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Portable batteries have become the unsung MVP of modern family road trips — and after testing the compact EcoFlow TRAIL 300 DC alongside the real-world chaos of three kids, the verdict is clear: small, high‑power DC-only units can be legitimately reliable travel companions, but knowing what they do (and what they don’t) is the difference between “smooth ride” and “sorry, we forgot the charger.” Background / Overview The EcoFlow TRAIL 300 DC is a new entrant aimed squarely at people who want...

Jimmy Kimmel’s late‑night future hangs in the balance as talks between his representatives and Disney — ABC’s corporate parent — continue over whether Jimmy Kimmel Live! can return to the air after a controversial monologue about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk triggered an unprecedented chain of affiliate preemptions, regulatory pressure and a network suspension that began in mid‑September 2025. The next steps in the negotiations will determine more than the fate of...

AI models that promised to dissolve language barriers instead helped expose a widening digital language divide in 2024 — a gap where mainstream systems perform brilliantly in a handful of dominant tongues while delivering vague, incorrect, or simply absent support for the world’s many minority and indigenous languages. This pattern, documented in recent reporting and regional initiatives, is not a transient bug: it is the product of training choices, dataset imbalances, and institutional...

Microsoft has quietly made the full installation ISOs and the enablement package (eKB) for Windows 11, version 25H2 available to testers and administrators — a move that signals the update is in its final validation window and is likely to begin broader distribution soon. Background Microsoft seeded Windows 11, version 25H2 to the Windows Insider Release Preview channel as the 26200 family (initial seed Build 26200.5074) and confirmed that this annual feature update will be delivered as an...

Digital twins are moving from engineering demos and marketing decks into the operational heart of cities and heavy industry, promising faster decisions, lower life‑cycle costs, and measurably greener infrastructure—but that promise comes with technical complexity, governance questions, and new classes of cyber risk that municipal planners and IT teams must treat as first‑order problems. Background / Overview What a digital twin is has a deceptively simple definition: a live, data‑linked...

Principled Technologies’ recent hands‑on evaluation argues that running an end‑to‑end Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) stack entirely on Microsoft Azure — instead of splitting model hosting, retrieval, and compute across multiple clouds — can produce measurable improvements in latency, simplify governance, and deliver more predictable multi‑year costs for many enterprise GenAI workloads. Background / Overview Principled Technologies (PT) built a canonical RAG pipeline twice: once as an...

Microsoft is retiring the standalone "Windows 10 S" SKU and folding its restrictive, store‑only model into a configurable S Mode that can be enabled on Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise and Education — a shift that simplifies Microsoft's SKU strategy but also raises questions about upgrades, pricing reports, and the long‑term role of a locked‑down Windows experience. Background Windows 10 S debuted in 2017 as a lightweight, secure configuration aimed primarily at education and low‑end...

Steam will stop supporting 32‑bit versions of Windows on January 1, 2026 — a quiet, inevitable end to a long era that leaves a tiny sliver of PC gamers with one clear instruction: upgrade or accept an unsupported Steam client and growing security risk. Background The shift away from 32‑bit desktops has been ongoing for more than a decade. Hardware vendors, drivers, anti‑cheat stacks and modern web runtimes have long prioritized 64‑bit builds; Microsoft shipped Windows 11 as 64‑bit only and...

Microsoft’s servers are now carrying the near‑final artifacts for Windows 11, version 25H2, and public rollout appears imminent — but this is an incremental, enablement‑package style update that most users and IT teams should treat as a managed, low‑risk operational change rather than a wholesale OS rebase. Background / Overview Windows 11 25H2 continues Microsoft’s multi‑year shift to a shared servicing branch model: feature binaries are staged in monthly cumulative updates for the active...

