By Alina Maria Stan In short: Volkswagen’s autonomous mobility subsidiary MOIA America and Uber have begun on-road testing in Los Angeles with roughly 10 autonomous ID. Buzz vehicles, the opening phase of a deployment that is scheduled to offer commercial rides with human safety operators by the end of 2026, and fully driverless service in 2027. Los Angeles is the […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

We’ve reached that familiar point in Apple’s annual iPhone speculation cycle when conflicting reports insist an unreleased, unconfirmed product is both behind schedule and set to appear right on time.

As with Apple’s annual macOS system naming fable, this moment comes every year. One publication, sometimes Nikkei, might claim development is running late, while a second industry observer, usually well-connected analyst Mark Gurman, will rebut the claim. 

Apple, meanwhile, says nothing at all. How could it, when all the drama concerns a product it hasn’t even acknowledged exists? Instead, the company just sits back, quietly managing the coverage while occupying prime mental real estate without officially doing anything.

How the stories work

The details in these annual stories don’t matter much. At this stage, they usually involve technical or manufacturing process flaws related to a problem identified during the initial test manufacturing cycle, which Apple then manages to fix.

Once the device is introduced and reaches stores, Apple routinely sells through its initial product inventory rapidly. Shipping times slip, supply tightens, and sometimes weeks pass before availability stabilizes. Rarely, Apple will announce a product — but not actually ship it for a few more weeks. This is a pattern we sometimes see with the iPhone Pro models.

This year’s Big Story

This year’s Big Story concerns the mythical iPhone Fold. Nikkei reports last-minute manufacturing flaws and even speculates the device might not ship until 2027. Gurman rebuts the report, arguing Apple remains on track for its fall schedule for the still-unconfirmed product. “While supply could be limited initially, it’s also on track to go on sale at the same time — or soon after — the Pro models. Nikkei report is off base,” he wrote.

The rumor clearly rattled markets. Morgan Stanley analyst Eric Woodring weighed in with his own reporting, telling clients in a note seen by Computerworld that while early testing has identified a small engineering issue concerning the Samsung-made hinge, he hasn’t picked up news of delays. He cites an iPhone component supplier who said they had “not seen any order adjustment for the Foldable iPhone.”

Business as usual

None of this is unusual. Apple ran into similar challenges with iPhone X and iPhone 15. Picking up problems at this stage in the manufacturing process is precisely why Apple engages in test manufacturing runs. The idea is that if problems are found, there is time to get them fixed. Woodring expects Apple will do so, echoing Gurman’s view that a September announcement remains on track.

Of course, what makes all the iPhone Fold flip-flops so amusing is that right now the product doesn’t officially exist. Apple has said nothing about it, and while we know it’s worked on a folding iPhone for over a decade, it has never, ever announced one. 

Even so, we already think we know what to expect. 

What we think we know

The IPhone Fold will, perhaps unsurprisingly, fold. It might be a little squarer than a standard iPhone and folds out to be slightly smaller than an iPod mini. You’ll be able to use it folded or unfolded, it will have high-quality cameras, use premium materials and the fold will be almost invisible when used. It will boast an Apple silicon processor, plenty of memory, and be as happy taking a FaceTime call as it will be when running on-device AI. 

It will look excellent. 

It will feel expensive. 

Hordes of influencers will love it. 

And it will likely cost around $2,000.

That’s what we think we know, but Apple hasn’t ever promised a folding iPhone. What it does promise, however, is that if it ships such a device it will do so on Apple’s terms, not the industry’s self-created schedule. That’s just how Apple flips its phones. 

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Also, now on Mastodon.

Source:: Computer World

By Hisan Kidwai The new OPPO F33 series is just around the corner, and the Chinese smartphone maker has…
The post OPPO F33 Pro Launching April 15 With 50MP Ultra-Wide Selfie Camera, New Design appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

By Hisan Kidwai The gaming mouse world has pretty much been the same for the last few years, with…
The post Logitech PRO X2 SUPERSTRIKE Mouse Debuts With Haptic Click System, 44K DPI appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

Chinese AI company Z.ai has launched GLM-5.1, an open-source coding model it says is built for agentic software engineering. The release comes as AI vendors move beyond autocomplete-style coding tools toward systems that can handle software tasks over longer periods with less human input.

