Google recently announced in a statement that it has disrupted the “world’s largest residential proxy network.” It was able to remain undetected for a long time, hijacking innocent users’ private devices (including smartphones, PCs, and smart home devices) and using them as gateways for distributing data. The company explains that a Chinese company called IPIDEA was behind it and, with the help of a US federal court order, Google was able to shut down several websites and backend systems, thereby preventing the network from continuing to operate. In short, a proxy server is like a relay that forwards requests and caches data. For example, suppose an attacker wants to launch a DDoS attack. Instead of attacking with their own traceable devices, the attacker could relay the attacks through a proxy network comprised of smartphones and devices owned by others, thus concealing their own identity. According to Google, millions of devices belonged to IPIDEA’s proxy network, including at least 9 million Android smartphones. How users end up in the proxy network Most users ended up in IPIDEA’s network by installing free apps, games, and desktop software that contained hidden code snippets (known as SDKs) that aren’t recognized as malicious because they don’t restrict the use of the device. They do, however, allow access by third parties. IPIDEA can therefore use these SDKs to turn an affected device into an exit node for its proxy network. They were then able to forward and conceal data unnoticed through the users’ IP addresses. According to Google, Google Play Protect (the Play Store’s internal threat scanner) can reliably detect and block IPIDEA SDKs. However, apps from third-party stores or other unsecured sources aren’t so safe. We’re talking about “over 600 applications across multiple download sources … that enabled IPIDEA proxy behavior.” Is there still a risk? Google emphasizes that shutting down IPIDEA’s network would prevent millions of devices from continuing to be misused as proxies. IPIDEA, on the other hand, told the Wall Street Journal that its services were intended solely for “legitimate business purposes.” The company did not respond to the court order to shut down its network. However, IPIDEA admits that other criminal actors have been able to abuse the network. In 2025, attackers managed to exploit a vulnerability in the network and hijack millions of devices. These were added to a botnet called “Kimwolf,” which was linked to various DDoS attacks. For Android users, it’s particularly important that you never install applications from unknown, unsecure sources. Even apps from seemingly legitimate stores can introduce Trojans. For additional protection, you might want to install an antivirus app on your Android device. Read...

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Steve Gibson was “not comfortable participating in council business where religious or spiritual practices form part of official proceedings”. Read...

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Microsoft said this week that it expects Surface and Windows revenue to fall as a result of the ongoing shortages of memory in the PC market. Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood told analysts that revenue in its More Personal Computing segment, which includes the Surface devices, should fall to between $12.3 billion and $12.8 billion, from the $14.3 billion that the company reported during the quarter. Windows OEM and devices revenue should decline in the low teens, she said. “The range of potential outcomes remains wider than normal, in part due to the potential impact on the PC market from increased memory pricing,” she said. Microsoft also reported that the surge in PC buying due to transition away from Windows 10 has ended as PC makers sell through their inventory. Windows revenue should fall by 10 percent, Hood said. PC makers have already warned about rising prices, especially Dell and Lenovo. Microsoft did not say that it was raising PC prices, however — still, as we have noted, the continuing rise of RAM prices means the impact to PC consumers tends to remain a mystery. A day later, however, and Microsoft’s stock had plunged by 12 percent in a single day, as investors apparently worried about Microsoft’s Azure revenue and dependence on OpenAI. “Capital expenditures were $37.5 billion, and this quarter, roughly two-thirds of our [expenditures] was on short-lived assets, primarily GPUs and CPUs” for the server business, Microsoft’s Hood said. “Our customer demand continues to exceed our supply.” Overall, Microsoft reported net income of $38.5 billion, up 60 percent from a year ago, on revenue of $81.3 billion for its second fiscal quarter and the fourth calendar quarter of 2025. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Attractive and lightweight chassis Enjoyable keyboard and haptic touchpad Easy-to-view matte OLED touchscreen Good multi-core CPU performance Great integrated graphics performance Cons Battery life is merely typical Might be expensive at MSRP Our Verdict The Asus ExpertBook Ultra benefits from the performance of Intel’s new Panther Lake architecture, but it’s also a great premium business laptop in its own right. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Asus Expertbook Ultra Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Intel’s Panther Lake, produced with the company’s long heralded and frequently delayed 18A fabrication process, is finally beginning to tip-toe into the world. And the Asus ExpertBook Ultra is one of the first production laptops we’ve had the chance to try (Mark Hachman also recently reviewed an Asus Zenbook Duo with the top-tier Intel Core Ultra X9 388H).  While the ExpertBook has a less powerful version of Panther Lake than what’s in the Zenbook Duo, I have to concur with Mark’s conclusion. You’re going to want this.  Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Specs and features as-tested The Asus ExpertBook Ultra I received has Intel’s Core Ultra X7 358H inside. This is a high-end version of Panther Lake. It provides 16 cores in total and has Intel Arc B390 graphics, just like the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H. However, the X7 358H promises a maximum Turbo clock speed of 4.8GHz, a bit lower than the X9 388H’s maximum Turbo clock of 5.1GHz.  Model number: B9406 CPU: Intel Core Ultra X7 358H Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x-8533 Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc B390 NPU: 50 TOPS Display: 14-inch 2880×1880 tandem OLED touchscreen with Corning Gorilla Glass Storage: 2TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 solid state drive Webcam and microphone: 1080p FHD IR camera Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 with DisplayPort and Power Delivery, 2x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm combo audio jack Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 Biometrics: Windows Hello facial recognition, fingerprint reader Battery capacity: 70 watt-hours Dimensions: 12.24 x 8.38 x 0.65 inches Weight: 2.42 pounds Operating System: Windows 11 Pro Additional features: Haptic touchpad Price: TBD While the new Intel Panther Lake hardware inside the ExpertBook Ultra is certainly exciting, it’s not the only feature worth mentioning. The ExpertBook also has a 14-inch OLED touchscreen with a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus Matte finish, a haptic touchpad, and a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports.  One bit of information that’s missing from the equation, however, is the price. The ExpertBook is not due for release until April. Because of that, pricing is not yet settled. Asus said it expects a price similar to competitors, however, and cited alternatives like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and Dell Pro 14 Premium. These are often around $2,500 when similarly equipped. The Asus ExpertBook Ultra is a solid premium business laptop and a significant escalation of Asus’ profile in the space. Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Design and build quality Foundry / Matthew Smith The Asus ExpertBook Ultra makes a solid first impression straight out of the box. It uses a light, strong magnesium-aluminum alloy that keeps the laptop’s weight down to just 2.42 pounds (with tandem OLED display).  Magnesium-aluminum alloy is a common material for lightweight laptops, and it usually suffers from a plastic-y feel that seems inexpensive. However, the ExpertBook Ultra counteracts that with a “nano ceramic” finish, much like Asus’ ceraluminum, which adds a pleasing matte finish and gives the laptop a grippy feel. The laptop’s build quality is solid, too, with only the slightest flex noticeable when handling the laptop from one corner or opening the display lid.  I like the laptop’s Morn Gray colorway. Gray—as opposed to silver—is not that common of a color option for a modern laptop, and the particular tone used here feels modern but professional. The finish is matte but has a metallic luster that sparkles when the light catches the laptop just right. It will also be available in a darker Jet Fog colorway, but I didn’t have a chance to see it. It’s also a compact laptop, measuring a hair over 12 inches wide, about 8.5 inches deep, and no more than 0.65 inches thick. Measurements like this are not uncommon in 2026, but still sufficient to give the laptop a slim, sleek feel similar to what 13-inch ultralights provided five or so years ago—but with a slightly larger 14-inch display.  Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Keyboard, touchpad Foundry / Matthew Smith I was further impressed when I sat down to write on the Asus ExpertBook Ultra. It has a spacious keyboard with fantastic key feel. Keys have good travel and activate with a crisp yet not overly firm action. Most modern business laptops have at least a passable keyboard, but the ExpertBook Ultra has one of the best in recent memory.  Below the keyboard you’ll find a spacious haptic touchpad. It measures about five inches wide and a little over three inches deep, which is a respectable size for a 14-inch laptop. The surface provides enough room to execute Windows multi-touch gestures including the 5-finger swipe.  I also like the touchpad’s haptic feedback. I find haptic touchpads are almost universally better than those with a physical click action. Of course, that’s because the physical click action on modern laptops is often terrible, but it is what it is. The haptic touchpad offers a convincing sense of tactile feedback. Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Display, audio Foundry / Matthew Smith A 14-inch OLED touchscreen with 2880×1880 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate is found on every Asus ExpertBook Ultra. The specs suggest it’s a rather common panel, but the ExpertBook has a secret weapon. It’s a matte display.  Specifically, the laptop uses a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus display with a matte finish. This is doubly rare. Most laptops with an OLED panel don’t have a matte or anti-glare finish, and most laptops don’t use Corning’s Gorilla Glass.  The result is a spectacular yet practical display. The 14-inch OLED panel delivers the incredible color vibrance, rich contrast, and high sharpness that is typical of OLED display panels. Yet it also provides a low-glare finish that keeps the display reasonably easy to read even outdoors. The high-gloss finish used by most OLED screens can become a problem in that situation. The ExpertBook also comes through in audio performance. It has a six-speaker sound system that delivers good volume and some hint of bass, which allows it to deliver kick in movies and music without becoming muddy and indistinct. It can still begin to sound buzzy and harsh at maximum volume, but that volume is so loud you’ll likely not use it often, and the sound is decent at more modest volumes. Asus Expertbook Ultra: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Asus ExpertBook Ultra has a lot to recommend it, but it’s not flawless, and the webcam is among its less impressive features. That’s not to say it’s bad. It’s a 1080p webcam with a physical privacy shutter. Image quality is competitive with most Windows laptops in good to moderate lighting, but it doesn’t defy the typical issues webcams experience in mixed or low light. The webcam also has an extremely wide field of view, which I’m not a huge fan of—though this is typical for many webcams on modern Windows laptops. Audio is recorded with a dual-microphone array. Like the webcam, it’s not bad but also doesn’t stand out. The audio is recorded at good volume and can reject most background noise, but audio capture still has the hollow, distant sound common to laptop microphones.  However, the ExpertBook Ultra delivers on biometrics. It has a fingerprint sensor built into the power button, which is located on the keyboard beside the Delete key, and it supports facial recognition via an IR webcam. Both were smooth in my testing.  Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Connectivity Foundry / Matthew Smith A pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports are the star of the Asus ExpertBook Ultra’s connectivity. Each supports Power Delivery to charge the laptop as well as DisplayPort for video-out connections. Asus also wisely places one port on each side of the laptop, instead of both on the same side, and both ports are about as far back on the flanks of the laptop as possible. That helps with cable management.  The laptop also has a pair of USB-A ports. These, too, are split across both flanks of the laptop. An HDMI 2.1 port and a 3.5mm combo audio jack, both on the laptop’s left flank, round out the options.  Wireless connectivity is solid, as well, as the laptop supports both Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0. I was impressed by the laptop’s Wi-Fi speeds. Most laptops that I review deliver fine performance, but the ExpertBook was noticeably quicker than the average when I used it in my detached home office, which is several walls and about 40 feet from my router.  Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Performance The Asus ExpertBook Ultra is one of the first laptops PC World has received with Intel’s new Panther Lake architecture inside.  Specifically, the laptop has the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H. This chip provides a total of 16 CPU cores (four performance, eight efficient, and four low-power efficient) with a maximum Turbo clock of 4.8GHz. The ExpertBook pairs the Intel chip with 32GB of LPDDR5x-8533 memory and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 solid state drive.  So, how does Intel’s new hardware stack up? Foundry / Matthew Smith We start off with PCMark 10, a holistic system benchmark that speaks favorably of the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H. It leaps ahead here with a score of 9,892, which is well ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI and Intel Core Ultra Series 2 chips in previous premium business laptops.  I found this result surprising, and tried it several times, only to discover the scores improved (slightly). Having done that, I can only conclude that the laptop is a performer, and a performer across many aspects instead of one or two. This is a stellar start for Panther Lake. Foundry / Matthew Smith Next up is Cinebench R24, a heavily multi-threaded benchmark that is often quite harsh on Intel architecture or, at least, was harsh to Lunar Lake chips that usually found their way into this category of laptop. The benchmark doesn’t seem to love Intel’s strategy of using many different types of cores.  