Today, for something completely different:

s.x = (s16) ((s32) (temp_v0 << 0x10) >> 0x11);

MIPS has 16-bit loads and stores, but not 16-bit (signed) arithmetic, so if it wants to do that, it needs to sign-extend to 32-bit first. And it does that by first shifting up by 16 so that the 16-bit sign bit is at the 32-bit sign bit, and then it can do an arithmetic shift afterwards. So what you want is:

s16 temp_v0;

s.x = temp_v0 >> 1;

Sometimes, it can be pretty stubborn, and you'll need to go through memory or similar before GCC really inserts the shift patterns you want.

Apple's "Welcome Home" product launch is happening tomorrow. As the name suggests, Apple is going to debut new home accessories, including the long-rumored home hub.


Below, we've listed all the rumors we know about the three devices Apple is set to introduce.

HomeView

Apple's home hub, which will be called HomeView, is a multi-function device designed for all of a home's occupants. It's built around Siri AI, and will have an A18 chip and 8GB of RAM.


Here's what rumors suggest it'll be able to do:

• Answer questions with ‌Siri‌ AI


• Control smart home devices


• Display the time and weather


• Display widgets, including widgets from a connected iPhone


• Show each user their calendar events and reminders


• Play music, podcasts, and audiobooks


• Play videos, TV shows, and movies


• Show photos, slideshows, and home movies


• Support video calls


• Show the news


• Show messages and emails


• Display recipes and instructions when completing tasks

The hub will be able to do anything you might want a home assistant device to do, from giving the next steps of a recipe to suggesting dinner ideas and creating a shopping list. It will rely heavily on ‌Siri‌ AI for voice-based input, but it will also have a 6-inch touch display.

The display is square with bezels around the edges, and there are two models. One version can be mounted on the wall, and the other is attached to a half-dome speaker base with a flexible arm for adjusting tilt. The hub isn't expected to have its own App Store, but it will support Apple apps such as Safari, News, Music, Reminders, Calendar, Weather, Messages, FaceTime, Photos, and Mail.

There will be a presence sensor and a camera in the hub, and it will use a variation of Face ID to determine who is nearby to show customized content. It will display information from a linked iPhone, like email messages, but only after authenticating. The sensors in the hub will be usable in HomeKit scenes and automations, so you can use it to trigger lights and other devices when a person walks into the room.

The interface will be heavily widget-based so you can see information at a glance, and it's likely going to look similar to StandBy mode on the iPhone. You will be able to choose your preferred clock face or idle state, along with a home screen of widget options that you can tap to open a full app. If you have multiple hubs, they'll link together for features like multi-room music and intercom functionality. Rumors suggest that it will have better sound quality than the HomePod mini.

There isn't going to be a built-in battery, and the hub will need to be connected to power via an included USB-C port. The speaker-equipped version is expected in multiple colors, including gray, silver, starlight, and rose. The wall-mounted version will be available in silver and gray.

Rumors suggest the hub could be priced somewhere around $350.

Apple TV 4K

Apple isn't updating the design of the Apple TV, so expect the new model to be the same boring black box. What's changing is entirely inside.


The ‌Apple TV‌ 4K is going to get a lot more powerful so it can support ‌Siri‌ AI, offering many of the same ‌Siri‌ features that are available on iPhone and iPad in iOS and iPadOS 27.

We're expecting an A19 with 8GB of RAM, along with Apple's N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. The A19 will bring a major upgrade in performance, both for ‌Siri‌ and for gaming. It has ray tracing, mesh shading, and other features that will improve gameplay graphics.

There will be a new ‌Siri‌ Remote with an included speaker to make it easier to find, and we've seen some signs that Apple is working on its own gaming controller under the Beats brand, but there's no word on whether it's ready to launch.

Apple will likely emphasize ‌Siri‌ AI and gaming capabilities when introducing the ‌Apple TV‌. Apple raised the price of the current ‌Apple TV‌ to $199 in June, and the new model will be at least that expensive with the processor and RAM upgrades.

HomePod mini

Like the ‌Apple TV‌ 4K, the ‌HomePod mini‌ isn't going to get a new design, but it will have internal upgrades that make it more capable. It's going to get an upgraded S10 chip, second-generation UWB for features like Handoff, and the N1 networking chip with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.


