Technology

• iOS 26 adds the new Call Screening feature to iPhone
• The new feature automatically asks callers for a name and reason for calling, and provides a real-time transcript
• New data suggests more than 1 billion hoax calls could be intercepted

A new feature in iOS 26 could block more than a billion spam calls each year, according to new data.

Apple is adding a new Call Screening feature to iPhone with iOS 26, and with Call Screening enabled, your iPhone will ask for a name and reason for calling before sending the call through, building on the Live Voicemail feature added with iOS 17.

Similarly to Live Voicemail, Call Screening provides a real-time transcription of the caller’s response to those initial questions, and then gives the user the choice to pick up or ignore the call.

The feature will also be available in the Wi-Fi calling-enabled Phone apps coming with iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26.

A billion blocked calls

The iPhone 16 family will all get Call Screening, whether its powered by Apple Intelligence or not. (Image credit: Future)

Analysis by second-hand phone marketplace Compare and Recycle suggests that this could block more than a billion scam calls each year in the UK alone.

Though the report provided by Compare and Recycle is UK-specific, it tracks that this figure could increase quite substantially with other countries factored in.

The report estimates that the average person in the UK gets four spam calls per month. The report also estimates that just shy of 24 million people in the UK will get access to Call Screening, working out to more than 1.1 billion intercepted calls each year.

Personally, I can’t stand spam calls, and there have been days – and even whole months – where I seem to get much more than the estimated four calls.

Additionally, I get plenty of calls that drop as soon as I pick up, or as soon as I say something. It’s never nice to imagine that my number’s been scraped or marked as ‘active’ in a database for scammers.

To be honest, the issue is so prevalent that I sometimes don’t pick up the phone at all, instead waiting for a voicemail or follow-up email to know exactly who's trying to reach me.

The addition of Call Screening could see me pop the SIM card out of my trusty Oppo Find X8 Pro and back into one of the best iPhones, for the sake of using my phone as an actual phone again.

With that said, the official Apple press release for iOS 26 doesn't make it clear whether Call Screening is an Apple Intelligence feature, in which case my iPhone 15 would be out of luck.

WWDC saw the announcement of plenty more features for iPhone, iPad, and Mac – head over to our WWDC2025 recap for a full rundown.

And be sure to let us know whether you’re looking forward to using Call Screening on your iPhone in the comments below.

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• Dual Thunderbolt 5 ports and OCuLink elevate this eGPU beyond typical external GPU standards
• Nvidia's Ada Lovelace cards shine in this unit
• Compact design and bold specs make FEVM FNGT5 Pro a tempting power upgrade for PCs

External GPUs have long served as a way to upgrade a laptop’s graphical capabilities, particularly for users whose machines lack discrete GPUs.

The FNGT5 Pro from Chinese manufacturer FEVM is the latest entrant in this niche category, bringing an ambitious mix of high-end GPU options and modern connectivity features.

The FNGT5 Pro supports three RTX 40-series laptop GPUs, specifically the RTX 4060, 4080, and 4090. This might raise eyebrows, but it appears to be a calculated decision to balance power and heat management within such a compact enclosure.

RTX eGPU aims high

Measuring 142 x 100 x 60 mm and with a total volume of 0.86 liters, the FNGT5 Pro is compact and travel-friendly, though not quite pocket-sized.

Despite its portability, the device features dual Thunderbolt 5 ports (100W upstream and 30W downstream), a high-speed USB-A port, and an OCuLink interface.

Offering both Thunderbolt 5 and OCuLink sets it apart from most rivals, which typically offer just one of the two.

Display connectivity is handled by HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

If you're part of the Apple ecosystem, however, don’t get too excited, you likely can’t use this eGPU with a MacBook Pro.

Apple has not supported external GPUs since its transition to Apple Silicon, and even earlier Intel-based Macs were only compatible with Thunderbolt 3 eGPUs using officially supported AMD GPUs.

Despite Thunderbolt 5 being theoretically backward-compatible and extremely fast, macOS lacks the driver-level support needed for Nvidia cards, especially those housed in non-certified enclosures.

So, while you could physically connect the FNGT5 Pro to a MacBook via Thunderbolt, it’s highly unlikely to function as intended.

As for pricing, the top-tier RTX 4090 Laptop GPU, with 16GB of memory and 9,728 CUDA cores, costs $1,374, steep, but in line with desktop equivalents.

The RTX 4080, featuring 7,424 CUDA cores and 12GB of memory, is priced at $1,040, while the entry-level RTX 4060, with 3,072 CUDA cores and 8GB of RAM, comes in at $555.

For users seeking the best laptop for video editing or for Photoshop, pairing a compatible system with a powerful eGPU like the FNGT5 Pro can help close the performance gap without committing to a full desktop setup.

Via TomsHardware

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• InnoGrit N3X SSD delivers 50 DWPD endurance but costs more than typical enterprise drives
• Built for caching, inference, and workloads that punish ordinary SSDs
• Runs entirely in SLC mode, sacrificing capacity for serious performance gains

The InnoGrit N3X SSD introduces a high-endurance storage solution aimed at enterprise workloads with extreme write demands.

