Just when Intel seemed to be on the cusp of success, the company reported supply issues that will limit the number of available PC chips that PC makers will be able to buy. Moreover, Intel said that it’s prioritizing the higher-margin data center chips with what it can manufacture, leaving supplies of upcoming chips like the Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) apparently constrained. Intel also said that its next-generation processor, Nova Lake, would arrive at the end of 2026. “So it’s just literally hand to mouth what we can get out of the fab and what we can get the customers, is how we’re managing it,” David Zinsner, Intel’s chief financial officer, said during a call with analysts reporting Intel’s Q4 earnings for 2025. A transcript was recorded by Investing.com. “Obviously, we’re shifting as much as we can over to data center to meet the high demand, but we can’t completely vacate the client market,” Zinsner added. “So we’re trying to support both as best we can and obviously work our way out of this supply issue. I do believe that the first quarter is the trough. We will improve supply in the second quarter.” The problem right now is two-fold, Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan explained: though Intel is now shipping Panther Lake chips using its 18A technology, the company’s yields—the number of “good” wafers, capable of making finished chips—is meeting internal expectations but not enough to meet demand. The company ate up most of its in-house supply of chips during the fourth quarter and is down to about 40 percent of “peak levels,” executives said. Intel said that its supply would continue to increase during the course of the year. Intel’s processor supply crunch comes at a time when the PC industry is facing acute shortages of memory and flash storage, all of which are having a negative impact on PC sales and prices. First benchmark impressions of Intel’s Panther Lake were terrific, but if customers can’t get them, then no one wins. Tan implied that Intel’s own allocation strategy could be brutally practical, favoring larger customers over small. “Some of the bigger players and the OEMs and the bigger player in the hyperscale [business], they have more access into the memory allocations,” Tan said. “And then secondly, I think some of the smaller ones, they are really challenging to scramble to get the memory. So I think that will be very important for us, Dave and I, how to allocate and also our sales grid and how to allocate to the right customer. We don’t want to have a CPU we send to them but they are missing the memory. They cannot complete the products. So we try to do it correctly.” Intel executives said that the company has “very active” engagement with customers on its foundry business, specifically on the Intel 14A manufacturing process. Finally, Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan said that Intel would consolidate its data center and AI programs under a single leader, and “simplified” the company’s enterprise roadmap on the 16-channel Diamond Rapids part. Intel also said that it continues to work closely with Nvidia to build a custom Xeon fully integrated with its NVLink technology, as per Nvidia’s $5 billion investment last year, but there was no news of any RTX GPU chiplets for Intel PC processors. Intel reported a loss of $600 million on revenue of $13.7 billion, down 4 percent from a year ago. Intel’s Client and Computing Group reported a 7 percent drop in revenue to $8.2 billion. Intel projected lower sequential revenue, between $11.7 billion and $12.7 billion. Read...

