Many aspects of Windows have remained relatively untouched for years, even in Windows 11. For instance, while other operating systems have made better and more visually helpful battery indicators, Windows has had the same old for who knows how long now. Fortunately, a hidden feature within the Windows 11 Dev build shows us what we might expect in the future, and it looks great.

While not as common anymore, dual-Ethernet port motherboards can still be found on the market. Some gaming motherboards have Gigabit and 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, with one being a Realtek NIC and the other being Intel. Most PC users might never have used a motherboard with two Ethernet ports, as a single port has become standard on consumer motherboards.

Manually combing through spreadsheets with large datasets can be a massive headache at times. Luckily, conditional formatting exists in Microsoft Excel specifically for this reason. This automation helps you visualize your spreadsheet in a completely different way, allows you to find important data quickly, and also makes your spreadsheet much more appealing to the eye. Excel even makes it easy to find - Conditional Formatting options are front and center on the Home tab.

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Friday it had placed Google Payment Corp. under federal supervision, reports Reuters. Google reportedly filed a lawsuit to block the CFPB’s order, which could result in routine inspections and monitoring like those imposed on banks.The agency found that Google’s error resolution and fraud prevention processes pose risks to consumers, citing consumer complaints about Google Pay Balance and Google’s peer-to-peer payments. Those complaints, which Google’s lawsuit claims are “unsubstantiated,” according to The Washington Post, include that the company didn’t seem to fully investigate fraudulent charges and didn’t “adequately explain” the results of those investigations. The CFPB says its finding that Google should be supervised doesn’t mean the company is “guilty of wrongdoing.” It also notes in its order that Google Pay and the P2P platform were discontinued earlier this year.Google spokesperson José Castañeda provided a statement to The Verge: This is a clear case of government overreach involving Google Pay peer-to-peer payments, which never raised risks and is no longer provided in the U.S., and we are challenging it in court.Update December 7th: Added statement from Google spokesperson José Castañeda.

Image: The Verge X has given Grok a new AI image generator model called “Aurora” that seems to create far more photorealistic imagery than Grok’s other image generator, with similarly few apparent restrictions on what it will produce, TechCrunch reports. Like Grok, anyone can use Aurora. It lives in a new “Grok 2 + Aurora beta” option in the Grok model selector, though you’ll only get a few queries before you hit the X Premium subscription paywall and have to wait.TechCrunch found that the model, which X employee Chris Park posted is available this morning, was willing to create copyrighted characters and public figures, including Mickey Mouse and “a bloodied Donald Trump,” but that it “stopped short of nudes.” Its lack of restrictions isn’t surprising, given our experience with Grok’s other model. In another example highlighted by TechCrunch, an X user showed off AI-generated images of Ray Romano and Adam Sandler in the X post below — both realistic, but with some very obvious weirdness when it comes to human anatomy and continuity. Behold my images using the new Grok @grok image generator Aurora: 1. Ray Romano and @AdamSandler on a sitcom set pic.twitter.com/2V491RdjMF— Matt (@EnsoMatt) December 7, 2024

Among all the powerful features and functions Excel has to offer, the ability to create a project dashboard is one of the most useful ones for most corporate employees or small businesses. A dashboard gives you a complete overview of your data with dynamic visualization of numbers and stats. So, whether you want to track your sales in real time or check the concurrent visitors on your website, an Excel dashboard is a great way to do it.

Michelle Yeoh as Emperor Philippa Georgiou. | Screenshot: YouTube There’s a lot of Star Trek: Discovery in the official trailer for the Star Trek: Section 31 movie that Paramount Plus just released — big drama, explosions, and some looming threat that’s “unlike anything that Starfleet’s ever seen.” The trailer shows off a little more of the film, with moody corridors, some sort of electrified space ball, and brief looks at the spaceships that the show will feature. It also devotes more time to characters besides Michelle Yeoh’s Emperor Philippa Georgiou — namely Omari Hardwick’s Alok Sahar and Kacey Rohl’s future Enterprise C captain, Rachel Garrett. It’s still a mystery what trouble Emperor Philippa is leading her team into, though.Philippa will work with a team that also includes a pointy-eared alien named Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), an empath named Melle (Humberly Gonzalez), the exoskeleton-wearing Zeph (Rob Kazinsky), and a Chameloid shapeshifter named Quasi (Sam Richardson). Star Trek: Section 31 starts streaming January 24th on Paramount Plus.

