One of the main concerns I have whenever I toss a cable into a bag is that it’s going to get damaged by whatever else is in there. Well, with this Baseus retractable USB-C cable, I don’t have to worry about that! And now that it’s on sale for $15.19 on Amazon (20% off), it’s an excellent time to stock up on a few. Don’t worry, these are future-proof! Let’s start with the coolest thing about this cable: it’s retractable. That’s right. It’s tiny and compact when you aren’t using it, then stretches out to a maximum length of 6.6 feet. Or you can use it at one of its many preset lengths: 1.9 feet, 3.1 feet, 4.1 feet, 4.9 feet, 5.7 feet, and 6.2 feet. Just tug on it when you’re done and it rolls back onto itself. It’s fast, too, providing up to 100W of power. With a proper 100W charging block, you can fast-charge your phone, tablet, laptop, earbuds, or whatever else in mere minutes rather than hours. That makes it perfectly versatile for so many device types and it’ll serve you well for many years to come. What’s not to love about this nifty little accessory? Grab this retractable 100W Baseus USB-C cable for $15.19 before this deal goes away! This is, by the way, the cheapest price it’s ever been. Nice! It`s fast, it`s retractable, and it`s never been cheaper beforeGet this nifty USB-C cable on Amazon Read...

Dell launches the IR9000 rack and PowerCool eRDHx cooling system to enhance AI efficiency with up to 60% reduced cooling costs and open-standard design. Read...

Apple TV+ is now plain-old Apple TV, Apple told us yesterday. Confusing? Not for most. Indeed, Apple TV+’s dropping of the “+” was as inevitable as Max getting the “HBO” back. First, the news: In its announcement that the Brad Pitt blockbuster F1: The Movie will make its debut on Apple TV+ in December, Apple casually noted that as of now, Apple TV+ isn’t Apple TV+ anymore.  “Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity,” Apple’s press release reads. What’s the new identity, you ask? Aside from a new and multicolor Apple TV logo, that’s hard to say.  Those of us who follow the streaming industry greeted the news with furrowed brows. So Apple TV the streaming service is now on Apple TV, the streaming box? Isn’t that kind of confusing? Yes, the Apple TV streaming player is officially known as “Apple TV 4K,” but still.  Well, it’s details like the “+” and the “4K” that cause headaches when it comes to clear and consistent branding, and the truth is most folks haven’t bothered with the “plus” for a long time. Severance, The Studio, The Morning Show, Ted Lasso—those are all Apple TV shows, according to everyday streamers.  Sometimes, simplicity and familiarity are best. Take HBO Max, which went through a three-year-old rebranding drama that saw the service renamed as “Max,” a change that was mainly driven by the now-unraveling alliance between the former WarnerMedia and Discovery.  Warner Bros. Discovery likely spent a fortune trying to get the Max branding to stick, but most subscribers just kept calling it HBO Max. Finally, the entertainment giant stopped swimming against the tide and restored the old name.  Same goes with Paramount, which yanked the “Showtime” branding from its Paramount+ streaming tiers back in June. Starting in 2022 with Paramount’s plan to blend Showtime content into its Paramount+ service, the streaming had a number of different “with Showtime” tiers, leading to confusion and some very ungainly streaming plan names.   Ultimately, Paramount relented, ditching the “Showtime” branding for the streaming version of Paramount+ (there’s still a linear Paramount+ with Showtime channel). Now it’s just Paramount+ Essential and Paramount+ Premium, which (incidentally) both include Showtime shows. Again, it’s a change that only the suits and industry watchers cared about.  So yes, Apple TV+ is now just Apple TV, although for most it’s always been Apple TV. But what about Apple TV—you know, the streaming box?  Well, there’s an interesting theory making the rounds that a new—and renamed—Apple TV will clear up any lingering confusion. The Apple TV Max, maybe? Apple TV Pro? Or maybe a name that ditches the “TV” altogether, like the Apple Streamer or the Apple Hub (a smart home hub plus video streamer).  It’s not clear exactly when a new Apple TV—or a new Apple Streaming Whatever—will arrive (it’s reportedly coming soonish, if not this week), but when it does, the whole “Apple TV+ is now Apple TV” issue might become moot. Read...

There are a lot of people looking to upgrade to Windows 11 right now… and apparently a lot of them are having trouble doing so. Because one of the most popular methods for moving from Windows 10 to the new operating system—Microsoft’s official Media Creation Tool—has a debilitating bug in its latest release. Whoops! If you’re unaware, the Media Creation Tool is a super-simple way to download a small program from Microsoft and bake it onto a USB drive that can then be used to install a copy of Windows on a PC. It’s an excellent method for installing fresh and starting from scratch, especially if you need to do so for another computer, say, in aid of family tech support. The Media Creation Tool has been around in various flavors for years, and it’s periodically updated as a separate piece of software… and the latest update has broken it for some users on Windows 10. That’s according to Microsoft itself, who filed it as a bug on October 10th (that’s 11 days after the tool was updated). According to the official “Known Issues” page for Windows (spotted by Windows Latest), Windows 10 machines on the 22H2 release are seeing the tool “close unexpectedly, displaying no error message.” The fact that this was an update to the tool that immediately preceded the self-imposed deadline that Microsoft set for a Windows 11 upgrade is unfortunate (or hilarious, depending on your point of view). Oh, and despite being nominally the “second half of 2022” release according to the name, 22H2 is, in fact, the latest full version of Windows 10. It’s the one that you need to be on if you want to be eligible for that extra year of security updates from Microsoft. It seems unlikely that this issue is affecting the majority of Windows 10 users who are downloading the Media Creation Tool, if only because it took more than a week for Microsoft to officially comment on the situation. And there are plenty of other ways to upgrade if that’s what you want to do, not least of which is to just borrow a Windows 11 machine, where the tool seems to be working fine. You could also just download the ISO and create a bootable flash drive the old-fashioned way. But yeah, it’s not a great look in a situation that was already looking pretty not-great. Since the problem has been documented on the Known Issues page, I imagine someone at Microsoft is scrambling to resolve it as you read these words. Read...

