After 11 years of life, Google Authenticator has added cloud backups for OTP keys in version 6.0.

Google Security Blog: Google Authenticator now supports Google Account synchronization

This is surprising news to me, because historically Authenticator had no way to backup keys by design. Here's a 2017 quote from a Google engineer who maintains Authenticator:

There is by design NO account backups in any of the apps. ^[source]

This design choice always made sense to me, as the point of 2FA is that you've got (1) something you know, and (2) something you have. The second factor should be tied to a physical device. If you lose the physical device, the second factor should be gone, and you'll need to use one of those 10-ish backup codes that we all definitely keep somewhere safe. I'm quite befuddled that Google is reversing this design choice and walking back their previously strong, security-centric design for the sake of user convenience in the case of a lost phone. I used to advise my friends and family to choose Google Authenticator over Authy for this specific reason.

If you want further reading, here's a PCWorld article with an altogether different tone than Google's announcement: Google Authenticator’s long-awaited cloud 2FA feature carries hidden risk

We're excited to announce several updates to ChatGPT! Here's what's new:

• General performance: Among other improvements, users will notice that ChatGPT is now less likely to refuse to answer questions.
• Conversation history: You’ll soon be able to view past conversations with ChatGPT, rename your saved conversations and delete the ones you don’t want to keep. We are gradually rolling out this feature.
• Daily limit: To ensure a high-quality experience for all ChatGPT users, we are experimenting with a daily message cap. If you’re included in this group, you’ll be presented with an option to extend your access by providing feedback to ChatGPT.
  To see if you’re using the updated version, look for “ChatGPT Dec 15 Version” at the bottom of the screen.

https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes

I couldn’t find a good roundup that covered both of these and didn’t want to add clutter to the front page with two posts.

From The Verge:

• Microsoft’s new $549 Surface Laptop Go aims to compete with Chromebooks

• Microsoft’s updated Surface Pro X has a faster processor and new platinum color option

The Surface Pro X seems like just a spec bump, so there isn’t too much interesting there. But the Surface Laptop Go is interesting. The base model is absolute garbage (4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of EMMC storage) but the other models are somewhat decent.

The overall design of the Surface products is really striking. I honestly think they look much more modern and clean than Apple’s laptops. I also really love that they are offering colors. I wish Apple would offer more colors than just gray, silver and pink/gold on their laptops.

I figured one thread for all of Apple's new product announcements would be enough.

The new MacBook Air with the same redesigned keyboard as the 16-inch model and newer processors. I'm glad to see that they're bringing the keyboard to the rest of the lineup so quickly (I'm writing this on a 2017 MacBook Pro and this keyboard is not pleasant even after two and a half years of adjustment).

The new iPad Pro is where things get interesting. Same design as the previous iPad Pros, but now with an ultra wide camera and a LIDAR sensor.

The iPad Pro also has a new keyboard and trackpad accessory that looks interesting. It has an adjustable hinge that can hold the iPad at any angle, which is one of my biggest complaints with the current keyboard case. I'm interested to see how well it works in a lap when hands on videos start coming out.

I'm excited that Apple is bringing official pointing support to iOS (beyond the basic accessibility feature in iOS 13). This could be a game changer. I'm also excited that it's coming to iOS 13.4 (and all iPads that can run it) and they aren't waiting until iOS 14 to roll out the feature. I've wanted Apple to start rolling out features on an ongoing basis (like Google is doing with the Pixel Feature Drops) rather than as one big drop every fall.