You don’t notice good video compression—until it’s not there.

For years, people have streamed high-resolution video without thinking about the tech behind it. But when companies clash over which hardware, software, and services can use modern codecs like HEVC/H.265, the idea that it all “just works” quickly falls apart.

For some Dell and HP customers, that illusion has already been shattered. When the companies disabled HEVC support built into the CPUs of select PCs, it raised uncomfortable questions: Why remove a capability that’s already a part of third-party hardware? What do OEMs and chipmakers pay to support HEVC—and are HEVC patent holders effectively double-dipping on licensing fees and royalties?

Implementing video codecs requires navigating an intricate web of technical and legal requirements built atop an even more complex patent licensing system. Recent consolidation among key parties, leading to “patent pools,” along with court rulings and new standards, has further complicated the picture.

We spoke with experts to unpack how HEVC patent licensing works for consumer products, why patent holders are suing, why some users are being forced to pay for the codec, and whether there’s a better option.

Tech vendors discuss killing HEVC support

A lot of video content, especially 4K and HDR offerings, uses the HEVC video compression format. Streaming services like Netflix and Apple TV+ use it for high-resolution playback, and it’s also common in mobile apps and videos shot on smartphones. That’s largely because it’s far more efficient than its predecessor, AVC/H.264.

So when a company disables hardware-based HEVC encoding and decoding support from a computer, it can create headaches. 4K and HDR streams on services like Netflix and Apple TV+ stop working in web browsers and desktop apps, for instance. An HEVC shot on an iPhone won’t play on many apps, including web browsers and some media players, like Windows’ Movies & TV. And tasks like editing and exporting HEVC videos in Adobe Premiere Pro become slower, since all the decoding and encoding must be handled by software instead of the PC’s hardware.

In these cases, users can pay for an HEVC video extension to restore hardware acceleration—the Microsoft Store sells it for $1—but it’s a frustrating ask when that capability was intentionally disabled. Another workaround is to play HEVC files in software with built-in decoding, such as VLC Media Player. That only goes so far, though—you can’t, for example, download a 4K episode of a show from Netflix and play it in VLC.

The technologies required for HEVC decoding and encoding are patented by several companies, including Ericsson, InterDigital, and Nokia. For a product to use HEVC, its vendor must pay licensing fees and royalties to the relevant patent holders. Those fees vary depending on whether the vendor licensed the patent directly from the licensor or through a third party.

In recent years, several tech companies have killed HEVC functionality in devices originally built to support the codec. Dell and HP disabled HEVC support that has been in Intel and AMD CPUs since 2015. In 2024, Synology removed HEVC, AVC, and VC-1 transcoding support from the DiskStation Manager (DSM) OS used in Synology NAS devices and the BeeStation OS used in its BeeStation private cloud devices.

Acer and Asus have even been prohibited from selling PCs in Germany since January due to a Munich Regional Court ruling that the companies’ computers infringe on one of Nokia’s HEVC patents.

An HP spokesperson previously told Ars that in 2024, the company disabled HEVC codec hardware on “select devices, including the 600 Series G11, 400 Series G11, and 200 Series G9 products.” The spokesperson declined to explain why.

Most of the devices HP named don’t offer discrete graphics cards or 4K screens, suggesting that the PCs aren’t intended for high-resolution workloads. HP listed at least one affected model, the ProBook 460 G11, that offers a discrete GPU (PDF), but that SKU seems to have seen little availability at traditional retailers. Given that, HP may have determined that these lower-end business laptops are unlikely to be used for high-resolution video and therefore don’t justify the patent fees and potential litigation risk tied to giving them HEVC support.

Lending more credence to that theory is Dell’s explanation when asked about disabling HEVC support in November. A company spokesperson said that only “premium systems” with “hardware or software, such as integrated 4K displays, discrete graphics cards, Dolby Vision, or CyberLink Blu-ray software” include HEVC support.

When I asked why Synology removed HEVC support from its DSM and BeeStation OSes, a company spokesperson said the decision followed an evaluation of HEVC codec usage across Synology’s NAS lineup. “[Synology] found that the vast majority of customers were not relying on server-side HEVC transcoding, as most video processing was being handled directly by playback devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs,” the spokesperson said.

Synology also considered patent licensing costs, the spokesperson said:

Discontinuing the usage of this codec allowed us to improve server efficiency, reduce unnecessary resource usage used in transcoding, and scale better in high-user environments. While licensing costs were a consideration, the primary driver behind this decision was long-term product optimization and delivering the best possible performance for our users.

Synology has noted that customers often get HEVC support through end devices, but that support isn’t a given in consumer products, including PCs.

So what makes HEVC support so costly, especially when it could be integrated through necessary components like CPUs?

Let’s start with HEVC patent licensing.

How HEVC patent licensing works

HEVC patent licensing deals typically happen behind closed doors and as part of newly consolidated and created programs.

Companies can obtain patent licenses directly from a licensor and try to negotiate pricing or secure a deal that covers technologies beyond just HEVC. Some licensors work through third parties, like patent pool administrators, which allows licensees to offload pricing, operating principles, term negotiations, and other relevant housekeeping to the third party. Patent pools may also allow licensees to access thousands of patents from numerous holders.

Access Advance and Velos Media are the only non-licensor entities administering HEVC patent licenses in the US. That has been the case since December, when Access acquired Via Licensing Alliance’s HEVC/VVC program. Access administers licenses through patent pools that cover about 80 percent of global HEVC patents. The company launched in 2015 with licensing for 500 HEVC patents and currently administers licenses for almost 29,000. Velos, meanwhile, claims to cover 450 HEVC-related patents, though it ended its HEVC patent pool in 2023.

Velos didn’t respond to requests for comment, but we were still able to gain insight into how Access’ patent pools work.

Increasing royalty rates

One of the most widely speculated reasons that tech companies are forgoing HEVC support is Access’ increased royalty rates for its HEVC Advance patent pool. The new royalty rates were originally supposed to take effect in January, but Access pushed the start date to July 1.

HEVC Advance licensees agree to 10-year contracts, with royalty rates guaranteed not to increase in the first five years, John Pint, SVP of licensing at Access, told me. After those five years, the terms may change, and royalty rates can increase by up to 20 percent. Licensors decide whether Access increases royalty rates for its patent pools, Pint said.

“If a company is a licensee starting from [the] 2015 [to 2016] timeframe, they’ve never seen their royalty rates increase, even though the pool has dramatically increased the number of patents and the number of licensors whose patents are included in the pool,” he added.

Dell and HP aren’t subject to the higher royalty rates

Access’ higher royalty rates could have a significant financial impact on licensees. But Dell and HP are not subject to the upcoming rates because both companies are in the middle of 10-year contracts.

Pint explained:

With respect to Dell and HP specifically, their rates as they currently stand are locked in until 2030. At that time, if the licensors chose, they could increase the rates, but no more than 20 percent for the period of 2031 to 2035.

It’s possible that HP and Dell disabled HEVC in some laptops in anticipation of royalties potentially rising in 2031. Access could also eventually change rates for its other HEVC patent pool, VCL Advance.

Still, Pint thinks it’s unlikely that HEVC Advance rates will increase in 2031, in part because they have not been raised for existing licensees in the past. He added that patents are time-limited assets, so there’s a “significant drop-off in the amount of patent coverage that will occur naturally by operation of law in the 2032 to 2033 timeframe,” meaning that “the patent coverage over that entire period is likely to be significantly less than it is today.”

Do chipmakers cover OEMs’ licensing fees?

Many PCs support HEVC through third-party components like CPUs or GPUs, leading some customers to assume that chipmakers, not OEMs, are the entities subject to HEVC patent fees. Another common assumption is that OEMs are responsible for these fees but that chipmakers typically pay some or all of them. Neither assumption is always accurate.

Intel declined to comment, and AMD didn’t respond to requests for comment. But Pint confirmed that the company only licenses consumer-facing products. For example, Access will license an HP laptop with HEVC support through an Intel chip but not the Intel chip itself. It’s true that chipmakers pay licensing fees, but they don’t pay Access. That leaves only patent holders and Velos as paths for HEVC licensing for B2B products like PC components and OSes.

Further, Access’ HEVC pools don’t have a procedure for chipmakers to cover licensees’ royalty fees, Pint said. VIA Licensing Alliance previously ran a pool in which “vendors of semiconductor chips or other products that contain an HEVC encoder and/or decoder may pay royalties on behalf of their customer who is a Licensee (and has responsibility for assuring payment) subject to that Licensee’s annual cap,” according to an archived version of its website preserved by the Internet Archive. Access acquired VIA’s program, now called VCL Advance, in December.

Pint explained:

One of the difficulties that we had in licensing the PC industry was that our approach was a departure from past practice of the AVC pool where Microsoft or Intel could cover their customers. The way we do it is not the same. So if Microsoft has an OEM customer that they’re selling Windows to, Microsoft can’t cover that [licensing fee] for HP.

Pint added that Access’ alternative strategy aims to provide more flexibility for OEMs so they can “put as many decoders in their products as they want” and then “just pay one royalty at the time of sale to cover all of them.”

It’s possible that chipmakers are making private deals with OEMs or Velos regarding HEVC fees, but Pint thinks that practice generally doesn’t happen anymore. “I think the industry’s kind of moved away from that model,” he said.

