Apple software chief Craig Federighi has ruled out bringing macOS to the iPad, amusingly using a kitchen utensil analogy to explain the company's design philosophy. "We don't want to create a boat car or, you know, a spork," Federighi said in an interview. "Someone said, 'If a spoon's great, a fork's great, then let's combine them into a single utensil, right?' It turns out it's not a good spoon and it's not a good fork. It's a bad idea. And so we don't want to build sporks."

The new version of iPadOS, which will ship to consumers later this year, features dynamically resizable windows that users can drag by their corners and a menu bar that is accessible through swipe gestures or cursor movement.

Some observers might consider the iPad Pro itself a "convertible" product that blurs the line between tablet and laptop, he said. However, the Mac and iPad serve distinct purposes, he asserted. "The Mac lets the iPad be iPad," he said adding that Apple's objective "has not been to have iPad completely displace those places where the Mac is the right tool for the job." Rather than full convergence, Federighi said the iPad "can be inspired by elements of the Mac" while remaining a separate platform. "I think the Mac can be inspired by elements of iPad, and I think that that's happened a great deal."

Valve has quietly updated the Steam Beta Client to enable Proton by default for all Windows games on Linux, eliminating the need for users to toggle compatibility settings manually. GamingOnLinux reports: For some context here: originally, Proton had an option to enable / disable it globally. That was removed with the Game Recording update last year. That made sense, because people kept somehow turning it entirely off and now it's required by Steam. Currently, there's still an option in the stable Steam Client that you need to manually check to enable Steam Play (Proton) for "all other titles". This is something of a leftover from when Proton was initially revealed, and only worked for a specific set of games on Valve's whitelist. It now covers what Valve set by default for Steam Deck and SteamOS verification.

What's changed is that at some point in the recent Steam Beta releases, is that "for all other titles" option is gone. I've scrolled back through changelogs and not seen it mentioned. So now, Proton is just enabled properly in full by default in the Steam Beta like shown in the [image here]. This is a good (and needed) change that I'm happy to see. There's often confusion when people try to run Windows games on Linux and end up with no install button because Proton isn't turned on for all titles. [This] will soon be a thing of the past. To be clear, this is not setting Proton on every game by default, it does not override Native Linux games. It's just making Proton available by default.

Microsoft is positioning Windows as the primary gaming platform for Xbox, according to Xbox president Sarah Bond. "We're working closely with the Windows team to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming," Bond said in a video announcing a partnership with AMD for next-generation Xbox hardware spanning consoles and handhelds.

The statement, PCWorld points out, aligns with Microsoft's recent "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign, which promotes phones, PCs, televisions, and traditional consoles as Xbox devices. The company's newly announced Xbox Ally X handheld runs Windows beneath its Xbox interface, allowing access to multiple game stores unlike Valve's Steam Deck.

Microsoft has shifted strategy following weak Xbox console sales compared to PlayStation, spending billions to acquire publishers including Bethesda and Activision Blizzard while expanding Xbox Cloud Gaming services across multiple device types.

Longtime Slashdot reader jrepin writes: Plasma is a popular desktop (and mobile) environment for GNU/Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems. Among other things, it also powers the desktop mode of the Steam Deck gaming handheld. The KDE community today announced the latest release: Plasma 6.4. This fresh new release improves on nearly every front, with progress being made in accessibility, color rendering, tablet support, window management, and more.

Plasma already offered virtual desktops and customizable tiles to help organize your windows and activities, and now it lets you choose a different configuration of tiles on each virtual desktop. The Wayland session brings some new accessibility features: you can now move the pointer using your keyboard's number pad keys, or use a three-finger touchpad pinch gesture to zoom in or out.

Plasma file transfer notification now shows a speed graph, giving you a more visual idea of how fast the transfer is going and how long it will take to complete. When any applications are in full screen mode Plasma will now enter Do Not Disturb mode and only show urgent notifications. When you exit full-screen mode, you'll see a summary of any notifications you missed.

Now, when an application tries to access the microphone and finds it muted, a notification will pop up. A new feature in the Application Launcher widget will place a green New! tag next to newly installed apps, so you can easily find where something you just installed lives in the menu.

