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Microsoft confirmed on September 6 that multiple undersea fibre‑optic cables in the Red Sea were cut, and warned Azure customers that traffic which “previously traversed through the Middle East” may experience increased latency as packets are rerouted across longer, often congested alternatives. Background The global internet — and by extension public cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure — runs on a highly concentrated lattice of submarine fibre systems. A narrow maritime corridor through...

Microsoft’s Azure engineers told customers to expect higher latency after multiple international subsea cables in the Red Sea were cut, then updated their status to show no active Azure platform issues — a rapid swing that highlights both the resilience of modern cloud routing and the fragility of the physical network beneath it. (reuters.com, newsweek.com) Background The incident began on September 6, 2025, when several major undersea fiber-optic cables that transit the Red Sea were...

Microsoft’s Azure cloud experienced noticeable performance disruption after multiple undersea fiber-optic cables in the Red Sea were damaged, forcing traffic onto longer detours and generating higher-than-normal latency for customers whose data traverses the Middle East corridor — Microsoft’s engineers rerouted traffic and applied traffic‑engineering mitigations while carriers and cable operators prepared repairs. Background The global internet is physically anchored by submarine fiber-optic...

Microsoft’s cloud backbone entered a period of turbulence this weekend after multiple undersea fiber-optic cables in the Red Sea were reported cut, producing measurable latency for traffic between Asia, the Middle East and Europe and prompting Azure engineers to reroute and rebalance traffic while maritime repairs are arranged. The two short reports the user provided — one portraying Azure as disrupted and another saying Azure was unaffected — reflect a tension between operational truth...

CEDIA 2025’s floor hum was equal parts audiophile lust and pragmatic urgency: manufacturers showed TVs and speakers that think with you, while a hard calendar date—Windows 10’s end of support—made clear that households must plan hardware and software moves now. Rich’s on‑air roundup from Denver touched on smart‑home AI, image‑editing breakthroughs, security hygiene, and the consumer headaches of subscription sharing; this article unpacks those takeaways, verifies the core claims, and gives...

The countdown is real: Microsoft will stop issuing regular security updates and technical support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, and owners of older but still serviceable laptops face three clear choices — upgrade to Windows 11 if the hardware permits, pay for a short-term Extended Security Updates (ESU) bridge, or repurpose the machine with a different, lightweight operating system — each path carrying trade‑offs in security, cost, and sustainability. Background / Overview Microsoft’s...

Microsoft’s OS has been quietly slimming down: a clutch of once-promising Windows features have been deprecated or removed over the past few years, and a number of little-known tools that almost nobody used are now gone for good—some by stealth, others with a public notice. The tidy list that follows takes the MakeUseOf roundup as its starting point and then verifies and expands on each claim against Microsoft’s own documentation and independent reporting to show precisely what was removed...

Microsoft’s Surface account briefly posted a promotional image touting the Surface Pro as a “research buddy” powered by built‑in Copilot — then deleted the post after users noticed the device’s on‑screen interface looked unmistakably like iPadOS rather than Windows 11. This small, highly visible misstep — captured in screenshots before the post disappeared — sparked a wave of mockery and quick comparisons to previous brand social‑media gaffes, while also reopening a debate about the use of...

Microsoft Azure warned customers of higher‑than‑normal latency after multiple undersea fiber‑optic cables in the Red Sea were cut, forcing traffic onto longer detours while carriers and cloud operators rerouted traffic and prepared for complex maritime repairs. Background / Overview The global internet — and by extension modern cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure — depends on a small number of high‑capacity submarine fiber systems. A narrow maritime corridor through the Red Sea and the...

Microsoft is reportedly planning to block fresh installations of Outlook Lite starting in October 2025 as it prepares a broader retirement of the app, forcing users who rely on a lightweight, battery-friendly client to either remain on an aging build or move to the full Outlook for Mobile experience. Background / Overview Outlook Lite launched in 2022 as Microsoft’s deliberately minimal, low-footprint version of Outlook for Android devices. Built to serve users with older phones, limited...

