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Veeam Data Platform v13.1 Adds Active Directory Forest Recovery
Veeam Data Platform v13.1 is now generally available, adding Azure threat detection, automated Active Directory forest recovery and a new deep-archive option aimed at organizations trying to keep older backup data immutable without leaving it on higher-cost recovery storage. Virtualization Review...
Windows Task Manager-Style Mac App Can’t End Processes in App Store
Dave Plummer, the former Microsoft engineer credited with creating the original Windows Task Manager, is building a Windows-like process monitor for macOS in Swift. As first reported by Club386, the early prototype already resembles the Windows 11 utility and includes per-core CPU activity...
KB5101684 Adds Windows Hello ESS Support for External Fingerprints
Windows 11’s July 2026 preview update adds support for Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS) with external fingerprint readers, finally extending the higher-security biometric option to desktop PCs and laptops without an integrated sensor. As PCWorld reported, the change is now beginning to...
Windows 11: 6 Apps That Improve File Explorer, Widgets and Snap Layouts
Windows Central writer Sean Endicott’s clean-install shortlist for Windows 11 starts with six tools that either replace a Microsoft default or make a stock Windows feature substantially more useful: Gemini, Markerpad, Edge Drop, Files, Microsoft PowerToys, and WidBar. The selection, published by...
Microsoft Whiteboard: Export Personal Boards Before September 5 Deletion
Microsoft Whiteboard users with personal Microsoft accounts have until September 5, 2026 to export existing boards before Microsoft permanently deletes them. The cutoff follows an August 22 change that removes the ability for personal-account users to create or edit Whiteboards. Windows Report...
Amazon AWS Earnings July 30: AI Demand Test After Azure’s 43% Growth
Amazon and Apple report earnings after the U.S. market closes on Thursday, July 30, with both conference calls beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET—and Amazon’s AWS growth rate is the number Microsoft and enterprise IT watchers will be parsing first. Amazon has confirmed its second-quarter 2026 results call...
UniGetUI 2026.2.6 Fixes WinGet Update Loops, Adds CSV Exports
UniGetUI 2026.2.6 is now available with a refreshed WinUI-inspired interface, CSV exports for installed software and available updates, and fixes aimed at stubborn WinGet update failures. For Windows users who use UniGetUI as a front end for Winget, Chocolatey, Scoop, Pip, npm, and .NET Tool, the...
Dungeon Antiqua 2 Xbox Series X|S Listing Points to August 19 Release
Dungeon Antiqua 2 is listed for Xbox Series X|S and Windows on August 19, but the sequel is already available on PC through Steam, GOG, and mobile storefronts—making the Xbox listing look like a forthcoming console release rather than a new Windows launch. TrueAchievements added the game to its...
Ravine DSP Inter::State 1.3 Adds Slot Scenes for VST3 Effects
Ravine DSP has released Inter::State 1.3, adding Slot Scenes to its Windows-compatible VST3/AU effects host. The feature lets each hosted plug-in slot retain up to eight parameter snapshots, then recall them instantly, morph between neighboring states, or move between states with tempo-synchronized...
Apple TV Keeps CEO Backing as John Ternus Takes Over September 1
Apple’s incoming CEO John Ternus has publicly backed continued investment in Apple TV, using the Ted Lasso Season 4 premiere to signal continuity ahead of his September 1, 2026 transition from hardware chief to Apple CEO. As reported by 9to5Mac and MacDailyNews, Ternus and outgoing CEO Tim Cook...
DOJ Seeks to Undo Apple Discovery Win Over Federal iPhone Records
The Justice Department is asking to undo Apple’s July discovery win in the federal antitrust case over the iPhone ecosystem, arguing that 14 government agencies should receive the stronger protections afforded to non-parties rather than be treated like litigants. As reported by 9to5Mac, retired...
Apple Siri Home Hub Reportedly Leads Apple TV and HomePod Refresh
Apple is reportedly preparing its broadest smart-home hardware refresh in years, centered on a new AI-enabled Siri and a dedicated home hub. TechRepublic’s July 29 and July 30 reports say the effort could also bring refreshed Apple TV, HomePod, and HomePod mini hardware—an attempt to make Apple’s...
