7 Days is a weekly roundup of picks of what"s been happening in the world of technology - written with a dash of humor, a hint of exasperation, and an endless supply of (black) coffee.
This week"s highlights come from Microsoft announcing an Xbox gaming division shakeup, Apple possibly releasing three new products on March 4, and let"s not forget that the Chinese celebrated the Lunar New Year this past week too. Anyway, let"s get started.
Year of the Horse
Speaking of which, if you"re looking for new iPhone wallpapers, Apple released a few recently to celebrate the Chinese Lunar Year, the Year of the Horse. Its custom wallpapers are available to download in high quality for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.
macOS 26.3 references three new devices
Sticking with Apple, the final build of macOS 26.3 was released to Mac users last week. Macworld performed a deep dive into the operating system and uncovered references to new products that Apple could announce at its March 4 event. According to the report, kernel extensions for three new devices were found in macOS 26.3, at least one of them is likely to be Apple"s low-cost MacBook.
Google Maps is building a wall
Google wants to put fences around the Maps app and stop unregistered users from accessing certain features. People have noticed over the past weeks that a new "limited view" kicks in when you try to use Google Maps without logging in to an account.
A side-by-side comparison shows that you lose access to useful information like reviews, menus, popular times, and delivery status, and that a chunk of nearby businesses and attractions disappear.
New Pixel in the house
While the search giant is quiet about what"s happening with Google Maps, it"s vocal in other cases. The budget-focused Pixel 10a launched this week with the same $499 price tag as its older sibling Pixel 9a. For those annoyed by wobbly phones, the latest Pixel features a flat-back design with no camera bump, Satellite SOS, and an IP68 rating for improved durability.
Mind like a steel trap
We are already past simple AI chatbots, and personalized AI agents are the latest trend. Meta"s recently acquired AI startup launched Manus Agents for messaging apps, bringing full-scale AI reasoning and task execution to apps like Telegram. You can use a Manus agent to launch multi-step tasks, transcribe media, change the agent"s personality, and more.
OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot) is a well-known name in this category, especially among the geek community. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced this week that OpenClaw"s founder, Peter Steinberger, is joining the ChatGPT-maker to "drive the next generation of personal agents."
Living on the edge
Microsoft"s beloved web browser is getting a new feature that IT admins might love. Enterprise Preview will change how browser updates are delivered to PCs. Organizations will be able to flight pre-release builds to their users, making it easier to adapt to changes and improving browser usage as users become comfortable with it.
Edge 145 was released as a major update this week in the Stable Release channel, bringing an improved password manager to better detect domain names, smarter Read Aloud, and improvements to autofill.
In more browser news, Firefox 147.0.4 arrived this week as a bug hunter update, fixing issues with the new tab page and resolving a security vulnerability that allows heap buffer overflow in libvpx.
Its rival, Google Chrome, also had a critical vulnerability patched, which was already being exploited in the wild. The zero-day vulnerability discovered last week could allow attackers to execute malicious code within the browser"s sandbox.
Time to say goodbye
Mozilla"s latest decision might be tough to hear if you were a fan of the good old Windows 7 or are still running Windows 8/8.1. According to an updated Mozilla support page, Firefox 115 ESR will stop getting new security updates after February 2026.
Firefox 115 was the last supported version after Mozilla began cutting support for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 in 2023. The company is now encouraging users to upgrade to a newer version of Windows.
Colorful MacBook
Apple"s upcoming "MacBook with an iPhone chip" has been making headlines more than ever. Recently, we learned that the device will most likely be powered by the A18 Pro chip. More details emerged this week, suggesting that the low-cost MacBook will be available in "playful colors" as Apple plans to target it at students.
Apple has been reportedly testing dark gray, light yellow, light green, blue, pink, and classic silver. The low-cost MacBook and other products could arrive next month when Apple will host special experiences in London, New York, and Shanghai on March 4.
Speaking of new stuff, Apple released iOS 26.4 Beta 1 this week, adding video support for the Podcasts app. You can watch videos in portrait/landscape modes and download them for offline play.
Sounds familiar?
OpenAI took some burns when Scarlett Johansson accused the company of mimicking her voice for an AI chatbot. Now, it seems that it"s Google"s turn. NPR "Morning Edition" host David Greene sued the search giant for allegedly copying his voice without consent for NotebookLM.
