Co-leader Rawiri Waititi made the announcement after the Treaty Principles Bill was voted down. Read...

The Auditor-General has criticised the public sector over a lack of planning, monitoring and accountability for keeping to commitments laid down in Treaty settlement laws. Read...

Many PC enthusiasts focus on the hardware components like the GPU and processor, but they often overlook the importance of a good PC case. Many times, enthusiasts pick the cheapest option to save money. However, this decision can lead to problems down the road like poor build quality and limited airflow. To help avoid these issues, we’ll walk you through the aspects you should consider when buying a PC case. We’ll also highlight top cases at various price points. 1. Size and form factor are a must First of all, make sure you get a case that can fit all of the components. The form factor determines whether your mainboard will fit into the case. The most common options are ATX, Micro-ATX, and Mini-ITX. There’s also XL-ATX and E-ATX, which are slightly larger than ATX but are rarely used in gaming PCs. Large cases often also support small form factors, but the reverse is, of course, difficult. If you try to fit a big custom RTX 5080 into a mini-ITX case, for example, you will quickly realize that it won’t fit. So you also need to make sure that the case has enough space for all the components like the graphics cards, AIOs, fans, and power supplies. Let’s take a look at the usual case sizes. There are big towers, midi towers, mini towers, and ITX. Big towers offer the most space; all standard motherboard sizes fit in here, and often XL-ATX and/or E-ATX are also supported. With these cases, you have plenty of space for components and cable management. Midi towers are somewhat smaller; ATX boards still fit in there, but not always E-ATX. Mini-towers are more compact; only Micro-ATX and smaller will fit, and ITX systems will logically only fit ITX. 2. Do all the components fit? To check which components will fit in your PC case, you can take a look at PC Part Picker–you’ll find all the relevant information listed there. If you’re looking for a midi tower, for example, you can see all the sorting options directly. By selecting a specific case, you can check the “Motherboard form factor” section to see what it accommodates. Everything up to E-ATX fits, but you also need to consider three additional components: Power supply unit, CPU cooler, and graphics cards. In this case, we have an ATX power supply unit, i.e., the standard size. Please note: ATX power supply units have different depths. For compact builds, there are SFX and SFX-L power supplies. You should also check the maximum size of your CPU fan and graphics card. For the CPU fan, it’s about the height, i.e., how far the fan protrudes from the mainboard. As for the GPU, it’s the length measured from the slot bracket. You can also see how much space your case still has and how the case is constructed. This information is usually available from PC Part Picker, but if not, you will have to look on the manufacturer’s website. Fortunately, if you toss all your desired components into the website, it’ll warn you if there are any compatibility concerns. 3. Airflow, fan, AIO Getting a decent airflow isn’t rocket science, but finding the right housing for it isn’t easy and there are a few traps you shouldn’t fall into. Our recommendation? Keep it simple. Manufacturers like to come up with the fanciest “cooling solutions,” but these quickly backfire. The principle is relatively simple. You need to get as much cold air into the housing as possible and then get warm air out again. The easiest way to do this is with a mesh front, which are perforated grilles. If you’re using an air cooler for your CPU, a mesh front is highly recommended. As a rule, two to three fans fit in there; you have a decent air throughput, and the cold air is directed straight at the GPU and the CPU cooler. Add a fan at the back that blows air out, and you have an overpressure system that is completely sufficient for most configs. Some cases also have fans pre-installed, which you can also check at Geizhals. Here you can also see which fans are compatible at which point in the case. For example, the front of a case may fit either one 140 fan, two 140 fans, or three 120 fans. If a fan is not labeled “optional,” then it’s already pre-installed. There are other ways to create a good airflow. With an AIO, i.e., an all-in-one solution, everything looks entirely different again. We first have to see which radiators fit into the housing. At Geizhals, you can also see which radiator sizes can be placed where. In the Corsair case (see picture above), everything up to 360 millimeters fits at the front, top, and right. At the back, where the single fan is usually located, a 120 mm AIO would also fit instead. With an AIO, a mesh front is no longer so important, unless you want to put the radiator right there. Nevertheless, your components should not get too hot, so you need a proper airflow in the housing even with an AIO. However, it’s no longer important that this is orientated towards the CPU, so you should be a little more creative about where you place the fans–this is especially true for big and midi towers. However, if you’re building a compact system, you should think more about the cooling and perhaps watch a few tutorial videos. 4. Connections and equipment Many people don’t pay too much attention to the connections and features when buying a case, but that’s a big mistake! There are usually USB-A, headphones, perhaps a microphone, or USB-C ports on the outside of the case. However, you should also check the exact USB standards. In addition, not all cases have front ports, which can be important. In terms of features, as previously mentioned, you should pay attention to the presence (or absence) of pre-installed fans. You should also consider how many SSDs and hard drives you want to install. Although gaming PCs hardly need hard drives anymore, many still use at least one 2.5-inch SSD. Again, you can check Geizhals to see how much space is available, usually under “Internal.” Mini tip: Cable management Before we come to the last point, a few words about cable management. It’s difficult to tell from Geizhals how suitable a case is for cable management. You should therefore take a close look at the available product images. Pay attention to whether there are enough cable feed-throughs and whether there is enough depth at the rear for all the cables. If you have shortlisted an enclosure, take a look at a few videos. 5. Quality and price Finally, let’s talk about price. How much should you spend on a decent enclosure? A decent case doesn’t have to be expensive, as many of them come equipped with all the important connections and quality fans. But a $40 case is usually made of very thin materials and may not be as well-built as a pricier one. Ultimately, the case has to fit your budget. Sure, you can put together a $2,500 PC and pack it into a cheap case, but it might not look good. As a general rule, aim to spend about five to 10 percent of your budget on the case. So, for a $1,000 PC, you should look for cases in the $50-$100 range. This is just a rough guideline, though. There are always affordable or more premium options out there. You can also look out for a sale or add cases to your wishlist for future purchases. Our recommendations Here are our recommendations for each price range: Endorfy Ventum 200 Air, midi tower, four pre-installed fans without RGB, glass window, dust filter, good cable routing, $67.95 at Amazon Corsair Frame 4000D, midi tower, good airflow, only two fans pre-installed without RBG, $109.99 at Amazon Be Quiet Light Base 900, big tower, double glass wall, removable feet, comes with four pre-installed fans, $189.90 at Amazon Read...

