From laser cutters to 3D printers, having an exhaust duct at the back of a machine is a very common sight. However, these tend to be rather bulky, claiming many centimeters of precious space behind a machine even if you’d want to push it right up against a wall. This issue annoyed [TheNeedleStacker] over on YouTube so much that he had a poke at solving this problem with angled exhaust ducts, all hopefully without impairing its basic function.
Smoke machine and laser for some air ducting rave vibes.
Although there are some online offerings for angled exhaust port extenders, these do not quite fit the required 6″ diameter. Reducing the problem to just a matter of cross section area for simplicity’s sake, that means a 19″ wide duct at a depth of 1.5″. Making sure the transition from the tube to the flat duct doesn’t become an impediment is the tricky part, so the approach here was to mostly ignore it and just make a functional prototype to get an idea of how a direct approach worked.
Installing the contraption worked out fine, and subsequent testing showed that although it seems to slightly reduce the effective airflow compared to the flex tubing, it is absolutely rad to look at with the transparent cover and some laser light to illuminate all that’s happening inside.
While some optimization work on the duct transitions can undoubtedly eke out more performance, it’s certainly not bad for a quick project.
GoPro unveiled its MISSION 1 series today, a trio of compact cinema cameras designed to tackle both extreme action and demanding film work in a single robust chassis. The lineup includes the regular MISSION 1, MISSION 1 PRO, and MISSION 1 PRO ILS, all of which share the same cutting-edge 50-megapixel one-inch sensor, as well as a new GP3 CPU that pushes resolution, performance, and battery life further than anything GoPro has done before.
Each of the three models uses the same core components to give excellent low-light performance and up to 14 stops of dynamic range right out of the box. Individual pixels measure 1.6 micrometers at maximum resolution and combine to generate effective pixels of 3.2 micrometers while shooting 4K film, capturing substantially more light than rival action cameras’ small sensors. The GP3 chip handles the heavy lifting with power efficiency, preventing the cameras from overheating even while filming long, high-resolution clips, and allowing them to function for hours on a single battery charge.
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The video options are quite impressive, especially since the MISSION 1 PRO and MISSION 1 PRO ILS can record 8K at 60 frames per second in the regular 16:9 aspect, 4K at 240 frames per second, and 1080p at 960 frames per second for silky-smooth slow-motion views. Both models feature open-gate 4:3 recording at 8K30 and 4K120 resolutions, providing filmmakers greater options when cropping later. The MISSION 1 base model steps things back a bit to 8K at 30 frames per second, 4K at 120 frames per second, and 1080p at 240 frames per second, but retains the 4K120 open-gate option. Every model can shoot 50-megapixel RAW photographs at up to 60 frames per second in bursts, and all can capture 10-bit color in either a GP-Log2 profile for grading or HLG HDR for extremely bright highlights.
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Battery life has just become a whole lot better, with the upgraded Enduro 2 cell easily lasting over 5 hours at 1080p30 and more than three hours at 4k30 on any of the models – and charging faster than previous generations. Even at the highest settings, such as 8K60 on the PRO models, the cameras will gladly run for more than an hour as long as there is enough airflow due to the better thermal design. Storage remains simple with a microSD card, and the bodies are still waterproof down to a generous 20 meters without the need for an additional case.
The physical changes make daily use easier, since each camera now has a larger OLED screen on the rear and a front display for quick checks. The buttons are higher up, making them easier to press with gloves on, and the overall construction feels sturdy enough to survive rigorous use. Stabilization is implemented via the popular HyperSmooth method, which has been tuned to work well with larger sensor data sets. Audio has also advanced significantly, with four microphones on board capable of recording crisp 32-bit float sound, wind suppression, and compatibility for wireless mics or USB-C connected choices.
The Mission 1 Pro ILS includes a Micro Four Thirds lens mount, allowing you to use any prime lens while still benefiting from the camera’s full-fat HyperSmooth stabilisation. This gives up a world of possibilities for telephoto shooting, macro work, and custom glass, all without sacrificing the compact size or sturdy build quality that we’ve come to expect from GoPro. Meanwhile, the other two models include a fixed wide-angle lens with a 159-degree field of view and a retractable hood to reduce glare.
