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Microsoft has quietly added a striking new capability to Copilot Labs: Copilot 3D, a free, browser-based experiment that turns a single JPG or PNG into a downloadable GLB 3D model — a low-friction bridge from a flat photo to an immediately usable 3D asset. Background / Overview Microsoft introduced Copilot 3D as part of Copilot Labs, the company’s public sandbox for early-stage AI features, on or around August 8, 2025. The feature is positioned clearly as experimental: it’s available to...

Microsoft’s cloud is now at the center of one of the most consequential surveillance controversies of the 2020s, with multiple investigations alleging that Israel’s Unit 8200 has used a bespoke enclave inside Microsoft Azure to ingest, store and analyze millions of intercepted telephone calls from Gaza and the West Bank—data that investigators say was later used to inform arrests and even airstrike targeting. Background: how cloud computing and modern SIGINT converged The modern intelligence...

Xiaomi’s Mi Pad 2 blurred the lines between Android tablets and Windows slates by shipping in two distinct software configurations: a lightweight MIUI-flavored Android model and a version that ships with the full desktop Windows 10 running on an Intel Atom x5‑Z8500. The Windows edition is not an emulation or a stripped-down mobile SKU — it’s the x86 Windows experience squeezed into an 8‑inch metallic chassis, a 64 GB storage footprint, and a price tag that shocked the market for what was...

With little more than two months on the clock before Microsoft’s scheduled cutoff for Windows 10, a single consumer’s courtroom challenge has moved a technical lifecycle event into the public-policy arena — and raised urgent practical questions for millions of home and business users about security, cost, and choice. The lawsuit, filed in San Diego County, asks a judge to force Microsoft to keep issuing free security updates for Windows 10 until the OS’s installed base falls to a...

KDE’s blunt assessment—that Microsoft’s Copilot hardware key is “dumb”—is more than a snarky one-liner: it marks a coordinated, practical response from a major open‑source desktop project to a vendor-driven hardware change that has irritated users across platforms. KDE developers have moved from critique to code, adding support in KDE Frameworks to recognize the Copilot key and preparing remapping capabilities in upcoming Plasma updates so users can reclaim that key for their own workflows...

Microsoft Israel’s country manager framed one of the sharpest business axioms of the AI era in blunt terms: growth no longer equals headcount growth, and companies that cling to the old equation risk being left behind — even as they pour tens of billions into AI infrastructure and continue to post record profits. Background: a paradox at the heart of modern tech In a wide-ranging interview with Calcalist, Alon Haimovich — Microsoft Israel’s Country General Manager — described how the company...

Microsoft has quietly moved its Copilot brain into two places gamers and creators will notice first: the Windows Game Bar as Gaming Copilot (Beta) for Xbox Insiders, and Copilot 3D inside Copilot Labs for instant 2D→3D conversions — changes that make Microsoft’s Copilot a practical tool for both play and creation, not just a productivity gimmick. Background / Overview Microsoft’s Copilot strategy has been to embed AI across Windows, Office, Edge and Xbox. The recent moves extend that...

Microsoft has quietly set an expiration date for Windows 11 SE — the slimmed-down, education-focused edition of Windows — announcing that the OS will receive no further feature updates or security patches after October 2026. Background / Overview Windows 11 SE was launched in 2021 as Microsoft’s attempt to deliver a controlled, low-cost Windows experience for K–12 classrooms and other education environments. Built as a web-first, locked-down variant of Windows 11, SE limited app installation...

Microsoft’s Copilot 3D quietly ushers a practical form of 3D creation into the browser era, turning single PNG or JPG photos into downloadable GLB models in seconds and placing accessible 3D asset generation squarely inside the Copilot Labs experiment. Background Microsoft has long experimented with consumer-facing 3D tools—most notably Paint 3D and the now-defunct Remix3D—but neither reached mainstream adoption. The new Copilot 3D initiative reframes that effort around generative AI...

Installing antivirus on a new Windows laptop before you do anything else online is one of the simplest, highest-impact steps you can take to protect your files, accounts, and privacy from day one. Modern threats—from commodity malware and sneaky spyware to targeted ransomware and phishing—are everywhere, and while Windows ships with solid built-in defenses, third‑party suites still offer clear advantages in detection, privacy tools, and extras like VPNs and identity monitoring. This piece...

