking true productivity on your morning Microsoft Teams calls should soon get a bit easier thanks to a new update rolling out now.
The video conferencing platform has revealed it is working on adding configurable keyboard shortcuts for users.
Once included, this should mean users can quickly and easily access the symbols, icons and much more more they may use regularly on a daily basis, but sometime are not close at hand when typing in a work environment.
Microsoft Teams keyboard shortcutsMicrosoft says the new addition will allow users to, "set your own keyboard shortcuts to match your work preferences."
In a Microsoft 365 roadmap post, it noted the feature can be found by clicking on the ellipsis in a Teams chat window, and selecting "Keyboard shortcuts" from the menu. Users will be able to create and customize their own shortcuts, and edit them once completed.
The feature is rolling out now, and will be available to users across the world using Teams on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.
The launch is the latest in a series of recent improvements to Microsoft Teams announced by the company as it looks to improve the experience for users.
This includes rolling out "enhanced spell check", giving users the tools to make sure their messages are as accurate as possible.
It also recently announced a tweak that will allow multiple people to control slides being presented in a meeting or call.
Microsoft says the addition will mean that presenters are able to maintain "a smooth flow during meetings or webinars" - hopefully meaning the end of manual slide changes - and hopefully, the phrase "next slide please".
And the platform also revealed it is working on adding noise suppression for participants dialing in to a call, which should spell an end to potentially ear-splitting call interruptions, or participants being deafened by background noise from another person on the call.
You might also likeAI agents are fundamentally reshaping businesses and how work gets done by augmenting them with autonomous, context-aware execution. If you’re not leveraging AI agents, here’s why you should.
Recognizing that managing AI agents is becoming an essential skill in the workforce, I predict that before 2026, every person at my 1,000+-person company will be using an agent on a daily basis. AI agents are evolving businesses rapidly, and while tech adoption rates can be slower for some organizations, the momentum and interest in agentic AI is building rapidly and proving its business value.
As organizations continue to grapple with complexity, speed, and the pressure to do more with less resources and staff, AI agents offer a path to operational agility: automating routine decisions, surfacing real-time insights, and accelerating strategic outcomes. This shift marks more than a ‘tech upgrade’—it’s a redefinition of the business operating model, where the ability to harness intelligent, data-driven agents will distinguish tomorrow’s leaders from those stuck in yesterday’s workflows.
Real agentsFirst, what is a real agent and why is it different?
In sales and marketing, there is a lot of chatter about building agents that save time and allow companies to send personalized content at scale. That’s absolutely an efficiency that should be taking place, but we’re probably talking about a database trigger in Salesforce that kicks off IF-THEN logic that, in turn, uses an API call to ChatGPT for purposes of drafting the content.
That is not an agent.
By definition, an agent is more resourceful, proactive, and helpful, able to pursue goals, and achieve more results on behalf of employees than either a chatbot or conventional automation. Although the concept of autonomous agents has been around for years, we’re just getting to the point where the technology is becoming widespread, with tools for the creation of agents improving rapidly.
Rather than trying to give a formal definition of what constitutes an agent, let me describe what makes the best formula for purpose-driven AI agents. They possess:
1. Tools to search the web and social media, gather information, and provide data analysis. It’s not a simple report on findings that is helpful in this context, it is an analysis of the findings and a strategy to move forward. Investing in tools is important: think of it like sharpening your knife, if it’s dull, it’s not going to cut as intended. You need to structure the tools to be efficient and flexible so your agent can use them properly.
2. Knowledge, particularly knowledge of you and your goals, the expectation of your outcome for the role you sit in, your writing style, and how to be successful. Context is key, make sure the agent has the relevant knowledge to do its intended job. This could include embedding knowledge from sales decks, website and app data and customer call transcripts.
3. LLM vs LLM evaluation, to ensure reliability, the most effective AI agents will use one model to generate an output and a different model to critique it. For example, if you're relying on an AI agent to draft a report, this approach helps prevent mistakes or awkward phrasing that another reviewer—human or AI—might otherwise catch.
4. A Playbook so the agent learns standard protocols about your company's data and requirements. The playbook should be prescriptive and specific but also leave room for the agent to adapt and change as it gets more information and is able to perform better.
How AI agents are leading business transformationAcross industries, AI agents are beginning to take on specialized roles within business workflows, offering practical support in areas like SEO, sales, and market analysis. For example, some agents now generate pre-meeting briefs by pulling together public digital signals, company data, and CRM information—work that previously required extensive manual effort.
For example, I worked on an AI Meeting Prep Agent for salespeople that one customer told us gave him a complete briefing within seconds that would have taken him at least a half hour to do himself, if he could even find the time — and this is someone who meets with multiple customers and potential customers every day.
Other agents analyze competitive keyword trends to recommend SEO content strategies, or track sudden changes in search behavior to surface emerging market shifts, providing more depth and speed of analysis than would be possible otherwise.
