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Resembling an emergency smart toaster on wheels, Roxo had the ability to careen around cars and pedestrians using a system of cameras and LIDAR sensors, and featured a set of adjustable wheels for potentially climbing curbs and stairs. It was tested — and appears to have failed those tests — in the US, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan as part of a program called DRIVE.

“Although robotics and automation are key pillars of our innovation strategy, Roxo did not meet necessary near-term value requirements for DRIVE,” said Sriram Krishnasam, chief transformation officer at FedEx.

“Although we are ending the research and development efforts, Roxo served a valuable purpose: to rapidly advance our understanding and use of robotic technology.”

<Watch the video at the source page. >

The Roxo program was launched by FedEx in 2019 as part of a collaboration with DEKA, creators of the iBot electric wheelchair.

While Roxo moved autonomously, a human person was still required to walk behind it and monitor its progress, like someone waiting for their dog to poop. “You’re watching Roxo today,” they probably said back at the office.

The FedEx announcement follows similar news from Amazon concerning the scaling back of their own delivery robot program, Scout. That old line from Greek historian Herodotus — “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” — appears not to apply to robot messengers.

Both Roxo and Scout are probably standing next to each other naked in a dark, cold room like in Westworld. So if you’re hesitant about your own robot package delivery program, feel free to shut it down.

Source: Robotics 24/7

Source

The problem goes by many names, but the story’s the same: Employees are swamped by an ever-expanding array of specialized software that’s made the workday a disjointed slog.

Workplace tools have never been popular — who enjoys filling out expense reports? — but when the pandemic hit, virtual communication and collaboration programs became critical for businesses. New employees got onboarded by one app, trained by another and surveyed by a third.

As Covid-19 wore on, concerns about burnout and record quitting rates prompted companies to add well-being and recognition programs. Rogue workers and teams brought in their own favorite tools as well. Apps upon apps, all with incessant notifications, cryptic passwords and byzantine protocols. And unlike your uncle’s Facebook posts, they’re not easily muted.

How bad is it? Companies deployed 89 different apps on average last year, up from 58 in 2015, according to Okta, a cloud software company. At large employers, that figure is now 187. Of those apps, close to 30% are duplicative or add no value, according to a survey of senior business leaders by WalkMe, an enterprise software provider.

A recent study of 20 teams across three big employers found that workers toggled between different apps and websites 1,200 times each day. That’s just under four hours a week, or roughly five weeks a year, spent hitting the Alt-Tab key. The researchers dubbed it the “toggling tax,” but it’s better known among psychologists as context switching — a habit that makes it hard to focus and, over time, stresses us out.

“Basically, how we work is itself a distraction,” said Rohan Narayana Murty, founder and chief technology officer at Soroco, which uses machine learning to map out how work gets done, and conducted the toggling study. “All day long, we just repeatedly switch between disparate applications.”

Frustrations with technology at big firms prompted 76 employees, on average, to leave last year, WalkMe’s survey found. “People only have a certain tolerance level and then they just check out,” said Bob Ellis, global head of the talent and organization practice at Infosys Consulting.

Scott Fingerhut, a longtime Silicon Valley marketing executive, has seen that firsthand over the years. “The hard thing,” he said, “is that most people don’t see it coming. You don’t get a notification for burnout.”

App overload can strike any workplace. Natacha Arboleda is a hairdresser at Fox & Jane, a chain of about a dozen salons, mostly in New York City. The company uses one app for scheduling appointments, another for the stylists to chat with the office staff, and a third for HR functions like payroll and time off requests. Making matters worse, management has changed the HR app three times since Arboleda started there.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” she said. The apps can be time-consuming, especially when she gets logged out of one, forgets her password and has to ask a manager to help her get back in. The chat notifications are constant, and particularly distracting on her days off. But when she silences them, “I forget to turn them back on,” Arboleda said.

If a hair salon requires multiple apps, imagine a professional-services firm with dozens of clients, each with their own preferred programs that must be mastered. Steve Dinelli, who runs a digital marketing agency in Chicago, says the overload problem has hurt his company’s productivity.

“There are always messages going back and forth internally asking where different things are for different clients. Is it in a Google doc? Email? Dropbox? Slack? It could be anywhere.” And good luck trying to eliminate apps: “Clients will just find someone who will work the way they want.”

Technology overload is even influencing office design, and not necessarily for the better. MillerKnoll Inc., the furniture giant behind the ubiquitous Aeron chair, has been getting more requests lately for workstations that support two monitors rather than one. More apps, more screens.

The shifting nature of work after Covid-19 is not the only catalyst here. In the years before the pandemic, companies were moving from old-school mainframe software applications to cheaper cloud-based apps, also known as software as a service (SaaS). The $247 billion SaaS market is dominated by vendors like Salesforce Inc., Oracle Corp., SAP SE, Google and Microsoft Corp., whose Teams videoconferencing service now has more than 270 million active users, up from 20 million in 2019.

Cloud apps are easy to build, buy and roll out, which has led to what industry consultant Creative Strategies calls a “mix and match of workflows.”

For example, employees might prefer to do their video calls over Zoom, whose market share has nearly tripled since 2019. But during those calls, they’re also chatting on Slack and sharing documents using Microsoft’s Teams, which is neatly integrated with Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Some apps are just used by a few employees, while others are popular for a while, then get supplanted and fade into the background — the so-called barnacle apps. (Remember Skype?) More than half of IT professionals polled by cloud software maker Freshworks Inc. say they pay for SaaS stuff that their IT teams never even use.

Tori Paulman sees this happening every day. As a senior director analyst at Gartner Inc.’s employee experience technology group, she has to evaluate and recommend workplace software for clients that will make their jobs easier, not harder — what’s known in the consulting business as “human-centered IT strategies.” But her blunt assessment is that humans are barely in the periphery at the moment, much less the center.

“Technology,” she said, “has gone from the great enabler to the great inhibitor.” She relates horror stories where employees have to navigate five different apps just to start their day. Or her favorite: an HR leader who said employees were feeling fatigued by all these apps and asked if there was an app to fix it.

