Adafruit managing director Phillip Torrone (also long-time Slashdot reader ptorrone ) writes: Washington State lawmakers are proposing bills (HB 2320 and HB 2321) that would require 3D printers and CNC machines to block certain designs using software-based "firearms blueprint detection algorithms." In practice, this means scanning every print file, comparing it against a government-maintained database, and preventing "skilled users" from bypassing the system.

Supporters frame this as a response to untraceable "ghost guns," but even federal prosecutors admit the tools involved are ordinary manufacturing equipment. Critics warn the language is overbroad, technically unworkable, hostile to open source, and likely to push printing toward cloud-locked, subscription-based systems—while doing little to stop criminals.

Early Friday "there were nearly 113 incidents of people reporting issues with Microsoft 365 as of 1:05 a.m. ET," reports Reuters. But that's down "from over 15,890 reports at its peak a day earlier, according to Downdetector." Reuters points out the outage affected antivirus software Microsoft Defender and data governance software Microsoft Purview, while CRN notes it also impacted "a number of Microsoft 365 services" including Outlook and Exchange online: During the outage, Outlook users received a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error message when attempting to send or receive email. Users did not have the ability to send and receive email through Exchange Online, including notification emails from Microsoft Viva Engage, according to the vendor. Other issues that cropped up include an inability to send and receive subscription email through [analytics platform] Microsoft Fabric, collect message traces, search within SharePoint online and Microsoft OneDrive and create chats, meetings, teams, channels or add members in Microsoft Teams...

As with past cloud outages with other vendors, even after Microsoft fixed the issues, recovery efforts by its users to return to a normal state took additional time... Microsoft confirmed in a post on X [Thursday] at 4:14 p.m. ET that it "restored the affected infrastructure to a (healthy) state" but "further load balancing is required to mitigate impact...." The company reported "residual imbalances across the environment" at 7:02 p.m., "restored access to the affected services" and stable mail flow at 12:33 a.m. Jan. 23. At that time, Microsoft still saw a "small number of remaining affected services" without full service stability. The company declared impact from the event "resolved" at 1:29 p.m. Eastern. Microsoft sent out another X post at 8:20 a.m. asking users experiencing residual issues to try "clearing local DNS caches or temporarily lowering DNS TTL values may help ensure a quicker remediation...."

Microsoft said in an admin center update that [Thursday's] outage was "caused by elevated service load resulting from reduced capacity during maintenance for a subset of North America hosted infrastructure." Furthermore, Microsoft noted that during "ongoing efforts to rebalance traffic" it introduced a "targeted load balancing configuration change intended to expedite the recovery process, which incidentally introduced additional traffic imbalances associated with persistent impact for a portion of the affected infrastructure." US itek's David Stinner said it appears that Microsoft did not have enough capacity on its backup system while doing maintenance on its main system. "It looks like the backup system was overloaded, and it brought the system down while they were still doing maintenance on the main system," he said. "That is why it took so many hours to get back up and running. If your primary system is down for maintenance and your backup system fails due to capacity issues, then it is going to take a while to get your primary system back up and running."
"This was not Microsoft's first outage of 2026," the article notes, "with the vendor handling access issues with Teams, Outlook and other M365 services on Wednesday, a Copilot issue on Jan. 15 plus an Azure outage earlier in the month..."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Microsoft provided the FBI with the recovery keys to unlock encrypted data on the hard drives of three laptops as part of a federal investigation, Forbes reported on Friday. Many modern Windows computers rely on full-disk encryption, called BitLocker, which is enabled by default. This type of technology should prevent anyone except the device owner from accessing the data if the computer is locked and powered off.

But, by default, BitLocker recovery keys are uploaded to Microsoft's cloud, allowing the tech giant -- and by extension law enforcement -- to access them and use them to decrypt drives encrypted with BitLocker, as with the case reported by Forbes. The case involved several people suspected of fraud related to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program in Guam, a U.S. island in the Pacific. Local news outlet Pacific Daily News covered the case last year, reporting that a warrant had been served to Microsoft in relation to the suspects' hard drives.