The countdown to October 14, 2025 is real: when Microsoft stops shipping security updates and technical support for Windows 10, millions of functioning machines will face a binary choice—move to Windows 11, pay for temporary extended security, or run a different operating system entirely—and for budget-conscious buyers the 2025-era Acer Aspire Go 15 is being floated as a pragmatic, low-cost alternative for everyday productivity. Background / Overview Windows 10 reaches official end of...

Undersea fibre links in the Red Sea were cut in early September 2025, producing measurable internet slowdowns and elevated cloud latency across South Asia, the Gulf and parts of Africa as operators scrambled to reroute traffic while investigators and repair crews worked to identify the physical faults and plan maritime repairs. Background / Overview The global internet’s long-haul backbone depends on a relatively small number of high-capacity submarine cable systems. A narrow maritime...

Microsoft’s Azure cloud showed fresh fragility this weekend after multiple undersea fiber-optic cables in the Red Sea were cut, forcing traffic onto longer detours and causing higher-than-normal latency for customers whose traffic traverses the Middle East corridor. Background The global internet is physically anchored by submarine fiber-optic cables that carry the vast majority of intercontinental traffic. A narrow stretch of sea — the Red Sea, the Suez approaches and the Bab el‑Mandeb...

Microsoft confirmed that parts of Azure are seeing higher‑than‑normal network latency after multiple undersea fiber‑optic cables in the Red Sea were cut, forcing traffic onto longer detours while carriers and cloud engineers reroute, rebalance capacity, and schedule repairs. Background The global internet depends on an interwoven, largely invisible web of submarine fiber‑optic cables that carry the vast majority of intercontinental traffic. A narrow maritime corridor through the Red Sea and...

A prominent tech writer has publicly abandoned the Windows 11 Start menu in favor of Flow Launcher, an open‑source, keyboard‑first app launcher — and in doing so rekindled a long‑running debate about how Windows should expose search, system commands, and shortcuts to power users. The transition described in the MakeUseOf piece is more than a stylistic tweak: it’s a practical assessment of speed, extensibility, and control versus the convenience and integration of a first‑party Start...

Microsoft’s Azure cloud experienced measurable performance degradation after multiple undersea fiber‑optic cables in the Red Sea were cut, forcing traffic to detour around the damaged corridor and producing higher‑than‑normal latency for flows that traverse the Middle East between Asia and Europe. Background The global internet depends on a relatively small number of high‑capacity submarine fiber‑optic cables to carry intercontinental traffic. A narrow maritime corridor through the Red Sea...

Multiple undersea fiber‑optic cables in the Red Sea were cut on September 6, 2025, triggering widespread latency and connectivity problems for traffic between Asia, the Middle East and Europe and forcing cloud operators — most visibly Microsoft Azure — to reroute traffic while repair and investigative work begins. Background The global internet depends on a dense, but physically finite, mesh of submarine fiber‑optic cables that carry the lion’s share of intercontinental traffic. A narrow...

Microsoft’s Surface account posted a photo of a Surface Pro this weekend — and the screenshot on the device was unmistakably running iPadOS, complete with the iPad status bar — an embarrassing misstep that has been mercilessly trolled online and has reignited wider criticism about Microsoft’s consumer marketing and product stewardship. Background The social post in question promoted the Surface Pro as the “ultimate research buddy,” showing a Surface Pen and Type Cover alongside a photo of...

Artificial intelligence would have told Pete Carroll to hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch. The verdict — blunt, repeatable and nearly universal among modern analysts — is now being echoed by the same generative models that pundits and teams are experimenting with at the edge of NFL operations. Yet the larger, more consequential story is not whether an AI agrees with fans who still flinch at Super Bowl XLIX; it’s how the NFL and Microsoft are packaging AI for game-day use, what those tools can...

Microsoft’s announcement of an “urgent” external investigation into allegations that Israel’s Unit 8200 used Azure to store and process recordings of millions of Palestinian phone calls crystallizes a larger, underappreciated shift: the world’s leading cloud providers are not just vendors — they are gatekeepers of state capacity and, increasingly, arbiters of digital sovereignty. Background The immediate trigger for Microsoft’s review was investigative reporting that alleges Unit 8200...