Don’t laugh: Often the only way to make sense of all this technology is to — you guessed it — add more technology. Project-management software vendors like Asana Inc., Atlassian Corp. and Monday.com promise clients that using their platforms can boost efficiency and reduce app clutter, and they have won over customers like Seismic Software Inc., which ditched a half-dozen programs recently to consolidate its workflows with Monday. San Diego-based Seismic, which makes software that helps sales teams, said the move is saving them time and money. But the company is still using separate apps to keep track of its business goals, and yet another to do employee surveys.

“There is still a bit of overlap in our systems,” said Linda Ho, Seismic’s chief people officer. What’s worse, even Ho — an executive in the software industry — said she doesn’t often see much to distinguish one app from another. “At some point, they all begin to be pretty much the same.”

Other business leaders have taken a scythe to their software sprawl. Prasad Ramakrishnan, the chief information officer at Freshworks, said he once had more than 800 apps inside his 1,300-person company. He’s now cut it down to just over 200, and his goal is to get to 150 eventually. (The firm now has more than 5,000 staffers.) One quick fix: The legal, finance and sales departments each used different document-management tools, and everyone had their own personal login — a huge security risk. Now, they all use Box Inc. Four videoconferencing apps were reduced to one. Every few months, he meets with his IT and finance team and finds new programs to cull. “It’s not a one-time project,” he said.

Don’t shed a tear for those pruned vendors, though. They’re hard at work coming up with brand-new workplace apps, like Microsoft’s Viva, an employee-focused platform that handles things like staff surveys, learning and goal tracking. Unilever Plc and PayPal Holdings Inc. employees are among its 10 million users, all of them hopeful that one more app will make all the difference.

A few startups are going even further by trying to replace Google’s Chrome and other ad-supported web browsers. One of them, a Bay Area firm called Sidekick — backed by venture capital titan Kleiner Perkins — is beta testing a business-focused browser that lets workers quickly move between apps and easily find any document or website. “Chrome will never evolve into something that’s built for work — that’s why you have thousands of tabs open all day,” Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Dmitry Pushkarev said. “Our idea was to build a much better work environment that’s not based on fatigue.”

Still, it’s often not clear if new approaches are adding to the clutter or reducing it. “Everyone thinks that just buying a tool will help you solve a problem,” said Ho, the HR chief. “This all happens with the best intentions.”

And that is the crux of the issue, said Fingerhut, the marketing executive: “It’s death by 1,000 good intentions.”

Source

Nvidia’s last-minute 12GB RTX 4080 rebrand will be a pain for GPU makers

Since Discord launched in 2015, it has grown from a simple social app where people (mostly gamers) could chat and make little haiku bots to an all-purpose replacement for Zoom, Slack, and Facebook.

As it has expanded to juggernaut status, its many charms have remained oblique to people who use it as a basic chat and social app. Like me, for instance; I’m on Discord because I really need to share my opinions on royal gossip and YA fantasy and sci-fi novels, but I’m not really a power user. That’s not to mention the many people who are still struggling to manage their Instagram and WhatsApp notifications and might not see the point in switching to Discord at all.

That’s why today, Discord has unveiled several new features that make it easier and ever more alluring to use Discord. In addition to introducing a more affordable subscription tier that unlocks some of the more desirable for-pay features, it is also launching a new app directory and adding some new resources for developers and startups who want to do business on the platform.

Make My ‘Moji

Unlike many (now-ruined) social media platforms, Discord doesn’t make its revenue from advertising. While the core Discord experience is free, the company does offer Nitro, a $10-per-month subscription service that unlocks the ability for users to make custom emoji, support servers, stream HD video, and upload larger files.

If you’re already on Discord, you may have noticed that other people have snazzy avatars, and maybe you've yearned to get your own. I certainly feel this way, but my jealousy never prompted me to pay $10 a month for a subscription, especially when I also had to budget for ad-free Hulu. But now Discord offers Nitro Basic. For $3 a month, I can now whip up all the chameleon heart emoji that my conversations crave, as well as upload bigger files and get new badges on my profile that denote my status.

Breaking the Ice

For many newcomers, Discord feels a little like a fun but chaotic house party. You can’t just waltz in; someone has to invite you. You have no idea where the bathroom is. For about an hour, you’re standing by the fridge, eating chips, and wondering why you’re even there.

Courtesy of Discord

Discord is now easing that “fish out of water” feeling with several new features. Maybe you’re in a server waiting to chat with your friends, but one person has simply wandered off. Instead of trying to start a full-on game of Jackbox to pass the time while someone takes only five minutes—they swear!—to go to the bathroom or put a kid back to bed, you can start an activity like a game or a short piece of entertainment within the Discord experience.

Today, you can look for a rocket ship in the voice channel to launch two new activities, Putt Party and Watch Together. If you’re a Nitro subscriber, you can also play Poker Night, Sketch Heads, Chess, Land-io, or Letter League; you can even invite non-Nitro friends to join you.

One of the best parts of Discord is the ability to customize your experience to your heart’s content (see: emoji). “It’s not just a generic chat app,” said Rick Ling, Discord’s group product director. “Hyper-customization makes people feel at home.”

The only problem is figuring out how to do all that customization. To help, Discord today launched a native app directory, which the company teased last year. It allows server admins to browse and discover new apps to add to their servers, like a translation app or a Netflix app to show your voice channel what you're playing on your television while you wait for your friend to finish making her stupid cup of tea.

Creator Support

Courtesy of Discord

Starting today, a small group of developers will be able sell premium features of their apps to users within Discord. The company is also starting the first Ecosystem Fund; it has set aside $5 million specifically to fund early-stage developers and startups who want to build a business on Discord. One of the best ways the company can ensure its platform remains one of the most creative social spaces on the internet is to support the people who make it so.

If you’ve had the same running group chat in Apple Messages since 2017, it may be hard to convince you to switch your chat to Discord. Custom emoji and apps—and the ability to get more of them—might seem like trivial features that fall short of making the hassle of switching feel worthwhile. But look around your living room at the homemade quilts, warm lights, and checkers sets under your living room table. It's the small comforts that make a space feel lively and fun, and that's just as true in the virtual world as it is in the real one.

Discord Is Making It Easier Than Ever to Discord

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All DisplayPort 2.0 products are now DisplayPort 2.1, VESA says

37-year-old Amiga platform gets updates to Linux kernel, AmigaOS SDK

The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.

