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We polled TechRadar readers on new iOS 26 featuresThe Liquid Glass redesign is what you're most looking forward toEarly adopters can try the developer beta nowWe sw the grand unveiling of iOS 26 at the start of this week, and the developer beta is already available for very early adopters – and now TechRadar readers have delivered their verdict on the most exciting features in this huge new software update.And there are a lot of them to choose from: Apple has packed a lot into iOS 26, which will roll out to the masses later this year. On the TechRadar WhatsApp channel, we asked more than 1,000 TechRadar readers about which feature was the most exciting.We gave you 10 different options to pick from, and these are the current standings for the top five, at the time of writing, in reverse order…Voting is continuing in the TechRadar WhatsApp channel (Image credit: Future)5. Messages upgradesThe Messages app in iOS 26 is getting several handy upgrades, as it looks to take your attention away from rival chat apps. You can now add custom backgrounds to individual chats (very WhatsApp-esque), organize polls, and see typing indicators, for example. This came fifth in our survey of readers, ranked the most exciting feature by 5.8% of you.4. CarPlay refreshCarPlay comes built right into iOS, and springs up when you're connected to a compatible dashboard. We found that 6.9% of you are most excited about the CarPlay updates coming with iOS 26, which include refreshed visuals and a more compact look, widget support, and better call management – including the Call Screening feature from the iPhone.3. Better battery managementEveryone is keen to get better battery life on their iPhones, and iOS 26 should deliver it. Among the battery-related improvements included in the update, we've got an Adaptive Power option that applies small optimizations to extend battery life, and a more detailed battery information screen. These features are the favorites for 8.9% of our readers.(Image credit: Future)2. Call ScreeningWe just mentioned CarPlay Call Screening, and you'll be able to use call screening on your iPhone too: with incoming calls for unknown numbers, the Phone app asks those callers to give a reason for ringing. You can then see a transcript of the response on screen, and decide whether or not to take the call, and 10.9% of you rank it as the most exciting feature.1. Liquid Glass redesignThe huge new Liquid Glass redesign is the most noticeable new feature coming with iOS 26, and it's the most exciting feature in the update for almost 49% of our readers. The visual overhaul leans heavily on frosted glass and translucent effects, and it's rolling out across Apple's various other software platforms too, including macOS 26.And there you have it: almost half of you are most excited about the biggest visual revamp for iOS in many a year. No doubt there are more features to discover, and more features that Apple will add as the beta testing continues, and here at TechRadar we'll keep you updated every step of the way.You might also like5 upgrades iOS 26 will bring to supercharge your music and drivingHow to download the iOS 26 developer betaiPadOS 26 adds the iPhone's Journal app to iPad, finally

While it didn’t quite make the cut in our guide to the best virtual private networks (VPNs), NordVPN remains one of the more popular providers out there for a reason, and right now you can save up to 76 percent on its two-year plans, with an Amazon gift card thrown in as a sweetener. With Prime Day due to take place at some point in July, that deal looks even better.

Right now, if you take out a 24-month Plus plan at $4.39 per month, you’ll pay $105.36 for the whole period, which is a 70 percent discount on Nord’s regular price. The plan includes the full suite of Nord’s VPN features and Threat Protection Pro anti-malware, plus you’ll get a $20 Amazon voucher thrown in.

If you’d rather opt for a NordVPN Complete plan, which includes 1TB of encrypted cloud storage, you’ll pay $5.39 per month or $129.36 over two years. This option comes with a $40 Amazon gift card.

The US-only NordVPN Prime plan comes with all of Nord’s features from the cheaper tiers, plus the NordProtect identity theft protection service, which gives you up to $1 million in cyber insurance, as well as credit and SSN monitoring. That plan currently costs $7.39 per month or $177.36 over two years, and includes a $50 Amazon gift card. All plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Using a VPN is the best way of bypassing geo-restricted content and adding another layer of privacy when browsing the web over public Wi-Fi. Our current number one pick is ProtonVPN, based on its combination of security, usability and privacy features. Its open-source framework is also a plus. You can browse its current pricing plans here.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/get-a-free-amazon-gift-card-when-you-sign-up-for-a-discounted-nordvpn-plan-155835142.html?src=rss

Thomas Jefferson is revered as America's third president, first secretary of state, and the main author of the Declaration of Independence. What's less well-known is his role as an architect who helped shape the look of early America. An exhibition at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia is exploring that legacy in a very modern way. Correspondent Brook Silva-Braga reports on Jefferson's influence on architecture, and on the upcoming dedication at the University of Virginia – a campus he designed – of a memorial to "enslaved laborers."

Researchers from HiddenLayer devised a new LLM attack called TokenBreakerBy adding, or changing, a single character, they are able to bypass certain protectionsThe underlying LLM still understands the intentSecurity researchers have found a way to work around the protection mechanisms baked into some Large Language Models (LLM) and get them to respond to malicious prompts.Kieran Evans, Kasimir Schulz, and Kenneth Yeung from HiddenLayer published an in-depth report on a new attack technique which they dubbed TokenBreak, which targets the way certain LLMs tokenize text, especially those using Byte Pair Encoding (BPE) or WordPiece tokenization strategies.Tokenization is the process of breaking text into smaller units called tokens, which can be words, subwords, or characters, and which LLMs use to understand and generate language - for example, the word “unhappiness” might be split into “un,” “happi,” and “ness,” with each token then being converted into a numerical ID that the model can process (since LLMs don’t read raw text, but numbers, instead).What are the finstructions?By adding extra characters into key words (like turning “instructions” into “finstructions”), the researchers managed to trick protective models into thinking the prompts were harmless.The underlying target LLM, on the other hand, still interprets the original intent, allowing the researchers to sneak malicious prompts past defenses, undetected.This could be used, among other things, to bypass AI-powered spam email filters and land malicious content into people’s inboxes.For example, if a spam filter was trained to block messages containing the word “lottery”, they might still allow a message saying “You’ve won the slottery!” through, exposing the recipients to potentially malicious landing pages, malware infections, and similar."This attack technique manipulates input text in such a way that certain models give an incorrect classification," the researchers explained."Importantly, the end target (LLM or email recipient) can still understand and respond to the manipulated text and therefore be vulnerable to the very attack the protection model was put in place to prevent."Models using Unigram tokenizers were found to be resistant to this kind of manipulation, HiddenLayer added. So one mitigation strategy is to choose models with more robust tokenization methods.Via The Hacker NewsYou might also likeAI guardrails can be easily beaten, even if you don't mean toTake a look at our guide to the best authenticator appWe've rounded up the best password managers