Software & Apps - Page 2

YouTube Premium is getting a significant value upgrade. Starting in early 2027, US subscribers will get Peacock Premium bundled into their existing plan at no extra cost. YouTube and NBCUniversal have announced a "multi-year global strategic partnership" that brings Peacock to millions of YouTube Premium subscribers in the US.

YouTube Premium currently runs $15.99 per month in the US after a price increase in June. Peacock Premium, the ad-supported tier, costs $10.99 per month on its own. Getting both for the price of one is a significant value upgrade. However, the bundled access is limited to Peacock Premium's ad-supported tier rather than the ad-free Premium Plus plan. An option to upgrade to the ad-free plan will be available separately.

For those who cannot wait until 2027, Peacock Premium will be available as an à la carte add-on through YouTube Primetime Channels later this summer, with Peacock Premium Plus already available there. Peacock's library includes live coverage of Sunday Night Football, the Premier League, Big Ten Football, MLB, the NBA, and the Olympic Games, alongside films like Oppenheimer and series including The Office, Law & Order: SVU, and Love Island USA.

Windows 11 is getting a change to speed up the process of deleting a large file, as seen in a new preview build.

Windows Latest spotted that in the blog post for a new preview in the Experimental channel (build 26300.8935), Microsoft notes: "File deletion in File Explorer is now faster in certain scenarios when deleting large, fragmented files."

This is another tweak in a broader set of work from Microsoft which aims to boost the performance of File Explorer in one way or another, and it'll doubtless be a welcome move for anyone who has ever sat staring at a file deletion dialog box wondering why it's taking so long.

Roku has increased prices across its entire streaming hardware lineup, with some devices now costing up to 60% more than they did just a month ago. The company confirmed the increases to The Desk, with a Roku executive attributing the move to shortages of memory and other components driven by the AI boom.

Roku has updated its website with the new prices:

There is still a brief opportunity to buy at the old prices. Roku is currently listing the previous MSRPs as sale prices on its official store, although purchases are limited to three units per model. Retailers such as Amazon and Best Buy also continue to sell existing inventory at the lower prices, but only until current stock is exhausted. After that, the higher prices will apply across the board.

Apple's App Store added approximately 560,000 new apps in the first half of 2026 alone, nearly matching the total for all of 2025. At the current pace, the platform is on track to surpass one million new app submissions by year's end, eclipsing the previous record of 890,000 set in 2016. The surge is being driven largely by vibe coding, an AI-assisted development approach that lets people build and publish apps with little to no programming experience.

Tools like Replit and Bolt.new can generate full-stack applications from natural language prompts. In contrast, agentic AI tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot are increasingly being used by both professional and hobbyist developers to accelerate their output. The result is a wave of app submissions from people who would never have entered the developer ecosystem before.

The problem is that downloads are not keeping pace. App Store downloads rose just 3% in 2025 and 2% in the first half of 2026, meaning app growth is far outstripping user demand. Most of what is flooding the platform is finding virtually no audience, and copycat apps, privacy-questionable clones, and apps that simply do not function as advertised are becoming more common. Former App Store chief Phillip Shoemaker, who ran the platform from 2009 to 2016, has warned that the surge could strain Apple's review resources and create openings for malicious actors.

Primate Labs has released Geekbench 7, the latest version of its popular cross-platform benchmarking tool, available now on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. The update brings new workloads, smarter multi-core scoring, expanded GPU testing, and refreshed datasets.

The biggest change to the CPU side is how multi-core scoring works. Rather than forcing every workload into a multi-threaded test, Geekbench 7 only runs a task in multi-core mode if the real application it models actually behaves that way. Web browsers are primarily single-threaded, so the HTML5 Browser test no longer contributes to the multi-core score. This should produce results that more accurately reflect real-world performance rather than artificially inflated numbers.

New workloads include a Game Physics test using the Jolt Physics engine, AV1 video encoding for screen sharing scenarios, Opus audio compression for podcast and voice recorder use cases, and live caption generation using OpenAI's Whisper model running alongside video decoding.

With Microsoft committed to updating Windows 11 this year and improving the operating system's speed and performance for users, part of this includes introducing more modern WinUI elements to classic Windows features. One area that is a definite focus for the Windows team is File Explorer, which in its current form features a mix of modern and legacy UI elements.

