XDA

We're front row at Microsoft's San Francisco launch! Rich Woods and Justin Duino are on the ground at Microsoft's Surface and Windows launch event. Experiencing the latest announcements in AI, Surface laptop Ultra, and much, much more! Stick around, there's more to come tomorrow.

Seeing the recent wave of layoffs impacting so many talented writers and editors across tech media is tough to see. My heart goes out to everyone currently navigating an unexpected job search. If you or someone in your network was affected and looking for your next opportunity, I want to share that we are actively hiring across Valnet's tech brands. We’re regularly bringing on talent for brands like How-To Geek, XDA, Android Police, MUO & Pocket-lint! Our current priority is Feature and News Writers on a 1099 freelance contract, but I’m always happy to connect with senior editorial talent looking for their next step as well. You can check out our active openings and apply directly using the links below: - How-to Geek: https://lnkd.in/gaA52wpN - XDA: https://lnkd.in/gagA8zxE - MakeUseOf: https://lnkd.in/gd6W3gHc - Android Police: https://lnkd.in/g-NZjWkd - Pocket-lint: https://lnkd.in/gPVhcyf7 Please feel free to share or tag anyone in your network who might be looking! We are always open to meeting passionate individuals. #TechMedia #JournalismJobs #Hiring #WritingCommunity #EditorialJobs #OpenToWork

560,000 reasons to get excited! Linus Torvalds has officially released Linux 7.3-rc1, closing a massive two-week merge window that added roughly 560,000 lines of code to the kernel. The update pushes the total Linux codebase to nearly 41 million lines (40.98 million), driven heavily by vendor driver additions and automated hardware support. A major contributor to this growth is AMD’s GPU driver suite, which now tops 6.5 million lines alone due to extensive auto-generated register headers across its expanding APU and GPU lineups. The sheer scale of 7.3-rc1 illustrates how modern kernel development relies on automated vendor tooling to support an ever-growing matrix of global hardware. Does the continuous explosion of vendor driver code pose long-term maintainability risks for the Linux kernel, or is automated header generation the only viable path forward?

As global governments increasingly recognize the risks of relying on foreign-controlled software ecosystems, public investment in open-source infrastructure is becoming a critical strategy for national tech independence. Germany's Sovereign Tech Agency is accelerating Europe's push for digital sovereignty with a €508,640 investment into Flatpak, the popular Linux application sandboxing and distribution framework. Distributed over two years, the funding will enable the project to hire dedicated developers to close critical security gaps, specifically targeting limitations like combined audio/microphone permissions and the lack of dedicated Portals for networking and VPNs. Following a recent €1 million grant to the KDE desktop environment, the investment underscores Europe's deliberate strategy to mature open-source Linux ecosystems into viable, highly secure alternatives to proprietary platforms like Windows, iOS, and Android. Do you believe strategic government funding is the key to accelerating open-source development, or should the open-source ecosystem remain independent of state backing?

As productivity suites increasingly lock enterprise workflows behind mandatory cloud connections, background telemetry, and forced generative AI integrations, offline open-source software is proving that core usability and data privacy remain irreplaceable assets. The Document Foundation has officially launched LibreOffice 26.8, delivering significant document formatting updates while maintaining a strict zero-AI policy. The release introduces a new Paragraph Composer algorithm that balances word spacing across entire blocks of justified text, alongside a refreshed, color-coded Notebookbar UI for faster navigation across apps. By guaranteeing that all file processing remains 100% local without cloud transmission or AI data-scraping, the update delivers a dependable, privacy-first option for legal, enterprise, and security-minded professionals who require complete control over sensitive documents. Do you prefer productivity tools that focus strictly on offline privacy and core formatting, or have integrated AI features become essential to your daily document workflow?

Happy birthday Linux! On August 25, 1991, 21-year-old Linus Torvalds posted a famously understated message to the comp.os.minix Usenet group, introducing a free operating system kernel he described as "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like GNU". Thirty-five years later, that "hobby" powers roughly 90% of global public cloud workloads, every single one of the world's top 500 supercomputers, billions of mobile devices, and critical enterprise IT environments. The milestone highlights the unmatched scale of open-source collaboration—proving that a transparent, community-driven development model could permanently redefine how global software, cloud infrastructure, and digital ecosystems are built. What do you see as Linux’s single greatest contribution to enterprise technology over the last 35 years?

What do colors, commuting, and concern have in common? A growing software glitch in Android Auto is causing Google Maps to drop its real-time traffic layer, leaving drivers without color-coded congestion overlays during daily commutes. Without visual cues for traffic jams or unexpected delays, commuters are forced to navigate without clear visibility into road conditions—and with no official timeline or fix from Google yet, the issue highlights the operational friction created when essential cloud-dependent tools fail without warning. How heavily does your daily commuting rely on real-time navigation platforms like Android Auto or Apple CarPlay?

No more dancing around whether you remember that coworkers name... msnamer.com has your back, well sorta, Microsoft’s frequent habit of renaming its business products, cloud services, and operating systems has grown so convoluted that IT professionals created msnamer.com, a crowdsourced directory dedicated exclusively to tracking Microsoft's product name changes. From the evolution of Office 365 into Microsoft 365 to the shifting branding around Azure, Entra ID, and Copilot, the database maps how changing nomenclature impacts software licensing, technical documentation, and enterprise IT training. The site highlights an ongoing operational headache for IT leadership: managing the administrative drag caused by perpetual corporate rebrandings. How much time does your IT team spend updating documentation and internal support tickets due to software vendor rebrandings?

Microsoft is facing a quiet exodus from foreign public sectors, and China is taking massive steps to ensure its departure from Windows is permanent. Following European government initiatives migrating away from Microsoft, China is accelerating its national push to replace Western operating systems across state and enterprise hardware with domestic Linux distributions like openKylin and Deepin/UOS. Driven by cybersecurity mandates, hardware independence, and total digital sovereignty, this transition signals a major rift in global IT infrastructure, one that could fundamentally redefine how international enterprise software, chip architecture, and security standards are developed moving forward. Will the growing push for sovereign, open-source operating systems permanently fracture the global enterprise IT landscape? Let's connect in the comments!

Google’s iconic "Don't be evil" slogan was once the central pillar of its corporate identity, but its gradual demotion to a mere footnote in the company's code of conduct wasn't an accident—it was the result of a deliberate shift in corporate culture. In a new memoir and interview with Ars Technica, former Google communications employee Claire Stapleton (2007–2019) sheds light on the internal changes that led the tech giant to quietly bury its original guiding philosophy in May 2018. Stapleton points to Larry Page replacing Eric Schmidt as CEO in 2011 as the primary turning point. While Page envisioned the company as a pure tech entity that could "solve all the world's problems," Stapleton argues his leadership paradoxically transformed Google into a complex, bureaucratic, and "bloated Borg" obsessed with mimicking Apple's "cool branding." This shift in priorities fueled the chaotic launches of ultimately doomed products like Google Glass and Google+, while slowly pushing the ethical constraint of "Don't be evil" from the top of the company's code of conduct all the way to the very bottom. Do you think Google's shift away from "Don't be evil" has noticeably impacted its products and user trust over the past decade? Let's talk in the comments!