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Microsoft has given Windows 10 users a narrow, conditional lifeline: if you want to keep receiving security updates after the platform’s official end-of-support date, there’s a single, time-sensitive action you must complete — enroll the eligible PC in Microsoft’s consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program before October 14, 2025. Background / Overview Microsoft set a firm end-of-support date for Windows 10: October 14, 2025. On that date Microsoft will stop delivering routine feature...

Microsoft’s OpenAI tie-up is large and strategically important, but the argument that Microsoft has become irrecoverably dependent on OpenAI is overstated — and Google and Amazon catching up quickly enough to displace Microsoft’s AI advantage is more complicated than headlines suggest. Background The recent commentary that set off investor chatter argued that Microsoft’s market narrative — powered by its deep partnership with OpenAI and rapid AI monetization through Azure and Microsoft 365...

Microsoft’s Azure cloud experienced measurable performance degradation after multiple undersea fiber‑optic cables in the Red Sea were cut, forcing traffic onto longer detours and producing higher‑than‑normal latency for customers whose data traversed the affected Middle East corridor. Background / Overview The global internet is a physical network: thousands of kilometers of submarine fiber carry the bulk of intercontinental traffic, and a narrow maritime corridor through the Red Sea and the...

Kiosks are no longer novelty appliances tucked into lobbies — they’re mission-critical touchpoints for retail, healthcare, hospitality, and education, and choosing the right kiosk software in 2025 can be the difference between a seamless self-service experience and a costly operational headache. The industry roundup that follows takes the widely circulated six-vendor shortlist (three Android-focused and three Windows-focused) as a starting point, verifies each product’s capabilities and...

When I first started using the command line on Windows, the Command Prompt felt like a utility drawer: useful for a handful of quick tasks but cramped, inflexible, and increasingly outclassed by modern tooling — which is precisely why switching to Windows Terminal has become a practical, productivity-driven decision for many power users and developers. The move is not just cosmetic; it changes how you work: tabs and split panes for true multitasking, unified profiles for every shell you rely...

On a cool April afternoon in Raleigh, a student stood on the steps of the North Carolina State Capitol holding a Bible in one hand and the weight of a promise in the other — a scene that captures both the hopeful drama and practical purpose behind a nearly century-old experiment in student self-government and bipartisan civic practice. Background The essay published in EdNC chronicles a personal moment that ties into a larger argument: civic life in North Carolina and across the United...

Infobip’s expanded integration with Microsoft Azure Communication Services (ACS) opens native global SMS delivery to enterprises in more than 100 additional countries, promising to simplify carrier management, strengthen compliance workflows, and scale mission-critical messaging across geographies previously out of reach for many Azure customers. Background Infobip is a global cloud communications platform and communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) provider that claims extensive...

Microsoft Azure users and large swathes of internet users across Asia, the Middle East and parts of Europe experienced measurable slowdowns and elevated latency after multiple undersea fibre‑optic cables in the Red Sea were cut on September 6, 2025, forcing cloud and carrier engineers to reroute traffic over longer, often congested paths while repair operations and forensic investigations proceed. Background / Overview The global internet depends on an interwoven physical network of...

Phison has publicly acknowledged and replicated a key finding first raised by the PCDIY community: a wave of disappearing and allegedly “bricked” NVMe SSDs linked in timing to Windows 11’s August cumulative update (KB5063878) appears to have been driven, in at least some test cases, by pre‑release engineering firmware installed on development or non‑retail units — not by the retail firmware shipping on consumer drives. This admission shifts the narrative from a platform‑wide Windows...

Internet traffic between Asia, the Middle East and Europe slowed to a crawl this week after multiple subsea fibre-optic cables in the Red Sea were severed, triggering widespread service degradation across India, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and parts of the Middle East — and forcing major cloud operators, including Microsoft Azure, to reroute traffic and warn customers of increased latency while repairs and contingency measures were deployed. Background: why a few cables in the Red Sea...

