Microsoft is broadening its Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) service beyond AMD Radeon GPUs to also support Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm graphics hardware on Windows PCs, with support arriving later in October. ASD streams precompiled shaders from the cloud rather than requiring each PC to compile them locally, a process Microsoft says it can shrink from several minutes to a few seconds. The feature currently works with Gears of War: E-Day and was confirmed by DirectX program manager Wendy Ho in a company blog post.
Microsoft confirmed that installing the optional September 2026 KB5124010 preview update for Windows 11 can crash games, media players and productivity apps that rely on built-in AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio decoding. Affected apps may fail to launch, close unexpectedly, or work until audio features are triggered. Microsoft says the issue mainly hits legacy software and has not given a timeline for a fix.
Microsoft has rolled out a 'biomimicry' landscaping program at more than 20 data center sites in the US and Germany, restoring wetlands, planting native gardens and using plant buffers to muffle noise and reduce visual impact. The company says it uses an internal tool called Ecosystem Intelligence, built on Azure, to score sites on water quality, biodiversity and noise, and has made the approach standard for new US projects.
Newly unredacted documents in the New York Times' copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI show internal Microsoft materials acknowledging that AI products were creating 'doom loops' that undermine the economic foundations of the content creators supplying their training data. One document states the company's AI content strategy threatens the performance of its models and the broader web by damaging the very suppliers it depends on.
According to a report, three unnamed EU officials expressed skepticism about a homegrown European alternative meant to replace Microsoft Teams. The report notes that France earlier this year said millions of its civil servants will shift to domestic video-conferencing tools instead of Microsoft Teams and Zoom by 2027, and that Austria's military replaced Microsoft Office with Germany's LibreOffice last year.
A Microsoft software engineer who became an EMT in 2024 published a ranked list of 21 reasons he had delayed pursuing the certification for years. He cites concerns including the time commitment of a 28-day accelerated NOLS Wilderness EMT course, fears about fraternity-like culture in EMS, and worries about fitting in with younger or less tech-oriented classmates and coworkers.
Google Docs offers dark mode on its mobile app but not on the web version, leaving a gap between platforms despite frequent feature updates including Gemini-powered AI tools. Users seeking a dark interface on desktop must rely on workarounds rather than a built-in setting.
The European Commission rolled out a European-built video conferencing tool meant to serve as a sovereign alternative to Microsoft Teams, reducing reliance on US software. According to a report, internal staff reactions have been harshly negative, with one employee reportedly calling the tool 'absolute sh*t'.
The University of Washington has moved its Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) institute, which offers a Master's in Technology Innovation, into a 48,500-square-foot space inside Microsoft's Building 92 under a rent-free lease. Microsoft contributed a $42 million in-kind donation to build out the space, marking the first time a UW program has established full-time operations on Microsoft's campus. GIX previously operated in Bellevue's Steve Ballmer Building after launching in 2015 with Tsinghua University and roughly $70 million in Microsoft backing.
The European Commission has deployed Element Pro, a self-hosted messaging tool from UK firm Element, as a sovereign alternative to Microsoft Teams. Politico reported that internal staff messages described the software harshly, with officials calling it confusing and of little value, and one saying the U.S. would win instantly if it cut off its tech given how Teams compares. Element CEO Matthew Hodgson acknowledged early 'teething issues' and said switching tools always causes friction.
A new book recounts how Lean, a program originally developed to catch bugs in Microsoft's software, was repurposed by mathematicians to formally verify proofs. The review describes its journey from an internal engineering tool to a system now used to check mathematical arguments with machine-level rigor.
Symantec and Carbon Black researchers say the China-linked Warlock group, also tracked as Longlegs, has compromised a water utility, a telecom provider, a regional government body and a university by exploiting on-premises SharePoint vulnerabilities, including the ToolShell exploit chain. In one July 22 intrusion, the attacker disabled security software on roughly 40 hosts within two hours and deployed Warlock ransomware to at least 33 machines, using a signed but vulnerable driver to kill endpoint defenses.
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