News written by Petteri Pyyny

Valve has decided to completely discontinue the sale of physical Steam gift cards.

Physical Steam gift cards have been a convenient way for older relatives to delight the family's teenagers on birthdays and other special occasions.

Going forward, all Steam gift cards will be digital, meaning they will be purchased directly through the Steam online store and received only as a digital code.

Unfortunately, the background to this is financial crime, as gift cards are globally one of the easiest ways to launder money. Their resale value is quite high compared to the purchase price, and they could be bought anonymously - making them perfect if money from dubious sources needed to be converted into "clean" money. For those interested in the topic, we recommend an excellent Bits About Money article (and the entire blog, for that matter).

Gift cards are also widely used in scams, where a victim is tricked into buying gift cards and sharing the codes found on them with the scammer. In such cases, money is not transferred in any traceable form; instead, the scammer can sell the codes on online marketplaces and obtain "clean" money that cannot be linked to the scam.

Spotify has started sending emails to its users, in which the streaming giant announces an upcoming change in the service's login process.

Starting from September 2026, it will no longer be possible to log in to the service using a username at all.

After the change, one must log in to Spotify either using the email connected to the username or through a third-party login service (i.e., practically with a Google or Facebook account).

According to 9to5google, which reported on the matter, Spotify has not yet announced the change other than through emails sent to users.

The reasons for the change have not been disclosed, but it is possible that Spotify is moving entirely away from permanent passwords. If the company abolishes passwords, logging in will work in such a way that after entering the email on the login page, a one-time password will be delivered to that email address. The password will be different for each login and must always be retrieved separately from the email.

The so-called one-time password mechanism prevents the reuse of passwords, which is the main reason why people's Spotify accounts are hijacked. That is, the user has used the same password in multiple services, and one of them becomes subject to a data breach. After that, the user's password is regularly tried on all the most popular, paid services - and if the password is the same, criminals gain access to the account and can, for example, sell access to the user's Spotify account.

Stop Killing Games initiative is a global grassroots organization that hopes to change legislations across the world in a way that would allow video games to remain playable forever - even after the game's servers have been shut down.

In practice, the demand would have been implemented so that in games that also offer a single-player mode, that single-player mode would also function completely without a connection to the game company's servers, meaning game companies could not simply shut down the game (but could shut down its network-dependent parts).

The campaign argued that the current practice no longer guarantees ownership of games after purchase, but is rather a one-time paid license that the game publisher can revoke at any time.

Through the campaign, over 1.2 million signatures were eventually collected, and the citizens' initiative was submitted to the European Union for consideration.

But unfortunately, the European Commission decided to reject (PDF) the citizens' initiative, meaning it will not proceed further in the EU's decision-making bodies.

AI giant OpenAI is the undisputed top name in the field of AI. But the company's success has not yet turned into a profitable business.

According to the financial newspaper Financial Times' confirmed (paywall) financial figures for OpenAI, the company made massive losses in 2025.

The company's total losses for 2025 were, according to the data, a staggering 38.5 billion dollars (approximately 33.3 billion euros).

On the other hand, the company does not have an acute cash crisis on its hands, as, according to the same information, OpenAI had cash reserves of approximately 50 billion dollars at its disposal at the end of 2025.

According to the Financial Times, OpenAI's huge losses are partly explained by a one-time write-down of approximately 30 billion dollars in accounting that occurred in 2025. So the "actual" losses would, on this basis, be "only" about 8 billion dollars.

The company has stated that it aims to be cash flow positive by 2030.

Google today began the distribution of the so-called official, stable version of the Android 17 operating system to supported Google Pixel phones.

The Android 17 update brings a host of user interface improvements, new multitasking and gaming features, as well as enhancements to Android's data security and safety. At the same time, a new version of the smartwatch Wear OS operating system was also released for Pixel Watch devices.

The most visible addition to Android 17 is the multitasking-reforming "bubble function". Previously intended mainly for chat conversations in messaging apps, "bubbles" now expand to other applications as well: by long-pressing an icon on the home screen, an app can be turned into a floating bubble that stays on top of other apps and can be closed by dragging it away. On tablets and foldable phones, bubbles attach to a separate Bubble Bar at the bottom of the screen, from which they can be opened, maximized to full screen, or rearranged. The solution is intended to make it easier to follow, for example, maps, notes, tutorial videos, or sports results without the user constantly having to switch between applications.

