Intel executives pledged Tuesday that its upcoming Panther Lake chip will combine the best aspects of its earlier processors, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake. Intel executives spoke in Las Vegas on the second day of its Intel Vision conference, which engages Intel’s partners and customers. Intel’s new chief executive Lip-Bu Tan outlined his plans for Intel’s new direction on Monday, asking for brutal honesty while pledging to return Intel to greatness. We already knew that Panther Lake would be a critical product for Intel this year. Not only is the chip the next iteration of Intel’s PC client roadmap, but it’s the first chip on Intel’s next-generation 18A manufacturing process. After falling behind in the critical manufacturing process technology race, former chief executive Pat Gelsinger pushed hard to achieve five process technology nodes in four years, culminating in the 18A process. Gelsinger stepped down last year, but achieving that goal would be an important legacy. Executives said that they’ve entered “risk production” with 18A, essentially freezing the process technology development and beginning to scale up the process for eventual volume shipments. Panther Lake will be crucial for Intel Jim Johnson, senior vice president of Intel’s Client Computing Group, told Vision attendees that Panther Lake would be a hybrid of Intel’s earlier chips. “I’m personally excited about Panther Lake because it combines the power efficiency of Lunar Lake, the performance of Arrow Lake, and is built to scale 18A and is on track for production later this year,” Johnson said. “Our client roadmap is the most innovative we’ve ever had, and we are far from done.” Michelle Johnston Holthaus, now Intel’s chief of product, shows off Panther Lake at CES 2025.Mark Hachman / IDG In a letter to shareholders, Tan said that “Nova Lake” would follow the launch of Panther Lake. Nova Lake will debut in 2026, he said. As he has done before, Johnson reiterated that making great AI begins with creating a great PC. Intel has also invested heavily in software development, trying to lure developers to the Intel platform and make Intel’s Core and other chips the engine of client AI. In that vein, Intel announced a new AI showcase to help customers find AI-optimized applications, and especially those designed for Intel. Intel also designed its own app, called AI Playground, which allows consumers using Intel chips to run AI art and an LLM chatbot, all in a single app. Intel typically announces technical details of its next-generation chips around the Computex show, scheduled for the end of May. AI, AI, AI: Intel’s 2025 priorities Michelle Johnston Holthaus, who has returned to her post as the head of Intel’s products business after temporarily serving as Intel’s co-chief executive officer, outlined her three priorities for 2025 for the company at large. Two involved artificial intelligence. “The Intel product group is focused on three key priorities to drive your success,” she said. “First and foremost, winning in AI PCs and enabling you to capture the AI client opportunity from the edge to automotive, to the PC and to the workstation. Second, strengthening our data center capabilities across traditional data centers and workloads in order to help you maximize your existing investments, such as refreshing to recapture space, reducing power, all while reducing your total cost of ownership. “And third, we’ve got to continue to innovate in AI, enabling the next generation of software and hardware, while helping you future-proof critical infrastructure to leverage the power of AI through full stack solutions,” Holthaus explained. Read...

Neowin reports that the latest figures from Statcounter reveal that in March 2025, Windows 11 closed in further on its predecessor. If the trend continues at the same pace, in a few months Windows 11 could finally sit on the throne as Microsoft’s biggest operating system by market share. As it turns out, March was a particularly bad month for Windows 10. The aging operating system saw its biggest drop in user base to date, a whopping 4.43 percentage points. Windows 10 is now running on 54.23 percent of Windows computers worldwide. On the other hand, Windows 11 saw its biggest user growth in three years. The share of Windows 11 users grew by 4.53 percentage points, to 42.66 percent of all Windows desktop users. That’s still significantly behind Windows 10, but it’s the rate that’s important here. It seems Microsoft’s constant alerts about Windows 10 reaching end of support in October are finally showing results. With just six months to go, users are running out of time. If you’re still on Windows 10, you’ll need to upgrade to Windows 11 or pay to extend Windows 10 support. If you do neither, you’ll stop receiving security updates and your PC will become increasingly vulnerable to malware, hackers, and other threats. Read...