Litigious patent owners

In addition to the financial burdens of HEVC licensing, the risk of lawsuits from patent holders can deter companies from seeking HEVC support. The space is crowded with pending and settled lawsuits, intercorporate finger-pointing, and complex domestic and international legal concerns.

As mentioned earlier, you can’t currently buy an Acer or Asus PC in Germany due to the lawsuit from Nokia, which owns standard essential patents (SEPs) for the HEVC standard. SEP holders, as defined by the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization, are typically required to license their patents “openly under royalty-free terms or, more commonly, under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms.”

Acer and Asus argued that they were entitled to use Nokia’s HEVC technologies under FRAND licensing terms, but the Munich court ruled otherwise.

FRAND terms vary among countries. Germany is considered a hotspot for patent litigation due to fast rulings and the potential for outcomes that favor patent holders, as noted by German IP law firm Finnegan. But there are also similar lawsuits in the US—Nokia has sued HP, Hisense, Amazon, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) over HEVC. HP, Hisense, and Amazon subsequently made licensing deals with Nokia, and the cases against Paramount and WBD are ongoing.

Naturally, Pint believes that the removal of HEVC support is less about patent pool fees and more about companies’ concerns about lawsuits from licensors that don’t work with pools. Such firms, he suggested, may be asking for “an outsized piece of the royalty stack disproportionate to what their patent holdings are.”

“It may be that HP was taking an action that would not only evade pool royalties but also make their risk with respect to somebody like Nokia less,” Pint speculated.

Explaining Nokia’s reasoning behind its numerous HEVC patent lawsuits, a spokesperson told me:

Nokia’s aim is to ensure that we receive fair compensation for the use of our technologies and to maintain a level playing field for companies who have already agreed to pay for the use [of] our technologies. Litigation is always a last resort, but sometimes it is the only way to respond to companies who choose not to play by the rules followed and respected by many others.

In response to industry commentators blaming aggressive patent litigation for companies disabling HEVC support, Nokia’s rep said that third-party streaming services and hardware wouldn’t work as expected without Nokia’s research and development.

“Nokia is seeking compensation for the use of these key inventions, royalties which we will reinvest along with substantial amounts of additional investment in the development of next-generation multimedia technology,” the spokesperson said. “It is a virtuous circle, a wheel that has been turning for many years, powering innovation.”

Nokia isn’t the only litigious HEVC patent holder in the US. InterDigital, for example, has sued Amazon, Hisense, and TCL, and Ericsson has settled litigation against Lenovo. In March, Dolby Laboratories, whose patents are administered through an Access patent pool, sued Snap Inc.

Users left to secure HEVC support on their own

When tech companies decide that it’s not worth the money, effort, or risk to incorporate HEVC support, users may be forced to pay for the codec themselves.

A commenter in the SysAdmin subreddit recently detailed how problematic disabled HEVC support can be for laptops:

People with older hardware were not experiencing problems, whereas those with newer machines needed to either have the HEVC codec from the Microsoft Store removed entirely from [Microsoft Media Foundation] or have hardware acceleration disabled in their web browser/web app, which causes a number of other problems/feature [degradations]. For example, no background blurring in conference programs, significantly degraded system performance…

A lack of HEVC support could deter shoppers who don’t want to worry about whether videos will work on their pricey new device. “There is a conscious decision being made to lessen or worsen the consumer experience by taking this functionality out or somehow hiding it in a way that they believe potentially evades royalties,” Pint said.

I asked the Nokia representative if the company is concerned about patent litigation concerns limiting users’ access to HEVC innovations. The spokesperson said that Nokia’s “aim is for consumers to benefit from our video technologies, but the innovation ecosystem breaks down if innovators are not fairly compensated for the use of their technologies, as it becomes harder to fund research into next-generation technologies.”

AV1: An open but debated alternative

As HEVC support confuses users and challenges tech companies, an alternative codec addresses much of the complexity associated with HEVC.

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) was created as an open, royalty-free video codec by a group of companies called the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), which was tired of dealing with HEVC patent licensing. AV1 launched in 2018 under a royalty-free patent policy, and its reference implementations use a permissive software license (available here). In 2023, AOMedia, whose members include Amazon, Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, and Samsung, claimed that AV1 is 30 percent more efficient than HEVC.

“AOMedia believes that its royalty-free patent policy and permissive copyright license help bring next-generation media experiences to more people, faster,” Dr. Pierre-Anthony Lemieux, executive director of AOMedia, told me.

HEVC was introduced in 2013, so companies had years to adopt it before AV1 arrived. But AV1 is still less common than you might expect after eight years, largely due to compatibility issues. Its supposed efficiency gains compared to HEVC stem from its use of more advanced algorithms. But those algorithms typically require more compression and more powerful hardware. In 2023, Meta, a member of AOMedia, named client-side hardware decoding as AV1’s biggest obstacle.

After AV1’s release, some hardware companies were reluctant to adopt AV1 decoders because the advanced requirements could drive up consumer prices, according to a 2025 report from The Verge. AV1 support would also introduce burdensome and unreasonable complexity and costs to some gadgets, including budget smartphones and Blu-ray players (the former rarely support AV1, and the latter generally do not).

Software solutions can handle client-side decoding, but they can also consume more computing resources and drain battery life.

As a result, some components, streaming devices, and many end devices, especially smartphones, have only recently added hardware-based AV1 support—or support it only partially, such as for decoding alone.

Another complication stems from attempts of companies outside AOMedia to collect licensing fees and royalties from companies that adopt AV1, despite AV1’s royalty-free goals. Firms such as Access and The Sisvel Group argue that AV1 relies on patented coding tools created by companies that aren’t AOMedia members and never agreed to a royalty-free system.

AV1 critics also dispute whether the standard can legally be royalty-free. In a lawsuit last month, Dolby accused Snap Inc. of infringing its patents by implementing AV1 in Snapchat. InterDigital is also suing Amazon (PDF) over AV1 support in some of its Fire streaming devices.

The outcomes of both cases could have lasting implications for AV1 adoption, potentially affecting HEVC support as well. European Union antitrust regulators have also investigated AV1; the investigation ended in 2023, with an EU spokesperson telling Reuters that the investigation’s closure was “not a finding of compliance or non-compliance of the conduct in question with EU competition rules.”

Despite these challenges, AOMedia continues to push for AV1 adoption. In September 2024, the group said that about 95 percent of Netflix’s catalog and more than 50 percent of YouTube’s catalog are available in AV1. Some streaming services, including HBO Max, Peacock, and Paramount Plus, are still holding out.

Dr. Lemieux declined to comment on how patent lawsuits are impacting consumers’ access to codecs like AV1 but said that AOMedia expects “growth to continue accelerating as the world moves to UHD and HDR video streaming.”

Technology has reached the point where most people don’t expect to think about video codecs—and certainly not to pay for them—just to watch a 4K YouTube video on a PC. If HEVC keeps failing to meet expectations for simple video compression, AV1 will only become harder to ignore, even with its own legal baggage.

Source

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Posted Tuesday 21 April 2026 at 7:48 am AEST (my time).

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Silicon Valley moguls have lately complained that too many people are too negative about artificial intelligence. They’re likewise frustrated by stalled AI adoption among major corporations that aren’t seeing the lucrative efficiencies promised by Big Tech.

But if consumers and corporations are proving resistant to AI’s acceleration, it hasn’t stopped billionaire CEOs from charging ahead with their personal fantasies of what the technology can do.

On April 13, the Financial Times reported that Meta is working up a photorealistic, three-dimensional AI avatar of chief exec Mark Zuckerberg, according to several people at the company. Trained on his public comments, mannerisms, and up-to-date perspectives on corporate strategy, the bot is being designed to interact with Meta staff on Zuckerberg’s behalf. Employees would supposedly be able to hop on a video chat with the avatar, which could answer questions and offer managerial guidance and feedback.

Zuckerberg is personally involved in testing and training his animated doppelgänger, Meta employees told the Financial Times, noting that this early-stage project has become a priority amid the development of various other AI characters that Facebook and Instagram users will be able to engage with one-on-one.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment on the Zuckerbot. But such a concept is a predictable extension of what other tech leaders have already done. A year ago, Sebastian Siemiatkowski and Eric Yuan, the respective CEOs of Klarna and Zoom, both turned heads by enlisting AI doubles to deliver part of their remarks on quarterly earnings calls. The presentations hinted that company heads are thinking about what kind of routine responsibilities they can delegate to simulations of themselves.

Meanwhile, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block (formerly Square), has overseen rolling layoffs as the financial services company leans more heavily into AI. In February, he announced a workforce reduction of 40 percent—about 4,000 employees lost their jobs. Then, in an interview for the business podcast Long Strange Trip this month, he revealed his vision for how he can gradually collapse the management hierarchy thanks to the central AI that Block is now building on.

“I would say our max depth right now is probably five folks between me and anyone in the company,” Dorsey said. “I would want to get that down to two to three this year. And in the most ideal case, there is no layer, everyone in the company reports to me, and that would be all 6,000 of the company. And that feels somewhat ridiculous when you consider the old structure. But when you consider that the majority of our work is going through this intelligence layer, it’s a lot more manageable.”