Kandit News, another local Guam news outlet, also reported in October that the FBI requested the warrant six months after seizing the three laptops encrypted with BitLocker. [...] Microsoft told Forbes that the company sometimes provides BitLocker recovery keys to authorities, having received an average of 20 such requests per year.

The European Parliament is calling on the European Commission to reduce dependence on U.S. tech giants by prioritizing EU-based cloud, AI, and open-source infrastructure. The report frames "European Tech First," public procurement reform, and Public Money, Public Code as necessary self-defense against growing U.S. control over critical digital infrastructure. Heise reports: In terms of content, the report focuses on a strategic reorientation of public procurement and infrastructure. The compromise line adopted stipulates that member states can favor European tech providers in strategic sectors to systematically strengthen the technological capacity of the Community. The Greens even called for a stricter regulation here, where the use of products "Made in EU" should become the rule and exceptions would have to be explicitly justified. They also pushed for a definition for cloud infrastructure that provides for full EU jurisdiction without dependencies on third countries.

With the decision, the MEPs want to lay the foundation for a European digital public infrastructure based on open standards and interoperability. The principle of Public Money, Public Code is anchored as a strategic foundation to reduce dependence on individual providers. Software specifically developed for administration with tax money should therefore be made available to everyone under free licenses. For financing, the Parliament relies on the expansion of public-private investments. A "European Sovereign Tech Fund" endowed with ten billion euros was discussed beforehand, for example, to specifically build strategic infrastructures that the market does not provide on its own. The shadow rapporteur for the Greens, Alexandra Geese, sees Europe ready to take control of its digital future with the vote. As long as European data is held by US providers subject to laws such as the Cloud Act, security in Europe is not guaranteed.

Microsoft appears to be preparing an ad-supported tier for Xbox Cloud Gaming that would let players stream games they've purchased digitally without needing a Game Pass subscription, according to a Windows Central report citing sources familiar with the plans. Users last week began noticing a new message pop up while launching cloud games that referenced "1 hour of ad supported play time per session," though no such tier currently exists.

The ad-supported option, expected to launch sometime this year, would specifically target the hundreds of games available for digital purchase through Xbox Cloud Gaming -- titles that currently require at least one tier of Game Pass to stream despite being owned outright by the player.

Seven out of ten C-suite executives believe traditional enterprise resource planning software has seen its best days, though the category remains firmly entrenched in corporate IT and opinion is sharply divided on what comes next. A survey of 4,295 CFOs, CISOs, CIOs and CEOs worldwide found 36% expect ERP to give way to composable, API-driven best-of-breed systems, while 33% see the future in "agentic ERP" featuring autonomous AI-driven decision-making.

The research was commissioned by Rimini Street, a third-party support provider for Oracle and SAP. Despite the pessimism, 97% said their current systems met business requirements. Vendor lock-in remains a sore point: 35% cited limited flexibility and forced upgrades as frustrations. Kingfisher, operator of 2,000 European retail stores including Screwfix and B&Q, recently eschewed an SAP upgrade in favor of using third-party support to shift its existing application to the cloud. Gartner analyst Dixie John cautioned that while third-party support may work in the short or medium term, organizations will eventually need to upgrade.

