Tech News Roundup — July 25, 2026 (PM)
A PM edition built around two Microsoft-adjacent themes: Halo: Campaign Evolved scales down beautifully on modest PC hardware, and the LG / McAfee monitor-adware controversy is generating visible community blowback. Linux gets a quiet but substantive set of Phoronix stories (glibc 2.44, KDE’s kscreenctl, and the ongoing Kiwi Menu polish for GNOME), and a fresh study sizes the bill for European countries moving to drop Huawei from telecom networks. The rest is the usual short tail of curated Pplware and Verge items.
Microsoft
Halo: Campaign Evolved looks almost as good on Low as on Ultra — a relief amid the ongoing RAM crisis. Halo: Campaign Evolved is in early access to strong critic reviews but mixed player reaction, in part because of the difficulty of actually getting into the early-access period. The good news for anyone running older PC hardware is that the difference between Low and Ultra is genuinely subtle. Testing across RTX 3070, RTX 4070, RTX 5080, and RX 9070 rigs found that the only visible Ultra-vs-Low deltas were slightly sharper blood textures and weapon lighting, while foliage, lighting softness, and shadow detail were barely distinguishable. The performance gap is much bigger: Ultra costs roughly 20% of framerate, particularly with DLSS Ultra upscaling, so Low delivers a smoother experience without a meaningful visual penalty.
Gaming
JSAUX’s $38 Xbox Ally ModCase beats dbrand’s $75 Killswitch for the same job. Windows Central’s Jez Corden swapped his dbrand Killswitch case (he had to cut it off with scissors) for the JSAUX ModCase for the Xbox Ally and Ally X, and the verdict is “zero regrets.” The JSAUX case costs roughly half the price, has a more pleasant hand-feel, and is easier to remove. Corden calls it the best Xbox Ally accessory any owner should buy.
Will users actually stop buying LG monitors after the McAfee adware scandal? The investigation from Gamers Nexus — titled “DO NOT BUY: LG’s Spyware TVs, Monitors, and Wiretapping Concerns” — and Microsoft’s intervention have put LG monitors firmly in the firing line. After LG monitors were caught installing a monitor-control app that surfaced McAfee pop-ups on Windows 11 PCs, Windows chief Pavan Davuluri confirmed Microsoft contacted LG and that LG has agreed to disable the McAfee pop-up in its app. Whether the outrage translates into an actual purchasing boycott is the open question Windows Central is now polling its readers on.
Mobile
Removing Huawei from European telecom networks could cost €40 billion. A new study estimates that several European countries’ decisions to scale down or eliminate Huawei’s presence in telecom infrastructure could cost far more than expected. Replacement of existing equipment, retraining, and the resulting delays to 5G rollouts are the main drivers of the figure, which underlines how much of Europe’s mobile backbone still depends on Chinese vendors nearly a decade after the first security concerns.
Google ends Play Services support for Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Google has quietly dropped official Google Play Services support for devices on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, raising the effective minimum to a newer release. Phones still on Marshmallow will continue to run, but apps that depend on the latest Play Services will progressively stop working, which is the natural end-of-life for one of Android’s most enduring releases.
Folding and flipping phones are getting seriously good. The latest round of foldables — including Samsung’s Z Fold 8, the Xteink X4 light-flip, and a growing ecosystem of case and accessory makers — shows that the category is finally hitting the point where creases, hinges, and battery life are no longer the headline. [The Verge]
Linux & Open Source
GNU C Library 2.44 released with /etc/tunables.conf and more optimisations. Glibc 2.44 is out as the latest feature release for this critical library underpinning modern Linux. The headline item is the new /etc/tunables.conf mechanism, which gives administrators a single, documented place to set tunables that previously required environment variables or per-binary configuration. The release also bundles a long list of performance optimisations across architectures.
KDE Plasma 6.8 introduces a new kscreenctl tool. KDE developers have been building kscreenctl as a modern replacement for kscreen-doctor, giving Plasma 6.8 a cleaner CLI for managing multi-monitor setups. Alongside the new tool, the Plasma stack has picked up a number of bug and crash fixes this week.
Kiwi Menu continues to bring macOS-style polish to GNOME. The Kiwi Menu project, which gives the GNOME Shell a quick macOS-style application launcher, keeps adding refinements to its macOS-flavoured experience. It remains a popular option for users who like the GNOME desktop but want faster access to a global app menu.
Dockhand 1.0.38 lands for Synology and UGREEN NAS owners. Marius Hosting notes that Dockhand has moved from 1.0.37 to 1.0.38 with a beta container/stacks backup feature, a read-only Git stack compose view, and an IPv6-fallback option for outbound DNS resolution. The release continues Dockhand’s push to make Docker management on entry-level NAS hardware more accessible.
NetBox: open-source network documentation platform. Pplware profiles NetBox, the open-source platform for documenting medium-to-large networks: it centralises equipment, IP addressing, cabling, and topology in a structured, queryable database. It is the same tool many enterprises use to replace ad-hoc spreadsheets.
In Brief
Portuguese police arrest 27-year-old in “Romance Scam” case. Portugal’s Polícia Judiciária detained a 27-year-old foreign national in Bragança suspected of running a Romance Scam scheme that defrauded multiple victims, with charges of fraud and money laundering.
Majority of readers say speed cameras don’t improve road safety. A Pplware reader poll finds a majority of respondents believe the Portuguese government’s plan to install more speed cameras on roads will not translate into a measurable improvement in road safety.
Christopher Nolan shoots “The Odyssey” entirely in IMAX 70mm film. Nolan has become the first director to shoot a feature film end-to-end with 70mm IMAX film cameras, putting IMAX back at the centre of the conversation around The Odyssey.
Is this e-reader case a gun? A Louisville-based maker called Luke The Maker has posted a 3D-printed, gun-shaped case for the minimalist Xteink X4 e-reader. It cannot fire — squeezing the trigger does nothing — but the visual parallel to a Glock 19 has stirred plenty of “Is this art, satire, or just a bad idea?” debate. [The Verge]
What Surrounds Us will make you think a lot about circles. A circle-of-circles indie review from The Verge: What Surrounds Us, in which a sentient donut-shaped character collaborates with other moving circles across a large map, comes recommended for anyone who liked Zelda’s exploration loops and wants something shorter and weirder. [The Verge]
Roundup compiled from the TTRSS Tech feed. 16 articles from 5 sources, grouped into 16 story clusters.