Relentless attacks lead to `large-scale civilian casualties,` the UN secretary-general`s spokesman said. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Incredibly lightweight Ceraluminum is impressive Mind-blowing battery life Cons A $600 laptop CPU in a $1,200 machine Seriously, this is the slowest Snapdragon X chip Ceraluminum feels almost plasticky and hollow Our Verdict The Asus ZenBook A14 is an incredible proof of concept for how light and long-lasting a laptop can be. But you shouldn’t buy it unless you’re willing to trade performance for an ultralight machine that gets more battery life than you probably need. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today The Asus ZenBook A14 is a fascinating machine. Its chassis is made of “Ceraluminum,” so it’s incredibly light and durable. Not only does it weigh just over two pounds, but it also offers amazing battery life. However, Asus has chosen to put the absolute slowest Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip in this machine. The ZenBook A14, retailing for $1,200, uses a Snapdragon X chip that was originally intended for $600 laptops. Although this laptop offers extended battery life, I’m not sure the trade-off makes sense at this price point. For everyday tasks, a faster Snapdragon X chip would offer better performance (often at a lower price!). But if you’re happy with Windows on ARM and battery life is a top priority, then this might be the machine for you. It’s just a very small niche to target. Asus ZenBook A14: Specs The Asus ZenBook A14 features a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor. We reviewed the UX3407QA model, which costs $1,200 at retail. This machine has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X X1-26-100 processor. This is actually a newer, more entry-level Snapdragon X chip. It’s slower than the initial Snapdragon X Plus chips, which were the slowest of the lot. Here’s the official product matrix. As you can see, Snapdragon X comes in last with the slowest CPU (up to 3 GHz) and the slowest GPU (1.7 TFLOPS.) This does mean the machine uses less power and should get better battery life. But, again, Snapdragon X chips in general are already great at that. This doesn’t feel like $1,200-class performance. While I’m told tariffs are affecting pricing, this is still much more than we’d expect to see a laptop with this chip sell for. Qualcomm promised laptops in the $600 range with this chip and Asus used it to deliver a longer-lasting $1,200 machine. Model number: UX3407QA CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X X1-26-100 Memory: 32 GB LPDDR5X Graphics/GPU: Qualcomm Adreno NPU: Qualcomm Hexagon (45 TOPS) Display: 1920×1200 OLED display with 60Hz refresh rate Storage: 1 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD Webcam: 1080p webcam Connectivity: 2x USB Type-C (USB 4.0 Gen 3), 1x USB Type-A (USB 3.2 Gen 2), 1x HDMI 2.1 out, 1x combo audio jack Networking: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 Biometrics: IR camera for facial recognition Battery capacity: 70 Watt-hours Dimensions: 12.23” x 8.42” x 0.53” Weight: 2.16 pounds MSRP: $1,200 as tested The Asus ZenBook is technically impressive, as it’s super light and long-lasting. Asus ZenBook A14: Design and build quality IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus ZenBook A14 is incredibly light. At just 2.16 pounds, picking it up almost feels like picking up a hollow machine. That’s due to the “Ceraluminum,” the “revolutionary material” Asus is showing off here. It’s ceramic-coated aluminum, which Asus says “combines the lightness of aluminum with the resilience of ceramic.” It’s incredibly light! And, while Asus does say it’s rugged as well, I should note that I was not attempting to scratch or drop this machine to test that! The Ceraluminum is interesting. It doesn’t feel like typical metal — you’re not touching metal, you’re touching ceramic. I wouldn’t say it feels cheap, but there’s something about picking it up that reminds me brain of picking up a plastic laptop and it’s so light that it’s almost like a hollow plastic laptop. We associate that “metal” feel with premium laptops and while there’s metal under the surface here, you won’t feel it. If you like a weighty metal laptop, this isn’t for you. But if you like the feel of something light, this is impressive. If you can get over the lack of metal feeling, you can feel like you’re picking up something almost impossibly light for the performance. That’s cool! That’s the most impressive bit. The rest of the machine is standard — in a good way! This model is available in the “Iceland Gray” color with a black bezel and hinge. It’s easy to open the laptop with one hand. It feels nice and light to hold, maybe even too light if you prefer a weightier experience. It’s lighter than I expect a functional laptop to be. Asus ZenBook A14: Keyboard and trackpad IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus ZenBook A14’s keyboard and trackpad are fine. Neither is unusually impressive, but both are certainly usable. The keyboard features 1.3mm of key travel. It’s a tad squishy and doesn’t respond as crisply as the keyboards often do on a ThinkPad, for example. But it’s pretty good for a laptop focused on being light and thin. The trackpad is a good size and in a good location right below the keyboard. The surface feels good to slide your finger over, and it has a pleasant “thunk” when you click down on it. As usual, I would prefer a haptic touchpad to make more of the trackpad’s surface clickable. Asus ZenBook A14: Display and speakers IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus ZenBook A14 has a decent display. Asus has chosen to include a 14-inch OLED display with a 1920×1200 resolution. It looks fine — I do like an OLED display! On the other hand, this display only supports a 60Hz refresh rate. I understand that a higher refresh rate would lower battery life. On the other hand, this feels like not exactly the best spec for a $1,200 laptop. It’s not just about CPU performance. For a machine with a $600-laptop-class CPU, I’d hope components like the display would really sing to make up for that. It’s also worth noting that this is not a touchscreen display. This machine’s speakers get plenty of volume, which is good. They’ll be great for video meetings and watching YouTube videos. On the other hand, the bass seems particularly underwhelming to me — really, that’s no surprise. Would a $1,200 ultralight laptop have an amazing subwoofer? Plan to bring headphones for music, movies, and TV shows. Asus ZenBook A14: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Asus ZenBook A14 includes a 1080p webcam that actually produces a surprising crisp picture. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than average. It’ll be great for video meetings. There’s no physical camera shutter, though. The microphone here sounds fine and you could certainly use it for meetings. I do feel like I’ve heard clearer, crisper audio from the microphones on other machines. But it’s fine. This machine isn’t the ultimate video meeting package, the goal is just having a decent mic. Asus did include an IR camera for Windows Hello sign-in here and it works very well. You can easily sign into your PC just by opening this machine or sitting down in front of it. (There’s no fingerprint reader, however.) Asus ZenBook A14: Connectivity IDG / Chris Hoffman The Asus ZenBook A14 features an okay selection of ports, but not a lot of them. That’s no surprise, as it’s an ultralight machine. I’m just happy to see a headphone jack here. On the left side of the machine, you’ll find two USB Type-C ports, an HDMI out port, and a combo audio jack. Bear in mind that you will need one of the USB Type-C ports to charge the machine — it charges via USB-C. On the right side, you’ll find a single USB type-A port. That’s all. Plan to bring a dongle if you want more ports. As far as radios, you have the usual Snapdragon X hardware here: Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Asus ZenBook A14: Performance The Asus ZenBook A14 performed fine in day-to-day desktop usage. Look, this is an ultralight laptop with a low-tier processor, I’m not doing serious heavy CPU usage tasks on it! For a web browser like Chrome and productivity tools like Microsoft Word, it worked fine. But for graphics-heavy tasks — gaming and professional apps that hit the GPU — it’s much slower than many other Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite-powered systems (But buying a $1,200 laptop is a big commitment and you might eventually want to do something more demanding, more than just opening some extra browser tabs. That’s why the performance still matters.) As always, we ran the Asus ZenBook A14 through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs. But, since this is an ARM-powered laptop, we can’t run all our normal benchmarks. First, we run Cinebench R24, which has an ARM-native version. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage. IDG / Chris Hoffman That’s what we see here. With a multi-threaded Cinebench R24 score of 603, the Asus ZenBook A14 comes in substantially behind the Snapdragon X Elite-powered machines that have 12 cores instead of eight cores. Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance. This isn’t an ARM-native benchmark, so it’s run through the Prism translation layer. This gives us a decent idea of how this machine’s GPU will do when playing most Windows games, which are written for x86 processors and will run through this translation layer. IDG / Chris Hoffman With a 3DMark Time Spy score of 1,066, the Asus ZenBook A14 lagged behind even Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus-powered machines. Of course, you probably don’t plan on using this machine for gaming — but wouldn’t it be nice if a $1,200 machine delivered better GPU performance if you ever want it? There are lots of other good laptop options in this price range. IDG / Chris Hoffman We also run 3DMark Night Raid, which has an ARM-native version. This gives us a better idea of the machine’s GPU performance without the Prism translation layer being a factor. With a 3DMark Night Raid score of 16,768, the Asus ZenBook A14 once again is far behind other Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered machines. It’s sad to see such a good laptop be so hobbled by the CPU choice at this price point. Overall, the Asus ZenBook A14 delivers low-end performance for its hardware class and price range. But day-to-day desktop use is fine. Asus ZenBook A14: Battery life The Asus ZenBook A14 has a 70 Watt-hour battery, which is honestly really impressive given its incredibly light weight of 2.16 pounds. Asus could have trimmed this down if the goal was to get the laptop as light as possible, but it’s nice to see. We’d expect some serious battery life thanks to the lower-end Snapdragon X hardware here. IDG / Chris Hoffman To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks and it’s worth noting that the ZenBook’s OLED display has a bit of an advantage, as OLED screens use less power to display the black bars around the video. The ZenBook A14 lasted for an incredible 1,436 minutes in our battery life benchmark. That’s 24 hours running on battery, something that would’ve been completely unheard of just a few years ago. But, while this is a synthetic benchmark that doesn’t exactly match real-world uses where you’re running a bunch of browser tabs and other applications, it’s still more battery life than you likely need. I don’t think the performance trade-offs are worth it to most people. Asus ZenBook A14: Conclusion The Asus ZenBook is technically impressive, as it’s super light and long-lasting. That said, the low-end Snapdragon X CPU here doesn’t really make sense for a $1,200 laptop. It buys you more battery life, but these machines already have incredible battery life even without sacrificing CPU performance. Ideally, you’d also save some cash by opting for this cheaper CPU! You’d almost certainly be better off with a different Snapdragon X laptop, if you want to go the ARM route, perhaps a Surface Laptop 7? Almost every other machine has a higher-end CPU. Still, there’s probably someone out there who wants an ultralight laptop that squeezes out extra battery life away from an electrical outlet. If you’re that person, good news — you found your new favorite laptop. Read...

