News written by Petteri Pyyny

The European Union approved legislation in 2022 which made USB-C a mandatory charging connector in all mobile phones sold in Europe.

The law came into force for mobile phones in 2025, and as a result, Apple switched to using the USB-C standard in its iPhones already in 2024. The requirement was an excellent example of the legislation's "stickiness," as even though there was no similar requirement in other countries around the world, Apple voluntarily adopted USB-C elsewhere as well.

Now, based on the same law, the next phase is being entered, as from April 28, 2026, all laptops must have a charging capability using a USB-C connector.

Manufacturers are still allowed to offer other charging options in their computers, but the computer must also be able to be charged with a standard USB-C charger. If the computer supports any kind of fast charging technology, it must also support the standard USB PD fast charging technology.

In practice, the change means that, for example, on a business trip, you no longer need to take more than one USB PD standard-compliant charger, as the same charger can be used to charge both a mobile phone and a computer.

The European Commission has announced that the age verification app is now technically ready. The app is part of the EU's broader effort to protect minors online and provides a way to verify age without revealing the user's identity.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and executive vice president Henna Virkkunen provided more information about the app today. The app was first heard about last summer. In a few countries, testing of the first version of the app had already begun last year.

The app is a direct response to the requirements of the Digital Services Act (DSA). In recent months, the Commission has tightened its grip especially on large adult entertainment websites and social media platforms, such as TikTok and Meta, accusing them of insufficient age verification and addictive design.

One of the app's key technical features is the so-called zero-knowledge proof. According to Virkkunen, this means that the user retains full control over their data.

Google has made its desktop application for Windows widely available. The application, Google app for Desktop, brings the search giant's AI services directly to the Windows desktop without the user needing to open a separate browser.

Unlike normally with Google's new innovations, the application is immediately available in all countries - although its user interface currently only works in English. The application works on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.

The core idea of the application is to bring the entire operating system under one search - strongly reminiscent of macOS's Spotlight. The keyboard shortcut alt + spacebar opens a small floating search bar on the screen, through which one can search simultaneously from multiple sources. From the same search field, one can, of course, perform web searches using Google, but in addition, the search can also find files on the computer's hard drive, applications installed on the computer, and information stored on the user's own Google Drive cloud storage.

Blackmagic Design released a new version of its flagship video editor, DaVinci Resolve. The public beta version of the upcoming v21 is an interesting one, as it also caters quite a lot of tools for photographers now.

The new Photo tab brings advanced "node-based" tools, familiar from the video side, to photographers. This means that Hollywood-level color processing can now be applied directly to images. The Photo tab also includes full support for RAW images, albums, and direct camera connection (tethering) with Sony and Canon cameras.

These features seem like an open attack against Adobe Lightroom, as noted by many people on social media since the announcement.

Another significant thing about the version 21 is that it brings tons of new AI tools for video editing. To mention some, AI Face Age Transformer allows aging or rejuvenating faces with a slider and AI CineFocus is an AI-powered post-capture focus adjustment.

AI UltraSharpen and Motion Deblur improve low-resolution footage and remove motion blur. This means that a potentially failed clip can be subsequently improved with the help of AI.

In addition, DaVinci Resolve includes an AI Speech Generator, meaning speech can be created from text. The program can clone the user's own voice based on just a 10-second sample.

In addition, the update brings numerous improvements to graphics tools and audio, such as Fairlight folders to facilitate track management. All new features and the beta download link can be found on Blackmagic Design's website.

Sony's next-generation game console, the PlayStation 6 - codenamed "Orion" - has been the subject of several leaks this week, which have begun to reveal upcoming details about the PS6. The leaks are quite consistent with each other, so they can be considered relatively reliable.

According to the information, the PS6 is indeed scheduled to launch already in the fall of 2027, even though it was recently speculated that due to the component crisis, the release of the PlayStation 6 might be delayed by several years. The internals of the upcoming console are most clearly presented by the Moore's Law Is Dead YouTube channel, considered a fairly reliable leaker, as well as Kepler_L2.

At the core of the PlayStation 6 is said to be a partially customized AMD Orion system-on-chip, manufactured using TSMC's 3 nm process. At the same time, the console's power consumption has reportedly been improved, and according to claims, the PS6's total power draw would be limited to 160 watts (the PS5's figures are about 200-220 watts). This would also reduce the console's physical size and make cooling easier. On the graphics side, the Orion chip would be based on AMD's upcoming RDNA 5 architecture, offering computing power of about 34-40 teraflops (PS5: 10.28 teraflops and PS5 Pro: 16.7 teraflops).