Z.ai said GLM-5.1 can sustain performance over hundreds of iterations, an ability it argues sets it apart from models that lose effectiveness in longer sessions.

As one example, the company said GLM-5.1 improved a vector database optimization task over more than 600 iterations and 6,000 tool calls, reaching 21,500 queries per second, about six times the best result achieved in a single 50-turn session.

In a research note, Z.ai said GLM-5.1 outperformed its predecessor, GLM-5, on several software engineering benchmarks and showed particular strength in repo generation, terminal-based problem solving, and repeated code optimization. The company said the model scored 58.4 on SWE-Bench Pro, compared with 55.1 for GLM-5, and above the scores it listed for OpenAI’s GPT-5.4, Anthropic’s Opus 4.6, and Google’s Gemini 3.1 Pro on that benchmark.

GLM-5.1 has been released under the MIT License and is available through its developer platforms, with model weights also published for local deployment, the company said. That may appeal to enterprises looking for more control over how such tools are deployed.

Longer-running coding agents

Z.ai says long-running performance is a key differentiator for the company when compared to models that lose effectiveness in extended sessions.

Analysts say this is because many current models still plateau or drift after a relatively small number of turns, limiting their usefulness on extended, multi-step software tasks.

Pareekh Jain, CEO of Pareekh Consulting, said the industry is now moving beyond tools that can answer prompts toward systems that can carry out longer assignments with less supervision.

The question, Jain said, is no longer, “What can I ask this AI?” but, “What can I assign to it for the next eight hours?”

For enterprises, that raises the prospect of assigning an agent a ticket in the morning and receiving an optimized solution by day’s end, after it has run hundreds of experiments and profiled the code.

“This capability aligns with real needs such as large refactors, migration programs, and continuous incident resolution,” said Charlie Dai, VP and principal analyst at Forrester. “It suggests that long‑running autonomous agents are becoming more practical, provided enterprises layer in governance, monitoring, and escalation mechanisms to manage risk.”

Open-source appeal grows

GLM-5.1’s release under the MIT License could be significant, especially for companies in regulated or security-sensitive sectors.

“This matters in four key ways,” Jain said. “First, cost. Pricing is much lower than for premium models, and self-hosting lets companies control expenses instead of paying per use. Second, data governance. Sensitive code and data do not have to be sent to external APIs, which is critical in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and defense. Third, customization. Companies can adapt the model to their own codebases and internal tools without restrictions.”

The fourth factor, according to Jain, is geopolitical risk. Although the model is open source, its links to Chinese infrastructure and entities could still raise compliance concerns for some US companies.

Dai said the MIT license makes it easier for companies to run the model on their own systems while adapting it to internal requirements and governance policies. “For many buyers, this makes GLM‑5.1 a viable strategic option alongside commercial models, especially where regulatory constraints, IP sensitivity, or long‑term platform control matter most,” Dai said.

Benchmark credibility

Z.ai cited three benchmarks: SWE-Bench Pro, which tests complex software engineering tasks; NL2Repo, which measures repository generation; and Terminal-Bench 2.0, which evaluates real-world terminal-based problem solving.

“These benchmarks are designed to test coding agents’ advanced coding capabilities, so topping those benchmarks reflects strong coding performance, such as reliability in planning-to-execution, less prompt rework, and faster delivery,” said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia. “However, they are still detached from typical enterprise realities.”

Su said public benchmarks still do not capture the messiness of proprietary codebases, legacy systems, and code review workflows. He added that benchmark results come from controlled settings that differ from production, though the gap is closing as more teams adopt agentic setups.

Source:: Computer World

New York, United States: Minimus, a provider of hardened and secure container images designed to mitigate CVE risk, today announced the appointment of Yael Nardi as Chief Business Officer (CBO). In this newly created role, Nardi will lead the company’s next phase of scale, overseeing top-of-funnel growth strategy, operations, and corporate development.

As the market landscape evolves and AI reshapes customer acquisition, Minimus is implementing an operational model to scale marketing funnels and strategic alliances, which Nardi will manage.

