Transcript[TEASER][MUSIC PLAYS UNDER DIALOGUE]AKSHAY NAMBI: For me, research is just not about pushing the boundaries of the knowledge. Its about ensuring that these advancements translate to meaningful impact on the ground. So, yes, the big goals that guide most of my work is twofold. One, how do we build technology thats scaled to benefit large populations? And two, at the same time, Im motivated by the challenge of tackling complex problems. That provides opportunity to explore, learn, and also create something new, and thats what keeps me excited.[TEASER ENDS]CHRIS STETKIEWICZ: Youre listening to Ideas, a Microsoft Research Podcast that dives deep into the world of technology research and the profound questions behind the code. In this series, well explore the technologies that are shaping our future and the big ideas that propel them forward.[MUSIC FADES]Im your guest host, Chris Stetkiewicz. Today, Im talking to Akshay Nambi. Akshay is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research. His work lies at the intersection of systems, AI, and machine learning with a focus on designing, deploying, and scaling AI systems to solve compelling real-world problems. Akshays research extends across education, agriculture, transportation, and energy. He is currently working on enhancing the quality and reliability of AI systems by addressing critical challenges such as reasoning, grounding, and managing complex queries.Akshay, welcome to the podcast.AKSHAY NAMBI: Thanks for having me.STETKIEWICZ: Id like to begin by asking you to tell us your origin story. How did you get started on your path? Was there a big idea or experience that captured your imagination or motivated you to do what youre doing today?NAMBI: If I look back, my journey into research wasnt a straight line. It was more about discovering my passion through some unexpected opportunities and also finding purpose along the way. So before I started with my undergrad studies, I was very interested in electronics and systems. My passion for electronics, kind of, started when I was in school. I was more like an average student, not a nerd or not too curious, but I was always tinkering around, doing things, building stuff, and playing with gadgets and that, kind of, made me very keen on electronics and putting things together, and that was my passion. But sometimes things dont go as planned. So I didnt get into the college which I had hoped to join for electronics, so I ended up pursuing computer science, which wasnt too bad either. So during my final year of bachelors, I had to do a final semester project, which turned out to be a very pivotal moment. And thats when I got to know this institute called Indian Institute of Science (IISc), which is a top research institute in India and also globally. And I had a chance to work on a project there. And it was my first real exposure to open-ended research, right, so I remember where we were trying to build a solution that helped to efficiently construct an ontology for a specific domain, which simply means that we were building systems to help users uncover relationships in the data and allow them to query it more efficiently, right. And it was super exciting for me to design and build something new. And that experience made me realize that I wanted to pursue research further. And right after that project, I decided to explore research opportunities, which led me to join Indian Institute of Science again as a research assistant.STETKIEWICZ: So what made you want to take the skills you were developing and apply them to a research career?NAMBI: So interestingly when I joined IISc, the professor I worked with specialized in electronics, so things come back, so something I had always been passionate about. And I was the only computer science graduate in the lab at that time with others being electronic engineers, and I didnt even know how to solder. But the lab environment was super encouraging, collaborative, so I, kind of, caught up very quickly. In that lab, basically, I worked on several projects in the emerging fields of embedded device and energy harvesting systems. Specifically, we were designing systems that could harvest energy from sources like sun, hydro, and even RF (radio frequency) signals. And my role was kind of twofold. One, I designed circuits and systems to make energy harvesting more efficient so that you can store this energy. And then I also wrote programs, software, to ensure that the harvested energy can be used efficiently. For instance, as we harvest some of this energy, you want to have your programs run very quickly so that you are able to sense the data, send it to the server in an efficient way. And one of the most exciting projects I worked during that time was on data-driven agriculture. So this was back in 2008, 2009, right, where we developed an embedded system device with sensors to monitor the agricultural fields, collecting data like soil moisture, soil temperature. And that was sent to the agronomists who were able to analyze this data and provide feedback to farmers. In many remote areas, still access to power is a huge challenge. So we used many of the technologies we were developing in the lab, specifically energy harvesting techniques, to