The Display and Monitor page in System Settings comes with a brand new HDR calibration wizard. Support for Extended Dynamic Range (a different kind of HDR) and P010 video color format has also been added. System Monitor now supports usage monitoring for AMD and Intel graphic cards -- it can even show the GPU usage on a per-process basis.

Spectacle, the built-in app for taking screenshots and screen recordings, has a much-improved design and more streamlined functionality. The background of the desktop or window now darkens when an authentication dialog shows up, helping you locate and focus on the window asking for your password.

There's a brand-new Animations page in System Settings that groups all the settings for purely visual animated effects into one place, making them easier to find and configure. Aurorae, a newly added SVG vector graphics theme engine, enhances KWin window decorations.

You can read more about these and many other other features in the Plasma 6.4 announcement and complete changelog.

Microsoft has disabled Windows Hello's ability to authenticate users in low-light environments through a recent security update that now requires both infrared sensors and color cameras to verify faces. The change forces the system to see a visible face through the webcam before completing authentication with IR sensors.

Windows Hello earlier relied solely on infrared sensors to create 3D facial scans, allowing the feature to work in complete darkness similar to iPhone's Face ID. Microsoft pushed the dual-camera requirement to address a spoofing vulnerability in the biometric system.

Microsoft's latest Windows 11 preview builds contain a bug that replaces the operating system's startup sound with Windows Vista's iconic boot chime from 2006. Microsoft acknowledged the bug in its release notes -- describing it as a "delightful blast from the past" -- and said it was working on a fix.

KDE isn't the only organization reaching out to " as Microsoft prepares to end support for Windows 10.

"Now, The Document Foundation, maker of LibreOffice, has also joined in to support the Endof10 initiative," reports the tech blog Neowin: The foundation writes: "You don't have to follow Microsoft's upgrade path. There is a better option that puts control back in the hands of users, institutions, and public bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two programmes offer a powerful, privacy-friendly and future-proof alternative to the Windows + Microsoft 365 ecosystem."

It further adds the "real costs" of upgrading to Windows 11 as it writes:

"The move to Windows 11 isn't just about security updates. It increases dependence on Microsoft through aggressive cloud integration, forcing users to adopt Microsoft accounts and services. It also leads to higher costs due to subscription and licensing models, and reduces control over how your computer works and how your data is managed. Furthermore, new hardware requirements will render millions of perfectly good PCs obsolete.... The end of Windows 10 does not mark the end of choice, but the beginning of a new era. If you are tired of mandatory updates, invasive changes, and being bound by the commercial choices of a single supplier, it is time for a change. Linux and LibreOffice are ready — 2025 is the right year to choose digital freedom!"
The first words on LibreOffice's announcement? "The countdown has begun...."

NPR looks at the "high-quality, climate-friendly apartments" in Vienna, asking if it's a model for addressing both climate change and the housing crisis.

About half the city's 2 million people live in the widespread (and government-supported) apartments, with solar panels on top and very thick, insulated walls that reduce the need for heating and cooling. (One resident tells NPR they don't even need an air conditioner because "It's not cold in winter times. It's not hot in summer times.") Vienna council member Nina Abrahamczik, who heads the climate and environment committee, says as the city transitions all of its buildings off planet-heating fossil fuels, they're starting with the roughly 420,000 housing units they already own or subsidize.... As Vienna makes an aggressive push to completely move away from climate-polluting natural gas by 2040, it's starting with much of this social housing, says Jürgen Czernohorszky, executive city councilor responsible for climate and environment. City-owned buildings are now switching from gas to massive electric heat pumps, and to geothermal, which involves probing into the ground to heat homes. Another massive geothermal project that drills even deeper into the earth to heat homes is also underway.

The city is also powering housing with solar energy. As of a year and a half ago, Vienna mandates all new buildings and building extensions to have rooftop solar. And Vienna's older apartment buildings are getting climate retrofits, says Veronika Iwanowski, spokesperson for Vienna's municipal housing company, Wiener Wohnen. That includes new insulation, doors and windows to prevent the city's wind from getting in the cracks. The increase in energy efficiency and switching from gas to renewables doesn't just have climate benefits from cutting fossil fuel use. It also means housing residents are paying less on electric bills...

