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Can you believe it's been almost a year since Windows 11 launched? Back then, I was surprised that Microsoft was practically rushing a new version of Windows out the door. But, as I noted in my review, Windows 11 ended up refining Microsoft's desktop formula fairly well. My opinion hasn't changed much since then (and yes, I'm still frustrated by the cleaner but less usable taskbar). Today, Microsoft will start rolling out the Windows 11 2022 update, the operating system's first major revision, which brings better security, accessibility and a handful of gaming improvements. Mostly, though, it'll make it easier for you to get future updates more quickly.

How do I get the Windows 11 2022 Update?

No surprise here: Head over to Windows Update in your Settings app and see if your computer is eligible for an upgrade. As usual, Microsoft says it's taking a "measured and phased" approach, which means there's a chance you won't see the update immediately. The company will also highlight potential conflicts on your system — e.g., an incompatible app, an out of date driver — that will prevent you from getting the refreshed OS. This advice applies to both Windows 11 and Windows 10 users, though the latter should double-check their computer with thePC Health Check app to ensure their hardware is compatible. (Check out our Windows 11 review for more details on upgrading from Windows 10.)

What's this about faster updates?

Panos Panay, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer,said in February that the company was aiming to deliver "continuous innovation" and more frequent Windows 11 updates outside of the major annual release. That begins with the 2022 update. The company has "significantly reduced" the size of updates (around 450MB for many folks), as well as reduced their installation time, John Cable, the head of Windows Servicing and Delivery, said in a blog post.

The Windows 11 2022 update will also be more carbon aware, allowing you to schedule installations for times when your local grid is relying on cleaner energy sources like wind, hydro and solar. This functionality won't be available everywhere, and we're still waiting to hear more about how Microsoft will keep track of electric grid statistics. But theoretically, it's a smart way to cut down on extraneous carbon emissions (and it's something I'd love to see on phones, tablets and other devices).

Microsoft

So where are the new features?

At first glance, it'll be difficult to tell you're running the new update. It doesn't bring any major UI changes, though Microsoft says it'll be adding tabs to File Explorer in October. I've been using an early build of that feature, and it's definitely helped to reduce my window clutter when moving between SD cards, OneDrive and my downloads folder. (Don't worry, you can still fill your screen with multiple Explorer windows if you prefer.) 

You'll also be able to tweak the Start Menu further by either adding more pinned apps, or more recommendations. Additionally, Microsoft is bundling the Clipchamp video editor, which looks like a huge improvement over the existing Windows tool (and certainly lightyears ahead of Movie Maker).

Microsoft

Much like the improved Windows Update experience, the vast majority of new features in the 2022 update are under the hood. Those include a slew of accessibility upgrades thatMicrosoft unveiled earlier this year: system-wide live captions, which will initially appear at the top of your screen to help you feel engaged during video chats; natural sounding voices for the Narrator screen reader; as well as a preview of improved voice commands for using your PC and transcription.

More so than most tech companies, Microsoft has beenpushing to make its hardware and software more accessible over the last decade. That includes launching theSurface Adaptive Kit, setting up aDisability Answer Desk, and announcing a five-year commitment toward bridging the "Disability Divide." The features debuting in this Windows 11 update are all driven by members of the Windows Accessibility team, giving them all a personal touch.

The new Focus Sessions experience, for example, is spearheaded by Alexis Kane, a product manager who has ADHD. She noticed how notifications were giving her more anxiety and disrupting her workflow, so she helped to create a way to minimize them without disabling notifications entirely. Focused Sessions reduces the noise of those alerts, but it also disables Task Bar badges and lets you time work sprints with the clock app.

A better gaming experience

Say goodbye to the Xbox Game Bar, and hello to the new Windows Controller bar. Now when you hit the Xbox button on an Xbox (or third-party) controller, you'll see a simple pop-up to let you get back to a recent game or launcher. Even better for gamers, you'll be able to enjoy titles with better latency, Auto HDR and VRR in windowed mode. In the past, you could only access those features while a game was being run in full-screen mode.

There's also better support for HDR in general. A new calibration app will let you fine-tune the color and brightness levels of your HDR screens. And there's also more support for Auto HDR, which maps improved lighting onto games that don't offer HDR on their own.