The European Commission "has opened a public call for evidence on European open digital ecosystems," writes Help Net Security, part of preparations for an upcoming Communication "that will examine the role of open source in EU's digital infrastructure." The consultation runs from January 6 to February 3, 2026. Submissions will be used to shape a Commission Communication addressed to the European Parliament, the Council, and other EU bodies, which is scheduled for publication in the first quarter of 2026... The call for evidence links Europe's reliance on digital technologies developed outside the EU to concerns over long term control of infrastructure and software supply chains... Open digital ecosystems are discussed in the context of technological sovereignty and the use of technologies that can be inspected, adapted, and shared.
Long-time Slashdot reader Elektroschock describes it as the European Commission "stepping up its efforts behind open-source software" Building on President von der Leyen's political guidelines, the initiative will review the Commission's 2020-2023 open-source approach and set out concrete actions to strengthen Europe's open-source ecosystem across key areas such as cloud, AI, cybersecurity and industrial technologies. The strategy will be presented alongside the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act, forming a broader policy package aimed at reducing strategic dependencies and boosting Europe's digital resilience.
And "In just a few days, over 370 submissions have already been filed, indicating that the issue is touching a nerve across the EU," writes CyberNews.com: "Europe must regain control over its software supply chain to safeguard freedom, security, and innovation," suggests an individual from Slovakia. Similar perspectives appear to be widely shared among respondents...

The document doesn't mention US tech giants specifically, but rather aims to support tech sovereignty and seek "digital solutions that are valid alternatives to proprietary ones...."

"This is not a legislative initiative. The strategy will take the form of a Commission communication. The initiative will set out a general approach and will propose: actions relying on further commitments and an implementation process," the EC explains. Policymakers expect the strategy to help EU member states identify the necessary steps to support national open-source companies and communities.

Ars Technica reports: Security firm Mandiant [part of Google Cloud] has released a database that allows any administrative password protected by Microsoft's NTLM.v1 hash algorithm to be hacked in an attempt to nudge users who continue using the deprecated function despite known weaknesses.... a precomputed table of hash values linked to their corresponding plaintext. These generic tables, which work against multiple hashing schemes, allow hackers to take over accounts by quickly mapping a stolen hash to its password counterpart... Mandiant said it had released an NTLMv1 rainbow table that will allow defenders and researchers (and, of course, malicious hackers, too) to recover passwords in under 12 hours using consumer hardware costing less than $600 USD. The table is hosted in Google Cloud. The database works against Net-NTLMv1 passwords, which are used in network authentication for accessing resources such as SMB network sharing.

Despite its long- and well-known susceptibility to easy cracking, NTLMv1 remains in use in some of the world's more sensitive networks. One reason for the lack of action is that utilities and organizations in industries, including health care and industrial control, often rely on legacy apps that are incompatible with more recently released hashing algorithms. Another reason is that organizations relying on mission-critical systems can't afford the downtime required to migrate. Of course, inertia and penny-pinching are also causes.

"By releasing these tables, Mandiant aims to lower the barrier for security professionals to demonstrate the insecurity of Net-NTLMv1," Mandiant said. "While tools to exploit this protocol have existed for years, they often required uploading sensitive data to third-party services or expensive hardware to brute-force keys."
"Organizations that rely on Windows networking aren't the only laggards," the article points out. "Microsoft only announced plans to deprecate NTLMv1 last August."

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the news.

Tom's Hardware: Extensive research into the pricing of some of the best hard drives on the market for large capacity, economical storage indicates that prices are beginning to increase sharply, with some of the most popular models on the market seeing increases upwards of 60%. According to research from ComputerBase, pricing analysis on 12 of the most popular mainstream drives on the market indicates an average price increase of 46% over the last 4 months.

While the research and price checks on these drives track movement based on European prices (ComputerBase is a German outlet), Tom's Hardware checks on similar or identical SKUs in the U.S. indicate that the trends are indeed replicated, or perhaps worse, on the other side of the pond. CB reports that various drives like Seagate's IronWolf NAS line, Toshiba's Cloud Scale Capacity Drives, Western Digital's WD Red, and Seagate's BarraCuda lines are all showing price increases of between 23% and 66%. As noted, the average price increases clock in at 46% since September 2025.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Amazon is turning to an Arizona mine that last year became the first new source of U.S. copper in more than a decade, to meet its data centers' ravenous appetite for the industrial metal. The mine was restarted as a proving ground for Rio Tinto's new method of unlocking low-grade copper deposits. Rio signed a two-year supply pact with Amazon Web Services, a vote of confidence for its Nuton venture, which uses bacteria and acid to extract copper from ore that was previously uneconomical to process. The move by Amazon is the latest example of a technology company rushing to secure the power and critical materials necessary to build and operate artificial-intelligence data centers. The Nuton copper will satisfy only a sliver of Amazon's needs. The biggest data centers each require tens of thousands of metric tons of copper for all the wires, busbars, circuit boards, transformers and other electrical components housed there. The 14,000 metric tons of copper cathode that Rio expects the Arizona Nuton project to yield over four years wouldn't be enough for one of those facilities.