You'll need a nearby AI-capable device for ‌Siri‌ AI processing because the HomePod probably won't be able to handle much on-device, but smarter ‌Siri‌ should make for a better experience. ‌Siri‌ AI on ‌HomePod mini‌ will have the context of ‌Siri‌ interactions on other devices, and it's likely conversations will be saved to a connected iPhone's ‌Siri‌ app.

‌Siri‌ AI can answer follow-up questions, handle multi-request queries, and access information from your apps. It'll be similar to having ChatGPT or Claude on a speaker. Though design updates aren't expected, the ‌HomePod mini‌ will get new colors. We're expecting white, blue, black, sage, and pink.

‌HomePod mini‌ pricing went up from $99 to $129 in June 2026, and the new model will likely be priced at $129 too.

LG Accessories

Apple worked with LG to make an LG-branded wired video doorbell, thermostat, smart deadbolt lock, temperature sensor, indoor security camera, outdoor security camera, and floodlight camera that will work with the home hub and the ‌HomeKit‌ platform.

The accessories are part of an "Apple Home Collection" that will be marketed alongside the HomeView. They won't be ready until later this year at the earliest, but Apple could show them off during the announcement.

Announcement Timing

There's no keynote event for the "Welcome Home" product debut, so Apple is probably going to release a video and an accompanying set of press releases. There's an NYC media event that's going to take place at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, October 13, and that could be when all of the announcements happen.

The NYC event will let members of the media get some hands-on time with the new devices to share first impressions.

Pre-Orders and Launch Date

Apple could begin accepting pre-orders just after the new devices launch. The ‌HomePod mini‌ and the ‌Apple TV‌ 4K are going to launch on Friday, October 30.

The HomeView won't be available right away and is expected to ship to customers in mid-November.
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Apple is planning to invite content creators to a two-day product showcase in Los Angeles on October 27 and October 28, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


Do not expect a traditional Apple Event with a live-streamed video on either of those days, as Gurman said that these will be "experiences" for content creators, similar to one that Apple is holding in New York this Tuesday, October 13.

The following four products are expected to be announced on or around Tuesday, October 27:

• 14" and 16" MacBook Pro models with OLED displays: A major MacBook Pro redesign with an OLED display, touchscreen support, M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, a Dynamic Island, a "significantly lighter" design, and potentially Apple's C1X or C2 modem for built-in cellular connectivity.


• 24" iMac: M6 chip and new color options.


• 14" MacBook Pro: M6 chip.
• iPad mini 8: OLED display, A20 Pro chip, landscape front camera, redesigned speaker system, and water-resistant design.

Apple previously announced that it will be releasing a Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM in "late October," so expect that around the same time.

This will likely be Apple's final major launch in 2026, according to Gurman.

In the meantime, Apple is expected to unveil an all-new HomeView smart home hub, a HomePod mini 2, and an updated Apple TV 4K on Tuesday, October 13.
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Beats today shared a short video teasing a new collaboration with Pokémon, and it appears this will be for a Pikachu-themed Beats Pill speaker.


"Time to catch something new," the video title says. The short clip shows a Beats Pill speaker and Beats and Poké Ball icons side by side.

Earlier this month, Pokémon content creator BritBratTV shared two photos of an alleged Pikachu-themed Beats Pill speaker box at U.S. retailer Target, so that is likely what this teaser video is for. A release date has yet to be disclosed.


Apple re-released the Beats Pill in 2024, after discontinuing the previous version in 2022. In the U.S., the Bluetooth speaker is regularly priced at $149.99.

Pikachu visited Apple Park in August.
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Apple has opened its "Get Ready" service for iPhone Duo pre-orders, allowing customers to pre-select a variety of options to streamline the process of ordering and have a better chance of grabbing one on launch day.


The iPhone Duo launches on October 23, while pre-orders go live on October 16 at 5 a.m. Pacific Time or 8 a.m. Eastern Time. Rather than turn up on the day, however, Apple encourages customers to take action before then and increase the chances of securing their preferred model on day one of sales.

Get Ready is an option available on Apple's online store and in its Apple Store app, and it lets you select a preferred color and capacity ahead of time. It also lets you confirm your carrier status, choose your accessories, pick an AppleCare+ plan, select a trade-in, add a payment method, and set a shipping and billing address.

Get Ready is really helpful because when pre-orders go live, it allows you to essentially perform a one-tap order. That's a real advantage when it comes to iPhone Duo, given that supplies are expected to be limited.

It's been said before about other iPhones, but pre-orders of the iPhone Duo really could sell out within minutes – there have been multiple reports of production issues leading to supply constraints, and users who have completed Get Ready will be able to submit orders faster.