One of the world's largest hotel accommodation booking sites, Booking.com, has fallen victim to a data breach.

The site has already sent a warning to some of its customers that their personal data has ended up in the hands of the attackers. However, the company emphasizes that, among other things, credit card details did not leak in connection with the data breach.

According to The Guardian reporting, the company has not revealed how large a share of its customers the breach affects - nor what specific customer data has fallen into unauthorized hands.

Although Booking.com is a subsidiary of the American company Booking Holdings, Booking.com's head office is located in Amsterdam. Because of the location of its headquarters, the company's obligation to report data breaches is very clearly defined under EU legislation. The company informed the Dutch authorities about the breach only 22 days after it occurred, and therefore it will have to pay a fine for the delayed notification.

According to the company statement, the PIN codes for upcoming hotel night reservations have been changed for all customers whose data was involved in the breach.

The pioneer of robot vacuums, iRobot, significantly updated its product line during 2025. The company's Roombas received LiDAR light radars for the first time, and at the same time, the smartphone application intended for controlling the robots was significantly updated (actually, several times).

From the new product line, we put one of the most interesting cases to a long test, the Roomba Plus 505 Combo, christened with a confusing name monster, which, to avoid any confusion, also bears the name Roomba 505 Combo+.

This is a robot vacuum that mops floors with rotating mop pads, intelligently avoids obstacles with the help of a camera, empties its own dustbin, and washes its own mops. In other words, a direct answer to the currently most popular category of robot vacuums.

As is our custom, we put the new product to a user test lasting about six months, where the robot was the only tool responsible for the cleanliness of the apartment's floors throughout our test period. Conveniently, the test also fell in the middle of the Nordic winter, meaning that grit, slush, and various other dirt were carried indoors with shoes, hindering Roomba's work.

For the past few years, there have been warnings online that software should always be downloaded from trusted sources - and preferably from the developers' own websites.

But even this advice doesn't always help.

The official website for HWMonitor and CPU-Z, hugely popular programs among PC enthusiasts, was successfully hijacked. Both programs are developed by the same company, CPUID, and both programs are available for download through the same site.

The perpetrators who hijacked the site did not cause any easily noticeable damage to the sites; instead, they only changed the official download links for both programs to point to fake download files containing malware. The issue came to light when users who had downloaded the programs started complaining on social media about how antivirus software completely freaked out over recently downloaded CPU-Z or HWMonitor. Some users also contacted CPUID directly.

CPUID managed to rectify the situation six hours after the site's download links were changed to point to installation files containing malware. However, users who downloaded either program from its official site between April 9, 2026, and April 10, 2026, also received malware on their computers as a bonus with the program. According to the company's statement (X/Twitter), the incident was caused by a vulnerability in CPUID's API interface, which attackers successfully exploited.

Microsoft has started removing its Copilot AI brand from Windows applications.

The company has, in recent years, pushed AI into almost all possible applications - including utilities shipped with Windows. At the same time, every single update that even slightly smelled of AI has been branded with the company's Copilot brand.

Now, a clear rollback has begun, and the first results are already visible. According to Windows Central, Copilot branding and Copilot logos have already been removed from a recent experimental version of Windows 11, at least from Notepad.

However, the AI functionalities have not disappeared; they have only been renamed. So, Notepad's AI-assisted writing mode, previously branded with the Copilot logo, is now simply named the "Writing Tools" menu.

On the other hand, significant updates are apparently coming to Windows applications already this year, as the company has formed a new team whose task is to lighten Windows applications. The team leader states that the majority of Windows applications will be implemented with so-called native code, focusing on the lightness and speed of the applications.

Most people are likely well aware that Signal is one of the most strongly encrypted instant messaging apps available.

Signal has even added so-called quantum-resistant encryptionto its app, designed to prevent message encryption from being broken by future quantum computers.

Naturally, this creates challenges for authorities, as all communication on Signal is end-to-end encrypted. Put simply, this means that Signal messages cannot be accessed on any device other than the intended recipient's phone running the Signal app.

404 Media reports (paywalled) on a case where the United States federal police, the FBI, managed to obtain part of a suspect's Signal message history.

