Topic of the Week

Somehow we have already found ourselves through the first quarter of the year, and even more shockingly, it is already the end of April… Apologies for the jump scare! Even though we have found ourselves nearing May, the year is still new, and there are new privacy laws (or amendments to existing privacy laws that we can look forward to seeing over the remainder of the year). Who doesn’t like more rules, right? Let’s dig into some of the changes we can anticipate seeing in the privacy world within the United States.

You paste a paragraph into an AI tool to clean it up or summarize it. It feels harmless, routine even; but the moment that information is submitted, it leaves your immediate control.

As technology continues to advance, people are looking for ways to use technology to make life easier or more convenient. Maybe you like to have a smart fridge that creates grocery shopping lists for you, or maybe you like having a smart speaker that can order things on Amazon for you (with your voice prompting this, of course), or maybe you want to record what you see without really trying. Today, we are going to talk about a newly emerging piece of smart technology: Meta Glasses.

Recent surveys show that iPhone users now outnumber Android users in the United States, with Apple holding roughly 58–59% of the market, compared to Android’s 40–43%. While Android still dominates globally, the U.S. remains a strong exception, where iOS has consistently maintained the lead. As of 2026, Apple’s share sits at approximately 59.31%.

Happy Spring Break UMD! Hopefully you have found yourself enjoying a casual coffee, spending some time by the beach, or maybe you’re on a ski trip--whatever you have chosen to do with your free time, try not to let it be doomscrolling. This is probably a familiar concept, particularly if you are a social media user. Regardless of your familiarity with doom scrolling, we are going to dive into what it is, how it impacts you, and how to avoid it.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the new SRM process and the expedited procurement alternative, and since these new procedures came into place, we have received a few inquires about the reason why a free software should still go through a review process. The answer is easy: because nothing is really free.And we get it: free feels harmless. No budget impact. No procurement. No invoice floating in someone’s queue. It feels like the lowest-risk decision possible. But in the world of software, free is rarely free.