So if you're set on being one of the first to get hold of Apple's debut foldable, make sure to visit Apple's website or Apple Store app and complete the Get Ready process now.
This article, "You Can Now Set Up Your iPhone Duo Pre-Order - Do It Before Friday" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today announced it is Indie Games Week on the App Store, in celebration of the "incredible catalog of imaginative games made by independent teams with big dreams."

Apple said seven acclaimed indie games are debuting on the App Store. No Man's Sky will be making its mobile debut on iPhone and iPad on October 28, and the six other games are Sifu, Vampire Crawlers, Little Kitty, Big City, 9 Kings, Dome Keeper, and Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall.
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Today we're tracking a pair of massive discounts on Apple's newest MacBook Pro models, including $500 off a 16-inch model and $600 off a 14-inch model on Amazon.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

The 15-Core M5 Pro 14-inch MacBook Pro with 24GB RAM and 2TB SSD has hit $2,399.00 on Amazon, down from $2,999.00. This one is only available in Space Black, and it's a new record low price on the 14-inch MacBook Pro, now priced just $100 more than the 1TB model on Amazon.



Apple's entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro has also received a massive discount today on Amazon, coming in at $500 off its new price. This is the 18-Core M5 Pro 16-inch MacBook Pro with 24GB RAM and 1TB SSD, available for $2,499.00, down from $2,999.00.



If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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This article, "Amazon Discounting 2026 MacBook Pro by as Much as $600 This Week" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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The Apple Watch Ultra 4 arrives four years after the original model. Across three subsequent generations, Apple added a brighter and larger display, satellite connectivity, new health sensors, more capable chips, and longer battery life. For owners of the original Ultra, are those cumulative improvements enough to justify upgrading now, or can their existing watch last another year?



Both watches retain a 49mm titanium case, an Action button, a siren, dual-frequency GPS, and support for recreational diving to 40 meters. The Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $799 in the U.S. Apple discontinued the original Ultra in 2023, and it no longer supports the latest major watchOS release. Here are the key differences between the two models:

Apple Watch Ultra (first-generation)	‌Apple Watch Ultra 4‌
Natural titanium finish	Natural and black titanium finishes
LTPO2 OLED display with always-on updates once per minute	Wide-angle LTPO3 ‌OLED‌ display with 1Hz always-on updates, allowing supported faces to show ticking seconds
Up to 2,000 nits of brightness	Up to 3,000 nits of brightness; 1-nit minimum brightness
410 by 502 pixels; 1,185 sq mm display area	422 by 514 pixels; 1,245 sq mm display area (5% larger), with thinner display borders
Flashlight	Flashlight boost via Digital Crown
S8 chip	S11 chip
1GB RAM	4GB RAM
Neural Engine	4-core Neural Engine
	Secure Exclave for isolated audio processing
32GB storage	64GB storage
	Single tap, Double Tap, and wrist flick gestures
Siri processed in the cloud via an internet connection	On-device ‌Siri‌ for supported requests, including access to and logging of health and fitness data
Dictation	Improved on-device dictation
	‌Siri‌ AI support
First-generation Ultra Wideband chip	Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip
Play a sound to locate an iPhone; locate accessories using Find Devices and Find Items	Precision Finding for compatible iPhone models, AirTag 2, and the AirPods Pro 3 charging case, with distance and direction guidance
	Automatic Now Playing controls and Smart Stack media suggestions when near a HomePod
Electrical heart sensor and third-generation optical heart sensor	Health Sensing System with new electrical and always-on optical heart sensors
Background heart-rate measurements	Background heart-rate measurements every five seconds
Heart-rate variability (HRV) measurements	More frequent measurements of overall HRV and Recovery HRV
Overnight Vitals view	Overnight and daytime Vitals views
	Readiness app
	Sleep apnea notifications
	Hypertension notifications
Blood Oxygen readings viewable on the watch	On affected U.S. models, Blood Oxygen readings are analyzed on the paired iPhone and viewed in its Health app
Step tracking and estimated indoor workout distance	More accurate all-day step tracking and indoor workout distance measurements, plus a Steps watch-face complication
Workout Buddy requires a nearby Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone	Enhanced Workout Buddy with additional insights and Spanish support
	Live Translation in Messages when paired with a compatible Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone
LTE and UMTS cellular connectivity	LTE and 5G cellular connectivity, with improved weak-signal reception through simultaneous use of both antennas
	Emergency SOS, Messages, and Find My via satellite
	Audio Intelligence: Sound Recognition, automatic music identification, Live Rewind, and ‌Siri‌ Recap
Built-in speakers for calls, alerts, and ‌Siri‌	Built-in speakers for calls, alerts, ‌Siri‌, and media playback
Up to 36 hours of normal use	Up to 50 hours of normal use
Up to 72 hours in Low Power Mode, according to Apple's current comparison page	Up to 84 hours in Low Power Mode
Up to 12 hours of standard outdoor workout tracking	Up to 18 hours of standard outdoor workout tracking
Low Power Mode during workouts, with an optional setting for fewer GPS and heart-rate readings	Extended Workout mode: up to 25 hours with full GPS and heart-rate readings; Max Extended Workout mode: up to 45 hours with GPS readings every second
Charges from 0 to 80% in about one hour	Charges from 0 to 80% in about 45 minutes; 15 minutes of charging for up to 18 hours of normal use; five minutes for up to 10 hours of sleep tracking
61.3 grams	Natural titanium: 63.0 grams; black titanium: 63.1 grams
Dual-frequency GPS supporting GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou	Dual-frequency GPS supporting GPS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou
Supports watchOS 26	Supports watchOS 27, including the ‌Siri‌ app, dynamic app grid, new Smart Stack suggestions, Call Context, and consolidated ‌Find My‌ app
Now discontinued	Starts at $799

