Microsoft has released Windows 11 26H2. Here’s how your Windows 11 PC can get the next major Windows update, and here are the ISO files available for direct download.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. SD cards cost way more now. Here's how to make yours last Memory card prices have jumped. Get the most out of yours by understanding how they die and what you can do to keep them going. Thanks to AI data centers, consumer SSDs, flash drives, and SD/microSD cards have doubled or even tripled in price.

Google's Gemini Can Now Make Calls for You on Pixel Phones Call for Me--a feature that's exclusive to the Pixel 11 series--gives robocalls a new meaning. Google has been trying to have its AI assistant make phone calls on your behalf for almost 10 years. It enabled the now-defunct Google Assistant to call restaurants and book tables . That service was shuttered a few years ago, but now comes round two, powered by modern large language models . On Thursday, Google announced Call for Me, an experimental beta feature exclusive to its latest Pixel 11 smartphones in the US (and in English).

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. I waded through Amazon's cheap junk to find the best deals under $50, from portable monitors to ergonomic mice and more. You might be able to find a diamond in the rough every so often, but those diamonds are getting harder to find in a sea of trash that keeps growing. For every Anker, there are dozens of no-name knockoffs to wade through. But I went through it to find the real gems, all so you don't have to.

PCWorld notes that Microsoft appears to be quietly redesigning the Windows 11 mouse cursor, with evidence surfacing in recent Insider Preview builds. The new cursor features softer, rounded corners and a wider, more symmetrical shape, replacing the older design as part of a broader effort to modernize Windows 11's visual identity. No official release date for the updated cursor has been announced yet. Back in June, Zac Bowden of Windows Central said Microsoft was rumored to be working on a mouse cursor redesign for Windows 11, with no real evidence except hearsay via "whispers" heard "internally." But now it seems that tweet is being vindicated by a preview version of the OS.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Windows 11 will soon tell apps how old you are. Microsoft is adding system-level age verification APIs to Windows 11, allowing registered apps to query the user's age. Microsoft is building automated age verification directly into Windows 11 in the form of system-level APIs that will share your verified age with registered apps. To be clear, the system won't pass your age or date of birth to said apps.

PCWorld reports that Microsoft's Windows 11 optional update KB5120981 cleans up Windows Search by removing cluttered Bing and MSN results, prioritizing more relevant local results instead. The update also improves typo handling, file categorization, and introduces gradual features like taskbar repositioning, making it a meaningful quality-of-life improvement. However, users should be aware of potential cursor and wallpaper bugs post-installation, so waiting may be wise if stability is a priority. A few days ago, Microsoft rolled out KB5120998, an optional update for Windows 11 that introduces several new features and improvements ( like the taskbar being repositionable again). Another noteworthy improvement is that the built-in Windows Search has been tidied up, meaning you'll no longer see results from Bing, Copilot, and MSN mixed in. Other search-related changes include: web searches no longer prioritizing ads and product suggestions, instead now always showing the most relevant result first; more clarity as to whether a search result is an app, a setting, a file, a web page, or a Microsoft Store recommendation; and the ability to cleanly handle typos and incomplete terms. Since KB5120998 is an optional update, you'll have to install it manually if you want to take advantage of its benefits. Otherwise, you can wait for it to release as part of September's big update.

PCWorld reports that Windows on Arm has reached over 7,000 compatible apps and games, with major software like Adobe Photoshop and Spotify now running natively. Arm-based chips from Snapdragon offer better battery life and less heat, and major brands like Microsoft, Dell, and HP are launching Arm-powered computers. Despite progress, gaming performance remains a challenge, and emulation through Prism is less efficient than native support, suggesting the platform still has ground to cover. In an official Windows blog post, Microsoft just announced a new milestone: over 7,000 apps and games are now optimized and available for the Arm version of Windows. Windows on Arm is a version of the operating system that's designed specifically to run on Arm-based chips.

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Plus: New York has become the first state to enact a data center moratorium. When Anthropic announced last week that it had found a new window into its models' "internal thoughts" as they reason through answers, there was one colleague I had to talk to: senior editor Will Douglas Heaven. Aside from having a PhD in computer science, Will has spent a lot of time digging into what we can say about how AI models work. I spoke with him about what we should take from Anthropic's new (and typically quirky) research. Here's what he had to say . How will AI understand the real world?