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Huawei and Qualcomm announced a multi-year patent license agreement covering cross licenses across 5G, compute, AI and networking patent portfolios. The deal also includes Qualcomm's purchase of certain Huawei US patents in compute, AI, networking and other fields, pending regulatory approval.
On the launch day of its Googlebook laptops, Google told Android Authority that while all Play Store apps are available on every device, a small number of complex apps or games may not perform smoothly on Intel-based models. The company said this is because many Android apps were built for Arm chips, and it is working with developers, Intel and Qualcomm to improve compatibility. Three of the five launch Googlebooks—from Acer, Asus and Lenovo—use Intel chips, while Dell and HP models use Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon processors.
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.
Android Authority tested the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, POCO F9 Ultra, POCO F9 Pro, and OnePlus 15R to compare Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the Galaxy-exclusive overclocked Elite Gen 5, the Elite Gen 5V, and the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. The chips differ mainly in CPU clock speeds and GPU compute slice counts, with the Galaxy variant hitting 4.74GHz versus 4.6GHz on the standard Elite Gen 5, and the 5V variant cut down to two GPU compute slices instead of three.
Apple has acknowledged a bug affecting a small number of iPhone 18 Pro Max users on AT&T's network, causing devices to display an 'SOS' symbol and lose calls, texts, and data service. The company says iOS 27.0.1, released earlier this week, along with a new carrier settings update, should help prevent the issue, though it hasn't fixed phones already affected.
Since the iPhone 18 series launched, some iPhone 18 Pro Max owners on AT&T have reported their phones dropping into SOS mode, blocking calls, texts, data and even 911 access, while Wi-Fi keeps working. AT&T has sent customers a text urging them to install Apple's iOS 27.0.1 update, warning that some phones may be unable to complete calls, texts or data connections.
Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 at Snapdragon Summit 2026, featuring new Adreno Neural Fusion GPU technology that uses AI to upscale resolution, generate extra frames, and extend battery life during gaming. Separately, Arm introduced its Mali G2-Ultra NX GPU with similar AI upscaling, frame generation, and a denoiser for effects like ray tracing, which will appear in chips from companies such as MediaTek.
Microsoft launched its updated Surface Laptop and Surface Pro at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit, powered by Snapdragon X2 Plus chips, without an AMD option. Surface CVP Brett Ostrum told Windows Central the company's limited device portfolio forces selective processor choices, while insisting Microsoft still values its AMD partnership.
Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 lacks High Performance Memory, certain video codecs, and Matrix cores for AI graphics that were present on last year's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. These capabilities are instead reserved for the pricier Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, which also gets 50% more local memory for on-device AI models than the standard Gen 6.
Microsoft's newly announced Surface Pro (2nd Edition) and Surface Laptop (2nd Edition) meet all technical specs for the Copilot+ PC label but aren't marketed under that name, according to Surface VP Brett Ostrum. Both machines use Qualcomm Snapdragon X2 Plus chips with an 80 TOPS NPU, well above the 40 TOPS threshold Microsoft originally set for the category. Microsoft's Copilot+ PC marketing page has also been quietly replaced with one for 'performance PCs.'
Microsoft and Qualcomm confirmed at the Snapdragon 2026 Summit that they will no longer market new Surface and Snapdragon-powered PCs as 'Copilot+' devices, even though the underlying AI features remain unchanged. Surface VP Brett Ostrum and Qualcomm's Kedar Kondap both told Windows Central the companies still emphasize AI capabilities, just without the Copilot+ label that debuted with Arm-based Windows PCs in 2024.
Piper Sandler's research note says eight major US tech firms are evaluating Intel's upcoming 14A chip manufacturing process. None has committed to production contracts yet, but the firm says Intel needs to land an anchor customer by late 2026 or early 2027 ahead of a planned 2028 manufacturing ramp.