With city-subsidized housing, housing developers can compete to get land and low-interest loans from the city. Officials say those competitions are a critical lever for climate action. "As we can control the contents of the competitions, we try to make them fit to the main goals of the city," says Kurt Hofstetter, city planner for Vienna, "which is of course also ecological...." Now the housing judges give out points for things like increased energy efficiency, green roofs and sustainable building materials... Now the climate innovations in subsidized housing are inspiring the private market as well, Hofstetter says...
The article notes that most of the city's funding is provided in the form of low-interest loans, according to a researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations. (And the average social housing rents are about $700 for a large one-bedroom apartment, says Gerald Kössl, researcher at the Austrian Federation of Limited-Profit Housing Associations.)

Microsoft quietly teased its next-generation Xbox by showcasing its collaboration with Asus "to bring two Xbox Ally handhelds to the market later this year," writes The Verge's Tom Warren. From the report: The Xbox Ally handhelds run Windows, but the Xbox team has worked with Windows engineers to boot these PC handhelds into a full-screen Xbox UI. The Windows desktop doesn't even fully load, and you use the Xbox app UI as a launcher to get to all your games (even Steam titles) and apps like Discord. While the combination of Windows and Xbox here is intriguing, it's the way that Microsoft is positioning these devices that really caught my attention.

"This is an Xbox," said Microsoft during the reveal, clearly expanding its marketing push beyond a single console to every screen and device. It all felt like a true Xbox handheld reveal. There was even an 11-minute-long behind-the-scenes video on the Xbox Ally handhelds, filmed in a similar style to Microsoft's "Project Scorpio" Xbox One X reveal from nearly nine years ago. "This is a breakthrough moment for Xbox," Carl Ledbetter, a 30-year Microsoft design veteran, says in the video. Ledbetter helped design the original IntelliMouse, the Xbox 360 Slim, the Xbox One X, and plenty of other Microsoft devices. When Ledbetter is involved, you know it's more than just a simple partner project with Asus.

"For the first time, a player is going to be able to hold the power of the Xbox experience in their hand, and take it with them anywhere they want to go," says Xbox president Sarah Bond, in the same video. Microsoft thinks of the Xbox Ally handhelds as Xbox consoles with the freedom of Windows, and I think the next-gen Xbox is going to look very similar as a result. Related

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Denmark's Minister of Digitalization, Caroline Stage, has announced that the Danish government will start moving away from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. Why? It's not because open-source is better, although I would argue that it is, but because Denmark wants to claim "digital sovereignty." In the States, you probably haven't heard that phrase, but in the European Union, digital sovereignty is a big deal and getting bigger.

A combination of security, economic, political, and societal imperatives is driving the EU's digital sovereignty moves. EU leaders are seeking to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign technology providers, primarily those from the United States, and to assert greater control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technological future. Why? Because they're concerned about who controls European data, who sets the rules, and who can potentially cut off access to essential services in times of geopolitical tension. "Money issues have also played a decisive role," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "Copenhagen's Microsoft software bill has soared from 313 million kroner in 2018 to 538 million kroner -- about $53 million in 2023, a 72% increase in just five years.

David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), a Dane, inventor of Ruby on Rails, and co-owner of the software developer company 37Signals, has said: "Denmark is one of the most highly digitalized countries in the world. It's also one of the most Microsoft-dependent. In fact, Microsoft is by far and away the single biggest dependency, so it makes perfect sense to start the quest for digital sovereignty there."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: The head of the Federal Aviation Administration just outlined an ambitious goal to upgrade the U.S.'s air traffic control (ATC) system and bring it into the 21st century. According to NPR, most ATC towers and other facilities today feel like they're stuck in the 20th century, with controllers using paper strips and floppy disks to transfer data, while their computers run Windows 95. While this likely saved them from the disastrous CrowdStrike outage that had a massive global impact, their age is a major risk to the nation's critical infrastructure, with the FAA itself saying that the current state of its hardware is unsustainable.

"The whole idea is to replace the system. No more floppy disks or paper strips," acting FAA administrator Chris Rocheleau told the House Appropriations Committee last Wednesday. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also said earlier this week," This is the most important infrastructure project that we've had in this country for decades. Everyone agrees -- this is non-partisan. Everyone knows we have to do it." The aviation industry put up a coalition pushing for ATC modernization called Modern Skies, and it even ran an ad telling us that ATC is still using floppy disks and several older technologies to keep our skies safe. [...]