If you use an AI image or text generator to make a work of “art,” does it belong to you? Or, in more relevant legal terms, can you copyright and sell the output while preventing others from selling it themselves? That’s a huge question hanging over the heads of anyone tempted to use AI tools for commercial products. And according to the latest guidance from the US Copyright Office… well, it’s complicated. The bottom line of the updated Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (PDF) is that a work of art needs “some degree of originality” and “human authorship” in order for it to be eligible for copyright in the United States. Crucially, simply plugging prompts into an AI image generator or text generator does NOT meet this burden. Because the author (or artist, or other relevant creative term) of a work is defined as “the person who translates an idea into a fixed, tangible expression,” an AI system cannot meet this burden, even though it’s using input from a human to generate its output. “Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material, or material where there is insufficient human control over the expressive elements,” says the report, spotted by Reuters. According to the Copyright Office, there’s simply too much work being done autonomously between the prompt and the output to still consider it made by a person. Commenting on established case law, the report says that “…the Supreme Court has made clear that originality is required, not just time and effort.” One of the determining factors in the report is that an AI system can create a more or less infinite amount of output, somewhat related but basically unlimited in variation, which indicates a lack of human input and control: “The fact that identical prompts can generate multiple different outputs further indicates a lack of human control. […] The black box of the AI system is providing varying interpretations of the user’s directions. Repeatedly revising prompts does not change this analysis or provide a sufficient basis for claiming copyright in the output.” Now, just because something created entirely by feeding prompts into an AI tool isn’t copyrightable doesn’t mean that any use of AI makes a work of art ineligible for copyright. After all, extending that argument to digital art and media tools in general—or even going back to the first uses of cameras to capture still images—would overly limit creative expression and the ability to sell it. “The use of AI tools to assist rather than stand in for human creativity does not affect the availability of copyright protection for the output,” says the report. “Copyright protects the original expression in a work created by a human author, even if the work also includes AI-generated material.” This AI-generated zombie Santa appears in a recent Call of Duty loading screen.Activision To give a recent example, Activision’s use of AI-generated still images in something as complex as the latest Call of Duty game doesn’t make the whole game ineligible for copyright. And given its association with a larger commercial product, the images themselves aren’t available for copyright-free use to other companies. Or at least that’s how I’m reading the interpretation. (I am not a lawyer, certainly not a copyright lawyer.) So, how are we going to determine how much AI is too much? Where’s the line for when a product or project uses too much AI-generated content and thus ceases to be “human” enough for it to qualify for copyright? Frustratingly, there’s no clear line as the deciding factor. “Whether human contributions to AI-generated outputs are sufficient to constitute authorship must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis,” says the report. That feels like an echo of the famous “I know it when I see it” obscenity test, which has actual legal precedent in the United States. The ambiguity seems inevitable to end in lawsuits. If someone makes, say, an AI tool that can create an entire mobile game from a single prompt, and someone else copies and sells that game on the basis that it can’t be copyrighted, it’ll be down to a judge to determine whether the original work has enough human creativity to qualify for protection. A few things to remember about this situation: one, the law always lags behind technology as a matter of course; and two, this ruling only applies to the United States—and even then doesn’t have the power of law. A new law passed by Congress or an executive order from the president could change some or all of it at any time. When it comes to how AI affects copyright, we’re still very much in the weeds. Read...

Right now, I’ve got twelve open programs on my Windows 11 taskbar, plus four more pinned apps—and even on my ultrawide monitor, they’re taking up a lot of screen real estate. On my laptop, I have to be a lot more conservative with my apps. But a new feature might fix that by automatically making taskbar icons smaller as necessary. The Windows Insider blog details the new feature on the latest Beta and Dev versions of the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build, spotted by BleepingComputer. The new tool gives you three options: icons that shrink and compress only when the taskbar is full, or smaller icons that are permanent, or completely disabled. Given that it’s appearing in two Insider builds simultaneously, I’d say that it’s a pretty solid bet that this will show up in the general release of Windows 11 sometime this year. That’s on top of a lot of changes to the Start menu that are currently in the testing phase and somewhat less likely to get the green light. While I appreciate that Microsoft continues to improve the experience… I feel like they’re also tweaking a lot while ignoring core functionality that existed back in Windows 10. Three and a half years after the release of Windows 11, I still need a registry tweak or a third-party program just to get my taskbar on the top of my screen. Read...

Microsoft has arguably done more to shape the evolution of the PC than any other company. This week, Microsoft celebrates its 50th anniversary on April 4, 2025. Fifty years is a long time for anyone, let alone a company which has driven itself to move at the pace of the computer, than the Internet, and now AI. That’s decades of decisions, of launches (and lawsuits!) and apps both good and bad. Most absolutely changed how you live and work. But which ones? Here are 25 key moments in the long, storied history of Microsoft! For each, you’ll find a bit of background, a quirky fact or two, and what it has all meant for Microsoft and for you. Happy birthday, Microsoft! 