So, we’re pressing the “unlaunch” button on the 4080 12GB. The RTX 4080 16GB is amazing and on track to delight gamers everywhere on November 16th.

This left board manufacturers with a bit of a headache, seeing as they will have already prepared packaging for the now discontinued card. According to a report at VideoCardz.com though, Team Green will be picking up the tab for the box costs, saying that "NVIDIA will work with board partners who already made boxes for the RTX 4080 12GB GPUs to reimburse them for the cost of packaging." Although it is unclear to what extent that cover implies.

Although we don't have real world imagery of the RTX 4080 boxes other than a mockup courtesy of VideoCardz, the report does go on to mention that it would likely entail more than simply covering parts of the packaging with a new sticker, as documentation and branding will also have to be changed for the new designation.

It is unclear what NVIDIA will end up calling the now discontinued RTX 4080 12GB, although it is likely that it will end up being rebranded into the 4070 series of cards, possibly as the RTX 4070 Ti.

Source & Image: VideoCardz

NVIDIA will pick up the tab for unlaunched RTX 4080 12GB box costs

In brief A freaky-looking humanoid robot wearing dungarees and named Ai-Da became the first machine to speak at a House of Lords committee hearing on AI art this week.

Gallery director Aiden Meller created Ai-Da and claimed it had "a combined collaborative persona" made up of "many algorithms … very different algorithms for very different outcomes," including code for drawing, painting, speaking, and writing, The Guardian reported. Questions were prepared ahead of the hearing for the machine, and Ai-Da's answers were thus scripted.

If Ai-Da's art skills are anything like her speaking performance at the hearing, they is probably quite atrocious. The robot took a long time to answer questions, and at one point even shut down randomly. Meller put a pair of sunglasses on her face while he rebooted her to avoid onlookers staring at the "quite interesting faces" she supposedly pulls while being reset.

You can watch the proceedings in the video below...

Still, members of the House of Lords appeared to take Ai-Da at face value. Baroness Stowell, chair of the committee, called the hearing "a serious inquiry." Baroness Bull also grilled Ai-Da on how she made art, and how it differed from human creations.

Use AI to fill that PowerPoint with stuff

Microsoft this week, at its Ignite conference, teased a couple of developments powered by OpenAI's DALL∙E 2 model that could be used in future by people to design documents and fill them with stock art and illustrations using artificial intelligence.

The first is Microsoft 365's Designer, which can produce PowerPoint-ish-looking documents from text prompts. Just type what you want to see, and the model will generate it for you. Access to this cloud-hosted tool is, so far, available on request to Microsoft. In addition, a version of Designer will be integrated into the Edge browser at some point.

Text-to-image models are trained on large swathes of the internet, and can create inappropriate NSFW, biased, or toxic content, as well as stuff that looks pretty decent. "It's important, with early technologies like DALL∙E 2, to acknowledge that this is new and we expect it to continue to evolve and improve," Microsoft noted in its announcement.

"To help prevent DALL∙E 2 from delivering inappropriate results across the Designer app and Image Creator, we are working together with our partner OpenAI, who developed DALL∙E 2, to take the necessary steps and will continue to evolve our approach."

Text prompts are screened, and certain words will block the model from generating any image.

AI brings Steve Jobs back to life in a fake podcast

Generative AI technology can create realistic images, text, and audio – well enough to create a completely fake podcast episode featuring what sounds like Joe Rogan and the late Steve Jobs.

Everything in this sound-only podcast episode is made up, from the voices to the questions posed by Rogan and answered by Jobs. The results are frankly bizarre, sometimes hilarious. It starts with Rogan's clone voice announcing: "Welcome to the bro Jogan experience" before a fake Jobs is introduced.

Jobs talks about computing, spirituality, and health. It sounds convincing at first, but over time his voice sounds wooden and the conversation can feel disjointed at times. The episode was made by Play.ht, a London-based company that sells software to generate text-to-speech voices.

It will be interesting to see whether this takes off in the podcasting world. Is there any commercial value in listening to made-up content from dead celebrities? Is the content actually enjoyable or useful in any way? You can listen to the episode here. ®

Source

Ignite extravaganza

One of Microsoft's duo of events this week was the developer-focused Ignite 2022 conference. Microsoft had multiple announcements to make here, including the fact that its Edge browser is finally getting Workspaces (again!), which should especially benefit teams collaborating on shared content in a workplace. Other features in tow include some security and accessibility enhancements.

We learned that Microsoft is working on a new "Office" app but it will be called "Microsoft 365" instead because it will centralize the access for all apps on the service in a single location. It also revealed a range of new features coming to Outlook, Microsoft Editor, Microsoft Project, Viva, and Loop, along with a new service called Syntex. The company showcased some new tools in the form of Designer, Bing Image Creator, and its new Create website too.

There were a few interesting announcements in the Teams space as well, including Mesh avatars, a Teams Premium SKU, enhancements to Cameo, the Channels experience, and a whole lot more. Additionally, we found out that Windows 365 has found another home in the form of the Microsoft Store and that it has a new SKU for U.S. federal employees and contractors as well.

On the developer and enterprise side, Microsoft detailed improvements to the Azure cloud, Power Automate, Power BI, Dynamics 365, and cloud-powered security.

Surface unwrapped

The other big event this week was Microsoft's annual Surface hardware event. While the next iteration to the Surface Duo series was a no-show - although it could be getting a very interesting Android 12L update soon -, the Surface Pro 9 finally became official, complete with Intel and ARM processors, up to 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of SSD storage. That said, it does come in two distinct SKUs starting at $999 and $1,299 respectively so if you're interested in the product, do check out all the details here.

Microsoft also showed its highly expensive Surface Studio 2+. Microsoft did not go for the Surface Studio 3 branding, seemingly because the updates are only in terms of the internals. The hardware comes in only one configuration with the Intel Core i7-11370H processor, the Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics card, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB solid-state drive. Other improvements include Wi-Fi 6 support (no Wi-Fi 6E), Bluetooth 5.1, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, and redesigned out-of-box accessories. It is priced at $4,499.