“We are entering a phase of aggressive expansion that requires rigorous execution and a completely new playbook. Traditional marketing strategies are no longer enough in today’s fast-moving environment. We need an operational powerhouse at the helm. Yael is a world-class operator accustomed to zero-error environments and high-stakes execution. We are choosing intelligence, speed, and strategic alignment, and there is no one I trust more to run this machine.” – Ben Bernstein, CEO at Minimus

Nardi brings a multidisciplinary background to Minimus, with over 15 years of experience advising high-growth startups, investors, and technology corporations. Most recently, she served as Director at Meitar NY Inc. and Partner at Meitar Law Offices. Nardi was the lead corporate lawyer behind several significant M&A transactions, amongst them is the Twistlock’s acquisition by Palo Alto Networks (PANW) – a deal in the container image hardening and runtime security space – as well as transactions involving Wiz, JFrog, Salesforce, and others.

“I have worked with the Minimus team through some of their most critical milestones, and I know firsthand the massive potential of their technology. The demand for near-zero CVE container images and minimal container images with built-in security is only accelerating. Scaling a company in today’s environment requires the same 24/7 rigor, vendor accountability, and strategic precision as closing a major M&A deal. I am thrilled to step into this operational role and build the growth engine that will drive Minimus’s next chapter.” – Yael Nardi, Chief Business Officer, Minimus

Nardi holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from Tel Aviv University and will operate out of Minimus’s New York City headquarters. In her new role, she will collaborate with the executive leadership team to drive the company’s growth objectives.

About Minimus

Minimus provides hardened container images and hardened Docker images engineered to achieve near-zero CVE exposure. Built continuously from source with the latest patches and security updates, Minimus images undergo rigorous container image hardening and attack surface reduction, delivering secure container images with seamless supply chain security and built-in compliance for FedRAMP, FIPS 140-3, CIS, and STIG standards. Through automatically generated SBOMs and real-time threat intelligence, Minimus empowers teams to prioritize remediation and avoid over 97% of container vulnerabilities – making it a compelling Chainguard alternative for teams seeking production-hardened, distroless container images at scale. 

For more information, visit minimus.io.

Media Contact

Minimus Public Relations

[email protected]

minimus.io

Source:: Computer World

By Shimul Sood These headphones are… financially ambitious.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Allison Steffens Herrera In short: The Trump administration’s FY2027 budget proposes cutting $707 million from CISA, eliminating the agency’s election security programme entirely and shedding 860 positions, a dramatic escalation that would reduce the country’s primary civilian cybersecurity agency to a $2 billion operation after a year already defined by DOGE-driven layoffs and mass departures. The United States’ central […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Alina Maria Stan In short: Google Maps now uses Gemini to suggest captions when users share photos of places, launching on iOS in the U.S. and expanding globally to Android in the coming months, the latest step in a six-month campaign to weave AI into every layer of Maps. Sharing a photo on Google Maps has always required a […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

OpenAI has released a new policy paper outlining several proposals to address the economic consequences of rapid AI development. The document comes amid growing concerns that AI could quickly take over job roles and fundamentally transform entire industries.

Among the proposals is a public wealth fund, in which the government and AI companies would invest in assets linked to the AI boom, according to Business Insider. The returns would then be distributed directly to citizens.

OpenAI also called for modernizing the tax system, with a greater focus on corporate profits and capital rather than earned income. In the same vein, ideas about special taxes on automated work — sometimes called a “robot tax” — were also raised.

The company also wants governments to encourage companies to test a four-day workweek without pay cuts, where productivity gains from AI are used to the benefit of employees.

Source:: Computer World

By Pranob Mehrotra The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 could bring 5G connectivity, but a new report suggests the upgrade may be limited to select markets.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Manisha Priyadarshini WatchHand is a new AI system that turns regular smartwatches into hand-tracking devices using sonar, potentially letting you control computers with finger gestures alone.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Cristian Dina In short: Netflix has launched Netflix Playground, a dedicated standalone gaming app for children aged eight and under, bundled into existing memberships with no ads or in-app purchases and full offline support, positioning it squarely against Apple Arcade in the family market. Netflix has quietly extended its gaming ambitions into the family market with the launch […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Alina Maria Stan In short: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has released a video threatening “complete and utter annihilation” of OpenAI’s $30bn Stargate AI campus in Abu Dhabi, singling out the facility by name for the first time and warning it will strike if the US proceeds with threatened attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure. A senior officer in Iran’s […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

The US tech sector lost 15,000 jobs in March even though the overall US economy saw  178,000 jobs gained across all sectors, according to data from multiple sources, including the US Department of Labor.

