WASHINGTON, Feb. 26, 2025 — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is embarking on a new era of effectiveness as we continue to move away from the status quo.
February 2025
Pixel Phones Are Getting a New Scam Detection Tool
Pixel users will soon get an extra layer of protection against malicious calls and texts, as Google’s AI-powered, real-time scam detection is rolling out widely next month.
The Gemini Nano feature, which is coming to both Google Messages and Phone by Google, runs in the background and will alert you mid-call if it identifies “conversation patterns commonly associated with scammers.” You’ll hear a beep at the beginning of possible scam calls to indicate that the conversation is being monitored, with subsequent beeps sounding every few minutes. You’ll also see an on-screen prompt when suspicious activity has been detected, with options to “End call” or mark “Not a scam.” For messages, possible scam texts will be automatically moved to your Spam & blocked folder.
Google says that the feature works on-device only and will not save or record any call or message content.
Google rolled out live threat detection for spotting malicious apps on your Pixel late last year (the same time that Scam Detection launched in a public beta). That feature alerts you to suspicious apps—specifically, “stalkerware” that scrapes your personal data—in real time so you can evaluate and delete them if needed.
How to enable scam detection on your Pixel
Once scam detection is widely available in March, you can activate the feature for calls in your settings. Open Phone by Google Settings > Scam Detection and toggle scam detection on. To enable detection and filtering for spam texts in Google Messages, go to Messages Settings > Spam protection.
Of course, threat and scam detection features don’t absolve users of the responsibility to follow basic security best practices when it comes to calls, messages, and apps. Be wary of calls and texts from numbers you don’t know, and don’t engage with anyone requesting urgent action, such as providing sensitive information, sending money, or downloading software or apps to your devices. Don’t click links in suspicious texts or emails, and always go directly to the website for the bank or institution to locate contact information.
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This Site Gives Your Bluesky Profile a MySpace Makeover
Do you remember a time when the internet was a more chaotically personal place? When the experience of using social media wasn’t so uniform? SkySpace seeks to recapture those days. The site transforms your Bluesky profile into a Myspace-esque page, complete with backgrounds, music, and a section for your top eight friends. I kind of love it.
“I miss when social media was more about being social and less about media,” wrote Ste Curran, who built the site, in the project’s FAQ. “I miss the personality, the ugliness, the chaos, the feeling of planting a flag in tiny part of the internet and saying ‘this is mine’.”
And SkySpace certainly delivers there, allowing you to customize basically every aspect of your profile page. Choose any image on the web as your background—including animated GIFs—and tweak the fonts, color scheme, and borders. Add a song to your profile using a Spotify, Soundcloud, or Apple Music link. List your interests. There’s even a version of MySpace “friends”—complete with an optional top eight.
You can view the SkySpace version of any Bluesky profile, but most of them are boring. To make yours interesting you need to sign in—head to the Skyspace homepage, type your Bluesky handle in the top-right corner, then click “Log In”. You will be asked by Bluesky to authorize SkySpace; do that, and you’re in. You can now click the various edit buttons to really tweak your profile.
Credit: Justin Pot
You can link to any image on the web to add it to the background, then choose how the image will be positioned. You can choose the color of each panel, and its transparency. You can choose the thickness and style of the line around each panel. You can even change the text font and color. Hit Submit, and the change will stick.
(The way this happens is pretty interesting. Your options are actually turned into a Bluesky post as a reply. SkySpace doesn’t store any of your settings on its own servers—the service just scans profiles for relevant posts and renders the page using them. As the FAQ explains it: “When you edit a section the site creates a new post tagged with #skyspace and sends it as a reply to a dead account, @skyspacenull. That effectively hides each post from your followers but SkySpace can see them, parse them and turn them into something beautiful/horrific/beautiful to you.”)
Explore the rest of your page and tweak everything you can. You can add a quote, a location, blurbs, a song, and even a list of interests. All of this will feel vary familiar to MySpace veterans, as will the friends section at the bottom:
Credit: Justin Pot
This is populated entirely from your mutuals on Bluesky—people you follow who also follow you back. You can optionally choose which eight people show up here, bringing back the most important decisions one could make on the internet in 2005: Who deserves a spot in your top eight?
This site doesn’t really return us to the friendlier, simpler internet of two decades ago—if only!—but it’s a nice reminder of the chaos and customization we once took for granted. I recommend checking it out.
The BEST Cavs team EVER, sorry Bron! + Luka Doncic: defensive JUGGERNAUT | The Big Number
Tom Haberstroh and Dan Devine have stumbled across undeniable evidence: the 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers are the best team in franchise history. Yes, better than the 2016 title-winning team (sorry, LeBron!) by EVERY statistical measure. The Big Number this week focuses on the Cavs’ margin of victory, which has now encroached “all-time great” status.
The BEST Cavs team EVER, sorry Bron! + Luka Doncic: defensive JUGGERNAUT | The Big Number
Tom Haberstroh and Dan Devine have stumbled across undeniable evidence: the 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers are the best team in franchise history. Yes, better than the 2016 title-winning team (sorry, LeBron!) by EVERY statistical measure. The Big Number this week focuses on the Cavs’ margin of victory, which has now encroached “all-time great” status.
The BEST Cavs team EVER, sorry Bron! + Luka Doncic: defensive JUGGERNAUT | The Big Number
Tom Haberstroh and Dan Devine have stumbled across undeniable evidence: the 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers are the best team in franchise history. Yes, better than the 2016 title-winning team (sorry, LeBron!) by EVERY statistical measure. The Big Number this week focuses on the Cavs’ margin of victory, which has now encroached “all-time great” status.
Yankees Spring Training Notes: Austin Wells lobbies way into lineup; Will Warren the ‘talk of camp’
Yankees catcher Austin Wells made his spring training debut Wednesday and he and Aaron Boone raved about Will Warren after his impressive start.