Tech News Roundup — July 11, 2026 (PM)

The big story this afternoon is Microsoft cutting a large chunk of id Software’s staff and John Carmack’s pointed response — once again gaming is where Microsoft’s cost-cutting is bleeding loudest. On the OS side, Windows 11 picked up a meaningful recovery feature in Cloud rebuild. The Linux world had a busy day too: kernel 7.3-rc3, an LLVM LFI sandboxing target, KDE landing more Plasma 6.8 work, and Mesa’s Rusticl driver flipping Arm Mali on by default. VeraCrypt got a Pplware how-to, Renault showed off a robot-heavy Douai plant, and The Verge ran its usual mix of policy, food RPGs and tiny repair kits.

Microsoft

• Windows 11 gains a “Cloud rebuild” recovery path. Microsoft’s newest addition to the Windows recovery toolkit lets users reinstall the OS straight from the cloud without a USB stick or the usual dance through WinRE. It sits alongside Reset this PC and System Restore rather than replacing them — meant as a faster, less manual fallback when the local install is beyond repair. Windows Central

Gaming

• Microsoft lays off more of id Software; Carmack’s response stings. A large portion of the studio behind DOOM, Wolfenstein and Quake was cut in Microsoft’s latest round, and John Carmack — who helped build id from the ground up — publicly weighed in with comments that landed hard with longtime fans. The layoff is worse than initially reported: id is now a notably smaller team inside Xbox. Windows Central

Linux & Open Source

• Linux 7.3-rc3 ships a multi-GPU display detection fix. Linus’s weekly x86 fixes pull-up went out ahead of Sunday’s rc3 cut, with one notable change improving display detection on some multi-GPU setups where the kernel was previously picking the wrong output as primary. Phoronix

• LLVM merges the x86 LFI sandboxing target. Stanford’s Lightweight Fault Isolation work has been upstreamed for x86/x86_64, mirroring what landed earlier for AArch64 — efficient, native in-process sandboxing for code that should not be trusted with full process privileges. Phoronix

• KDE keeps landing Plasma 6.8 work. More Spectacle and audio-stack features went in this week as the 6.8 cycle builds toward release, with KDE developers using the summer to push through outstanding polish items. Phoronix

• Mesa’s Rusticl enables Arm Mali Panfrost by default. An Arm engineer’s upstream change flips the Panfrost Gallium3D driver on for the Rusticl OpenCL driver, meaning Mali users now get Rusticl acceleration without manual configuration. Phoronix

Security/CVE

• Pplware walks through a hidden VeraCrypt volume on Windows. A practical Portuguese-language tutorial on creating a “secret, secure” hidden zone inside an existing VeraCrypt container — useful for readers who want plausible-deniability encrypted storage on a PC disk. Pplware

Hardware

• Inside Renault’s Douai plant: robots running the line. Pplware visited the French factory to see how Renault is using robotics to reshape automotive production, with the Douai site standing in for the wider automation push across the group’s European plants. Pplware

In Brief

• Disney+ reportedly weighs a free tier to compete with YouTube. Rumours out of the streaming market suggest Disney is considering an ad-supported free subscription as a way to broaden reach against YouTube’s free-with-ads model. [Pplware]
• Verge op-ed: “ICE are heavily armed killers. They’re also huge losers.” TC Sottek on the federal immigration-enforcement posture and the two stories converging around it this fortnight. [The Verge]
• A “tasty RPG” you’ll want to play on an empty stomach. Andrew Webster reviews Dosa Divas, the food-forward roleplayer that leans into the excess the genre is known for. [The Verge]
• The perfect kit for all your tiny repairs. Installer No. 135 spotlights the iFixit toolkit and other small-repair essentials. [The Verge]

Roundup compiled from the TTRSS Tech feed. 12 articles from 4 sources (Phoronix, Windows Central, Pplware, The Verge) summarised.