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Microsoft has lowered prices on its smaller Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models, bringing them closer to costs seen two years ago. The refreshed bundles now include a Surface Mouse, though keyboards and the stylus remain separate purchases.
Microsoft has expanded Automatic Super Resolution, its NPU-driven upscaling feature built into Windows, to Copilot+ PCs powered by Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 chips, a capability previously exclusive to Qualcomm Snapdragon X devices. The feature aims to boost frame rates in games rendered at up to 1080p, with Microsoft citing gains of up to 15% in titles like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, targeting a 60 FPS threshold.
Microsoft will hold a San Francisco event on October 7, its first major Windows-focused gathering in over two years, to outline upcoming plans for Windows, Surface hardware, and local AI computing. CEO Satya Nadella and Windows/Surface chief Pavan Davuluri will appear alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, pointing to deeper collaboration on AI-capable PCs. The event is expected to bring updates on the Surface Laptop Ultra, a device built on Nvidia's RTX Spark platform with up to 128GB of unified memory.
After a four-year effort, researcher DiscoStarslayer, working with developer Libby, successfully decapped and optically dumped the firmware of the PS2's MechaCon chip, a feat no one had achieved in the console's 26-year history. The pair used an exploit Libby discovered to extract the firmware and are now documenting metadata and hashes, with a full technical write-up promised soon.
Perplexity has expanded its Portable Computer agent, previously Linux-only, to Windows through partnership with Nvidia. The tool requires a GeForce RTX or RTX PRO GPU with at least 24GB of VRAM plus a Perplexity Pro or Max subscription, and runs multistep agent tasks locally instead of in the cloud. The Windows release adds scheduled recurring tasks, local MCP servers for desktop apps, connectors for Word, Drive, Gmail, Slack and GitHub, and one-click local model downloads.
MSI (Message Signaled Interrupts) lets a device like a GPU notify the CPU of an interrupt by writing to a memory address rather than fighting for space on a shared physical hardware line. Windows 10 and 11 default to MSI-X, an expanded version introduced with PCI 3.0 in 2010, whenever a device supports it. This approach labels each interrupt with its source, avoiding the collisions that can occur on crowded shared IRQ lines.
Microsoft has acknowledged that the KB5124008 and KB5124012 security updates released on September 8, 2026 can cause USB Audio Class 1.0 devices to stop working on Windows 11 24H2 and later systems. Affected users report Code 10 errors in Device Manager, silent audio output, and frozen volume controls, with some speakers only failing when multichannel modes like 3D or 8-channel audio are used. No official fix exists yet, though switching to 2-channel mode has helped some users regain sound.
The FBI has charged Terry "Jiajia" Liu, a Customs and Border Protection IT supervisor in Calais, Maine, with stealing processors, memory, and hard drives from at least 46 Homeland Security computers across three border facilities. Liu allegedly replaced the components with cheaper, often outdated parts and traded the originals to Newegg's trade-in program for store credit, causing an estimated $105,800 in damage.
Security researchers report that ClickFix, a malware technique relying on fake CAPTCHA prompts and terminal commands, has exploded in popularity among attackers, including state-backed hacking groups. The attack tricks victims into copying and pasting a malicious command into Windows Run, PowerShell, or macOS Terminal after clicking through a fraudulent verification screen on a compromised website.
Jon Peddie Research reports desktop discrete graphics card shipments reached 12.5 million units in Q2 2026, the highest quarterly total since early 2022, even as prices climbed to record levels. Nvidia shipped about 11.25 million of those units for roughly 90% market share, while AMD shipped around one million cards for about 8%.
Microsoft has patched a bug that stopped Teams and the new Outlook for Windows from launching on ARM-based devices like the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7. The issue, triggered by August 2026 security updates (KB5121003), mainly hit new or freshly imaged PCs without Microsoft Store updates. The fix arrived with the September 8 cumulative update, KB5124012.
Google has released a dedicated Gemini application for Windows PCs, accessible via an Alt+Space keyboard shortcut similar to its Mac counterpart launched earlier this year. The app connects with other Google AI tools including Gemini Spark, Gmail, Google Drive, Nano Banana, and Gemini Omni for image and video generation.