Latest Tech News

Stay updated with the latest in technology, AI, cybersecurity, and more

Filtered by: mic Clear Filter

German government moves closer to ditching Microsoft: "We're done with Teams!"

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust In brief: The long-running battle of Germany's northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, to make a complete switch from Microsoft software to open-source alternatives looks close to an end. Many government operatives will permanently wave goodbye to the likes of Teams, Word, Excel, and Outlook in the next three months in a move to ensure independence, sustainability, and security. Plans to go open-so

Microsoft's new AI agent can change Windows settings for you - here's how

Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET With so many settings in Windows, knowing where and how to adjust something can be challenging. Now Microsoft is using AI to help you tackle that challenge more easily. Also: You can try Windows 11's newest Start menu now - here's how In a blog post published Friday, Microsoft announced the release of a new AI agent designed to perform specific actions for you based on your requests. Say something like "how to control my PC by voice" or "my mouse pointer is too small," and

Microsoft shares temp fix for Outlook crashes when opening emails

Microsoft has shared a workaround for a known issue that causes the classic Outlook email client to crash when opening or starting a new message. These problems affect users in the Monthly Enterprise Channel who updated Outlook for Microsoft 365 earlier this month, starting with Version 2504 (Build 18730.20122). "When you open or start a new email, classic Outlook crashes. This issue occurs because Outlook cannot open the Forms Library," the Outlook team says in a support document published on

No Fed Cut, No Rate Break: June Mortgage Forecast Stays Flat

As the Federal Reserve likely holds interest rates steady, mortgage rates are expected to stay in a narrow range. Tharon Green/CNET With each passing day, it seems like average 30-year mortgage rates could remain stuck near 6.8% for the rest of the year. Yet conflicting economic forces could push mortgage rates up or down in the coming months. Housing market experts say the same thing: The direction of mortgage rates depends on the economic impact of policies by the Trump administration and th

Yet another European government is ditching Microsoft for Linux - here's why

querbeet/Getty Images "We're done with Teams!" declared Digitalisation Minister Dirk Schrödter, speaking via an open-source video platform, in his announcement that the German state of Schleswig-Holstein will phase out all Microsoft software from government workplaces. The goal is to fully transition from Microsoft programs to Linux and open-source programs within the next three months. Also: I found a Linux distro that combines the best parts of other operating systems (and it works) The dec

Microsoft accidentally swapped Windows 11’s startup sound with Vista’s

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. If you’ve been having flashbacks to 2007 while using your PC over the past few days, you’re not alone. Microsoft has mistakenly replaced Windows 11’s boot sound — in test versions of the OS — with the startup chime from Windows Vista. Windows testers started noticing the issue shortly after Microsoft released its latest Dev Channel build of Windows 11 on Friday afternoon. The

Taiwan blacklists China's Huawei and SMIC, further aligning with U.S. trade policy

The U.S. has placed major chip export restrictions on Huawei and Chinese firms over the past few years. This has cut off companies' access to critical semiconductors. Taiwan has added China's Huawei and SMIC to its trade blacklist in a move that further aligns it with U.S. trade policy and comes amid growing tensions with Beijing. The two leading Chinese chip firms have been put on Taiwan's "Strategic High-Tech Commodities Entity List," along with many of their international subsidiaries. Tai

Taiwan places export controls on Huawei and SMIC

In Brief Chinese companies Huawei and SMIC may have a difficult time accessing resources needed to build AI chips, due to Taiwanese export controls. Bloomberg reports that Taiwan’s International Trade Administration placed the two companies and their subsidiaries on an updated list of entities designated as strategic high-tech commodities. That means Taiwanese businesses will need government approval before they can ship anything to either company. As a result, Huawei and SMIC will lose acces

Bioprospectors mine microbial genomes for antibiotic gold

In brief The discovery of penicillin nearly 100 years ago started a gold rush to find new antimicrobials. Scientists mined microscopic bacteria and fungi for compounds that could help fight off infection. But over time the rate of antimicrobial discoveries slowed to a crawl. Now, modern-day bioprospectors are using genomics, synthetic biology, and AI to dig deeper than they ever have before. A new golden age of antibiotics may be upon us, say some on the hunt, though getting a drug candidate int

How Covid-19 Changed Hideo Kojima’s Vision for ‘Death Stranding 2’