Finally, the third piece of hardware Microsoft displayed was the Surface Laptop 5. It's a pretty standard laptop that comes in both 13.5" and 15" configurations but it's interesting to see that it does not utilize Microsoft's own Pluton security processors. The 13.5" variant starts at $999 while the 15" option starts at $1,299.

Of course, all of this information can be very overwhelming if you're an existing Surface customer and are unsure about whether the latest stuff is worth upgrading to. The good news is that we have you covered with our dedicated Specs Appeals articles that compare the latest additions to the Surface family to their predecessors, check them out below:

• Specs Appeal: Here is how Surface Pro 9 compares to Pro 8 and Pro 7

• Specs Appeal: Here is how Surface Studio 2+ compares to Studio 2 and original Studio

• Specs Appeal: Here is how Surface Laptop 5 compares to Laptop 4 and Laptop 3

   

Microsoft had other relatively smaller hardware to introduce at the same event too. Basically, it revealed its latest lineup of Adaptive Accessories, along with the Presenter+ and the Audio Dock for meetings.

Patch Tuesday... and more

Earlier this week, we witnessed the second Tuesday of the month too, which meant that it was time for the monthly Patch Tuesday.

Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 netted KB5018454 and KB5018474, respectively. These updates resolved issues with UDP packets being dropped from Linux virtual machines, along with some changes to Daylight Savings Time (DST). That said, there are two known issues in this release for Windows 7 and one for Windows 8.1 so do have a look at them before pulling the trigger on the update. And if you're on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you might be interesting in knowing that both these operating systems are getting two more years of "unofficial" support.

Meanwhile, Windows 10 bagged KB5018410. Although there are no specific enhancements detailed in the changelog, Microsoft says that it has boosted the security of the OS. However, there are a couple of known issues along with their respective mitigations in this release too.

Finally, Windows 11 version 21H2 received KB5018418 and version 22H2 was treated to KB5018427. The changelog for these builds is very lengthy and details improvements to security, Microsoft Store, Widgets, file handling, and more.

Shifting gears to the Insider Program, we did not receive a "real" Dev Channel build (we did see a servicing build) this week due to a blocking bug. However, we did get our hands on two Beta builds in the week. Build 22623.741 fixed some issues with Taskbar and explorer.exe and build 22623.746 introduced some new features to the System Tray. Meanwhile, all people on build 22621.675 in the Release Preview Channel can now leverage tabbed File Explorer, among other things.

Microsoft detailed other enhancements that have recently been added to Windows 11 too. One of those is protection against brute force attacks through a policy configuration after installing this month's Patch Tuesday update. The other is OS-powered Auto Color Management (ACM) on select SDR displays after the installing the Windows 11 2022 Update (version 22H2).

In rather interesting news, Microsoft accidentally leaked what appears to be a prototype of the next-gen version of Windows too. Although many thought that a screenshot of a PC with a floating Taskbar and a notifications area at top shown during Ignite was just a mockup, we later found out that the company has inadvertently leaked "Next Valley", its upcoming major update to Windows.

But in terms of confirmed improvements coming to Windows 11, we have a screen recorder, iCloud Photos integration, and Apple TV and Music apps.

And if you don't like Windows 11 in its current state, you can always take a look at Stardock's Start11 customization software - version 1.3 is out now -, which offers some new and old functionalities which Microsoft is delaying in adding to the OS.

Git gud

The headlining item in this week's gaming section is that Xbox chief Phil Spencer seemingly teased what appeared to be Microsoft's upcoming dedicated streaming box, the "Xbox Keystone". The hardware is supposed to power the Xbox Cloud Gaming experience for those who exclusively want to play games via cloud streaming. However, there are indications from Microsoft itself that the device in the photo is an old prototype, which means that it may not end up looking like the same thing at all when it eventually releases.

While we are on the topic of cloud gaming, it's also worth highlighting that Google has announced new Chromebooks geared towards the technology. Although its own Stadia initiative is now dead, Google has partnered with various firms to support gaming platforms like Microsoft Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) and Nvidia GeForce Now on its hardware.

Meanwhile, another partnership with Meta is bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming to the Meta Quest Store, offering the gaming service to the Quest line of headsets. The experience will be equivalent to playing games on a projected 2D screen, but in VR with an Xbox controller. Speaking of controllers, Microsoft has announced the Lunar Shift Special Edition Xbox Wireless Controller, it costs $69.99.

Additionally, the Redmond tech giant has released a new build for Xbox Insiders on the Alpha Skip-Ahead channel. The key improvement in this release is a 30% bitrate boost to Game DVR when recording at 720p and 1080p. The company also announced version 1.1 of the DirectStorage API, showcasing 3x faster loads with new GPU decompression techniques. However, the API is not currently being used by any game publicly.

Finally, talking about actual games, Sea of Thieves has another Adventure dubbed "The Herald of the Flame" ready for players. Meanwhile, Call of Duty and Forza Horizon are the headliners of this week's Deals with Gold and Bomber Crew is now free via Games with Gold too, but if you're a PC purist, check out this Weekend's PC Game Deals - curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe - instead.

Dev Channel

• Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 version 22H2 breaks Windows Hello
• VirtualBox 7 is now available with SecureBoot and TPM 2.0 for better Windows 11 support
• Microsoft Edge is getting a resizeable Sidebar
• Meta has joined forces with Microsoft and Accenture to bring workspaces to the "metaverse"
• In benchmarks that mean very little in real life, Windows 11 version 22H2 isn't the front runner against Ubuntu 22.10 on Ryzen hardware
• Microsoft Defender has once against shown mixed results in the latest AV-Comparatives assessment
• Outlook on Android and iOS is getting delayed deliveries soon
• Skype on Android and iOS has an interesting new preview update

Under the spotlight

This week, News Reporter Taras Buria wrote an editorial detailing the top five user interface and experience elements he wants Microsoft to address in Windows 11. It's a balanced piece in which he explains that he likes Windows 11's aesthetics but feels that there's room for improvement.

Taras also penned a brief guide explaining how you can force-enable Widget settings in Windows 11 build 25211 or later through a third-party utility. If you're an avid user of Windows 11 Widgets, you might want to check out the guide here.