Currently, the White House hasn't said what this update will cost. The FAA has already put out a Request For Information to gather data from companies willing to take on the challenge of upgrading the entire system. It also announced several 'Industry Days' so companies can pitch their tech and ideas to the Transportation Department. Duffy said that the Transportation Department aims to complete the project within four years. However, industry experts say this timeline is unrealistic. No matter how long it takes, it's high time that the FAA upgrades the U.S.'s ATC system today after decades of neglect.

Apple unveiled iPadOS 26 at its Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, introducing what appears to be the most significant productivity overhaul in the tablet operating system's history. The update brings dynamically resizable windows that users can drag by their corners, a menu bar accessible through swipe gestures or cursor movement, and Expose for viewing all open windows in a tiled array.

The new windowing system allows users to seamlessly close, minimize, resize, and tile app windows while maintaining the iPad's touch-first interface. When users reopen apps, windows return to their last position and size. The menu bar, a longtime Mac staple, provides access to familiar commands like File, Edit, and View through either touch or trackpad controls.

Apple is also enhancing the Files app with resizable columns and collapsible folders, while bringing the Preview app to iPad for the first time with PDF editing capabilities and Apple Pencil support. The update introduces Background Tasks for computationally intensive processes and new audio features including Voice Isolation and Local capture for video calls.

Nintendo's new Switch 2 console sold a record 3 million units after its launch Thursday. But then today Microsoft announced their own upcoming handheld gaming device that's Xbox-branded (and Windows-powered).

Working with ASUS' ROG division, they build a device that weighs more than the Nintendo Switch 2, and "is marginally heavier than the Steam Deck," reports Engadget. But "at least those grips look more ergonomic than those on the Nintendo Switch 2 (which is already cramping my hands) or even the Steam Deck." There are two variants of the handheld: the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X. Microsoft didn't reveal pricing, but the handhelds are coming this holiday... Critically, Microsoft and ROG aren't locking the devices to only playing Xbox games (though you can do that natively, via the cloud or by accessing an Xbox console remotely). You'll be able to play games from Battle.net and "other leading PC storefronts" too. Obviously, there's Game Pass integration here, as well as support for the Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, which enables you to play games with synced progress across a swathe of devices after buying them once...

There's a dedicated physical Xbox button that can bring up a Game Bar overlay, which seemingly makes it easy to switch between apps and games, tweak settings, start chatting with friends and more... You'll be able to mod games on either system as well.

The Xbox Ally is powered by the AMD Ryzen Z2 A Processor, and has 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. The Xbox Ally X is the more powerful model. It has a AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. They each have a microSD card reader, so you won't need to worry about shelling out for proprietary storage options to have extra space for your games... Both systems boast "HD haptics..." Both systems should be capable of outputting video to a TV or monitor, as they have two USB-C ports with support for DisplayPort 2.1 and Power Delivery 3.0.
"Microsoft has needed to respond to SteamOS ever since the Steam Deck launched three years ago," argues The Verge, "and it has steadily been tweaking its Xbox app and the Xbox Game Bar on Windows to make both more handheld-friendly..." But there was always a bigger overhaul of Windows required, and we're starting to see parts of that today. "The reality is that we've made tremendous progress on this over the last couple of years, and this is really the device that galvanized those teams and got everybody marching and working towards a moment that we're just really excited to put into the hands of players," says Roanne Sones, corporate vice president of gaming Devices and ecosystem at Xbox, in a briefing with The Verge...

I'll need to try this new interface fully to really get a feel for the Windows changes here, but Microsoft is promising that this isn't just lipstick on top of Windows. "This isn't surface-level changes, we've made significant improvements," says Potvin. "Some of our early testing with the components we've turned off in Windows, we get about 2GB of memory going back to the games while running in the full-screen experience."

"NASA engineers have spent the past decade developing a rugged, partially autonomous lander designed to explore Europa, one of Jupiter's most intriguing moons," reports Gizmodo.

