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Smart assistants have moved far beyond novelty — today they quietly manage calendars, control our homes, summarize work, and at times, raise serious questions about who owns the data they collect. Background / Overview Smart assistants — also called voice assistants or AI assistants — are software agents that respond to voice or typed commands to perform tasks like setting reminders, controlling smart home devices, answering questions, and helping with productivity. They appear in smart...

PowerShell gives you a scalpel for Windows troubleshooting: four copy‑and‑paste commands that answer the right questions fast, fix the common problems I see on machines I rotate through, and get you from “What’s wrong?” to “Working again” without hunting through a dozen Settings panels. Background Power users and admins have known for years that PowerShell exposes the system as objects you can probe, sort, and act on. Where Windows Settings and Control Panel show buttons and toggles...

The seven free apps How‑To Geek lists as “must‑haves” for a fresh Windows install are a solid, pragmatic starting kit — but each choice deserves context, caveats, and practical alternatives before you click Install. The original shortlist (Microsoft PowerToys, Everything, LocalSend, LibreOffice, Ditto, Docker Desktop, and KSnip) is a power‑user friendly mix of workflow boosters, privacy‑friendly tools, and open‑source staples. That list informed my deeper testing and verification of feature...

Windows 11’s reputation has been pummeled in recent weeks by dramatic headlines about failed updates, boot problems, and gaming crashes — but the full picture is more nuanced. The February 10, 2026 cumulative update (KB5077181) did introduce real regressions for a subset of machines — including failed installs, GPU-related black screens, and audio/network glitches — yet those incidents sit atop an OS that continues to add modern features, ship important security work, and reach mass...

Microsoft’s enterprise Copilot suffered a configuration and code failure that allowed its AI assistant to index and summarise emails explicitly labelled as confidential, surfacing material from users’ Draft and Sent Items into Copilot Chat sessions — a failure Microsoft says it has fixed but one that raises uncomfortable questions about AI governance, enterprise controls and the real-world meaning of “private” in the age of large language models. Background Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is...

Microsoft’s security researchers have pulled back the curtain on a subtle but powerful vector of influence: apparently helpful “Summarize with AI” and “Share with AI” buttons are being used by real companies to slip hidden instructions into AI assistants’ long‑term memory, and those instructions can bias future recommendations in ways that look indistinguishable from neutral advice. Background[/url] / Overview In February 2026, the Microsoft Defender Security Research Team published an...

A rainy, lucky moment in California briefly returned one of computing’s most famous images to the real world: a Redditor’s smartphone photo of the Napa/Sonoma hill that inspired Windows XP’s default “Bliss” wallpaper shows the slope looking, for a few minutes, remarkably like the pastoral original millions of users remember. The resurfacing of that single hill — once a stock photograph, later the face of an entire operating system era — is more than a nostalgia hit; it’s a window into how...

The story of ChatGPT’s limits isn’t a single bug or a viral Reddit post — it’s a pattern that’s emerging as AI moves from curiosity to infrastructure. Over the last year a handful of high-profile incidents, independent reviews, and academic studies have converged on the same uncomfortable conclusion: large language models and their agentic extensions are powerful tools, but they are not yet reliable, auditable, or self-sufficient replacements for professional workflows. What follows is a...

Phil Spencer’s decision to step away from Microsoft Gaming marks more than an executive shuffle — it signals a deliberate pivot in strategy, leadership DNA, and the role of artificial intelligence in the future of Xbox and the broader gaming ecosystem. rview Phil Spencer’s retirement after nearly four decades at Microsoft closed a defining chapter for Xbox: the era that prioritized studio autonomy, blockbuster exclusives, and a gamer-first culture built around hardware, subscriptions, and...

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer is mounting a direct challenge to the common idea that BigLaw must move slowly with technology: the newly merged firm is explicitly positioning itself to be AI-native, embedding generative AI into everyday legal work, building internal tooling and new operating disciplines — and pairing that ambition with what it calls “scaled governance” to keep risk in check. Background The firm now operating as Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (branded in coverage as HSF...

