• Meta is ending its fact-checking program in favor of a 'community notes' system similar to X
• (30+) kottke.org: "oh shit new logo just dropped"
• Masnick: The Good, The Bad, And The Stupid In Meta's New Content Moderation Policies
• Social-Media Companies Decide Content Moderation Is Trending Down
• I watched the Nvidia keynote; can summarize -jj
• The Bitter Lesson
• Hank Green's Cripslock Test for AGI
• Public Domain Day 2025
• CES 2025
• New AI powered Samsung refrigerators will allow direct grocery ordering with Instacart
• Gemini is taking over Google TV - in a good way
• Google's AI Help Me Read feature
• Deepseek seems to be a big deal: Chinese model, cheaper to train
• Altman's latest gospel
• Choose your Silicon Valley Thinkbro
• Nicvember Post Mortum
• The Habermas Machine: AI mediating disagreements
• VPN Demand Surge in Florida after Adult Sites Age Restriction Kicks In

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau

Download or subscribe to This Week in Google at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google.

Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Sponsor:

• zscaler.com/security

We heard you missed us. We're back.

Windows

• Microsoft declares 2025 the "year of the Windows 11 PC refresh."
• As likely as "year of the Linux desktop"
• The theory: Windows 10 EOL, AI PCs, lingering security fears from CrowdStrike
• The issue: Windows 10 has 63 usage share right now. At this point in time, Windows 7 had only 25 percent usage share (and was in second place, not first)
• Intel joins in on this fever dream but we've stopped listening
• More interesting: AMD is kicking ass and taking names. And we thought the existing chips were good (they are). Related to this, PC makers are embracing AMD like never before. Check out HP's workstations (including laptops)
• Microsoft is blocking the 24H2 update on PCs with Auto HDR enabled
• New Canary and Beta builds ring in the New Year
• Not that it matters, but Windows 11 almost had Vista Ultimate Extras-like dynamic wallpapers
• Dell kills XPS and all its other PC brands because Dell is stupid and doesn't know what it had

Arm & PCs

• Qualcomm defeated Arm Holdings in licensing dispute court case. And, yes, it won big time, contrary to Arm's nonsense
• Qualcomm announces an even lower-end Snapdragon X chip for $600 PCs, so ASUS announces an $1100 laptop that uses it
• Snapdragon Dev Kit update
• Part 2 of Paul's history of Windows on Arm is up
• New Arm PCs announced, including desktops. Ahead of CES, Geekom jumped the gun and said it was coming out with a Snapdragon X-based NUC. Lenovo has a NUC/SFF
• NVIDIA and MediaTek confirm partnership on Arm chips for PCs

Microsoft 365

• First, GitHub Copilot, but now Microsoft 365 Copilot will allegedly stop using OpenAI exclusively
• Microsoft reveals (confirms) it will spend $80 billion on AI infrastructure in FY 2025 as it suckles up to Trump like the rest of the tech industry
• Microsoft and OpenAI allegedly tied AGI milestone to profits, not intelligence

Xbox & Gaming

• Microsoft discusses a console-like experience for Windows handheld gaming. Tied to that, a new generation of handheld gaming PCs is on the way
• Xbox Game Pass says Happy New Year with a full slate of Activision Blizzard titles. Just kidding
• NVIDIA announces new graphics cards for PCs
• No one wants this, but Xbox is coming to LG smart TVs
• Xbox Rewards shuffles the deck chairs, hopes no one notices it's worse now

Tips & Picks

• Tip of the week: Spend a little, upgrade to Windows 11
• App pick of the week: Microsoft PowerToys
• RunAs Radio this week: Least Privilege in 2025 with Bailey Bercik
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Kilbeggan Irish Whiskey

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

Sponsors:

• uscloud.com
• zscaler.com/security

• The consequences of Internet content restriction.
• The measured risks of 3rd-party browser extensions.
• The consequences of SonicWall's unpatched 9.8 firewall severity.
• The incredible number of still-unencrypted email servers.
• SonicWall vulnerability patching
• Shadowserver Foundation & eMail Encryption
• Salt Typhoon Evicted
• HIPAA gets a long-needed cybersecurity upgrade.
• The EU standardizes on USB-C for power charging. What?
• Believe it or not, a CATCHA you solve by playing DOOM.
• And... what I learned from three weeks of study of AI

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1007-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

Sponsors:

• bitwarden.com/twit
• expressvpn.com/securitynow
• veeam.com
• threatlocker.com for Security Now