The lawsuit was filed in a Santa Clara County court reportedly after several people, including a former coworker, asked Greene whether he had licensed his voice for a male podcast voice.
The rise of AI-generated content has created an uneven playing field. Ivan"s recent editorial piece discusses how big corporations have the time and resources to fight when their IPs are violated (or they get licensing deals). Meanwhile, smaller creators and media outlets get the short end of the stick. AI companies often benefit from their content without providing significant value in return to the original creators.
All roads lead to Edge
The work communication app Teams had a big week. A new "nag screen" in Teams will ask you to choose a browser to open non-Office and PDF links, bypassing your device"s default browser. Of course, the Redmond giant won"t skip the chance to promote Edge in the browser selector.
Teams" web version is getting an overhaul, adding a consolidated panel for audio and video configuration and replacing existing menus with a new "Device settings" hub under the standard settings tab.
The company also completed the global rollout of autonomous AI workflows for Teams. Microsoft 365 Copilot users can now automate project summaries and data monitoring with new "scheduled prompts" in the Teams Workflows app.
Stopping the digital flood
There are days when we regret setting the notification bell to "All" for subscribed creators, because YouTube shows no mercy while flooding our account with alerts for every upload. YouTube is running a new experiment to tone it down. If you haven"t engaged with a channel recently, even after receiving push notifications, it will not send you more push notifications for new content from that channel.
The Google-owned video giant suffered a major outage this week, affecting its main website, mobile apps, and sister services such as YouTube TV. At one point, Downdetector reported 321,958 issues with YouTube in the US.
New way to earn money
Snapchat launched Creator Subscriptions this week, allowing creators to post exclusive content and charge a monthly fee for it. The social media platform has followed the footsteps of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
Snapchat said the feature, aimed at building recurring revenue, will be available in the alpha/testing phase in the US from February 23 and will later expand to creators in Canada, the U.K., and France in the coming weeks.
It exists now. Only in my memory
The ongoing global memory crisis is worsening, affecting devices across segments. Several disappointing stories surfaced this week regarding upcoming product launches. Sony is reportedly thinking about delaying the PlayStation 6 launch to 2029 due to a RAM shortage. The company considered a 2027 launch window before the current component crisis, according to sources close to Sony.
Valve also confirmed that it"s having a tough time restocking Steam Decks in the US and other regions. AI data center demand continues to rise, contributing to a shortage of memory and storage. "Steam Deck OLED may be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages," it said.
The ongoing crisis isn"t sparing hard drive manufacturers either, including Western Digital (WD) and Seagate, which announced that their high-capacity drives are almost completely sold out. In other words, you may have to pay a higher amount to get your hands on one.
EU Parliament bans AI
There are always two sides to a coin. While AI can help you do wonders, it may also have downsides. The EU Parliament has acted against AI usage on government work devices over fears of cybersecurity and data protection risks.
An email sent to lawmakers and their staff claimed that some AI assistants "use cloud services" to perform tasks that can be performed locally. The Parliament is still assessing the "full extent of data shared with service providers" and considers it safer to keep the features disabled until this is fully clarified.
Hell to pay
Anthropic is feuding with the US DoD, and a recent report claims that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is close to cutting ties with the company, labeling it as a "supply chain risk." Anthropic has been negotiating with the Pentagon that it doesn"t want its AI to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or to be capable of firing weapons without human intervention.
Hegseth has promised hell to pay for the firm and was quoted as saying, "It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this."
Interestingly, the company"s AI model, Claude, is the only one with an operational green light in classified US military systems. Anthropic released Claude Sonnet 4.6 this week, featuring improvements across coding, computer use, and a one-million-token context window. Microsoft soon announced that Claude 4.6 is available in GitHub Copilot.
What happened at Microsoft this week
We start off our look back on Microsoft this week with a Friday bombshell announcement, The gaming division of Microsoft is going through a massive shakeup. After 38 years at Microsoft and 12 years leading the Xbox brand, Phil Spencer is retiring from Microsoft. Alongside him, Xbox President Sarah Bond is also exiting the company, who many suspected would be Spencer"s successor in leading Xbox.
Microsoft 365 Copilot users were taken by surprise after knowing that a bug allowed the AI chatbot to access confidential emails while summarizing messages. Meanwhile, Windows 11 got some big perks over the week, including upgraded 5G connectivity for enterprise users and native MIDI 2.0 support.
The Redmond giant is also offering a new library management feature in Defender, where security teams can upload files, scripts, and other assets in a streamlined manner. You can check out Taras"s freshly baked Microsoft Weekly roundup to catch up on all the interesting stories this week.
NVIDIA is baking something serious
NVIDIA chief Jensen Huang teased a new chip that the company will unveil at GTC 2026 next month. Huang promised that the new chip will "surprise the world" and push current physics to its limits. The information was dropped during an interview after a dinner with SK Hynix engineers, but the CEO remained tight-lipped about the product"s name.
Price drop!
It may sound surprising at this time, considering the ongoing memory crisis, but the AMD Radeon RX 9000 series is seeing noticeable price cuts of around 15-20%. This is largely because gamers were reluctant to buy graphics cards at inflated prices, leaving the retailers stuck with stagnant inventory.
What else in gaming?
The latest issue of Pulasthi"s Weekly PC Game Deals curates a number of multiplayer games on sale this week. Epic Games Store latest freebie refresh carried Return to Ash this week. The Humble Store is celebrating 15 years of bundles with some special promotions this year. All in all, four game bundles landed this week alone. You can check out all the game discounts here.
That said, here are some more interesting stories from the gaming world this week:
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Battlefield 6 is a part of Xbox Free Play Days this weekend, letting you try the full game
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Ubisoft confirms multiple Assassin"s Creed and Far Cry games are incoming
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Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and The Witcher 3 announced for Xbox Game Pass
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Cities: Skylines II gets first update under new developer Iceflake
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Solid Snake is joining Rainbow Six Siege as a playable character next month
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Minecraft Java Edition is upgrading to Vulkan, but it"s not great news for mods
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Avowed anniversary update is here with New Game+, new races, and a PS5 version
Above is only a small selection of this week"s gaming coverage, you can view all of it here.
Our features
This week was light on feature content, but we did publish an Editorial, and a few reviews.
AI scraping is getting out of hand
Big corporations are quick to enforce copyright when it suits them. But is the playing field level for everyone? Ivan argued in an editorial this week that protecting intellectual properties only seems to work if you"re a big enough company to fight against such practices; leaving the smaller and independent creators to suffer against an onslaught of (mostly anonymous and undisclosed) AI scrapers stealing their content without due credit.
From the review corner
Steven got his hands on the OneOdio Focus A1 Pro wireless headphones that fall in the budget segment with a $50 MSRP. These "on-ear" headphones ship with repositioned controls compared with older models, but they"re very comfortable to wear for a couple of hours. Overall, Focus A1 Pro can be called "acceptable" if you"re looking for a cheap pair of on-ear headphones.
Geekom enters the laptop business
Steven also reviewed the GEEKOM X14 Pro this week, it showcases GEEKOM"s first foray into the Ultra-thin laptop space with some great specs. Although it is no "Surface-killer" it does offer a great alternative with Windows Hello support at a vastly cheaper entry price. You can check out his review here.
A nearly perfect mobile controller
Taras took a look at the GameSir G8+ MFi gamepad, which works easily with USB-C iPhones and iPad mini 6 or later (it also works with Android). The controller is well-made and offers good ergonomics, making it comfortable even for people with big hands. However, it"s not all that affordable, and the lack of a carrying case is a downside.
More Price Drops!
We"ve also been posting tech-related deals all week, and it"s possible you may have missed out on a great discount that can still be picked up. Below we"ve added a few recent deals that are still live:
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Save big on this powerful Alienware 16 Area-51 gaming laptop
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Denon AVR-X1700H 7.2 8K Dolby Atmos AV Receiver is a great deal again
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AMD X870E AM5 motherboard packs a 32GB DDR5-6400 CL32 RAM for low price
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Corsair Frame 4500X LX transparent PC case is now $199.99 on Amazon
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Razer"s Kishi Ultra gamepad is now available for less than half its price
To view all of our recent deals click here.
Signing off
So, these were some of the biggest tech news and other updates from this week. There will be more issues of our 7 Days series in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned. You can also support Neowin by registering for a free member account or subscribing to extra member benefits, along with an ad-free tier option.