Rio deployed its bioleaching process in the recent restart of a mine east of Tucson and has partnerships to take the technology to several others in the Americas. The idea is to uncork the low-grade ore left behind at old mines and is key to Rio's plans to boost output when new discoveries are harder than ever to bring online and copper demand is surging. [...] "We work at the commodity level to find lower carbon solutions to drive our business growth," said Chris Roe, Amazon's director of worldwide carbon. "That means steel, and that means concrete, and it absolutely means copper with regard to our data centers." Roe said the copper will be routed to companies that produce components for Amazon's data centers. As part of the deal, Amazon is supplying Rio with cloud-computing and data analytics to optimize Nuton's recovery rates and help the miner expand production.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Oracle is trying -- and sometimes struggling -- to attract workers to Nashville, where it is developing a massive riverfront headquarters. The company is hiring for more roles in Nashville than any other US city, with a special focus on jobs in its crucial cloud infrastructure unit. Oracle cloud workers based elsewhere say they've been offered tens of thousands of dollars in incentives to move. Chairman Larry Ellison made a splash in April 2024 when he said Oracle would make Nashville its "world headquarters" just a few years after moving the software company from Redwood City, California, to Austin. His proclamation followed a 2021 tax incentive deal in which Oracle pledged to create 8,500 jobs in Nashville by 2031, paying an average salary above six figures.

"We're creating a world leading cloud and AI hub in Nashville that is attracting top talent locally, regionally, and from across the country," Oracle Senior Vice President Scott Twaddle said in a statement. "We've seen great success recruiting engineering and technical positions locally and will continue to hire aggressively for the next several years." Still, Oracle has a long way to go in its hiring goals. Today, it has about 800 workers assigned to offices in Nashville, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. That trails far behind the number of company employees in locations including Redwood City, Austin and Kansas City, the center of health records company Cerner, which Oracle acquired in 2022.

A lack of state income tax and the city's thriving music scene are touted by Oracle's promotional materials to attract talent to Nashville. Some new hires note they moved because in a tough tech job market, the Tennessee city was the only place with an Oracle position offered. To fit all of these workers, Oracle is planning a massive campus along the Cumberland River. It will feature over 2 million square feet of office space, a new cross-river bridge and a branch of the ultra high-end sushi chain Nobu, which has locations on many properties connected to Ellison, including the Hawaiian island of Lanai. [...] Oracle has been running recruitment events for the new hub. But a common concern for employees weighing a move is that Nashville is classified by Oracle in a lower geographic pay band than California or Seattle, meaning that future salary growth is likely limited, according to multiple workers who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

A weaker local tech job market also gives pause to some considering relocation. In addition, many of the roles in Nashville require five days a week in the office, which is a shift for Oracle, where a significant number of roles are remote. For a global company like Oracle, the exact meaning of "headquarters" can be a bit unclear. Austin remains the address included on company SEC filings and its executives are scattered across the country. The city where Oracle is hiring for the most positions globally is Bengaluru, the southern Indian tech hub. Still, Oracle is positioning Nashville to be at the center of its future. "We're developing our Nashville location to stand alongside Austin, Redwood Shores, and Seattle as a major innovation hub," Oracle writes on its recruitment site. "This is your chance to be part of it."