When it comes to the legacy elements, if you right-click a file and open the 'Properties' window, you'll no doubt notice it hasn't changed for a while, retaining that old-school Windows look. As spotted by Phantomofearth on Bluesky (via Windows Central), it seems that a new WinUI version of the Properties window is hidden in Windows 11 Experimental build 26300.8935.

It's hidden because it's not accessible in File Explorer, but instead, when you open up the Properties of files deleted and sent to the Recycle Bin. Here we see the more modern Windows UI, with support for Dark Mode. It's a glimpse of what the window will look like in File Explorer in the future, hopefully optimized for performance and a lower memory footprint.

Spotify removed more than 75 million AI-generated tracks from its platform in 2025 alone, according to Sam Duboff, the company's senior director. The company says the crackdown isn't aimed at AI music itself, but at low-effort, mass-produced uploads designed to manipulate royalty payments and recommendation algorithms.

Around 100,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify every day, and a growing share are created using AI tools like Suno or custom LLM-based workflows that can generate a finished track from a text prompt in seconds. In fact, industry analysis suggests roughly 44% of all music uploaded to streaming platforms is now AI-generated. According to Duboff, the tracks Spotify removed were largely low-effort "slop" uploaded in bulk to game royalty pools and recommendation algorithms.

Spotify still welcomes AI-generated music, provided creators hold the necessary commercial rights, avoid unauthorised voice cloning, and demonstrate genuine creative input. What the company is targeting is fraud. Networks of bots upload thousands of short ambient loops or similar tracks to siphon royalty payments that would otherwise go to legitimate artists. Spotify has also built systems to prevent AI companies from bulk-harvesting its catalogue for model training.

Microsoft is finally delivering on a long-awaited fix to Windows 11 search, and while the fix is rolling out to specific Windows users, those users will be glad to know it targets local apps, files, and settings, while removing ads and other distractions, otherwise known as "bloat".

The company announced the news in a new Windows Blog post, where it wrote that it is rolling out an overhaul that makes search results clearer, more relevant, and easier to navigate. According to Microsoft, the changes are in direct response to user feedback and are intended to make the Windows Search Box a more valuable feature for everyday tasks. The update also includes better tolerance for typos and a more intuitive layout for scanning results, which should make browsing the plethora of files on your computer easier on the eyes.

Microsoft has recently been making an effort to refine the Windows 11 user experience, particularly in areas that have historically frustrated users, while also preparing Windows for full gaming integration through the Xbox Full Screen Experience. By removing MSN/Bing clutter and promotional content, the new search experience feels less like an ad platform and more like a functional tool, which is something Windows 11 users have been complaining about for quite some time.

Before headlines turned to the Steam Machine's red line issue and its $1,000-plus price tag, much of the conversation centred on Valve's vision for the hardware. From the start, the company framed it as an open PC rather than a locked-down console. Owners would be free to install any operating system or storefront they wanted, and Valve's latest move reflects that same philosophy.

Valve has published official Windows drivers for the Steam Machine, giving owners the files needed to install Microsoft's operating system on the device. The driver package covers the essentials: graphics, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and SD card reader, enough to get Windows running with full hardware functionality on the cube.

However, it's worth noting that installing Windows currently requires wiping SteamOS entirely. Dual-boot support is not yet available, even though the hardware itself is fully capable of it. Valve says the SteamOS installer's dual-boot wizard is not ready yet and will ship alongside a future SteamOS update. Anyone hoping to switch between SteamOS and Windows on the same machine should wait rather than jump in now.

One of the biggest PC and gaming-related stories of the past week has been the rumors that Microsoft was set to close multiple Xbox studios, along with other gaming-related job losses, as part of its big 'Xbox reset.' This was made official today, with the company confirming that its Xbox team would be "reduced" by 3,200 people through financial year 2027, with 1,600 of those "eliminated" today.

However, these job cuts are part of a broader shift at Microsoft, with Amy Coleman, EVP and Chief People Officer at the company, confirming that this "company transformation" will result in 4,800 job cuts. This represents 2.1% of Microsoft's global workforce, with Amy Coleman stating that these jobs are "not being replaced by AI" even though "AI is changing how work gets done."

With 3,200 of the 4,800 job cuts being related to Xbox and Microsoft's commercial business, the announcement says that it's all about "restructuring to position the business for long-term success." In other words, corporate speak for a division that grew exponentially with the recent $70 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition, which it has seemingly failed to capitalize on through mismanagement and a confusing strategy.

