Residents of some states will soon be able to add their driver’s license or state ID to Apple Wallet, and Apple has revealed which states will support the initiative at the outset. Arizona and Georgia will be the first to let their residents use IDs stored on Wallet, with Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma and Utah to follow.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will let travelers use an ID stored in Wallet at some security checkpoints and lanes at certain airports. Apple says these will be the first places where people can use a driver’s license or state ID they add to Wallet. The company says retailers and venues will add support later.

You’ll be able to share ID details by tapping your iPhone or Apple Watch, which could help you avoid carrying the physical copy with you or digging around in your pocket or bag to find it. “The addition of driver’s licenses and state IDs to Apple Wallet is an important step in our vision of replacing the physical wallet with a secure and easy-to-use mobile wallet,” Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, said in a statement. “We are excited that the TSA and so many states are already on board to help bring this to life for travelers across the country using only their iPhone and Apple Watch, and we are already in discussions with many more states as we’re working to offer this nationwide in the future.”

Adding an ID to Wallet is similar to the process of saving credit cards and transit passes. You’ll need to scan the card with your phone and take a selfie for verification by your state. When you tap your device at TSA checkpoints, it will display a prompt listing the info that the agency is asking for. Once you authorize the request with Face ID or Touch ID, your iPhone or Apple Watch will share those details with the TSA, so you don’t even need to show your device to an agent or scanner.

Apple says it will store your ID securely. The function will be available as part of iOS 15, which Apple will likely release this month, if past release dates are anything to go by. The latest major version of the firmware will also allow you to add work badges and unlock some smart locks and door locks. Apple Wallet already lets students at some schools store their IDs.

In the future, Chromebooks may be powered by Google's own CPUs: According to Nikkei Asia, the company is developing processors for Chrome OS-powered laptops and tablets in-house. It's not such a far-fetched story, seeing as the tech giant recently announced its own mobile chip called Tensor that's slated to debut on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. Google hired chip engineers from around the world for that endeavor, including talents from its suppliers like Intel and Qualcomm. The company may have decided to use their expertise to work on a processor for Chromebooks, as well.

Nikkei says the tech giant was inspired by the success of its rival when it comes to developing its own chips for the iPhone, iPad and, most recently, Mac computers. The first Macs and iPad Pros powered by Apple's M1 processor launched in 2020, while the first iMacs with the chip became available earlier this year. Google's in-progress Chromebook chip is reportedly based on designs from Softbank's ARM, like most mobile processors out there. By building the processor itself, the company will be able to customize it to meet its needs and to add its own features. It'll lessen Google's reliance on third-party suppliers, in other words, allowing it to control production as it sees fit.

Google plans to release the processors it's developing for Chromebooks in 2023, Nikkei says. The first devices powered by the chips could be available soon after.

Google might just save you from hitting your browser's "back" button (or sifting through your history) more than you'd like. The company is rolling out a Chrome beta feature that adds New Tab Page cards (pictured below) for resuming recent tasks. You can quickly jump back to your shopping cart, a recipe or a Google Doc you were working on. You'll have to switch this on by enabling the #ntp-modules flag, but it could be helpful if you'd rather not backtrack through your page visits just to pick up where you left off.

Google

Another addition will help you avoid a back-and-forth when digging through your search results. An experimental feature adds a row below Chrome's address bar on Android to display the rest of your search results. If one link wasn't what you were looking for, you won't have to tap "back" to check out the rest. You can try the row by enabling the #continuous-search flag.

The Android beta will help you share pithy sayings, too. Enable the #webnotes-stylize flag and Chrome will create stylized images from quotes. You just have to share highlighted text and tap "create card" to choose a template.

It's not certain if or when these features will be active by default in Chrome. Don't be surprised if Google changes or even cuts them based on feedback. With that said, they appear to be helpful enough that it might just be a matter of time before they reach more users. 

After months of hype, Windows 11 has a release date. Microsoft has announced that Windows 11 will be available on October 5th, both as a free upgrade for qualifying Windows 10 systems as well as new PCs shipping with the OS pre-installed.