But though NASA "got cold feet over the project," the engineers behind the project are now suggesting the probe could instead explore Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn: Europa has long been a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial biology because scientists suspect it harbors a subsurface ocean beneath its icy crust, potentially teeming with microbial life. But the robot — packed with radiation shielding, cutting-edge software, and ice-drilling appendages — won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

In a recent paper in Science Robotics, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) outlined the design and testing of what was once the Europa Lander prototype, a four-legged robotic explorer built to survive the brutal surface conditions of the Jovian moon. The robot was designed to walk — as opposed to roll — analyze terrain, collect samples, and drill into Europa's icy crust — all with minimal guidance from Earth, due to the major communication lag between our planet and the moon 568 million miles (914 million kilometers) away. Designed to operate autonomously for hours at a time, the bot came equipped with stereoscopic cameras, a robotic arm, LED lights, and a suite of specialized materials tough enough to endure harsh radiation and bone-chilling cold....

According to the team, the challenges of getting to Europa — its radiation exposure, immense distance, and short observation windows — proved too daunting for NASA's higher-ups. And that's before you take into consideration the devastating budget cuts planned by the Trump administration, which would see the agency's funding fall from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion. The lander, once the centerpiece of a bold astrobiology initiative, is now essentially mothballed.

But the engineers aren't giving up. They're now lobbying for the robot to get a second shot — on Enceladus, Saturn's ice-covered moon, which also boasts a subsurface ocean and has proven more favorable for robotic exploration. Enceladus is still frigid, but `has lower radiation and better access windows than Europa.

An anonymous reader shared this report from SFGate about a lawsuit alleging a "warrantless drone surveillance program" that's "trampling residents' right to privacy": Sonoma County has been accused of deploying hundreds of drone flights over residents in a "runaway spying operation"... according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. The North Bay county of Sonoma initially started the 6-year-old drone program to track illegal cannabis cultivation, but the lawsuit alleges that officials have since turned it into a widespread program to catch unrelated code violations at residential properties and levy millions of dollars in fines. The program has captured 5,600 images during more than 700 flights, the lawsuit said...

Matt Cagle, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, said in a Wednesday news release that the county "has hidden these unlawful searches from the people they have spied on, the community, and the media...." The lawsuit says the county employees used the drones to spy on private homes without first receiving a warrant, including photographing private areas like hot tubs and outdoor baths, and through curtainless windows.
One plaintiff "said the county secretly used the drone program to photograph her Sonoma County horse stable and issue code violations," according to the article. She only discovered the use of the drones after a county employee mentioned they had photos of her property, according to the lawsuit. She then filed a public records request for the images, which left her "stunned" after seeing that the county employees were monitoring her private property including photographing her outdoor bathtub and shower, the lawsuit said.

AppleInsider reports: The engineer behind much of the Mac's early graphical user interfaces, QuickDraw, MacPaint, Hypercard and much more, William D. "Bill" Atkinson, died on June 5 of complications from pancreatic cancer...

Atkinson, who built a post-Apple career as a noted nature photographer, worked at Apple from 1978 to 1990. Among his lasting contributions to Apple's computers were the invention of the menubar, the selection lasso, the "marching ants" item selection animation, and the discovery of a midpoint circle algorithm that enabled the rapid drawing of circles on-screen.

He was Apple Employee No. 51, recruited by Steve Jobs. Atkinson was one of the 30 team members to develop the first Macintosh, but also was principle designer of the Lisa's graphical user interface (GUI), a novelty in computers at the time. He was fascinated by the concept of dithering, by which computers using dots could create nearly photographic images similar to the way newspapers printed photos. He is also credited (alongside Jobs) for the invention of RoundRects, the rounded rectangles still used in Apple's system messages, application windows, and other graphical elements on Apple products.

Hypercard was Atkinson's main claim to fame. He built the a hypermedia approach to building applications that he once described as a "software erector set." The Hypercard technology debuted in 1987, and greatly opened up Macintosh software development.
In 2012 some video clips of Atkinson appeared in some rediscovered archival footage. (Original Macintosh team developer Andy Hertzfeld uploaded "snippets from interviews with members of the original Macintosh design team, recorded in October 1983 for projected TV commercials that were never used.")