power these sensors and devices in the rural farms, and thats when I really got to see firsthand how technology could help peoples lives, particularly in rural settings. And thats what, kind of, stood out in my experience at IISc, right, was that it was [the] end-to-end nature of the work. And it was not just writing code or designing circuits. It was about identifying the real-world problems, solving them efficiently, and deploying solutions in the field. And this cemented my passion for creating technology that solves real-world problems, and thats what keeps me driving even today.STETKIEWICZ: And as youre thinking about those problems that you want to try and solve, where did you look for, for inspiration? It sounds like some of these are happening right there in your home.NAMBI: Thats right. Growing up and living in India, Ive been surrounded by these, kind of, many challenges. And these are not distant problems. These are right in front of us. And some of them are quite literally outside the door. So being here in India provides a unique opportunity to tackle some of the pressing real-world challenges in agriculture, education, or in road safety, where even small advancements can create significant impact.STETKIEWICZ: So how would you describe your research philosophy? Do you have some big goals that guide you?NAMBI: Right, as I mentioned, right, my research philosophy is mainly rooted in solving real-world problems through end-to-end innovation. For me, research is just not about pushing the boundaries of the knowledge. Its about ensuring that these advancements translate to meaningful impact on the ground, right. So, yes, the big goals that guide most of my work is twofold. One, how do we build technology thats scaled to benefit large populations? And two, at the same time, Im motivated by the challenge of tackling complex problems. That provides opportunity to explore, learn, and also create something new. And thats what keeps me excited.STETKIEWICZ: So lets talk a little bit about your journey at Microsoft Research. I know you began as an intern, and some of the initial work you did was focused on computer vision, road safety, energy efficiency. Tell us about some of those projects.NAMBI: As I was nearing the completion of my PhD, I was eager to look for opportunities in industrial labs, and Microsoft Research obviously stood out as an exciting opportunity. And additionally, the fact that Microsoft Research India was in my hometown, Bangalore, made it even more appealing. So when I joined as an intern, I worked together with Venkat Padmanabhan, who now leads the lab, and we started this project called HAMS, which stands for Harnessing Automobiles for Safety. As you know, road safety is a major public health issue globally, responsible for almost 1.35 million fatalities annually and with the situation being even more severe in countries like India. For instance, there are estimates that theres a life lost on the road every four minutes in India. When analyzing the factors which affect road safety, we saw mainly three elements. One, the vehicle. Second, the infrastructure. And then the driver. Among these, the driver plays the most critical role in many incidents, whether its over-speeding, driving without seat belts, drowsiness, fatigue, any of these, right. And this realization motivated us to focus on driver monitoring, which led to the development of HAMS. In a nutshell, HAMS is basically a smartphone-based system where youre mounting your smartphone on a windshield of a vehicle to monitor both the driver and the driving in real time with the goal of improving road safety. Basically, it observes key aspects such as where the driver is looking, whether they are distracted or fatigued[1], while also considering the external driving environment, because we truly believe to improve road safety, we need to understand not just the drivers action but also the context in which they are driving. For example, if the smartphones accelerometer detects sharp braking, the system would automatically check the distance to the vehicle in the front using the rear camera and whether the driver was distracted or fatigued using the front camera. And this holistic approach ensures a more accurate and comprehensive assessment of the driving behavior, enabling a more meaningful feedback.STETKIEWICZ: So that sounds like a system thats got several moving parts to it. And I imagine you had some technical challenges you had to deal with there. Can you talk about that?NAMBI: One of our guiding principles in HAMS was to use commodity, off-the-shelf smartphone devices, right. This should be affordable, in the range of $100 to $200, so that you can just take out regular smartphones and enable this driver and driving monitoring. And that led to handling several technical challenges. For instance, we had to develop efficient computer vision algorithms that could run locally on the device with cheap smartphone processing units while still performing very well at low-light conditions. We wrote multiple papers and developed many of the novel algorithms which we implemented on very low-cost smartphones. And once we had such a monitoring system, right, you can imagine theres several deployment opportunities, starting