OpenAI’s new open-weight model suite landed squarely in the spotlight — and when I ran the smaller gpt-oss:20b through a real-world school test designed for 10‑ and 11‑year‑olds, the model proved interestingly capable on paper, but ultimately fell short of beating an actual 10‑year‑old at their own exam. Background / Overview OpenAI recently released two open-weight reasoning models — gpt-oss‑120b and gpt-oss‑20b — with a clear aim: make capable reasoning models available for local and...

Microsoft has confirmed that Microsoft Edge and the Microsoft WebView2 Runtime will continue to receive updates on Windows 10 (22H2) through at least October 2028, ensuring that Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), WebView-dependent applications, and Edge-powered experiences like Copilot-related fallbacks remain supported well beyond Windows 10’s operating system end-of-support date. Overview The announcement tightens an important distinction for businesses and consumers planning Windows migrations...

Microsoft’s Copilot on Windows has quietly picked up a major capability: an integrated GPT‑5 “Smart” mode that appears to give many users free access to the model’s deeper reasoning (“Thinking”) pathways — and early tests suggest the Copilot implementation is less stingy with those powerful reasoning calls than OpenAI’s ChatGPT free tier. This is a significant development for Windows users because it brings OpenAI’s latest model into the OS-level assistant with native UI, and it raises...

Amazon’s cash cow is showing fresh cracks: a once unassailable profit engine is stuttering at the quarter when markets are betting everything on artificial intelligence, and that shift has implications for enterprises, investors, and anyone who depends on cloud infrastructure. Background By the end of Q2 2025, the narrative that had sustained Amazon’s valuation for years—AWS as the high-margin engine subsidizing retail and logistics—encountered a much louder market test. AWS’s revenue growth...

Microsoft’s recent performance bragging rights for Windows 11 have reignited an old debate: are holdouts running Windows 10 missing out on a meaningful speed boost, or is this marketing dressed up as engineering? A raft of new benchmarks and a fresh round of commentary — including a summary posted by Neowin — make two things clear: Windows 11 can be measurably faster in specific, well-defined scenarios, but the headline numbers pushed by Microsoft and some commissioned studies are often the...

The week of August 11–17 delivers a crowded roster of new Xbox releases, headlined by EA Sports’ long-awaited Madden NFL 26 and punctuated by a surprise QuakeCon shadowdrop: the remastered Heretic + Hexen pack, now available on Xbox Game Pass. For players still holding onto Xbox One hardware, this week underscores an accelerating industry shift toward current‑gen-only releases—Madden 26 drops Xbox One support for the first time in over a decade—while Game Pass continues to reshape...

The routine posting of “meeting notices” is where civic procedure meets real people — and where a quiet failure in process can become a headline. Overview and context Source item: a GazetteXtra article titled “Meeting notices” (by DAILY TIMES STAFF) was published August 10, 2025 and runs as part of the site’s APG State News feed. The piece compiles local government meeting announcements aimed at citizens and interested parties; many state and territorial filters (U.S. states, territories...

The debate over Windows vs. Linux for your homelab is tired but relevant: for most home lab builders, Linux is the pragmatic default, while Windows remains valuable for specific, compatibility-driven roles. This article synthesizes the common arguments, verifies the major technical claims, weighs trade-offs for common homelab workloads, and offers a pragmatic decision framework so you can pick the right OS for each role in your environment. Background / Overview Linux runs a majority of the...

Microsoft's approaching end-of-support for Windows 10 has sharpened a question many users have been postponing for years: beyond security and features, does moving to Windows 11 deliver a measurable, real-world performance win — or could the upgrade cost you frames, responsiveness, or workflow throughput? A fresh set of independent benchmarks and ecosystem reports from 2025 makes the answer less blanket and more urgent: in many modern scenarios Windows 11 (particularly 24H2) now takes the...

A Southern California resident has filed suit against Microsoft seeking to force the company to continue free security updates for Windows 10 — a legal challenge that crystallizes the technical, economic and environmental frictions surrounding the October 14, 2025 end-of-support milestone. Background Microsoft has scheduled routine support for Windows 10 to end on October 14, 2025. After that date, Microsoft will no longer provide routine security updates, feature updates, or technical...