Mounting-wise, GoPro sticks with what we know and love, with built-in fingers and a magnetic latch that fits perfectly into their usual range of grips, cages, and housings. If you want to get a little more fancy, there’s a new point-and-shoot grip that includes cold-shoe mounts and a standard thread for easy setup. If you need even more flexibility, the extra media mods provide more input options.
GoPro plans to launch pre-orders for the Mission 1 and Mission 1 Pro on May 21, with the first units entering stores on May 28. The Mission 1 Pro ILS will be released later in the third quarter, but don’t worry, we’ll know precisely how much it will cost once the specifics are finalized. For the time being, the company is pitching the entire line as a more inexpensive option to get your hands on some significant tiny cinema equipment. [Source]
Anthropic announced a new platform last week, Claude Managed Agents, aiming to cut out the more complex parts of AI agent deployment for enterprises and competes with existing orchestration frameworks.
Claude Managed Agents is also an architectural shift: enterprises, already burdened with orchestrating an increasing number of agents, can now choose to embed the orchestration logic in the AI model layer.
While this comes with some potential advantages, such as speed (Anthropic proposes its customers can deploy agents in days instead of weeks or months), it also, of course, then also turns more control over the enterprise’s AI agent deployments and operations to the model provider — in this case, Anthropic — potentially resulting in greater “lock in” for the enterprise customer, leaving them more subject to Anthropic’s terms, conditions, and any subsequent platform changes.
But maybe that is worth it for your enterprise, as Anthropic further claims that its platform “handles the complexity” by letting users define agent tasks, tools and guardrails with a built-in orchestration harness, all without the need for sandboxing code execution, checkpointing, credential management, scoped permissions and end-to-end tracing.
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The framework manages state, execution graphs and routing and brings managed agents to a vendor-controlled runtime loop.
Even before the release of Claude Managed Agents, new directional VentureBeat research showed that Anthropic was gaining traction at the orchestration level as enterprises adopted its native tooling. Claude Managed Agents represents a new attempt by the firm to widen its footprint as the orchestration method of choice for organizations.
Anthropic is surging in orchestration interest
Orchestration has emerged as an important segment for enterprises to address as they scale AI systems and deploy agentic workflows.
VentureBeat directional research of several dozen firms for the first quarter of 2026 found that enterprises mostly chose existing frameworks, such as Microsoft’s Copilot Studio/Azure AI Studio, with 38.6% of respondents in February reporting using Microsoft’s platform. VentureBeat surveyed 56 organizations with more than 100 employees in January and 70 in February.
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OpenAI closely followed at 25.7%. Both showed strong growth between the first two months of the year.
Anthropic, driven by increased interest in its offerings, such as Claude Code, over the past year, is putting up a fight.
Adoption of the Anthropic tool-use and workflows API increased from 0% to 5.7% between January and February. This tracks closely with the growing adoption of Anthropic’s foundation models, showing that enterprises using Claude turn to the company’s native orchestration tooling instead of adding a third-party framework.
While VentureBeat surveyed before the launch of Claude Managed Agents, we can extrapolate that the new tool will build on that growth, especially if it promises a more straightforward way to deploy agents.
Collapsing the external orchestration layer
Enterprises may find that a streamlined, internal harness for agents compelling, but it does mean giving up certain controls.
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Session data is stored in a database managed by Anthropic, increasing the risk that enterprises become locked into a system run by a single company. This may be less desirable for some firms and compete with their desires to move away from the locked-in software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications in the current stacks, which many hope that AI will facilitate.
The specter of vendor lock-in means agent execution becomes more model-driven rather than direct by the organization, happens in an environment enterprises don’t fully control, and behavior becomes harder to guarantee.
It also opens the possibility of giving agents conflicting instructions, especially if the only way for users to exert any control over agents is to prompt them with more context.
Agents could have two control planes: one defined by the enterprises’ orchestration system through instructions and the other as an embedded skill from the Claude runtime.
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This could pose an issue for highly sensitive and regulated workflows, such as financial analysis or customer-facing tasks.
Pricing, control and competitive set
Balancing control with ease is one thing; enterprises also consider the cost structure of Claude Managed Agents.
Claude Managed Agents introduces a hybrid pricing model that blends token-based billing with a usage-based runtime fee.
This makes Managed Agets more dynamic, though less predictable, when determining cost structures. Enterprises will be charged a standard rate of $0.08 per hour when agents are actively running.