Unveiled at Computex 2025, and featuring Kioxia’s second-generation XL-Flash operating in SLC mode, the drive is engineered to deliver 50 drive writes per day (DWPD) over five years, far exceeding the endurance of typical enterprise SSDs.

This level of durability is impressive, but it also raises questions about the cost of the device and whether its performance will justify the expected premium.

SCM roots and a specialized architecture

At the heart of the N3X is storage class memory (SCM), a memory tier designed to bridge the performance gap between DRAM and traditional NAND flash.

When used in SLC mode, Kioxia’s XL-Flash functions as a type of SCM, promising ultra-low latency and high endurance.

Unlike standard NAND, which stores multiple bits per cell, operating XL-Flash in SLC mode prioritizes speed and reliability over capacity.

This design choice closely mirrors the original goals of Intel’s now-discontinued Optane memory, positioning the N3X as a potential successor in that specialized niche.

While SCM technologies like XL-Flash are not new, they remain relatively rare due to their high cost and specialized applications.

InnoGrit’s use of the IG5669 PCIe 5.0 controller, with NVMe 2.0 support, allows for impressive performance claims: up to 14 GB/s read and 12 GB/s write speeds, along with 3.5 million random read IOPS.

Latency is where the N3X particularly stands out - read latency under 13 microseconds and write latency as low as 4 microseconds.

If consistently achieved, these figures would place the N3X among the fastest SSDs in development.

The drive is marketed for workloads involving sustained writes, in-memory computing, and real-time inference, areas where traditional NAND SSDs often struggle with latency and wear.

However, the decision to operate entirely in SLC mode significantly reduces the available capacity per die, resulting in smaller drive sizes and a higher cost per gigabyte.

While the drive is offered in capacities ranging from 400GB to 3.2TB, these fall short of what is expected from today’s largest SSDs.

Although the N3X possesses many of the technical qualities of the best portable SSDs, it is not intended for mainstream use.

Its reliance on SCM architecture, while enabling exceptional performance, places it firmly in the domain of niche enterprise deployments.

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I’ve been covering artificial intelligence, or at least topics that touch upon it, for most of my technology journalism career, and long before generative AI was something the public could just access with relative ease. But like it or lump it, AI is very much the buzz of the moment in and beyond the technology world. So it was surprising that at WWDC 2025, Apple kind of played down the subject.

Sure, Apple Intelligence was present and would appear to be more integrated into Cupertino’s various software platforms than it was previously. But many of these features appear to augment existing tools rather than create all-new ones; AI can figure out the regular routes you take in the iOS 26 Maps app, for example.

I’d also argue that Apple added smart features, such as Live Translation in the Messages and FaceTime apps, almost as a way to keep up with Google’s and Samsung’s AI efforts in their flagship smartphones, rather than lead the way or hone existing tech into something special.

Instead, Apple played up the redesign of iOS, macOS, and more with the use of its ‘Liquid Glass’ material design. And Apple Intelligence appeared to take a backseat; as my colleague Matt Bolton pointed out, Siri was properly absent from WWDC and indicative of failure for the virtual assistant.

Now I won’t argue against Mr Bolton, as he raises some good points, but I’m also low-key grateful AI didn’t dominate WWDC.

User experience first, AI smarts second

(Image credit: Apple)

I’ve always felt that Apple’s strength comes from its user experience. As locked down as some of Cupertino's software can be, and the walled garden approach to its ecosystem, once you’re in said garden, everything does work really rather well. From easy, secure payments and authentication, to quick file transfer between Apple devices and users, and much more.

As an aside, I’ve argued before that I want AI to be used for genuinely transformational things that benefit society, not generate images of a dog on the moon or write my emails for me. I reckon humanity is better off going through the challenges of learning how to better string sentences together or wait to frame the perfect camera shot, than let AI do everything for them, as that could take us down a dark path (check out Black Mirror on Netflix).

Bringing things back to Apple and WWDC, I feel that a redesign and the neat addition of useful features to iOS and macOS will resonate more with Apple device users than some smart AI tools that could feel a little bolted on to a core phone or laptop experience.

As a user of the iPhone 16 Pro Max and a MacBook Air M2, I have access to several Apple Intelligence tools. But aside from a bit of sporadic flirtation with them and the occasional nod of appreciation towards AI-generated summaries of voicemails, Apple Intelligence hasn’t come close to changing the way I use my iPhone.

I’ve said in the past that I find the recent iPhones to be boring but brilliant; they lack the do-anything vibe of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra or the intriguing AI-lead experience of the Google Pixel 9 family, but simply serve as smartphones that get stuff done quickly and well.

I treat my iPhone as a tool rather than a gadget, which doesn't make it exciting but does make it one of the best phones I’ve used, as there’s precious little getting in my way or distracting me from doing what I need to do.

I think many other Apple users share the same mindset. There’s been a huge amount of people who’ve checked out our how to download the iOS 26 developer beta article, which to me shows there’s a big interest in the Liquid Glass redesign.