Huawei Atlas 950 SuperPod Plans 8,192 Ascend Chips for Q4 2026
Huawei’s Atlas 950 SuperPoD is China’s clearest statement yet that its AI hardware strategy is no longer centered on matching Nvidia chip-for-chip. The system, shown at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai this month, is designed to scale out: Huawei’s planned full configuration...
Gwangju–Jeonnam Plans Semiconductor Joint College for Fab Talent
Gwangju–Jeonnam’s newly integrated special city plans to unite Chonnam National University, the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, and Korea Energy Engineering University under a proposed Semiconductor Joint Engineering College—a shared education and research platform designed to supply a...
Accellera FSL 1.0 Draft Opens Review for FMEDA Data
Accellera’s new Functional Safety Language 1.0 draft is now open for public review through August 14, 2026, proposing a vendor-neutral way to exchange the safety data behind semiconductor designs used in cars, industrial equipment, medical devices, and aerospace systems. The draft targets a...
NM-Tech Builds In-House Chip Packaging Line in Zelenograd
NM-Tech is reportedly building in-house semiconductor assembly and packaging capability in Zelenograd, a move that would give the Russian chipmaker control over another essential stage between a finished wafer and a deployable component. Frontier India, citing Russian industry reporting and a July...
Tokyo Electron Korea Opens KidZania Seoul Semiconductor Dream Lab
Tokyo Electron Korea has opened the TEL Semiconductor Dream Lab at KidZania Seoul, turning four core chipmaking stages—photolithography, etching, cleaning and deposition—into a hands-on role-playing activity for children. The lab opened July 28 in Seoul’s Jamsil district, according to Maeil...
China Reportedly Starts Mass Production of Domestic Immersion DUV Tools
China has reportedly begun mass production of domestically developed immersion DUV lithography machines, a milestone that could reduce a critical dependency on foreign semiconductor equipment even though it does not close China’s much larger EUV gap. Reuters reported on July 28 that Shanghai...
TSMC Arizona Investment Reaches $265B for 2nm Fabs and AI Packaging
TSMC has committed another $100 billion to its Arizona buildout, a move that would raise its planned U.S. investment to $265 billion and add at least four fabs targeting 2-nanometer-class chips and beyond. For Windows PC buyers and enterprise IT teams, the immediate effect is not a cheaper laptop...
Uzbekistan Opens DNeX Talks on Semiconductor Skills and Investment
Uzbekistan has opened talks with Malaysia’s Dagang NeXchange Berhad (DNeX) on building a domestic semiconductor ecosystem, putting skills development, investment and high-tech manufacturing at the center of the discussion. According to UzDaily, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to Malaysia and a...
SIA: AI Data Centers Drive $1.5 Trillion Chip Market in 2026
The Semiconductor Industry Association says global chip sales are on course to reach $1.5 trillion in 2026, a forecast that puts AI data-center buildouts—not consumer PCs—at the center of the semiconductor market’s next expansion. In its State of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry report, published...
Nvidia Says AI Agents Could Make Chip Industry 10 Times Larger
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the semiconductor industry may need to become 10 times larger over the next decade to support a future in which AI agents and robots outnumber human computer users by orders of magnitude. In a July 27 Bloomberg interview, reported by 24/7 Wall St., Huang described a...
Canada AI Strategy: Semiconductor Council Seeks Seventh Chip Pillar
Canada’s Semiconductor Council is pressing Ottawa to add a seventh semiconductor pillar to the country’s newly launched AI for All strategy, arguing that sovereign AI infrastructure cannot rest entirely on foreign-made chips. As first reported by BetaKit, the council, which represents nearly 60...
Park Kun-soo Named Korea Semiconductor Association Vice Chairman
Park Kun-soo, a former senior official at South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, will become standing vice chairman of the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association on August 1, taking on a three-year term running through July 2029. The appointment, reported by Seoul Economic Daily...
Intel 13th/14th Gen Core i9: BIOS 0x12F Required for Stability
How-To Geek’s ranking of computing’s five worst CPUs puts Intel’s 13th- and 14th-generation Core i9 instability crisis beside older architectural blunders such as Itanium, Prescott, the Pentium FDIV bug, and AMD’s FX-8150. For Windows desktop owners, one entry is not history: Intel still advises...