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For example, at $0.70 per hour, a one-hour session could cost up to $37 to process 10,000 support tickets, depending on how long each agent runs and how many steps it takes to complete a task.
Microsoft, currently the leader according to VentureBeat’s directional survey, offers several orchestration offerings. Copilot Studio uses a capacity-based billing structure, so enterprises pay for blocks of interactions between users and agents rather than the number of steps an agent takes.
Microsoft’s approach tends to be more predictable than Anthropic’s pricing plan: Copilot Studio starts at $200 per month for 25,000 messages.
Compared to similar competitors like OpenAI’s Agents SDK, the picture becomes murky. Agents SDK is technically free to use as an open-source project. However, OpenAI bills for the underlying API usage. Agents built and orchestration with Agents SDK using GPT-5.4, for example, will cost $2.50 per 1 million input tokens and $15 per 1 million output tokens.
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The enterprise decision
Claude Managed Agents does give enterprises who find the actual deployment of production agents too complicated a reprieve. It reduces their engineering overhead while adding speed and simplicity in a fast-changing enterprise environment.
But that comes with a choice: lose control, observability and portability and risk further vendor lock-in.
Anthropic just made a case for why its ecosystem is becoming not just the foundation model of choice for enterprises, but also the orchestration infrastructure. It becomes more imperative for enterprises to balance ease with lesser control.
Digital sovereignty is on everyone’s lips amid heightened geopolitical tensions and national security concerns. For Europe, this includes regulatory and security tension with the United States, as well as reducing reliance on China and fear of cybersecurity attacks from Russia.
As such, European policymakers are doubling down on the importance of tech sovereignty, with Gartner predicting more than 75% of all enterprises outside of the US will have a digital sovereignty strategy by 2030.
In theory this makes sense but, in reality, is true digital sovereignty a realistic prospect? European boardrooms are powered by US Big Tech and uncoupling from the claws of Microsoft and AWS is harder than it might seem.
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Article continues below
Michelle Brophy
Director of Research, Tech, Media & Telecom at AlphaSense.
Recent analysis has found the corporate reality for tech independence to look quite different. After examining two years of European boardroom transcripts in AlphaSense, we tracked how often senior leaders referenced major technology providers to test whether growing geopolitical tensions is shifting how companies think about their reliance on US tech.
Across the period analyzed, Microsoft was referenced over 19,000 times in European boardrooms, far more than any other company and well ahead of both AWS (5,953) and leading European players such as SAP (11,932) and Siemens (11,534).
The gap underscores how deeply embedded US platforms remain in day-to-day European business operations, despite louder political calls to diversify.
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Why digital sovereignty has suddenly turned into a business priority
With the rise of agentic AI alongside ongoing geopolitical volatility, sovereignty has quickly evolved from a political buzzword to a necessity for businesses. Control over core technologies is now viewed as essential for long-term competitiveness and isn’t just about where data is geographically housed.
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Recent volatility has seen geopolitical tensions peak and the AI arms race supercharge technological competition to an all-time high. The combination of these two catalysts has alarmed the increasingly fragmented world we live in.
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Business leaders and policymakers are seeing digital sovereignty as the means to mitigate geopolitical risks, avoid the over-concentration of a few big vendors and ensure that AI driven transformations remain under an organization or nation’s direct authority. Sovereignty is seen as an architectural requirement for AI and enterprise decision making, particularly in Europe, with a laser focus on trust and transparency.
Unsurprisingly, economic competition is also a key driver, with access to advanced AI and cloud solutions estimated to drive €1.2 trillion in GDP growth for the EU over the next decade. However, this could all collapse by two-thirds if industries are restricted by a lack of sovereign, high performance infrastructure.
As a result, 52% of organizations plan to invest in sovereign cloud and 42% in sovereign AI within the next two years, mainly for those in the aerospace, defense, banking, and insurance sectors.
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The difficulties of implementation
But implementation isn’t straightforward. US Big Tech is embedded in the backbone of most companies and sovereign digital tools come at a price. Rigorous compliance adds cost and complexity, “buy-local” rules are depriving innovators of world-class platforms and local players have struggled to compete with a handful of the Big Tech leaders.