By now, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about AI, specifically how AI data centers are hoarding massive amounts of RAM and taking it away from consumers. That surge in demand has rippled outward, affecting everything from environmental impact to rising RAM prices, and it’s a real bummer if you’re in the market for a laptop in 2026. We’re seeing this play out in real time, too. Framework—a laptop company known for its upgradeable, modular designs—has raised the price of RAM on its website not once, but twice now. Check out pcworld`s best laptop for upgrading Framework Laptop 13 (2025) Read our review The timing really sucks Not only is RAM becoming scarcer and more expensive with each passing day, but many laptop makers have removed the ability to upgrade memory. This shift was gradual and normalized long before memory became so volatile, but it happened.  Buying a base model of a laptop and upgrading the memory later used to be the norm. Back then, RAM was cheap enough that upgrading later was no big thing. Now, a lot of laptops have soldered memory, so you’re kind of stuck with whatever configuration you buy. In other words, you get what you get and you don’t get upset. What used to be a market problem is starting to look more like a design problem. Why laptops stopped being upgradeable While the full answer is more nuanced than this, the gist is that thinner laptop designs have less room for modular parts that can be taken out and replaced. That means harder to upgrade. There’s also the business aspect of it, too. If you can’t upgrade later on, you’re more likely to pay more upfront for additional RAM. Chris Hoffman / Foundry There are real engineering reasons behind this shift, too. Soldered RAM can be positioned closer to the processor, which improves power efficiency and reduces latency. (That’s important for battery life.) Fixed memory also makes it easier to manage heat, which matters in thin laptops that don’t have much headroom to spare. If you want performance, it’s got to stay cool in order to run well. Where the AI boom fits in all of this The AI boom didn’t create this upgradeability problem, but it did intensify it. When memory was cheap and plentiful, soldered RAM almost felt like a reasonable trade-off. But the second RAM got expensive and hard to come by, the cracks in the armor started to show.  You can’t exactly wait this one out, either. With RAM soldered in place, there’s no option to buy now and upgrade later when prices (hopefully) drop. What the AI boom did was expose an assumption that was haunting modern laptop design: that memory would always be cheap and easy to buy. Oh, sweet summer child… William Potter / Shutterstock.com And then there are the AI data centers, which are hoovering up huge amounts of RAM. This demand trickles down to consumers. To meet this sudden surge, manufacturers and laptop makers have to adjust how they handle their inventory, which affects prices for us normal folk. For example, Lenovo’s been holding onto a bunch of RAM with the hope that it’ll help keep laptop prices down. What does this mean for us? RAM prices are getting so crazy that some people are trying to come up with wacky workarounds. One modder is salvaging memory chips from old laptop RAM and soldering them onto a custom desktop DIMM in order to save some bucks. That’s a pretty extreme example, though. What about everyone else? If you’re the type of person who just peruses social media and watches YouTube, a RAM shortage could mean paying an additional $50 to $100 for the specific configuration you want. Chris Hoffman / Foundry But for power users? Well, that’s where things might get a bit dicey. If you’re trying to edit short videos or run some fancy AI features, that 8GB of soldered RAM will likely struggle, which is a problem because upgrading later isn’t an option. Your only options are to swallow the higher upfront cost on a stronger laptop or deal with the compromised performance. For people who push their machines harder than the average Joe, the limitations are going to be even more obvious. What used to be a minor annoyance is now a freaking headache. Higher prices and fewer choices? What a buzzkill. Is laptop upgradeability dead? The ongoing RAM shortage isn’t killing laptop upgradeability, but it is revealing just how inflexibly unupgradeable most modern laptops have become. Your choices are limited, period. That said, there’s always a silver lining. Framework laptops prove that upgrades still matter—it’s all about giving power and control back to the user. The main takeaway? Don’t take flexibility for granted. Read...

AI agents surge into big business with scant oversight, leaving governance, security and trust frameworks struggling to keep pace. Read...

Language learning platform Preply secures $150 million to boost AI tools and global growth, valuing the business at $1.2 billion. Read...

TL;DR: A Microsoft Office lifetime license now only costs $99.97 (reg. $249.99). Microsoft 365 subscriptions cost $99.99 per year at their absolute cheapest, and that’s a price you’re never done paying. If you want a way out, Microsoft is now allowing you to get a Microsoft Office 2024 lifetime license that works for Mac or PC, and it’s even on sale. Instead of paying $99.99 every year, you can get a Microsoft Office lifetime license for $99.97 (reg. $249.99). This version of Office comes with Word Excel PowerPoint Outlook OneNote The license links to your Microsoft account, and you have seven days after purchase to redeem your code. Once you activate and install Office, you keep using it as long as your computer meets the supported Windows or macOS versions, with updates included. Office 2024 improves on older versions of Office with faster performance, especially in Excel, where large worksheets and multiple open files are more responsive. Excel also adds dynamic arrays and AI-supported data tools that can help you work with tables and visualize trends more clearly. Word now has Focus Mode and Smart Compose, and improved research tools that help with sources and citations. PowerPoint can now record presentations with video, voice, and closed captions, which is useful for online classes and remote work. Outlook adds a stronger accessibility checker and better protection. Right now, it’s only $99.97 to get a Microsoft Office 2024 Lifetime License for Mac or PC. Sale ends soon. Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for Mac or PC Lifetime LicenseSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

The app was due to be banned in the US a year ago if its Chinese owner hadn`t sold its business in America. Read...