Wow. Our site has reached the infamous "rock star age" of 27 years.

Yup, AfterDawn was officially launched on 10th of June, 1999 - back in the days when AltaVista was the leading search engine and Napster had just launched only couple of days before.

World has changed a lot since those days, but we are still here. Not as young and maybe not quite as cocky as we used to be - but very much alive.

As always, I'd like to thank all of you who have supported our site over all these years. Thank you, everybody!

-Petteri Pyyny, CEO
AfterDawn Oy

Apple unveiled a massive pile of AI features for all of its devices, from iPhones to Macs, at the WWDC 2026 event.

But not a single one of the updates shown at the event will be seen on iPhones or iPads sold in the European Union.

Apple blames the European Union and the fact that both the iPhone and iPad are defined as so-called core platform services under the EU's Digital Markets Act legislation.

The term means that they have such a significant market position in their own product category that they are subject to stricter rules to prevent restrictions on competition than smaller players are (Android and Windows are also classified as operating systems in a similar way).

Put simply, it means that no new significant functionalities may be added to these operating systems unless, at the same time, it is made possible for other companies to offer equivalent, competing solutions on the same platform.

The EU takes the view that Apple should offer AI assistants competing with Siri the same kind of access to the data stored on users' phones as Siri has. In addition, other AI assistants comparable to Siri should also be able to control other apps on the device - just as Siri can.

At its summer 2026 WWDC event, Apple finally began its attempt to catch up after several years of lagging behind in the field of artificial intelligence, unveiling a range of new AI-powered technologies aimed at narrowing the gap with its competitors.

Almost the entire event focused on AI and how it will be integrated throughout Apple's upcoming operating systems, from the iPhone's iOS all the way to the Mac's macOS.

The company's central message was that, thanks to the announcements made today, the long-standing AI assistant Siri will finally work the way it was always supposed to. This overhaul has been anticipated since 2024, when Apple first hinted at major AI-driven improvements coming to Siri.

However, rather than attempting to build everything from scratch in order to catch up with its rivals, Apple chose to license the foundation of both Siri and the broader Apple Intelligence platform from competitor Google.

That said, Apple's AI is not simply a direct copy of Google's Gemini. Apple has extensively customized, tuned and adapted the technology for its own ecosystem, although Google's AI expertise still forms the underlying foundation.

Apple has officially introduced its new iOS 27 operating system update, which brings significant underâ€'theâ€'hood performance improvements and broad device support.

At its developer event, Apple nevertheless confirmed that the update's biggest change, the completely revamped, AI-based Siri AI, will not arrive at all on iPhone or iPad in the European Union when the operating system is released. Apple is not even able to estimate when it might arrive. This is influenced by the EU's Digital Markets Act.

As a result of the decision, European iPhone users will miss out on, among other things, the new standalone Siri chat app, systemâ€'wide text editing and drafting tools, as well as the camera app's new Siri mode, which can be used to perform visual searches of the surroundings or, for example, split a restaurant bill among friends.

Although the AI features will not be available, iOS 27 still offers speed improvements for basic functions. Thanks to an optimized CPU scheduler, apps launch up to 30 percent faster in the system, and new photos load into the photo library up to 70 percent faster than before.

Apple is soon moving into the final phase of its project, which began when the company unveiled its own M-series processors and transitioned to the era of so-called Apple Silicon.

Just like the previous time, when Apple switched from PowerPC processors to Intel's x86 processors, the company ensured that old applications would work with the new processor family as well.

Current Macs using Apple's M-series processors utilize a compatibility layer called Rosetta 2, which in a way emulates the previously used Intel processor architecture. Thanks to Rosetta 2, old applications originally developed for Intel-based Macs still work on current Macs.

But macOS 28, to be released next autumn, is a significant milestone in this regard: Rosetta 2 will be removed from this operating system version, meaning that thousands upon thousands of old Mac applications will completely stop working.

Applications have already been released for Mac, such as Rosetta Check, which scan all installed applications and drivers on the computer, checking if any of them use Intel architecture. If an application uses Intel architecture and an Apple Silicon version has never been released for it, the program simply cannot be used anymore from macOS 28 onwards.

Meta has found itself in the middle of a massive security scandal, as it has been revealed that hackers have managed to hijack Instagram accounts by tricking the company's own AI-powered customer service bot.

On social media (link X / Twitter) and in Telegram groups of cybersecurity researchers, shared videos and screenshots show that taking over accounts was easy and only required a conversation with the AI bot.