Google is attempting to redefine how users interact with AI agents on Android with what it calls Android Halo, a new status bar layer designed to keep you in the loop about current AI agent activities that you have deployed earlier.

Android Halo, first previewed at Google I/O in May, introduces a dedicated space on the status bar for user-selected AI agents like Gemini. When an agent is active, it shows subtle updates, requests input, or delivers results directly from the bar. Android President Sameer Samat explained that Halo streamlines communication, enabling agents to request clarifications, share progress, and deliver completed work in real time. This makes AI behavior more transparent and less opaque, fostering trust and familiarity with these systems.

Google is touting Android Halo as a natural evolution of AI integration into devices, and a key part is how it aligns with Google's broader Gemini strategy. Google is planning to release Halo with Android 17 later in 2026, but didn't give any specific rollout details. This feature gives us a peek behind the curtain at how big tech companies believe people will manage AI agents on their devices.

A leaked video is giving us a look at an experimental Windows concept that ditches almost everything familiar about the desktop in favor of Copilot. According to Windows Central, which says its sources confirm the footage is real, the project is codenamed "Aion" and appears to date back to 2024.

The roughly three-minute clip leaked on the Discord server BetaWiki and shows a desktop built on Win3, a stripped-down Windows codebase that runs largely through Microsoft Edge. There's still a taskbar and a Start menu-like launcher, but the whole thing revolves around a multi-modal Copilot input box instead of icons and folders. Ask it to find a file, open an app, or check your schedule, and Copilot handles it. A feature called "Spaces" automatically groups related apps and sites so you can jump back into a task with one click.

Since Aion is web-based, it reportedly can't run traditional Win32 apps natively. Instead, heavier desktop software would stream in through a Windows 365 Cloud PC. Microsoft declined to comment when Windows Central reached out, and it's unclear if this ever moved past an internal concept or hackathon project. From the video examples, however, it does look like the project got fairly deep into development.

Google has launched Nano Banana 2 Lite, the latest addition to its in-house AI image generation lineup. In a blog post on Tuesday, the company said that Nano Banana 2 Lite and Gemini Omni Flash are now available as tools for high-volume, fast-turnaround workflows.

Nano Banana 2 Lite generates images in approximately four seconds and costs $0.034 per 1,000 images. This makes it the fastest and cheapest image model in the Nano Banana family. Google is positioning it as a direct replacement for the original Nano Banana, which has now been designated a legacy model. It sits below Nano Banana 2, which Google describes as the "generalist workhorse" of the lineup, and below Nano Banana Pro for more demanding use cases. All generated content is automatically tagged with Google's SynthID digital watermark.

The model is available through Google AI Studio, the Gemini API, and the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform for developers. On the consumer side, it is accessible through the Gemini app, AI Mode in Google Search, NotebookLM, Google Photos, Stitch, Google Flow, and Google Ads. On Arena's text-to-image leaderboard, Nano Banana 2 Lite currently sits at fifth, behind OpenAI's gpt-image-2, which leads the pack, and Microsoft's MAI-Image-2.5 in fourth.

Microsoft has been working consistently to improve the Windows 11 user experience over the past few months and has now rolled out a new change. Microsoft released KB5095093 as an optional preview update for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2, and the headline upgrade is a faster File Explorer launch.

Instead of preloading the app in the background (the fix Microsoft shipped last year that roughly doubled Explorer's memory footprint without actually closing the gap with Windows 10), this update reorganizes the Home tab layout itself. Microsoft hasn't gone into detail on exactly what changed under the hood, only saying the update "improves the speed and performance of File Explorer" on launch.

A few smaller fixes ride along with it. The address bar should show folder paths and suggestions without freezing, mounting disk images like ISOs and VHDs feels less sluggish, and a folder-renaming bug that kept re-selecting text (or ignoring case-only changes) has been patched. There's also a fix for a BITS-related bug that was causing shutdown delays.

WhatsApp is implementing a major change in rolling out new usernames for accounts, allowing for better levels of privacy as a result - and you'll be able to reserve yours soon enough.

The move means that instead of having to give out your mobile phone number when adding somebody to your contacts, you'll be able to provide a username to them instead. That's obviously a preferable situation when it comes to privacy.