On its face, Dorsey’s proposal seems radically different from outsourcing your CEO duties to a digital stand-in. Yet the idea yields a similar result for staff: instant, AI-mediated “access” to your ultimate boss, and the illusion that he is directly supervising all employees, controlling every last piece of the company. The trend suggests that even while platforms face obstacles in foisting AI features onto users, the top brass is determined to exert greater influence within their business through a kind of AI-enabled omnipresence.

Responding to a request for comment on Dorsey’s remarks, a Block spokesperson provided a link to a March 31 blog post Dorsey coauthored with Sequoia partner Roelof Botha, titled “From Hierarchy to Intelligence.” The piece lays out a case for eliminating middle management by rethinking how AI is integrated into the workflow.

“Most companies using AI today are giving everyone a copilot, which makes the existing structure work slightly better without changing it,” the pair writes. “We’re after something different: a company built as an intelligence (or mini-AGI).” Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is an as-yet-nonexistent kind of reasoning AI that matches or exceeds human capabilities.
 

Both the Zuckerberg avatar and Dorsey’s scenario of 6,000 direct reports synthesized by an “intelligence layer” are apparent solutions to a problem any CEO runs into: They can’t be in multiple places at once. There’s no proof, however, that this technology can eliminate the distance between a commander and their ground troops, or that such proximity would automatically benefit both the employees and the company at large. As it stands, the executive class are placing their faith in theoretical shortcuts.

Clearly, Zuckerberg and Dorsey see an advantage in becoming even more central, singular, and irreplaceable figures than they already are—as if the current limitations of their businesses can be surpassed only by the expansion of their authority. They want a version of AI that amplifies and entrenches their individual perspectives. At last, a perfectly tech-bro substitute for human-to-human communication.

Source

It has been just five days since Microsoft released its April Patch Tuesday update (KB5083769) and already people are starting to report more issues on Microsoft’s Learn Q&A pages. One that stood out was the update being suspected of creating a “death loop” for several users. It’s unclear how many people are experiencing these death loops but aside from the poster, one commenter said they were having the same issue and so were three other people in their company.

The poster, who goes by the name Vagabond Superstar, said they attempted to install the Patch Tuesday update for April, but their PC got stuck in a “death loop” (similar to the bug on Windows Server perhaps) where the screen shows a “mosaic of weird pixels” followed by a blue screen saying that Windows needs to be recovered. The user was then given an option to retry, but after attempting this, the computer went into a boot loop where it kept giving the message that it was attempting to repair the issue, then it would loop back through the pixelated screens.

Vagabond Superstar notes that their PC is a HP Pavillion 590-p0044. It has an AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 32GB RAM, GTX 1080ti GPU, and is running Windows 11 Home. Another commenter, who goes by the name “L M”, said they’re having exactly the same problem on a Dell Desktop and describes the pixelated screen and repairs similar to what the original poster said they experienced.

The final commenter to report the same issue was Thomas B who said they’ve been experiencing the same thing and so are another three people in their company who are no longer able to boot into Windows, potentially preventing them from accessing important work documents. Thomas B noted that they were able to uninstall the latest “Quality” update and get back into their system, but one of the users had a recovery environment that was so broken, they couldn’t get back into their system.

It isn’t clear if this issue is being caused directly by Microsoft or if there is some common driver or software issue affecting all of these users. Microsoft’s Q&A Assist, which is AI-generated, says that similar issues have been documented when a cumulative/security update corrupts boot-critical components or drivers, especially on some AMD-based systems.

It recommends going into the Window Recovery Environment, attempting a System Restore, then a Startup Repair, then a Local reinstall if the first two recommendations fail. You can find its detailed answer in the post’s comments section.

Source

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Posted Monday 20 April 2026 at 5:41 pm AEST (my time).

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Gamers Nexus (2.6m subscribers)

April 20, 2026

Video length: 26m 23s

We have a ton of stories for this hardware news recap. Currently, the team is traveling for our next major documentary and we will be putting together a huge report on the state of the industry in the coming weeks. That's also the main reason we've had a publishing pause lately, although there is one other secret reason that you'll soon find out. In this episode, we talk about the NVIDIA N1 laptop CPU spotted again, the AMD price and release for the 9950X3D2, Microsoft's Surface and ASUS' 9070 XT price increases, data center parasites, and more -- like a 4090 20GB that was resurrected from the dead.

00:00 - Recap for the Week

01:14 - GN UPDATE: Travel and Future Content

04:40 - NVIDIA N1 Laptop Board Spotted

06:09 - AMD Price and Release for 9950X3D2

07:25 - Microsoft Surface Prices Increase

08:22 - ASUS Raised its 9070 XT GPU Prices

09:59 - TSIA Urges Helium Stockpiling

12:17 - Texas to Lose Billions in Data Center Revenue

14:46 - Colorado Bill Moves Forward to Limit Right to Repair

18:53 - Valve Contractor Improves VRAM

21:23 - South Korea Tries to Keep Computers Affordable

23:34 - Modder Saves 4090

24:43 - Artemis II Outlook Issues

Source

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Posted Monday 20 April 2026 at 6:49 am AEST (my time).

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AMD recently launched its most expensive mainstream desktop 3D V-cache desktop processor, the 9950X3D2, at $899. The new 9950X3D2, as the name suggests, has double the L3 (level 3) cache as the 9950X3D at 192 MB. The total cache amounts to 208 MB. We have seen how the massive cache can help AMD, especially in situations like gaming, which depends on rapid data to and fro. The chips tend to enjoy a very healthy lead over Intel.

However, it looks like the latter will soon have an answer to AMD's X3D parts, and a new report suggests Intel may actually even blow away the best X3D processor with its new creation. The upcoming next-gen Nova Lake-S desktop processors have long been rumored to be packing a large amount of L3 cache called bLLC or big Last Level Cache. Before that, Intel was also said to be working on a new L4 cache that would have helped boost certain aspects of performance.

Following the initial reports of the large bLLC, a new report from a leakster has now shared additional spec details about Nova Lake-S, including the amount of bLLC. The report claims that Intel's top chip will pack up to 288 MB of L3 cache, a whopping 50% more than AMD's 9950X3D2. The 288 MB will supposedly be arranged across two compute tiles with each tile having 144 MB of L3 cache, compared to 96 MB on AMD's current 9950X3D.

The flagship "Core Ultra 400DX" is said to be the one featuring the 288 MB of cache, which will feed 52 cores across the two tiles, so each tile will have 26 cores in the (8+16+2) core configuration. This huge cache could also benefit the on-board powerful integrated graphics greatly.

Here are the full purported specifications in the table below:

Back in 2021, there were rumors of a "Zen 5 killer" that Intel was cooking up in its labs, and it looks like those plans may finally be met. It will be interesting to see how things go once these are out. This could well be the biggest threat Intel has posed to AMD since the advent of Zen.

Source: Jaykihn (X)

Source

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Posted Monday 20 April 2026 at 6:47 am AEST (my time).

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7 Days is a weekly roundup of picks of what's been happening in the world of technology - written with a dash of humor, a hint of exasperation, and an endless supply of (black) coffee.

This week's highlights include the final beta of Android 17, Linux 7.0, Meta working on an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg, and a chance to win $1 million USD for using the Edge browser. Let's get started.

You can check out recent issues of the '7 Days' weekly series here.

ZuckerBot is coming

Get over Gemini and ChatGPT because Meta is reportedly working on an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg to interact with company employees, fueling the long-running joke that the Meta CEO is a robot. The project is a top priority, according to sources familiar with the matter, and ZuckerBot (or whatever it's called) will be trained to mimic the billionaire's mannerisms, tone, voice, pictures, and publicly available statements.

Galaxy phones got expensive

Samsung dropped a silent shocker this week and updated (increased) the prices of many Galaxy smartphones, foldables, and almost every tablet it sells in the US. The list of expensive Samsung devices includes the Galaxy Z Flip7, Galaxy S25 F, and Galaxy S25 Edge.

In other Samsung news, the company is upgrading AI-powered audio tools with the latest version of Audio Eraser on the Galaxy S26 series. The feature can reportedly identify and isolate different audio layers, such as voices, music, and background noise, in real time, and works not only on recorded content but also on streamed media, including OTT platforms and social apps.

$1 million for using MS Edge

Microsoft is desperate for people to use its web browser. It's running a new promotion where you can win $1 million USD or a car in its latest sweepstakes. Among various things, you share the promotion with your friends, use the Microsoft Rewards extension, leverage Bing/Copilot mobile apps, and more.

This is where Chrome lacks

Other browsers might have an edge over Chrome, thanks to a new report suggesting that Google Chrome offers "almost no native anti-fingerprinting defences, unlike Brave, Firefox, or Tor." It investigated security features offered to protect users against device fingerprinting and browser fingerprinting, and most of them seemed subpar.

AI Mode fixes biggest frustrations

Google pushed a big update for Chrome's AI Mode to address one of the biggest frustrations people have with it. AI Mode got a split-screen view so that people can open web links in the same UI alongside the ongoing conversation with the chatbot. AI Mode is contextually aware of the active page, as it can see what you are browsing.

