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Windows power users have long known the best tools often live outside the commercial software ecosystem, but a recent MakeUseOf roundup highlighting “unbelievably” polished open‑source Windows apps crystallizes just how far free software has come: the list assembles utilities that replace or outperform paid alternatives for everyday productivity, automation, security, capture, and backups. The original collection calls out favorites such as LibreOffice, Flow Launcher, Ditto, AutoHotkey...

The Dell Precision 5550 spec sheet that appears in the teamduval.org listing — claiming a 10th‑generation Intel Core i7‑10850H, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe SSD, NVIDIA Quadro T1000 and Windows 11 Professional in a 15.6‑inch mobile workstation chassis — largely matches configurations Dell offered for the Precision 5550 when it launched, but the marketplace details (price, condition, and seller identity) in that listing raise credible red flags and deserve careful verification before any purchase...

Windows 11’s long-running Bluetooth audio headache — the abrupt collapse of headset sound quality whenever a microphone is used — has finally been addressed with a significant platform-level change: Microsoft has added support for Bluetooth LE Audio and a new Telephony and Media Audio Profile (TMAP) implementation that enables super wideband stereo when a mic is active. The practical effect is simple but profound: users with compatible headsets and updated drivers can now keep full stereo...

NetHope’s new Unlocking AI for Nonprofits program — delivered with support from Microsoft and hosted on the Kaya learning platform — gives frontline nonprofit teams a short, free, CPD‑certified path into practical generative AI skills, with two hands‑on 90‑minute modules that focus on prompt engineering and real‑world use of Microsoft Copilot in everyday nonprofit workflows. (kayaconnect.org, techcommunity.microsoft.com) Background Nonprofit organizations face the same productivity and...

Samsung’s 2025 TV and Smart Monitor lineup now embeds Microsoft Copilot, turning living-room screens and productivity displays into conversational, voice-first AI companions as part of Samsung’s broader Vision AI initiative. Background / Overview Samsung announced the integration of Microsoft Copilot into its 2025 Smart TV and Smart Monitor models as a core element of Samsung Vision AI, the company’s on-screen AI platform that pairs on-device image/audio processing with cloud-based...

Samsung and Microsoft have formally announced that Microsoft Copilot will be built into select 2025 Samsung TVs and Smart Monitors, folding a conversational, voice‑first AI companion into the company’s new Vision AI display platform and making the living‑room screen a first‑class place for content discovery, translation, smart‑home control and light productivity. Background Samsung’s 2025 product and platform messaging has centered on Vision AI, an umbrella for on‑device image, audio and...

Microsoft’s Copilot is no longer confined to laptops and phones — it has arrived on the living-room screen, built into Samsung’s 2025 TVs and Smart Monitors as a voice-first, visual assistant designed for group use, content discovery, and light productivity on large displays. This rollout folds Microsoft’s conversational AI into Samsung’s Vision AI layer, surfaces Copilot as an animated, lip‑synced on‑screen companion, and promises features like spoiler‑safe episode recaps, ultra‑specific...

Windows users facing the October deadline for Windows 10 support are being offered a realistic, battle-tested alternative in Zorin OS — a Dublin-born Linux distribution that promises to keep older PCs secure, fast and usable for years to come, and which the Irish Times frames as a timely option amid Microsoft’s upgrade push. Background / Overview Microsoft has set a definitive end-of-support date for Windows 10: October 14, 2025. After that date Home and Pro editions (and most...

Google’s work on making tabs less chaotic keeps getting bolder: a new experiment in Chrome Canary now offers a one-step way to convert a tab group into a standard bookmark folder, and several companion menu and context‑menu tweaks are being tested that together point to a future where tab groups are no longer ephemeral workspace bubbles but first‑class, archivable objects in Chrome’s ecosystem. (windowsreport.com, neowin.net) Background Chrome’s tab groups began as a lightweight visual...