To achieve this, Europe would need to begin building its own digital stack, something we are starting to see with the introduction of the European Chips Act, set to double Europe’s share of global semiconductor production and secure supply chains for critical hardware. Similarly, the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act has the aim of boosting data center capacity and creating a secure, competitive European ecosystem for scaling AI.
There is still a long way to go, with local providers’ combined share fell from 29% to 15% between 2017 and 2024 whereas three US-based hyperscalers now account for about 70% of demand. There is a similar trend in AI tools, where the largest investments are concentrated in a few, very large data centers owned by a handful of corporations headquartered in the United States or China.
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Intent is one thing, but the practicality for European businesses to break away from US tech, without compromising on competitiveness, is quite another. By developing the EURO-3C project, a €75 million federated network of over 70 edge and cloud nodes across 13 countries, Europe could prove out alternative infrastructure capabilities.
A more pragmatic path to sovereignty
With calls for digital sovereignty becoming more urgent, the debate must move beyond absolutism. Total decoupling from US hyperscalers is neither realistic nor economically rational. The data shows that Europe’s dependency is structural, which means untangling would take years, not months, with huge amounts of investment needed, assuming they are capable of building alternatives.
Sovereignty does not have to mean total isolation. Instead, layered sovereignty offers a more viable approach. This means retaining access to global platforms that deliver competitive advantage while building strategic control over the most sensitive layers of the stack, like data governance, AI model oversight and critical infrastructure.
The Kardia 12L, which uses five electrodes and a single cable to replace bulky 10-lead ECG carts, has received CE Mark. It launches first in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, with its AI system detecting 35 cardiac conditions including acute myocardial infarction.
AliveCor, the US medtech company specialising in AI-powered cardiac diagnostics, has received CE Mark for its Kardia 12L ECG system, enabling it to launch in Europe.
The device, described by the company as the world’s first AI-powered, portable 12-lead ECG with a unique single-cabledesign,will be available first to healthcare professionals in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, with additional European countries to follow. CE Mark allows distribution across the entire European Economic Area.
The Kardia 12L replaces the conventional 10-electrode ECG cart with a five-electrode, single-cable system weighing just 0.13 kg. Its AI engine, KAI 12L, detects 35 cardiac determinations in the CE-marked version, including 14 arrhythmias and 21 morphologies, among them acute myocardial infarction and the most common types of cardiac ischaemia.
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The device is battery-operated and pocket-sized, designed for use in primary care, urgent care, pharmacies, rural clinics, and home visits by healthcare professionals, environments where traditional ECG carts are impractical due to size and setup complexity.
Its five-electrode setup also means patients do not need to fully disrobe during a reading. A peer-reviewed study published in Heart Rhythm O2 found a nearly 30% reduction in ECG acquisition time compared to standard 12-lead setups.
Since its FDA clearance and US commercial launch in June 2024, Kardia 12L has been adopted across the US and subsequently expanded to India, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Canada.
The system has been used on tens of thousands of patients globally and has identified more than 4,000 instances of myocardial infarction and ischaemia, a figure AliveCor cites to demonstrate clinical utility at scale.
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KAI 12L, the underlying AI, was trained and validated on more than 1.75 million ECGs from leading US medical centres. In January 2026, the FDA cleared an expanded version of KAI 12L detecting 39 cardiac determinations; the CE-marked version launches with 35, with the specific determination set varying by geography as regulatory approvals are obtained.
The European launch arrives as the EU Cardiovascular Health Plan reinforces the bloc’s commitment to early detection and improved access to care for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of mortality across Europe.
Simona Esposito, AliveCor’s Senior Vice President of Sales for Global Markets, described the CE Mark as “a defining moment” in the company’s global strategy, noting that the device was specifically designed for settings where traditional ECG carts are impractical.
AliveCor is a privately held company headquartered in Mountain View, California; it has recorded more than 350 million ECGs through its Kardia devicerange.
Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.
If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: September is sapphire.
Clue words to unlock in-game hints
Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:
POST, POET, POETS, TONED, NAPE, STONE, STONED, TONE
Answers for today’s Strands puzzle
These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:
OPAL, TOPAZ, TURQUOISE, DIAMOND, GARNET, PERIDOT
Today’s Strands spangram
The completed NYT Strands puzzle for April 15, 2026.
NYT/Screenshot by CNET
Today’s Strands spangram is BIRTHSTONE. To find it, start with the B that’s four letters down on the far-left row, and wind over and down.