Intel Core Ultra Panther Lake Adds Industrial HR and RE CPUs
Intel has documented five Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processors aimed at embedded and industrial deployments, extending its 25W mobile platform into systems that may need to run continuously in harsh environments. As first reported by VideoCardz, the newly listed parts carry unusual HR, HRE...
Shelly 3.0 Rebuilds Arch Package Manager in Zig
Shelly 3.0 has arrived as a ground-up rewrite of the Arch Linux package manager alternative, replacing its prior C#/.NET foundation with Zig across its package-management engine, CLI, GTK4 GUI and keyring tooling. As reported by 9to5Linux, the update keeps the familiar shelly and shelly-ui commands...
AltspaceVR Returns This Fall as SideQuest’s New Social-VR Platform
SideQuest plans to relaunch AltspaceVR this fall, bringing Microsoft’s shuttered social-VR platform back as a new service built around the community and design language that defined its 2016–2017 peak. As reported by Road to VR, SideQuest founder and CEO Shane Harris said the company has acquired...
AMD EPYC Powers AiBiz GPU-Free Wafer AI at Samsung Fabs
AMD says South Korean industrial-AI startup AiBiz is running its DutchBoy wafer-defect detection platform on EPYC 9355 and EPYC 9554 server CPUs, avoiding GPUs for inference inside semiconductor fabrication equipment. As reported by Interesting Engineering and detailed in an AMD case study, the...
US Signal Earns Microsoft Private Cloud Solutions Partner Badge
US Signal has earned Microsoft’s Solutions Partner for Private Cloud designation, expanding the Grand Rapids infrastructure provider’s Microsoft partner credentials around hybrid environments, Azure Local, and enterprise-hosted private cloud deployments. The company announced the designation July...
Uninstall Steam on Windows Without Deleting Installed Games
Steam’s own uninstall process can remove the client and every installed game on the same drive, making the steamapps folder the one item worth protecting before Windows starts deleting files. As Technobezz noted in its July 29 guide, removal varies sharply by platform—but Valve’s support...
CXMT IPO Funds DDR5 Expansion, Could Pressure PC RAM Prices
CXMT’s July 27 Shanghai debut has turned China’s biggest DRAM maker into the most valuable company listed on the mainland market, but the immediate significance for Windows PC buyers is not a sudden flood of cheap RAM. It is the prospect of a better-funded fourth memory supplier expanding commodity...
Malaysia Graduates 454 IC Designers to Build Front-End Chip Talent
Malaysia’s Advanced Semiconductor Academy Malaysia has graduated 454 participants from nine integrated-circuit design cohorts, with some already accepting well-paid semiconductor jobs before completing the programme. Media Selangor reported that the July 28 ceremony in Puchong marked a push to move...
Windows 11 DNS: Why Alternate Servers Don’t Bypass Quad9 Blocks
Windows users who configure a “Preferred DNS” and “Alternate DNS” server should not assume the second address is a clean, security-preserving failover path. Microsoft’s own DNS client documentation makes the key point: a negative response from a configured server can end the lookup rather than...
Pandora Windows 11 Playback Failures: Reset App Data Before Reinstalling
WindowsReport has published a new Pandora troubleshooting guide for Android, iPhone, Windows 11 and Sonos users facing playback failures, endless buffering, crashes, login errors or stations that refuse to load. The practical advice is familiar but useful: rule out a service outage and network...
reFX Rippler Launches for Windows DAWs With VST3, AAX and MPE
reFX has released Rippler, a new physical-modeling synthesizer plug-in for Windows 10 and Windows 11 in VST3 and AAX formats. The $99 introductory price runs through September 13, 2026, after which the instrument is set to cost $129. As reported by Sonic State and detailed on reFX’s product page,...
Cisco Ends Azure Local Bundle Sales October 24, 2026
Cisco will stop selling its Azure Local bundles on October 24, 2026, ending a short-lived hardware option for organizations that wanted to run Microsoft’s on-premises hyperconverged platform on Cisco UCS servers. Cisco’s July 24 end-of-sale notice lists several Azure Stack HCI/Azure Local bundle...
