Category: Hardware

Last week, reports circulated online that Microsoft had allegedly canceled the next generation of Xbox consoles. However, Microsoft has come out to deny these rumors, at least for now.

At the recent Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm unveiled a new generation of ARM processors for laptops and PCs. The Snapdragon X2 series currently includes two chips: the Snapdragon X2 Elite and the flagship Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme. Their performance is expected to be sufficient to compete with current Apple solutions.

Qualcomm has officially introduced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, its newest flagship system-on-chip (SoC) designed for upcoming Android smartphones. The company revealed the chip’s name in a recent blog post.

Microsoft has concluded that the August 2025 Windows security update KB5063878 does not cause reported incidents of solid-state drive (SSD) and hard disk drive (HDD) failures. The update, part of the Windows 11 24H2 release, became available earlier in August. Reports of drive disconnections and data corruption emerged in the second half of the month.

Microsoft has integrated its Copilot artificial intelligence into Samsung's 2025 television and smart monitor series. The feature is now available across select Samsung TVs and monitors, offering users an interactive way to access content recommendations, weather updates, and general inquiries without spoilers.

Microsoft and ASUS will release the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X portable gaming consoles on October 16, 2025. The devices will launch in multiple countries, though official pricing and pre-order information are not yet available.

Users of the Microsoft Surface Pro 11 have reported a significant reduction in battery endurance, with some devices now achieving only half their expected runtime. The issue raises from the disappearance of the Battery Limit setting in the UEFI firmware.

The PCI-SIG consortium has announced the development of the PCI Express 8.0 interface. The new standard will deliver 256 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), doubling the bandwidth of PCI Express 7.0. The x16 configuration will support a bidirectional data rate of 1 terabyte per second (TB/s). Commercial devices featuring PCIe 8.0 are expected to enter the market in 2028.

NVIDIA has announced a time frame for ceasing Windows 10 driver support. The company is planning to discontinue Game Ready Driver releases for Microsoft's operating system by October 2026. This actually aligns with Microsoft's own support lifecycle for Windows 10, which will have an extra year of extended support for consumers that use OneDrive.

Microsoft has unveiled the Surface Laptop 5G, a new addition to its premium laptop lineup designed for professionals requiring constant connectivity and high-performance computing. Scheduled for release on August 26, 2025, the device starts at $1,799 and marks the first 5G-enabled model in the Surface Laptop series.