Apple is set to introduce a new MacBook Pro with a touchscreen and an updated iPad Mini "on or around" October 27th, Bloomberg reports. If true, that would put the event just two weeks after the October 13th event Apple announced today, which is rumored to focus on smart home products.
Bloomberg says that the late October event will include an "online video presentation" and an "in-person component for the press," which it reports is similar to what Apple is planning for the October 13th event.
At this Mac and iPad event, Bloomberg reports that Apple will announce new MacBook Pros that are lighter than what's available now, have touchscree …
Windows Search has been one of the most frustrating parts of Windows 11, and now Microsoft is addressing this with a significant overhaul. A new redesigned Windows Search is now in testing that is much faster, more capable, and a lot more modern.
"This new Windows Search experience is built for speed," says Anshul Rawat, corporate vice president of the Windows product team at Microsoft. "It's built on WinUI 3 and is part of our broader investment in modernizing our core Windows experiences."
Microsoft says early testing of this new search has shown "substantial improvements in performance and memory usage," meaning the company isn't adding …
TP-Link's Archer 8 Ultra brings Wi-Fi 8 to select markets, but high prices, limited client support, and unfinished features make Wi-Fi 7 the better buy for most users.
The Trump administration suspended Microsoft from the federal program the company uses to help foreign workers stay in the U.S. permanently, accusing the tech giant of abusing the system.
Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while getting 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards, which he said amounted to replacing U.S. employees with lower-paid foreign workers.
“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft,” Vance said at the news conference, while adding, “Our message to Microsoft is you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”
In a statement, Microsoft said 80% of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of people who already work for the company. The rest were for new hires who were already living in the U.S. legally, a group equal to about 1% of its U.S. workforce.
“They are not new arrivals to our country,” the company said.
Microsoft said it pays H-1B employees “the same as any other employees doing comparable work,” that its wages are “among the highest of all H-1B filings,” and that the vast majority of its U.S. employees are Americans.
The statement didn’t mention the suspension, but the company said it looks forward to “providing the Administration with additional information.”
The suspension covers the Labor Department’s Permanent Labor Certification program, known as PERM. It’s usually the first step when a company sponsors a foreign employee to live and work in the U.S. permanently. To get approved, the employer has to advertise the job and show the government that no qualified American worker was available.
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the department won’t accept new applications from Microsoft or process the ones it already has pending. The move doesn’t stop Microsoft from applying for H-1B visas, the temporary work visas that many PERM applicants hold.
The department also suspended Adobe and six IT outsourcing firms: Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini.
The announcement drew pushback in Seattle’s tech community.
“There has been a continuous, nonstop deluge of immigration-related news leading up to the midterms,” said Xiao Wang, co-founder and CEO of Boundless, a Seattle startup that helps people navigate the U.S. immigration process.
Wang pushed back on the characterization of H-1B workers as foreign indentured servants, noting there are wage requirements to prevent underpayment of employees. He emphasized the economic benefits of educating and employing the students and workers who seek these visas — and what happens if they’re discouraged or prevented from coming to the U.S.
“What I have been trying to warn folks about is the long-term chilling effects that would be detrimental to the long-term prosperity and competitiveness of the United States,” he said.
Wang said the idea that the layoffs and recruitment of foreign-born workers are linked doesn’t make sense. “Layoffs and hiring are not one for ones of each other, especially at giant companies like Microsoft,” he said.
Someone laid off from a gaming division at Microsoft isn’t interchangeable, for example, with an H-1B employee who’s an expert in agentic AI for a Copilot role.
After resurrecting iconic consoles like the 2600 and Mattel's Intellivision, Atari is relaunching one of the brand's personal computers that originally debuted 43 years ago. The 800XL is a faithful recreation of the all-in-one 8-bit PC that's being resurrected as part of a collaboration with game developer and publisher Plaion. While most retro enthusiasts will probably use it for gaming, the new 800XL carries forward the original's built-in mechanical keyboard for those wanting to code their own games and apps using Atari BASIC.
Log in
Learn how to set up a passkey for your Google Account.