On a side note, AI Mode found a new home on the Google desktop app for Windows. The search giant upgraded the app recently and highlighted the new features in a brief blog post.

In other browser news, Google Chrome now lets you save Gemini AI prompts as reusable skills that get synced across your devices. Meanwhile, Vivaldi for Android now comes with a native PDF reader, reducing the need for a separate PDF reader. However, the feature is currently available in development builds.

50% off on YouTube

Similarly, Google is offering 50% off on YouTube Premium for an entire year if you are a Google One subscriber paying $10+ each month and live in the US, Canada, Brazil, Germany, France, or Japan. However, make sure to cancel your existing Premium subscription before claiming the add-on.

In a surprising move, YouTube pushed a silent update to the Time Management dashboard, allowing users and parents to put a hard stop on the Infinite Shorts feed in the app. The video sharing platform is also trying to protect the vibe by disabling livestream ads during peak chat engagement.

Apple's smartglasses

While Meta remains the leader in the smartglasses market, Apple wants a share of the cake too. The Cupertino giant is reportedly testing four new designs, along with colors, for its upcoming display-free smartglasses. The smart glasses are internally codenamed N50 and expected to arrive sometime in early 2027.

In other Apple news, the company announced that 30% of materials used across all products shipped in 2025 came from recycled sources, reaching a new environmental milestone.

Same Same

One of the reasons to use macOS is the built-in handy utility that lets you quickly minimize all apps and access your desktop by clicking anywhere on an empty area. A Microsoft engineer put time and energy into building an app, called PeekDesktop, that brings the "Show Desktop" feature to Windows 11.

In other macOS news, Microsoft Threat Intelligence discovered a sophisticated job interview scam targeting macOS users to steal passwords and crypto data. It informed Apple, which strengthened its infrastructure on macOS and Safari.

Google also launched the Gemini app for Mac, which lets you "see" anything on your screen after you enable sharing. You can open a mini chat overlay by pressing Option + Space.

Goodbye, we have AI

Snapchat's parent company has announced another mass layoff. This time, it's kicking out around 1,000 people, representing about 16% of its workforce. CEO Evan Spiegel said that "rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers."

(Not) an iPhone Fold

While the iPhone Fold is yet to arrive, Huawei has already baked an answer to it in the form of Pura X Max, slated to arrive on April 20. The device features a passport-style form factor that resembles a mini tablet instead of looking like two phones glued together, and appears well-positioned against upcoming devices like the Galaxy Wide Fold.

Android 17 final beta

The final beta of Android 17 has arrived, marking platform stability before the public release in June. It enforces strict RAM limits and hardware-level security to improve device performance. Among various changes, Android 17 prevents developers from opting out of resizability and orientation constraints on large-screen devices, and moves toward quantum-safe security by integrating NIST-standardized cryptographic signatures into hardware.

New Fire🔥

Amazon launched a new Fire TV Stick HD, which flaunts the tag of being its slimmest HD streaming stick yet. Priced at $34.99, it's about 30% narrower, more than 30% faster than the previous generation, and you can power it directly from the TV's USB port.

In other Amazon news, the e-commerce giant is eyeing a major satellite connectivity expansion. It has officially signed an agreement to acquire Globalstar to fuel its Amazon Leo satellite services.

Digital Connections

Stardock has released Connection Explorer 1.0 to add a visual layer to the data connections your Windows PC creates. It can turn hidden network activity into an easily readable map of your digital world, with advanced insights and monitoring tools.

DaVinci Resolve ups its game

The DaVinci Resolve 21 update from Blackmagic Design is now in beta, with several major features and changes. A highlight among them is the new Photo page, which lets you use Hollywood-level color tools to edit still photos. Apart from that, there is IntelliSearch for fast content search, CineFocus for focal point adjustment, and more.

Child safety is important

The UK government is already doubling down on child safety with its Online Safety Act and age-verification requirements for adult websites. In the latest, it wants tech giants to know they can't look the other way when it comes to protecting kids online. Social media bosses from Meta, Snap, Google, YouTube, TikTok, and X were called for a talk and told that "things can't go like this."

Don't go back

The websites that use the back button to serve ads to people are on Google's radar. The search giant warned site owners and set a June 15 deadline to disable all "back button hijacking" practices or risk demotion in search results.

In other Google news, a new update for students and teachers allows them to export their Google Photos data via Google Takeout after they leave their organization.

Pricey VR

The global parts shortage has pushed the cost of manufacturing for Meta Quest headsets, according to the social media giant. That's why the prices of the Meta Quest 3S 128GB/256GB variants increased by $50, and the standard Meta Quest 3 (512GB) now costs $600 instead of $500.

In other Meta news, the company joined hands with Broadcom to build a massive AI silicon empire for billions of users. The duo is co-developing the next-generation Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) chips.

Intel on a budget

The original silicon giant's new Intel Core Series 3 mobile processors (codenamed Wildcat Lake) are meant for home users looking for budget options, small businesses, and edge deployments. It's the 'first hybrid AI-ready" processor for budget PCs, promising improved performance, battery life, and built-in AI capabilities.

In other Intel news, it's suggested that Intel's leaked Nova Lake-S CPU could make budget graphics cards obsolete. The company is secretly building a mid-range chip packed with enough GPU cores to make a separate graphics card unnecessary.

OpenAI bakes more into Codex

The Codex app on Windows and Mac is evolving from a simple GUI for LLM responses to a software development companion, with support for background computer use, a new in-app browser developers can use to give exact instructions to the agent, and over 90 new plugins.

In other OpenAI news, OpenAI announced a new biology-focused AI model named after the British chemist Rosalind Franklin. GPT-Rosalind is purpose-built for biochemistry, genomics, and protein engineering.

The ChatGPT-maker is also challenging Anthropic's strategy of opening up security-focused AI models to trusted entities. While Anthropic's Mythos is somewhat restricted, OpenAI is expanding its Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC) program to thousands of developers, which includes its latest GPT-5.4-Cyber model.

Anthropic's app is going haywire

Microsoft's AI rival Anthropic is having a hard time with its Claude desktop app for Windows 11/10. Among various issues, there have been confirmed user reports about installation failures on Windows where the app would redirect them to the Microsoft Store, only to find that there is no Claude app available to download.

In other Anthropic news, the AI tech giant launched Claude Opus 4.7 as its new flagship AI model with a specific focus on complex software engineering tasks and improved vision capability. The model is topping coding benchmark charts, beating OpenAI's GPT-5.4.

Anthropic is trying to turn Claude into a full-blown design tool with its latest update. It launched a new workspace, Claude Design, that helps users create UI prototypes faster than ever.

Linux 7.0 is out

Linux Torvalds finally published Linux 7.0 after several ups and downs in recent test builds. The milestone released brings massive hardware gains for Intel and AMD, alongside an AI-refined code and self-healing filesystems.

In other open-source news, Zorin OS 18.1 landed with better hardware support, new features, and more polish. It's Windows app detector expanded by 40%, meaning people can now have over 240 apps instead of installing their original Windows EXEs.

Raspberry Pi OS 6.2 is mostly a platter of security updates and bug fixes made over the past months. But it disables passwordless sudo by default, making the OS slightly more inconvenient to use.

What happened at Microsoft this week

For those wondering what happened under the Redmond giant's roof this week: Microsoft is bundling $500 worth of services with select Windows 11 PCs, it's once again reworking Windows 11's Start Menu, and Microsoft isn't removing Copilot from Windows, it's just renaming it.

We published a list of the top 10 cool and useful apps for Windows 11 in 2026. You can check out Taras's freshly baked Microsoft Weekly roundup to catch up on all the interesting stories this week.

GeForce Now expansion

NVIDIA's cloud gaming service finally set foot in India, rolling out GeForce NOW in beta on a first-come, first-served basis. Meanwhile, several new titles are on GeForce NOW's official supported list, including PRAGMATA and Windrose. Its latest 596.21 WHQL driver features DLSS 4.5 support for PRAGMATA, NTE (Neverness to Everness), and Windrose.

On a side note, Intel also added support for PRAGMATA in its 32.0.101.8724 non-WHQL driver update, alongside a handful of bug fixes.

Call of Duty movie is coming

It's already known that the popular first-person shooter is turning into a movie, but now, we have a release date. The official COD account posted this week that the movie will arrive in theaters on June 30, 2028. It was known last year that Paramount is in charge of producing, developing, and distributing the movie. It's reported that Lone Survivor fame Peter Berg will direct the movie, and Taylor Sheridan (Sicario and Hell or High Water) will write the script.

It's too expensive

Netflix and YouTube price hikes will feel like pennies if you start paying for Xbox Game Pass, which is hitting $30 a month. Unsurprisingly, even the new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma isn't a fan of the Game Pass prices either. "Game Pass has become too expensive for players," Sharma said in an internal memo, adding that there is a need for "better value equation."

What else in gaming?

The latest issue of Pulasthi's Weekend PC Game Deals curates several exciting games on sale this week. Among fresh titles to try out, Microsoft brought two new titles to Free Play Days: Football Manager 26 and South Park: Snow Day. On the Epic Games Store giveaway, the real-time stealth tactics game The Stone of Madness is free to claim after the weekly refresh.