Blogger John Gruber calls Atkinson "One of the great heroes in not just Apple history, but computer history." If you want to cheer yourself up, go to Andy Hertzfeld's Folklore.org site and (re-)read all the entries about Atkinson. Here's just one, with Steve Jobs inspiring Atkinson to invent the roundrect. Here's another (surely near and dear to my friend Brent Simmons's heart) with this kicker of a closing line: "I'm not sure how the managers reacted to that, but I do know that after a couple more weeks, they stopped asking Bill to fill out the form, and he gladly complied."

Some of his code and algorithms are among the most efficient and elegant ever devised. The original Macintosh team was chock full of geniuses, but Atkinson might have been the most essential to making the impossible possible under the extraordinary technical limitations of that hardware... In addition to his low-level contributions like QuickDraw, Atkinson was also the creator of MacPaint (which to this day stands as the model for bitmap image editorsâ — âPhotoshop, I would argue, was conceptually derived directly from MacPaint) and HyperCard ("inspired by a mind-expanding LSD journey in 1985"), the influence of which cannot be overstated.

I say this with no hyperbole: Bill Atkinson may well have been the best computer programmer who ever lived. Without question, he's on the short list. What a man, what a mind, what gifts to the world he left us.

king*jojo shares a report: Linux desktop darling KDE is weighing in on the controversy around the impending demise of Windows 10 support with a lurid "KDE for Windows 10 Exiles" campaign. KDE's alarming "Exiles" page opens with the text "Your computer is toast" followed by a warning that Microsoft wants to turn computers running Windows 10 into junk from October 14.

"It may seem like it continues to work after that date for a bit, but when Microsoft stops support for Windows 10, your perfectly good computer will be officially obsolete." Beneath a picture of a pile of tech junk, including a rotary telephone and some floppy drives, KDE proclaims: "Windows 10 will degrade as more and more bugs come to light. With nobody to correct them, you risk being hacked. Your data, identity, and control over your device could be stolen."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's changes in response to the Digital Markets Act already included allowing Windows machines in the regions it covers to uninstall Edge and remove Bing results from Windows search, but now the list is growing in some meaningful ways. New features announced Monday for Microsoft Windows users in the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) include the option to uninstall the Microsoft Store and avoid extra nags or prompts asking them to set Microsoft Edge as the default browser unless they choose to open it.

Additionally, setting a different browser, like Chrome, Firefox, Brave, or something else, will pin it to the taskbar unless the user chooses not to. While setting a different browser default already attaches it to a few link and file types like https and .html, now users in the EEA will see it apply to more types like "read," ftp, and .svg. The default browser changes are live for some users in the beta channel and are set to roll out widely on Windows 10 and Windows 11 in July.

Linux user share on Steam rose to 2.69% in May 2025 -- the highest level recorded since at least 2018. GamingOnLinux reports: Overall user share for May 2025:

- Windows 95.45% -0.65%
- Linux 2.69% +0.42%
- macOS 1.85% +0.23%

Even with SteamOS 3 now being a little more widely available, the rise was not from SteamOS directly. Filtering to just the Linux numbers gives us these most popular distributions:

- SteamOS Holo 64 bit 30.95% -2.83%
- Arch Linux 64 bit 10.09% +0.64%
- Linux Mint 22.1 64 bit 7.76% +1.56%
- Freedesktop SDK 24.08 (Flatpak runtime) 64 bit 7.42% +1.01%
- Ubuntu Core 22 64 bit 4.63% +0.01%
- Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS 64 bit 4.30% -0.14%
- CachyOS 64 bit 2.54% +2.54%
- EndeavourOS Linux 64 bit 2.44% -0.02%
- Manjaro Linux 64 bit 2.43% -0.18%
- Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS 64 bit 2.17% -0.06%
- Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) 64 bit 1.99% -0.28%
- Other 23.27% -2.27%

Microsoft will require all USB-C ports on Windows 11 certified laptops and tablets to support data transfer, charging, and display functionality under updated hardware compatibility program rules. The mandate targets devices shipping with Windows 11 24H2 and aims to eliminate what Microsoft -- and the industry -- calls "USB-C port confusion," where identical-looking ports offer different capabilities across PC manufacturers.

The Windows Hardware Compatibility Program updates also require USB 40Gbps ports to maintain full compatibility with both USB4 and Thunderbolt 3 peripherals.