Windows 11 has become so synonymous with Microsoft's push into generative AI that it's easy to forget that it originally launched as a mostly cosmetic overhaul of Windows 10. But Microsoft continues to work on fundamental elements of the operating system's design. Case in point, Windows tester phantomofearth enabled an overhauled version of the Start menu from a recent Windows 11 beta build, the menu's first substantial rethink since Windows 11 launched a little over three years ago (via The Verge).

The new, larger Start menu displays up to two rows of eight pinned apps—you can't see more than two rows by default, but you can expand this section to show more apps—and then shows the scrollable list of apps installed on your PC. This list is hidden behind an "All" button on the current Start menu. These apps can be displayed as a vertically scrollable list, in a horizontal grid, or sorted by category (which does appear to be the most space-efficient display option).

Perhaps most interestingly for people who are tired of Windows' constant reminders and recommendations, the new Start menu looks like it lets you turn that "Recommended" section off entirely, replacing it with a full list of all apps installed on your PC. I find the Recommended area inoffensive when it sticks to showing me recently installed apps or opened files, but recent Windows 11 builds have also used it to advertise apps from the Microsoft Store.

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Framework, the designers and sellers of the modular and repairable Framework Laptop 13 and other products, announced today that it would be "temporarily pausing US sales" on some of its laptop configurations as a result of new tariffs put on Taiwanese imports by the Trump administration. The affected models will be removed from Framework's online store for now, and there's no word on when buyers can expect them to come back.

"We priced our laptops when tariffs on imports from Taiwan were 0 percent," the company responded to a post asking why it was pausing sales. "At a 10 percent tariff, we would have to sell the lowest-end SKUs at a loss."

"Other consumer goods makers have performed the same calculations and taken the same actions, though most have not been open about it," Framework said. Nintendo also paused US preorders for its upcoming Switch 2 console last week after the tariffs were announced.

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We're used to updating Windows, macOS, and Linux systems at least once a month (and usually more), but people with ancient DOS-based PCs still get to join in the fun every once in a while. Over the weekend, the team that maintains FreeDOS officially released version 1.4 of the operating system, containing a list of fixes and updates that have been in the works since the last time a stable update was released in 2022.

FreeDOS creator and maintainer Jim Hall goes into more detail about the FreeDOS 1.4 changes here, and full release notes for the changes are here. The release has "a focus on stability" and includes an updated installer, new versions of common tools like fdisk, and format and the edlin text editor. The release also includes updated HTML Help files.

Hall talked with Ars about several of these changes when we interviewed him about FreeDOS in 2024. The team issued the first release candidate for FreeDOS 1.4 back in January.

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Nintendo's barrage of Switch announcements over the last two weeks have also come with changes to the way Nintendo treats physical and digital copies of games.

Digital games can now become "virtual game cards," facilitating slightly more flexible sharing of digitally purchased games between multiple Switch systems owned by the same person or family of people. And physical copies of games can now be either traditional game cards—little bits of plastic with the game stored on a flash memory chip inside—or "Game-Key cards," which look the same from the outside but don't actually have any game data stored on them.

A Game-Key card has a "key" stored on it that prompts a download of the game data from Nintendo's servers the first time you insert it. From then on, the game behaves like a cross between a digital download and a physical game—all of the game's content has to be on the console's internal storage or a microSD Express card, but you need to have the Game-Key card inserted before the game will launch.

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On this day in 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded a company called Micro-Soft in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The two men had worked together before, as members of the Lakeside Programming group in the early 70s and as co-founders of a road traffic analysis company called Traf-O-Data. But Micro-Soft, later renamed to drop the hyphen and relocated to its current headquarters in Redmond, Washington, would be the company that would transform personal computing over the next five decades.

I'm not here to do a history of Microsoft, because Wikipedia already exists and because the company has already put together a gauzy 50th-anniversary retrospective site with some retro-themed wallpapers. But the anniversary did make me try to remember which Microsoft product I consciously used for the first time, the one that made me aware of the company and the work it was doing.

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Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory.

These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.

New episodes of The Wheel of Time season 3 will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers episode six, "The Shadow in the Night," which was released on April 3.

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In the wake of the Switch 2 reveal, neither Nintendo nor Nvidia has gone into any detail at all about the exact chip inside the upcoming handheld—technically, we are still not sure what Arm CPU architecture or what GPU architecture it uses, how much RAM we can expect it to have, how fast that memory will be, or exactly how many graphics cores we're looking at.

But interviews with Nintendo executives and a blog post from Nvidia did at least confirm several of the new chip's capabilities. The "custom Nvidia processor" has a GPU "with dedicated [Ray-Tracing] Cores and Tensor Cores for stunning visuals and AI-driven enhancements," writes Nvidia Software Engineering VP Muni Anda.