So, you’ve filled up the inside of your gaming desktop with enough RGBs for a Las Vegas casino, not to mention tiny little LCD screens on your motherboard, RAM, and liquid cooling reservoir. What’s left? What else could possibly fulfill your desperate need for blinking, flickering excess? One word, you decadent little gamer: holograms. Well, “holograms,” in quotes. Coolify has apparently put those spinning LED displays—the ones that are a bit flickery and sort of transparent since they’re made with spinning bars—on a PC case fan. PCWorld’s Mark Hachman spotted them at Computex in 2024: @pcworld.com Do You Want A Holographic Screen On Your Fans? #computex #rgb #fans ? Originalton – PCWorld – PCWorld VideoCardz.com spotted that these holographic fans are now available to buy and install in your own desktop. The fans are a standard 120mm size, available in either 1500 or 2600 RPM models. (Since they have to spin at a specific rate in order to generate the images and animations, you can’t vary the speed, at least not without losing the holographic functionality.) It looks like there are 96 LEDs on the bar, which would technically mean the image can only be a circle with a 96-pixel diameter, but the fans can take input for images or animations at up to 300 pixels wide. Not exactly “ultra HD,” as the promo page says. Coolify Interestingly, the fans only draw power from your PC, they don’t actually transfer data. You’ll need to load up your images directly to the fans over Wi-Fi using a companion phone app. A bit of a hassle, I suppose, especially if you’re installing multiple fans in your desktop. But I think I’d prefer that to shoddy PC software slowing down my games, if I were the sort of gamer to build a PC like this. (I am not.) Coolify’s Holo Fan isn’t cheap at $46 a pop, but that’s not horrible considering the unique functionality. Just make sure they’re pointing the right way when you install them. Read...

Microsoft is expanding the toolbox of recovery options for Windows 11. After recently adding the ability to reinstall Windows via Windows Update—at least in version 24H2—the company is now introducing Quick Machine Recovery (QMR). The new feature currently being tested in the Windows Insider Program’s Beta Channel. Quick Machine Recovery is the first tangible result of Microsoft’s work following the massive CrowdStrike incident of 2024, which knocked out large parts of the global IT infrastructure. QMR allows IT administrators to fix boot problems remotely, even when a problem is so grave that the computer can no longer boot as usual. The recovery is done via the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), where the system connects to the internet and sends diagnostic data to Microsoft. Based on this, targeted updates can be sent back to the computer via Windows Update, Thurrott reports. Previously, the feature was mainly aimed at business users, but now Microsoft confirms that private individuals will also have access to it—and it will be enabled by default. In managed IT environments, administrators will be able to control availability. QMR is available in the Windows recovery menu as an option under “Advanced Options.” According to Microsoft, the feature contributes to increased system resilience by automatically detecting errors and applying solutions, without any manual troubleshooting. Read...

As someone who reviews gaming keyboards, I can confidently say that most of the driver/manager apps that come with them are terrible. They’re often slow, bloated, and trying to do way too much. But I’ve yet to encounter one that filled up my storage with 50 GB of mildly racy anime babes, as one user claims happened to their PC. Alright, so this one is weird and interesting and goofy. A poster on a PC gaming subreddit claims that the XPG Prime app—which manages RGB lighting for the company’s RAM, coolers, and other PC hardware—filled up a Windows temp folder with 50.4 GB of repeating screenshots of generic sci-fi anime women. The how and why aren’t immediately obvious, but presumably user “red_machina” spotted the huge space filling up their SSD with junk. Tom’s Hardware did a bit of investigating, identifying the photos as screenshots and other promotional material from XPG’s very own anime short. (I don’t recommend watching. The effort is there, but the mix of barely animated 2D images and what looks like Unity 3D animation is undeniably low-rent.) So, these aren’t just anime women, they’re PC gaming anime women. Woo. Apparently, the program downloads the images to present to the user as wallpapers each time it runs, but neglects to delete the temporary files created in the process. But something else is going on with this particular user’s PC. Simply repeating this process and downloading the same wallpaper image files over and over again would require rebooting the PC (or at least the app) several thousand times before the duplicate files took up 50 GB. Still, if you happen to use XPG RAM and you’ve installed the RGB manager program, maybe use a tool like SpaceSniffer to see if you can quickly clear up some room on your SSD. Unless you want thousands and thousands of wallpapers of generic anime ladies, for some reason. Note that your RAM will probably cycle in rainbow colors without a dedicated app, or you can use something like OpenRGB to manage it with something a little less branded. Read...