Dell's chief operating officer Jeff Clarke has informed employees that the company is preparing for what he calls the "biggest transformation in company history," a sweeping systems overhaul scheduled to launch on May 3 that will standardize processes across nearly every major division.

The initiative, dubbed One Dell Way, will replace Dell's existing sprawl of applications, servers and databases with a single enterprise platform designed to unify the 42-year-old company's operations. Clarke's memo, sent to staff on Tuesday and obtained by Business Insider, said Dell has spent the past two years building toward this transition.

The May 3 launch will affect the company's PC business, finance, supply chain, marketing, sales, revenue operations, services, and HR. The ISG division, which handles cloud and AI infrastructure, will follow in August. "We need one way -- simplified, standardized and automated -- so we can be more competitive and serve our customers better," Clarke wrote. Mandatory training begins February 3.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once told an audience that he views local PC hardware the same way he views a 100-year-old electric generator he saw in a brewery museum -- as a relic of a pre-grid era, destined to be replaced by centralized utilities that users simply rent rather than own. The anecdote, shared at a talk a few years ago, positioned Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure as the inevitable successors to the desktop tower. Bezos argued that users would eventually abandon local computing for cloud-based solutions, much as businesses once abandoned on-site power generation for the electrical grid.

Current market dynamics have made that prediction feel more plausible. DRAM prices have become increasingly untenable for consumers, and companies like Dell and ASUS have signaled price increases across their PC ranges. Micron has shut down its consumer DRAM operations entirely, prioritizing AI datacenter demand instead. SSD storage is expected to face similar constraints. Cloud gaming services from Amazon Luna, NVIDIA GeForce Now and Xbox are seeing steady growth.

Microsoft previously developed a consumer version of its business-grade Windows 365 cloud PC product, though the company deprioritized it -- the economics didn't work when cheap laptops remained available. That calculus could shift. Xbox Game Pass's 1440p cloud gaming runs $30 monthly and NVIDIA recently imposed a 100-hour cap on its cloud platform. The infrastructure remains expensive to operate, but rising local hardware costs may eventually close that gap.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Researchers have discovered a never-before-seen framework that infects Linux machines with a wide assortment of modules that are notable for the range of advanced capabilities they provide to attackers. The framework, referred to as VoidLink by its source code, features more than 30 modules that can be used to customize capabilities to meet attackers' needs for each infected machine. These modules can provide additional stealth and specific tools for reconnaissance, privilege escalation, and lateral movement inside a compromised network. The components can be easily added or removed as objectives change over the course of a campaign.

VoidLink can target machines within popular cloud services by detecting if an infected machine is hosted inside AWS, GCP, Azure, Alibaba, and Tencent, and there are indications that developers plan to add detections for Huawei, DigitalOcean, and Vultr in future releases. To detect which cloud service hosts the machine, VoidLink examines metadata using the respective vendor's API. Similar frameworks targeting Windows servers have flourished for years. They are less common on Linux machines. The feature set is unusually broad and is "far more advanced than typical Linux malware," said researchers from Checkpoint, the security firm that discovered VoidLink. Its creation may indicate that the attacker's focus is increasingly expanding to include Linux systems, cloud infrastructure, and application deployment environments, as organizations increasingly move workloads to these environments. "VoidLink is a comprehensive ecosystem designed to maintain long-term, stealthy access to compromised Linux systems, particularly those running on public cloud platforms and in containerized environments," the researchers said in a separate post. "Its design reflects a level of planning and investment typically associated with professional threat actors rather than opportunistic attackers, raising the stakes for defenders who may never realize their infrastructure has been quietly taken over."

The researchers note that VoidLink poses no immediate threat or required action since it's not actively targeting systems. However, defenders should remain vigilant.

