GoKawiil
Tech News
Microsoft has lowered prices on its smaller Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models, bringing them closer to costs seen two years ago. The refreshed bundles now include a Surface Mouse, though keyboards and the stylus remain separate purchases.
Microsoft has expanded Automatic Super Resolution, its NPU-driven upscaling feature built into Windows, to Copilot+ PCs powered by Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 chips, a capability previously exclusive to Qualcomm Snapdragon X devices. The feature aims to boost frame rates in games rendered at up to 1080p, with Microsoft citing gains of up to 15% in titles like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, targeting a 60 FPS threshold.
Microsoft will hold a San Francisco event on October 7, its first major Windows-focused gathering in over two years, to outline upcoming plans for Windows, Surface hardware, and local AI computing. CEO Satya Nadella and Windows/Surface chief Pavan Davuluri will appear alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, pointing to deeper collaboration on AI-capable PCs. The event is expected to bring updates on the Surface Laptop Ultra, a device built on Nvidia's RTX Spark platform with up to 128GB of unified memory.
Jon Peddie Research reports desktop discrete graphics card shipments reached 12.5 million units in Q2 2026, the highest quarterly total since early 2022, even as prices climbed to record levels. Nvidia shipped about 11.25 million of those units for roughly 90% market share, while AMD shipped around one million cards for about 8%.
IDC reports global PC shipments dropped 4.9% in the second quarter, yet HP, Dell and Lenovo all posted double-digit revenue gains in their PC segments by prioritizing pricier, AI-capable machines. Tight memory chip supplies driven by AI infrastructure demand have pushed component costs up, prompting manufacturers to shift production toward premium systems rather than budget models.
Personal computer manufacturers are shipping fewer units but charging more per device, and the strategy is currently paying off financially. The shift is being driven by a shortage of memory chips, whose prices have surged due to massive demand from AI infrastructure buildouts.
Reliance Jio has expanded its JioPC cloud computing service beyond its own broadband subscribers, making it available to anyone with an internet connection regardless of telecom provider. The service streams a virtual PC with up to eight virtual CPUs, 16GB RAM and 1TB storage, letting even computers up to eight years old run modern AI applications without hardware upgrades. Subscriptions range from about $11 for two months to roughly $53 for a full year of the higher-spec plan.