Don't assume you'll get the upgrade on day one, though. This is a gradual rollout that will prioritize newer hardware and use "intelligence models" to determine who gets the upgrade first, including reliability and device age. All supporting machines will get the update by mid-2022, but this suggests you may be toward the back of the queue if you're using relatively old hardware. At least some shipping Windows 10 PCs will be on the fast track for Windows 11 updates, including models from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and (of course) Microsoft.

Notably, though, Android app support won't be available on launch. Microsoft now only expects to introduce the feature in a Windows Insider preview build sometime in the "coming months." That's not completely shocking given the challenges of translating mobile apps to a mouse-and-keyboard experience, but this still means one of Windows 11's tentpole features won't be available for a long while.

Developing...

Microsoft might let you install Windows 11 on PCs with older processors, but that doesn't mean you'll get the full experience you'd find on newer machines. The company told The Verge that PCs with unsupported CPUs aren't 'entitled' to get Windows 11 updates, and might not even get driver or security upgrades. You may have to get more recent hardware just to keep your system secure, in other words.

We've asked the company if it can comment further, although it declined to elaborate when The Verge asked for more details. It previously said it would let people install Windows 11 ISOs on older CPUs to help businesses test the new platform.

This wouldn't be a completely unexpected move. Microsoft could get into legal trouble if it offers updates to unsupported hardware — it might not want to risk bricking your PC with a patch, or leading you to believe you're guaranteed technical support. This approach lets the company court enthusiasts (who can install new ISO images instead of relying on patches) without widening its compatibility and introducing other headaches.

You'll still get an inferior take on Windows 11, though, and it's evident Microsoft's core message remains intact. The company wants you using a relatively recent computer with Windows 11, even if that means having to wait until you can justify a PC upgrade.

Don't despair if you're having problems making calls on your iPhone 12 — there might be a free fix for it. 9to5Macreports Apple has introduced a repair program for a "very small" number of iPhone 12 and 12 Pro units with faulty earpieces that don't emit sound during calls. If your phone has this problem and was made between October 2020 and April 2021, Apple and authorized repair shops will fix the issue at no cost for up to two years after the "first retail sale."

Apple blamed the issue on a failure-prone component in the receiver. This program doesn't cover the iPhone 12 mini or 12 Pro Max, suggesting they use different receiver hardware.

This is the first repair program for the iPhone 12. We wouldn't expect more given Apple's generally solid track record with recent iPhones (a minority of iPhone 11 units had unresponsive screens). If nothing else, though, this serves as a reminder to check for programs like this before you assume a repair will prove costly.

When Microsoft released the Windows 11 Insider preview earlier this summer, it did so with some confusion around minimum system requirements. It quickly reversed course, saying that more people could install the software update than its requirements originally stated so the company could gather more performance on how the OS performed. After a few months of users testing and providing feedback, Microsoft says that, for the most part, its system requirements from June will stand — but there are a few notable changes.

This means that you'll need a compatible 64-bit processor, 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage, as well as "UEFI secure boot, graphics requirements and TPM 2.0." For the most part, Microsoft is still requiring an 8th-generation or newer Intel processor, but the company is adding a few 7th-generation Intel options to the supported list, including Intel Core X-series, Xeon W-series and the Intel Core 7820HQ. For the latter, Microsoft will only support "select devices that shipped with modern drivers based on Declarative, Componentized, Hardware Support Apps (DCH) design principles, including Surface Studio 2."

After working with AMD, Microsoft has declined to include the first generation of AMD Zen processors in its officially supported list. The full list of supported processors can be found here.

There is some good news for people running older hardware, though. According to The Verge, Microsoft won't prohibit computers running processors on its "supported" list from installing Windows 11 — they just won't be able to do so through the official Windows update software. You'll instead have to download a Windows 11 ISO file and install it yourself. The Verge says this method will primarily be for businesses to try Windows 11 and it won't be publicizing this method to standard users. 

