Categories
Tips

Developer News This Week: AWS re:Inforce, React Native 0.80 & More (June 20 2025)

The past five days delivered a steady stream of security fixes, framework updates, and forward-looking experiments. Below you’ll find in-depth context, upgrade advice, and links to keep handy when planning your next sprint.

AWS re:Inforce 2025 – Smarter, Simpler Cloud Security

At AWS re:Inforce 2025 in Philadelphia, AWS unveiled a wave of new security features aimed at making cloud protection easier and more resilient.

IAM Access Analyzer Gets Smarter

IAM Access Analyzer now automatically shows which principals in your AWS organization have access to sensitive resources like S3 buckets and RDS snapshots. It uses automated reasoning to scan multiple policies at once and presents the results in a single dashboard. This makes it much easier to spot and fix unintended permissions.

Read the official AWS announcement
Event roundup summary

Mandatory MFA for Root Users

AWS is now enforcing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for all root users. This move is designed to block over 99% of password-based attacks. You can use FIDO-certified security keys or FIDO2 passkeys, and each user can register up to eight MFA devices for extra flexibility.

Learn more about MFA enforcement

Amazon Q for Security Teams

Amazon Q now includes a security specialist mode. This AI assistant can answer questions about your AWS environment and help triage incidents using real-time knowledge of your configuration and logs. Security teams can get fast, natural language answers without digging through dashboards.

See the full re:Inforce 2025 announcement

Stronger Backups with Air-Gapped Vaults

AWS Backup now supports logically air-gapped vaults with multi-party approval. Restoring backups can require multiple trusted users to approve the action, even if an account is compromised. Cross-account restore is also supported, boosting resilience.

Details in the AWS roundup

Easier Web and Network Protection

AWS WAF now offers pre-configured protection packs that cut setup time by up to 80%. AWS Security Hub has new features for unified risk prioritization, turning alerts into clear, actionable steps. AWS Shield also previewed new tools for network security posture management, helping teams spot and fix risks before they’re exploited.

Read about these enhancements

Why It Matters:
AWS is making cloud security more automated and accessible. With stronger defaults, smarter AI tools, and easier configuration, teams can protect their environments faster—and with less hassle.

React Native 0.80: Faster, Safer, and Aligned with React 19.1

React Native 0.80 is here, and it’s all about speed and safety:

  • Aligned with React 19.1: Enjoy concurrent rendering and shiny new hooks—mobile devs, you’re now on par with the latest React web features.
  • Opt-in Strict TypeScript: TypeScript fans, rejoice! Stricter typing means fewer any leaks and more reliable codebases.
  • Pre-built iOS Dependencies: No more endless pod installs. CI jobs are now up to 30% faster, thanks to pre-built iOS deps.
  • Hermès 125: The updated JavaScript engine delivers smaller bytecode and noticeably faster cold starts.

Why it matters: Your builds are faster, your code is safer, and your apps launch quicker. That’s a win-win-win.

VS Code Python/Jupyter – June 2025 Release

Pythonistas and data scientists, this one’s for you:

  • Pylance “Ghost-Text”: Get full-line code previews right in the editor. Less guesswork, more flow.
  • Bundled Python 3.13 Stubs: Try out the latest pattern matching features before they’re mainstream.
  • Notebook Kernel Cold-Start 30% Faster: Shorter waits mean more time for data exploration and model tweaking.

Full details about the release here.

Why it matters: Less context switching and faster feedback loops = real productivity gains for ML and data teams.

VS Code Insiders 1.102: AI Gets Native

The nightly channel just got smarter:

  • Color-Coded AI Ghost Text: Instantly spot AI-suggested code vs. what you’ve typed—no more accidentally committing AI guesses.
  • Unified Authentication API: Extensions now recycle a single cloud token. Say goodbye to constant login prompts.

Try it now: Available in Insiders builds—spin up a throw-away devcontainer and take it for a test drive. General availability expected in July.

🖥️ GitHub Desktop 3.5.0: Native & Speedy

Desktop git just got an upgrade:

  • Native Apple Silicon Builds: No more Rosetta. Pure speed for Mac users.
  • Faster Fuzzy Repo Search: Perfect for those monster mono-repos.
  • At-a-Glance Branch Compare: See commits and diffs in a single view—context switching, begone!

Copilot Spaces: Context-Rich Code Discussion

AI code review just levelled up:

  • Paste an Issue or PR URL: Copilot imports the full thread—comments, code, CI status, and all.
  • AI Answers with Full Context: No more “out of context” AI replies. Get instant, accurate summaries.

Dev tip: Summarize long discussion threads for new teammates in seconds. Onboarding just got easier.

 16 Billion Credentials Dumped: Security Wake-Up Call

A record-breaking trove of infostealer logs just went public. If you’re reusing passwords, you’re at risk – immediately.

