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Microsoft and Apple are no longer merely competitors in hardware and OS design; they are staking out two fundamentally different bets on how artificial intelligence will be delivered, monetized, and governed across consumer and enterprise markets—one centered on cloud-led, seat‑based monetization and platform control, the other on premium device integration, on‑device inference, and privacy‑forward user experiences. The conflict is less about who builds the best model and more about which...

Microsoft's decision to move Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for Azure Functions to general availability marks a pivotal moment for enterprise agent architectures: Azure now provides a first‑class, identity‑aware, serverless path for hosting MCP servers with built‑in authentication, a streamable HTTP transport, language SDK support across major runtimes, and a lightweight self‑hosted option for lift‑and‑shift deployments. Background The Model Context Protocol (MCP) originated as...

Microsoft’s first Windows 11 security rollup of 2026 triggered an unusual cascade of reliability failures — most notably a shutdown/hibernate regression that caused some machines to restart instead of powering off — prompting Microsoft to publish an out‑of‑band emergency patch days after Patch Tuesday and leaving IT teams scrambling to triage, roll back, or apply fixes across affected fleets. Background / Overview The January 2026 Patch Tuesday release included cumulative updates for...

Microsoft has issued an urgent warning after January’s cumulative updates caused a narrow but disruptive regression that can leave some Windows 11 systems restarting when users expect a shutdown or failing to enter hibernation — a problem Microsoft patched with out‑of‑band fixes days later, but one that exposed important tensions between deep platform security features and the servicing pipeline. Background The January 2026 Patch Tuesday rollup (published January 13, 2026) included...

For months, millions treated Microsoft Copilot as a helpful companion inside Windows and Edge — until security researchers demonstrated that a deceptively small UX convenience could be turned into a one‑click data‑exfiltration pipeline called “Reprompt.” Background / overview Varonis Threat Labs published a technical write‑up and proof‑of‑concept showing how a crafted Copilot deep link could hijack an authenticated Copilot Personal session and quietly siphon profile attributes, recent file...

A senior West Midlands policing figure has stepped down amid a national controversy after an inspectorate review found that the intelligence used to justify banning Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from an Aston Villa Europa League match included fabricated information generated by an AI assistant — a revelation that ignited political rebuke, community outrage, and urgent questions about how generative tools are adopted inside public‑safety decision‑making. October 2025 West Midlands Police...

Microsoft’s recent Windows 11 servicing wave has left more than a few corporate inboxes and home PCs in a funk: multiple cumulative updates tied to the 24H2/25H2 servicing branch have produced regressions that render parts of Outlook unstable or, in some configurations, effectively unusable — a situation documented by Microsoft and reproduced across community and press reporting. Background Windows servicing has shifted in recent years to monthly cumulative rollups that bundle security...

Microsoft pushed emergency out‑of‑band updates on January 17, 2026 to repair two high‑impact regressions introduced by the January 13 Patch Tuesday rollup: one that prevented some Windows 11 systems with System Guard Secure Launch enabled from shutting down or hibernating, and another that broke Remote Desktop authentication across multiple Windows branches — and both are now addressed by KB5077797 and KB5077744 respectively. Background Microsoft’s January 2026 security rollup shipped on...

Microsoft's January Patch Tuesday security rollup triggered a cascade of unexpected failures that prompted an unusually rapid series of emergency fixes from Microsoft between January 13 and January 17, 2026, leaving millions of users and IT teams scrambling to restore remote access, shutdown behavior, and application stability. What began as a routine security update to close dozens of vulnerabilities turned into a high-profile reliability incident that exposed fragility in large-scale...

Microsoft has confirmed that a January 2026 cumulative update for Windows 11 can cause some enterprise-class machines to restart instead of shutting down or entering hibernation, and the behavior is narrowly tied to systems with System Guard Secure Launch enabled; Microsoft published an out‑of‑band remedial update four days after the initial rollout and has documented a command‑line workaround for administrators and end users in the interim. Background The problem surfaced following...