Adeptia appoints Christopher Monterio as CFO to lead financial strategy and growth amid rising demand for its advanced data automation platform. Read...

Today, October 14th, officially marks the end of full support for Windows 10, a whopping decade after Microsoft debuted the operating system. You’re probably aware of this already, as Microsoft has been begging, pleading, cajoling, and not-quite-demanding that Windows 10 users switch over to Windows 11 by upgrading to a new device or updating their operating system (if their hardware supports it). But if you haven’t done anything about it yet, you probably should. Here’s a quick summary of what you need to know and what to do about it. Your options for Windows 10 You don’t have to leave Windows 10 if you don’t want to. Hundreds of millions of PCs (about half of them, in fact) won’t stop working today just because of a specific date on the calendar. This is not a Y2K situation. Even Microsoft itself has backtracked on the ultimatum, offering regular users “free” ways to extend security support for another year, albeit with some distasteful strings attached. (Many countries in Europe have strong-armed Microsoft into that extra year of security support for users with no need to jump through hoops. A cynical observer might ask why Microsoft can afford to give extended support without strings to residents of countries with more robust regulatory infrastructures but not to everyone else on the planet. Hey Microsoft, why can you afford to give extended support… yadda yadda?) Over the past few months, PCWorld has been covering the transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11, your options for upgrading or staying, or even moving to another platform entirely. This series of articles covers everything you need to know: Here are all your options for keeping your current laptop or desktop PC, including Linux. How to keep using Windows 10 and keep getting security updates. How to download a backup of Windows 10 installation media (ISO). How to update or upgrade to Windows 11. Here’s how to get a Windows 11 license for cheap, or possibly free. Here are things that Windows 11 does better than Windows 10. Here’s how to get started using Windows 11’s new features. Here are easy tweaks that can boost Windows 11’s performance. Why now? Why Windows 11? No piece of software lasts forever. Indeed, the preceding operating system Windows 8 was supported from 2012 to 2023, by at least some measures, so a 10-year stretch is not unprecedented. Meanwhile, Windows 11 has been available since 2021. But I think there are several reasons why Microsoft is seeing such a strong pushback this time around. One, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Windows 10 that really necessitates an upgrade for most users. Windows 11’s initial teething troubles are done, but many users still aren’t happy with its less flexible setup, to say nothing of its more intense load of advertising integration with Microsoft services. Speaking as a life-long Windows user, I’m still annoyed that four years after launch I need a third-party tool to get my taskbar on the top of my monitor, or even open widget links in the browser of my choice. Windows 11 is, in a word, annoying. And Windows 11 doesn’t offer much of anything to most people that isn’t covered by Windows 10. Arguably, a newer suite of Copilot tools is neat if you’ve hopped on the generative “AI” train, but Copilot hooks into services like ChatGPT that work fine in a browser and don’t need anything fancy in terms of local hardware—not even those NPUs that are a headline feature of new laptops and processors. The most visible feature in “Copilot+ PCs” is Windows Recall, a tool that’s so potentially devastating to the privacy and security of most users that my colleague Mark Hachman recommends you turn it off immediately. A different digital world But I think the biggest problem Microsoft is facing during this don’t-call-it-forced transition is that we’re in a much different digital landscape than we were in 2015. An entire generation of young people sees their phone—not their laptop or their desktop—as their primary digital device. Alternatives to Windows are more visible and available than ever, with plenty of users adopting macOS for better integration with iPhones and plenty of kids accustomed to Google’s Chromebooks through deep penetration in the education market in many countries. Even Linux is finally having a moment in the spotlight, with millions of users now adopting it as a gaming platform via the Steam Deck, even if they’re not fully aware that it’s Linux-powered. This is, in short, a really bad time for Microsoft to try and force tons and tons of users onto a new operating system that they generally don’t need and didn’t ask for. The backtracking on another year (or two) of security updates, previously gated behind premium support and aimed only at corporate customers, indicates to me that at least someone in Redmond is sounding the alarm. Read...

Boomi has appointed Diane Fanelli as Chief Revenue Officer to lead its global sales and boost growth in AI-driven integration and automation solutions. Read...

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Listen up! If you dream of a decked-out multi-monitor setup, or if you have one already but they’re all mounted on the stands they came with, then you can easily level up your workspace with a proper triple-monitor arm for maximum flexibility and ergonomics. Right now, this Huanuo triple monitor mount is $119.98 on Amazon, down from its original $149.99 and now available at its best price all year. A good monitor arm is one of the best home office upgrades you can make, and gas spring monitor arms offer easier and smoother adjustments than coil spring monitor arms. This one has a central pole plus a gas spring arm on either side, so tiny adjustments will be darn easy to make and you’ll be able to position your displays exactly where you need them (with one centered in front of you). This triple-monitor arm fits monitors between 17 to 32 inches and can hold monitors weighing between 4.4 to 17.6 pounds. Most modern monitors fall into those ranges, so nothing to worry about there. The arms are also compatible with both VESA 75×75 and 100×100 mounts, which are pretty standard for most VESA-compatible monitors. The arm itself can mount to your desk via C-clamp or grommet. It ain’t cheap, but it’s certainly a deal with this discount—and there’s no better way to run a triple-monitor setup than with a triple-monitor arm. Get this Huanuo triple monitor arm for $119.98 while you can! A triple-mounting arm with gas springs for 20% off? Yes, please!Get this Huanuo 3-monitor arm on Amazon Read...