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Toughest Strands puzzles
Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest.
#1: Dated slang. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.
#2: Thar she blows! I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.
#3: Off the hook. Again, it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.
Elliot Coll found a very beat-up Playstation on eBay, one that appeared to be on its final legs, filthy and damaged, with a slew of previous owners’ patch jobs tossed in. Despite this, the SCPH-5502, which is widely regarded as one of the best upgrade pathways, appeared to be a good location to begin constructing what he refers to as “the ultimate” version of this console.
First up was the outer casing, which had been neglected for years and had a thick layer of filth covering every inch. He took out the dish soap and a brush and washed the plastic until it was shiny again. Then he shipped the case (which cost some money) to a man named Rob at RAW TALENT ART, who specializes in taking things and making them seem better. Rob applied a fresh layer of deep blue paint on the case, a hue inspired by Sony’s early development kits used before the console even left the factory. The end effect is a clean and practical design that isn’t overly showy.
PlayStation 5 Console – 1TB, includes wireless controller, 1TBSSD, Disc Drive, 2 Horizontal Stand Feet, HDMI cable, AC power cord, USB cable, printed…
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The console was now a hot mess, as the previous owners had messed with it, particularly with region switching and burnt game support. If you looked closely at the motherboard, you could see cuts where they had started tampering with cables, and one of the crystal oscillators was actually misaligned, resulting in black and white screens on a PAL television. Coll went in with a scalpel (not literally) and meticulously removed all of the excess wires. He then scrubbed the copper paths and reattached the breaks until the board looked as if it had just left Sony’s factory. After locating and removing one stray repair wire, he performed a test show to validate adequate color output.
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The next task was to upgrade the storage by soldering in a PicoStation ZeroWire board based on a Raspberry Pi Pico chip. All of this made use of existing motherboard holes and a single short jumper wire for good measure. Once the board was installed, games now load directly from an SD card rather than the old disc drive, and things continue to play well across the library, with loading times feeling rather speedy.
The addition of an HDMI mod board, which required careful dismantling of the shielding and removal of the original serial port connector, resulted in the biggest improvement in video output (albeit much of that work was done inside the cardboard packaging of the AliExpress order). He connected the two using a couple of cords, one for video and one for audio. The result is crisp 1080p on current TVs, which is significantly sharper than the old composite or 720p converter he had previously tried. The jagged edges have even smoothed out little, but the games still appear right at home.
Coll’s bold move to replace the original port board with a Re-Live BT board from TecnoBit Videojuegos resulted in full wireless controller capability. He assumed he could use the old ribbon connector and a small diode, then solder the new board in place. Put in a tiny speaker to obtain that familiar starter chime, but this time with a fresh new sound that isn’t too bad. With a simple tap of the touch-sensitive surface or a paired Bluetooth controller, the console is online. Yes, memory cards function very well with the wireless setup, and all of the popular pads, such as the DualSense from the PS5, connect without the need for any adapters.
Coll eliminated the old AC transformer board completely, making power delivery much easier. A small little USB-C board from Robot Retro has taken its place. All you need to keep the console operating is a regular phone charger. The entire system receives electricity neatly via a single contemporary wire. Games on the SD card boot up quickly, look well on HDMI, and respond quickly to wireless input. Let’s not forget that the blue shell gives the console a completely new identity, but the hardware inside accomplishes all the original could and more. [Source]
Microsoft has released Windows 11 KB5083769 and KB5082052 cumulative updates for versions 25H2/24H2 and 23H2 to fix security vulnerabilities, bugs, and add new features.
Today’s updates are mandatory as they contain the April 2026 Patch Tuesday security patches for vulnerabilities discovered in previous months.
April 2026 Update downloading automatically
You can install today’s update by going to Start > Settings > Windows Update and clicking on ‘Check for Updates.’
This is the fourth ‘Patch Tuesday’ release in 2026, and it’s based on 24H2, which means 25H2 gets the same update. There are no exclusive or special changes. You’ll get the same fixes across the two versions of Windows 11.
What’s new in the April 2026 Patch Tuesday update
After installing today’s security updates, Windows 11 25H2 (KB5083769) will have its build number changed to 26200.8246 25H2 and 26100.8246 (24H2), and 23H2 (KB5082052) will be changed to 22631.6936.