from fleet monitoring to even training new drivers, right. However, one application we hadnt originally envisioned but turned out to be its most impactful use case even today is automated drivers license testing. As you know, before you get a license, a driver is supposed to pass a test, but what happens in many places, including India, is that licenses are issued with very minimal or no actual testing, leading to unsafe and untrained drivers on the road. At the same time as we were working on HAMS, Indian government were looking at introducing technology to make testing more transparent and also automated. So we worked with the right set of partners, and we demonstrated to the government that HAMS could actually completely automate the entire license testing process. So we first deployed this system in Dehradun RTO (Regional Transport Office)which is the equivalent of a DMV in the USin 2019, working very closely with RTO officials to define what should be some of the evaluation criteria, right. Some of these would be very simple like, oh, is it the same candidate who is taking the test who actually registered for the test, right? And whether they are wearing seat belts. Did they scan their mirrors before taking a left turn and how well they performed in tasks like reverse parking and things like that.STETKIEWICZ: So whats been the government response to that? Have they embraced it or deployed it in a wider extent?NAMBI: Yes, yes. So after the deployment in Dehradun in 2019, we actually open sourced the entire HAMS technology and our partners are now working with several state governments and scaled HAMS to several states in India. And as of today, we have around 28 RTOs where HAMS is actually being deployed, and the pass rate of such license test is just 60% as compared to 90-plus percent with manual testing. Thats the extensive rigor the system brings in. And now what excites me is after nearly five years later, we are now taking the next step in this project where we are now evaluating the long-term impact of this intervention on driving behavior and road safety. So we are collaborating with Professor Michael Kremer, who is a Nobel laureate and professor at University of Chicago, and his team to study how this technology has influenced driving patterns and accident rates over time. So this focus on closing the loop and moving beyond just deployment in the field to actually measuring the real impact, right, is something that truly excites me and that makes research at Microsoft is very unique. And that is actually one of the reasons why I joined Microsoft Research as a full-time after my internship, and this unique flexibility to work on real-world problems, develop novel research ideas, and actually collaborate with partners both internally and externally to deploy at scale is something that is very unique here.STETKIEWICZ: So have you actually received any evidence that the project is working? Is driving getting safer?NAMBI: Yes, these are very early analysis, and there are very positive insights we are getting from that. Soon we will be releasing a white paper on our study on this long-term impact.STETKIEWICZ: Thats great. I look forward to that one. So youve also done some interesting work involving the Internet of Things, with an emphasis on making it more reliable and practical. So for those in our audience who may not know, the Internet of Things, or IoT, is a network that includes billions of devices and sensors in things like smart thermostats and fitness trackers. So talk a little bit about your work in this area.NAMBI: Right, so IoT, as you know, is already transforming several industries with billions of sensors being deployed in areas like industrial monitoring, manufacturing, agriculture, smart buildings, and also air pollution monitoring. And if you think about it, these sensors provide critical data that businesses rely for decision making. However, a fundamental challenge is ensuring that the data collected from these sensors is actually reliable. If the data is faulty, it can lead to poor decisions and inefficiencies. And the challenge is that these sensor failures are always not obvious. What I mean by that is when a sensor stops working, it always doesnt stop sending data, but it often continues to send some data which appear to be normal. And thats one of the biggest problems, right. So detecting these errors is non-trivial because the faulty sensors can mimic real-world working data, and traditional solutions like deploying redundant sensors or even manually inspecting them are very expensive, labor intensive, and also sometimes infeasible, especially for remote deployments. Our goal in this work was to develop a simple and efficient way to remotely monitor the health of the IoT sensors. So what we did was we hypothesized that most sensor failures occurred due to the electronic malfunctions. It could be either due to short circuits or component degradation or due to environmental factors such as heat, humidity, or pollution. Since these failures originate within the sensor hardware itself, we saw an opportunity to leverage some of the basic electronic principles to create a novel solution. The core idea was to develop a way to automatically generate