In sales, agents can be used to craft personalized outreach based on real-time data, helping teams engage prospects with greater relevance. Rather than replacing teams, these agents handle the groundwork—searching, summarizing, and connecting data—so people can spend more time making strategic decisions and less time on prep work.
ResultsThe result isn’t just increased efficiency, it’s business transformation. These agents free up talent from information-gathering and task repetition, enabling teams to focus on high-impact work: crafting strategy, building relationships, and driving innovation.
As these agentic workflows become embedded across functions, companies gain a more adaptive, data-responsive operating model—one that scales insight, improves agility, and accelerates decision-making across the board.
In short, AI agents don’t replace teams—they amplify them, creating a multiplier effect that turns data into direction and strategy into execution.
Technology is moving faster than ever, and now is the time to be an innovator, set your brand apart from the rest and stay ahead of the curve.
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- We have leaked renders for Samsung's next foldables
- There are a couple of key design changes
- It's likely that the phones will be unveiled during July
All the indications are that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 are going to get their grand reveal next month – possibly on July 9 – and freshly leaked renders may have given us a better idea of the designs of these handsets.
First up we've got the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 renders, courtesy of the team at Android Headlines. There aren't too many design changes, but it looks like the foldable is going to be thinner than ever, as has been previously rumored.
Exclusive: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Renders Show Slimmer Design, Bigger Displays https://t.co/bYpU7Fuyy5June 19, 2025
The cover display is apparently getting wider too, so the phone will feel a bit more like a standard phone when it's closed, and we've got two colors to look at here: Blue Shadow and Jet Black (a few other colors could be on the table too).
Perhaps the biggest surprise in these renders is that the punch-hole camera seems to be back on the main display, replacing the under-display camera on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 – perhaps due to the thinner frame. That's a step back in terms of technology, and arguable aesthetics, though the captured photo and video quality could be boosted as a result.
On the flip sideExclusive: Galaxy Z Flip 7 Leaks with Full Cover Display — Finally Catching Motorola https://t.co/aWkrS2P4TOJune 19, 2025
We've got another batch of leaked renders showing off the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7, and again these come from Android Headlines. The same Blue Shadow and Jet Black colors are on show, which will most likely be joined by other shades.
The big upgrade when it comes to this phone compared to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is the larger cover display, meaning it looks more like the Motorola Razr series of flip foldables – and the upgrade should make the outer screen more useful.
As with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, these renders show a phone that's thinner and lighter than its predecessor. According to this leak, many of the specs will stay the same, though there will be a faster processor on the inside.
All that remains is for Samsung to announce a date for its next Galaxy Unpacked event, and reveal these phones officially – which will almost certainly be sometime in July. At the same showcase, we're expecting to see a couple of Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 models, and perhaps a tri-fold phone as well.
You might also likeAmid all the debates about how AI affects jobs, science, the environment, and everything else, there's a question of how large language models impact the people using them directly.
A new study from the MIT Media Lab implies that using AI tools reduces brain activity in some ways, which is understandably alarming. But I think that's only part of the story. How we use AI, like any other piece of technology, is what really matters.
Here's what the researchers did to test AI's effect on the brain: They asked 54 students to write essays using one of three methods: their own brains, a search engine, or an AI assistant, specifically ChatGPT.
Over three sessions, the students stuck with their assigned tools. Then they swapped, with the AI users going tool-free, and the non-tool users employing AI.
EEG headsets measured their brain activity throughout, and a group of humans, plus a specially trained AI, scored the resulting essays. Researchers also interviewed each student about their experience.
As you might expect, the group relying on their brains showed the most engagement, best memory, and the most sense of ownership over their work, as evidenced by how much they could quote from them.
The ones using AI at first had less impressive recall and brain connectivity, and often couldn’t even quote their own essays after a few minutes. When writing manually in the final test, they still underperformed.
The authors are careful to point out that the study has not yet been peer-reviewed. It was limited in scope, focused on essay writing, not any other cognitive activity. And the EEG, while fascinating, is better at measuring overall trends than pinpointing exact brain functions. Despite all these caveats, the message most people would take away is that using AI might make you dumber.
But I would reframe that to consider if maybe AI isn’t dumbing us down so much as letting us opt out of thinking. Perhaps the issue isn’t the tool, but how we’re using it.
AI brainsIf you use AI, think about how you used it. Did you get it to write a letter, or maybe brainstorm some ideas? Did it replace your thinking, or support it? There’s a huge difference between outsourcing an essay and using an AI to help organize a messy idea.
Part of the issue is that "AI" as we refer to it is not literally intelligent, just a very sophisticated parrot with an enormous library in its memory. But this study didn’t ask participants to reflect on that distinction.
The LLM-using group was encouraged to use the AI as they saw fit, which probably didn't mean thoughtful and judicious use, just copying without reading, and that’s why context matters.
