Tech News Roundup — July 20, 2026 (PM)
A quieter day on the tech wires, but several concrete developments: Microsoft retired its Copilot Podcasts feature without an export path, shipped an emergency Windows 11 patch for affected Dell systems, and showed continued wobble on its Xbox exclusivity messaging. Phoronix delivered a flurry of Linux news — Firefox 153 with Vulkan Video decode, openSUSE seeking sponsors, AMD’s AVX10 patches, the Qualcomm QCE crypto driver being disabled, and Hyprland 0.56. Two China stories anchor the AI beat: Moonshot and Alibaba fired new models at OpenAI and Anthropic price points, and AliExpress took a €550 million EU fine under the DSA.
Microsoft
- Microsoft will delete Copilot Podcasts on August 18 with no export path. The Copilot Podcasts feature — which generates AI-narrated audio from a topic prompt — will be retired next month and Microsoft is offering no way for users to download or save the podcasts they have already created. Users have less than a month to listen to anything the tool produced for them. Windows Central
- Emergency Windows 11 KB5121767 out for affected Dell PCs. Microsoft blocked last week’s Patch Tuesday rollout for some Dell systems after it clashed with Intel’s IPF driver, causing unexpected shutdowns, overheating, and slow performance. The out-of-band update addresses the limited number of impacted configurations. Windows Central
Gaming
- Xbox execs send mixed signals on exclusive games. In a new GamesRadar+ interview, two Xbox C-suite figures offered conflicting takes on what fans should expect for exclusives. The piece lands against the backdrop of a 14,000-person Windows Central poll in which Xbox users overwhelmingly rejected the platform’s recent absence of any exclusive content. Windows Central
- GameSir T7 Pro “Sugar Whirl” reviewed — wireless Xbox on a $90 budget. GameSir’s pastel-cotton-candy controller finally brings genuine wireless Xbox play via a dongle, after a long run of “wireless-branded, but-cable-required” Xbox peripherals. The T7 Pro packs TMR stick tech and has been on test as a daily-driver replacement for cable-tethered pads. Windows Central
Linux & Open Source
- Firefox 153 lands as the new ESR with Vulkan Video decode. Mozilla’s monthly release is also the latest Extended Support Release. Headline features are Vulkan Video decoding support and experimental JPEG-XL image support, plus the usual pile of platform fixes. Phoronix
- openSUSE publicly seeks additional corporate sponsors. While SUSE is the close-aligned primary backer, openSUSE also relies on AMD (longtime platinum) and Fastly, and has put out a public call for further corporate sponsorship to fund its Tumbleweed and Leap distributions. Phoronix
- AMD posts AVX10_V2_AUX ISA patches for GCC. Following Intel’s earlier AI Compute Extensions patches for GCC, an AMD compiler engineer has followed up over the weekend with AVX10_V2_AUX ISA support patches — the cross-vendor x86 push to add new capabilities for AI/ML workloads to AVX and scalar code. Phoronix
- Linux 7.3 disables Qualcomm’s QCE crypto accelerator driver. The QCE driver is being removed because it is slower than letting CPU cores do the crypto work, has a history of bugs, and has race conditions that have caused security issues. Phoronix
- Hyprland 0.56 ships with a hefty change backlog. Three months of improvements land in this Wayland compositor release, including the usual mix of input, rendering, and protocol updates. Phoronix
AI/ML
- China’s Moonshot and Alibaba fire two new models at OpenAI/Anthropic price points. At Shanghai’s World AI Conference, Moonshot (Kimi) and Alibaba unveiled models they claim match the leading US frontier systems at a fraction of the cost, tightening the pressure on Silicon Valley’s AI lead. The Verge frames the rapid-fire releases as a structural challenge to US AI dominance, not a one-off benchmark battle. [The Verge]
Hardware & Industry
- AliExpress hit with €550 million EU fine under the DSA. The European Commission fined AliExpress for failing to prevent illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products from being sold on its platform. The penalty is more than double the one Temu received for similar DSA violations. [The Verge]
In Brief
- Pplware: rare twin waterspout filmed in western Sweden. A resident near Grästorp captured video of two vortices spinning side-by-side over a bay before merging into a single tornado — a rare meteorological event now being studied by Swedish weather services. Pplware
Roundup compiled from the TTRSS Tech feed. 12 articles from 4 sources summarized.