That said, here are some more stories from the gaming world:

• Disney delists 15 more classic games from Steam without an explanation
• Metro 2039 announced by 4A Games, full reveal this week at Xbox show
• Grounded 2 gets a giant boss inspired by dragons in new Beat the Heat update
• Battlefield 6 is finally getting a server browser, naval combat, proximity chat, and more
• Valve's Proton 11.0 beta arrives to turn your Steam Deck into a 90s gaming powerhouse

From the review corner

This week, Steven got his hands on the UGREEN NASync DXP4800 Pro, refreshed with the Intel Core i3-1315U CPU, dual PCIe 4x4, and 8GB DDR5-5600 RAM. Its list of pros includes a premium build, quiet operations, Full 4K decode/encode streaming support, and Type-A and Type-C ports on the front. However, there is a lack of UPS notifications or status; UGOS Push notifications could be improved; and there is still no surveillance package for IP cameras.

REPLACED by Sat Cat Studios

Pulasthi published a detailed review of the cyberpunk thriller indie game REPLACED this week, calling it a "cinematic masterpiece" and "a remarkable 2.5D experience that exceeds expectations in almost every department." The game missed its launch window by a mile after the original 2021 announcement.

Set in an alternate 1980s, the game offers weighty animations, a gorgeous cyberpunk setting, an engrossing storyline and characters, and a simple but effective combat system. However, you may encounter a few glitches and wish there were some more side stories.

So, these were some of the biggest tech news and other updates from this week. There will be more issues of our 7 Days series in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned. You can also support Neowin by registering for a free member account or subscribing to extra member benefits, along with an ad-free tier option.

Have a great weekend!

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Posted Monday 20 April 2026 at 6:45 am AEST (my time).

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The winning robot, Lightning, was developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor and finished the race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, according to race organisers.

Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo holds the men's half marathon world record, which he set in March in Lisbon with a time of 57 minutes and 20 seconds.

Around 40% of the robots raced autonomously, while the others were remotely controlled.

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Also:  Honor robots claim top 3 spots at Beijing half marathon.

Paul's Hardware (1.54m subscribers)

April 19, 2026

Video length: 11m 35s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - April 19, 2026

1:24 AMD may Re-launch Ryzen 7 5800X3D as "AM4 10th Anniversary Edition"

3:52 9950X3D2 $1,000 pre-order seen on Amazon; AMD says MSRP still $899

5:01 Intel Core Ultra 400 “Nova Lake-S” preliminary desktop SKU list leaked

6:38 GeForce RTX 3060 12GB reportedly returns in June; RTX 5050 9GB “delayed”

TECH BRIEFS

8:16 Possible delays at 40% of AI data center construction sites

9:17 Stop Killing Games on EU Commission hearing: “Mission achieved for this one”

10:03 JEYI's weird flat PCIe to M.2 adapter, water cooled 12v2x6, new LEGO set

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Posted Sunday 19 April 2026 at 5:31 pm AEST (my time).

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This week's news recap is here, with Microsoft releasing Patch Tuesday updates and confirming new bugs, reports about another Start menu rework, fresh Windows 11 preview builds, another Recall controversy, useful apps for Windows 11, and more.

Quick links:

1. Windows 10 and 11
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Reviews are in
5. Gaming news

Windows 11 and Windows 10

Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions.

This week, Microsoft released the April 2026 Patch Tuesday updates. KB5082200 arrived for Windows 10 users, while Windows 11 received KB5083769.

Shortly after the release, new reports about bugs and other issues emerged. Microsoft, for one, acknowledged that the April 2026 Patch Tuesday updates cause BitLocker recovery prompts. This inconvenience occurs frequently, and the company often issues workarounds for the affected systems. This time, a workaround is available as well.

BitLocker prompts are not the only bug in this month's Patch Tuesday updates. Microsoft also warned about Windows Server restarts. To mitigate the problem, Microsoft suggests IT admins contact Microsoft Support for Business.

Windows 11's Recall, the flagship AI feature on Copilot+ PCs, is in hot water once again. A security researcher published a new tool on GitHub, which demonstrates how relatively easy it is to extract captured data by injecting code into one of the feature's processes. What makes this extra interesting is the fact that Microsoft says there are no vulnerabilities, and Recall works as intended.

Windows 11's Start menu is reportedly in another rework. This week, a new report emerged about Microsoft redoing the iconic part of its operating system. The new version will be based on WinUI 3 and offer better performance and new customization, such as the ability to resize the Start menu, disable specific parts of it, and more.

Despite all the improvements and promises (including fewer Copilot references across the OS and the ability to skip mandatory updates during OOBE), some countries still decide to ditch Windows altogether. France, for one, plans to phase out Windows across government systems, shifting to EU-built tech in an effort to reduce reliance on US software suppliers.

This week, we reported a couple of useful apps for Windows 11. Windows 11 Context Menu Manager, for example, is a must-have utility for those who want cleaner context menus. Just open the app (no need to install it) and disable all the entries you do not want to see. Very handy, and performance improvements are quite noticeable.

Another app you may find useful is called Peek Desktop. It was made by a Microsoft engineer, and its goal is to give you the ability to minimize/restore all apps by simply clicking anywhere on the desktop. macOS has had this feature for a while, and now, it is available on Windows as well. There is also a new update for NTLite, a powerful Windows configuration app.

Speaking of configuration tools, beware of this "download utility," as it reportedly steals sensitive data from clueless victims. Better use the official MCT app, which was updated this week.

Finally, there is "Windows 95 App," an Electron-based app that runs Windows 95 rewritten in JavaScript. Its latest update introduced plenty of useful features, including shared folders, Internet support, CD-ROM, better looks, various quality-of-life improvements, and more.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

If you are a US-based student who is looking to buy a new laptop, Microsoft has a tempting offer for you. This week, the company announced a new promo, which gives you one year of Microsoft 365 Premium, one year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and even an Xbox Wireless Controller from Xbox Design Lab, all for free, plus a discount on select PCs (just please do not buy the MacBook Neo, says Microsoft). The promotion is now live, and you can check it out here.

A new Microsoft 365 Roadmap entry revealed Microsoft's plan to allow IT admins to restrict "shadow AI" in the Microsoft Edge browser. Soon, administrators will be able to redirect users to Copilot in Microsoft Edge for "safer, policy-controlled usage." In addition to that, Microsoft is running some wild promos in the browser (with some very user-hostile patterns), offering users a chance to win $1 million or a car if they switch to Microsoft Edge.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• Microsoft kicks off phase 2 of the paid ESU program for some legacy software.

• Microsoft supercharges Visual Studio Code 1.116 with native AI and deep agent debugging.

• Microsoft reveals job interview scam being used to hack macOS users.

• Microsoft locks in final death date for Outlook Lite on Android.

• Microsoft details Windows 11 KB5083769 Remote Desktop changes.

• Microsoft explains why it killed the official way to activate Windows 11/10 in offline mode.

• Microsoft is making one of its best AI models faster and cheaper.

   

Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

• NVIDIA 596.21 WHQL with optimizations for PRAGMATA and two more games, plus a single bug fix.

Reviews are in

Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week

This week, Pulasthi Ariyasinghe reviewed REPLACED, a cyberpunk thriller and a cinematic masterpiece with a gorgeous setting, nice animations, great attention to detail, and an affordable price tag. A few glitches are here and there, and the lack of side stories is disappointing, but overall, the game earned a nearly-perfect score from Neowin.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts, and more.

NVIDIA GeForce NOW has been launched in India. In addition to a new region, NVIDIA introduced new games for the service, including the just-launched PRAGMATA, REPLACED, Windrose, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, and more.

4A Games, a Ukrainian game developer, announced Metro 2039, the latest installment in the famous post-nuclear war series. Metro 2039 features a new, fully-voiced protagonist who will explore the "darkest chapter in the Metro saga yet."

Finally, here is this week's Weekend PC Game Deals article full of discounts and freebies, including the latest giveaway from the Epic Games Store.

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Posted Sunday 19 April 2026 at 7:44 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft has acquired Fintool, a startup known for building AI-powered research tools for finance professionals. While Microsoft neither officially announced the deal nor revealed its terms, Fintool's founder posted about the acquisition on X and their official website. This acquisition signals Microsoft’s growing ambition to improve Microsoft 365 experiences through the power of AI agents.

Fintool was founded in San Francisco by Nicolas Bustamante and Edouard Godfrey. The startup built AI agents that help investors and analysts handle qualitative financial research. Its platform was able to read earnings call transcripts, analyze company filings, synthesize research, and surface insights from them.

Earlier this year, Fintool V5 was announced, which enabled AI agents to work autonomously in the background on tasks such as building discounted cash flow models in Excel, preparing earnings presentations in PowerPoint, and more.

Since many Fintool customers already rely on Microsoft products in their daily workflow, integrating Fintool’s technology directly into Microsoft 365 is a logical step for Microsoft to take in the coming months.

Nicolas Bustamante, CEO and Co-Founder of Fintool, wrote the following regarding Microsoft's acquisition:

What excites me most is the focus. As a startup CEO, you do everything: fundraising, hiring, payroll, GTM, operations. Now I get to pour all that energy into what I care about most: product craftsmanship and quality. Our mission is to make Office products work brilliantly for financial services as well as other verticals and products to benefit all knowledge workers.