Microsoft’s latest earnings sprint left headlines and investor decks buzzing, but the more important story is the market’s tempering of enthusiasm: despite a blowout quarter and visible AI monetization, the company lacks an obvious new catalyst to justify an even loftier premium, and investors are increasingly parsing whether the “AI bubble” is inflating expectations faster than revenue can catch up. Background Microsoft reported a strong fiscal fourth quarter for FY25: revenue of $76.4...

Microsoft’s near-final Windows 11 25H2 build has quietly begun to appear as official ISO media on Microsoft’s delivery infrastructure, with Release Preview ISOs now discoverable by enthusiasts and the enablement-package (eKB) path — KB5054156 — confirmed as the primary in-place upgrade for patched 24H2 devices. Background / Overview Windows 11 version 25H2 is not being shipped as a traditional, full rebase feature update. Instead, Microsoft has used the same shared-servicing and...

Google’s Gemini is positioning itself as more than a chatbot — it’s being packaged, integrated, and promoted as a daily workhorse that can replace single-purpose assistants and win user loyalty through consistent utility rather than flash. Recent coverage and first‑hand user testimonials point to three converging dynamics: Gemini’s multimodal capabilities and agentic features, Google’s tight product integrations (notably across Chrome, Workspace and Google One), and a growing trend of users...

Principled Technologies’ new hands‑on evaluation argues that running a complete retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) stack entirely on Microsoft Azure — instead of splitting model hosting, search and compute across multiple clouds — can produce measurable gains in latency, simplify governance, and yield more predictable multi‑year costs for many common enterprise AI workloads. Background / Overview Principled Technologies (PT) built a canonical RAG application twice: once in a mixed...

Valve has put a firm date on the end of an era for legacy Windows builds: beginning January 1, 2026, the Steam desktop client will stop receiving updates and official support on 32‑bit versions of Windows — practically, that means Windows 10 (32‑bit) — a decision built on telemetry, upstream dependency shifts, and the economics of supporting a vanishingly small user base. Background / Overview Steam’s desktop client has been trimming old operating system targets for years; the 32‑bit x86...

Xbox’s new cross-device play history made one anecdotal fact impossible to ignore: in 2025, independent studios are not just competing with AAA publishers — for many players they’re eclipsing them in creativity, polish, and sheer hours played. Background What changed: Xbox’s cross-device play history Microsoft rolled out a play history feature that syncs recently launched games across console, PC, and handhelds, plus integrates cloud-playable titles into the Xbox PC app and console library...

Cluster Reply and Riverty have rolled out a Microsoft‑centric, AI‑enhanced omnichannel customer service platform — delivered in an accelerated production timeline — that consolidates voice, chat and e‑mail into a single Microsoft Dynamics 365 agent workspace and stages Microsoft Copilot Studio as the configurable AI behavior layer. Background Riverty, the fintech arm of Bertelsmann, handles a high‑volume payments and receivables business that the company describes as serving millions of...

Windows Vista did more than just introduce a flashy glass theme and a LOT of user complaints — it quietly shipped a raft of technologies that became the scaffolding for modern Windows, from GPU-first graphics and a new audio stack to system‑level security mitigations and background search. Many of the conveniences and protections people credit to Windows 7, 8, 10, or 11 were actually first delivered with Vista; this piece walks through ten of the most consequential of those introductions...

Linux quietly offers a set of desktop comforts that many longtime Windows users have never experienced — from lightweight, kernel-integrated drivers to live-boot trial sessions and near-instant, space-efficient system snapshots — and once you see them in action, it’s easy to understand why they frustrate Windows devotees who value control, customization, and minimal bloat. Background Linux has never been about market-share dominance; it’s always been about choice, transparency, and...

Microsoft has confirmed that its devices chief, Panos Panay, will take the stage at the end of October — and that confirmation has reignited expectations that Microsoft will use the autumn “Future Decoded” window to refresh multiple Surface-family products and surface new form factors, from LTE-equipped Surface Pros to high-performance Surface Book updates and the industry’s first serious push into always‑connected Windows PCs powered by smartphone-class silicon. Background Microsoft has...