Security Checklist

  • Rotate any credential reused across personal & work.
  • Invalidate old Personal Access Tokens.
  • Enforce MFA org-wide (seriously, do it today).

Don’t wait—take action now!

Weekend Read: “ChatGPT Is My SSG”

Nick Pilkington shows off a prompt-driven static site generator. Just write a prompt, and ChatGPT spits out Markdown, HTML, and a full directory scaffold.

Why it’s cool: Perfect for landing pages, docs, or prototypes—no local toolchain needed. Check out the demo for a fresh take on rapid site creation.

That’s a Wrap!

Stay sharp, stay secure, and keep building amazing things. For more news and deep dives, check out our previous roundups here.

Categories
News and Resources

Developer News This Week: The Full Roundup on WWDC ’25, A Critical Zero-Day, AI Tools & More (June 13, 2025)

Looking for a complete summary of this week in developer news? You’ve found it. The entire tech world was focused on Cupertino for Apple’s WWDC 2025, but that was far from the only story. From a critical zero-day vulnerability and major new AI platform announcements to foundational shifts in core Linux tools, it’s been a packed week.

{{ advertisement }}

Here’s our comprehensive breakdown of the essential news you need to know.

The Main Event: Apple’s WWDC 2025 Overhaul

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference set the tone for the next year, revealing sweeping changes across its entire ecosystem. The key announcements for developers include the new iOS 26 and macOS 26 naming convention, a new “Liquid Glass” design system, and, most importantly, developer access to “Apple Intelligence” foundation models to build AI-powered features directly into apps.

See the key announcements here.

What is Liquid Glass? Liquid Glass is Apple’s new design material introduced across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26. Alan Dye, Apple’s VP of Human Interface Design, called it “our broadest software design update ever.” Find out how Liquid Glass works and where you’ll find it in this comprehensive blog post.

Note from our community member CacheProgrammer who attended WWDC:

“The loudest in-person response was to an announcement I have not seen in any recap. You know how, when you call Custom Service and are on hold for what seems like forever…well, Apple announced during one of the announcements that you will be able to put the phone down and when the live support person finally comes online, the phone will tell THEM that YOU will be right with them and to please wait…and then notify you that your call has gone through, and you can pick up the phone and have a conversation with a live person. And the crowd at WWDC 25 went WILD! The loudest and longest applause of any of the other announcements. And no one who wasn’t there in person is mentioning it!”

Critical Security Alerts: June’s Patch Tuesday

It was a crucial week for system security as both Microsoft and Adobe released their monthly “Patch Tuesday” updates.

  • Microsoft Patches Actively Exploited Zero-Day: The headline security news was Microsoft’s patch for an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-33053) in WebDAV that allows for remote code execution. In total, 66 vulnerabilities were addressed, including several other critical RCE flaws.
  • Adobe Fixes Over 250 Vulnerabilities: Adobe’s update was also massive, fixing over 250 CVEs. The bulk of these were for Adobe Experience Manager, highlighting the ongoing need for diligence in patching enterprise systems.

The AI Frontier: New Tools from Databricks and AMD

While Apple focused on on-device AI, the enterprise and hardware AI spaces saw major new platforms emerge.

  • Databricks Launches Enterprise AI Tools: At its Data + AI Summit, Databricks unveiled a suite of tools for building company-specific AI systems. Key announcements included Lakebase, a managed Postgres database for AI apps, and Agent Bricks, a framework for building enterprise-grade AI agents.
  • AMD Launches Developer Cloud: In a direct move to attract AI developers, AMD launched the AMD Developer Cloud. This platform provides cloud-based access to its powerful Instinct™ MI300X GPUs, giving developers an open-ecosystem alternative for building and training AI models.

Platform & Tooling Updates for Developers

It was a busy week for updates to the tools and platforms developers use every day.

GitHub, .NET, and Visual Studio

  • .NET 10 Preview 5 Released: The latest preview of .NET 10 is now available, giving developers a first look at Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) libraries, along with runtime performance enhancements and updates for ASP.NET Core.
  • VS Code v1.101 Improves AI Chat: The ubiquitous code editor released an update focused on improving the integrated AI assistant experience, making AI-generated edits faster and streamlining the chat interface.
  • GitHub Adds New Features: GitHub rolled out Scheduled Reminders for Pull Requests to improve team workflows. For AI developers, they also launched a public preview of the Remote MCP Server, a hosted service that gives AI tools secure, live access to GitHub repository context.

Foundational Shifts: The Future of sudo in Ubuntu

In one of the most surprising pieces of developer news this week, it was reported that the upcoming Ubuntu 25.10 will replace the traditional sudo command. Its Rust-based equivalent, sudo-rs, is intended to provide a more memory-safe implementation, reducing the risk of security vulnerabilities in one of the most critical and long-standing Linux system utilities. This marks a major philosophical and technical shift for a command that has been a developer staple for decades.