Scifi author/tech activist Cory Doctorow has decried the "enshittification" of our technologies to extract more profit. But Saturday he also described what could be "the beginning of the end for enshittification" in a new article for the Guardian — "our chance to make tech good again". There is only one reason the world isn't bursting with wildly profitable products and projects that disenshittify the US's defective products: its (former) trading partners were bullied into passing an "anti-circumvention" law that bans the kind of reverse-engineering that is the necessary prelude to modifying an existing product to make it work better for its users (at the expense of its manufacturer)...

Post-Brexit, the UK is uniquely able to seize this moment. Unlike our European cousins, we needn't wait for the copyright directive to be repealed before we can strike article 6 off our own law books and thereby salvage something good out of Brexit... Until we repeal the anti-circumvention law, we can't reverse-engineer the US's cloud software, whether it's a database, a word processor or a tractor, in order to swap out proprietary, American code for robust, open, auditable alternatives that will safeguard our digital sovereignty. The same goes for any technology tethered to servers operated by any government that might have interests adverse to ours — say, the solar inverters and batteries we buy from China.

This is the state of play at the dawn of 2026. The digital rights movement has two powerful potential coalition partners in the fight to reclaim the right of people to change how their devices work, to claw back privacy and a fair deal from tech: investors and national security hawks. Admittedly, the door is only open a crack, but it's been locked tight since the turn of the century. When it comes to a better technology future, "open a crack" is the most exciting proposition I've heard in decades.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the article.

Bose is end-of-lifing its SoundTouch smart speakers but softened the blow by open-sourcing the SoundTouch API and preserving limited local features, AirPlay, and Spotify Connect. Ars Technica reports: In October, Bose announced that its SoundTouch Wi-Fi speakers and soundbars would become dumb speakers on February 18. At the time, Bose said that the speakers would only work if a device was connected via AUX, HDMI, or Bluetooth (which has higher latency than Wi-Fi). After that date, the speakers would stop receiving security and software updates and lose cloud connectivity and their companion app, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based company said. Without the app, users would no longer be able to integrate the device with music services, such as Spotify, have multiple SoundTouch devices play the same audio simultaneously, or use or edit saved presets.

The announcement frustrated some of Bose's long-time customers, some of whom own multiple SoundTouch devices that still function properly. Many questioned companies' increasingly common practice of bricking expensive products to focus on new devices or to minimize costs, or because they've gone through acquisitions or bankruptcy. SoundTouch speakers released in 2013 and 2015 with prices ranging from $399 to $1,500.

Today, Bose had better news. In an email to customers, Bose announced that AirPlay and Spotify Connect will still work with SoundTouch speakers after EoL, expanding the wireless capabilities that people will still be able to access. Additionally, SoundTouch devices that support AirPlay 2 can play the same audio simultaneously. The SoundTouch app will also live on, albeit stripped of some functionality. "On May 6, 2026, the app will update to a version that supports the functions that can operate locally without the cloud. No action will be required on your part. Opening the app will apply the update automatically," Bose said. Bose also provided instructions (PDF) for a workaround for saving presets that uses the favorites options in music service apps.

Microsoft has canceled plans to impose a daily limit of 2,000 external recipients on Exchange Online bulk email senders. From a report: The change was announced in April 2024, when Microsoft said that it would add new External Recipient Rate (ERR) limits starting January 2025 to fight spam, with plans to begin enforcing the limit on cloud-hosted mailboxes of existing tenants between July and December 2025.

As explained last year, this new Mailbox External Recipient Rate Limit was designed to prevent Microsoft 365 customers from abusing Exchange Online resources and to restrict unfair usage. However, on Tuesday, Microsoft announced that the Exchange Online bulk emailing rate limit is being canceled indefinitely, following negative customer feedback.

Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service has drawn renewed criticism for a particularly frustrating behavior pattern that can leave users without access to their local files after the service automatically activates during Windows updates.

