GoKawiil
Tech News
Google has launched a dedicated Gemini desktop application for Windows, following its earlier macOS rollout, giving users a native app rather than relying solely on the browser. Users can summon Gemini with a keyboard shortcut, share their screen or local files for context-aware help, and connect the assistant to Gmail, Drive, Docs and Calendar.
Microsoft is testing a new Windows 11 recovery feature called Cloud Rebuild in Insider Beta Preview Build 26220.9343. It reinstalls Windows directly from Windows Update even when the existing installation is corrupted or won't boot, eliminating the need for a USB recovery drive. The tool is accessed through the Windows Recovery Environment, which can now also reuse saved Wi-Fi credentials to connect during recovery.
Windows Insider Beta Build 26220.9343 introduces Cloud Rebuild, a new recovery option that downloads a factory version of Windows 11 directly from Microsoft's servers instead of requiring a USB drive or custom image. The feature lives inside the Windows Recovery Environment under 'Reset this PC' and works over Ethernet or Wi-Fi, even restoring devices when the installed OS is too corrupted to boot normally.
TurboCrypt, a git and file encryption tool originally built for Unix, is moving its encrypted file and directory name encoding from Base91 to a newly defined Base84 alphabet. The change was driven by the addition of Windows support, since several characters used in the Unix-safe Base91 alphabet are forbidden on Windows filesystems and shell tools. The new 84-character set excludes nine Windows-forbidden symbols and trailing dots, ensuring names work reliably across Linux, macOS and Windows.
Microsoft has patched a bug that stopped Teams and the new Outlook for Windows from launching on ARM-based devices like the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7. The issue, triggered by August 2026 security updates (KB5121003), mainly hit new or freshly imaged PCs without Microsoft Store updates. The fix arrived with the September 8 cumulative update, KB5124012.
Google has launched a standalone Gemini desktop app for Windows, letting users summon the AI assistant instantly with the Alt+Space shortcut while working in other programs. The app also supports deeper tasks like drafting documents using Gmail and Drive content, delegating multi-step work to the Gemini Spark agent, and generating images and video via Nano Banana and Gemini Omni.
A technical analysis compares Microsoft's Prism binary translator, which lets x86-64 Windows software run on Arm-based aarch64 processors, against native Geekbench 7 performance. Using a pro key from Primate Labs founder John Poole to profile individual workloads, the tester measures how much performance is lost when translating x86-64 instructions instead of running aarch64 code directly.
Google has released a native Gemini AI desktop application for Windows, following a similar Mac app launched in April. The app offers image generation via Nano Banana, video generation through Gemini Omni for eligible subscribers, and access to multiple Gemini model tiers depending on a user's Google subscription, all launchable with an Alt+spacebar shortcut.
Google has released a dedicated Gemini application for Windows PCs, accessible via an Alt+Space keyboard shortcut similar to its Mac counterpart launched earlier this year. The app connects with other Google AI tools including Gemini Spark, Gmail, Google Drive, Nano Banana, and Gemini Omni for image and video generation.
Windows admins report that this month's cumulative updates for Windows Server 2019, 2022, and 2025 are breaking Remote Desktop Services, with servers working fine for a few hours before connections begin to fail. Existing sessions can get stuck unable to disconnect, new logins hang and time out, and in many cases only a hard reset restores service. Some administrators say uninstalling the September patch is the only reliable fix so far.
Security researcher Nightmare-Eclipse has published a new proof-of-concept exploit called ShieldCrash on GitHub, claiming it circumvents Microsoft's fix for CVE-2026-69414 (ShieldBreak), a privilege escalation bug in the Malware Protection Engine. The exploit reportedly allows arbitrary file reads as SYSTEM on all supported Windows versions, despite Microsoft's September patch. Microsoft has not yet responded to requests for comment on the claim.
Microsoft has designated Rust as a Tier-1 supported language for internal development, placing it alongside C++, C#, and TypeScript with full toolchain, tooling, and compliance support. As part of this effort, the company introduced rustc_codegen_utc, a new code generation backend that connects Rust's compiler to the MSVC backend used across Windows.