Infobip’s expanded integration with Microsoft Azure Communication Services (ACS) makes carrier-grade SMS — including two‑way messaging and local number provisioning — available to Azure customers in more than 100 additional countries, surfacing Infobip‑managed numbers and delivery routes directly inside the Azure portal while preserving the native ACS developer and observability experience. Background / Overview Azure Communication Services has long provided an application-facing...

Phison’s latest public testing and fresh community forensics have changed the tone of an urgent story that began as “Windows 11 is killing SSDs” and quickly morphed into a complex investigation at the intersection of OS updates, controller firmware, and supply‑chain quirks — with no single party yet owning every answer. What began as reproducible user reports of NVMe drives vanishing during large writes has been met by large‑scale vendor testing that could not reproduce a systemic failure...

Infobip’s integration into Microsoft’s new Messaging Connect program significantly expands Azure Communication Services’ (ACS) global SMS footprint, making two‑way SMS available in more than 100 additional countries while preserving the native Azure developer experience and observability model. Background / Overview Microsoft launched Messaging Connect as a public preview for Azure Communication Services to let vetted partners provision numbers, handle local regulatory onboarding, and route...

When a compact, industrial-strength receipt printer like the BIXOLON SRP‑275III refuses to print on a Windows 10 PC, the result is immediate friction at the point of sale — lost orders, annoyed customers, and frantic searches for a manual or the “right” driver. This feature unpacks the SRP‑275III’s specifications and common failure modes, verifies manufacturer claims, and walks through a disciplined, Windows‑friendly troubleshooting path that separates marketing from mechanics. It also...

Microsoft has confirmed a new compatibility problem that emerged after the August 12, 2025 cumulative security updates: a Windows Installer hardening intended to close a privilege‑escalation hole (tracked as CVE‑2025‑50173) is now triggering unexpected User Account Control (UAC) prompts for standard (non‑administrator) users during certain MSI repair and per‑user installation flows. The change, shipped as part of the August 2025 Patch Tuesday rollups (notably the KB5063878 bundle for some...

Microsoft's warning that Azure users could face increased latency after multiple subsea cables were reported "cut" in the Red Sea has thrust a quiet but critical piece of global infrastructure into the headlines: the fibre-optic arteries on the ocean floor that carry the world's internet traffic. The disruption, first reported on 6 September 2025, affected routes that transit the Middle East and prompted cloud operators, telcos, and governments to scramble for mitigation while repair and...

Windows 11 has just hit an unexpected speed bump: after briefly overtaking Windows 10 in global usage during July, official analytics show Windows 11 slipped in August while Windows 10 regained ground, a reversal that underlines how jagged, fragile, and politically charged operating system transitions can be. The wobble matters because Windows 10 reaches its end of support on October 14, 2025, and the choices users and organisations make now — upgrade, pay for Extended Security Updates...

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen in Microsoft Edge acts as a live reputation and content filter that warns users about phishing pages, malicious downloads, and suspicious sites before they can do harm. (support.microsoft.com, learn.microsoft.com) Background Microsoft Defender SmartScreen began as a browser-based filter to block known phishing and malware sites and has evolved into a reputation-driven service integrated across Windows and Microsoft Edge. It combines dynamic blocklists...

Microsoft Azure customers were warned of higher‑than‑normal latency after multiple undersea fiber‑optic cables in the Red Sea were reported cut, forcing international traffic onto longer, congested detours and exposing the physical fragility beneath cloud‑era resilience. The incident — first detected on 6 September 2025 — prompted an Azure Service Health advisory, confirmed measurable slowdowns across parts of the Middle East, South Asia and Europe, and triggered an industry‑wide scramble to...

Microsoft Edge’s September update lands as a significant security-and-productivity release: Edge 140 (stable build 140.0.3485.54) ships a local AI-powered Scareware blocker, an HTTPS‑first upgrade path, automatic persistence for Tab Groups, expanded Copilot/GPT-5 integrations and media-creation tools, plus a patch for a Microsoft‑specific security bypass tracked as CVE‑2025‑53791. These additions tighten Edge’s safety posture while extending its AI-assisted features, but they also introduce...