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Tech News
Microsoft will start rolling out updates that automatically turn on memory integrity and Virtualization-based Security on eligible Windows 11 devices, aiming to make the OS secure by default. The kernel-level protection blocks untrusted drivers and code but can reduce gaming frame rates, especially on older CPUs. Devices where users previously disabled the feature will not have it re-enabled automatically.
A developer designed a credit-card-sized PCB business card featuring an NFC chip that opens his website when tapped and a red LED that lights up on a printed Charizard's tail, powered entirely by the phone's own NFC radio field rather than any onboard battery. He had to write a custom Core NFC app for iPhone because standard NFC apps couldn't write to the blank NTAG I2C Plus chip he used, so his app sends the chip's native write commands directly.
Best Buy is offering the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1 laptop for $749.99, down from its original $1,199.99 price, as part of a week-long Labor Day sale. The discounted model includes a Core 7 Ultra 256V processor, 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, 512GB SSD, and a 1920x1200 IPS touchscreen with a 60Hz refresh rate.
CNET is inviting readers to complete a short survey rating their laptops on battery life, performance, software and value. The results, collected through September, will be used to compile a roundup of top reader-recommended laptops.
Samsung has introduced a cheaper variant of its Galaxy Book 6 laptop lineup, starting at $799, positioned as a lower-cost alternative to earlier models that began at $1,050. The new laptop runs on Intel Core 3 or Core 5 processors, with configurable storage up to 1TB and RAM up to 16GB, and features a 14-inch display with up to 25 hours of battery life. It comes in Gray and a new Violet Silver color and includes AI tools like AI Select and Note Assist.
Google's Android 17 QPR2 Beta 4 introduces a new 'Data logging' section inside Privacy Dashboard that lets users monitor data leaving the Private Compute Core, the isolated sandbox behind features like Live Caption and Smart Reply. Users can toggle logging on or off, choose between a limited three-day/100MB mode and a more exhaustive 12-hour/100MB detailed mode, and download or delete the resulting log files.
IBM's next-generation mainframe processor, discussed by Christian Jacobi and Christian Zoellin at Hot Chips 2026, integrates decoders capable of handling both the z/Architecture instruction set and Arm instructions within the same core. The chip uses a shared decode pipeline with separate instruction decoders for the two architectures, a design approach IBM says differs from earlier dual-ISA attempts like Itanium.
After 18 months of development, the ReactOS project released version 0.4.16, introducing a graphical installer and merging the separate bootcd and livecd images into one unified disc. The update also brings improvements to video, audio, networking, and storage support, plus a new installation type and updated third-party code.
Japanese researcher @dydt_Nao successfully demonstrated a dinner-plate-sized USB flash drive built from magnetic core memory, transferring both a text file and a small monochrome bitmap image between two PCs. The device, which uses a Raspberry Pi Pico as its controller, stores only 128 bytes of data and displays activity through a 32x32 LED array that lights up as each magnetic core is accessed. The creator plans to showcase the device at Maker Faire Tokyo 2026 in early September.
MSI's new Katana 15 HX C14 gaming laptop offers a choice of DDR4-3200 or DDR5 memory across two regional variants, a move aimed at keeping prices down amid soaring DRAM costs. The laptop can be configured with up to a 24-core Intel Core i9-14900HX processor and an Nvidia RTX 5070 GPU, alongside dual PCIe Gen 4x4 M.2 slots and a cooling system rated for 170W combined power.
SKC's Absolics unit told investors on July 27 that embedded glass substrate samples from its Covington, Georgia plant are undergoing package-level reliability testing in Taiwan, with results expected by year-end. Meanwhile Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Sumitomo Chemical's Dongwoo Fine-Chem finalized a $310 million joint venture on July 2 aiming for production in late 2027, while Intel, the technology's original champion, has pushed back its own rollout to around 2030 and shifted toward licensing patents instead.
Apple has launched M6, its first chip built on a 2-nanometer process, inside a refreshed Mac mini, featuring a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU and a Dual 16-core Neural Engine. Alongside it, the new Mac Studio gets M5 Ultra, Apple's first quad-die SoC, offering up to 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores and 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth.