Software
Noteworthy software updates, industry and its key players.
How to Add Fonts to Windows (and Where to Find Them)
Choosing the right font is important for readability, impression, and impact. In this guide, we'll show you where you can source some awesome free fonts and quickly install them.
WhatsApp update allows you to organize groups under "Communities"
WhatsApp has rolled out a major update that introduces Communities, which lets you to band groups together. Create in-chat polls, up to 32 person video calling, and groups with up to 1,024 users.
October survey puts Windows 11 adoption at just 15 percent worldwide
The big picture: Over a year after its launch, Windows 11 is still nowhere near establishing dominance over Windows 10 among PC users. Various surveys show differing adoption rates for Windows 11, but all of them say most users haven't upgraded from 10.
PDFsam lets you perform all types of PDF file manipulation for free
With PDFsam Basic you can convert, merge, split or extract pages from PDF files and more. It is open source and available for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Meta's AI-assisted audio codec claims 10x compression rate compared to MP3s
Encodec utilizes AI for extreme efficiency and bandwidth saving
YouTube launches new streaming hub called "Primetime Channels"
A more convenient way to stream your shows
PCMark 10 benchmark is like 3DMark but for office PCs
PCMark 10 Basic Edition lets you benchmark PCs for productivity and every-day use-case scenarios for free (video conferencing, web browsing, rendering, word processing, and photo editing), and your results can be compared to hundreds of other systems, so you know where your (office) PC stands.
European Union to enact Digital Markets Act tomorrow
New law could eventually force iOS to allow sideloading
Opinion: The Android-ification of Cars
Cars are still less than 10% revenue for most chip companies
Why it matters: Over the past few years the semis industry has become somewhat obsessed with autos. Every major chip company now dedicates a fair amount of coverage to cars in all their investor presentations. Or at least it seems that way. In part that reflects a genuine growth in auto semis, and in part the tapering of growth in many other categories like mobile, PCs, etc.
Nvidia's recent 526.47 driver is causing headaches for Modern Warfare 2 players
What just happened? The Modern Warfare 2 official launch has already left many PC users dealing with crashes and in-game bugs. A tweet from the PC version's lead studio, Beenox, identifies Nvidia's most recent driver package as the cause of some of these errors. The tweet recommends that users stick with Nvidia driver versions 516.59 or 522.25.
Steam's Big Picture Mode gets updated, available for testing
Steam's new improved Big Picture mode is now available for beta testing. Expect a new Home Screen, new Universal Search and other improvements. Instructions for joining the Steam Beta and release notes are here.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II disc contains just 70MB of data, requiring 150GB download
Represents a new step for console retail releases, but not PC
More Android connectivity features headed to Windows 11
Microsoft is working on file transfer, picture-in-picture, Android 13 support, and more
ClipClip: Change the way you copy & paste in Windows
ClipClip is a handy clipboard manager that we personally use to copy & paste smarter in Windows. It lets you copy text, images, or files, so you can browse or search through them with ease.
OpenAI partners with Shutterstock to start selling AI-generated images soon
A hot potato: Shutterstock is bringing machine learning algorithms and AI-based "artworks" to its stock photo platform, making customers' creativity go wild and promising compensation for original artists. The debate about AI graphics is heating at an alarming rate.
Google announces official end-of-support date for Chrome on Windows 7
Around 10% of Windows systems still use Win 7
Microsoft is testing its own CCleaner alternative
New PC Manager app helps clean up files, but also pushes Edge
Here are the top 3 experimental technologies Adobe showcased at Max Sneaks 2022
Content editing is getting easier with each new Sensei AI tool that makes it out of Adobe studios
iPhone 14 Pro beats Steam Deck in Basemark's new GPU benchmark
Apple silicon scores rank alongside older mid-range PC GPUs in cross-platform benchmark
Someone wrote a Javascript app that accurately emulates Windows 95 on almost any platform
And yes. It can run Doom, but not Crysis
Call of Duty Modern Warfare II PC system requirements, pre-load dates revealed
It looks like Activision is dropping ray tracing
Firefox 106 lets you edit, sign, and even draw on PDF files
The latest Firefox release has added PDF editing capabilities, including writing text, drawing, and adding signatures. FF 106 also includes a new shortcut button to quickly go to private browsing mode.
Apple to release macOS Ventura and iPadOS 16 on October 24
iOS 16 features finally headed to Macs and iPads
KataOS is Google's new operating system for machine learning applications
An experimental OS designed to be mathematically secure