Meanwhile, for all you secretive people out there, forum member Adam Bottjen has penned a guide detailing the process to securely hide your web browsing activities - which is, of course, research - from others.

Finally, Neowin co-founder Steven Parker has explained how you can get the Windows 11 2022 Update (version 22H2) on your supported PC right now if you can't wait for the staggered rollout to reach you.

Logging off

As we close of this edition of Microsoft Weekly, I want to highlight our most interesting news item of the week. It's about a person getting the classic Doom to run on... Notepad. Well, it's not exactly Notepad executing or processing code for the game, it's a program using Notepad as a front end by sending it a stream of ASCII characters to quickly render and remove, giving the illusion of the game being run in the text editor. Regardless of whether it has any utility or not, it's certainly a neat experiment and the person behind the project plans to release the source code publicly at some point in the future.

Microsoft Weekly: Ignite extravaganza, Surface unwrapped, and Patch Tuesday

We collectively stream more movies and TV shows, play more online games, and make more video calls than ever before, and all this activity puts a serious strain on our Wi-Fi networks. We know the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard offers a range of benefits, including faster and more reliable access, but how does Wi-Fi 6E fit in?

Wi-Fi 6E is the name for devices that operate in the 6-gigahertz (GHz) band, a new swath of unlicensed spectrum. Until now, our Wi-Fi operated on two bands: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The Wi-Fi 6 standard has various features to improve the efficiency and data throughput of your wireless network and reduce latency for those two bands. Wi-Fi 6E brings those improvements to the 6-GHz band. Let's break that down even further.

Updated October 2022: We've added our experience with Wi-Fi 6E and news of more affordable Wi-Fi 6E routers, mesh systems, and devices.

Wi-Fi 6E Explained

Wi-Fi 6E extends the capacity, efficiency, coverage, and performance benefits of Wi-Fi 6 into the 6-GHz band. “With up to seven additional super-wide 160-MHz channels available, Wi-Fi 6E devices deliver greater network performance and support more Wi-Fi users at once, even in very dense and congested environments," says Kevin Robinson, senior vice president of marketing for the Wi-Fi Alliance. 

Each band is a chunk of frequency. The 2.4-GHz band comprises 11 channels that are each 20 megahertz (MHz) wide. The 5-GHz band has 45 channels, but they can be fused to create 40-MHz or 80-MHz channels, enabling them to transmit more data at once. The 6-GHz band supports 60 channels that can be up to 160 MHz wide.

That’s a huge chunk of extra capacity. Think of it as going from a single-track road (2.4 GHz) to a three-lane highway (5 GHz) to a six-lane superhighway (6 GHz). The analogy works for coverage too. Higher frequencies have a tougher time penetrating solid walls and floors, so the single-track 2.4-GHz roads reach further than the 5-GHz highways, which reach further than the 6-GHz superhighways.

Rebranding Standards

Wi-Fi standards have traditionally been quite confusing. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) establishes Wi-Fi standards, and those standards are certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, which currently has 866 member companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony, and many more.

The Wi-Fi Alliance realized (correctly) that a standard named IEEE 802.11ax might be easier to grasp if it was rebranded as Wi-Fi 6. This move retroactively makes the IEEE 802.11ac standard Wi-Fi 5, IEEE 802.11 becomes Wi-Fi 4, and so on. Each of these standards is an umbrella term for a range of new features and improvements.

To give one example, Wi-Fi 4 introduced MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) technology to allow for multiple simultaneous transmissions to and from a device. The second wave of Wi-Fi 5 products introduced MU-MIMO, (MU stands for multi-user), enabling multiple devices to connect simultaneously to send and receive data. Wi-Fi 6 improves MU-MIMO and introduces OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiple access), enabling a single transmission to deliver data to multiple devices at once.

The range of improvements and technologies in Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E is the same. The need for the E comes from the opening up of that 6-GHz band. “With the density of Wi-Fi devices and neighboring networks increasing dramatically, Wi-Fi 6E provides pristine spectrum to maintain a great user experience,” Robinson says.

Do I Need Wi-Fi 6E?

Photograph: TP-Link

If you’re shopping for a new router or looking at mesh systems, you will certainly want to look for Wi-Fi 6 support. There are many other ways to make your Wi-Fi faster, but buying a Wi-Fi 6 router is an important one. It brings all the benefits we’ve discussed and a few we haven’t, including improved security through WPA3 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 3) and reduced battery drain, courtesy of TWT (Target Wake Time).

Whether you need to consider Wi-Fi 6E is a trickier question. We’ve already mentioned the shorter range, but the other big problem with Wi-Fi 6E is that it requires new hardware, and it’s expensive right now. Only routers and devices with Wi-Fi 6E support can operate on this newly opened 6-GHz band. Existing Wi-Fi 6 routers and any older devices cannot and will never be able to.

That said, we are seeing more options for folks looking to try Wi-Fi 6E, and prices are getting more palatable. We have tested a few Wi-Fi 6E routers, like the Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) at $400, and mesh systems like the TP-Link Deco XE75 (two-pack is $300) and the Motorola Q14 (two-pack is $430). Google’s newly announced Nest Wifi Pro (two-pack is $300) lands this month, and there will be many more in the near future.

In our testing, Wi-Fi 6E can deliver some of the fastest speeds we have seen at very low latency, but the range is noticeably more limited than with the 5-GHz band. With a clear line of sight to the router or node, 6 GHz works beautifully, but as soon as there’s a wall or ceiling in the way, you will likely fall back to 5 GHz.

Remember, you also need Wi-Fi 6E devices to take advantage of these speeds. Most new high-end Android phones, laptops, and TVs support Wi-Fi 6E, but it is far from ubiquitous. There’s no Wi-Fi 6E in the iPhone 14 series or the PlayStation 5, for example, and the Xbox Series X doesn’t even have Wi-Fi 6 support. If you want to add it to your desktop or laptop, you’ll need a new network card or dongle. Opt for Wi-Fi 6E and you’re unlikely to see a lot of benefit in the short term. 

Wi-Fi 6 is enough for most people right now. On the other hand, all of these standards are backward compatible, so if you're in the market for a new router and don’t mind spending the money, then a Wi-Fi 6E system will keep you future-proof for a while.