a fingerprint for each sensor. And by fingerprint, I mean the unique electrical characteristic exhibited by a properly working sensor. We built a system that could devise these fingerprints for different types of sensors, allowing us to detect failures purely based on the sensors internal characteristics, that is the fingerprint, and even without looking at the data it produces. Essentially what it means now is that we were able to tag each sensor data with a reliability score, ensuring verifiability.STETKIEWICZ: So how does that technology get deployed in the real world? Is there an application where its being put to work today?NAMBI: Yes, this technology, we worked together with Azure IoT and open-sourced it where there were several opportunities and several companies took the solution into their systems, including air pollution monitoring, smart buildings, industrial monitoring. The one which I would like to talk about today is about air pollution monitoring. As you know, air pollution is a major challenge in many parts of the world, especially in India. And traditionally, air quality monitoring relies on these expensive fixed sensors, which provide limited coverage. On the other hand, there is a rich body of work on low-cost sensors, which can offer wider deployment. Like, you can put these sensors on a bus or a vehicle and have it move around the entire city, where you can get much more fine-grained, accurate picture on the ground. But these are often unreliable because these are low-cost sensors and have reliability issues. So we collaborated with several startups who were developing these low-cost air pollution sensors who were finding it very challenging to gain trust because one of the main concerns was theaccuracy of the data from low-cost sensors. So our solution seamlessly integrated with these sensors, which enabled verification of the data quality coming out from these low-cost air pollution sensors. So this bridged the trust gap, allowing government agenciesto initiate large-scale pilots using low-cost sensors for fine-grain air-quality monitoring.STETKIEWICZ: So as were talking about evolving technology, large language models, or LLMs, are also enabling big changes, and theyre not theoretical. Theyre happening today. And youve been working on LLMs and their applicability to real-world problems. Can you talk about your work there and some of the latest releases?NAMBI: So when ChatGPT was first released, I, like many people, was very skeptical. However, I was also curious both of how it worked and, more importantly, whether it could accelerate solutions to real-world problems. That led to the exploration of LLMs in education, where we fundamentally asked this question, can AI help improve educational outcomes? And this was one of the key questions which led to the development of Shiksha copilot, which is a genAI-powered assistant designed to support teachers in their daily work, starting from helping them to create personalized learning experience, design assignments, generate hands-on activities, and even more. Teachers today universally face several challenges, from time management to lesson planning. And our goal with Shiksha was to empower them to significantly reduce the time spent on this task. For instance, lesson planning, which traditionally took about 60 minutes, can now be completed in just five minutes using the Shiksha copilot. And what makes Shiksha unique is that its completely grounded in the local curriculum and the learning objectives, ensuring that the AI-generated content aligns very well with the pedagogical best practices. The system actually supports multilingual interactions, multimodal capabilities, and also integration with external knowledge base, making it very highly adaptable for different curriculums. Initially, many teachers were skeptical. Some feared this would limit their creativity. However, as they began starting to use Shiksha, they realized that it didnt replace their expertise, but rather amplified it, enabling them to do work faster and more efficiently.STETKIEWICZ: So, Akshay, the last time you and I talked about Shiksha copilot, it was very much in the pilot phase and the teachers were just getting their hands on it. So it sounds like, though, youve gotten some pretty good feedback from them since then.NAMBI: Yes, so when we were discussing, we were doing this six-month pilot with 50-plus teachers where we gathered overwhelming positive feedback on how technologies are helping teachers to reduce time in their lesson planning. And in fact, they were using the system so much that they really enjoyed working with Shiksha copilot where they were able to do more things with much less time, right. And with a lot of feedback from teachers, we have improved Shiksha copilot over the past few months. And starting this academic year, we have already deployed Shiksha to 1,000-plus teachers in Karnataka. This is with close collaboration with our partners in with the Sikshana Foundation and also with the government of Karnataka. And the response has been already incredibly encouraging. And looking ahead, we are actually focusing on again, closing this loop, right, and measuring the impact on the ground, where we are doing a lot of studies