AI is already crafting natural-language summaries of what Amazon’s Ring and Google’s Nest cameras are seeing, and now the AI-generated descriptions are coming to Blink cameras, too.  Slated to begin rolling out today in beta to U.S. users, Blink Video Descriptions will employ AI to analyze the video events captured by Blink security cameras and then generate descriptions of what’s happening.  The feature, which will work with all existing Blink cameras and doorbells, will start off as a free preview for “select” Blink Plus subscribers, according to a Blink spokesperson. In a Blink promotional clip, an AI-generated description for an event video reads, “A person in a red shirt is riding a bike in front of a white house,” which pretty much summarizes what’s happening in the video.  The videos descriptions are “designed to only deliver the most relevant information” and will “focus on describing the main subject that caused a motion alert and what action they are taking,” Blink said.  Blink Video Descriptions are similar to the AI summaries generated by Ring’s Smart Video Search, which rolled out to Ring subscribers more than a year ago. Both Blink and Ring are owned by Amazon.  Blink Video Descriptions will employ AI to analyze the video events captured by Blink security cameras and then generate descriptions of what’s happening. Blink Google has also rolled out its own generative-AI video descriptions powered by Gemini, while other security cam manufacturers (such as Eufy) have their own versions of the technology.  For now, Blink Video Descriptions apply only to individual video events. In contrast, Google’s Gemini for Home can also generate “Daily Briefs” that summarize your daily smart home activity, including motion events captured by Nest cameras.  In addition, Blink Video Descriptions are not searchable, as are the AI descriptions rendered by Ring’s Smart Video Search feature.  One issue with Blink Video Descriptions that remains up in the air is whether it will require a subscription once it’s out of beta, with a Blink spokesperson telling me that “we don’t have any details to share on subscription requirements for Blink Video Descriptions at this time.” Blink offers two paid subscription tiers: a $3.99-a-month Basic plan that offers 60 days of video history, AI-powered person and vehicle detection, and other features for a single Blink camera, and a $11.99/month plan covers all your Blink cameras while adding an extended warranty.  This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best security cameras. Read...

Windows Defender Firewall is one of the many security features available on Windows 11. Its job is to protect your computer from outside threats. While the firewall does a reasonable job managing which apps and features should connect through the network automatically, sometimes you may need to allow or deny an app manually. This guide will help you manually allow app access through the firewall on Windows 11. What to do: Type “Settings” into the Search bar and select Settings. Next, select Privacy and Security > Windows Security and navigate to Firewall and network protection. Click on Allow an app through the firewall. Click the Change settings button. Click on the app in the list to allow it through the Windows firewall. Choose the “Private” option for home or work or the “Public” option to allow the app in public places such as a café. Click the Ok button to finish. The app should now have full access to the network on Windows 11. Dominic Bayley / Foundry Note: If the app isn’t on the list, click the “Allow another app” button to locate the app you want to allow. That’s a wrap for this Try This. For more tips and tricks be sure to subscribe to our PCWorld Try This newsletter. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Strong AMD CPU performance Lots of RAM and a big SSD Generous port selection Good speakers Cons Display is on the dim side Grainy webcam Battery life is behind the most efficient ultraportables Our Verdict The Asus ExpertBook P3 is a work-focused laptop that shines in its price range. AMD’s hardware once again delivers Microsoft’s modern “AI PC” experience without the compromises Intel and Qualcomm make. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Asus ExpertBook P3 Retailer Price $1,229.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices The 14-inch Asus ExpertBook P3 is a work-focused Copilot+ PC that delivers a surprisingly nice body — all-metal build quality, a snappy keyboard, and unusually good speakers — with AMD internals that deliver serious performance. For many workers, the serious multithreaded CPU performance here will be more important than a laptop that could theoretically last 24 hours away from a power outlet. Asus delivered an excellent package here, and I’m a fan… mostly. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the display on my review model, and the webcam is a weak point. But the overall package is superior to the average business laptop and far superior to the average Copilot+ PC when it comes to CPU performance. Asus ExpertBook P3: Specs The Asus ExpertBook PM3406CKA is a business laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI processor. Our review model came with an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 processor, Radeon 860M graphics, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 1TB solid-state drive. Asus listed it at a price of $1,479 on its website, but it was on sale for less, $1,229 on Amazon at the time the review was being completed. While AMD’s Ryzen AI hardware can’t quite deliver the battery life you’ll find on Qualcomm Snapdragon X or Intel Lunar Lake hardware, it does deliver an incredible combination of traditional x86 hardware (unlike Qualcomm Snapdragon X), strong multithreaded CPU performance (unlike Intel Lunar Lake), and a Copilot+ PC-ready NPU (unlike Intel’s other hardware). Battery life is still solid. It’s just not the 20+ hour runtimes I’ve seen on Intel Lunar Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus hardware. At the time of the review, Asus was selling models of this machine with an AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 CPU and AMD Radeon 820M graphics starting at $949. Model: Asus ExpertBook PM3406CKA CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 Memory: 32GB DDR5 RAM (5600 MT/s) Graphics/GPU: AMD Radeon 860M NPU: AMD NPU (up to 50 TOPS) Display: 14-inch 1920×1200 IPS display with up to 60Hz refresh rate Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen4 SSD Webcam: 1080p camera Connectivity: 2x USB Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen2), 2x USB Type-A (USB 3.2 Gen1), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x combo audio jack, 1x RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet, 1x Kensington Nano lock slot Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, Gigabit Ethernet Biometrics: Fingerprint sensor and IR camera for Windows Hello Battery capacity: 70 Watt-hours Dimensions: 12.31 x 8.94 x 0.71 inches Weight: 3.6 pounds MSRP: $1,479 as tested This is a robust laptop that can deliver impressive performance with reasonable battery life and at a fair price. Asus ExpertBook P3: Design and build quality Foundry / Chris Hoffman The Asus ExpertBook P3 has an all-metal chassis. Asus calls it a “robust aluminum build” and says it meets US MIL-STD 810H testing standards for performing in difficult conditions. While my review workflow doesn’t include dropping laptops or subjecting them to sandstorms, this machine did feel incredibly robust. Design-wise, you’re getting a silver chassis with a black keyboard and a black bezel around the display. The beveled edges at the edge of the laptop’s keyboard tray are shinier. It looks and feels like a very rugged, very professional business laptop. This 14-inch all-metal build and 3.6-pound chassis feels well-designed. Even the hinge feels carefully designed: Unlike many laptops, I can open the laptop’s display with just a single hand. The hinge keeps the display nicely in place, and I don’t have to use two hands to open the machine. Asus ExpertBook P3: Keyboard and trackpad Foundry / Chris Hoffman The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a chiclet keyboard with a 1.5mm key travel depth. It feels snappy and responsive, and it was a pleasure to type on. The white backlight makes it readable in low-light conditions. The large trackpad also feels excellent. The click-down action has a particularly nice tactile feel — it quickly springs back after you click it down. The surface was smooth and responsive. I prefer haptic trackpads, but this is quite a nice mechanical trackpad. Asus ExpertBook P3: Display and speakers Foundry / Chris Hoffman The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a 14-inch IPS display with a 1920×1200 resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate.  That’s a reasonable resolution, but the refresh rate is just average. The big problem is the brightness. With just 300 nits of maximum brightness, there’s no way around it: This isn’t a particularly impressive display. That’s common for work-focused PCs, which tend to go for displays that deliver longer battery life and prioritize other specs over a visual “wow” factor. This display does have a nice anti-glare coating, which makes it more readable in challenging lighting conditions. For people using this PC on the go, the display will probably be the biggest drawback: More brightness would be a real upgrade. This laptop’s speakers sound unusually good for a business machine in this price range. There’s more bass than I would expect, they get plenty loud, and the high notes can get bright and crisp in songs like Steely Dan’s Aja, an audiophile standard benchmark. Asus ExpertBook P3: Webcam, microphone, biometrics The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a 1080p webcam, and it wasn’t particularly impressive. The image quality seems grainy and washed out. On a snowy day in New England, the daylight wasn’t enough to provide a crisp picture, and neither was my office’s overhead lighting. The webcam is the one component here that feels like it doesn’t quite match the quality of the rest of this machine. This machine does have a physical webcam shutter switch, which is always nice to see. This laptop’s