1975: Gates and Allen show off their BASIC interpreter In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen meet at Lakeside School, forging a partnership that would literally change history. The Lakeside Mothers Club bought a teletype that can connect with a General Electric timeshare computer, and Gates hones his BASIC skills while using it. He even writes a computerized class schedule for Lakeside, scheduling a “disproportionate number of interesting girls” alongside him in class. (Ahem.) At night, he reads computer manuals. In 1975, the MITS Altair 8000 debuted, and Gates and Allen decide to write a BASIC interpreter for it after reading about it in Popular Electronics. In March 1975, they convince MITS that the interpreter works, and that MITS should distribute it as Altair BASIC. Paul Allen and Bill Gates.Microsoft Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, the same day Altair BASIC was released. “Micro-Soft” was registered on Nov. 26, 1976, as a pastiche of “microcomputer” and “software.” 1981: Microsoft releases MS-DOS IBM developed the personal computer in 1980; Microsoft adapted the operating system to run it. IBM needed an operating system to power the IBM PC, and couldn’t finalize negotiations with Digital Research and CP/M — although why the two companies couldn’t strike a deal is disputed, ranging from licensing issues to whether or not DRI founder Gary Kildall was even available. IBM approached Microsoft and struck an agreement: Microsoft would supply its OS. A photo of MS-DOS (version 2.0m, not 1.0), via the Computer History Museum.Computerhistory.org But Microsoft didn’t actually have an operating system, and decided to license Tim Paterson’s Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS) instead as PC-DOS. According to Allen’s memoir, QDOS was licensed to Microsoft for $10,000 plus $15,000 for every corporate license. Microsoft, in turn, asked for and received $430,000 for the deal, including $75,000 for various adaptions. A critical clause: Microsoft wanted the ability to resell its QDOS OS, and MS-DOS was born. On Aug. 12, 1981, IBM announced the IBM PC. IBM actually sold the PC with a choice of either CP/M or Microsoft’s PC-DOS, but charged $240 for CP/M and $40 for PC-DOS. Guess which consumers preferred? (In 2014, Microsoft published the MS-DOS source code to the Web…then apparently released a second version in a proprietary format, making no one happy.) 1982: Microsoft unveils…a game? In Nov. 1982, Microsoft launched Flight Simulator 1.0, essentially carving out Microsoft as a videogame company just as much as a firm that would shape computing. Flight Simulator was not originally designed by Microsoft; instead, it was coded by Sublogic and licensed to Microsoft as a 16-bit product in 1982, alongside similar versions for the Apple II and Commodore TRS-80. Since then, Microsoft has further iterated upon Flight Simulator, with its most recent version, MSFS 2024, released last year. The improved simulation features essentially a fully rendered Earth, complete with air and ship traffic, and graphics that go down to individually-rendered animals. Quite a ways from the demo above, right? 1983: Microsoft jumps into the hardware market, too On May 2, 1983, Microsoft unveiled the Microsoft Mouse, further diversifying the company’s offerings. Though the mouse was made by Alps, Microsoft marketed it as a necessary peripheral for IBM-compatible systems that used MS-DOS. The Microsoft Mouse kicked off decades of Microsoft-branded computer peripherals, as the company attempted to enhance the appeal of the PC with ergonomic, attractive PC peripherals from mice to keyboards to joysticks. In January 2024, Microsoft pulled out of the PC mouse and keyboard market, ceding manufacturing to Incase. That hasn’t stopped Incase from launching new Microsoft PC peripherals, however; the “designed by Microsoft” Compact Ergonomic Keyboard debuts this year for $119.99. 1983: Microsoft launches “Multi-Tool Word” Charles Simonyi developed the world’s first word processor, Bravo, for Xerox’s iconic Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC. In 1981, Gates hired him. On the first day of his tenure, Simonyi set out to develop a word processor, spreadsheet, and database application, all designed originally to run on MS-DOS — and later, into Windows using the Microsoft Mouse. Willis Lai / Foundry “Multi-Tool” turned out to be too clunky of a name…and Microsoft Word was born. Fun fact: a free demo of Word was bundled with the Nov. 1983 issue of PCWorld! (For more, read our feature: “Microsoft Word Turns 25.” 1985: Microsoft Windows launches, ushering in the graphical user interface Windows didn’t just happen overnight. While MS-DOS was of course successful, companies like Digital Research (GEM), Tandy (DeskMate) and others were adding graphical user interface shells to MS-DOS, moving beyond mere text on a screen. And then there was the 1983 Apple Lisa, built entirely on a GUI. Microsoft had to follow suit. But for two years after Microsoft announced what it called “Interface Manager” on Nov. 10, 1983, development stalled — it took more than two years before Windows 1.0 debuted on Nov. 20, 1985 for a price of $99. (That’s a fixed price, not a subscription.) Windows began life as a graphical user interface for MS-DOS.Microsoft Sure, Windows launched Microsoft into the modern era, but we shouldn’t forget that it also incorporated apps like Calendar, Notepad, and Paint. It’s taken literal decades for those to be freshened up, but today we’re seeing generative AI make its way inside Paint and Notepad, among others. 1986: Microsoft goes public On February 26, 1986, Microsoft formally opened its doors in its new headquarters in Redmond, Washington, close to where Gates grew up in in Seattle. On March 13, 1986, the company went public at $21 per share. Microsoft’s IPO prospectus.Microsoft If you had purchased just one share at Microsoft’s IPO, it would be worth about $112,086 today, according to Microsoft Copilot. Tack on about $955 for annual dividends. But if you’d reinvested them, the total would be as much as $119,300 to $127,086 from one share alone. (If you’d done the same for Apple, your return would be about $72,800.) 1988: Microsoft ships Microsoft Office, shipping its trinity of productivity apps While Microsoft may have debuted Multi-Tool Word in 1983, it wasn’t until the Comdex trade show on August 1, 1988, that Microsoft announced Microsoft Office. (Like Windows, Office shipped two years later on Nov. 1, 1990.) The suite included Word 1.1, but the second version of Microsoft Excel. PowerPoint wasn’t originated at Microsoft, either; Microsoft bought “Presenter” from Forethought Inc. and shipped version 2.0 inside Office. As Microsoft itself reported, the company was competing with itself: Microsoft launched Microsoft Write for the Atari at the same trade show. Since then, Microsoft Office has become the de facto productivity suite, though free alternatives to Office exist. 