The new Plex app for mobile arrived only a day ago, but user forums and the Plex subreddit are blowing up with complaints about buggy performance, missing features, and a cluttered, confusing interface.  Yes, all this sounds familiar, although it’s not yet clear if we’re seeing a typical rough landing for an app revamp or a Sonos-level dumpster fire. Plex does have a laundry list of issues it plans to address in the coming weeks (again, déjà vu), and the laggy, stuttering app performance will hopefully improve over time. We’ll be watching.  In the meantime, there are some Plex “new experience” issues we can tackle right now, starting with the Live TV, Discover, and On Demand tabs at the bottom of the screen. You can’t swap them out with other options, unfortunately, but you can make them go away.  Another “new experience” feature we can hide are the user reviews for movies and TV shows in your Plex library. If you love seeing what random folks thought about the content on your Plex media servers, then hey, leave ‘em be. Want to hide them? No problem.  Hide the Live TV tab  Personally, I’m a fan of the Live TV tab on the new Plex app because I use Plex as an over-the-air DVR, and the tab gives me quicker access to the live programming grid. But the Live TV tab also houses Plex’s various live streaming channels, and it will appear at the bottom of the screen even if you’re not a Plex DVR user.  Again, we can’t replace the Live TV tab with something else, but at least we can hide it. For this, you’ll need to access your server settings on the Plex web app.  Go to the Plex web interface, tap the Settings icon in the top-right cover of the screen (the one that looks like a wrench), and then click Online Media Sources in the left-hand column.  Under the Live TV heading, click the drop-down menu and select Disabled.  Relaunch the new Plex app on your mobile device. If you’re not a Plex DVR user, the Live TV tab should be completely gone. If you are using the Plex DVR, the tab will still be there, but you should only see your over-the-air channels.  To hide the Live TV tab from the new Plex app, select “Disabled” under “Live TV” in the Online Media Sources settings for your Plex server. Ben Patterson/Foundry Hide the On Demand tab  Plex Media Server users likely don’t have much need for Plex’s On Demand content, which includes ad-supported movies and TV shows as well as access to movie rentals. Luckily, you can hide the On Demand tab, just as you can with the Live TV tab.  Again, go back to the Plex settings screen on the web, then click Online Media Sources.  Under the Movies & Shows setting, click the drop-down and select Disabled.  Hide the Discover tab  The Discover tab on the new Plex app aggregates trending movies and TV shows amongst Plex users, as well as recommendations on any streaming services that you’ve previously selected. Don’t care what other Plex users are watching? Then hide the tab.  Once more, head for the Plex settings screen on the web, click Online Media Sources, then head over to the Discover section.  Under the Discover Source heading, click the drop-down, then select Disabled.  Hide user reviews (or all reviews)  I like seeing review snippets from critics on the title detail pages of my Plex library content, but reviews from random Plex users? Not so much. Fortunately, you can hide user reviews—or all reviews–from the Plex app.  This time, we’re going straight to the new Plex app. Fire it up, tap Settings, then tap Experience.  Tap the Ratings and Reviews From setting, then pick an option; the choices include Plex users & critics, Plex users only, Critics only, and No one.  The app will reload after picking a new option, and if you opted to hide some or all reviews, they should now be gone. Read...

