Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google is rolling out a new set of features aimed at making it less easy for thieves to access your data. That's according to Mishaal Rahman, who posted on Reddit that the features are showing up in a new update after seeing that his Xiaomi 14T Pro phone now has Theft Detection Lock and Offline Device Lock, two of three features Google announced in May. Others say they only see the third one, called Remote Lock.The flashiest of the new features is Theft Detection Lock, which uses AI to lock your screen when it detects common motion associated with theft," like someone snatching your phone out of your hand. Meanwhile, Offline Device Lock locks a device's screen when it's offline for a while, and Remote Lock lets users lock their phone... Continue reading...

Google versus the bad guys. | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google is beefing up its malware detection with new protections designed to suss out ever-sneakier bad actors.Android's Google Play Protect service is getting an update called live threat detection which seeks out potentially harmful apps on your phone by analyzing app behavior and alerts you in realtime if something looks fishy. The update was first announced at Google I/O earlier this year and is available now to Pixel 6 and newer phones. It should come to additional non-Pixel Android phones from Lenovo, OnePlus, Nothing, and Oppo, among others in the coming months."Live threat detection targets particularly hard-to-spot malware apps that hide their intentions well. Rather than just scanning apps for malicious code when you... Continue reading...