Microsoft

Other features

In addition to tabbed File Explorer windows, Microsoft also has a handful of other new features coming in October:

• Better picture management with an improved Photos app. It will also let you back up pics directly to OneDrive, and it’ll help you revisit experiences with a new “Memories” feature. (That sounds similar to what Apple and Google do with their respective photo offerings.)

• An overflow menu in the task bar, which will hold extra apps instead of crowding the bottom of your screen.

• More suggested options when copying data. Selecting a phone number, for example, could prompt you to make a Teams call.

The Windows 11 2022 update is launching today, and while it's a mostly behind-the-scenes update for most PCs, gamers have a few new features to look forward to. First up, Microsoft is adding support for Auto HDR, VRR (variable refresh rates) and better latency for windowed games. Previously, those were only features you could use in full-screen mode. The change should be a boon to streamers and anyone who wants to multitask while clearing their Halo Infinite dailies.

Microsoft

And speaking of HDR, you can now tweak your monitor's settings more easily with an improved HDR calibration tool. Auto HDR is also headed to more titles, which should be great news if you (literally) want to see older games in a new light. Less significantly, the Xbox Game Bar is being transformed into a new Windows Controller Bar, which will show your recently played games and launchers. You can access that by hitting the Xbox button on an Xbox controller (or a third-party equivalent).

While none of these are ground-breaking changes, they all go towards making Windows 11 a better environment for PC gamers. (Let's just hope we get a more flexible way to install games from the Microsoft Store eventually.)

NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference isn't only about gaming graphics cards. The company had other news up its sleeve, including in the autonomous vehicle space. During the GTC keynote, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced a system-on-chip (SoC) called Drive Thor. NVIDIA says it designed the chip using the latest advancements in graphics and processing to provide 2,000 teraflops of performance, all while keeping costs down.

NVIDIA says that Drive Thor can unify all the various functions of vehicles — including infotainment, the digital dashboard, sensors, parking and autonomous operation — for greater efficiency. Vehicles with the chipset will be able to run Linux, QNX and Android simultaneously. Given the vast processing power that autonomous vehicle operations require, automakers can even use two of the Drive Thor chipsets in tandem by employing a NVLink-C2C chip interconnect technology to have them running a single operating system.

In addition, NVIDIA claims that the SoC marks a significant leap forward in "deep neural network accuracy." The chipset has a transformer engine, a new addition to the NVIDIA GPU Tensor Core. "Transformer networks process video data as a single perception frame, enabling the compute platform to process more data over time," NVIDIA says. It noted that the SoC can boost inference performance of transformer deep neural networks by up to nine times, "which is paramount for supporting the massive and complex AI workloads associated with self driving."

The SoC follows NVIDIA's Drive Orin chipset and it replaces Drive Atlan. It will be used in vehicles that go into production starting in 2025. The first customer NVIDIA has lined up is Geely-owned EV brand Zeekr, which is already using Orin chipsets for level 3 automation. Meanwhile, NVIDIA has signed up two more Drive Orin partners: automakers Xpeng and QCraft. 

Deathloop, a terrific time-loop puzzle box in the guise of a first-person shooter, is now available on Xbox. Until now, Arkane Lyon's most recent game had been a PlayStation 5 console exclusive (it was available on PC too). As of today, though, it's playable on Xbox Series X/S through Xbox Game Pass, as well as on Xbox One, tablets, phones and desktop browsers through cloud gaming. PC Game Pass subscribers can check it out at no extra cost on their gaming rig too. In addition, PS Plus Extra and Premium members now have access to Deathloop on PS5 as part of their subscription.

It's not exactly surprising that Deathloop landed on Xbox Game Pass after the PS5 exclusivity window closed. Arkane Lyon and publisher Bethesda Softworks are now owned by Microsoft, which honored Sony's exclusivity deals for Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo after completing its acquisition of ZeniMax Media.