When legendary game designer Hideo Kojima announced to the world that Death Stranding 2 would soon be released, he made it known that Covid-19 had completely changed his idea for this sequel. “We released Death Stranding before the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world was moving toward isolation and division—as with Brexit. The idea behind it was ‘Let's connect. We’ll face disaster if we don’t connect.’ The theme, the story, and the gameplay of the first chapter all revolved around that idea,” Koj

Windows 11 users want these five features back

When Windows 11 was first released, many long-time users felt features they loved had been taken away overnight. Three and a half years later, the same complaints still rise to the top of the Feedback Hub with tens of thousands of votes. Below are the five most wanted Windows 11 features on the Microsoft Feedback Hub. The most wanted requests in Windows 11 "Bring back the ability to move the taskbar to the top and sides of the screen on Windows 11" Right now, the taskbar is glued to the bot

Anubis ransomware adds wiper to destroy files beyond recovery

The Anubis ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation has added to its file-encryptimg malware a wiper module that destroys targeted files, making recovery impossible even if the ransom is paid. Anubis (not to be confused with the same-name Android malware with a ransomware module) is a relatively new RaaS first observed in December 2024 but became more active at the beginning of the year. On February 23, the operators announced an affiliate program on the RAMP forum. A report from KELA at the

Copilot Vision brings Microsoft's screen-watching AI to everyday Windows tasks

AI overload: Microsoft wants Copilot to be your digital sidekick, always watching and ready to help – whether you need it or not. The latest feature, Vision, turns the AI into a screen-reading assistant that talks back, offering tips, tasks, or tech-induced headaches. Microsoft announced that Copilot Vision is now available to users in the US, with plans to expand to more non-European countries soon. This update significantly enhances Copilot, which is evolving into more of a digital "companion

Hasbro’s ‘Star Wars’ SDCC Exclusive Is the Ultimate ‘Revenge of the Sith’ Set

Dark side, light side, it doesn’t matter. This year’s Hasbro Star Wars exclusive at San Diego Comic-Con is certainly the chosen one, and we’re going to take the high ground to acquire it. Celebrating 20 years of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Hasbro just revealed a six-inch Black Series set, exclusively for release at San Diego Comic-Con, of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and their epic lightsaber duel over the lava on Mustafar. Retailing for $110, the set will first be availa

Microsoft's own Xbox handheld is "essentially cancelled"

TL;DR: Microsoft and Asus recently announced two new Xbox-branded handheld devices: the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. While these represent a new step for Xbox gaming on portable devices, a new report suggests that Microsoft has internally shelved its own Xbox handheld project – one that was never officially announced but had been the subject of considerable speculation. According to The Verge, Microsoft has "essentially canceled" its native Xbox handheld to focus on the Xbox software plat

Best Buy’s Giving You $1,000 Off Refurbished Microsoft Surface Touchscreen Laptop, Nearly Free Right Now

Looking to replace you laptop but don’t feel like shelling out thousands for the latest MacBook? Well you don’t need to sweat. You can grab yourself something perfectly capable of meeting your everyday needs. New is overrated. Like-new is good enough for just about anything and is a great way to save yourself hundreds and hundreds of dollars. What happens to new products anyway? Well I’ll tell you. They become old. It happens to us all. Stop trying to fight the entropy of the universe and just a

Boston Dynamics robots dance to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ for ‘America’s Got Talent’ audition

A dance crew of four-legged robots from Boston Dynamics appeared on “America’s Got Talent” to perform a synchronized routine to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” Their performance was impressive enough to earn four “yes” votes from the judges — but one of the five robots experienced some stage fright, perhaps, and shut down in the middle of the routine. But the show must go on, so nevertheless, the four other robots persisted. “Can I be honest with you?” judge Simon Cowell asked at the conclusion o

Microsoft confirms auth issues affecting Microsoft 365 users

Microsoft is investigating an ongoing incident that is causing users to experience errors with some Microsoft 365 authentication features. As the company revealed earlier today in an incident alert published in the admin center, users may experience errors during self-service password resets, while admins may be unable to add multi-factor authentication (MFA) sign-in methods to some users. Redmond says this incident is caused by a recent change aiming to improve MFA sign-in functionality. Sinc

HP’s 2025 New 14″ Laptop at Over 70% Off Makes It Almost Free, With MS Office and Windows 11 Pro Included

Schools is out but the next semester will be here before you know it. Is you college student equipped to take on all their classes? Make sure they are kitted with the right laptop to get all their class work and homework done reliably without any technical issues. Amazon is making that easy as they’ve knocked more than half the price off this HP portable student and business laptop. It includes Microsoft Office and also thrown into the bundle is a license for Windows 11 Pro. It’s down from $1,30