Sumit Chauhan, President of the Office Product Group at Microsoft, welcomed the Fintool team to Microsoft with the following message:

Welcome Nicolas Bustamante and the Fintool team to the Office Product Group at Microsoft. This addition is a perfect complement to our overall strategy and will benefit our customers by pairing the specialization of Fintool with the capabilities of the Office suite.

Inside Microsoft, Fintool's team will focus on improving Office products for financial services, with the broader goal of expanding those capabilities to other industries as well.

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Posted Sunday 19 April 2026 at 7:43 am AEST (my time).

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Paul's Hardware (1.54m subscribers)

April 18, 2026

Video length: 16m 32s

What do PC Gamers think of “Cloud Gaming”?

0:00 Welcome to Probing Paul

#102 (+ Mail Time!)

0:59 Pre-Probing Notes

1:12 What do PC Gamers think of Cloud Gaming?

4:19 Are your video views down because of hardware prices?

7:49 Recommended upgrades for AM4 system? Ryzen 1600 / GTX 1050 Ti

10:55 Any upcoming collaboration plans?

12:03 MAIL TIME - Jay the Caffeinator doesn’t send coffee

14:47 MAIL TIME - Will M. contributes to the new brick channel

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Posted Saturday 18 April 2026 at 7:30 am AEST (my time).

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The writing was on the wall, and now it’s on Amazon’s website. Newly released Fire Sticks will not support the sideloading of Android apps or any other software from outside Amazon’s official app store.

The proof comes from an update to Amazon’s website for developers, which currently reads:

Starting with Fire TV Stick 4K Select [which came out in October], all future Fire TV Sticks will run on Vega.

According to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the website has included that statement since at least January. But Amazon hasn’t made this declaration so outrightly to consumers, many of whom are just now learning about Amazon’s commitment to its new, proprietary operating system (OS), Vega OS. Amazon declined to comment to Lowpass this week after “multiple sources with knowledge of” Amazon’s plans reportedly told the publication that all future Fire TV sticks would launch with Vega.

Vega doesn’t support the sideloading of non-Amazon Appstore apps. One of Amazon’s prerequisites for an app to run on a Vega-powered Fire device is that it “is already published in the Amazon Appstore,” per Amazon.

Some users have reported seeing a notice on the Amazon product page for the new Fire TV Stick HD announced this week that says, “For enhanced security, this device prevents sideloading or installing apps from unknown sources. Only apps from the Amazon Appstore are available for download.”

Vega devices can still support sideloading, but only for developers who register their devices.

In November 2023, Lowpass reported that the Echo Show 5 was the first device to run Vega. The Echo Hub that Amazon released in April 2024 runs Vega, too. In October, Amazon released its first Vega-powered streaming stick, the Fire TV 4K Select.

In October, an Amazon representative said the company doesn’t have plans to update current Fire OS devices to Vega, German IT publication Heise Online reported.

Fire OS blamed for pirating

Before Vega, Amazon’s Fire streaming devices all ran Fire OS, an Android fork based on the Android Open Source Project, which often meant Fire devices ran older Android software. Moving to the Linux-based Vega OS makes it easier for Amazon devices to run more modern software. Vega also gives Amazon more control over how people use Fire devices, supporting features like Alexa+, its generative AI chatbot, while limiting the use of apps that cost the company money or host illegal content.

Sideloading apps has long been a common way for people to run apps outside of Amazon’s store— especially from the Google Play Store—or to limit Amazon advertising. This has allowed enthusiasts to expand the functionality of Amazon devices—for example, using a Fire tablet as a handy smart home controller.

Perhaps more concerning to Amazon, though, has been the sideloading of apps used for watching pirated content. In the fall, Amazon started blocking apps that the Alliance for Creative and Entertainment, a global anti-piracy group, has blacklisted.

Fire Sticks have long been criticized for potentially enabling piracy. A May report from media, entertainment, and telecommunications research firm Enders Analysis, for instance, claimed that jailbroken Fire Sticks have enabled “billions of dollars’” worth of streaming piracy. Amazon has also faced pressure to crack down on piracy on its devices from various groups, including the Sky Sports UK soccer channel and the Premier League professional soccer league in England.

Many users won’t be impacted by Amazon’s move to kill consumer sideloading on Fire Sticks. But those it does affect will be eager to explore rival streaming devices or develop potential workarounds.

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Posted Saturday 18 April 2026 at 7:29 am AEST (my time).

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On the afternoon of April 15, a delegation from Intel visited the Xizi AI2 Robotics, located on the 12th floor of Building 19 in the Xizi Smart Industrial Park. Their visit aimed to explore collaboration opportunities around the cafe's innovative application of robotics and distributed computing.

The cafe features a humanoid robot barista named Aibao, developed by Shenzhen-based AI2 Robotics. Customers place orders via a tablet, after which the robot prepares and serves coffee within about one minute. Equipped with a proprietary embodied AI model, Aibao demonstrates multimodal perception, task understanding, and adaptive learning in real-world environments.

In addition to coffee-making, robots are deployed for tasks such as fruit sorting and data collection, with students from Xizi Mechanical and Electrical School participating through teleoperation systems. The robots utilize Intel's cloud-edge-device collaborative computing solution, providing real-time externalized "brains" to support complex operations.

The cafe also signals the beginning of deeper cooperation between Xizi and Intel, with the company planning to establish China's first Intel Embodied Intelligence Frontier Innovation Center in the park.

As more real-world applications — in areas such as residential services, retail guidance, and smart building security — are introduced, the industrial park is set to become a testing ground and data hub for the next generation of intelligent robotics, further strengthening Hangzhou's ambition to become a leading global center for AI innovation.

An Intel representative learns about a humanoid robot. [Photo/Tide News]

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The Xbox First Look: Metro 2039 broadcast just ended, giving the first glimpse at 4A Games' next major project. The studio brought both a cinematic trailer and a tiny snippet of gameplay for the broadcast, while also delivering a strong message from the Ukrainian development team about the theme of the game.

Landing as the fourth entry to the Metro series of games after Exodus, Metro 2039 will bring in a brand-new protagonist, leaving behind Artyom. The new chapter will let players take control of The Stranger, a fully voiced protagonist that will explore the "darkest chapter in the Metro saga yet" according to the developer.

Taking place in and around the Moscow Metro again, The Stranger will be going up against a fascist dictatorship and its new Fuhrer, Hunter. Check out the new cinematic trailer and gameplay snippet below:

4A Games is using its own custom game engine to power Metro 2039. It said that this has enabled the team to make a "tuned and performant experience" without losing out on visuals.

The Ukrainian studio also shared how the Russian invasion of its country affected the development of Metro 2039. The story has been reworked to reflect the effects of the war being experienced by the development team. The original author of the book series, Dmitry Glukhovsky, is also lending a hand with the plot while being exiled from Russia for criticizing the government.

"The meaning [of our games] has always been about preventing war. But now, war is our reality, and our message has shifted to be about the consequences, the cost of silence, the horrors of tyranny, and the price of freedom," Co-Creative Director and Lead Audio Designer Pawel Ulmer said. "When Russia’s full-scale invasion began, it changed the lives of everyone in the studio – but more so of our team and families in Ukraine. Even today, the majority of our team works from various locations around Ukraine."

Metro 2039 is releasing in the winter of 2026 across PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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Posted Friday 17 April 2026 at 7:38 am AEST (my time).

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Battlefield 6 had an explosive launch last year, even beating behemoths like Call of Duty in sales. Now six months into launch, EA has given an update on what it plans to bring to the shooter in the remainder of 2026. There were a lot of surprises in the announcement, including returning hit maps, massive features that fans have been asking for, and more.

In May, EA plans to release Battlefield 6's third season, which will bring Railway to Golmud, its biggest map yet, and Cairo Bazaar arenas. New weapons and modes are expected to drop during this season too, alongside major battle royale updates like solo drops and ranked play to REDSEC.

Next, Battlefield 6 Season 4 is slated to land in July 2026. This will finally bring naval combat to the game for the first time with the maps Tsuru Reef and the series classic Wake Island. A dynamic wave system, custom lobbies, spectator mode, and more content are planned for this season as well.

The final season of 2026 is planned for the fall, which is set to introduce three new maps that are yet to be revealed, plus a plethora of other additions.

However, that's not all. EA also revealed that it is working on new features independent from the seasonal approach, and this is where the community-requested additions are incoming.

First off, an official server browser is coming to Battlefield 6, bringing "persistent servers to give you even more options to host and play your preferred experiences," according to the development team. Also incoming are leaderboards for global rankings, platoons to bring together larger groups of players, and even proximity chat that will travel across friendly and enemy forces that are nearby.

These features don't have exact release dates just yet, but they should land sometime in 2026 alongside all the new maps, weapons, game modes, and other seasonal content updates.

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Posted Friday 17 April 2026 at 7:37 am AEST (my time).

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Intel today unveiled its new Intel Core Series 3 mobile processors (codenamed Wildcat Lake) for home users seeking value for money, small businesses, and edge deployments, promising improved performance, battery life, and built-in AI capabilities.