Meanwhile, Arkane has rolled out a free Deathloop update called Goldenloop. It introduces cross-play for player vs. player matchmaking across all platforms, as well as cross-saves across Xbox and PC. There's a new ability called Fugue, a projectile that can slow down and confuse targets to briefly make them harmless. There are four Fugue upgrades to discover, including one that allows you to deploy the projectile as a proximity mine on a surface. Julianna's Masquerade ability now has some upgrades too.

Players will have access to a new weapon called the Halps Prototype. This is a laser-style rifle with a beam that you can bounce off of turrets and security cameras to hit enemies from surprising angles with bank shots. The Paint-Bomber is a fresh enemy that will run toward you with paint-filled explosives strapped to them. Elsewhere, there are new 2-in-1 trinkets that combine the effects of two previous trinkets to beef up your loadout and perhaps free up some space in your inventory for other perks. Arkane also said the update brings an extended ending and some new secrets to Deathloop.

In addition, Microsoft revealed details on some more titles that are coming to Game Pass in the coming weeks. Among them is Hardspace: Shipbreaker, a puzzle game that sees you cutting up old spaceships for salvage. That's available for Xbox Series X/S and via the cloud today. Slime Rancher 2 is coming to PC, Series X/S and Xbox Cloud Gaming through Game Pass on its release date of September 22nd. As for smash hit survival title Valheim, that will land on PC Game Pass on September 29th ahead of an upcoming console version.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs won't just rely on brute force to deliver high-performance visuals. The company has unveiled Deep Learning Super Sampling 3 (aka DLSS 3), a new version of its AI-based rendering accelerator. Rather than generating 'only' pixels, the third-gen technology can create entire new frames independently. It's a bit like the frame interpolation you see (and sometimes despise) with TVs, although this is clearly more sophisticated — NVIDIA is improving performance, not just smoothing out video.

The technique relies on both fourth-gen Tensor Cores and an "Optical Flow Accelerator" that predicts movement in a scene by comparing two high-resolution frames and generating intermediate frames. As it doesn't involve a computer's main processor, the approach is particularly helpful for Microsoft Flight Simulator and other games that are typically CPU-limited. A new detail setting in Cyberpunk 2077 runs at 62FPS in 4K resolution using DLSS2 in NVIDIA's tests, but jumps beyond 100FPS with DLSS 3.

Roughly 35 apps and games will offer DLSS 3 support early on. This includes Portal RTX, older titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and releases based on Unreal Engine 4 and 5.

It's too soon to say how well DLSS 3 works in practice. NVIDIA is choosing games that make the most of DLSS, and the technology might not help as much with less constrained titles. Nonetheless, this might be useful for ensuring that more of your games are consistently smooth. Provided, of course, that you're willing to spend the $899-plus GPU makers are currently asking for RTX 40-based video cards.

AMD has unveiled its first Ryzen 7000 laptop processors, but they're aimed at a very different audience than the enthusiast desktop chips. The newly introduced Ryzen 7020 mobile series is billed as a performance boost for budget laptops that combines AMD's older Zen 2 architecture with a few newer technologies, including RDNA 2 graphics (the Radeon 610M) and LPDDR5 memory. It also promises a healthy, if unspectacular, 12 hours of peak battery life.

The result theoretically outruns comparable Intel-based systems. AMD claims a 2.4GHz quad-core Ryzen 3 7320U model with 4GB of RAM offers 58 percent quicker multitasking and 31 percent faster app launching than a dual-core Core i3-1115G4 machine with 8GB of RAM. We'd have pitted the new Ryzen against a six-core 12th-gen Core i3 instead, but this still suggests you're getting solid performance for relatively little money.

On top of the Ryzen 3 variant, there's also a Ryzen 5 7520U with a 2.8GHz base clock. Both have 6MB of total cache. Particularly cost-conscious buyers can also spring for a two-core Athlon Gold 7220U with a 2.4GHz base, 5MB of cache and the same Radeon 610M graphics. All three chips offer a thermal design power of 15W, so they're suitable for thin-and-light systems.

You won't have to wait long to buy a portable using any of these chips. AMD expects the first Ryzen and Athlon 7020 series laptops to arrive in the fourth quarter of this year (that is, October through December) starting at $399. Acer is promising 14- and 15-inch Aspire 3 systems with the new Ryzen inside, while an HP "17-inch Laptop PC" and refreshed Lenovo IdeaPads are also in the works. That entry price is important — AMD is targeting everyday users who won't spend much, but still want solid capabilities.