There’s been a lot of speculation on when, or if, Microsoft will throw its hat into the ring with an Xbox-branded handheld, either in console or PC form. Unconfirmed leaks indicate that something along those lines could be coming as soon as this year—and if a new promo from Asus is to be believed, they might be the ones to deliver it. Asus is one of the more visible brands that created handheld gaming PCs in the wake of the Steam Deck, with both the ROG Ally and the upgraded ROG Ally X. A new promo video that debuted on the company’s Twitter/X shows a telling little cartoon: the Omni mascot robot gets into a chamber with an ROG Ally and a Raikiri Pro, an Asus-branded PC/Xbox controller. The resultant mishap appears to splice them all together into a shadowy handheld with an Ally-style configuration and LED rings around the thumbsticks. The video in and of itself would only be mildly suggestive of Xbox-ness, but as Xbox Era notes, the post includes the hashtag #PlayALLYourGames, and Microsoft’s official Xbox Twitter account replied with a meme post. Between the rumors and the mild branding tag-team, there’s definitely something brewing here. I would guess that it’s a slightly tweaked version of the ROG Ally X, running Windows 11, which comes with some Xbox branding. The hashtag indicates to me that Game Pass streaming will be a big part of the package. Microsoft could bolster the partnership by giving the handheld pride of place in its retail and online stores, or by putting it into the same places you can buy Xbox consoles, like Walmart and Target in the US. Little snippets in the video—like “Marathon stamina,” “More capacity,” and “Faster speed”—could be indicative of hardware upgrades. Or meaningless fluff. Flip a coin. But I very much doubt that this is a full-blown “handheld Xbox” that plays game files intended only for the console. If nothing else, with most of Xbox’s biggest “exclusives” also available on PC either as standard games or streaming on Game Pass, it would be a lot of extra work to make a smaller, less-powerful Xbox console that would arguably be less capable than something like the Steam Deck, or even the older Ally designs. There’s no mention of a date in the video, even in preview form. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering: the post was made on March 31st. It could be April Fool’s related, but that seems unlikely given the lack of any real attempt at humor.) We’ll have to be patient to see what Asus—and Microsoft?—are cooking up. Read...

With Meshnet, the VPN service NordVPN offers a function for securely connecting multiple devices. If Meshnet is activated in the desktop app on the PC and on in the app on a mobile device, it works like a secure LAN connection. Up to 10 of your own devices or up to 50 other NordVPN users can be connected directly to each other. This makes Meshnet suitable for sharing files, teamwork, and multiplayer games, for example. With just a few taps, you can send a document, photo, or video from your smartphone to other users and devices — securely and encrypted directly. The action must be confirmed there and the file is saved locally moments later. Once set up, Meshnet works like a secure local area network (LAN): It connects PCs, smart phones, tablets, and other devices directly with each other via an app.NordVPN There are no restrictions on the size or type of file that can be transferred. On Windows computers, the Meshnet function is also available directly via the context menu from File Explorer. The function is part of all paid NordVPN subscriptions. NordVPN Read our review Best Prices Today: $3.39 at NordVPN (Monthly) Meshnet is also useful for online gamers. The gaming VPN can offer maximum speed with low latency. The lower the ping time, the better the gaming experience. If several gamers have connected to a multiplayer game via Meshnet, a secure, encrypted, and optimized connection is established between the computers. Further reading: I swore ExpressVPN was the best. Then I switched to NordVPN Read...