1990: Microsoft releases Windows 3.0, the first major update to Windows Microsoft released Windows 2.0 in 1987, but Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (released April 1992) were the Windows updates that put Microsoft on the map. Windows 3.0 (code-named “Cedar”) sold 100,000 copies within two weeks, and added sound to the Windows platform. Windows 3.0 also introduced the world to Windows Solitaire, which sucked up productivity worldwide. Windows 3.1 added MIDI sound and support for (.AVI) video, too, as well as Minesweeper. Both games were designed to help users become more proficient at using a mouse. Windows 3.0 enabled “protected mode,” which enabled programs to work at the same time and share memory while still maintaining compatibility with MS-DOS. (Microsoft programmers “hacked” the Intel chipset to enable what they called the PrestoChangeoSelector.) Windows 3.1 did include some killer features, though: the modern design of File Explorer, screensavers, the Windows registry, Notepad and Calculator…and Microsoft Bob? You can argue whether Windows 3.0 or Windows 3.1 were the more meaningful release, but Microsoft had clearly begun its matriculation from nerdy OS into a professional — some might say mainstream — market. 1995: Windows 95 starts us up as Windows goes mainstream On August 24, 1995, Microsoft launched Windows 95, capping off a three-year development cycle for the operating system code-named “Chicago.” Jay Leno and Gates led the launch at Microsoft’s campus, backed by a $300 million marketing campaign. Microsoft was positioning Windows not as a tool, but as a rock star — pretty literally, as the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” accompanied the launch, and the launch CD-ROM included Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.” In its first year, Windows 95 sold 40 million copies. Brad Silverberg, a former Microsoft manager, says he still has the first copy of Windows 95, shrinkwrapped. The Stones’ song also signaled Windows 95’s signature feature: the Start menu, which served as a starting point for users to launch new applications. Underneath, Microsoft designed Windows 95 as its first 32-bit operating system, replacing the 16-bit OSes of old. But since users still needed to access old 16-bit files, Windows 95 was a hybrid of the two architectures. Windows 95 also introduced the Windows Taskbar, Windows Explorer, bult-in networking, plug-and-play hardware, support for CD-ROM drives, and Windows Update. Try Windows 95 out for yourself, inside a browser. Windows 95 also integrated Internet Explorer, which the U.S. government would later use as a key argument that Microsoft had violated antitrust law. 1998: The U.S. government sues Microsoft United States vs. Microsoft Corp. was the landmark case that spanned years, from 1990 when the government sent its first antitrust inquiry, to May 18, 1998, when the trial began in a courtroom underneath Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. At issue was the concept of bundling or tying services to the core operating system, which the U.S. Federal Trade Commission deadlocked on, but the Department of Justice under Attorney General Janet Reno decided to prosecute after ordering Microsoft to allow PC makers to install Windows with or without the Internet Explorer browser. Judge Jackson’s Findings of Fact on Nov. 5, 1999 found Microsoft to be in violation of antitrust laws and ordered Microsoft to be broken up, which would have literally changed history. But Microsoft appealed, and the appellate court reversed Judge Jackson’s ruling that Microsoft’s actions did not constitute a monopoly in the browser market and that Microsoft should not be broken up. (It also found that Judge Jackson had had improper discussions with the press.) On Sept. 6, the DOJ announced that it would drop the suit. On Nov. 1, both the government and Microsoft agreed to a settlement, requiring Microsoft to share some APIs and allow a panel of observers access to Microsoft’s source code to ensure the settlement was agreed to. The precedent, of a sort, had been set. Microsoft was now under the watchful eye of the government to ensure that the company didn’t bundle software to try and create an illegal monopoly. In 2011, the government ended its antitrust oversight, but Microsoft’s browser dominance had been usurped by a rival: Google Chrome. It’s not over though: more than a decade later, the government is seeking more information from Microsoft about AI. 2000: Ballmer replaces Gates as CEO The decision by co-founder and chief executive Bill Gates to step down in favor of Steve Ballmer proved to be a turning point for the company. Gates built Microsoft from nothing into a company with hundreds of millions in sales, paving the way for the brash, enthusiastic Ballmer to take over. While Gates stepped back from his CEO role to run the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, he still maintained a presence at Microsoft as chairman and the Chief Software Architect until stepping down as chairman in 2014. Gates remained on the board until 2020, when he departed to pursue his charity work. Ballmer oversaw the launch of the Xbox as well as Microsoft’s foray into phones, but he became infamous for his sweaty enthusiasm in promoting… well, you know. 2001: Microsoft ships Windows XP Windows XP followed the launch of Windows 2000 and its stable Windows NT kernel, and the livelier, consumer-focused Windows 98 and Windows ME. Windows XP (“Whistler,” named after the Whistler Blackcomb ski resort in Canada), was designed to combine both. It shipped on Oct. 25, 2001, with a Home Edition, Professional Edition and later an XP Media Center Edition, Tablet PC Edition and even a Starter Edition, too. The first thing that hit your eye when booting Windows XP was the iconic “Bliss” background, taken from a photograph of the Wine Country hills of Northern California. But Windows XP was full of visual effects, from the “Luna” theme to the ClearType rendering system designed to make fonts more readable on LCD displays. Underneath, features like protected memory helped ensure that if an application crashed, the others wouldn’t go along with it. DirectX 8.1 helped improve Windows PC gaming, and the operating system provided greater support for USB peripherals, too. Having learned that “pop song” equals “operating system,” Microsoft launched Windows 95 with musical superstar Madonna, via the ad below: Microsoft sold 400 million copies of Windows XP in five years, and even a decade later consumers still hung on to Windows XP, refusing to let go of the beloved OS. It died on April 8, 2014, mourned by millions. 2001: Microsoft launches the Xbox On May 16, 2001, Microsoft announced its first game console, the Xbox, which it shipped on Nov. 8 of that year for $299. “Xbox is going to change video games the way MTV changed music,” Xbox chief Robbie Bach said at the time. Microsoft saw the Xbox as a possible hedge against the growing influence of Sony and its PlayStation console, to show off the power of its Xbox Live gaming service (for multiplayer and eventually e-commerce) and as one of the early examples of Microsoft’s ecosystem ambitions. For a generation, exclusive games like Halo represented an alternative to the traditional PC LAN party, offering the chance for friends to sit around the TV, eat pizza, and game. Microsoft’s original Xbox game console.Microsoft Essentially, the Xbox was a “small” PC (with a 733-MHz Intel Pentium III inside it) that wasn’t all that small: the “Duke” earned the meme “Xbox huge” as a result. Microsoft’s Xbox didn’t wipe Sony off the map — far from it! — but the Xbox has been a consistent presence in the console market ever since. 