Dairy giant Fonterra expects to complete the sale of its consumer business in the first quarter of this year. Read...

The latest KB5074109 update for Windows 11 causes the classic Outlook app to crash and lose emails, and there’s a risk of data loss if PST or OST files are stored on cloud-backed storage! You can read more about it on this Microsoft support page. If classic Outlook crashes due to the issue caused by update KB5074109, you must close the email program via Task Manager and restart it. This may result in sent emails not appearing in the Sent Items folder. Microsoft writes: After installing Windows updates released on or after January 13, 2026 (KB5074109), some applications might become unresponsive or experience unexpected errors when opening files from or saving files to cloud-backed storage, such as OneDrive or Dropbox. For example, in some configurations of Outlook that store PST files on OneDrive, Outlook might become unresponsive and fail to reopen unless its process is terminated in Task Manager, or the system is restarted. In addition, sent emails might not appear in the Sent Items folder, and previously downloaded might be downloaded again. Elsewhere, Microsoft also writes: After Windows updates on January 13, 2026 users with Outlook POP account profiles and profiles with PST files report that Outlook hangs and does not exit properly. This issue may occur for any Outlook profile that has PSTs stored on OneDrive. Symptoms reported include: Outlook hangs and shows “Not Responding.” Inability to reopen Outlook without ending its process in Task Manager or restarting the computer. Emails not appearing in the Sent Items folder despite being sent. Outlook redownloading emails. Affected platforms: Windows 11, version 25H2; Windows 11, version 24H2; Windows 11, version 23H2; Windows 10, version 22H2; Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021; Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 Windows Server 2025; Windows Server, version 23H2; Windows Server 2022; Windows Server 2019 Until a fix is available, please use webmail. The other workarounds may be complicated. Microsoft’s offered workaround According to BleepingComputer, Microsoft has shared the following advice for affected users: If this problem occurs, please contact the application developer to find out about possible alternative methods for accessing the files. For Outlook-specific scenarios, moving the PST files from OneDrive should resolve the issue. Instructions can be found here. In addition, email accounts can still be accessed via webmail, provided this is supported by your email provider. Businesses and IT administrators who need urgent help resolving the issue should contact Microsoft Business Support. Microsoft is working on a patch for the Outlook issue. Until it’s released, you will need to use the workaround described by Microsoft. Update KB5074109 is the first Windows 11 patch of 2026 and it’s already wreaking havoc on many Windows 11 computers. We’ve reported on the issues in this update, including PCs no longer shutting down, black screen crashes, and File Explorer ignoring some settings. Read...

TL;DR: 1min.AI bundles top AI models and creation tools into one platform—and this lifetime plan costs just $74.97 through January 31. AI tools are everywhere now—but using them efficiently is a different story. Most people end up bouncing between chatbots, image generators, writing tools, and video apps, each with its own subscription. 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan takes a simpler approach by consolidating all of that into a single dashboard and letting you pay once. For $74.97 through January 31, you get lifetime access to a multi-model AI platform powered by names you already recognize, including GPT-4o, Claude 3, Gemini Pro, Llama, Mistral, and Cohere. Different models excel at different tasks, and 1min.AI lets you switch between them without extra costs or logins. The platform covers a wide range of real-world work. There are writing and SEO tools for blogs, rewrites, summaries, and brand voice. Image tools handle everything from generation and background removal to upscaling and 3D visuals. You can interact with PDFs, translate documents, and generate presentations. There’s also a full suite of audio and video tools, including text-to-speech, voice cloning, captions, YouTube summaries, and text-to-video creation. Weekly updates mean the tool keeps evolving. For creators, marketers, and teams looking to work faster, 1min.AI offers a practical way to get more done. Lifetime access to the 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan is just $74.97 (MSRP $540) through January 31. 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan Lifetime SubscriptionSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

Despite talk of a deal over Greenland, it will be hard for US allies to return to business as usual, writes the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent. Read...