built-in microphone setup sounds surprisingly good, too. The audio quality of my voice was deeper and richer than it normally is on the average laptop I review. I’d be happy using this to speak in online meetings, although I wish the webcam delivered a better image quality. The ExpertBook has an IR camera for Windows Hello facial recognition sign-ins, as well as a fingerprint reader built into the power button at the top-right corner of the keyboard. You can use whichever biometric method you like. Asus ExpertBook P3: Connectivity Foundry / Chris Hoffman The Asus ExpertBook P3 packs an excellent selection of ports. On the left, you’ll find two USB Type-C ports, a USB Type-A port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a combo audio jack. On the right, this machine has a second USB Type-A port, an RJ-45 Ethernet jack, and a Kensington Nano lock slot. That’s an excellent selection of ports, including Ethernet, but be aware there’s no SD card reader here. Also, this machine charges via USB Type-C, so you’ll always be plugging the charging cable into the left. I wish there was a USB Type-C port on each side of the machine, though. The USB Type-C ports are USB 3.2 Gen2, so there’s no Thunderbolt or USB4 here. The Asus ExpertBook P3 supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, so you have the latest bleeding-edge wireless hardware. Combined with Gigabit Ethernet, this machine is ready for all sorts of network setups on the go. Asus ExpertBook P3: Performance The Asus ExpertBook P3 performed well in day-to-day productivity tasks — web browsers, office suites, communication tools, and the type of Windows desktop apps most workers would be running on laptops like this one. We ran the Asus ExpertBook P3 through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs. Foundry / Chris Hoffman First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With a PCMark 10 score of 7,636, the Asus ExpertBook P3 exceeded the performance you’d get from Intel Lunar Lake-powered Copilot+ PCs. Foundry / Chris Hoffman Next, we run Cinebench R20. 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. With a multithreaded Cinebench R20 score of 6,213, the Asus ExpertBook P3 and its eight cores with 16 threads exceeded Intel’s eight-core Lunar Lake hardware, which is focused on efficiency and not multithreaded CPU performance. Foundry / Chris Hoffman We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load. The Asus ExpertBook P3 completed the encode process in an average of 974 seconds, or just over 16 minutes. That’s an excellent score, especially for a Copilot+ PC laptop. Foundry / Chris Hoffman 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. With a 3DMark Time Spy score of 3,037, the AMD Radeon 860M graphics here just aren’t as powerful as what Intel offers in Lunar Lake systems. However, they’re nowhere near the bottom-of-the-barrel older “Intel Graphics” GPUs that many lower-end laptops are currently shipping with. Overall, performance was excellent for a machine like this one. If you prioritize graphics performance, however, you’ll want a machine with a different GPU (likely a discrete GPU). Asus ExpertBook P3: Battery life The Asus ExpertBook P3 has a 70 Watt-hour battery. Combined with AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 hardware, I’d expect to see decent battery life for a laptop, but not maximum ultraportable battery life. And that’s exactly what the benchmarks showed. Foundry / 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. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, which meant we had to crank this laptop’s display brightness up. 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. The Asus ExpertBook P3 lasted an average of 768 minutes, which is 12.8 hours. Depending on your workload and your screen brightness, you may be able to get a full workday of battery life out of it, but just barely. The battery life is okay, but battery life is a trade-off you make when you choose AMD Ryzen AI hardware. They offer decent power efficiency, but you get more performance than you do with Intel Lunar Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon X hardware, and you pay for it with higher power consumption. Asus ExpertBook P3: Conclusion The Asus ExpertBook P3 is a great laptop combining an all-metal build quality and “AI PC” hardware that delivers a combination of solid CPU performance and an NPU that can drive Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC features. On top of that, the price — $1,200 to $1,400 or so, depending on the sale pricing — is an excellent value for a machine that comes with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB solid-state drive. The main downside here is the display: Many people will want something brighter and perhaps higher-resolution. The other downside here is battery life: Chips from Intel and Qualcomm will deliver much longer battery life at the cost of top-end CPU performance, and that will be a better fit for workers with light workflows. But this is a robust laptop that can deliver impressive performance with reasonable battery life and at a fair price. It’s a great laptop. Read...