The attack was based on hackers contacting Meta's AI support assistant and simply asking it to link the target account to a new email address.

The AI bot agreed to the request and sent a verification code to the address provided by the attacker. When the hacker entered the code back to the bot, it offered a direct button to reset the password, after which the victim no longer had access to their own account.

So that Instagram's automatic security systems would not have alerted about suspicious activity, the attackers used a VPN connection to fake their location to match the victim's presumed location. Hackers did not need at any point to access the victim's original email account.

Among the hijacked accounts there have been several well-known entities, such as Barack Obama's White House official Instagram account, cosmetics giant Sephora, and the well-known cybersecurity researcher Jane Wong (link X / Twitter).

The domestic smart ring manufacturer OURA, which originally set out from Oulu to the world, has announced the latest generation of its ring lineup, the Oura Ring 5.

This is the company's most significant design leap so far, as the new model is as much as 40 percent smaller than the previous Oura Ring 4 model. As a result, the company is marketing its newcomer as the world's smallest smart ring, whose thinner and lighter titanium structure and smoother curvature make it less noticeable and more natural-feeling on the finger.

However, the small size still offers comprehensive technical features, and the ring continues to provide a week-long operating time on a single charge.

The sensor bumps on the inner surface of the ring have been made lower, which improves skin contact. In addition, the new signal architecture uses more powerful LEDs and a total of 12 stronger signal channels, which are promised to ensure accurate measurement results for an even wider range of different finger types and skin tones. The ring is protected against dust and water down to 100 meters in accordance with the IP68 rating, and its titanium surface is protected by a more scratch-resistant PVD coating than before.

The European Parliament is setting an example of so-called digital independence.

Today, June 4th, the French Qwant search engine will replace Google as the default search engine on all parliament computers.

During Donald Trump's second presidential term, a concrete concern has arisen in Europe about how dependent Europe is on US technology companies. Firstly, US intelligence legislation allows all data - including data stored in Europe concerning Europeans - to end up in US hands if the data is managed by American companies.

A second clear concern is that due to the political situation in the United States, it can no longer be entirely certain that American services would continue to operate in the future.

However, there are European alternatives for almost all services, if one only dares to try them.

The Parliament wants to set a clear example with its actions that a switch to European solutions is possible. The most important reason, Politico's according to information obtained, is precisely the concern for privacy - that is, whether MEPs' data leaks to the US administration when using American search engines, such as Google or even DuckDuckGo.

It's already been seven years since we reviewed the first robot vacuum that featured a separate dust container built into its charging dock. Since then, self-emptying robot vacuums have become the industry standard: practically every robot vacuum priced above €500 can now empty its own small internal dustbin into a larger dust bag located inside the charging dock.

Back then, the solution felt ingenious - and it still does. The usability of robot vacuums drops dramatically if users constantly have to manually empty the robot's tiny onboard dustbin.

But even then, we complained about one particularly silly design choice... Why on earth does the larger dock-mounted dust container rely on disposable dust bags, when traditional canister vacuum cleaners largely abandoned them sometime in the early 2010s? Buying dust bags is already irritating enough with conventional vacuums, but with robot vacuums it can eventually become nearly impossible as models age and compatible dust bags may only be available from questionable Chinese online stores.



Now, that rather ridiculous problem finally has a solution. We got our hands on Ecovacs' new flagship robot vacuum, the Ecovacs Deebot X11 Omnicyclone, launched around the turn of 2025/2026, where the dock's dust bag has been replaced by a fixed large-capacity dustbin.

Google is expanding the role of its Gemini AI assistant towards more independent, agent-like operations.

At its I/O 2026 developer conference, the company introduced a series of updates aimed at transforming Gemini from a passive question-and-answer tool into a constantly working digital assistant in the background. New features include the Daily Brief agent, which provides daily summaries, and the 24/7 personal AI agent Gemini Spark.

The task of Daily Brief is to serve as a kind of morning starting point, compiling a personalized status overview for the user. The agent automatically reads connected applications in the background, such as Gmail and Google Calendar, and based on these, quickly forms a scannable summary of urgent messages, upcoming events, and, for example, tracking information for incoming packages. Daily Brief is not limited to mere summarization but also aims to prioritize content according to the user's goals and suggest next steps. The user can guide the agent by providing feedback on the summaries it produces. Daily Brief will initially be available only in the United States and is limited to Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers.