PCWorld September 2022

On Monday, President Biden signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, a $280 billion bill that paves the way for new chip foundries to be built on US soil. It’s a significant investment in the domestic semiconductor industry, with $52 billion specifically marked for manufacturing and research. For those of us who don’t spend our time analyzing the geopolitical chess moves made by countries, this news may sound irrelevant to everyday life. But there are practical benefits to the U.S. reasserting its presence in chip manufacturing—ones that even we normal citizens will see, either directly or indirectly. RELIABLE SUPPLY OF CHIPS Right now a large portion of chip manufacturing takes place overseas, much of it in East Asia. Before the pandemic, when the world was more comfortable with the interdependence…

Participants in the MP3 revolution remember Winamp fondly. The independent media player and library, initially released in the late 1990s, was the go-to choice for anyone who didn’t care for more heavily marketed options like iTunes or Windows Media Player. The license to Winamp was passed around a bit before landing at its current owner. The last stable release was way back in 2013, but the new Winamp 5.999 is now available as a release candidate after four years of new development. Download and install the new version from the official Winamp forum (spotted by Bleeping Computer), and you might just feel yourself transported back in time to 2001. The player still feels like an old-fashioned media library manager, and yes, still launches with a shock jock–style declaration of “It really…

Wireless charging isn’t particularly new—a number of chargers have offered this feature for years. Samsung can even charge another phone via its Wireless PowerShare feature. But laptops that can wirelessly charge your phone? That’s an entirely different story, and a problem that a new Dell patent hints the company could solve. Even the best laptops have tons of flat, unoccupied space on their keyboard deck. Dell’s patent proposes using this space for charging a wireless device, such as a phone. The patent application (number 20220239124, as unearthed by Patently Apple and Ars Technica) doesn’t propose building wireless charging coils directly into the laptop itself. Instead, the wireless coils would be designed into a “sleeve” of some sort, which would slide over the outside of the laptop. A small power connector (reminiscent of…

Windows 11 still isn’t the crowd-pleaser Microsoft probably wishes it was, but there are plenty of people using it. And if you’re building or rebuilding a PC, you might as well start off with the newest operating system, yeah? Now you can. Microsoft is selling Windows 11 licenses along with the download directly from its web store. Previously home installers needed to download and install Windows 10, then upgrade via Windows Update (which still might be your preferred route if you want to get Windows for cheap). Exactly when Microsoft switched over to selling Windows 11 isn’t clear. According to PCMag, it was sometime after the beginning of May. Notably, both Windows 11 and the older Windows 10 are still available to purchase, though there’s no option to get W11 on…

Move over, Windows—Google Photos is getting its own video editor, which will arrive on Chromebooks this fall. And if that’s not enough, the professional-grade LumaFusion video-editing app will be available on Chromebooks, too. Like other developers, Google typically releases a bundle of new features, which roll out over time. The headliner for the fall, however, will be the new video editor, which will complement Google Photos in much the same way Microsoft’s own Video Editor (or Clipchamp, a superior alternative) complements Windows’ Photos app. Chromebooks will also get light and dark themes, as well as other personalization options. If a still image of the video editor that Google released is indicative of the final feature set, however, Microsoft has nothing to worry about. That screenshot only shows options to adjust characteristics like…

Just one month ago I was championing the Quest 2 virtual reality headset as a great buy for PC gamers, possibly even better than the hard-to-find Steam Deck. Today, Meta announced that it’s raising the price of the headset. The entry-level 128GB Quest 2 goes from $300 to $400, and the 256GB model jumps from $400 to $500. I can only assume it’s because Mark Zuckerberg got tired of actually selling these machines, and wants to sell a lot fewer from here on out. OK, that’s massively reductive. Here’s the actual statement from Meta Platforms justifying the price increase: In order to continue investing in moving the VR industry forward for the long term, we are adjusting the price of Meta Quest 2 headsets to $399.99 (128GB) and $499.99 (256GB) starting on…