TL;DR: For a limited time, get Adobe Acrobat Pro 2024 (3-year license) and Microsoft Office Professional 2021 (lifetime license) together for just $84.97 (MSRP $543.99). This bundle offers a practical pairing of two widely used productivity tools at a notable discount. For $84.97, users gain access to Adobe Acrobat Pro 2024 with a three-year license, along with a lifetime license for Microsoft Office Professional 2021 for Windows. Adobe Acrobat Pro 2024 provides a full suite of offline PDF capabilities for both Mac and Windows. Users can create and edit documents, convert PDFs to Office formats, build forms, apply password protection, and manage pages with greater control. The software’s updated interface also improves navigation, making tools easier to find and use. Enhanced accessibility features and improved document tagging further support users who work with diverse audiences or compliance requirements. Microsoft Office Professional 2021 complements Acrobat’s document tools with a lineup of trusted applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access, Teams (free version), and OneNote. The suite offers a familiar interface, broad compatibility, and a wide range of formatting and data-handling features suitable for professional, academic, and home use. Together, these two licenses form a comprehensive document and productivity toolkit. Don’t miss getting this Acrobat Pro 2024 and MS Office 2021 bundle while it’s on sale for $84.97 (MSRP $543.99) for a limited time. Adobe Acrobat Pro + Microsoft Office Professional License BundleSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

The card features of photograph of the royal couple taken in April during their state visit to Italy. Read...

The Fifa World Cup 2026 draw features on several Saturday editions. Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Support for a high number of users TCL’s new smart-home app is a dramatic improvement Lots of features for the price Cons Deadbolt feels a bit wobbly Doesn’t support recurring credentials The doorbell feels superfluous Our Verdict This budget smart lock doesn’t skimp on features, although reservations over the robustness of it hardware keep us from making a strong recommendation for it. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: TCL D2 Plus Fingerprint Smart Lock Retailer Price $109.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices TCL jumped into the smart lock market late in late 2024 with some ambitious—and pricey—locks that were hit and miss, perhaps rushed to market without enough testing. The manufacturer has since taken a step back and is fleshing out its lineup a bit more thoughtfully, including the launch of this budget-priced offering, the TCL D2 Plus Fingerprint Smart Lock Plus. Specifications The TCL D2 Plus looks a lot like its big brother, the TCL D2 Pro, but with a major change under the hood: The Pro is a palm vein scanning lock, where the Plus relies on a more pedestrian fingerprint scanner as its primary authentication system. The biggest advantage is that the change helps get the price way down: An MSRP of $110 compared to $170 for the Pro model. That $60 difference makes it a solid value. TCL now has its own mobile app, TCL Home, and it’s a great improvement over the generic Tuya app it used before. The exterior of the aluminum-clad lock, which is rated IP55 for weatherproofing but with no ANSI/BHMA certification, offers only a few surprises, including the aforementioned fingerprint scanner, a touch-sensitive numeric keypad, and support for NFC cards (the SKU reviewed here doesn’t come with any cards, but you can buy the lock bundled with several fobs at Amazon for just a few dollars more). An exposed physical keyhole—along with two keys—provides another means of entry. The doorbell button embedded in the TCL D2’s PIN pad isn’t backlit, which makes it very difficult to see at night.Christopher Null/Foundry An understated doorbell button is embedded in the lock’s keypad. When a visitor presses the button, you’ll hear a chime and receive a push notification on your smartphone. This product is not a video doorbell, however, and it has no video features at all; nor does TCL offer a secondary chime that can be installed inside the house. A USB-C port on the bottom of the exterior escutcheon can be used for emergency access if the lock’s batteries die while you’re out. Speaking of batteries, you’ll need to bring your own: Eight AA cells, which TCL says will provide about 6 months of running time. The lock connects directly to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, eliminating the need for a bridge or smart home hub. Amazon Alexa and Google Home are both supported if you want to extend your ecosystem beyond the basics of the TCL Home app. Installation and setup The TCL D2 Plus comes with the usual bits and pieces, including two physical keys.Christopher Null/Foundry The process of installing the TCL D2 Plus is the same as it is for entry-level locks, with two bolts connecting the exterior escutcheon to a mounting frame on the inside of the door. The interior escutcheon mounts to that frame with just two more bolts, and a single electrical cable connects the two components, making this a quick install compared to the rest of the industry. Popping the eight batteries into place feels like the more onerous part of the process. More good news: TCL has moved from the awful Tuya app that it initially relied upon for the TCL D1 series, and now has its own mobile app, TCL Home. This is a great improvement, and setting up the lock with this app was simple. The app automatically discovered the lock once it was powered up, and pressing a button under the battery cover completed the onboarding process. Answering a few simple questions added the lock to my Wi-Fi network, and after three(!) firmware updates it was ready for use. Using the TCL D2 Plus Finger Print Smart Lock The TCL D2 Plus is largely intuitive and easy to use, although you’ll need to spend a bit of time in the settings menu to optimize it fully. One option I recommend changing immediately is to turn off “Device Security,” which requires you to enter a PIN in the app every time you use the app, which quickly becomes very tiresome. TCL now has its own smart home app, and it’s a big improvement over what it bundled with its earlier smart locks.Christopher Null/Foundry Other settings cover the basics: Auto locking can be set to between 10 and 120 seconds (though the lock has no door sensor and will lock whether it’s open or closed), and wrong-try protection lets you specify 5 to 10 incorrect permission attempts before it disables the lock for 2 to 5 minutes. Notifications can be individually set for unlocking, locking, doorbell presses, and alarm conditions (such as the activation of wrong-try lockout). Each of these activities is logged in the Events tab on the home screen and is summarized by day and week in the Home Assistant tab. One additional feature on this tab is called Homecoming Reminder, which is a type of alarm/reminder that will push a notification to the administrator if a configured user has not returned home and unlocked the door within a window of time that you set. It’s clearly designed for parents to keep tabs on children, and it worked well in my testing. The TCL D2 Plus Fingerprint Smart Lock requires eight AA batteries, and you’ll need to provide them.Christopher Null/Foundry User management is well designed, with credentials assigned user by user. Each user can have multiple fingerprints, PINs (4 to 8 digits), and NFC cards assigned. The lock supports up to 100 of each type of credential in total. Fingerprints and NFC cards always provide 24/7 access; PINs can be set to permanent or time-limited, although there is no facility for recurring passwords that are valid, say, only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Duress PINs can be used to send an alert to the administrator if a user is unlocking the door under duress, so the admin can notify authorities. Lastly, one-time, immediate-use passwords can be generated on demand within the app; these expire within 10 minutes, and only one can be active at a time. I encountered no significant issues working with the TCL Home app or the lock’s input systems throughout several days of testing. My only real complaint about using the lock was with some aspects of the hardware itself. The thumbturn requires a lot of pressure to get the bolt to extend all the way, and the motor can’t get the job done either, though the bolt made it most of the way to full extension—just a couple of millimeters shy. The TCL D2 Plus Fingerprint Smart Lock isn’t the most demure lock on the market.Christopher Null/Foundry I wasn’t thrilled with the way the deadbolt jiggles around when it’s extended, either, feeling a bit loose and unsteady. Without formal testing it’s hard to know how secure the lock is physically; but anecdotally, it just doesn’t feel all that secure. Remember, the lock is not ANSI/BHMA certified. The doorbell on the front of the lock, meanwhile, feels like an afterthought. The tiny icon is not illuminated unless the keypad is lit up, and I would never realistically expect a visitor to find the button to tap. It is, however, very easy to accidentally press it when you’re trying to unlock the door. My advice: Set it to mute and forget it’s there. Should you buy the TCL D2 Plus Fingerprint Smart Lock? I’ve seen the street price of the TCL D2 Plus Fingerprint Smart Lock drop as low as $80, making for a very good deal. It’s a bit less of a bargain at its $120 MSRP, but it still feels like a reasonable price for what you get. At the very least, this lock is a dramatic upgrade over the still-available TCL D1 series, putting TCL in a much better position to merit consideration in the smart lock space. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart locks. Read...

