Four things worth knowing from the past fortnight, and one worth doing something about.
The graduate jobs apocalypse is not turning up in the data
Economists Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu, in a CESifo working paper, checked United States census data on graduates aged 22 to 25 and found no sign AI is displacing them. Unemployment in that group over the 2026 northern summer was 7.3 per cent, inside the range seen every year since 2022. It contradicts a Stanford study reported in August that used payroll data and concluded the opposite, so the argument is live rather than settled.
Fake "your computer is infected" screens are arriving through Google ads
Security firm Netskope found tech support scam ads running on ordinary sites: maps, weather, real estate, sport. A click fills the screen with a convincing infection warning, hides the cursor, disables the usual exit keys and slows the browser, so the machine feels broken and the number on screen looks like the only way out. Nothing is actually locked or infected. Between 31 August and 14 September, Netskope saw staff at 619 of its client organisations click these ads, Australia third by volume behind the United States and Japan.
An Office update switched off Office 2016 and 2019 licences
KB5002907 was released around 23 September for Microsoft 365 installations more than 90 days behind on updates. On some machines running the one-off Office 2016 and Office 2019 it deactivated the licence, leaving Word and Excel reporting "Unlicensed Product", and in a few cases removed Office altogether. Microsoft paused the rollout on 24 September and says to reactivate with the original product key, or reinstall the same edition where the apps have gone.
The iPhone 18 Pro is a better phone and a weak reason to upgrade
Ars Technica's review of the iPhone 18 Pro, on sale since September, describes a quietly iterative year: a faster chip, better heat handling and battery life, a smaller Dynamic Island, and manual camera controls including a variable aperture. Its verdict is that an iPhone 17 Pro owner has little reason to move, a 15 Pro with a healthy battery is still fine, and this model costs more than last year's.
The cheapest fraud control you own is a phone call
The ACSC's guidance on preventing business email compromise is mostly process, not technology. It asks for an approval step in front of any request to change payment details or make a large transfer, confirmed by ringing the sender on a number you already hold, never one taken from the email. This fraud rarely involves breaking into anything of yours: the request arrives from someone else's compromised mailbox, or a lookalike domain, and asks you to update the account on file.
AI Automation for Small Business: Where to Start
Our guide to choosing the first business process to hand over to AI, and to deciding where a person has to stay in the loop. It is written for an owner who is interested but has not started, and it sets out a 30 day plan that spends the first fortnight thinking rather than buying.
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