TechRadar reports that Meta has announced that usernames will be rolling out to over three billion WhatsApp users during the "coming months", and that you'll be able to reserve your preferred name.

Over the past few months, Microsoft has been hard at work improving the Windows 11 experience, and for obvious reasons. It wants to win back the nearly billion users it left behind after ending security updates for Windows 10. But despite those efforts, Windows 10 fans are not budging, which has now forced the company to give them more breathing room.

Microsoft has quietly extended Windows 10's Extended Security Updates program by another year. The company updated its support page without any formal announcement and has since confirmed that it was not a mistake.

AMD's Adrenalin 26.6.2 driver, which brings FSR 4.1 support to Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs, has hit a major snag for Windows 10 users. According to AMD, the driver fails to launch properly on Windows 10 systems and instead displays an error stating that the software is not compatible with the installed AMD graphics driver. Device Manager shows a yellow exclamation mark next to the GPU under Display Adapters, and some users are also reporting Error Code 43.

The issue appears to be tied specifically to Windows 10. Windows 11 users are not mentioned in AMD's advisory, and the bulk of reports are coming from Windows 10 installations. That said, a smaller number of users have also reported problems with RX 9000 series cards and even Ryzen 9000 integrated graphics under Windows 10.

AMD's official advisory recommends rolling back to Adrenalin 26.6.1 as a temporary workaround while engineers investigate. The catch is that 26.6.1 does not include support for FSR 4.1 on RDNA 3 GPUs. For Windows 10 users with RX 7000 cards who were waiting on FSR 4.1, the options are limited to either rolling back or using a third-party tool like OptiScaler in the meantime.

NVIDIA's open-source NVK Vulkan driver just closed a major gap with the company's proprietary Linux driver. Developers have merged initial DLSS support into Mesa 26.2-devel, meaning NVK can now offload AI upscaling in compatible Vulkan games running on Linux and Steam Play.

For context, NVK is the community-built Vulkan driver for NVIDIA GPUs developed within the Mesa graphics stack. It launched back in 2022 with the goal of giving Linux users a fully open-source alternative to NVIDIA's official driver, without sacrificing support for modern Vulkan features.

NVIDIA has not open-sourced DLSS itself. The upscaler still depends entirely on NVIDIA's own binaries and SDK. What changed is that NVK now implements VK_NVX_binary_import, a Vulkan extension that lets applications load and run NVIDIA's CuBIN binaries, prebuilt CUDA files, directly on supported GPUs. In simple words, that gives NVK a path to load the DLSS components bundled with games or the DLSS SDK, rather than reimplementing DLSS from scratch.

Nearly a decade after launch, Nintendo has fixed the one thing Switch owners have been complaining about since 2017. Firmware update 22.5.0, released for the original Nintendo Switch, converts the eShop from a painfully slow web-based interface into a native app. This brings it in line with what Switch 2 users have had since the console launched last year.

For context, the original eShop was always so sluggish because it was running as a wrapped web app rather than a proper native application. This meant every scroll and page load was fighting against the overhead of a browser session. Switch 2 solved this at launch by building the eShop as a native app from the start. Nintendo has now done the same for the original hardware.

Users who tested the update described the eShop as "buttery smooth", with games showing up in batches as you scroll instead of slowly loading one at a time. Daniel Vuckovic on Bluesky posted a clip of the new experience in action, and the contrast with the old version is stark. It is not quite as fast as Switch 2's eShop, given the hardware difference, but it is a world apart from where it was.

Microsoft has released a new update for Windows 11 that makes the entire operating system feel much faster, or snappier, when it comes to opening applications.

The new update (KB5094126), which is currently being rolled out regionally, introduces a neat trick for Windows 11 users that are feeling like their experience navigating Windows is more on the slower side of things. The update introduces Low Latency Profile (LLP), which is essentially a profile that yells at your CPU to increase to high clock speeds whenever the user clicks on applications. According to Microsoft, the new profile "accelerates app launch and core shell experiences such as Start menu, Search, and Action Center."

So, what does this mean for users? Opening apps should feel slightly snappier, especially apps that are heavily supported Microsoft tools. However, it won't make every app feel snappier, applications such as Steam, or even Xbox games won't open quicker given the nature of how games launch. But for smaller games, such as solitaire, users should notice an increase in speed. This feature will be particularly useful for people who own older PCs that are likely just making it past the cut off point for Windows 11's hardware requirements.