Microsoft’s conversational assistant has left the desktop and arrived on the living-room screen: Microsoft Copilot is now built into select Samsung 2025 TVs and Smart Monitors, folded into Samsung’s new Vision AI platform as a web-embedded Copilot experience that answers questions aloud, displays glanceable cards for distance viewing, and appears on-screen as a small animated, lip‑synced avatar designed for group interactions. ecrosoft announced a formal rollout of Copilot for Samsung’s 2025...

Windows 11 ships with a maze of background services: some are essential, some are convenience features, and a surprising number quietly collect data or spin CPU and disk cycles while you work. A recent practical guide singled out a small set of these services as safe targets for trimming — telemetry and diagnostic collectors, the error‑reporting pipeline, scheduled disk optimization, and a handful of optional feature services — and showed how to stop them using Services (services.msc). This...

HP’s latest quarter reads like a watershed moment: revenue and unit trends that outpaced expectations, a sharpened focus on AI-capable PCs, aggressive supply‑chain moves to sidestep tariff risk, and a targeted buy of Humane’s AI assets that accelerates device‑level AI strategy—taken together, these moves suggest HP is attempting to convert a cyclical PC bounce into a structural advantage rather than merely riding a short-lived wave. Background / overview HP’s corporate profile in 2024–2025...

Microsoft’s Copilot has moved from desks and pockets into living rooms: select Samsung 2025 TVs and smart monitors now include a voice-first Copilot experience that speaks, shows visual answer cards, and appears on-screen as an animated companion — no separate app store download required, and sign-in with a Microsoft account is optional. Overview The rollout announced on August 27, 2025 brings Microsoft’s conversational assistant to Samsung’s 2025 lineup under the banner of Samsung Vision...

The Indian government’s cybersecurity arm has issued a high-severity alert advising organisations and individuals to urgently address a batch of patched—but still dangerous—vulnerabilities across multiple Microsoft products, including Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Windows Server storage components, Windows certificate handling, the MBT Transport (netbt) driver, Microsoft PC Manager, and Azure Databricks. The advisory follows Microsoft’s recent Patch Tuesday wave and national-level...

Tooltips — those little pop-up text boxes that appear when you hover over files, folders, desktop shortcuts, or taskbar icons — are designed to give quick context, but for many Windows 11 users they become intrusive and disruptive; this guide explains every practical method to delay, disable, or limit tooltips on Windows 11, shows the exact Registry edits and Settings toggles involved, and weighs the benefits and risks so you can choose the safest approach for your setup. Background /...

The recent Windows 11 servicing wave that included security updates KB5063878 and the related preview KB5062660 ignited a flurry of alarm when hobbyist testers and everyday users reported NVMe SSDs disappearing — in some cases permanently — during large sustained writes, and much of the early traffic pointed at drives using Phison controllers. Phison’s follow-up statement saying its labs “dedicated over 4,500 cumulative testing hours” and ran more than 2,200 test cycles without reproducing...

Samsung’s newest TVs and smart monitors now ship with Microsoft’s Copilot built in, bringing a conversational generative AI assistant to living rooms and home offices and folding Microsoft’s “Copilot Everywhere” strategy into Samsung’s Vision AI ecosystem. ueup — including premium Micro RGB, Neo QLED, QLED, OLED, The Frame models and selected Smart Monitors (M7, M8, M9 and similar) — will offer a built-in Copilot experience surfaced via Samsung’s Vision AI layer and a Copilot web app...

Microsoft has quietly folded a long‑requested convenience into Windows: you can now browse and manage an Android phone’s internal storage directly from File Explorer — wirelessly, without digging out a USB cable — by pairing your handset with Windows 11 and using Microsoft’s Link to Windows / Phone Link infrastructure. Background / Overview For years Windows users have relied on USB cables, MTP drivers or third‑party tools to move photos and documents between phones and PCs. Microsoft’s...

Windows 11’s August servicing wave briefly looked like a storage disaster: community testers reported NVMe drives disappearing mid-write after installing security updates KB5063878 and KB5062660, and many fingers pointed at SSDs using Phison controllers. After an industry investigation, controller maker Phison published a terse validation summary saying it had “dedicated over 4,500 cumulative testing hours” and run more than 2,200 test cycles without being able to reproduce the reported...

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