From Apple’s complete platform refresh to critical security patches and the relentless march of AI tooling, this week was a powerful reminder of how quickly our landscape evolves. These updates present new opportunities, new tools to master, and new security postures to adopt.

What news will impact your work the most? Let us know in the comments below!

Categories
News and Resources

Developer News This Week: The Full Roundup on WWDC, NPM Security, AI Agents & More (June 6, 2025)

Looking for the top developer news this week? You’ve come to the right place. While the industry holds its breath for Apple’s upcoming developer conference, major updates in AI tooling, critical security alerts, and a flood of significant platform releases made for a busy week.

{{ advertisement }}

Here’s our comprehensive breakdown of the essential news you need to know.

The Apple Ecosystem: WWDC Hype and App Store Realities

The biggest story of the week is what’s happening next week. Anticipation is at a fever pitch for Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which kicks off on Monday, June 9th. Developers are bracing for major operating system updates, including the first look at iOS 19/26 and macOS 16. The central theme is expected to be a massive push into AI, which Apple is reportedly branding “Apple Intelligence.”

One of the most concrete rumours to emerge is a significant update for watchOS 26. For the first time, Apple is expected to allow third-party developers to create and ship their own widgets for a fully customisable Control Centre. This would be a huge shift, opening up the Apple Watch UI to a new level of developer creativity and user personalisation.

Adding context to the WWDC hype, Apple released a report stating its App Store ecosystem facilitated $1.3 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2024, emphasizing the scale of the platform. On the legal front, a US court rejected Apple’s appeal to delay implementing App Store changes mandated by its case with Epic Games, meaning rules around linking to external payment options remain in effect.

A Critical Reminder on Supply Chain Security

It was a sobering week for open-source security, with two alarming incidents on the npm registry. Security researchers uncovered a coordinated attack involving at least 60 malicious packages that were designed to map the internal networks of developers who installed them.

In a separate discovery, a package was found to have been dormant for six years, containing a “time bomb” of malicious code that could wipe a user’s project files upon receiving a remote command. These events are a stark reminder of the persistent threats within public package registries and underscore the critical need for developers to scrutinize dependencies and use security auditing tools. You can read the full report here.

The Ascent of AI Agents in Developer Tools

The evolution of AI in development took another leap forward, moving beyond passive assistance towards more active, agent-based workflows.

Postman was a prime example, introducing Agent Mode to its popular API platform, designed to let AI agents take on more complex tasks like automated testing. Similarly, GitLab announced that its v18.0 release for self-hosted instances now includes built-in AI Code Assistance.

This trend extends to more specialized tools, with companies like Factory promoting AI “Droids” for full-lifecycle development and new frameworks like Embabel emerging for advanced AI agent development in Java.

Frameworks, Platforms, and Tooling: A Week of Key Releases

It was a packed week for new versions and platform updates across cloud, gaming, web, and enterprise.

Cloud & GitOps Updates

  • AWS Opens New Taipei Region: Amazon Web Services officially launched its Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region, committing over $5 billion to give developers lower-latency cloud options across Taiwan and East Asia.
  • AWS Publishes Smithy API Models: In a gift to tool-builders, AWS is now publishing its Smithy API models daily to GitHub. This allows developers to track every service-level API change and generate custom SDKs directly from the source.
  • Flux 2.6 GA Released: The GitOps tool Flux reached a major milestone with its version 2.6 General Availability. This release finalizes its support for OCI artifacts, enabling a “Gitless GitOps” model where container registries are the source of truth.

Game Dev & Enterprise

  • Unreal Engine 5.6 Now Available: Epic Games released a major update for its game engine. Unreal Engine 5.6 is focused on delivering huge performance enhancements for creating large-scale open worlds and introduces a suite of more powerful, in-engine animation and rigging tools.
  • GitHub Enterprise Server 3.17 is GA: For teams running their own infrastructure, the GA release of GitHub Enterprise Server 3.17 arrived. The June update strengthens the platform’s security posture and provides better policy controls.

IDE & Testing Tooling

  • Visual Studio 2022 v17.14.4 Released: Microsoft shipped a point release for its flagship IDE. While primarily for stability, the June 3rd update rolls up the latest fixes and improvements for the Address Sanitizer and AI-assistant features.
  • Vitest Introduces Browser Mode: The popular testing framework Vitest has introduced a new Browser Mode, providing a significant alternative to jsdom by allowing tests to be run directly in real browser environments for more accurate results.

That’s a wrap for the developer news this week! From AI agents becoming a reality to critical security warnings and a packed slate of platform updates, it’s clear that staying informed has never been more important. What news will impact your work the most? Let us know in the comments below!