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Microsoft has released the Surface Laptop Ultra, a high-end Windows laptop reviewed as a serious rival to Apple's MacBook Pro. The device emphasizes strong local processing power rather than relying primarily on cloud-based AI services.
Microsoft's new Surface Laptop Ultra, built with an Nvidia RTX Spark N1X chip, starts at $2,599 and can be configured up to $5,899 depending on processor and memory. The base 24GB unified memory model ships with Windows 11 Home, while higher-tier configurations come with Windows 11 Pro and up to 64GB of memory. During a review briefing, Microsoft gave only a vague answer when asked whether the 24GB base model has enough memory for tasks like running AI models locally.
Tom's Hardware reviewed Microsoft's new Surface Laptop Ultra, which uses Nvidia's RTX Spark mobile SoC instead of a Qualcomm chip, making it one of the first non-Qualcomm Windows on Arm laptops. The reviewer praises its design, display, and port selection, but notes the device is heavy, costly, and offers little extra benefit to users who don't run AI workloads.
Microsoft has rolled out an updated Photos app for Windows 11 Insiders featuring a new native editor and viewer, plus a redesigned gallery. The editor adds tools like Crop, Enhance, Repair, Stylize, and a new Relight feature for fixing lighting, alongside AI-powered object removal and support for HDR, HEIC, and WebP formats. Microsoft claims the editor launches 25% faster and the viewer opens photos up to 30% faster for HEIC files, with wider release to all users expected later this year.
Microsoft says a new Windows 11 update improves responsiveness in Search, Start, Settings, File Explorer and other tools by up to 20%, based on internal comparisons between build 26300.9550 and build 26200.7628. On systems with 8GB of RAM or less, Windows now delays loading Widgets until opened, freeing over 200MB of memory, and the OS can hold up to 2GB more active data in RAM before offloading it to storage. The update also speeds up Windows Hello sign-in and Bluetooth pairing, including faster AirPods connections, while a redesigned Search experience is being tested with Windows Insiders.
Microsoft says its October KB5127648 security update for Windows 11, version 24H2 and later, can leave the Smart App Control option grayed out so it can't be switched on if it was previously off. Devices that already had Smart App Control enabled are unaffected. No permanent fix exists yet, but Microsoft has published registry edits and Group Policy settings administrators can use to restore the toggle.
Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, Amazon SVP of Devices Panos Panay told founders that failure is a necessary part of building successful products. He pointed to Microsoft's Surface RT tablet, which led to a nearly $1 billion write-down during his tenure there, as an example of a major failure he later learned from.
Microsoft says recent Windows 11 updates have improved memory management and cut background resource use, making the OS up to 20% more responsive, with the biggest gains on machines with 8GB of RAM or less. Changes include freeing over 200MB of memory by deferring Widgets loading, letting the OS retain up to 2GB more active data before swapping to disk, faster Windows Hello sign-in, quicker Bluetooth pairing, a less disruptive Windows Update process, and a taskbar that can now be repositioned. A new, faster Windows Search is currently testing with Insiders ahead of a broader rollout later this year.
Microsoft has begun rolling out Windows 11 updates to all users after Insider testing, claiming up to 20 percent improved responsiveness through better memory management. The update lets the OS keep up to 2GB more active data in memory before offloading to storage, with Microsoft saying PCs with 8GB of RAM will notice the biggest gains. On low-memory machines, widgets will now load only when opened, freeing over 200MB of memory, while Bluetooth pairing, Windows Hello logins, and a redesigned Photos app are also getting speed and reliability improvements.
Nvidia is launching RTX Spark laptops on October 16th, its first major push into Arm-powered Windows PCs since the ill-fated Surface RT. The company says these machines will run existing Windows software including Adobe, Office, Blender, and games with kernel-level anti-cheat, alongside local AI workstation capabilities with up to 128GB of RAM.
Canonical has released Ubuntu 26.10, codenamed Stonking Stingray, built on the Ubuntu 26.04 LTS base. The update adds Rust-based coreutils, post-quantum-ready package signing, TPM-backed full-disk encryption, Linux kernel 7.3, GNOME 51, RISC-V desktop images, and a new opt-in local speech-to-text feature called Myna. Companion flavors including Kubuntu, Lubuntu, and Xubuntu are also launching today, each with nine months of maintenance support.
Microsoft's October 2026 Patch Tuesday update addressed 1,413 security vulnerabilities, the highest monthly total the company has ever released and more than it patched in any entire previous year. Windows accounted for 1,102 of the fixes, with Office, SharePoint Server, SQL Server, and developer tools making up the rest. The release also closed three actively exploited or publicly known zero-day flaws affecting Windows Shell, .NET Framework, and MessagePack-CSharp.