Existing first-generation Apple Watch Ultra owners can reasonably keep their watch for another year if its battery still covers their usual days and workouts. Losing support for ‌watchOS 27‌ is significant, but it does not prevent the original Ultra from continuing to handle notifications, activity tracking, navigation, and its other existing features. Owners satisfied with those capabilities may prefer to eke out another year of use and wait to see whether next year's model offers a more substantial upgrade.

However, the Ultra 4 is a worthwhile upgrade for anyone already running into the original model's limitations. The new Health Sensing System provides more detailed heart-rate and recovery insights, while sleep apnea and hypertension notifications expand its health capabilities. These changes are most compelling if you will use the additional information to follow changes in your daily condition or adjust your training.

Longer battery life and satellite connectivity strengthen the case for owners who record extended workouts or regularly travel beyond cellular coverage. If your original Apple Watch Ultra now struggles to finish an outing without charging, the improved battery life is a practical reason to replace it. The larger, brighter display, newer gestures, Audio Intelligence, and expanded Precision Finding support also make the cumulative upgrade more noticeable in everyday use.

Software support is a major reason to move on. The original Apple Watch Ultra cannot run watchOS 27, so it misses ‌Siri‌ AI and the latest operating system's other additions. If those features would materially improve how you use your watch, waiting another year means accepting those limitations in the meantime.
This article, "Apple Watch Ultra 1 vs. Ultra 4 Buyer's Guide: Is It Worth Upgrading?" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Amazon is discounting a few models of the Apple Watch SE 3 today, with prices on two models that match the Prime Day lows we saw last week. Prices start at $199.99 for the 40mm GPS model and increase to $229.99 for the 44mm GPS model.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Both of these are $49 discounts and matches for the record low prices on each device. Only the Starlight Aluminum Case with Sand Sport Band is on sale at these all-time low prices, and Amazon provides a delivery date by October 18 for free shipping options.




If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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Today, Indie Games Week lights up the App Store with a celebration of the catalog of imaginative games made by independent teams with big dreams.

Tim Cook is visiting China for the third time this year, with talks in Guangdong focused on expanding Apple's manufacturing and sales operations, the South China Morning Post reports.



This is Cook's first China trip in his capacity as Apple's executive chairman. He moved into the position on September 1 when John Ternus took over as CEO. Apple has said part of Cook's work involves relationships with government policymakers.

On October 11, Cook reportedly held talks with Guangdong governor Meng Fanli. Suppliers and partners located in Guangdong play a major role in Apple's business in China, and Cook is said to have expressed interest in doing more locally through smart manufacturing and additional sales channels. Meng said the province would support further expansion, including research and development.

In Guangzhou, a creator used an iPhone 18 Pro to capture martial arts footage while Cook watched. Cook posted "Great to be back in China!" on Weibo on Saturday. Customers also reported a visit to one of Guangzhou's Apple Stores on Sunday.

Cook traveled to Chengdu and Beijing in March as Apple celebrated its 50th anniversary, and addressed the China Development Forum. In May, he was among the business leaders who accompanied President Donald Trump for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The trip comes several weeks after sales of the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max started. Counterpoint Research put Apple first in China's smartphone sales ranking for September 14 to 20. During their first three days on sale in China, the new Pro phones sold 12% more units than their predecessors had managed over the full first week of availability last year.
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Azure Maia 200 now in production; Azure Maia 300 coming in 2027

As we move into the era of Super Intelligence, Microsoft is entering a new phase of infrastructure. We will scale our Azure Maia family to multi-gigawatt deployments starting in 2027, making Maia the primary inference system for Microsoft products and services.

The multigenerational Azure Maia program has become a foundational element of Microsoft’s AI infrastructure strategy. Maia 200 is now serving Microsoft production workloads, including Microsoft Copilot, and supporting the MAI team as they develop next-generation models, with GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Foundry to follow by end of year. Across these workloads, Maia 200 runs OpenAI models, Microsoft’s own MAI models and leading open-source model families. Insights from the scale of Microsoft’s AI services allow for unique co-design between hardware systems and software applications to optimize real-world use cases across enterprise applications and industry scenarios.

Maia 300 is a complete intelligent system designed for the new types of AI workloads emerging today: Long-context reasoning, latency-sensitive conversational experiences and sustained, multi-step agentic tasks. By improving efficiency across the system, we expect Maia 300 to deliver 40% more tokens per megawatt compared to leading GPU-based systems. And in a full 96-accelerator configuration, it delivers up to 7x the rack-scale token throughput of Maia 200.

Maia 200: Driving the workloads that Microsoft runs at scale

The Azure Maia system is designed around the real-world workloads Microsoft runs at scale and the models we expect to build in the years ahead. Because silicon development takes years, our software and hardware teams collaborate early to anticipate architectures, scale and capabilities, translating those requirements into greater memory capacity, higher bandwidth and more accelerators operating as a single system.

That co-engineering is already delivering measurable efficiency gains. Maia 200 is deploying across the United States, Europe and Australia and delivering up to 1.7x more tokens per watt for built-in AI capabilities in Microsoft Teams, Copilot and Cowork experiences compared with leading GPU infrastructure.

Experience running our AI models and services on Maia 200 directly informed the design of Maia 300. Together, the two generations are designed to support a broad set of additional Microsoft’s AI services: multi-step agentic work that will help GitHub deliver coding experiences more efficiently; cloud-scale model serving that will help Microsoft Foundry support diverse architectures and deployment environments; inference and data generation for the MAI team; and latency-sensitive interactions that will help Dragon Copilot scale workflows and reduce clinicians’ administrative burden.

Maia 300: Scaling more useful AI within every megawatt

AI is becoming a foundational layer of every application, workflow and business process. As enterprises move beyond chat experiences to systems of agents that can reason, act and collaborate, AI infrastructure must deliver intelligence securely and efficiently at scale while continuously adapting as models and workloads evolve.

As the third generation of our Azure Maia program, Maia 300 is designed with an inference-first architecture optimized for long-context, memory-intensive and decode-heavy AI workloads. This involves balancing compute, memory bandwidth, networking and power efficiency at cloud scale.

Key capabilities of the Maia 300 system include:

Less data movement, more useful compute: Moving data efficiently, rather than raw compute power, is increasingly the bottleneck in large inference systems. Maia 300’s software-defined dataflow architecture and AI-assisted kernel optimization work together to maximize locality, reduce data movement and improve utilization across compute, memory and networking resources. By treating dataflow as a first-class design principle, Maia 300 delivers a significant performance-per-watt advantage over traditional GPU architectures.

Higher memory bandwidth within every watt: As AI workloads become increasingly context and memory-bound, Maia 300 delivers industry-leading HBM bandwidth per watt. Eight HBM4 stacks provide 18.0 TB/s of peak memory bandwidth within a 950-watt TDP, enabling efficient execution of large models and long-context workloads. Specialized kernel support uses on-die SRAM as a software-managed scratchpad, reducing pressure on HBM.

Chiplet architecture for enhanced efficiency: A new multi-chiplet architecture separates compute, memory-controller and I/O functions, improving efficiency, scalability and cost structure. Compute chiplets are built on TSMC’s N2P process node to maximize performance-per-watt.

Larger context, richer intelligence: By designing for advanced low-precision formats, including enhanced MXFP4, Maia 300 reduces memory and bandwidth requirements for both computation and KV-cache storage. The result is larger context windows, higher throughput and improved model efficiency within the same power envelope.