with the teachers to understand not just improving efficiency of the teachers but also measuring how AI-generated content enriched by teachers is actually enhancing student learning objectives. So thats the study we are conducting, which hopefully will close this loop and understand our original question that, can AI actually help improve educational outcomes?STETKIEWICZ: And is the deployment primarily in rural areas, or does it include urban centers, or whats the target?NAMBI: So the current deployment with 1,000 teachers is a combination of both rural and urban public schools. These are covering both English medium and Kannada medium teaching schools with grades from Class 5 to Class 10.STETKIEWICZ: Great. So Shiksha was focused on helping teachers and making their jobs easier, but I understand youre also working on some opportunities to use AI to help students succeed. Can you talk about that?NAMBI: So as you know, LLMs are still evolving and inherently they are fragile, and deploying them in real-world settings, especially in education, presents a lot of challenges. With Shiksha, if you think about it, teachers remain in control throughout the interaction, making the final decision on whether to use the AI-generated content in the classroom or not. However, when it comes to AI tutors for students, the stakes are slightly higher, where we need to ensure the AI doesnt produce incorrect answers, misrepresent concepts, or even mislead explanations. Currently, we are developing solutions to enhance accuracy and also the reasoning capabilities of these foundational models, particularly solving math problems. This represents a major step towards building AI systems thats much more holistic personal tutors, which help student understanding and create more engaging, effective learning experience.STETKIEWICZ: So youve talked about working in computer vision and IoT and LLMs. What do those areas have in common? Is there some thread that weaves through the work that youre doing?NAMBI: Thats a great question. As a systems researcher, Im quite interested in this end-to-end systems development, which means that my focus is not just about improving a particular algorithm but also thinking about the end-to-end system, which means that I, kind of, think about computer vision, IoT, and even LLMs as tools, where we would want to improve them for a particular application. It could be agriculture, education, or road safety. And then how do you think this holistically to come up with the best efficient system that can be deployed at population scale, right. I think thats the connecting story here, that how do you have this systemic thinking which kind of takes the existing tools, improves them, makes it more efficient, and takes it out from the lab to real world.STETKIEWICZ: So youre working on some very powerful technology that is creating tangible benefits for society, which is your goal. At the same time, were still in the very early stages of the development of AI and machine learning. Have you ever thought about unintended consequences? Are there some things that could go wrong, even if we get the technology right? And does that kind of thinking ever influence the development process?NAMBI: Absolutely. Unintended consequences are something I think about deeply. Even the most well-designed technology can have these ripple effects that we may not fully anticipate, especially when we are deploying it at population scale. For me, being proactive is one of the key important aspects. This means not only designing the technology at the lab but actually also carefully deploying them in real world, measuring its impact, and working with the stakeholders to minimize the harm. In most of my work, I try to work very closely with the partner team on the ground to monitor, analyze, how the technology is being used and what are some of the risks and how can we eliminate that. At the same time, I also remain very optimistic. Its also about responsibility. If we are able to embed societal values, ethics, into the design of the system and involve diverse perspectives, especially from people on the ground, we can remain vigilant as the technology evolves and we can create systems that can truly deliver immense societal benefits while addressing many of the potential risks.STETKIEWICZ: So weve heard a lot of great examples today about building technology to solve real-world problems and your motivation to keep doing that. So as you look ahead, where do you see your research going next? How will people be better off because of the technology you develop and the advances that they support?NAMBI: Yeah, Im deeply interested in advancing AI systems that can truly assist anyone in their daily tasks, whether its providing personalized guidance to a farmer in a rural village, helping a student get instant 24 by 7 support for their learning doubts, or even empowering professionals to work more efficiently. And to achieve this, my research is focusing on tackling some of the fundamental challenges in AI with respect to reasoning and reliability and also making sure that AI is more context aware and responsive to evolving user needs. And looking ahead, I envision AI as not just an assistant but also as an intelligent and equitable copilot seamlessly integrated into our everyday life, empowering individuals across various domains.STETKIEWICZ: Great. Well, Akshay, thank you for joining us on Ideas. Its been a pleasure.[MUSIC]NAMBI: Yeah, I really enjoyed talking to you, Chris. Thank you.STETKIEWICZ: Till next time.[MUSIC FADES]

