GoKawiil
Tech News
Nikkei revealed that unknown hackers accessed two employee email accounts, one of which was used to send thousands of phishing emails in September. The breaches involved a Google Workspace account in July and a Microsoft 365 account in September, prompting the company to change passwords and warn staff about ongoing threats. No customer or reader data was affected in these incidents, according to Nikkei.
A 2024 cybersecurity incident involving CrowdStrike software led to a global IT outage, disrupting flights, hospitals, and payment systems, and resulting in $5.4 billion in losses for top US firms. Additionally, a 2025 blackout in Spain and Portugal halted internet and electronic payments, costing €1.6 billion. These events highlight how digital failures can have widespread economic impacts without physical damage.
The Nasdaq and S&P 500 reached new highs on Monday, with the Nasdaq closing at a record, despite Treasury yields climbing to multiyear peaks. Key companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Meta led the rally, supported by strong earnings and growth catalysts specific to each firm. This divergence suggests that investor enthusiasm for these tech giants is overshadowing broader bond market pressures.
Ryan Roslansky, who has led LinkedIn for six years and been with the company for 18, announced his departure citing the company's increased emphasis on in-person work at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters. He stated that relocating would be necessary for effective leadership, but he prefers to remain in the Bay Area with his family, especially as his youngest daughter begins high school. Microsoft’s broader return-to-office policies require employees within 50 miles to work on-site at least three days a week.
The Xbox Series X, released in 2020, continues to run current and upcoming major titles like GTA VI despite rising component costs pushing up Xbox hardware prices. Microsoft's new disc-to-digital conversion feature and rumored next-gen console, codenamed Project Helix, raise questions about the console's remaining lifespan and an eventual shift to all-digital gaming.
At a September gathering of about 50 enterprise customers in Seattle, CEO Satya Nadella urged companies to widely deploy AI tools, describing adoption as happening 'bottom up, top down, and middle up.' He has also recently spoken publicly about pacing AI development responsibly and addressing safety concerns, even as Microsoft hosts a Windows and Surface event in San Francisco focused on 'local AI' for PCs.
Microsoft is designing landscaping around some of its data centers that includes public hiking trails and restored waterways, aiming to offset the facilities' environmental footprint. The move comes amid growing local opposition to data centers over their heavy land, energy, and water use, as well as noise complaints that have prompted lawsuits in some communities.
Windows 11 marks its fifth anniversary since launching on October 5, 2021, a tenure marked by hardware compatibility fights, pressure to use online Microsoft accounts, and the rocky rollout of Copilot+ PCs and the Recall app. Microsoft has just begun rolling out the 26H2 update, which it describes as aiming for a 'predictable and low-disruption' experience rather than major new features.
Microsoft confirmed that installing the optional September 2026 KB5124010 preview update for Windows 11 can crash games, media players and productivity apps that rely on built-in AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio decoding. Affected apps may fail to launch, close unexpectedly, or work until audio features are triggered. Microsoft says the issue mainly hits legacy software and has not given a timeline for a fix.
Microsoft has rolled out a 'biomimicry' landscaping program at more than 20 data center sites in the US and Germany, restoring wetlands, planting native gardens and using plant buffers to muffle noise and reduce visual impact. The company says it uses an internal tool called Ecosystem Intelligence, built on Azure, to score sites on water quality, biodiversity and noise, and has made the approach standard for new US projects.
Newly unredacted documents in the New York Times' copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI show internal Microsoft materials acknowledging that AI products were creating 'doom loops' that undermine the economic foundations of the content creators supplying their training data. One document states the company's AI content strategy threatens the performance of its models and the broader web by damaging the very suppliers it depends on.
According to a report, three unnamed EU officials expressed skepticism about a homegrown European alternative meant to replace Microsoft Teams. The report notes that France earlier this year said millions of its civil servants will shift to domestic video-conferencing tools instead of Microsoft Teams and Zoom by 2027, and that Austria's military replaced Microsoft Office with Germany's LibreOffice last year.