CompTIA, which analyzed the Friday jobs data released by Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), pegged the unemployment rate for tech workers at 3.9%. That’s still below the national unemployment rate of 4.3%.

The March losses reflect a downward trend compared to the 7,100 jobs gained in February.

Most of the jobs lost were in the custom software services and systems design occupation category, which shed 13,200 positions. Overall, about 118,000 tech jobs were lost across IT and non-IT sectors..

According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, employers cut 60,620 jobs in March. That’s up 25% from the number of cuts in February, but not as high as a year ago.

“Removing the wave of federal layoffs announced in February and March of last year, job cut announcements in 2026 are closely following the pattern of 2025,” ,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “Last year it was government, retail, and technology. This year, it’s technology, transportation, and healthcare.”

Tech firm cuts mounted in March

The tech sector lost 18,720 jobs last month, including cuts from Dell, Oracle, and Meta, which is restructuring its Reality Labs division.

So far, the tech sector has lost 52,050 jobs in 2026, higher than the 37,097 lost in the first three months of 2025. And more layoffs are coming as AI’s influence drives personnel decisions this year, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in the research note.

AI was cited as a reason for 15,341 job cuts in March, the research firm said. Notably, Block cut 4,000 jobs in a shift it portrayed as moving toward the automation of  work using AI. But many criticized Block for “AI-washing,” where companies use AI to justify downsizing.

AI has been cited as a reason for 54,836 layoffs so far in 2026, accounting for 5% of all jobs cut, higher than 3% in February, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

AI is forcing a shift in workforce skills

Companies are investing in AI instead of human labor, and functions like AI coding are replacing human developers. “Other industries are testing the limits of this new technology, and while it can’t replace jobs completely, it is costing jobs,” Challenger Gray and Christmas said.

Multiple studies noted the emergence of a new AI-savvy workforce, with tech job listings reflecting that shift as companies gradually implement AI strategies.

“More organizations are seeking talent with the technical depth to support automation, data integrity, and scalable systems,” said Kye Mitchell, head of Experis North America.

The appetite for AI is also creating positions needed to build out digital and physical infrastructure, Mitchell said.

The BLS data shows the labor market is regaining its footing, though the job numbers may be telling only a partial story, said Ger Doyle, Regional President, North America, at ManpowerGroup.

The ongoing Middle East conflict could also affect jobs in non-tech sectors. “Deepening geopolitical risk and higher energy prices create real uncertainty about what comes next,” Doyle said.

Source:: Computer World

By Vikhyaat Vivek The NASA Artemis Watch 2.0 is a quirky new smartwatch with a see-through body, basic fitness tracking, and open-source firmware for people who like their gadgets a little unusual.

Source:: Digital Trends

You’ve probably spent a lot of time through the years gathering productivity tips for your favorite applications — after all, that’s where you get most of your work done. If you’re like most people, though, you’ve managed to find your way around Windows 11 but figured there’s not much you can do to improve your productivity in the OS itself.

We beg to differ. There’s a lot you can do to make your work more productive with Windows 11 — it’s just that most of it is hidden. We’ve delved deep into the operating system and come up with these useful productivity tips.

1. Get focused with focus sessions

The biggest productivity-sapper for office workers is one that has been drastically worsened by technology: Many of us are unable to focus on one task at a time, constantly bedeviled by the distractions that are always at hand when you work on a computer. If you find yourself unable to focus on a single task on your PC, join the club. We’re all prone to it.

Windows 11’s Focus sessions feature can help. It enables Windows 11’s Do Not Disturb mode, which turns off all Windows notifications. In addition, apps in the taskbar won’t flash at you if they require a response. Badge notifications on apps in the taskbar are turned off as well.

A focus session uses Windows Clock to let you set a time limit for the session. That way, you won’t be distracted by worrying about how long you want the do-not-disturb session to last. And if background music helps you work, you can also have Spotify play music you specify for the length of the session.

To use Focus sessions:

Run the Windows 11 Clock app. The simplest way is to type clock in the Search box and then click the Clock app that appears.

Click Focus sessions. If it’s the first time you’re using it, click Get started.