Speaking of AI, the announcement is meant to mark Intel’s push to bring “AI-ready” computing to more affordable systems. As such the new lineup is being touted as Intel’s first “hybrid AI-ready” Core Series platform supporting up to 40 platform TOPS for AI tasks. The chips also introduce modern connectivity features including support for up to two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 6.

If you are wondering, the new chips are built on the same 18A or 2nm lithography as the previously released Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (code-named Panther Lake).

Intel is positioning Core Series 3 mobile CPUs as a significant upgrade for users on a typical five-year refresh cycle. Compared to PCs from that era, the company claims up to 47% better single-thread performance and up to 41% higher multi-thread performance, alongside as much as 2.8x improved GPU AI performance. These gains, Intel says, enable “a new class of systems” aimed at everyday productivity and AI-assisted workloads.

In terms of power efficiency, Intel says the chips are designed for all-day battery life, with up to 64% lower processor power consumption compared to previous-gen parts. In productivity and content creation workloads, the company claims up to 2.1x faster performance, along with up to 2.7x AI GPU improvements over Intel Core 7 150U processors.

Beyond traditional PCs, Intel is also targeting edge deployments such as robotics, smart buildings, point-of-sale terminals, and smart metering. The chips are engineered to balance performance and efficiency across these use cases with integrated AI acceleration for tasks like vision and speech processing.

In comparison to competing platforms, Intel says its Core 7 350 processor delivers up to 1.5x higher object detection performance and up to 1.9x faster image classification than the Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano, along with up to 2.2× better video analytics performance.

In terms of availability, mobile systems powered by Core Series 3 processors are set to roll out globally starting today (April 16, 2026), with wider availability expected across consumer and commercial devices in Q2 2026. Intel says these processors are designed to scale across laptops, notebooks, and edge devices, with more than 70 designs from partners set to launch in the coming months.

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Posted Friday 17 April 2026 at 7:36 am AEST (my time).

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A new study out of Drexel University shows just how self-aware the kids have become. In a wide-ranging survey of hundreds of Reddit posts, a team of information scientists found that adolescent users of AI chatbots are increasingly conscious of the negative side effects the tech is having on their lives, even as they sometimes display signs of intense addiction.

According to the study, many teens begin using AI — particularly the infamously addictive Character.AI — for entertainment or personal comfort, but inevitably find themselves overly attached and reliant. Across 318 posts about using Character.AI, the researchers found evidence of all six factors correlated to behavioral addiction: conflicting desires, salience or emotional attachment, withdrawal, tolerance, relapse, and mood modification.

“I hate how much this has affected me, but no matter how much I want to quit or at least take a break, I feel like I can’t because it’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’ll go crazy without it,” reads one of the posts they examined. Another teen wrote that “I want to have my normal brain back, where I can just deal with my emotions on my own and not have to rely on the bots to make me feel better.”

That self-awareness is striking, especially as teens describe how hard it is to stay off Character.AI despite being keenly aware of its harms. “At fifteen, I feel I should be living my life rather than constantly being on this app,” one of the posts surveyed admits. “I struggle with self-control and often find myself reinstalling it shortly after trying to quit.”

Matt Namvarpour, the study’s lead author, said that the uniquely recursive nature of these AI chatbots is one of the key factors that makes them so hard to quit. (While countries like China have begun regulating the kinds of interactions AI chatbots can have with kids and teens, the US, where the study was based, has been deeply resistant to similar measures.)

“What makes this especially tricky is that chatbots are interactive and emotionally responsive, so the experience can feel more like a relationship than a tool,” Namvarpour said. “Because of that, stepping away is not just stopping a habit, it can feel like distancing from something meaningful, which makes overreliance harder to recognize and address.”

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Having had a little taste of Forza Horizon 6 I'm quite literally counting the days until it launches next month. It's one of my favorite franchises of all time, but as we wait for the latest and greatest, why not take a look back at where we began?

That, of course, was the original Forza Horizon, released exclusively on the Xbox 360 in October 2012. That makes it 14 years old in this, the 25th anniversary of Xbox. I have to tell you, it still holds up today.

If you've never played it, or you can't check it out yourself today, this epic retrospective from YouTuber, Baffo. is a must-watch. Hell, it's a must-watch even if you have played it.

This is about as comprehensive a look back at the beginnings of the franchise as you'll find, splicing gameplay with background on how it came to be.

Forza Horizon was born when the then newly formed Playground Games teamed up with Turn 10 to expand the Forza franchise beyond the Motorsport titles that had been produced to that point.

Gavin Raeburn, formerly of Codemasters and responsible for some of my all-time favorite racing games, was at the helm. In a recent interview with Forbes, he recalled how Forza Horizon ultimately came to be.

"So those games that were being delivered every two years, like Forza Motorsport, were now told, right, well, you have to release every year. There’s no way the Forza Motorsport team could do that. So that was the reason they were looking for a second team. That said, at the time, they didn’t quite know what they wanted for that second project. That was down to us to decide and pitch for."

For a game from 2012, how good does it still look today?!

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

The rest, as they say, is history. For many years Forza Horizon was the tok to the Forza Motorsport tik. Yearly releases alternating between the two. That eventually came to an end, with the latter being rebooted and, for now, sidelined.

 

Forza Horizon 6 arrives after the longest wait between entries in the franchise to date. While the original was spun out in a couple of years, we're approaching five since Forza Horizon 5 launched. But the scale is now significantly increased.

 

The first game took us to Colorado in the United States, and while it looks limited in scope compared to the epic, which we're waiting on, the DNA of Forza Horizon has never changed. A sprawling open world, poster-worthy cars, wild races, and a bunch of side-quests to complete.

 

Despite its age, though, it's still such a fun game to play. It looks absolutely stunning, too. Seriously, it's a reminder of how impressive both sides of the Forza franchise have always been with their attention to detail.

 

This is where it all began, and it's still so much fun.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

This is where it all began, and it's still so much fun.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

This is where it all began, and it's still so much fun.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

This is where it all began, and it's still so much fun.

(Image credit: Windows Central)

 

Unfortunately, if you don't already own Forza Horizon, your only way to get a copy now is to find a used disc. It is playable with backwards compatibility on the current Xbox Series consoles, but thanks to the wonderful world of licensing, it's no longer available to purchase digitally.

 

Which is a shame, because there will be a lot of current players who never got to experience it. While the original has been far surpassed now in almost every way, it's important to remember its long-term impact.

 

Every following game built on this formula in some way, but the core experience that makes the franchise so good has prevailed over the years.

 

If you've got your own Forza Horizon memories to share, be they from the original or any other in the franchise, be sure to share them with me in the comments below!

 

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Posted Thursday 16 April 2026 at 9:25 am AEST (my time).

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Just days after launching its Muse Spark AI model, Meta is now partnering with Broadcom to develop custom silicon to ensure it has the compute foundation to deliver on its long-term AI ambitions. The partnership will see the pair develop the next generation of Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) chips.

The social media company said that this custom silicon will be what’s used to help power AI across its apps and services. It recently announced that it is developing and deploying four new generations of MTIA chips within the next two years. This partnership with broadcom will help to accelerate this.

Under the agreement, Broadcom will work with Meta to design the chips, create advanced packaging, and work on networking to help build out a “massive” computing foundation needed to deliver AI to billions of users. The work will be built on Broadcom’s XPU platform and its advanced Ethernet technologies, which will enable high-bandwidth networking across Meta’s expanding AI compute clusters.

Commenting on the deal, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:

“Meta is partnering with Broadcom across chip design, packaging, and networking to build out the massive computing foundation we need to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people. As we roll out more than 1GW of our custom silicon to start and then multiple gigawatts over time, this partnership will give us greater performance and efficiency for everything we’re building.”

As part of this development, Broadcom President and CEO, Hock Tan, will transition off Meta’s Board of Directors and move to an advisor role for the company. There, he will provide guidance on Meta’s custom silicon roadmap.

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Posted Wednesday 15 April 2026 at 4:00 pm AEST (my time).

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For years, "integrated graphics" essentially meant that you could use your laptop for general-purpose things such as making PowerPoint presentations, web browsing, and low frame rates in any game more demanding than Solitaire. But according to a recent leak, it looks like Intel might finally bridge the gap between an entry-level processor and a legit budget gaming PC.

According to hardware leaker Jaykihn, Intel could be quietly developing a highly specialised 16-core Nova Lake-S SKU that is heavily focused on its integrated GPU (iGPU). The chip is rumored to feature a 12 Xe3P cores, which is huge when compared to standard Nova Lake parts that ship with just two Xe3 cores for display output. This 12-core variant is said to feature two VccGT VRM phases, which may be indicative of high-performance as more.

According to the leaker, the CPU architecture, the leaked 16-core chip could be a single-tile configuration featuring four Coyote Cove Performance-cores (P-cores), eight Arctic Wolf Efficiency-cores (E-cores), and four low-power E-cores. This basically translates to 16 threads of computing power.

As previously reported on Neowin, High-end Nova Lake-S flagship models could feature up to 52 cores on the upcoming LGA 1954 socket.

More power into an iGPU doesn't necessarily mean better performance. However, if the base Xe3 architecture is any indicator, Intel might have a massive generational leap on its hands. Recent leaks showed the standard 12-core Xe3 Arc B390 iGPU outperforming AMD's flagship Radeon 890M by a staggering 73% on average. In some workloads, the integrated Xe3 graphics were even trading blows with low-power variants of Nvidia's dedicated GeForce RTX 4050 laptop GPU.