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto VI is the biggest game coming out this year. It's expected to drive more than $1 billion in preorder revenue alone and sell 40 million copies in its first year. Unsurprisingly, then, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has said he thinks the game could help lift console sales. That would be a welcome development, too, as console hardware had a brutal 2024."When you have a big title in the market and we have many of them coming, historically that has sold consoles," Zelnick told IGN. He's referring to Take-Two's upcoming game slate, which includes not just GTA 6 in Fall 2025, but also games like WWE 2K25 (March 14, 2025), Mafia: The Old Country (Summer 2025), and Borderlands 4 (sometime in 2025).Zelnick said he's predicting an uptick in console sales in 2025, though he's wary of the impact President Trump's proposed tariffs could have on the hardware market. Overall, though, Zelnick said Take-Two's games, and strong releases from other publishers, should help lift console sales in general in 2025.Continue Reading at GameSpot

A bunch of Square Enix role-playing games are discounted at Amazon and Target, making this a great time to check out some of the studio's best RPGs for PlayStation and Nintendo Switch released over the past few years. Since Square Enix's Japanese-developed RPGs often skip the Xbox platform, you'll only find a few deals for Xbox Series X. See all deals at Amazon Square Enix Game Sale at AmazonNintendo SwitchDragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince -- $30 ($40)Fantasian Neo Dimension -- $40 ($50)Final Fantasy I-VI Collection Anniversary Edition -- $55 ($75)Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven -- $40 ($50)Star Ocean: The Second Story R -- $30 ($40)Theatrhythm Final Bar Line -- $32 ($40)PlayStationFantasian Neo Dimension -- $40 ($50)Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth -- $50 ($70)Final Fantasy 16 -- $30 ($40)Final Fantasy I-VI Collection Anniversary Edition -- $55 ($75)Life is Strange: Double Exposure -- $35 ($50)Octopath Traveler 2 -- $33.32 ($40)Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven -- $40 ($50)Star Ocean: The Second Story R -- $30 ($40)Theatrhythm Final Bar Line -- $30 ($50)Visions of Mana -- $40 ($60)XboxDragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake -- $46 ($60)Life is Strange: Double Exposure -- $35 ($50)Visions of Mana -- $40 ($60)One of the most enticing deals is for Final Fantasy I-VI Collection Anniversary Edition, as the $55 deal matches its all-time low price. The collection includes the lovely Pixel Remasters of the first six games in the series. Each entry has enhanced graphics, modernized UI, auto-battle options, and other conveniences that make it the ideal way to enjoy these classics in 2025.PlayStation owners can also check out Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for $50 (was $70) and Final Fantasy 16 for $30 (was $40). The exclusives both earned impressive reviews when they launched, thanks to impressive combat systems and engaging narratives that hold your attention despite a long runtime. Consider picking up Final Fantasy 16 if youre looking for a standalone action-oriented RPG, as Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is best enjoyed after playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Disney Dreamlight Valley is perfect for players who love cooking. With the Storybook Vale DLC, there are now around 450 meals to make in the game. You can cook them to increase your energy, sell them to make some money, or give them to neighbors to build friendships.

Catalysts are a relatively abundant resource in the Endgame of Path of Exile 2, but new players may find it difficult to understand what the items actually do and how to use them properly.

Luvdisc, the rendezvous Pokmon from Hoenn, can be found in the wild in Pokmon Go. Yes, Luvdisc can be shiny in Pokmon Go!Luvdisc isnt meta in any form, sadly. Its just a little guy with a pretty good shiny!What is the shiny rate for Luvdisc in Pokmon Go?As per old research by the now-defunct website The Silph Road (via Wayback Machine), the shiny rate for Pokmon on a regular day is approximately one in 500. Luvdisc is not a confirmed Pokmon that gets a permaboost (meaning that its a rare spawn and thus gets a boosted shiny rate).What can I do to attract more shiny Pokmon?Not much, unfortunately. It appears to be random chance. Shiny Pokmon catch rates are set by developer Niantic, and they are typically only boosted during special events like Community Days or Safari Zones, or in Legendary Raids. There are no consumable items that boost shiny Pokmon rates.Where can I find a list of available shiny Pokmon?LeekDuck keeps a list of currently available shiny Pokmon. Its a helpful visual guide that illustrates what all of the existing shiny Pokmon look like.For more tips, check out Polygons Pokmon Go guides.