The Focus session page appears. In the “Get ready to focus” area, select how long you want the session to last. If you choose less than 30 minutes, the session won’t have a break. If you choose 30 minutes or longer, you’ll be given short breaks. If you don’t want breaks, check the Skip breaks checkbox.

Here’s command central for setting up a focus session.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

If you want to use Microsoft To Do and choose tasks from your to do list, make sure you’re signed into your Microsoft account, right-click the three-dot menu in the Tasks area, and click Open in To Do. You’ll be connected to your tasks list.

If you want to play music during your focus session, click Link your Spotify and follow the instructions for linking to your Spotify account and playing music. (If you don’t have Spotify installed, click “Install Spotify” first.)

When you’re done, click Start focus session and get to work. If you want to set a daily goal for how long to use focus sessions, pencil icon in the “Daily progress” area. From now on, whenever you start a Focus session, you’ll see how often you’ve met your daily goal.

2. Type with your voice

How fast a typist are you? No matter how fast you are, it’s unlikely you can type at the speed of thought — or at the speed of speech. And the faster you type, the more mistakes you’re going to make.

A great way to get more productive at the keyboard is to have your computer do your typing for you by using Windows 11’s voice typing feature. Hold down the Windows key + H to summon Windows’ built-in voice typist. Click the microphone icon that appears and start talking. Note that the first time you use it, Windows will install speech-recognition software to improve its performance.

You’ll be surprised at how fast and accurate it is if you speak in a clear voice. However, there are a few things to keep in mind when using it. One is that there’s sometimes a lag between your speech and when your words are typed in. So if you don’t see the words instantly onscreen, don’t repeat yourself — if you do, your words will be typed twice.

Also, if you try to make edits to the text during the session, by doing things such as deleting text or inserting paragraphs, the session will automatically end. You’ll have to turn voice typing back on.

It also won’t automatically use punctuation. It won’t put a period at the end of a sentence, or commas in the middle of sentences. There’s a way to have it type punctuation, however. Click the settings icon to the left of the microphone and move the slider to on in the “Automatic punctuation” section. You can then say “period” to voice-type a period; “comma” to voice type a comma, and so on.

If you want to use voice typing in text boxes within Windows (such as inside a dialog box), turn on the slider toggle next to “Voice typing launcher.”

Here’s how to customize Windows 11 speech recognition.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

3. Use Copilot to speed up both creative and Windows interface tasks

Microsoft’s generative AI tool, Copilot, is front and center in Windows 11 — its icon is right in the middle of the taskbar. Copilot is available in many forms in various Microsoft products, and the heart of it is a chatbot that can perform a wide variety of tasks, such as answering questions, drafting documents, analyzing data, and so on.

In addition to integrating with Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Outlook, and Excel (which requires a paid subscription), Copilot is available for free in a built-in Windows app. You can use it to help with research, write first drafts, create images, and more. Simply click the Copilot icon in the taskbar and type in your question or prompt. You can also type follow-up prompts for more information.

Click the Copiloticon on the taskbar and here’s what you get.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

Keep in mind that like all genAI tools, Copilot gets things wrong, so it’s important to check its output carefully. Even so, it can provide a powerful shortcut for many creative tasks. For more details about querying Copilot, including how to use its “deep thinking” mode, see “Microsoft Copilot tips: 9 ways to use Copilot right” — and also check out “How to curb hallucinations in Copilot (and other genAI tools).”

In addition, Copilot can help you quickly do a wide range of tasks in Windows itself, such as making your screen brighter, improving your laptop’s battery life, customizing Bluetooth, stopping apps from starting automatically at startup, and much more. Instead of hunting around in the Quick Settings pane, the Settings app, the Control Panel, and elsewhere in Windows, you just type a prompt telling Copilot what you want to do.

It helps with that in two ways. First, it offers advice, including step-by-step instructions, on how to accomplish something you want to do in Windows 11. Second, it will link directly to the exact Settings page you want to use or customize. Note that it won’t actually send you to the page on its own. Instead, it creates what it calls a “clickable card” with the name of the setting you want to use. Click Open on the card and you’ll be sent straight to the setting. You can then change the setting in the way that Copilot advised.

Copilot can help you quickly get to the right Windows 11 system setting with a click.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

Note that Microsoft is constantly improving what Copilot can do, so if it doesn’t provide a helpful response when you ask it for help with a Windows task, you might want to try again at a later date.