2007: Windows Vista debuts In Hollywood, nothing good launches in January. So it was with Windows Vista (“Longhorn,”), which was released to retail after the holidays, on Jan. 30, 2007. While Vista did indeed launch the modern “Aero” visual interface, two annoyances killed it: laggy performance even on (for the time) powerful machines, and the emergence of the User Access Control (UAC) which would confirm that the user was taking a potentially risky action. If memes had been a thing in 2007, the ubiquitous popups would have been everywhere. Vista also helped introduce the concept of digital rights management into the mainstream, too, which absolutely no one was happy with except for the movie studios whose Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs it protected. PCWorld recommended that Vista users just make the best of it. New features included Windows Search, the widget-like Windows Sidebar, Windows Calendar and Mail, and the debut of Windows Defender. Supposedly, Vista sold 330 million units, but few were really happy with Vista. This PCWorld video really sums up the attitude toward Windows Vista at the time. 2009: Windows 7 launches After Windows Vista flopped, many users would have been happy with virtually anything new. In October of 2009, they got Windows 7, a rather chill OS that largely did away with all the UAC nagware that plagued Vista. Windows 7 was largely about the UI, as our Windows 7 review notes: an early instance of Windows Snap could subdivide your display; the Action Center served as a holding pen of sorts of any messages Windows wanted to show. Essentially, Windows 7 made Windows more useful, though it didn’t offer many exciting, showstopper features. One exception: touchscreen support, accompanied by a “touch pack” that tried to show off the new technology. 2011: Microsoft buys Skype On May 10, 2011, Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion, its largest purchase in about three decades. Overnight, Microsoft was now a player in the VOIP market, buying both the popular brand as well as the underlying technology. Microsoft didn’t leave well enough alone, however, treating Skype as a fundamental technology that it could integrate into its other services. Skype weaved its way through Microsoft’s product offerings for over a decade, going through one redesign after another, bringing in social media elements and other tweaks. In 2024, a last-gasp effort to eliminate ads altogether tried to resuscitate the service, which had been largely replicated by any number of competing VOIP and video services. In February 2025, Microsoft said it will pull the plug on Skype by May 5, ending the Skype experiment in favor of Microsoft Teams. 2012: Microsoft enters the PC market with Microsoft Surface On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched itself into the PC space with the debut of the Surface RT, a tablet that (take that, Arm haters) was launched with an Nvidia Tegra chip inside. The 10.6-inch tablet sold for $499, or $599 with a Touch Cover bundled together. (Microsoft still hasn’t offered a Surface tablet with a cover keyboard as a unified device.) The Surface RT launched with an Arm chip. After years of X86 processors inside them, Microsoft has favoring Arm chips once again, at least in consumer models.Microsoft The launch stoked fears that Microsoft would compete with and overshadow its hardware partners. However, the Surface ended up as a device that “broke trail” and showed off what the PC platform could do. Over time, that Surface launch has given way to about a dozen Surface tablets, Surface Laptops and big-screen Surface Studios, with smaller sizes, too. Though eventual Surface champion Panos Panay left for Amazon, the Surface still remains one of Microsoft’s key products and a showcase for its software initiatives. 2015: Windows 10 launches, sparked by Cortana On July 29, 2015 Microsoft launched Windows 10, one of the most important software launches in its history. It was a redemption arc of sorts, following the semi-disastrous launch of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, which focused on the tablet interface and less so on the desktop. Windows 10 was not only free, but a free software-as-a-service that could be upgraded via future updates and was designed to coordinate with an ecosystem of PCs, phones, and tablets. It helped drive Windows 10 sales to over a billion devices. Windows 10 also featured an extensive Windows Insider beta program, allowing enthusiasts a chance to test out the OS before the launch, making them part of the process. The first public glimpse of the Windows 10 Start menu, shown off by Microsoft.Mark Hachman / Foundry For those who still remember Windows 10 (or still run it!) Microsoft’s OS was noteworthy for two reasons. First there was the updated Start menu, which combined Live Tiles and a column of applications; and then Cortana, Microsoft’s first stab at a digital assistant. I liked Windows 10 both initially and in its updated review, and the Cortana assistant was both charming as well as productive — well, until you set up a new PC in the middle of the night and Cortana would blare, “Hi! I’m Cortana, and I’m here to help!” (Microsoft has since abandoned Cortana.) Although Windows 10 introduced users to applications like the new web browser, Microsoft Edge, Windows 10 mainly helped to cement Microsoft’s new vision of services, not apps. Apps didn’t need to be installed; instead, they roamed with you, added new features, and saved to the cloud. Today, “standalone apps” are almost an anachronism. 2015: Microsoft’s HoloLens is announced, but AR flops Microsoft’s HoloLens demo in 2015 was the best I’ve ever seen. A year later, we exclusively showed the HoloLens to you from a hotel room in San Francisco days before others were allowed to. Unfortunately, that’s probably as far as you got. Microsoft’s HoloLens technically shipped in 2016 for $3,000. The head-mounted device was an early example of augmented reality, where images were projected on to the real world. The magic — aided by the Holographic Processing Unit inside the headset — was that games and applications interacted with that world, too. Yes, you were viewing the world through a porthole, but boy was it fun. Here’s me using it, below. HoloLens largely fizzled, though, due to the price, the absolute lack of apps, and a compelling use case. The HoloLens 2 barely made it past the announcement stage before it, too, vanished. An experiment with the U.S. Army essentially went nowhere, even after years and millions of dollars of development work. 2015: The last great Windows Phone launches It’s difficult to boil down Microsoft’s phone business to a single moment in time, especially as it began almost twenty years earlier with Windows CE’s launch in Nov. 1996. In 