Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro pricing varies across five Southeast Asian markets, with different countries topping the Pro and Pro Max rankings.

The post iPhone 18 Pro Prices Vary Across Southeast Asia — Here’s Where They Cost the Most appeared first on TechRepublic.

Microsoft released an out-of-band Windows update to fix Remote Desktop, Hyper-V Linux sharing, and USB audio issues caused by its September patch.

The post Microsoft Issues Out-of-Band Windows Update After September Patch Breaks Remote Desktop, Hyper-V appeared first on TechRepublic.

While end-to-end benchmarks like SWE-bench provide broad performance scores for AI agents, they are often expensive, slow, and lack the root-cause diagnostics needed to explain exactly where an agent's logic broke down. To solve this, developers should adopt behavioral evaluations—fast, local, unit-style tests that assert on discrete intermediate actions, such as verifying specific tool calls or file modifications rather than final string equality. By building these inexpensive micro-checks alongside macro benchmarks, engineering teams can confidently iterate on system prompts and upgrade models without the risk of regressions.

Agent Plugins 1.0.0 is a new, vendor-neutral directory specification—backed by Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others—for packaging Agent Skills and MCP servers into a single portable unit. By standardizing the manifest (plugin.json) and utilizing a fixed directory layout, it eliminates the need for developers to maintain separate wrappers or configurations to support different AI coding agents and IDEs. Google has officially joined as a Core Maintainer and already rolled out support in the Agents CLI and Data Agent Kit, allowing developers to start building and distributing interoperable plugins today.

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing parents with helpful tools to support their teens across Meta’s apps, we’re bringing parental supervision to Threads. Starting this week in Asia Pacific countries, parents and guardians in Family Center will have visibility and controls on Threads, as they do across our other apps.

Teen Accounts on Threads have automatic, built-in protections like private accounts and limits on the content teens see. Beginning this week, parents can decide if teens under 16 can change any of these settings to be less strict, and will have access to new insights and controls.

How Supervision Works on Threads

Parental Supervision offers a set of tools and insights that parents and guardians can use to help support their teen on Threads. When supervision is set up, parents and guardians can:

• See time spent: View how much time their teen has spent on Threads each day for the past week, including their average daily time spent for the week.
• Set time limits: Set a daily time limit for how long their teen can use Threads and block access during select days and hours. If Threads is used on multiple devices, time limits apply to the total time spent using Threads.
• Adjust sleep mode: Parents can limit or block their teen’s access to Threads at night, with notifications muted and auto-replies on by default from 10 PM to 7 AM.
• Manage tagging: Control who can tag their teen in posts.
• Manage privacy and content preferences: Manage and approve some of their teen’s privacy settings and sensitive content preferences.

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To set up supervision on Threads, visit familycenter.meta.com/supervision. We’ll continue expanding our supervision tools to make it easier for parents to find controls, get meaningful visibility, and support their teen’s experience across our apps — all in one place.

The post Threads Introduces Parental Supervision for Teens in APAC appeared first on Meta Newsroom.

Imagine going to sleep after writing a single Markdown specification and waking up to find that an A...

Google has officially released version 1.0 of the Agent Development Kit (ADK) for Kotlin, achieving full feature parity with the Python and Java ADK cores to enable idiomatic, multi-agent AI development. Built on Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP), the framework leverages Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP) for zero-reflection, type-safe function calling, alongside advanced orchestration capabilities like human-in-the-loop workflows and context compaction. Additionally, the release introduces a robust suite of Android-first extensions, allowing mobile developers to integrate local models via LiteRT-LM, cloud reasoning through Firebase AI, session persistence using Room, and semantic memory powered by AppSearch.

Astroparticle physics sits at the exciting intersection of astrophysics and particle physics and stu...

It's happening! We are absolutely pumped that we're just about two weeks away from Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026! From September 30 to October 2, 2026, the Google Search Central team is heading to the gorgeous city of Barcelona, Spain for three days of deep technical exploration, networking, and collaboration.

Five budget laptops under $800 stand out for different reasons, from OLED displays and 16GB RAM to long battery life and premium portable designs.

The post Best Budget Laptops for 2026: 5 Picks Under $800 appeared first on TechRepublic.

I compared the best conversation intelligence software for analyzing sales calls, coaching reps, identifying deal risk, and turning buyer conversations into action.

The post Best Conversation Intelligence Software for Sales Teams in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.

How accurate is Samsung Galaxy Watch body composition? Research finds strong agreement for body-fat estimates but weaker results for skeletal muscle.

The post Samsung Galaxy Watch Body Composition: How Much Can You Trust the Numbers? appeared first on TechRepublic.

Apple rebuilt parts of iOS 27 for the iPhone Duo, adding fold-aware layouts, vertical controls, Split View, dual Home Screens, and expanded StandBy.

The post iPhone Duo’s iOS 27 Is Different: 6 Features Built for a Foldable iPhone appeared first on TechRepublic.

King Charles will convene AI, government, and nonprofit leaders in Scotland to discuss responsible development, oversight, and benefits for society.

The post King Charles Brings Tech and Government Leaders Together for Responsible AI Talks appeared first on TechRepublic.

This blog post explores how to transition AI agents from static, build-time security controls to dynamic runtime governance using the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. It highlights three primary managed defenses: Model Armor for screening edge prompts, Semantic Governance Policies for evaluating tool intent against business rules, and Agent Anomaly Detection for catching multi-turn exploits. By shifting these capabilities to the platform level, security administrators can dynamically enforce policies and neutralize complex attacks without needing to modify or redeploy the agent's underlying code.

OnePlus 16R could become the brand’s flagship in India as leaks suggest the OnePlus 16 may skip the market and remain exclusive to China.

The post OnePlus 16 May Skip India: 16R Could Take Its Place as the Flagship appeared first on TechRepublic.

South Korea is drafting security guidance for autonomous AI agents, covering access controls, audit logs, shutdown tools, and human oversight.

The post South Korea Drafts Security Rules for Autonomous AI Agents appeared first on TechRepublic.

ASUS packs in an OLED display, more ports, and optional 16GB RAM, while Apple keeps the MacBook Neo cheaper, sharper, fanless, and tightly tied to macOS.

The post ASUS Zenbook 14 vs MacBook Neo: Which Affordable Laptop Is Better? appeared first on TechRepublic.

Google Search Live is now powered by Google's latest AI model, Gemini 3.8 Live. Search Live has been around for a couple years now, both in audio only format and then video format. Search Live was released globally in March, and before that, it removed the opt-in requirements.

Leaked materials suggest OpenAI contractors review some ChatGPT conversations, raising new questions about human review, training settings, and user privacy.

The post OpenAI Reportedly Pays Contractors $50+ an Hour to Review ChatGPT Chats appeared first on TechRepublic.