The current best desktop iGP available on AMD Ryzen is the 8000G series.

By taking this 12-core base and enhancing it to the Xe3P (where P stands for performance), and scaling it up for desktop, it could actually rival modern entry-level discrete GPUs.

Leaks also indicate that Intel's Nova Lake-S processors will natively support ultra-fast DDR5-8000 memory. At such speeds, those 12 Xe3P cores will definitely feel faster without having to starve for bandwidth. Secondly, Intel also has bLLC (Big Last Level Cache), which it could use as a massive on-package buffer. It remains to be seen which mid-range SKU will get this cache, though. Both the high-speed memory and the bLLC buffer could potentially eliminate the traditional VRAM bottleneck.

If Intel actually delivers on these leaked specs and prices the chip competitively, it will easily win the hearts of users looking to build a capable 1080p gaming PC without needing to purchase a separate $200–$300 graphics card.

via Tom's Hardware

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Posted Wednesday 15 April 2026 at 7:33 am AEST (my time).

News posts: 2023 5,800+ | 2024 5,700+ | 2025 5,700+ | 2026 (to end of March) 1,297

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Meta is reportedly creating an AI version of its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, that is designed to interact with company employees. The project aims to develop a photorealistic, AI-powered 3D version of Zuckerberg that can hold real-time conversations, with the goal of making employees "feel more connected" to the founder.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the Zuckerberg AI character is a priority inside the company. The character is being trained on the billionaire's mannerisms, tone, voice, pictures, and publicly available statements. Meta will also feed the model its recent thinking on company strategies.

If the reports are accurate, it'll be interesting to see what an AI trained on Zuckerbot's (sorry, Zuckerberg's) personality produces, given the long-running joke that Mark Zuckerberg is a robot or an alien pretending to be human. This reputation was spawned thanks to his unblinking stare and deadpan delivery during the 2018 congressional hearings on the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It also doesn't help that Zuckerberg said this while trying to explain how he handles the pressure of his job during a public Q&A in 2014.

You need to focus and try not to let stuff bother you as much as possible, but it is going to bother you because you're human. I was human. I am human, still. But… I was just referring to myself in the past. Not that I was not human.

Meta has been pouring a lot into AI over the last few years. The tech giant recently shocked Wall Street when it raised its 2026 AI infrastructure budget to up to $135 billion (nearly double its $72.2 billion capex in 2025), with some of it going into massive new AI data centers across the US (including in Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Alabama).

Zuckerberg himself, in 2024 and 2025, went on a massive hiring spree. He personally curated a "secret list" of top engineers from rivals like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Apple. The compensation packages offered to these targets reportedly reached up to a staggering $300 million over four years. Among the successfully poached executives are Apple's top foundation models leader, Ruoming Pang, and his top subordinates, Mark Lee and Tom Gunter, who joined Meta's new Superintelligence Labs.

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Posted Tuesday 14 April 2026 at 5:20 pm AEST (my time).

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Ever since the AI boom began more than a year ago, it's seemed like NVIDIA has had more important priorities than the consumer PC market. That makes sense, considering how much money the company is currently making from its specialized AI GPUs and support systems for datacenters.

This position seems to have shifted, at least if you're on the side of believing a new rumor originating at SemiAccurate. According to SA, NVIDIA is negotiating "a huge purchase that will reshape the PC and server landscape like nothing else has done since the computer was invented."

The SA piece also says that NVIDIA has been working on a potential purchase of "a large PC-oriented company" since at least 2024.

If the rumor is at all true, which it could certainly turn out not to be, we'll likely have concrete proof soon. SemiAccurate states that "the time is approaching to make a deal or walk" for NVIDIA and the PC company it wants to purchase.

Which PC company is NVIDIA rumored to be in talks to acquire?

PC hardware company NZXT and its billing partner, Fragile, have agreed to a $3,450,000 settlement in response to a class-action complaint regarding NZXT’s Flex PC rental program.

NZXT announced Flex in August 2024, saying that it would charge customers $59 to $169 a month to rent an NZXT gaming desktop (as of this writing, Flex prices are $79 to $279 per month. At the time, NZXT said that the PCs would be “new or like new.” Subscribers had the option to receive an upgraded rental PC every two years.

The program was met with criticism. Renting a PC can quickly become more costly than buying one, depending on the rental, and YouTube channel Gamers Nexus claimed in November 2024 that customers received less powerful components than expected and that NZXT advertised the rental PCs with inaccurate benchmark results. There was also concern about what NZXT did with customer data left on returned computers.

By December 2024, NZXT apologized to disgruntled customers and said that it sometimes had to change the specs of its rental PCs in “real-time” due to availability. At the time, CEO Johnny Hou said that the company would address concerns about Flex, and that NZXT is “not in the business of selling your data.” NZXT released a blog post outlining changes to Flex and its advertising, including removing “unclear messaging” from its website and bringing more “clarity” to product names so that customers know that Flex isn’t a rent-to-own program.

Fraud claims

In August 2025, three customers filed a complaint [PDF] seeking class-action certification in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against NZXT and Fragile, which handles payment and debt collection for Flex.

The lawsuit accused the companies of conspiring to “defraud consumers through gross misrepresentations and illegal business practices.” The filing further alleged:

Defendants accomplished their PC rental scheme through a bait-and-switch where Defendants (1) advertised PCs with specific components and attributes but provided consumers with lower quality components PCs and (2) misrepresented the nature of the Program including that there were no contracts, no cancellation fees, that consumers would own the PC, and leading customers to reasonably believe the Program was a rent-to-own agreement. Defendants misleading sales and advertising practices, along with bifurcating sales and marketing against the operation of the rental Program and debt enforcement, allowed Defendants to offload their supply of aging and stagnant inventory at an unlawful premium.

The complaint also cited NZXT’s 2024 blog post that admitted that Flex advertising conducted through “several” social media influencers included statements that “did not accurately reflect the details” of Flex. The complaint included screenshots from influencers, alleging that they advertised Flex as a rent-to-own program.

The complaint also claimed that the plaintiff received a desktop with an RTX 4090 instead of the expected RTX 4080 Super. Further, it alleged that a Fragile representative told a plaintiff that he could buy the PC after renting. This is despite a NZXT representative previously confirming via Reddit that Flex isn’t a rent-to-own program.

Settlement agreement

In lieu of a trial, on April 7, NZXT and Fragile reached a settlement agreement [PDF] for a class of 19,322 customers [PDF], as first spotted by Gamers Nexus. The terms of the agreement are pending approval from a judge.

The agreement would allow some customers to own the PCs that they rented if they meet certain requirements, including having signed up for Flex on or before 2024 and never received an upgraded PC, or if “their accounts are more than 90 days delinquent as of March 30, 2026 and they signed up for the NZXT Flex Program between October 29, 2024, and June 1, 2025.” The value of the PCs that users may keep is “approximately” $1,216,129.02, the agreement says.

The rest of the proposed settlement consists of a $923,117.92 debt forgiveness pool that will provide up to $5,000 to members who are 90 days past due on payments, plus a $1,450,000 settlement cash fund.

Finally, NZXT agreed to change its business practices by trying to “prohibit social media influencer advertisement campaigns from making statements that customers have an ownership interest in NZXT Flex PCs,” using different brand names for its rental PCs and PCs that can be owned (something that NZXT has done since December 2024).

The PC company also committed to providing “accurate specifications and performance statistics” for its rental PCs and requiring customers to confirm that they know Flex isn’t a rent-to-own program before subscribing.

Finally, NZXT will update Flex’s website to “prominently” inform customers that they can use software to transfer their data from one rental PC to another rental PC for free.

NZXT agreed to maintain these practices until December 31, 2027.

Ars Technica reached out to NZXT for comment, but did not hear back before publication. We’ll update the story if we receive a response.

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Posted Tuesday 14 April 2026 at 8:15 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft has raised prices across the board on its Surface PCs at the Microsoft Store, with other retailers expected to follow soon. Both its midrange and flagship Surface lines are now significantly more expensive than they were just a few weeks ago, with the flagship Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 now starting at $500 more than they launched at in 2024.

These price increases are significant, and come as RAM supply constraints impact the industry. Sources tell me that Microsoft's price increases are driven by recent spikes in RAM and component costs, but that doesn't make them any less tough to swallow.

The Surface Pro 12-inch, which was previously Microsoft's cheapest modern Surface PC at $799, now starts at $1,049. The flagship Surface Pro 13-inch, which originally launched for $999, now starts at an eyewatering $1,499.

It's the same story for the Surface Laptop lines, with the entry-level 13-inch model originally priced at $899, now starting at $1,149. The 13.8-inch flagship Surface Laptop launched at $999, but now costs $1,499, with the 15-inch model now starting at $1,599.

Forza Horizon 6 is right around the corner, releasing May 19, 2026, just a few days away. The game has already received glowing early impressions from those who previewed it, including from my colleague Richard Devine here at Windows Central.

Now, we also have a full look at the game’s 57 total achievements, which add up to the standard 1000 Gamerscore. The list appeared early via a webpage that has gone live on Forza’s official website.