2000, Microsoft tried taking on Palm with the Pocket PC and then pivoted to early smartphones with Windows Mobile 2003. In Oct. 2010, Microsoft unveiled “Photon,” or Windows Phone 7, which introduced the Metro design language and iconic “Live Tiles” user interface that became emblematic of Windows phones. Microsoft enforced rigid limits on what hardware could be used for Windows Phone, however, and finally decided to build its own, first partnering with and then buying Nokia for $7.2 billion in Sept. 2013. That gave Microsoft total control over its phone ecosystem, which already suffered from an “app gap” compared to Android and iOS, as well as problems migrating from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8. On Oct. 6, 2015, Microsoft launched the Lumia 950 and 950XL along with the latest version of its mobile phone OS: “Threshold,” or Windows 10 Mobile. The phone was noteworthy for its Cortana assistant and especially the Continuum dock, which allowed the phone to mirror its screen onto a display. My Lumia 950 review was positive, but a longer-term test with Continuum was brutal. By 2017, it was game over for Windows Phone, finally killed by a lack of apps. 2014: Satya Nadella takes over from Ballmer as CEO On Feb. 4, Satya Nadella officially took over as the third chief executive of Microsoft, taking the reins from Steve Ballmer. (Bill Gates also used the opportunity to completely separate himself from Microsoft, too.) Nadella had worked at Microsoft since 1992 in a variety of roles, including leading the transformation of Windows Live Search into Bing. Nadella was the executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group before becoming CEO. Microsoft If Ballmer embodied enthusiasm, history will probably say Nadella has been characterized by empathy and humility; Nadella told Bloomberg that he favors a “learn it all” attitude and has championed inclusive design. Nadella also pivoted the company toward (unsurprisingly) the cloud, and specifically AI, running on top of the company’s Asure services. Under Nadella, Microsoft has been less about running Windows on PCs and more about making available Microsoft’s software and services wherever customers are. 2014: Microsoft buys Mojang, making Minecraft a game and a platform Microsoft’s announcement that it would buy Minecraft developer Mojang for a whopping $2.5 billion on Sept. 15, 2014 came as a shock, even though the news had leaked out days before. With 100 million downloads already on the books, Microsoft was confident that it wasn’t buying just a game, but a platform that could be monetized across multiple operating systems and platforms. You could argue that Microsoft made the same decision, actually, in buying Bethesda Game Studios in Sept. 2020 for $7.5 billion; Bethesda’s Skyrim sold over 60 million units by 2023. Why did Microsoft spend so much for a blocky exploration game that its creator sold to maintain his sanity? Few gamers can resist the urge to build something in Minecraft. That’s despite the game’s pixelated, blocky graphics.  Pexels: Alexander Kovalev “If you talk about STEM education, the best way to introduce anyone to STEM or get their curiosity going on, it’s Minecraft,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, as reported by Geekwire. “So I think what this open-world phenomenon will mean to the community at large, for people who builders, is pretty big, and we are very excited about the acquisition, obviously.” Today, Microsoft just happens to be one of the largest games publishers in the world, having bought Activision Blizzard (Warcraft, Call of Duty, Diablo) for $68.7 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft turned Minecraft into a teaching tool. Microsoft has maintained the curated Bedrock Edition of Minecraft while also preserving the older Java version, which allows for heavy modification. 2021: Windows 11 launches Windows 10 was a holdover from Windows 10X, a revision Microsoft ultimately abandoned. Windows 11 launched on Oct. 5, 2021, following a hardware fiasco that made TPMs part of the enthusiast lexicon for several months. Ironically, some users complained about not being able to access Windows 11, while others griped that Microsoft was placing Windows 11 upgrade ads within Windows 10. You just can’t win. My initial review of Windows 11 for PCWorld called it “an unnecessary replacement for Windows 10,” an opinion I stuck with until 2024, when I advised users to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Some aspects, like the Start menu, were just plain ugly compared to the vivacity that was Windows 10. PCWorld Even as Windows 11 eventually exiled Cortana, Windows 11 became the operating system for Microsoft’s AI ambitions, at least in a basic sense. It’s here that Windows 11 integrated Copilot, and began adding AI to Paint, Photos, and more. Microsoft still doesn’t have a fully AI-forward operating system, but it’s getting there. 2023: Microsoft’s AI age dawns with Copilot The most polarizing new innovation in computing is AI, and Microsoft was on the cutting edge, at least for a time. On Feb. 7, 2023, Microsoft ushered in the “age of AI” with a ChatGPT-powered Bing Search that, according to Satya Nadella, will “reshape the Web” with AI agents. He still might be right. Of course, what most people remember from that time is when journalists got their hands on Microsoft’s AI, and everything went nuts: Bing’s crazy chatbot wondered about a reporter’s marriage; there were ethnic slurs and more. I was of two minds: I personally thought trying to “break” the chatbot seemed a little unfair — but I also recalled the deep solemnity in which Microsoft execs promised that guardrails had been designed in from the very beginning. Yeah, right. Copilot is now the face of Microsoft’s AI ambitions, from PCs to chatbots to business assistants.Mark Hachman / IDG By May, the new AI (now called Copilot) had been lobotomized and headed to Windows 11, where it was supposed to be the engine allowing you to control your PC. Then it wasn’t. Today, Copilot on PCs is really just another app that can be turned off, and the “revolutionary” Copilot key can be reconfigured to whatever you’d like. Yet Copilot is now everywhere within Microsoft: as expensive business assistants, as editing and content-creation tools in Microsoft 365 apps like Word, plus ways to touch up photos and other art in Windows Photos and Paint. Copilot+ PCs, meanwhile, use a local CPU’s NPU, allowing companies like Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel to compete further. Fifty years ago, Gates was coding in the foundations of what would eventually become Windows. Fifty years later, Microsoft is asking AI to shoulder some or all of the responsibility for coding entirely new apps and experiences. What does the future hold? Read...

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The Pasifika Rugby Hall of Fame says the duo deserve to be recognised for their contribution to Pacific rugby, their communities, and the game in general. Read...