Google has unveiled its favorite Chrome browser extensions for 2025. This year’s list is not ranked but is dominated by AI. It is divided into three categories. AI companionsGoogle specifically highlights Monica and Sider, two all-in-one tools that help you summarize web pages, analyze PDFs and write text directly in the browser. HARPA AI, in turn, combines AI with web automation, for example to monitor price changes online. In addition, Quillbot continues to be a popular writing aid with advanced grammar and paraphrasing features. Work and learningIn this category, Google recommends Fireflies.ai and Bluedot, which are extensions that can record, transcribe and summarize digital meetings automatically. QuestionAI then acts as a personalized tutor to explain difficult topics, while eJOY weaves language learning into daily browsing. Creativity and shoppingAdobe has now brought its Photoshop features directly to the web, which Google says makes quick image editing more accessible than ever. Phia, the final winner in Google’s list, helps users compare prices and find the best buy with just one click. PCWorld’s own list of top-notch Chrome extensions doesn’t lean as hard on AI. Check out our roundup of 11 essential Chrome extensions I install on every PC for a more practical lists of add-ons. Read...

From graphics cards to mid-sized cars, you can’t find any new electronics that don’t claim to be “AI-powered” in some way. That includes Logitech’s mice and keyboards, some of which are being loaded specifically with “AI” buttons. But the CEO of Logitech says she sees no value in infamous “AI” gadgets, such as the Rabbit A1 or the Humane pin. “What’s out there is a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Hanneke Faber in an interview with Bloomberg. That seems to be the consensus among reviewers, and many early adopters, who found the Rabbit R1 to be little more than a stripped-down smartphone that was less capable than, well, a phone just running the ChatGPT app. The Humane pin was even more lampooned, with its questionable utility underscored by poor battery life and overheating issues for the projected hand screen. Both devices are now essentially dead. That isn’t to say that Logitech has no ticket to the “AI” hype train. It sells a “Signature AI Edition” of the M750 mouse which has a dedicated assistant button right there on the top of the mouse. Logitech has an “AI” Prompt Builder that integrates with its omnibus Logi Options+ management app as well, allowing triggered actions on most of its mid-range and high-end keyboards and mice. That being said, looking at the company’s latest products, it’s refreshing to see something that doesn’t have abominable intelligence plastered on every page. The MX Master 4 mouse and the Alto Keys 98M keyboard both omit any mention of “AI” on their promotional pages. The latter doesn’t even have a Copilot button, despite being a cross-platform Windows/Mac input device. With so many products and services apparently injecting “AI” into their features list apparently just to tick a box, I appreciate Logitech’s apparent resistance to the trend. Faber also said that Logitech isn’t looking to raise prices again anytime soon, after a notable jump in sticker prices following the initial round of Trump tariffs. “…It had to be done and it was better to rip off the proverbial Band-Aid than kind of drag our feet, which some others did.” Logitech increased prices on some devices by around 25 percent in early 2025. That said, with pricing for chips and memory exploding, thanks largely to the “AI” industry boom, even low-end devices could see more pricing pressure in 2026. Read...

Microsoft has announced that companies and organizations will have to pay more for the Office productivity suite from July 1, 2026. Exactly how much the price increase will be depends on the variant, but according to CNBC, it is an increase of up to 33 percent. “Over the past year, we’ve released more than 1,100 features in Microsoft 365, Security, Copilot, and Sharepoint. The new features have added value to the packages,” writes Microsoft 365 manager Nicole Herskowitz in a blog post on the company’s website. In other words, the increase is justified by the new features, not least Microsoft’s heavily touted AI tool Copilot. The last time Microsoft raised prices for its business-focused Office packages was in 2022. Microsoft substantially hiked the price of Microsoft 365 consumer plans early in 2025, citing the addition of AI features as justification, shortly after Google did the same for its G-Suite plans. Read...