4. Copy and paste like a pro

For decades, the Windows Clipboard had been brain-dead. You copied something into it, pasted that clip into an application, and that was that. The next time you copied a clip into it, the old one disappeared.

Not these days, though. Microsoft has smartened it up. Now it stores multiple clips and lets you preview those clips and choose which one you’d like to paste into a document. You can also store clips permanently, a great way to keep boilerplate text around that you can paste into documents or emails, or store a graphic of your signature to help digitally sign documents.

You can even sync your Clipboard history across multiple Windows devices: Go to Settings > System > Clipboard. In the “Clipboard history” section, make sure the slider is on. In the “Sync across devices” section, turn the slider from off to on.

Copy items to the Clipboard in all the myriad ways you’re used to, such as pressing Ctrl + C, right-clicking an image on the web and selecting Copy image from the menu that appears, and so on. You can keep on copying items, and the Clipboard will keep saving them as individual clips. There’s no hard limit on the number of clips you can save and how large each clip can be — it’s based on how much memory you have and the amount of total data in all your saved clips.

After you’ve copied clips into the Clipboard, you can scroll through them, preview them, and choose which to paste into a document. To see them, press Windows key + V. A small window appears with the clips you’ve pasted to the Clipboard. Scroll through, and when you find the clip you want to paste, click it. If you only want to paste your most recent clip into a document, just press Ctrl + V.

The powered-up Windows Clipboard.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

If you’ve chosen to sync the clips, they’ll be available on the Clipboard of all other Windows 11 or 10 devices you choose to sync.

The Clipboard has a few other tricks up its sleeve, with icons across its top for pasting emoji, kaomoji, popular GIFs from the internet, and symbols.

Your clips are deleted when you turn off your PC. But you can save some permanently. Press Windows key + V to launch the Clipboard, click the three-dot icon at the top right of any clip, and select Pin. That pins the clip to the Clipboard permanently until you unpin it.

You can also manually clean out your Clipboard by deleting individual clips or by deleting them all at once. To delete an individual clip, click the three-dot icon at its top right and select Delete. To delete all the clips in the Clipboard, click the three-dot icon at the top right of any clip and select Clear all. Pinned clips won’t be deleted unless you delete them individually.

5. Power up Windows 11 with PowerToys

Longtime Windows tinkerers and productivity-seekers will likely remember Windows PowerToys, first released for Windows 95 several years before the turn of the century. PowerToys were small, free utilities from Microsoft that let you tweak, customize, and power up Windows in countless ways. Used incorrectly, they could waste many non-productive but pleasant hours tinkering away. Used correctly, they could be a great Windows productivity booster, mainly for small tasks that can take up large chunks of your time.

After updating PowerToys for Windows XP, Microsoft unaccountably abandoned them in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8/8.1. It wasn’t until September 2019, four years after the release of Windows 10, that they were updated for Windows 10, and then for Windows 11 when it was released.

These days it’s hard to know whether to refer to PowerToys as singular or plural; in its current incarnation, PowerToys is a single app that contains many handy mini tools. The PowerToys app doesn’t come installed in Windows 11; you instead download it for free. As I write this, PowerToys includes more than two dozen tools, and Microsoft regularly adds new ones.

Microsoft’s free PowerToys app offers more than two dozen productivity boosters, including one for doing bulk resizing of images.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

There isn’t room in this article to delve into every tool, but it’s worth trying several out to see if they’re useful for you. Here are my favorite five:

Image Resizer: Need to resize multiple photos or images in the same way in one fell swoop? With this utility, just select the images, choose how you want them resized, and click.

Always on Top: Are you driven crazy when you’re using a productivity app like Word and Excel, you temporarily move your focus to another window, and the app gets hidden? No more. Always on Top keeps your productivity app in front, even when you switch focus.

Keyboard Manager: Keyboard shortcuts are among the greatest productivity boosters for getting things done quickly. If there’s not enough of them for you in Windows 11, this tool lets you remap your keyboard and create keyboard shortcuts.

Light Switch: This lets you switch between Windows’ light and dark modes according to a schedule you set or synced to sunrise and sunset times in your area.