The power supply unit (PSU) is one of the most essential components of any PC build. The PSU, as the name suggests, is what powers up everything inside your PC. Without it, nothing would work, and you would be left with a very useless and large paperweight. While it is essential, it is also one of the components that gets looked over quite a bit, and people even try to cheap out on their PSU, which is never advised.

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Jerod Harris, Chesnot, Getty Images With just weeks left to pass legislation before Congress adjourns, X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced she worked with the authors of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to update the bill in what seems like a play to win over the Republican House leaders standing in the way of it becoming law. The striking announcement is the latest example of how Elon Musk and his companies are taking on significant roles in influencing government output. While it’s not unusual for outside stakeholders, including companies, to weigh in on pending legislation, the fact that the bill’s sponsors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), announced X’s input indicates they view it as helpful to the bill’s chances of passing.“Led by X, the new changes made to the Kids Online Safety Act strengthen the bill while safeguarding free speech online and ensuring it is not used to stifle expression,” Blumenthal and Blackburn said in a joint statement. “These changes should eliminate once and for all the false narrative that this bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans. We thank Elon and Linda for their bold leadership and commitment to protecting children online and for helping us get this bill across the finish line this Congress.” KOSA aims to make the internet safer for kids by imposing a duty of care on tech platforms to prevent and mitigate certain harms when they implement certain design features, including photo filters and infinite scroll. The bill passed overwhelmingly in the Senate over the summer but has stalled in the House, with the bill’s critics fearing it could be weaponized against disliked speech or lead to a more restricted internet due to platforms’ fears of legal risk.The changes include a clarification that the bill can’t be used to enforce the platforms’ duty of care “based upon the viewpoint of users expressed by or through any speech, expression, or information protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” It also narrows the duty of care with respect to anxiety and depressive disorders to make it enforceable only when those conditions are “objectively verifiable” and linked to “compulsive usage.”Yaccarino previously endorsed the bill on behalf of X earlier this year, while CEOs of companies like Meta and Google have not gone so far, and KOSA supporters point to tech lobbying as a key obstacle. But Republican leadership in the House has also become a hurdle for the bill’s passage. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told Punchbowl News in October, “I love the principle, but the details of that are very problematic.” He worried about “unintended consequences.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) is viewed as potentially even harder to win over, Punchbowl reports, and is concerned about the scope of the duty of care in the bill.

Image: Apple We already knew that the tensions and scares were going to ramp up in season 2 of Severance, and the latest trailer provides a deeper glimpse into what to expect — along with teasing answers to some important (and weird) questions.The show follows a megacorporation called Lumon Industries, which utilizes a new procedure called severance that allows workers to spatially split their brains, creating two selves: one who works for Lumon, and another who lives life on the outside. The new clip shows the return of four Lumon employees — Mark (Adam Scott), Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) — who are back in the office after managing to bridge those two different worlds. However, it’s unclear if they’re actually in trouble for their actions; instead, they’ve turned into celebrities of sorts.That doesn’t mean that the vibes are any less unsettling, though, with the always-intense supervisor Milchick (Tramell Tillman) saying things like, “I’m tightening the leash.” More than anything, the new trailer promises answers to some of Severance’s strangest questions. There’s the mystery of what actually goes down in Lumon’s basement, which we’re told “will be remembered as one of the greatest moments on this planet” as well as just what the hell is going on with all of the goats. The trailer also introduces an unexpected new question: how could a child be an office manager?Clearly, there’s a lot going on in season 2, and it’s not too far off now. The new season of Severance starts streaming on January 17th. In the meantime, here are some excellent new posters. Image: Apple

DDR5 RAM is the latest standard for system memory inside desktop and laptop PCs, replacing DDR4. This new standard promises higher capacities, better efficiencies, faster speeds, and advanced features not typically found on older DDR4 RAM modules. If you're on the fence about deciding between DDR4 and DDR5 or want to know what you can enjoy by upgrading to a CPU and motherboard supporting DDR5, we've rounded up some reasons why DDR5 is better than DDR4.

The Windows Forecast is a look at the future of Windows that comments on the latest news for Windows Insiders, as well as other major announcements in the Windows space each and every week. My name is João Carrasqueira, and I've been covering the world of Windows professionally since 2018. If there's something you'd like to see covered, you can reach me at [email protected].