Microsoft 365 Copilot Connects to CTERA Files Without Migration
CTERA says its Intelligent Data Platform can now expose enterprise file data to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams Copilot through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), potentially giving Copilot access to files kept outside SharePoint and OneDrive without a bulk migration. As reported by citybiz, CTERA...
Samsung Android XR Glasses Arrive This Fall With Gemini, Camera
Samsung’s first Android XR smart glasses will arrive this fall with Gemini, a built-in camera and up to nine hours of claimed battery life—but no announced price, exact launch date or market list. The larger story is not the hardware spec sheet. Samsung is betting that ordinary-looking eyewear is...
macOS Tahoe 26.6 Fixes 155 CVEs Including Gatekeeper Bypass
Apple’s July 27 security releases deserve attention from Windows-centric IT teams that also manage Macs and iPhones: iOS 26.6, iPadOS 26.6, and macOS Tahoe 26.6 close a large set of privilege, sandbox, privacy, and memory-safety flaws. Apple’s notes do not identify any of the newly fixed issues as...
AIDA64 v8.35 Adds Early AMD Zen 6 and Intel Panther Lake-R Support
AIDA64 v8.35 has added early detection and monitoring support for AMD’s next-generation Zen 6 processor families, including Zen 6 APUs and the workstation-oriented Mustang Peak platform, while also introducing preliminary support for Intel Panther Lake-R chips. The update matters chiefly to...
NVIDIA RTX Spark Windows PCs Arrive Fall 2026, Not 2027 N1X
NVIDIA’s Arm-based RTX Spark platform—not a newly announced 2027-only N1X launch—is scheduled to reach Windows laptops and compact desktops in fall 2026, with Microsoft Surface, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI named as the first hardware partners. The distinction matters because the N1X name has...
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Adds Six-Month HWE Stack for QEMU and libvirt
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has added a virtualization Hardware Enablement (HWE) stack that refreshes QEMU, libvirt and VM firmware on a six-month cadence—without turning Ubuntu itself into a rolling-release distribution. As It’s FOSS reported, the change is aimed at administrators who need newer...
Cooler Master V8 Ace 3DHP: NH-D15-Class Cooling at $120
Cooler Master’s V8 Ace 3DHP is making a credible case that a premium single-tower air cooler can compete with much larger dual-tower designs—but its $120 price means it is aimed at builders willing to pay for engineering and aesthetics rather than outright value. PC Gamer’s July 29 review found the...
Double Fine Lays Off 23 After Xbox Split to Stay Independent
Double Fine Productions has laid off 23 employees less than a month after regaining independence from Microsoft’s Xbox division, a painful reduction the studio says was necessary to keep operating as a sustainable standalone company. In a July 28 statement on Bluesky, studio head Tim Schafer said...
Fix Intel Graphics Command Center Not Opening: Repair or Switch
Intel Graphics Command Center can fail to open even when the Intel GPU driver is working normally, because the control panel is a separate Microsoft Store app. The most important fix is to first confirm that Intel Graphics Command Center is still the right app for the PC—particularly on newer Intel...
Microsoft Extends Data Center Life to 25 Years, Reshapes AI Capex
Microsoft has changed the estimated useful life of its data centers and office buildings from 15 years to 25 years, an accounting move that will shift some future data-center leases out of reported capital expenditures as the company funds its AI expansion. PYMNTS first highlighted the change...
Google Docs Gemini Can Summarize Comments and Draft Replies
Google Docs is gaining Gemini-powered comment workflows that can summarize discussion threads, draft replies, create new comments, and propose edits based on reviewer feedback. Google announced the rollout in its Workspace Updates blog on July 28, with availability expanding gradually for eligible...
Google Lyria 3.5 Upgrades Flow Music Vocals, Lyrics and Tempo Control
Google has rolled out Lyria 3.5 in Flow Music, positioning improved vocals, lyric handling and tempo control as the main changes for its AI song-generation tool. The update matters less as a new model number than as a quality push toward more convincing finished tracks—particularly for Windows PC...
Microsoft Dataverse Prompt Columns Reach GA for Persistent AI Fields
Microsoft Dataverse Prompt Columns are now generally available, moving generative AI outputs from one-off chat responses into persistent table fields that Power Apps, Power Automate, analytics tools, and Copilot agents can reuse. The July 29 announcement on the Microsoft Power Platform blog turns a...