If you’ve been drooling over the MacBook Air for years searching for an affordable PC equivalent, this might be the year to make the leap. Intel’s long-promised Ultrabooks are finally becoming reality. With the wraps already off models from Acer and Toshiba, Asus finally spilled full details on its own take on the Ultrabook concept on Tuesday: the Zenbook.
If the pictures look familiar, they should. These are the same Ultrabooks Asus showed off when Intel revealed the Ultrabook platform and at subsequent trade shows, like Computex Taipei.
The Zenbooks will initially come in two models: the 11.6-inch UX21 and the 13.3-inch UX31. Both will use 128GB or 256GB SSDs for instant-on capability, ultra-low-voltage Core i5 or Core i7 processors, and 4GB of RAM. They measure just 2.8mm thick at their thinnest dimension, thanks to a wedge shape borrowed from the MacBook Air.
Asus claims battery life of up to seven hours when using Internet Explorer, and standby time of two weeks. When the battery does manage to whittle itself down to 5 percent, the Zenbook will automatically backup whatever’s open on the SSD before slipping into a deep sleep.
True to Intel’s promise of price points under $1,000, the base model UX21 will run for $999 with a 128GB hard drive and a Core i5 processor clocked at 1.6GHz – stepping up to the UX31 will cost you another $100. Both models will go on sale October 12 in the United States.
Speech-to-text apps have flooded the App Store, making it easier than ever to type on our Macs with just our voice. I have previously covered one such app called TypeWhisper. However, there has been a dearth of good text-to-speech models, and most of the good ones are locked behind a subscription.
Ollama, an open-source app that lets you run local AI models on your computer, wants to change that. It works on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and your prompts are never stored or used for training.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).