If you're still wondering whether or not your computer will be able to officially run Windows 11, Microsoft has released an update for its PC Health Check, which was originally giving users some rather vague and unhelpful messages regarding compatibility. The new version should make it much clearer whether your computer is supported and, if not, what it needs to meet the Windows 11 system requirements.

Let’s face it, Apple’s AirPods Pro may be small and pocketable, but they’re also easy to lose. If you’re the type of person who’s prone to misplacing their belongings, accessory maker Spigen might have something that could help. As spotted by Gizmodo, the company has released the Tag Armor Duo, a $34.99 case that protects your AirPods Pro case while including a slot for an AirTag.

Spigen isn’t the first accessory maker to make something like this, but the company’s solution has a certain elegance to it. Not only is there a built-in slot for Apple’s lost item tracker, but it also comes with a handy carabiner on the side and a cutout on the bottom to leave the Lightning port unobstructed. You also don’t have to take the case off to charge your AirPods Pro wirelessly.

At $64 for both the case and a single AirTag, Spigen’s Tag Armor Duo isn’t exactly a cheap option. It’s also worth pointing out iOS 15 will include a feature that will allow the AirPods Pro to connect to Apple’s Find My network over Bluetooth. Still, if you want the most peace of mind possible, you could do worse than the Tag Armor Duo. With an AirTag attached to your AirPods Pro case, you can use the U1 chip on a recent iPhone to find the case using an ultra-wideband connection. That allows you to take advantage of Apple’s Precision Finding feature to make locating it easier. The tag also includes a speaker so it can ring to let you know where it is. 

You can buy the Tag Armor Duo from Spigen's website and Amazon.    

A vulnerability in Microsoft's Azure cloud computing service left several thousand customers susceptible to cyberattacks. The tech giant has warned its clients of the flaw in its flagship database service Cosmos DB after it was discovered and reported by security company Wiz. In the blog post Wiz has published, it said it was able to use the vulnerability, which it has named "ChaosDB," to gain "complete unrestricted access to the accounts and databases" of thousands of Azure clients.

Azure customers, including Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-Cola and Exxon-Mobil, use Cosmos DB to manage the massive amounts of data they get in real time. The company explained that it found a series of flaws in the Cosmos DB feature called Jupyter Notebook that gives customers a way to visualize their data. That feature has been around since 2019, but it was switched on for all Cosmos DB customers just this past February. Wiz said that a series of misconfigurations in the notebook created a loophole, which allows any user "to download, delete or manipulate a massive collection of commercial databases, as well as read/write access to the underlying architecture of Cosmos DB." 

While the security company praised Microsoft for disabling the notebook within 48 hours after it was alerted about the issue and for notifying around 30 percent of its customers, it warned that more clients may be at risk. Microsoft only notified the customers that were affected during Wiz's week-long research period this early August. However, the security firm believes the vulnerability has been exploitable for months, possibly even years. It's now advising Azure customers to rotate and regenerate their access keys even if they didn't get an email from Microsoft. That said, the tech giant said it found no evidence that the flaw has been exploited. It told the customers it emailed that there's no "indication that external entities outside the researcher (Wiz) had access to the primary read-write key

As Reuters notes, this is the latest in a series of bad security news for Microsoft over the past year. In February, the tech giant has revealed that the SolarWinds hackers accessed and downloaded source code for Azure, its cloud-based management solution Intune and its mail and calendar server Exchange. The Chinese Hafnium hacking group also exploited a vulnerability in Exchange to infiltrate at least 30,000 organizations around the world, including police departments, hospitals and banks.

YouTube is making good on its promise to bring picture-in-picture viewing to iOS users. TechCrunchreports that YouTube is promising PiP viewing to all iPhone and iPad users in the US, starting with volunteers using Premium. You'll have to opt into the test through the experiments website on your computer, but you're all set after that — you can watch clips in a floating window while you check your social networks or otherwise get things done.

Premium testing ends on October 31st. You might have to reinstall the YouTube app if the feature isn't available right away.

The company hasn't said when it plans to enable PiP for non-Premium subscribers. This is still a step forward, mind you. YouTube's web-only support was limited at best — this should expand the audience and put YouTube's app more on par with competing video services.