Scale-up networking at datacenter scale: Maia 300 treats networking as a seamless extension of the software-defined dataflow architecture. Rather than moving data through separate communication layers, dataflow operations span compute, memory and network resources as a single system. High-bandwidth interconnects between Maia accelerators are optimized for tensor parallelism, while a custom AI transport delivers performant and reliable scale-up communication across accelerators and racks. The AI-optimized transport leverages Ethernet-based networking infrastructure to enable a unified topology that scales efficiently from a single rack to datacenter-scale deployments.

Higher AI throughput from every rack: Maia 300 rack systems bring together 96 accelerators within a 167-kilowatt power envelope, delivering 27.6 TB of HBM capacity and 1.7 PB/s of aggregate HBM bandwidth across a high-speed scale-up domain. That density allows Microsoft to serve more simultaneous AI interactions and larger workloads from each rack, improving datacenter capacity and the economics of expanding AI services.

Maia 300 will begin production deployments in 2027. For more information on Maia 300 architectural details, read our technical paper.

Azure Maia is at the heart of our Frontier Transformation

The future will not be defined by a single model or a single piece of silicon or a single innovation. Model and silicon choice are inherent in our vision for Frontier Transformation. Our focus is on developing responsible, affordable and scalable platforms that will help everyone amplify their intelligence to drive breakthrough outcomes that matter for them.

Microsoft is unique because we are able to optimize from silicon to systems to agent on an open, heterogenous and model diverse platform our customers can count on for their AI transformation, today and in the years ahead. This platform is at the heart of Frontier Transformation, and Azure Maia is a foundational component of our approach to expand access, accelerate innovation and help customers capture more value from AI.

Next month at Microsoft Ignite 2026 in San Francisco and online we’re looking forward to sharing more information on our strategy, technology adoption trends and success in Frontier Transformation.

For more details, photos and videos, visit our Maia 300 site.

Scott Guthrie is responsible for a set of hyperscale cloud computing solutions and services including Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, generative AI solutions, data platforms and information and cybersecurity. These platforms and services help organizations across the globe solve urgent challenges — and transform for the future.

The post Microsoft to expand Azure Maia system to multi-gigawatt deployments appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Apple's upcoming OLED iPad mini will be "considerably more expensive" than the current $599 model, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman referenced his own sources indicating a price hike, while saying his guess is that the new device will cost "something closer to $799."

Aside from a new OLED display, the new iPad mini is expected to feature an A20 Pro chip, a landscape FaceTime camera, a redesigned speaker setup, and a water-resistant design. Apple will likely unveil the device alongside new OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro models "on or around" Tuesday, October 27, Gurman previously reported. See our rumor roundup for all the details.
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Apple is marking India's festive diwali season with a limited edition of the AirPods 5, featuring a rangoli-inspired engraving.


The case's design draws on the traditional Indian art form, arranging a decorative pattern around a heart-eyes emoji. The earbuds cost ₹17,900 (approximately $187), matching the Indian price of the regular AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case.

The celebrations also include free rangoli workshops created with artist Arushi Kathuria. Participants will use Procreate on the iPad with an Apple Pencil, including a custom brush that recreates the appearance of powder. Sessions run from October 14 through November 9 in India and at selected locations in the United States, Canada, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Sales of the limited edition AirPods began on October 11 and will continue through to November 11, 2026, subject to stock. Customers can order through Apple's online store and Apple Store app, or purchase at its six retail locations in India.

Apple limits purchases to two pairs per customer and excludes the edition from other AirPods promotions and Business, Education, and Corporate Employee Purchase Plan pricing. Its purchase terms also caution that repairs or replacements may involve standard-edition ‌AirPods 5‌ with Wireless Charging Case, depending on supply.

(Thanks, svish!)
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Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today reported that new Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini models will be unveiled on Tuesday, October 13 and launch on Friday, October 30.

In a follow-up video, Gurman said he was told that both devices should be available to pre-order starting this week.
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The DistroWatch news feed is brought to you by TUXEDO COMPUTERS. This week in DistroWatch Weekly:
Review: Abora OS 4.0 and Butterbian 0.5.0
News: Rocky launches OpenCourant, NetBSD surpasses funding goals, behind the curtain at Chimera Linux
Questions and answers: What causes an operating system to break?
Released last week: ZEPHIX 9
Upcoming releases: Ubuntu 26.10, CalyxOS 8.0
Opinion poll: Flavours of Fedora
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