Whatever you decide, just make sure it says “Wi-Fi Certified” on the packaging. Robinson says that'll make sure you get WPA3 security and interoperability with other devices in the home.

What Is Wi-Fi 6E and Do I Need It?

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While decompression has traditionally been done on CPUs due to the nature of their optimizations, the benefits of moving it over to the graphics cores are immense. Using a new developer tool dubbed 'GDeflate', Microsoft is showing up to 200% or 3x performance improvement in asset time loading from 2.36 seconds down to just 0.8 seconds. Additionally, the CPU usage has also been reduced tremendously from 100% down to around 15% as the CPU cycles no longer have to deal with decompression work.

Microsoft also adds that there are "additional optimizations in the IO stack" for Windows 11 which will help it more even though DirectStorage should work on both Windows 11 and Windows 10.

The two major GPU players, AMD and Nvidia will be releasing drivers soon with DirectStorage. Meanwhile, new entrant Intel is also promising DirectStorage drivers. The Arc graphics cards should especially benefit from the new API as the current Intel Arc driver seems to be suffering from CPU overhead issues which is why Arc A-series cards get a big bump in performance when it moves to higher resolutions.

While all this is wonderful news, sadly, the technology, even in its 1.0 version, is yet to debut. This is because the first title to feature DirectStorage, Forspoken, keeps getting delayed. The latest news says it's coming very early next year. It has also been confirmed that Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is also getting DirectStorage API sometime in the future.

Source: Microsoft

Microsoft shows 3x faster loads with new GPU decompression in DirectStrorage 1.1

However, the VRAM capacity and bandwidth isn't the only thing different between the two cards as Nvidia has cut down the CUDA core count of the 12gig pretty significantly compared to the 16GB 4080 model. Overall, it is a reduction of more than 20% for the core count. Meanwhile, the bandwidth takes an even bigger hit as it is slashed down by more than 30%.

While Nvidia has done this type of naming before, for example with the GTX 1050 3GB model, or with GTX 1060 3GB variant, the core count difference, and the overall performance difference between two such variants has been never been this big. Hence, the company has rightly received criticism this time over this 4080 12GB situation from media and enthusiasts since naming such a cut-down product the same as the 4080 16GB model makes little to no sense, and is extremely misleading.

Nvidia seems to have realized the issue and has pulled the launch of the RTX 4080 12GB model, which was supposed to launch next month on the 16th. The company writes:

The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right. Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.

So, we’re pressing the “unlaunch” button on the 4080 12GB. The RTX 4080 16GB is amazing and on track to delight gamers everywhere on November 16th.

For now, it is unclear what Nvidia will call the 4080 12GB. Perhaps it will settle with something like the RTX 4080 Lite edition or maybe an RTX 4070 Ti.

Source: Nvidia

Nvidia pulls RTX 4080 12GB due to backlash on confusing naming

Of course, it is disappointing to see Microsoft opting for the 11th Gen Intel Core i7-11370H instead of a 12th Gen processor with brand-new architecture. Such a decision is especially bewildering considering the fact that the Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Pro 9 come with 12th Gen Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. Still, the Intel Core i7-11370H is a significant performance jump compared to the processors found in the original and second-gen Surface Studio.

A better GPU is another reason some Surface Studio owners will consider upgrading to the Surface Studio 2+. Microsoft has swapped the old Nvidia GTX 1060 and 1070 in favor of a more modern and significantly more powerful RTX 3060 with 6GB of memory.

The original Surface Studio

Unfortunately, the Surface Studio 2+ has nothing more to offer besides a new CPU+GPU combo, as all the other aspects of the computer remain unchanged. Moreover, you need to accept a few notable downgrades, such as only one SKU with no customization, no SD card slot (why, Microsoft), and no Xbox Wireless built-in. All this makes Surface Studio 2+ look like a placeholder device to fill the gap while Microsoft prepares a more significant upgrade.

Here are key changes summed up in a list:

• Dolby Vision support and auto color management
• 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor
• Nvidia RTX 3060 6GB graphics card
• No 16GB RAM option, only 32GB
• No 2TB SSD option, only 1TB
• Improved security with Windows 11 Secured-core PC
• Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 support
• Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 ports
• No more built-in Xbox Wireless standard
• No more full-sized SD card slot

True, the Surface Studio 2+ is much more capable than its predecessor, and wanting a more powerful CPU or graphics card is a solid reason to buy the new model. But does a soon-two-generation-old processor and a mid-range graphics card provide enough incentive to buy such an expensive computer with so few changes? It is a question we have a hard time answering.

Specs Appeal: Here is how Surface Studio 2+ compares to Studio 2 and original Studio

"A slightly better device" is how you can describe the Surface Laptop 5. The computer has newer processors, better memory, Bluetooth 5.1, Thunderbolt 4, and a new color variant. Unlike the preceding generations, the Surface Laptop 5 no longer offers AMD processors. If you want a modern Windows 11 laptop with fresh AMD silicon, you better watch elsewhere or consider grabbing the Surface Laptop 4 with a discount.

Surface Laptop 4 (and the Surface Laptop 3)

Here are key changes summed up in a list:

• New color variant: green (Sage)
• Dolby Vision IQ support
• 12th Gen Intel processors with the new architecture consisting of efficiency and performance cores
• Newer LPDDR5X memory
• Improved security with Windows 11 Secure-core PC standard
• Bluetooth 5.1
• Improved battery life
• Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 support

It appears that the only reason to pick the Surface Laptop 5 over its predecessors is better battery life (which is still something reviews have to prove) and newer processors. But it is hard to tell if those upgrades justify the price difference. You can buy the Surface Laptop 4 with significant discounts, and renewed Surface Laptop 3 configurations are available for as little as $500. It is probably safe to say that if your Surface Laptop provides sufficient battery life and enough horsepower, skip the Surface Laptop 5 and wait for more meaningful upgrades next year.

Specs Appeal: Here is how Surface Laptop 5 compares to Laptop 4 and Laptop 3

The Surface Pro 9 focuses on improving the redesigned model that Microsoft introduced last year, so there are no major or ground-breaking visual changes this year. The only design change you can spot on the surface is two new vivid color variants. Besides the same chassis, the Surface Pro 9 features the same 120Hz display (now with dynamic refresh rate support out of the box).

