Microsoft is using TPM chips to crack down on pirated Windows activations
Microsoft targets KMS-based Windows piracy with mandatory TPM attestation starting August 2026
Microsoft steps in after LG monitors were found auto-installing apps with McAfee ads
Windows' own feature made the ad scheme possible in the first place
Nvidia's Jensen Huang joins X, defends Chinese AI: "Open-source models that are excellent should be used"
Big quote: Jensen Huang just spent a week watching his company's valuation get hit by the threat of a Chinese open-weight model. His response was to go on the record defending it. Speaking to Axios in Fort Worth, Texas, at the opening of a new phase of the Wistron plant that builds Nvidia's AI infrastructure, the Nvidia CEO said American companies should "absolutely" be free to run Chinese models. "These Chinese models are excellent," he said. "Open-source models that are excellent should be used." Asked whether China could displace American labs, he was blunt: "Zero possibility."
The AMD Radeon Settings You Should Actually Be Using
AMD Software is packed with gaming features, but not all are worth using. Here are the Radeon settings we recommend for better image quality, smoother gameplay, and cleaner recordings.
Geekbench 7 debuts with a smarter multi-core benchmark and CUDA support
Geekbench 7 overhauls the benchmarking suite with a redesigned multi-core benchmark built around real-world application behavior, refreshed CPU and GPU workloads (AV1 encoding, ML upscaling, path tracing, etc), CUDA support for Nvidia GPUs, and larger datasets for more demanding performance testing. The new release also establishes AMD's Ryzen 7 7700 as its scoring baseline.
Tails 7.10 improves shutdown reliability, upgrades Tor Browser
Tails has introduced a safer shutdown process to help prevent data loss. It's also replacing GNOME Videos with the more secure Celluloid media player, updating Tor Browser, and refreshing firmware packages for improved graphics and Wi-Fi hardware support.
Apple's App Store is on pace to add 1 million new apps this year, most are AI slop
Vibe coding is flooding the App Store with low-quality apps that almost nobody is downloading
Firefox 153 ESR arrives with major productivity, privacy, and enterprise upgrades
Firefox 153 is now the latest Extended Support Release (ESR), rolling up all improvements introduced since Firefox 140. Highlights include profile management, Split View, AI features, stronger privacy protections, web apps, PDF merging and image insertion, HDR video playback, browser-wide containers, and numerous platform and enterprise enhancements.
Nvidia's first Windows on Arm GeForce driver confirms RTX Spark configurations
Nvidia has published its first native GeForce driver for Windows on Arm, and buried inside it confirms two RTX Spark configurations: a 6,144-core Blackwell GPU with a 20-core CPU, and a smaller 5,120-core variant with 18 cores, both supporting up to 128GB of unified memory.
The driver targets Microsoft's Surface RTX Spark Dev Box for now, but it lets developers start porting Arm64 apps ahead of Spark's fall launch on laptops and mini PCs from Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and MSI.
One in six Windows PCs still runs Windows 10, and the vulnerabilities are piling up
Windows 10 holdouts carry nearly 3x the security risk of Windows 11, report finds
Facing the Flaw: Many organizations have already migrated to Windows 11, but a few diehards are refusing to leave Windows 10 behind. In fact, millions of computers are still running the aging, albeit perfectly functional, operating system, and according to one market analysis, that could soon turn into a security disaster.
Microsoft just open-sourced the app that made Comic Sans famous
Microsoft has open-sourced Comic Chat, its quirky 1996 IRC client that turned text conversations into comic strips with cartoon avatars, speech bubbles, and dynamic panel layouts. Now released under the MIT License, the project can be explored, preserved, and even modernized by developers and retro computing enthusiasts.
Nvidia is giving developers more control over DLSS 5, after accusations it turns games into "AI slop"
SIGGRAPH 2026 demo reveals developer sliders, three AI models, and character-level masking
Sony's digital-only future angers fans, but physical PlayStation games are barely selling
Only seven PlayStation games sold more than 100,000 physical copies in the first half of 2026
7-Zip patches a flaw that could run malware just from opening a bad file
Unlike most software, 7-Zip has no auto-update mechanism, so users must install the fix manually
FluentCleaner ditches the bloat with a new 3.5 MB Classic edition
FluentCleaner Classic swaps the WinUI 3 shell for a portable 3.5 MB WinForms build on .NET Framework 4.8, no runtime install needed. Same cleaning engine, just far less overhead than the standard app's 140 MB footprint. The result is a fast, no-frills cleaner that runs on virtually any Windows installation.
Rufus improves Windows installs, adds RISC-V and UEFI:NTFS fixes
Rufus is a free utility for creating bootable USB drives from ISOs. Version 4.15 brings RISC-V 64 support to UEFI:NTFS, improves unattended Windows installations, and fixes Snapdragon X Arm64 boot crashes, and more.
Spotify is deleting millions of AI-generated music tracks to fend off spammers
A dedicated team within the company is now fighting against AI-powered audio slop
Steam Machine benchmarks show SteamOS and Windows 11 within a few frames of each other in most games
Multi-core benchmarks are Valve's only significant weakness
Linus Torvalds tells AI critics to fork Linux or walk away
Linux is not an anti-AI project, says its creator
LibreWolf is a Firefox-based browser focused on privacy and security
LibreWolf browser removes Mozilla telemetry and enables stricter privacy and security settings by default. It remains compatible with most Firefox extensions and is typically updated shortly after new Firefox releases.
HWMonitor restores hotspot temperature monitoring for RTX 50 GPUs
HWMonitor 1.65 can once again report hotspot temperatures on Nvidia RTX 50 series GPUs, giving users access to the hottest point on the GPU die rather than just the average core temperature. The reading is especially useful for diagnosing thermal issues, identifying uneven cooler contact, and spotting thermal throttling.
Windows Search is getting the cleanup users have wanted for years (more like decades)
A redesigned interface makes the search box behave more like a productivity tool
GigaWiper malware can wipe your hard drive, spy on you, and stream your screen live
Microsoft discovers GigaWiper backdoor combining Crucio, CutBrooch, and FlockWiper malware families
Black Flag Resynced is a hit, but its always-online requirement just proved it's not really offline
Ubisoft Connect outage locked players out of single-player mode despite "offline" support
Apple's iOS 27 public beta arrives with Siri AI, faster app launches, and more
Full Siri AI needs 12GB of RAM, macOS 27's beta drops support for every Intel Mac