The tech industry’s favorite balancing act is getting harder by the month. Component prices are rising, memory costs refuse to settle down, and laptop makers are scrambling to keep sticker shock under control. Microsoft’s latest Surface refresh feels like a direct response to that problem.
The company has introduced new entry-level versions of its 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface laptop, offering lower starting prices without changing the processor or storage. On the surface, that sounds like good news for budget-conscious buyers. Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll find a compromise hiding in plain sight.
Instead of lowering the cost of existing models, Microsoft has created new configurations with 8GB of memory. That decision allows the company to advertise lower starting prices while keeping the rest of the hardware largely unchanged. It’s a clever solution, but not necessarily one customers were hoping for.
For casual users who spend most of their day browsing the web, answering emails, attending classes, or working in Office apps, 8GB may still be perfectly adequate. But memory is one of those specifications that tend to matter more over time than on day one. As apps become heavier and multitasking grows more demanding, that extra headroom starts to feel valuable.
The RAM reduction creates another wrinkle: these systems no longer qualify as Copilot+ PCs. Microsoft currently requires at least 16GB of memory for its Copilot+ certification, which means buyers of the new models miss out on the collection of on-device AI features available on higher-end Surface devices.
That’s arguably the more significant thing here. Over the past year, Microsoft has positioned Copilot+ as the future of Windows PCs. Now, some brand-new Surface devices are arriving without access to that future. To be fair, Microsoft’s flagship Surface models still start with 16GB of RAM. These new variants appear designed to create a more accessible entry point rather than redefine the lineup. Still, the move feels like a sign of the times. When hardware costs rise, something has to give. This time, it was memory.
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).