Furthermore, in an article I wrote about wanting Samsung to add more AI into its next-generation foldable phone to truly make them more effective, one commenter said they don't find AI on phones to be useful at all and wants options to turn off such tools.

(Image credit: Future)

So while tech luminaries wax lyrical about AI and some people use it to do a lot of things for them, I get the feeling others would just prefer to have tech that does indeed ‘just works’ with each improvement, incremental or otherwise, being about users, not technological expertise.

As such, I think Apple may have been smart to focus WWDC more on visual and slick functional changes to its core software than on putting AI in the limelight. After all, I still feel AI hasn’t become sufficiently foolproof and accurate to make it a must-have right now.

I think, as it stands, if you are after an AI phone, then the best Google Pixel phones are the ones to look at, given they are built from the hardware up to be all about AI. And Google’s phones have always been the devices to push more esoteric features, be that the radar sensors in the Pixel 4 phones or the AI focus of the past few generations of Pixels.

In contrast, I’ve always seen Apple as the brand that fully embraces emergent technology only when it has reached a point of maturity and consumer understanding.

Given the rocky launch of Apple Intelligence, AI still being for enthusiasts than everyone (albeit that could be changing rapidly), and how iOS and macOS are finely curated platforms, I think eschewing AI at this year’s WWDC will prove to have been the smart move for Apple, even if various tech commentators and analysts see it as being behind the curve. Now onwards to the iPhone 17…

Do you want more AI in iPhones? Let me know in the comments below.

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• Cybernews found an unescured MongoDB instance belonging to Headero
• The database contained millions of records and PII
• It has since been locked down, but users should still be on their guard

Security researchers from Cybernews have reported uncovering a massive MongoDB instance belonging to a dating and hookup app called Headero.

The database contained more than 350,000 user records, more than three million chat records, and more than a million chat room records.

Among the exposed data are names, email addresses, social login IDs, JWT tokens, profile pictures, device tokens, sexual preferences, STD status, and - extra worryingly - exact GPS locations.

No evidence of abuse

Cybernews reached out to the app’s developers, a US-based company named ThotExperiment, which immediately locked the database down. The company told the researchers that it was a test database, but Cybernews’ analysis indicates that it could have been actual user data, instead.

Unfortunately, we don’t know for how long the database remained open, and if any threat actors accessed it in the past. So far, there is no evidence of abuse in the wild.

Human error leading to exposed databases remains one of the most common causes of data leaks and security breaches.

Researchers are constantly scanning the internet with specialized search engines, finding massive non-password-protected databases almost daily.

These leaks can put people at risk, since cybercriminals can use the information to tailor highly convincing phishing attacks, through which they can deploy malware, steal sensitive files, and even commit wire fraud.

Headero users are advised to be extra vigilant when receiving unsolicited messages, both via email and social platforms.

They should also be careful not to download any files or click on any links in such messages, especially if the messages carry a sense of urgency with them. If they are using the same password across multiple services, they should change them, and clear sessions / revoke tokens in apps, where possible.

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• NordPass and NordStellar reviewed terabytes of data
• The analysis uncovered poor password practices in the healthcare industry
• Organizations are lacking staff training and strong policies

Hygiene in hospitals and clinics is essential, but cyber-hygiene - despite being equally important - is constantly being neglected, experts have warned.

A report from NordPass and NordStellar has claimed weak password practices are “dangerously common” in the healthcare industry.

Based on a review of 2.5TB of data extracted from various publicly available sources (including the dark web), the two organizations found that different medical institutions, including private clinics and hospital networks, all rely on “predictable, recycled, or default passwords” to protect critical systems. As a result, sensitive patient data, and possibly their health, is placed at immense risk.

Carelessness

“When the systems protecting patient data are guarded by passwords like ‘123456’ or ‘P@ssw0rd,’ that’s a critical failure in cybersecurity hygiene. In a sector where both privacy and uptime are vital, this kind of carelessness can have real consequences,” said Karolis Arbaciauskas, head of business product at NordPass.

The report also lists the most frequently used passwords identified in the healthcare sector. If you’re using any of these (or a variant), make sure to change them for something tougher to crack:

• fabrizio19
• 123456
• Melu3@12345
• @Vow2017
• Mercury9.Venus8
• password
• Marty1508!
• Carlton@1988
• 12345678
• @Vowcomm2018
• papa
• 12345
• Durson@123
• P@ssw0rd
• Simetrica
• Raffin2209!
• Asspain28#
• Smith
• neuro
• default

Policies and training

The teams warn passwords that reflect personal names, simple number patterns, or default configurations, are all prime targets for brute-force and dictionary attacks, in which cybercriminals automate the process, and try out countless combinations until they break in.

To make matters even worse - one break-in is more than enough to wreak havoc, as lateral movement can compromise entire networks, expose sensitive data, and result in different malware and ransomware infections.

The report stresses that healthcare institutions “lack clear password management policies or staff training,” which is why they are recommended to enforce strong password policies, eliminate the use of default or role-specific passwords, use a business-grade password manager, train the staff, and introduce 2FA wherever possible.

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