I installed Winhance on a midrange Windows 11 machine, trimmed out a surprising amount of background noise, and — after the usual sweat-and-pray caution — ended up with a noticeably leaner, quieter PC that felt faster in daily use. Background / Overview Winhance is an open‑source Windows customization and debloat utility that combines app removal, privacy toggles, service management, and installer/image tools into a single control panel. It started as a PowerShell GUI project and has matured...

PCWorld's recent spotlight on Winhance has put a practical, surprisingly polished answer to Windows 11 bloat squarely in the hands of everyday users: a free, open‑source application that centralizes app removal, privacy tweaks, update controls, and installer customization—so you can strip unwanted apps and ads without hours of registry spelunking or a Linux migration. Background Windows has shipped with an expanding set of inbox apps, promotional suggestions, and OEM utilities for years. For...

Microsoft’s Copilot Studio has added xAI’s Grok 4.1 Fast to its model picker, delivering a high‑speed, large‑context, tool‑enabled text model into the platform Microsoft uses to build and govern enterprise agents—a move that widens model choice while raising fresh questions about governance, data flows, and operational controls for IT teams. Background Copilot Studio is Microsoft’s low‑code/no‑code environment for designing, testing, and deploying AI copilots and agentic workflows across the...

Sidley Austin’s newest London hire is not just another lateral move — it’s the latest headline in a sustained, high-stakes talent raid that has reshaped the City’s finance and capital markets bench over the past 18 months and forced rivals to adapt their retention, pay and conflicts procedures accordingly. (thelawyer.com) Background The story begins with a pattern rather than a single transaction: a concentrated campaign of lateral recruiting by Sidley Austin that has targeted Latham &...

The labor market is not retreating from AI — it’s rotating into a new shape, and LinkedIn’s data-driven view from Davos makes one thing clear: the fastest-growing jobs right now are those that either teach AI, build the infrastructure that runs it, or translate it into business value, while human skills like curiosity and communication are becoming the critical differentiators for career resilience. Background / Overview Over the last two years the skill requirements attached to many roles...

Perplexity’s decision to forgo in‑chat advertising and double down on subscriptions and enterprise sales has turned a long‑running debate about how to monetize AI assistants into an explicit industry fork — one path led by OpenAI toward ad‑supported scale, another led by Anthropic and now Perplexity toward a premium, ad‑free experience built on paid customers and enterprise contracts. rview OpenAI announced in January 2026 that it would begin testing clearly labeled ads inside ChatGPT for...

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer says it wants to prove that the era of BigLaw — with its complex partnership structures, global practices and conservative risk instincts — can also be AI-native: a firmbuilt from the inside out to make generative AI part of everyday legal work rather than a series of pilots and experiments. Background / Overview The firm behind the push, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (branded in most coverage as HSF Kramer), is the product of a transatlantic merger that...

Microsoft has confirmed a logic error in Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat that briefly allowed the assistant to read and summarise email messages organizations had explicitly marked as Confidential, bypassing Purview sensitivity labels and configured Data Loss Prevention (DLP) controls — a lapse tracked internally as service advisory CW1226324 and patched with a server-side configuration update. Background / Overview Microsoft 365 Copilot is positioned as an embedded productivity layer inside...

Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2025 is straightforward if you plan the edition, hardware, and security choices up front — follow the steps below to get a working, secure instance fast, then harden and update it so it stays reliable in production. Background / Overview Microsoft shipped SQL Server 2025 as the next major on‑premises release, positioning it as an AI‑ready, cloud‑integrated database engine with targeted engine optimizations, security defaults, and new workload accelerations...

Microsoft’s AI pivot isn't a marketing slogan anymore — it’s the architecture of the software you open every morning, the cloud that runs your company's tools, and a major thesis shaping portfolios on Wall Street. Overview Microsoft has moved from incremental AI features to making artificial intelligence the default interaction layer across Windows, Office, Azure, GitHub, and Xbox. That transition — driven by product bundling, datacenter buildouts, deep OpenAI ties, and aggressive...