This means that, as rumored, the Switch 2 will support Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) upscaling technology, which helps to upscale a lower-resolution image into a higher-resolution image with less of a performance impact than native rendering and less loss of quality than traditional upscaling methods. For the Switch games that can render at 4K or at 120 FPS 1080p, DLSS will likely be responsible for making it possible.

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Among the changes mentioned in yesterday's Nintendo Switch 2 presentation was a note that the new console doesn't just support MicroSD Express cards for augmenting the device's 256GB of internal storage, but it requires MicroSD Express. Whatever plentiful, cheap microSD card you're using in your current Switch, including Sandisk's Nintendo-branded ones, can't migrate over to your Switch 2 alongside all your Switch 1 games.

MicroSD Express, explained

Why is regular-old MicroSD no longer good enough? It all comes down to speed.

Most run-of-the-mill SD and microSD cards you can buy today are using some version of the Ultra High Speed (UHS) standard. Designed to augment the default speed (12.5MB/s) and high speed (25MB/s) from the earliest versions of the SD card standard, the three UHS versions enable data transfers of up to 624MB/s.

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Nintendo's Switch 2 presentation gave us pricing for the console ($449 to start) and Nintendo's product pages have given us pricing information for accessories ($80 for a Pro Controller, $90 for another pair of Joy-Cons, and $110 for a replacement dock, sheesh). But what Nintendo didn't mention during the presentation was game pricing, either for standalone Switch 2 titles or the Switch 2 Edition upgrades for existing Switch games.

Nintendo announced via its website after the presentation that Mario Kart World, the console's flagship launch title, will cost $50 when you buy a digital copy as part of a Switch 2 bundle. But the game will cost $80 when you buy it on its own, $30 more than the pack-in version and $20 more than the usual $60 price for first-party Switch games.

Pre-order listings at US retailers that have gone live since this morning also list several $80 games—we'll use Wal-Mart's as an example. The upgraded Switch 2 Editions for a trio of Switch games—2024's Super Mario Party Jamboree, 2023's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and 2022's Kirby and the Forgotten Land—are all going for $80, the same as Mario Kart World.

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We've known for a few months now that the Nintendo Switch 2 will support backward compatibility for older Nintendo Switch games, and as of today's presentation, we also know that some Switch games will get special Switch 2 Editions that add new features and support higher resolutions and other features.

Nintendo's product pages for the Switch add more details, including the status of backward-compatibility testing for original Switch games and a small handful of first-party Switch games that will get "free updates" to enhance them for Switch 2.

First, some good news. There will be a second tier of updates for original Switch games that Nintendo says "may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare in select games." These won't include the extra features or higher resolutions of Switch 2 Edition games, but they'll be available for free, and they ought to improve playability. Nintendo lists a dozen first-party Switch games that will benefit from free Switch 2 updates:

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It has been a bumpy start for Amazon's $280 Kindle Colorsoft, the company's first E-Ink book reader with a color screen. The company delayed shipments for a few weeks to correct a problem where a faint yellow band would appear across the bottom of the screen, something that has apparently been fixed for current versions of the reader (Amazon says it has made "the appropriate adjustments" to fix the problem but hasn't been specific about what those adjustments are).

Amazon didn't send us a Colorsoft for review at the time, maybe in part because of this problem early reviewers had, but we finally got one a few weeks ago and have been using it since then.

My main takeaway is that I don't mind the Colorsoft, but it also doesn't solve any problems I was having with the monochrome Kindle Paperwhite, and it doesn't meaningfully solve the big problems with color E-Ink. It also makes the experience of reading regular text subtly worse, which accounts for the vast majority of my Kindle activity. I'm curious to see future riffs on the idea, but this initial implementation leaves me cold.

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Apple dropped a big batch of medium-size software updates for nearly all of its products this afternoon. The iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, tvOS 18.4, and visionOS 2.4 updates are all currently available to download, and each adds a small handful of new features for their respective platforms.

A watchOS 11.4 update was also published briefly, but it's currently unavailable.

For iPhones and iPads that support Apple Intelligence, the flagship feature in 18.4 is Priority Notifications, which attempts to separate time-sensitive or potentially important notifications from the rest of them so you can see them more easily. The update also brings along the handful of new Unicode 16.0 emoji, a separate app for managing a Vision Pro headset (similar to the companion app for the Apple Watch), and a grab bag of other fixes and minor enhancements.