The abrupt disappearance of ChatGPT from WhatsApp on January 15, 2026 marks a significant pivot in how conversational AI is distributed — a policy-driven closure of one of the simplest, lowest‑friction ways millions accessed large language model assistants inside a messaging app they already use every day. WhatsApp’s mid‑October 2025 rewrite of its Business Solution (the Business API) added a new “AI Providers” restriction that explicitly bars third‑party, general‑purpose LLM chatbots from...

Microsoft has begun enforcing tighter email access controls that will block Exchange Online sign‑ins from mobile clients and devices that aren’t prepared for the change — a move IT departments must treat as an operational deadline if they want to avoid sudden user outages and helpdesk chaos. Overview Microsoft is rolling out a policy that prevents devices using legacy Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol versions lower than 16.1 from connecting to Exchange Online, with enforcement beginning on...

Microsoft has quietly published a targeted trio of Windows 11 dynamic updates — KB5074108, KB5074208, and KB5073454 — intended to refresh the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and the Setup toolchain across multiple servicing branches, arriving alongside January’s cumulative rollups and followed by rapid follow‑ups after a narrow set of regressions were reported. Background / Overview Dynamic updates are a specialized servicing mechanism Microsoft uses to surgically refresh only the small...

Microsoft has quietly pushed an emergency fix after a January 13, 2026 cumulative update for Windows 11 caused some systems to restart instead of shutting down or entering hibernation — a regression that hit a narrow but important class of devices and forced administrators to adopt emergency workarounds while a targeted remedial package was issued days later. Background The January 2026 Patch Tuesday rollup for Windows 11 included cumulative updates intended to close security gaps and...

Before the coffee finishes brewing, a growing number of Floridians are already asking an AI to organize their day — and that simple anecdote captures a wider shift from search and spreadsheets to conversational, assistant-style tools that promise speed, personalization, and a lower cognitive load. Background AI has migrated from specialist labs and enterprise pilots into everyday apps and community classrooms. In Southwest Florida, local residents described using generative assistants for...

Seven in ten doctors tell the Royal College of Physicians that the NHS is not digitally fit to deploy AI safely, exposing a dangerous mismatch between clinical enthusiasm and the health service’s broken technical foundations. Background The Royal College of Physicians’ new "RCP view on digital and AI" report draws on a June 2025 snapshot survey of its members and follow-up analysis to conclude that clinicians broadly support the potential of artificial intelligence — but overwhelmingly doubt...

The cloud licensing market in 2026 has morphed from a transactional reseller economy into a strategic services landscape where the right partner can save millions, accelerate AI projects, and reduce vendor lock‑in risk — this feature examines the ten cloud licensing partners that dominate the channel, verifies the key claims about each, and explains what IT teams must validate before signing multi‑year deals. Background The headline: public cloud spending is large and still growing rapidly...

Microsoft’s January servicing cycle stumbled into a high‑profile reliability problem: the Patch Tuesday cumulative rolled out on January 13 introduced a regression that left some Windows 11 machines unable to shut down or hibernate and broke Remote Desktop sign‑in flows. Microsoft acknowledged the regressions and shipped an emergency out‑of‑band (OOB) cumulative update on January 17 — KB5077797 for Windows 11 version 23H2 — to restore normal shutdown behavior and fix Remote Desktop...

Microsoft pushed emergency out‑of‑band Windows fixes on January 17, 2026 after its January Patch Tuesday rollup caused disruptive regressions that left some machines unable to shut down or hibernate and many users unable to sign in to Remote Desktop and Cloud PC sessions. ates — shipped as combined servicing‑stack updates (SSU) plus latest cumulative updates (LCU) and published under KB identifiers such as KB5077744 and KB5077797 — were intended to restore basic power‑state determinism and...

Microsoft pushed an emergency out-of-band Windows update on January 17, 2026 after its January Patch Tuesday rollup introduced two distinct, operationally serious regressions: a set of Remote Desktop / Cloud PC authentication failures and a configuration‑dependent shutdown / hibernate regression affecting devices with System Guard Secure Launch enabled. Microsoft’s official OOB packages (for example, KB5077744 and KB5077797) restore the expected authentication and power‑state behavior for...