Because the "cognitive cost" of AI may be tied less to its presence and more to its purpose. If I use AI to rewrite a boilerplate email, I’m not diminishing my intelligence. Instead, I’m freeing up bandwidth for things that actually require my thinking and creativity, such as coming up with this idea for an article or planning my weekend.
Sure, if I use AI to generate ideas I never bother to understand or engage with, then my brain probably takes a nap, but if I use it to streamline tedious chores, I have more brainpower for when it matters.
Think about it like this. When I was growing up, I had dozens of phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, and other details of my friends and family memorized. I had most of it written down somewhere, but I rarely needed to consult it for those I was closest to. But I haven't memorized a number in almost a decade.
I don't even know my own landline number by heart. Is that a sign I’m getting dumber, or just evidence I've had a cell phone for a long time and stopped needing to remember them?
We’ve offloaded certain kinds of recall to our devices, which lets us focus on different types of thinking. The skill isn’t memorizing, it’s knowing how to find, filter, and apply information when we need it. It's sometimes referred to as "extelligence," but really it's just applying brain power to where it's needed.
That’s not to say memory doesn’t matter anymore. But the emphasis has changed. Just like we don’t make students practice long division by hand once they understand the concept, we may one day decide that it’s more important to know what a good form letter looks like and how to prompt an AI to write one than to draft it line by line from scratch.
Humans are always redefining intelligence. There are a lot of ways to be smart, and knowing how to use tools and technology is one important measure of smarts. At one point, being smart meant knowing how to knap flint, make Latin declensions or working a slide rule.
Today, it might mean being able to collaborate with machines without letting them do all the thinking for you. Different tools prioritize different cognitive skills. And every time a new tool comes along, some people panic that it will ruin us or replace us.
The printing press. The calculator. The internet. All were accused of making people lazy thinkers. All turned out to be a great boon to civilization (well, the jury is still out on the internet).
With AI in the mix, we’re probably leaning harder into synthesis, discernment, and emotional intelligence – the human parts of being human. We don't need the kind of scribes who are only good at writing down what people say; we need people who know how to ask better questions.
Knowing when to trust a model and when to double-check. It means turning a tool that’s capable of doing the work into an asset that helps you do it better.
But none of it works if you treat the AI like a vending machine for intelligence. Punch in a prompt, wait for brilliance to fall out? No, that's not how it works. And if that's all you do with it, you aren't getting dumber, you just never learned how to stay in touch with your own thoughts.
In the study, the LLM group’s lower essay ownership wasn’t just about memory. It was about engagement. They didn’t feel connected to what they wrote because they weren’t the ones doing the writing. That’s not about AI. That’s about using a tool to skip the hard part, which means skipping the learning.
The study is important, though. It reminds us that tools shape thinking. It nudges us if we are using AI tools to expand our brains or to avoid using them. But to claim AI use makes people less intelligent is like saying calculators made us bad at math. If we want to keep our brains sharp, maybe the answer isn’t to avoid AI but to be thoughtful about using it.
The future isn't human brains versus AI. It’s about humans who know how to think with AI and any other tool, and avoiding becoming someone who doesn't bother thinking at all. And that’s a test I’d still like to pass.
You might also like- Cerebras' X account was hacked to push (fake) new $CEREBRAS coin
- Company execs have confirmed this was a "scam"
- Cerebras is working with the US military
The official X account of AI chip maker Cerebras was recently hacked, with the malicious actor(s) behind the attack using the platform to share a fake cryptocurrency, the company has confirmed.
The breach was used to promote a fraudulent crypto scheme involving a fake coin, named $CEREBRAS, however the news was met with scepticism even before the company regained control over its X account and confirmed the scam.
Industry experts had already suspected $CEREBRAS of being a scam or a rug pull (and instance where a project gets abandoned after the company or individual responsible has raised assets from the public), and doubt was also raised when people started to notice that the fake coin had only been launched days earlier, on June 15, raising red flags among crypto observers.
Cerebras fake cryptocurrency scamResponding to one request on X, CEO Andrew Feldman wrote: "No. We did not. This is a scam." Company Director James Wang also responded to speculation: "Cerebras is not launching a token. It’s a scam. Do not click."
Ceberas has since regained control over its X account, and no recent suspicious activity has been reported.
"Please be aware: Cerebras does not, and will never, launch or endorse any cryptocurrency or token. We are working to regain control of the account. Stay alert and protect yourself from scams," the company wrote.
In other news, the company recently boasted record-breaking LLM inference speeds using the Llama 4 Maverick 400B model – we're talking 2,522 output tokens per second – nearly 2.5x Nvidia's 1,038 output tokens per second.
"Cerebras has led the charge in redefining inference performance across models like Llama, DeepSeek, and Qwen, regularly delivering over 2,500 TPS/user," Feldman wrote.
Cerebras also won a joint $45 million US government contract with Canadian chip startup Ranovus to speed up inter-chip connections.
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