Portal 3 may never happen, but at least we've got a new way to experience the original teleporting puzzle shooter. Today during his GTC keynote, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced Portal with RTX, a mod that adds support for real-time ray tracing and DLSS 3. Judging from the the short trailer, it looks like the Portal we all know and love, except now the lighting around portals bleeds into their surroundings, and just about every surface is deliciously reflective. 

Similar to what we saw with Minecraft RTX, Portal's ray tracing mod adds a tremendous amount of depth to a very familiar game. And thanks to DLSS 3, the latest version of NVIDIA's super sampling technology, it also performs smoothly with plenty of RTX bells and whistles turned on. This footage likely came from the obscenely powerful RTX 4090, but it'll be interesting to see how well Portal with RTX performs on NVIDIA's older 2000-series cards. Current Portal owners will be able to play the RTX mod in November.  

NVIDIA

Huang says the company developed the RTX mod inside of its Omniverse environment. To take that concept further, NVIDIA is also launching RTX Remix, an application that will let you capture existing game scenes and tweak their objects and environments with high resolution textures and realistic lighting. The company's AI tools can automatically give materials "physically accurate" properties—a ceiling in Morrowind, for example, becomes reflective after going through RTX Remix. You'll be able to export remixed scenes as mods, and other players will be able to play them through the RTX renderer. 

Following months of anticipation and controversy among its add-in board partners, NVIDIA's 40 Series GPUs are finally here. The company unveiled the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 today at its GTC 2022 keynote. Taking full advantage of its new "Ada Lovelace" architecture, NVIDIA says the two GPUs offer significantly better ray tracing performance. The company worked with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to co-develop a new "4N" fabrication process that NVIDIA says is up to two times more power efficient.

Developing...

Don't fret if you've been looking for an external SSD that can handle a few knocks. Amazon once again has the 1TB Samsung T7 Shield on sale for $100, well below its official $160 price. The 2TB version has also dropped to $200 (normally $280). The savings apply regardless of color, so you can buy a beige drive if black or blue seems too pedestrian.

The hook, as before, is the durable design. The T7 Shield can survive up to a 9.8-foot drop, and the IP65-rated chassis can resist dust and water while offering a rubberized grip to stay in your hands. Simply put, this is a solid drive for field photographers or anyone worried their data might not survive life on the road.

The USB-C drive doesn't offer stunning performance with sequential read and write speeds of 1,050MB/s and 1,000MB/s respectively. This is more for everyday backups and extended storage than demanding creators who need every last ounce of throughput. The T7 Shield is still much faster than a conventional spinning hard disk, though, and the peace of mind from the hardened design could be worth any tradeoffs.

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Comcast plans to start running live tests of its 10G multi-gigabit symmetrical internet services later this year before starting to offer it to customers in 2023. The company has been working on ways to boost home internet speeds over the existing cable network over the last couple of years and the final piece of the puzzle appears to be coming together.

The original aim was to hit speeds of speeds of 10Gbps and higher and Comcast is edging closer to that benchmark. It recently tested the last component required to offer 10G- and DOCSIS 4.0-powered multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds across its whole network. In the test, which was conducted with newly designed Full Duplex DOCSIS 4.0 (FDX) amplifiers, engineers achieved download speeds of 6Gbps and upload speeds of 4Gbps "across a complete six-amplifier cascade," according to a press release. The download speed is 50 percent faster than what Comcast was able to reach with 10G tech early last year.

"This architecture is inclusive of the vast majority of the Comcast network and is easily and quickly replicated where network environments may differ," Comcast said. "As a result, the successful test is key to delivering 10G to all Comcast customers."

This month, Comcast started rolling out 2Gbps internet service in four states. However, upload speeds are initially restricted to 200Mbps on the Gigabit 2x plan. When Comcast starts offering 10G services next year, users will theoretically be able to download and upload files at multi-gigabit speeds. The company aims to provide the 2Gbps service to more than 50 million US households by the end of 2025.