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After the update, Smart App Control can now be modified without installing a fresh copy of Windows 11.
In addition, Microsoft has patched issues with sfc /scannow where it fails to correctly report the error message.
Here’s the full list of fixes and improvements:
[Narrator] New!1 Narrator provides rich image descriptions on Copilot+ PCs and now works with Copilot on all Windows 11 devices. Press Narrator key + Ctrl + D to describe the focused image or Narrator key + Ctrl + S to describe the full screen. Copilot opens with the image ready, allowing you to enter a prompt for a customized description. The image is shared only after you choose to describe it. On Copilot+ PCs, Narrator gives instant, on‑device descriptions, and you can select Ask Copilot for more detail.
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[Smart App Control]New! You can turn Smart App Control (SAC) on or off without needing a clean install. To make changes, go to Settings > Windows Security > App & Browser Control > Smart App Control settings. When turned on, SAC helps block untrusted or potentially harmful apps. To learn more, see App & Browser Control in the Windows Security App. This feature was previously disclosed in January 2026 (KB5074105) and is now beginning to roll out.
[Account Settings]
New!Microsoft 365 Family subscribers can upgrade to a different Microsoft 365 plan from Settings > Accounts. To remove the upgrade option, turn off Suggested content in Settings.
New!This update improves the design of the dialog boxes in Settings > Accounts > Other users to match the modern Windows look and support dark mode. The visibility of the dialog box option depends on whether the device has a domain joined work or school account.
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[Input]New! The Pen settings page includes refinements to the pen tail button options. The new “Same as Copilot key” option enables the pen tail button to open the same app as the Copilot key.
[Settings]
New!The Settings About page (Settings > About) has been improved to provide a more structured and intuitive experience, offering clearer device specifications and easier navigation to related device components, including quick access to Storage settings.
New!2 The device information card on the Settings Home page simplifies key device specifications and improves consistency across the end-to-end flow from the Home Card to the Settings > System > About page, making information easier to scan and understand.
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This update improves the reliability and performance of opening the Home in Settings.
This update improves the reliability of downloading required updates when you’re prompted in Settings > System > Advanced.
[File Explorer] This update improves the File Explorer experience.
You can more reliability unblock files downloaded from the internet in order to preview them in File Explorer.
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You can use Voice Typing (Windows logo key + H) when renaming a file in File Explorer.
You can now sort the permissions entries in the Advanced Security Settings window for a folder in File Explorer by Principal.
[Display] This update includes Display reliability improvements.
Monitors can now report refresh rates higher than 1000 Hz.
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When you use a native USB4 monitor connection, the USB controller can now enter its lowest power level while the PC is sleeping, which helps save battery life.
Auto rotation reliability has improved after resuming from sleep.
HDR reliability has improved for displays with non-compliant DisplayID 2.0 blocks.
Monitors with DisplayID now report a more accurate size when the WMI monitor APIs are used.
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[Printing] Updated downlevel baseline support for printer connections to be Windows 10, version 1607 and Windows Server 2016 (Build 14393).
[Safe mode] This update improves the reliability of loading taskbar components in safe mode.
[Voice Access] This update improves how numbers are detected and written when using Voice Access in English.
[Start menu] This update improves the reliability of applying the Start menu layout through Group Policy when desktopAppLink is present in the JSON.
[Audio] This update improves how short MIDI messages are handled in cases where an application is initialized without providing long message buffers.
[System File Checker] This update removes an extraneous error message you might unexpectedly see when running sfc /scannow.
Microsoft is not aware of any new issues with this month’s Patch Tuesday, and it’s largely because it’s not a massive release as compared to previous patch releases.
At the same time, it’s possible that the update does not have known issues because Microsoft has committed to a stable and reliable Windows experience.
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Microsoft has confirmed it’s working on a big Windows 11 2026 quality update that restores the movable taskbar and will significantly improve the performance of modern interfaces, including the right-click menu.
Microsoft also has plans to limit Copilot integration in Windows 11, reduce ads, and make the out-of-the-box experience faster with skippable Windows Updates.
Automated pentesting proves the path exists. BAS proves whether your controls stop it. Most teams run one without the other.
This whitepaper maps six validation surfaces, shows where coverage ends, and provides practitioners with three diagnostic questions for any tool evaluation.
Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro could end up being one of its most effective weapons next year. Though it’s not because it will be cheap, but because the competition may be getting even more expensive.
According to a Korean leaker, Apple is facing higher memory costs for the iPhone 18 series, especially on the Pro models, due to rising DRAM and NAND prices as suppliers prioritize AI server demand. Even Apple’s next chip is rumored to cost more than the generation before.
iPhone 17 Pro in Black / MacRumorsMacRumors / MacRumors
What is Apple doing?
The more interesting part of the leak is not that costs are rising. It is that Apple reportedly wants to absorb as much of that pressure as possible, rather than immediately passing it on to buyers. The company is apparently trying to keep the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro pricing in line with the current generation, even as Android phones across segments are getting more expensive. Known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also believes that Apple is looking to avoid raising iPhone 18 prices “as much as possible” to preserve competitiveness.
If that holds true, Apple would not need to undercut rivals to make life difficult for them. It would just need to stay relatively stable while competing flagship brands keep pushing prices upward.
MacRumors / MacRumors
Why that could squeeze Android rivals
Android makers often have less room than Apple to absorb component inflation, and some reports have already framed rising memory costs as a broader industry problem. If Apple can use its scale and supply-chain leverage to keep the iPhone 18 Pro close to current pricing while rivals move higher, the value conversation changes fast, especially in the premium segment, where buyers already stretch their budgets.
Apple does not need the iPhone 18 Pro to be a bargain. It just needs it to look disciplined while everyone else starts to look expensive.
Education company McGraw-Hill has confirmed in a statement to BleepingComputer that hackers exploited a Salesforce misconfiguration and accessed its internal data.
The company assured that the breach did not affect its Salesforce accounts, customer databases, or internal systems, and that the amount of exposed data is limited and non-sensitive.
“McGraw-Hill recently identified unauthorized access to a limited set of data from a webpage hosted by Salesforce on its platform. This activity appears to be part of a broader issue involving a misconfiguration within Salesforce’s environment that has impacted multiple organizations that work with Salesforce,” a McGraw-Hill spokesperson told BleepingComputer.
“Importantly, this did not involve unauthorized access to McGraw-Hill’s Salesforce accounts, customer databases, courseware, or internal systems,” the company representative added.
McGraw-Hill further states that its investigation, with help from external cybersecurity experts, revealed that the exposed information does not contain Social Security numbers (SSNs), financial account information, or student data from its educational platforms.
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A global education company focused on learning content and platforms, McGraw-Hill offers textbooks, digital learning platforms, and K-12 school and university systems. The company is a major player in education publishing, with an annual revenue of $2.2 billion.
The statement about the cyberattack comes in response to the extortion group ShinyHunters announcing McGraw-Hill as a victim on its dark-web portal and threatening to leak stolen data by April 14 unless a ransom is paid.
The notorious threat actor claims to hold 45 million Salesforce records containing personally identifiable information (PII), contradicting the company’s statement that the compromised data is not sensitive in nature.
McGraw-Hill on ShinyHunters’ extortion portal Source: BleepingComputer
McGraw-Hill also told BleepingComputer that the affected webpages were secured immediately after detecting the unauthorized activity, and that it is working closely with Salesforce to further strengthen protections and ensure that the issue is fully addressed.
In March, the threat group also breached the American firm Infinite Campus, which also operates a K-12 student information system.
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Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson is directing $500,000 from a state economic development fund to support the expansion of IonQ’s manufacturing facility for quantum computing hardware in Bothell, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
Leaders of the Pacific Northwest’s computing community gathered in downtown Seattle today to mark World Quantum Day — and Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson gave them one more reason to celebrate. Or rather, 500,000 reasons.
Ferguson took the occasion to announce that $500,000 would be directed from the Governor’s Economic Development Strategic Reserve Fund to support the expansion of IonQ’s quantum computer manufacturing facility in Bothell, Wash. The 100,000-square-foot factory opened in 2024 and is ramping up production.
Over the next 18 months, Maryland-based IonQ plans to add about 100 engineering positions in Bothell, paying an average salary of $177,000. Over the next five years, the expansion is projected to generate between 1,200 and 2,000 regional jobs.
The Strategic Reserve Fund makes use of unclaimed lottery prize money for investments that deliver significant job creation and capital investment in Washington state. The newly announced award will go to the Economic Alliance of Snohomish County for building upgrades, workforce expenses and other expansion costs.