The individual was suspected of vandalizing property belonging to the United States immigration authority, ICE. He was arrested and authorities gained access to his iPhone. However, the suspect had deleted the Signal app entirely from the phone, along with all of its message history.

Despite this, the FBI managed to recover the suspect's received messages in a rather unexpected way.

Chrome's desktop version has received two desired new features: vertical tabs and an improved immersive reading mode.

According to Google, this is one of the biggest user interface changes in Chrome's history, as the traditional horizontal orientation of tabs has been in use since the browser's early days. At the same time, Chrome is catching up with other browsers, as vertical tabs, which are placed on the side, have already arrived in most of its competitors.

Vertical tabs offer an alternative to the traditional tab bar. In the new view, all open tabs are listed on the left side of the browser window, allowing website titles to be seen better - even when many tabs are open. This particularly eases the workflow for users who use many tabs simultaneously. The view can also be condensed into mere icons, so that the side tabs do not consume as much browser screen real estate.

Enabling the feature is simple: the user only needs to right-click the top of the browser window and select "Show tabs vertically" from the menu. Returning to the traditional horizontal tab bar is done in the same way.

The second update is an "immersive" reading mode, which is not a new function per se, but an improved version of the reading mode already present in Chrome. The new function expands the reading mode to the size of the entire browser window, removing extra visual elements from web pages and focusing solely on text. Reading mode can be activated either from the right-click menu or from a separate reading mode icon found in the address bar.

The US space agency NASA has noticed that space has garnered a great deal of interest from people following the Artemis II moon mission.

The internet has indeed been full of derivative works created from images published by NASA.

But NASA wanted to make life a bit easier for space fans and released a collection of the best images taken during the Artemis II moon mission, in a format suitable for phone wallpaper.

Among the ready-made, free wallpapers is, for example, the delightful "earthset," where Earth slowly disappears behind the Moon.

NASA's wallpapers intended for mobile phones can be found here.

Better known for its cars, part of the VAG group, Skoda has developed an invention that we perhaps didn't even realize we needed - but which seems ingenious.

Skoda's engineers have developed a bicycle bell which rings in such a way that it manages to bypass the algorithms of noise-cancelling headphones used by pedestrians.

Nowadays, there is a huge number of pedestrians using noise-cancelling headphones in traffic, who probably follow car traffic, but not so much cyclists. And in many countries pedestrians and cyclists have traditionally been made to use the same pathways.

This, of course, leads to the problem that when a cyclist tries to warn a pedestrian with their bell, the pedestrian using noise-cancelling headphones may not hear the bell's sound at all.

Instead of just making the bell louder, the company's engineers decided to make it smarter instead. Researchers found that virtually all noise-cancelling headphones let sounds through in a specific frequency range (between 750 Hz and 780 Hz).

Almost all electronics companies have been struggling due to the memory crisis that began in autumn 2025. Companies have been forced to cut their margins, downgrade the specs of their upcoming products - and gradually pass on sharply increased costs to consumers.

The surge in prices of memory chips and NAND flash used in SSDs is largely driven by AI companies, which are racing to build data centers around the world. In the process, they are effectively buying up all available memory chips on the market - at any price.

Naturally, there are also winners in this otherwise grim development. One of the biggest beneficiaries is Korean conglomerate Samsung, and particularly its electronics manufacturing arm, Samsung Electronics. For consumers, Samsung Electronics is best known for its smartphones and televisions - businesses that are also being hit hard by rising component costs.

But at the same time, Samsung Electronics is also the world's largest manufacturer of memory chips. The company itself has directly contributed to the current price surge by raising its own memory prices amid virtually unlimited demand.

In a way, a historical moment is approaching, as Linux will most likely discontinue support for the 80486 processors by the end of this year.

The Register reported around Easter how changes have already been accepted into the Linux 7.1 codebase, which will remove support for the 486 processor family from the Linux kernel (kernel).

The change does not affect a very large audience, and Linux's lead maintainer Linus Torvalds has himself stated that 486 support is no longer "very relevant" in the 2020s.

Intel unveiled the 80486 processor family in 1989, and it dominated the PC market for several years until its successor, the Pentium, was unveiled. Intel itself manufactured 486-based processors until 2007.

The 486 was also a significant processor for PC technology, in that during its era, Intel saw the emergence of the first serious competitors manufacturing so-called clone x86 processors - including companies like AMD and Cyrix.