The Nintendo Switch 2 might be landing tomorrow—if not, then at least we should be getting details about pre-ordering and when to expect the handheld to arrive. If you plan on getting one, then it’s time to start preparing… and one thing you’ll want is extra storage space for games. That means you’re going to need a fast and spacious microSD card, and it just so happens that SanDisk’s special 256GB microSD card is only $21 at Amazon right now. This one’s licensed for the Nintendo Switch and themed with a Mario Super Star, plus performant enough to handle your games with aplomb. With a 22% discount, this is a fun and practical get. This SanDisk microSD card supports read speeds of up to 100 MB/s and write speeds of up to 90 MB/s, which is enough to move files and save data in a flash while reliably backing up all your game data. And even though rumors say that the Nintendo Switch 2 will feature a bit more storage space than the Switch, it’s way too easy to run out of space with how big modern games have gotten. One microSD card is the minimum! So take advantage of this timely deal and get yourself the 256GB SanDisk Nintendo Switch microSD card on sale before the Switch 2 launches. (Other themes are also on sale, but not at this price. The Pikachu version is $30 while the Fortnite Cuddle Team Leader version is $26. All of them have the exact same specs.) Add an extra 256GB to your Nintendo Switch 2 for just $21Buy now at Amazon Read...

If you’re playing audio on a desktop replacement laptop with a six-speaker-strong configuration, something like the Razer Blade 18 with its four woofers, two tweeters, and additional three smart amps, then you’re probably not going to be lacking volume in your media. Then again, if you’re rocking a four-, or two-speaker system in a light and thin laptop, then even when Windows’ volume setting is 100 percent, your audio is likely to still be underwhelming at times. In that case you’re going to want to tune your volume past Windows’ 100 percent volume limit. Some guides recommend using Windows Volume Mixer to do this, but Windows Volume Mixer generally won’t give you the option to surpass 100 percent for each app or program. Changing the registry isn’t advisable either since it can cause system instability. You’re better off using the following methods… What to do… Method 1: Use VLC media player VLC media player is available for download on the Microsoft store so it’s readily available. Just a disclaimer: You may not want to raise the volume to VLC’s maximum 300 percent volume since this could damage your speakers. Here’s what to do: First download and install the VLC app from the Microsoft store. Select Tools from the top menu, then Preferences. Below Show Settings toggle All. From the left select Main Interfaces, then Qt. Scroll down on the right until you see the category Maximum Volume displayed. In the box, type the value of the volume setting above 100 percent you want. Now close the tab to save your new setting. Dominic Bayley / Foundry Method 2: Install a Chrome extension If it’s just a Chrome webpage you want to raise your volume in, then Volume Master will do the trick. This will work in YouTube too, so you can use it to view the channels you subscribe to. Search for Volume Master in the Chrome Web Store. Then click Add to Chrome to make it available in Chrome. Now click the Extension button (which looks like a puzzle piece) at the top of your screen to open the extension. Choose the tab for the media that you want to raise the volume in. Use the slider to boost the volume by a value up to 600 percent. Volume Master extension works in the Chrome browser.  Dominic Bayley / Foundry Method 3: Via an Equalizer tool Most equalizer apps have to be purchased, but Equalizer APO, is open source so it’s free to download. It’s not officially supported on Windows 11, but the Windows 10 version still works for most users. Here’s how best to use it. First download Equalizer APO. Extract the zip file and launch the installer. Follow the installation instructions until you see the window named Configurator. Select the playback device that you want the Equalizer APO device to use. This will be either your speakers or headphones. Once you’ve finished the installation restart your PC. Back in Windows open File Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Equalizer APO\ and open the config folder. Open config.txt with the Notepad app and change the value displayed in dB. You can change this to a maximum 20dB, but you’ll probably find 10- or 15dB is an acceptable volume boost. Changing the preamp value in Equalizer APO’s config.txt. Dominic Bayley / Foundry Tip: For best results with each of these methods you’ll want to raise the volume in increments at first to find the maximum volume you can achieve before the sound gets distorted. Remember to listen to your media at safe levels that won’t damage your hearing or your device’s speakers. Further reading: Best budget computer speakers 2025: Solid PC audio for $100 or less Read...