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If you're still using a computer you bought during the Clinton administration, interesting news: Crystal Dew World, developers of apps like CrystalDiskInfo and CrystalDiskMark, have released an update to their CrystalMark Retro benchmark (as spotted by Tom's Hardware). The most interesting aspect of the update for retro computing enthusiasts is expanded operating system support: the app will now run on Windows 95, Windows 98, and old versions of Windows NT like 3.51 and 4.0. The previous version of the app only went as far back as Windows XP.

The app spits out benchmarking scores for five things: single-core CPU performance, multi-core CPU performance, 2D graphics performance using GDI, 3D graphics performance using OpenGL, and disk speed (broken into four sub-benchmarks for sequential and random read and write performance).

The app will also run on current systems, including 64-bit x86 and Arm-based PCs, and the results database is dominated by those modern systems. But searching by operating system allows you to zero in on those retro results, including nine (as of this writing) for Windows 95, six for Windows 98, and five for Windows NT 3.51.

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Microsoft released a new Windows Insider build of Windows 11 to its experimental Dev Channel today, with a fairly extensive batch of new features and tweaks. But the most important one for enthusiasts and PC administrators is buried halfway down the list: This build removes a command prompt script called bypassnro, which up until now has been a relatively easy and reliable way to circumvent the otherwise mandatory Microsoft Account sign-in requirement on new Windows 11 PCs and fresh installs of Windows 11 on existing PCs.

Microsoft's Windows Insider Program lead Amanda Langowski and Principal Product Manager Brandon LeBlanc were clear that this change is considered a feature and not a bug.

"We’re removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11," Langowski and LeBlanc write in the post. "This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account."

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Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory.

These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.

New episodes of The Wheel of Time season three will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers episode five, "Tel'Aran'Rhiod," which was released on March 27.

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Amazon discontinued 2016's Kindle Oasis in early 2024, and since then, the company hasn't offered a new e-reader with physical page turn buttons or any other alternative to touchscreen input. There still isn't a Kindle with buttons, and the feature seems unlikely to return, but buyers of the latest Kindle Paperwhite or the Kindle Colorsoft are getting a possible consolation prize in the new 5.18.1 software update: a "double tap to page turn" feature that will turn the page or move to the next screen when you double-tap on the back or side of the device.

The 5.18.1 software update is available on all Kindle readers going back to 2018's "10th generation" models, but the double-tap feature only works on the newest 12th-generation Paperwhite and the Colorsoft, not on any older Kindles or either Kindle Scribe model. We verified this firsthand by installing 5.18.1 on a 10th-generation Paperwhite, but we also checked the release notes for each individual Kindle on Amazon's software update page.

All Kindles that get the 5.18.1 update also gain access to new book summaries for "thousands of bestselling English language Kindle books," aiming to make it easier to pick up a new book in an ongoing series.

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Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory.

These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.

New episodes of The Wheel of Time season three will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers episode four, "The Road to the Spear," which was released on March 20.

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Microsoft's Windows updates over the last couple of years have mostly been focused on adding generative AI features to the operating system, including multiple versions of the Copilot assistant. Copilot has made it into Windows 11 (and even, to a more limited extent, the aging Windows 10) as a native app, and then a wrapper around a web app, and soon as a native app again.

But this month's Windows updates are removing the Copilot app from some Windows 11 PCs and unpinning it from the taskbar, according to this Microsoft support document. This bug obviously won't affect systems where Copilot had already been uninstalled, but it has already led to confusion among some Windows users.

Microsoft says it is "working on a resolution to address the issue" but that users who want to get Copilot back can reinstall the app from the Microsoft Store and repin it to the taskbar, the same process you use to install Copilot on PCs where it has been removed.

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Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season three—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory.

These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.

New episodes of The Wheel of Time season three will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers the entire three-episode season premiere, which was released on March 13.

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One of the best mostly invisible updates in iOS 18 was Apple's decision to finally implement the Rich Communications Services (RCS) communication protocol, something that is slowly helping to fix the generally miserable experience of texting non-iPhone users with an iPhone. The initial iOS 18 update brought RCS support to most major carriers in the US, and the upcoming iOS 18.4 update is turning it on for a bunch of smaller prepaid carriers like Google Fi and Mint Mobile.

Now that Apple is on board, iPhones and their users can also benefit from continued improvements to the RCS standard. And one major update was announced today: RCS will now support end-to-end encryption using the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, a standard finalized by the Internet Engineering Task Force in 2023.

"RCS will be the first large-scale messaging service to support interoperable E2EE between client implementations from different providers," writes GSMA Technical Director Tom Van Pelt in the post announcing the updates. "Together with other unique security features such as SIM-based authentication, E2EE will provide RCS users with the highest level of privacy and security for stronger protection from scams, fraud and other security and privacy threats. "

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