Poop Transplants Not All They’re Cracked Up to Be

Fecal transplants have emerged as a potential treatment for a wide range of conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, and even depression. These so-called poop transplants have understandably received a lot of attention, but new research casts a bit of a wet blanket over the practice. The procedure involves taking microbes from the poop of a healthy person and transferring them into a patient’s colon. This should restore balance to their gut microbiome, but according to a study

Patch Tuesday, June 2025 Edition

Microsoft today released security updates to fix at least 67 vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and software. Redmond warns that one of the flaws is already under active attack, and that software blueprints showing how to exploit a pervasive Windows bug patched this month are now public. The sole zero-day flaw this month is CVE-2025-33053, a remote code execution flaw in the Windows implementation of WebDAV — an HTTP extension that lets users remotely manage files and directories

Major sugar substitute found to impair brain blood vessel cell function

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Erythritol may impair cellular functions essential to maintaining brain blood vessel health, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder. Findings suggest that erythritol increases oxidative stress, disrupts nitric oxide signaling, raises vasoconstrictive peptide

LibreOffice backs campaign to help users move from Windows 10 to Linux – and ditch Office, too

In context: Microsoft will officially end support for the most widely used editions of Windows 10 in just a few months. The operating system remains in use by hundreds of millions of PC owners, many of whom will soon face a critical decision: upgrade to Windows 11, or explore alternatives. Microsoft plans to end support for Windows 10 security updates on October 14, 2025, even though the operating system remains the most widely used desktop platform. This move will render a massive number of PC

Microsoft fixes first known zero-click attack on an AI agent

TL;DR: Microsoft has patched a critical zero-click vulnerability in Copilot that allowed remote attackers to automatically exfiltrate sensitive user data simply by sending an email. Dubbed "EchoLeak," the security flaw is being described by cybersecurity researchers as the first known zero-click attack targeting an AI assistant. EchoLeak affected Microsoft 365 Copilot, the AI assistant integrated across several Office applications, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Teams. Accordin

Unpacking AI Agents

In the past six months, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others have released web-browsing agents that are designed to complete tasks independently, with only minimal input from humans. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has even called AI agents “the next giant breakthrough.” On today’s episode, we'll dive into what makes these agents different from other forms of machine intelligence, and whether their capabilities can live up to the hype. You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Good

Microsoft's Copilot Vision AI helper is now available on Windows in the US

Microsoft has begun rolling out a major update for Copilot. Starting today, Windows 10 and 11 users in the US can try out the assistant's Vision feature. The tool allows you to share up to two apps with Copilot, so that you can then chat about what it sees. "[Copilot Vision] acts as your second set of eyes, able to analyze content, help when you’re lost, provide insights, and answer your questions as you go," Microsoft says. Additionally, with its new Highlights functionality, Copilot can even

Microsoft just teased its next-gen Xbox console, and nobody noticed

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. I feel like a broken record, but I’ve been writing for more than a year that the next Xbox console will be more PC-like. Now, I think Microsoft just teased its next-gen Xbox plans while announcing its partnership with Asus to bring two Xbox Ally handhelds to the market later this year. The Xbox Ally handhelds run Windows, but the Xbox team has worked with Windows engineers to

Microsoft’s new Copilot Vision can ‘see’ your apps on Windows

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Microsoft is launching Copilot Vision for Windows today, an extension of its AI assistant that lets you share your screen or apps so that Copilot can do things like coach you through using Adobe Photoshop features or analyze the photos and webpages you’re looking at. “When you choose to enable it, Copilot Vision can see what you see and talk to you about it in real time,” says

Two exploits are threatening Secure Boot, but Microsoft is only patching one of them

Facepalm: Microsoft and the PC industry developed the Secure Boot protocol to prevent modern UEFI-based computers from being hacked or compromised during the boot process. However, just a few years later, the technology is plagued by a steady stream of serious security vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals are currently having a field day with Secure Boot. Security experts have uncovered two separate vulnerabilities that are already being exploited in the wild to bypass SB's protections. Even more co

Microsoft Edge now offers secure password deployment for businesses

Microsoft announced that a new Edge feature allowing employees to share passwords more securely in enterprise environments has reached general availability. Known as secure password deployment, this feature will be available to Microsoft Edge for Business users starting this week, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access by ensuring that employees don't accidentally share passwords with unintended recipients. The feature is available for Microsoft 365 Business Premium, E3, and E5 subscriptio