Author: InfoForTech
Microsoft hasn’t had great look with its beefier Surface notebooks. The original Surface Book looked very cool, but it was bulky and cursed with old hardware. The Surface Laptop Studio took two generations to live up to its potential, and by then it was also terribly expensive. Now Microsoft is making another grab for power users with the Surface Laptop Ultra, a 15-inch beast of a machine using NVIDIA’s RTX Spark system-on-a-chip for powerful graphics and AI performance. It’s a straightforward MacBook Pro competitor, with no weird hinges or removable screens like the previous high-end Surface notebooks. “This is the…
The Pentagon has finalized its largest-ever enterprise software arrangement, awarding a five-year, $9.7 billion contract to Dell Federal Systems to streamline Microsoft cloud and licensing capabilities across the global military apparatus. Formally designated the Core Enterprise Technology Agreement (CETA), the blanket purchase agreement unifies digital procurement for the Department of Defense, the broader intelligence community, and the U.S. Coast Guard. Beginning June 1, the infrastructure will merge dozens of fragmented software pipelines into a single centralized vehicle. Defense Department Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies framed the consolidation as a measure of structural fiscal discipline, projecting an annual taxpayer savings of…
At CNET, we’ve been testing smart thermostats for years, so it’s always a little surprising to hear, “What’s a smart thermostat?” But only a fraction of American households, around 17%, actually use smart thermostats. That’s too bad, because they’re one of my favorite smart home innovations, and offer handy advantages for almost everyone. So, what’s the difference, aside from flashy new touchscreen designs? I’ll take you through what’s new with these thermostats and how your heating and cooling will never be the same (neither will your energy bills).Scheduled heating and cooling Thermostats like Ecobee’s allow for easier scheduling from a distance.…
The handheld gaming market moves fast, and that’s exactly why a newly leaked ASUS device feels a little underwhelming on paper. A fresh listing suggests ASUS is preparing another ROG Ally handheld, but instead of delivering a major redesign, the company may simply be refreshing the internals. The leak points to an AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor at the heart of the device, suggesting a mid-generation update rather than a true successor. That’s not necessarily bad news. The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is expected to be a capable chip for portable gaming. The problem is that handheld gamers are increasingly looking…
Ravie LakshmananMay 31, 2026IoT Security / Network Security Dutch authorities have announced the takedown of a botnet that enslaved millions of infected devices, including computers, tablets, smartphones, and IoT devices, to carry out malicious attacks. The bot network, per the Dutch Politie and the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), consisted of at least 17 million infected devices. More than 200 servers located in the Netherlands acted as the platform’s backend infrastructure. According to a statement issued by the NCSC, police officials seized a subset of these servers from a hosting provider that provided the infrastructure. The provider is said to…
Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed below belong solely to the author. Data sourced from the Economic Development Board and Singapore Department of Statistics. After a turbulent 2025, following the return of Donald Trump to the White House and the wave of trade tariffs the US unleashed on the world, 2026 offered a promise of greater stability. Singapore weathered the storm exceptionally well, bouncing up to a 5% GDP growth, despite fears of a global recession, raising expectations for the new year as well. Unfortunately, another geopolitical event shook the world on Feb 28, when the US and Israel…
Photograph: Pete CottellM-Audio has packaged everything this person would need in a tidy little box with its M Track Duo HD producer pack. It includes a two-channel class-compliant audio interface, an M100 condenser mic, a pair of HD41 headphones, a mic clip, a USB-C cable to connect the interface to your computer or mobile device, and an XLR cable to connect the mic to the interface—all for the low price of $200. Aside from a mic stand (we love this desk clamp boom arm stand from Innogear) and the unearned confidence necessary to speak into a mic for hours about…
The artificial intelligence wave is starting to look a bit like the personal computer era – with some obvious differences. The first similarity is personal productivity. Individuals are taking control of their own work with agents, open tools and repeatable skills, much like power users once did with spreadsheets, word processors, presentation graphics and PCs. The early mandate for AI came from the top – CEOs and boards pushing AI into the enterprise – but the first phase of adoption is increasingly bottom up. People are downloading tools, wiring them into their own workflows and finding ways to get more…
Onlookers gather along the Lake Union waterfront to take in Mark Zuckerberg’s 387-foot superyacht. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Mark Zuckerberg’s 387-foot superyacht arrives in Seattle, cruising through the Ballard Locks and mooring on Lake Union just a short walk from Meta’s engineering center, just as it discloses nearly 1,400 layoffs in the Seattle area, about 20% of its local workforce. We try to wrap our heads around the spectacle, and the timing. Meanwhile, robot pizza startup Picnic flames out and sells its assets to a mystery buyer. We trace the rise and fall…
Engineering software giant Autodesk has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MaintainX, a modern maintenance and operations scaleup, in an all-cash transaction valued at $3.6 billion. The deal, representing the largest acquisition in Autodesk’s history, marks a massive corporate expansion onto the factory floor and the physical infrastructure market. By absorbing MaintainX- a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) tracking over $135 million in annualized recurring revenue, Autodesk establishes a new division, Autodesk Operations Solutions (AOS), designed to bridge the historic chasm between designing physical assets and actually running them. For decades, the life cycle of industrial equipment, buildings, and…