Surface Pro 8

A significant difference between the Surface Pro 9 and 8 is the optional variant with an ARM processor, which was previously available in the separate Surface Pro X lineup. Microsoft is now confident in its custom ARM processors (made in partnership with Qualcomm) enough to include them in the Surface Pro lineup. Besides offering a notably better battery life, the Surface Pro 9 with the Microsoft SQ 3 processor is your choice if you want a Surface with 5G. Intel-based variants are Wi-Fi-only.

Speaking of less exciting changes, Microsoft this year, for some reason, decided to ditch the 3.5 mm headphone jack. Also, despite having a user-upgradeable SSD, the Surface Pro 9 does not allow you to expand its storage with microSD cards since Microsoft removed that slot in the Surface Pro 8.

Surface Pro 7

Here are the key changes summed up in a list:

• New color variants: blue (Sapphire) and green (Forest)
• 12th Gen Intel processors and the third-gen Microsoft SQ by Qualcomm
• Newer LPDDR5 memory
• Improved security with TPM 2.0 chip and Windows 11 Secure-core PC standard
• Wi-Fi 6E support and optional 5G
• Better battery life (only in the Microsoft SQ 3-based variants)
• No 3.5 mm headphone jack

The Surface Pro 9 looks like a great upgrade option for owners of the Surface Pro 7 or older models. You will get a significantly upgraded display, much more horsepower courtesy of Intel's 12th Gen processors, better battery life, and an overall more modern-looking device. If you own the Surface Pro 8, upgrading to the Surface Pro 9 does not feel like a reasonable decision unless you want 5G. Also, users who can accept using a device with an older processor could just buy the Surface Pro 8 for notably less money.

Do you think the Surface Pro 9 offers enough changes to justify upgrades from the previous two generations? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Specs Appeal: Here is how Surface Pro 9 compares to Pro 8 and Pro 7

Discussing the Presenter+, Microsoft said that you can use it to move between slides in your presentation, mute and unmute the volume, direct the audience's attention with the screen pointer, and quickly join meetings. In addition, you can long press the Teams button on the controller to raise or lower your hand, so you can more easily engage with the meeting. The device is connected using Bluetooth, so you don’t have to stay too close to the computer.

With the Audio Dock, you’ll get HDMI, USB-C x2, and USB-A connection ports and a pass-through PC charger. The Audio Dock is quite small, so it’s suited for most desks, no matter their size. Despite its small size, Microsoft promises premium sound with the Omnisonic speakers. Other meeting participants will hear you well with the dual forward-facing, noise-reducing microphones. The Audio Dock has integrated mute control if you need to go silent for a bit.

At the time of writing, the pricing for these products is unavailable. Be sure to check the Microsoft website for your locality to see if they are available in your area and how much they cost.

Microsoft Presenter+ and Audio Dock revealed at Surface event

In addition to the selection above, Microsoft has also said business and education customers will be able to 3D print adaptive grips from Shapeways for the Microsoft Business Pen and Microsoft Classroom Pen 2. These grips come in a few different shapes, so you can find one best suited for you until you find one you like.

According to Microsoft, the Adaptive Accessories require Windows 10 or Windows 11 to operate but that they can be made to work with companion devices running macOS, iOS, ChromeOS, or Android through the Microsoft Accessibility Center.

If you’re looking to buy any of these items, Microsoft says that the Microsoft Adaptive Mouse Tail and Thumb Support add-ons will need to be purchased separately. If you’re planning to buy any Adaptive Buttons, these will be sold separately too and will require the Microsoft Adaptive Hub. The firm has not yet shared pricing details or which countries they’re available in, so check your local Microsoft website to see if they are available where you live.

Microsoft's Adaptive Accessories will be available in select markets from October 25

What you instead get are Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake U series processors. The company claims its new Laptop 5 has over 50% the horsepower compared to the last gen model. Describing its the new product, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer Panos Panay said:

From the effortless opening and fast log-in with Windows Hello, to the touchscreen, precision touchpad, and perfect typing experience, Surface Laptop 5 offers the craftsmanship, comfort, and capabilities to jump in and produce your best work.

Surface Laptop 5 is sleek and elegant, providing all-day battery life1 as our customers have come to appreciate and expect. It now offers Thunderbolt 4, and with the latest Intel Evo platform, Surface Laptop 5 is over 50% more powerful than its predecessor.

What this does mean, however, is that Microsoft's Surface Laptop 5 is not implementing its very own Pluton security processor as it's currently only inside the Ryzen 6000 "Rembrandt" CPUs. There maybe multiple reasons for Microsoft to skip an AMD Ryzen 6000-based Surface such as poor feedback from last time or simply low supplies for AMD 6000 chips.

The new Surface Laptop 5 will come in both Windows 11 and Windows 10 flavors in case of the business models. This could be because plenty of businesses are still reluctant to move over to Windows 11 according to the latest survey data.

Here are the full specification details of the new 13.5" and 15" Surface Laptop 5 SKUs, including warranty information:

Operating system:

• Surface Laptop 5: Windows 11 Home
• Surface Laptop 5 for Business: Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 Pro Exterior

Exterior:

• Surface Laptop 5 13.5”:
  • 12.1 inch (308 mm) X 8.8 inch (223 mm) X .57 inch (14.5 mm)
  • Weight: Fabric 2.80 lbs (1,272 g) or Metal 2.86 lbs (1,297 g)
• Surface Laptop 5 15”:
  • 13.4 inch (340 mm) X 9.6 inch (244 mm) X .58 inch (14.7 mm)
  • Weight: 3.44 lbs (1,560 g)

Colors:

• Surface Laptop 5 13.5” colors: Platinum with Alcantara , Sage, Matte Black, and Sandstone
• Surface Laptop 5 15” colors: Platinum and Matte Black

Display:

• Surface Laptop 5 13.5”:
  • Screen: 13.5” PixelSense™ Display
  • Resolution: 2256 x 1504 (201 PPI)
  • Dolby Vision IQ™2 support
  • Touch: 10-point multi-touch
• Surface Laptop 5 15”:
  • Screen: 15” PixelSense™ Display
  • Resolution: 2496 x 1664 (201 PPI)
  • Dolby Vision IQ ™2 support
  • Touch: 10-point multi-touch