Mouse Utilities: Master your mouse with these utilities — you’ll be able to do things like shake your mouse to focus its pointer, draw crosshairs centered around the pointer, make the pointer jump to anywhere on your screen, and more.

For an in-depth guide to the PowerToys tools and how to use them, see “Windows PowerToys: Your handy productivity toolbox.”

6. Create virtual desktops

You use your PC for many different purposes. You might, for example, use one set of apps for creating presentations, another for making videos, and another when researching and writing. Or you may have a set of apps you typically use when working at the office and a somewhat different set when working remotely. And, let’s face it, occasionally you might even want to do something non-work-related on your PC. So you may waste time hunting for the right apps for each situation.

Virtual desktops make it easier to use your PC for different purposes. You can create multiple desktops with different apps running on each one for different reasons, such as one for working at home, one for working at the office, another for gaming, etc.

Creating virtual desktops in Windows 11.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

It’s simple to do. Click the overlapping windows icon to the right of the search box on the taskbar. If you haven’t created any virtual desktops yet, the top part of your screen will show all the open windows on your desktop, and the bottom of the screen will display “Desktop 1” (which is your existing desktop) and “New Desktop” with a + sign under it. To create a new desktop, click the + sign. A new desktop appears, titled “Desktop 2.” Click it to make it your active desktop, and set it up however you want.

You can keep making new desktops this way. To switch among them, click the overlapping windows icon and select the one you want to use. You can set up each desktop any way you want — for example, by putting all the icons for in-office related apps within easy reach in one, and all the icons for working at home in another.

To make it easier to differentiate between them, you can rename each desktop. Simply click its name (Desktop 1, for example) and type in the new name you want.

7. Organize your apps with Snap Layouts

There’s another way to keep all apps related to a task in one place — by using Windows 11’s Snap Layouts feature. With it, you can group your open windows into one of a half-dozen pre-built screen layouts. You can have two apps side by side, each taking up half the screen, for example. Or you might have one app on the left and two stacked vertically on the right, or four apps in a grid.

Snap Layouts in action.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

To use Snap Layouts, first open the applications you want to be in a layout. Then hover your mouse over an application’s maximize icon on the upper right of the window, between the minimize and close icons. A panel appears with layout options. Choose the layout you want and which position you want the application to be in, and the app window snaps into that position.

Choosing a layout.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

When you do that, all your other open apps will display inside a new window. Click any of those apps to fill in spots in the rest of the layout. The grouping is saved as a Snap Group that you can to return to if you’ve opened other apps or minimized any of the group’s app windows. To return to the group, hover your mouse over the taskbar icon of any of the applications in a Snap Group. You’ll see thumbnails of all the apps in the group. Click the thumbnail to return to the group.

For more details about Snap Layouts and related features, see “Make multitasking a Snap on your Windows PC.”

8. Use the secret Start menu

Hidden in the bowels of Windows 11 are many powerful tools that can make you more productive, such as Network Connections for viewing and managing your internet connections; Device Manager for managing your devices; Terminal, an interface for powerful command-line tools, especially for IT pros; Task Manager for helping make your PC more efficient; and many others.

That’s all well and good, but unless you use them all the time, it’s easy to forget that they exist. And even if you do remember they exist, it’s often not easy to find them. Some are buried deep in the Settings app. Others require that you launch them from a command line. And yet others may be squirrelled away in a place you’ll never find.

There’s a trick for getting to them quickly — use what some people call the secret Start menu. To launch it, right-click the Start icon to the left of the search box on the taskbar, or press the Windows key + X. A menu appears with a long list of these tools. Click whatever tool you want to use and get going with it.

Here’s what some people call the “secret Start menu” for getting quick access to productivity-boosters.
Preston Gralla / Foundry

This story was originally published in July 2023 and most recently updated in April 2026.

Source:: Computer World

By Shimul Sood Don’t jump to conclusions just yet.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Varun Mirchandani MIT’s VisiPrint tool offers realistic previews of 3D-printed objects, helping reduce failed prints, material waste, and prototyping frustration.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Cristian Dina In short: Monzo announced on 1 April 2026 that it is closing its US operations, stopping new American sign-ups immediately and shutting existing accounts by June, and cutting approximately 50 roles. The decision comes three months after the UK challenger bank received a full banking licence from the European Central Bank and the Central Bank of […] This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web