The state’s funding is coming on top of more than $14 million in private investment. “Quantum is the future, and it’s being built here,” Ferguson said in a news release.
April 14 is marked worldwide as World Quantum Day for a thoroughly geeky reason: The date (4/14) commemorates one of the foundational numbers of quantum mechanics, Planck’s constant (4.14 X 10-15 eV ⋅ s).
Quantum computing systems don’t follow the binary rules of classical computing. Instead, they leverage the properties of subatomic particles to process multiple values simultaneously. Quantum-based algorithms hold the promise of solving some types of problems that would be impractical or impossible to solve using classical computers.
The promise hasn’t yet come to full fruition — but Washington’s lieutenant governor, Denny Heck, set a bullish tone as today’s keynote speaker. “Quantum computing is inarguably going to be one of the most impactful scientific and technical breakthroughs in all recorded history, and frankly, in the parlance of contemporary discussion, it will dwarf AI,” he said.
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Heck predicted that quantum computing would give rise to “fulsome commercial applications” in the next five or 10 years. “You know we’re not there yet,” he told the audience, “but you also should know that it is no longer a question of if. It is indeed a question of when.”
How AI is fostering a quantum leap
Several speakers said the rapidly advancing revolution in artificial intelligence is accelerating the quantum revolution as well.
“Quantum plays a very interesting synergistic role with AI,” said Nathan Baker, who leads an engineering team focused on quantum application development at Microsoft. “For a while, quantum is going to be a scarce and relatively low-throughput computational resource. It’ll be solving problems we can’t solve today, so it’ll be a whole new resource. But the best way to get mileage out of this … is to scale quantum up by partnering with AI.”
Krysta Svore, Nvidia’s vice president of applied research for quantum computing, said AI could help developers address challenges that have slowed progress in the field.
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“AI will help with quantum error correction in particular, providing a way to perform the inference that’s needed to keep the quantum computer stable and essentially alive for longer periods of time,” Svore said.
Svore also noted that the general public shouldn’t expect to buy a quantum computer for their desktop. “When you look at what’s required to operate a quantum computer, most of us don’t necessarily have a cryogenic environment in our house,” she said. “Realistically, you’re going to access this type of compute just like you’re accessing AI supercomputers, through the cloud. Most of us don’t have an AI supercomputer in our backyard either, yet all of us are using LLMs, whether you’re using ChatGPT or Copilot or Gemini.”
Those potential perils and payoffs have captured the attention of policymakers. Back in 2018, the National Quantum Initiative Act authorized $1.2 billion over a five-year period to boost investment in quantum information science. More recently, the White House paired quantum technologies with AI in an initiative called the Genesis Mission.
What’s next for the quantum realm?
In honor of World Quantum Day, legislation known as the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act was approved unanimously today by the Senate Commerce Committee.
“From scientific breakthroughs in health care to clean energy solutions, quantum technology is a game-changer, and federal investment is vital to accelerating the transition from basic science to quantum innovation and practical applications,” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., one of the bill’s lead sponsors, said in a news release. “The state of Washington, with its vibrant tech industry, national lab partnerships and a growing pipeline of quantum engineers, is poised to become ‘Quantum Valley.’ “
On that point, Heck was less bullish than Cantwell. “Here’s the question: Are we really moving as fast as we could in our region?” he asked. “Are our investments, and is our coordination, coming anywhere near matching the sheer magnitude of the opportunity that exists? And if we’re being honest with one another — no, it’s not.”
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Heck and the other speakers at Northwest Quantum Day said more needed to be done to support education and workforce development, foster innovative computing ventures and strengthen the Pacific Northwest’s tech ecosystem.
“Having that local environment, a rich environment with talent, is important,” Baker said. “And it’s not just physicists, right? The quantum pipeline, especially if you’re aiming for quantum computing to be a commercial product … needs expertise across all areas, from ‘go to market’ down to the people engineering the hardware.”
Michael Brett, who leads go-to-market strategy for quantum technologies at Amazon Web Services, even had an idea for the marketing campaign. “I think our license plate should say, ‘The Quantum State,’ ” he said. Was the suggestion serious? Was it a joke? In the spirit of World Quantum Day, maybe it was both.
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