CPU:

• Consumer:
  • Surface Laptop 5 13.5”:
    • 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1235U processor
    • 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1255U processor
      (All SKUs are built on the Intel® Evo™ platform)
  • Surface Laptop 5 15”:
    • 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1255U processor
      (All SKUs are built on the Intel® Evo™ platform)
• Commercial:
  • Surface Laptop 5 13.5”
    • 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1245U processor
    • 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1265U processor
      (All SKUs are built on the Intel® Evo™ platform)
  • Surface Laptop 5 15”
    • 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1265U processor
      (All SKUs are built on the Intel® Evo™ platform)

Graphics:

• Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics

Memory:

• 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB LPDDR5x RAM

Storage:

• Removable solid-state drive (SSD) options: 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB

Security:

• Commercial
  • TPM 2.0 chip for enterprise-grade security and BitLocker support
  • Enterprise-grade protection with Windows Hello face sign-in
  • Windows 11 Secured-core PC
• Consumer
  • Firmware TPM 2.0 is a security processor that is designed to give you peace of mind.
  • Windows Hello face sign-in
  • Windows 11 Secured-core PC

Network and connectivity

• Wi-Fi 6: 802.11ax compatible
• Bluetooth® Wireless 5.1 technology

Battery Life:

• Surface Laptop 5 13.5”
  • Up to 18 hours of typical device usage
• Surface Laptop 5 15”
  • Up to 17 hours of typical device usage

Cameras:

• Windows Hello Face Authentication camera
• 720p HD front facing camera

Audio:

• Dual far-field Studio Mics
• Omnisonic® Speakers with Dolby Atmos

Ports:

• 1 x USB-C with USB 4.0/Thunderbolt
• 4 1 x USB-A 3.1
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• 1 x Surface Connect port

Sensors:

• Ambient light sensor

Software:

• Consumer
  • Windows 11 Home
  • Preloaded Microsoft 365 Apps
  • Microsoft 365 Family 30-day trial
  • Xbox Game Pass Ultimate 30-day trial (Not available in China)
• Commercial
  • Windows 11 Pro or Windows 10 Pro
  • Preloaded Microsoft 365 Apps
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, or Microsoft 365 Apps 30-day trial

Power Supply:

• 60W power supply with additional 5W USB A charging Port

In the Box:

• Surface Laptop 5 13.5” and 15”:
  • Power Supply
  • Quick Start Guide
  • Safety and warranty documents

Pen & accessories compatibility

• Designed for Surface Pen
• Supports Microsoft Pen Protocol (MPP)

Serviceability (commercial only)

• Replaceable components include:
  • SSD
  • Display and Display Enclosure (AB Cover module)
  • Palm Rest and Keyboard Cover
  • Battery with Bottom Enclosure
  • Motherboard
  • Charging Port (Surface Connector)
  • Thermal Module
  • Thermal pad and Desense tape
  • Feet

Warranty: 1-year limited hardware warranty

You can check if the device is available at your regional Microsoft outlet here..

New Surface Laptop 5 won't be using Microsoft's very own Pluton security processor

The Surface Studio 2+ continues the formula Microsoft introduced in late 2016. It is a 28-inch all-in-one with the "Zero Gravity" hinge that lets you effortlessly transform the computer into a massive drawing tablet. The Surface Studio 2+ is visually identical to its predecessor (hence the name), and all the new features lurk inside the base.

Unlike the Surface Pro 9 and Surface Laptop 5 with their numerous variants, the Surface Studio 2+ is available only in one configuration with the Intel Core i7-11370H processor, the Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics card, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1TB solid-state drive. Other improvements include Wi-Fi 6 support (no Wi-Fi 6E), Bluetooth 5.1, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, and redesigned out-of-box accessories.

The computer is also compatible with the original Surface Dial and its on-display mode that Microsoft ditched in recent Surface Pro tablets. That also means the Surface Studio 2+ does not support the Surface Slip Pen 2 and has no high refresh rate like the Surface Pro 9 or the Surface Laptop Studio.

Surface Studio 2 full specifications:

Microsoft announces Surface Studio 2+ with 11th gen Intel CPU and RTX 3060

The Surface Pro 9 is the first Microsoft tablet to feature both Intel and ARM processors within the same lineup. Users can pick a variant with Intel's 12th Gen Core i5 and Core i7 models or opt for the one with the Microsoft SQ 3 processors powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon. Microsoft says the neural processing unit in the latter enables high-speed 5G connectivity (first time in any Surface), better battery life, and improved video calls with automatic framing, eye contact, voice focus, and background blur.

Intel-based variants are available with 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM. If you want the Surface Pro 9 with 5G and the Microsoft SQ 3 processor, you can choose between 8GB or 16GB LPDDR4X RAM. Storage options include 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The latter is only available on the Surface Pro 9 models with Intel processors. It is also worth noting that all Surface Pro 9 variants come with user-replaceable solid-state drives.

The Surface Pro 9 is Microsoft's first tablet in the Pro lineup to feature vibrant, colorful chassis. In addition to now-classic Platinum and Graphite, users can get the computer in new Sapphire and Forest variants.

Buyers can also customize their Surface Pro 9 with the new Surface Pro Signature Keyboard made with partially biobased Alcantara with at least 12% renewable content derived from sugarcane waste.

Although the Surface Pro 9 looks very similar to its predecessor and features the same anodized aluminum body, the tablet no longer offers a headphone jack. Microsoft has ditched a 3.5 mm audio port, leaving only one Surface Connect and two Thunderbolt/USB-C 4.0 (only on Intel) ports. The ARM-based Surface Pro 9 has two USB-C 3.2 ports.

Microsoft's new flagship tablets will be available for regular customers and commercial clients. The commercial version features Intel's vPro processors and the option to ship the device with Windows 10 Pro instead of Windows 11 Pro. Regular consumers will get their Surface Pro 9 with Windows 11 Home preinstalled.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 Specifications:

Surface Pro 9 is official with Intel and ARM processors, optional 5G, and new colors

Microsoft’s Surface Pro 9 is the latest major gadget to ditch the headphone jack