Author Jason Pargin recently outlined the problem: Windows updates can enable OneDrive backup without any plain-language warning or opt-out option, and the service then quietly begins uploading the contents of a user's computer to Microsoft's servers. The trouble begins when users attempt to disable OneDrive Backup. According to Pargin, turning off the feature can result in local files being deleted, leaving behind only a desktop icon labeled "Where are my files?"

Users can redownload their files from Microsoft's servers, but attempting to then delete Microsoft's copies triggers another deletion of the local files. The only workaround requires users to hunt down YouTube tutorials that walk through the steps, as the relevant options are buried in menus and none clearly describe their function in plain English. Pargin compared the experience to a ransomware attack.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Open Rights Group is warning politicians that the UK is leaning far too heavily on US tech companies to run critical systems, and wants the Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill to force a rethink.

The digital rights outfit says the bill, which is due to receive its second reading in the House of Commons today, represents a rare opportunity to force the government to confront what it sees as a strategic blind spot: the UK's reliance on companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and data analytics biz Palantir for everything from cloud hosting to sensitive public sector systems.

"Just as relying on one country for the UK's energy needs would be risky and irresponsible, so is overreliance on US companies to supply the bulk of our digital infrastructure," said James Baker, platform power programme manager at Open Rights Group. He argued that digital infrastructure has become an extension of geopolitical power, and the UK is increasingly vulnerable to decisions taken far beyond Westminster's control.

Longtime reader joshuark shares a report: As spotted by Bluesky user DodgerFanLA, going to Office.com now greets you with the following helpful explainer: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office) lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps now including Copilot.*"

Never has an asterisk been more relevant to me than following the words "your favorite apps now including Copilot."

About a decade ago, hardware company Corsair attempted to pivot from its classic logo -- a subtle trio of ship sails -- to a newer, edgier look, a pair of crossed swords that gave off regrettable '2000s tribal tattoo' energy. The rebrand didn't last long: after a fierce outcry from people who correctly thought the new logo sucked, Corsair swapped to a refreshed take on the sail logo, which it's been using ever since. Corsair was established in 1994, and made about $1.4 billion last year -- which I bring up because today Microsoft, a slightly bigger company, has slipped on its own rebranding banana peel. The company is seemingly all but ditching the Office name -- which it introduced four years before Corsair existed, and which drove more than $30 billion in revenue just last quarter -- with a catchy new name: "Microsoft 365 Copilot app."

The company had already downplayed the Office name, despite it being perhaps the most universally recognized software in existence, by renaming its cloud version of Word, Powerpoint, etc. Office 365 in 2010, then Microsoft 365 in 2017. Now when you want to open up a Word document, you can get to them by launching the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Intuitive!

Should Microsoft just go ahead and rebrand Windows, the only piece of its arsenal more famous than Office, as Copilot, too? I do actually think we're not far off from that happening. Facebook rebranded itself "Meta" when it thought the metaverse would be the next big thing, so it seems just as plausible that Microsoft could name the next version of Windows something like "Windows with Copilot" or just "Windows AI."

Copilot is the app for launching the other apps, but it's also a chatbot inside the apps. Any questions? Correction: Office hasn't been renamed to "Microsoft 365 Copilot app." The Verge adds: The confusion comes from Microsoft's own Office.com domain, which for the past year has acted as a way to push businesses and consumers to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. This app is a hub app that provides access to Copilot, as well as all the Office apps. Microsoft used to call this app simply Office, before the company rebranded Office to Microsoft 365 in 2022.

If you visit Office.com you'll see a big welcome to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and a note from Microsoft that would confuse anyone not following the company's confusing branding: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)..." That mention of "formerly Office" is Microsoft referring to the very old Office app that launched in 2019 as a way to try and convince people to use online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Until a year ago it used to be called the Microsoft 365 app. Microsoft then announced it was rebranding its Microsoft 365 app in November 2024 to a Copilot one, which I and everyone else were very confused at. The new app icon and name -- Microsoft 365 Copilot -- then rolled out on January 15th last year to Windows, iOS, and Android users.