This may still be somewhat true with the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, as its level of performance is not what the core count might lead you to expect, but it’s still quick enough to deliver a big gain over Intel Core Ultra 256/258V chips from the last generation, and it’s now competitive with AMD Ryzen AI 9 and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite.  Foundry / Matthew Smith Handbrake was a real surprise. As the graph shows, this benchmark has historically been rather down on Intel Core Ultra Series 2, placing them well behind AMD Ryzen AI competitors. Yet Panther Lake makes up the difference and then some, and squeezes out a slight victory. As the graph shows, this is a huge improvement. Intel’s Panther Lake seems to be mostly spoken of as a graphics story, or at least that was the impression I received at CES 2026, but don’t sleep on its CPU performance. It’s a big leap over Lunar Lake.  It should be mentioned that Panther Lake currently has the advantage of going first. PC World has yet to benchmark a production laptop with AMD’s new Gorgon Point architecture (though its gains are expected to be modest) or Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X2 (which is promised to post big gains). Still, as it stands right now, Panther Lake looks solid. Foundry / Matthew Smith The Asus ExpertBook Ultra’s integrated graphics performance only sweetens the deal. Some new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips, including the Intel Core Ultra X7 358H in the Asus ExpertBook Ultra, have Intel’s Arc B390. It has 12 Xe graphics cores and, in this incarnation, a maximum clock of 2.5GHz. And it’s quite a beast. Intel’s Arc B390 cleans up the competition. In 3DMark Time Spy, the most graphically complex of these tests, it’s about 75 percent faster than the HP EliteBook X G1a with AMD Radeon 890M integrated graphics, and over 45 percent quicker than Intel Arc 140V in the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s. For comparison, I also tossed in the Acer Nitro V16 AI with Nvidia RTX 5050 graphics. The RTX 5050 is still much quicker with a Time Spy score of 9,571, so if you were thinking Intel Arc B390 might replace modern Nvidia discrete mobile graphics, it’s not quite there. However, the Intel Arc B390’s Time Spy score is in league with many entry-level RTX 3050 and RTX 4050 laptops from a few years ago. Laptops with those GPUs often score between 5,000 and 7,000. I also tried Intel Arc B390 in two games we frequently test: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Cyberpunk 2077. Tomb Raider averaged 79 FPS at 1080p resolution and the Highest detail settings, while Cyberpunk 2077 averaged 46 FPS at 1080p and Ultra detail. This is playable performance, and without any form of XeSS upscaling (which works well) used to further enhance frame rates. Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Battery life Asus stuffs a 70 watt-hour battery in the ExpertBook Ultra. That’s a typical battery capacity for a Windows laptop of this size, so the laptop’s longevity comes down to the efficiency of Intel’s new chip. The results are fine but, unlike Panther Lake’s performance, don’t stand out. Foundry / Matthew Smith I recorded a little over 15 hours of battery life in PC World’s standard battery rundown test, which loops a 4K file of the short film Tears of Steel with the display brightness set to roughly 200 nits. As the graph shows, this is a fine but not unusual result. Many modern Windows laptops can achieve 15 hours of battery life, though some land far short of that mark. My real-world experience was close to the battery life test. The battery drained at a rate that would leave me with about 12 hours of life. I used the laptop for my typical workflow, which included writing in LibreOffice, using Google Docs, browsing the web, and occasionally editing photos with GIMP.  The ExpertBook ships with a 90-watt power adapter that can charge the laptop via either of its two Thunderbolt 4 ports. The power adapter is compact, measuring less than three inches in depth and width, and almost exactly an inch thick.While the laptop will complain if it receives less than 90 watts of power, a less powerful 45 to 65 watt USB-C power adapter can charge the laptop if you’re not using it for demanding work—it will just do so more slowly and may impact performance. Asus ExpertBook Ultra: Conclusion The Asus ExpertBook Ultra is a solid premium business laptop and a significant escalation of Asus’ profile in the space.It’s attractive and light, it has a great keyboard and touchpad, and it offers an easy-to-view matte OLED display. Intel’s Core Ultra X7 358H, meanwhile, delivers great marks across the board with good multi-core CPU performance and outstanding integrated graphics performance.  I can find a couple nitpicks. The battery life is just mediocre and the webcam is merely adequate. But in these areas the laptop is competitive—it just doesn’t stand out. The one open question is the laptop’s MSRP, as the ExpertBook Ultra will not arrive until April. I do expect it will be expensive (roughly around $2,500), as is typical for this type of laptop. Still, the laptop’s quality is high enough to be worth a premium. This is a serious alternative to a Dell Pro 14 Premium, ThinkPad X1 Carbon, or HP EliteBook. Read...

But it`s still considered to be extremely strong. Read...

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