The Pixel 9 Pro is the latest and most premium model in the Pixel lineup, and right now, the unlocked 128GB Google Pixel 9 Pro is discounted to $799 (originally $999). That's matching the lowest price it has ever been on Amazon, according to price-tracking tools. The 256GB version is also at its lowest price of $899 (originally $1,099), doubling your storage for $100. so too are the 512GB version, currently $1,019 (originally $1,219), and the 1TB version currently $1,249 (originally $1,449). Google Pixel 9 Pro, 128 GB $799.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal Get Deal $799.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $200.00 Google Pixel 9 Pro, 256 GB $899.00 at Amazon $1,099.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal Get Deal $899.00 at Amazon $1,099.00 Save $200.00 Google Pixel 9 Pro, 512 GB $1,019.00 at Amazon $1,219.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal Get Deal $1,019.00 at Amazon $1,219.00 Save $200.00 Google Pixel 9 Pro, 1TB $1,249.00 at Amazon $1,449.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal Get Deal $1,249.00 at Amazon $1,449.00 Save $200.00 SEE 1 MORE The Pixel 9 Pro is the middle-of-the-pack option, sandwiched between the cheaper Pixel 9 and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. (the Pixel 9 Pro XL is essentially the same phone, just bigger). The Pixel 9 Pro comes with 16GB of RAM, starts with 128GB of memory storage, a maximum 120 HZ refresh rate, and the Android 14 operating system. As Lifehacker's associate tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt explained in her review of the Pixel 9 Pro, the phone's hardware is the best Google has made so far, but its AI features still have hiccups. However, AI features will keep improving over time; the most important thing to get right is the hardware.The battery life can last around 18 hours and 40 minutes, according to Michelle's review (she watched YouTube videos the entire time). The main camera has a 50MP shooter, a 48MP ultra-wide camera with a 123-degree field of view, and a 48MP telephoto camera with a 30x Super Res Zoom.If you have the Pixel 8 Pro, you might not notice a huge upgrade in this version. However, if you're upgrading from an older version or doing a switch from a non-Pixel phone, the 9 Pro has a lot to love. One of my favorite things about Pixel phones is the ongoing support for many years. My Pixel 6A still gets all of the updates and tons of AI features that make the phone feel fresh many years later, with the latest ones dropping last month. With the Pixel 9 Pro, you'll be getting a quality phone with software updates for a while (as long as seven years).

We're in the final days of Microsoft's free software updates for Windows 10, and a lot of people with perfectly good computers still cannot upgrade to Windows 11. When Microsoft released the latest version of Windows, it put some stringent minimum system requirements in place, the toughest of which was TPM 2.0. This small "Trusted Platform Module" chip (whether virtual or physical) aids with encryption and other security related tasks, but plenty of people have PCs with older TPMs or good gaming machines that lack TPM entirely. Officially, Windows 11 is out of their reach. However, if that sounds like you, there's an easy way to bypass TPM checks and install Windows 11 on your PC.The risks of installing Windows 11 on an unsupported PCLet me state the obvious right up front: it's not a good idea to upgrade extremely low-end PCs to Windows 11. Microsoft requires a minimum of 4GB RAM and 64GB of free space to install Windows 11, and if your PC doesn't meet those standards, you should avoid this upgrade. This guide is primarily for those who have perfectly capable PCs, but can't upgrade to Windows 11 due to TPM restrictions.Microsoft's main reason behind pushing for TPM 2.0 is to increase security. PCs with a TPM are more resilient against malware and ransomware attacks, and are able to store sensitive data locally in a safer way. While you can bypass this, it's worth noting that Microsoft warns that installing Windows 11 on an unsupported PC may introduce compatibility issues and weaken performance. You also may not receive support from Microsoft, and any damage to your PC won't be covered under warranty.If your PC is under warranty, it's recommended that you don't mess with it. However, if the warranty has expired, you might want to consider upgrading it to Windows 11 anyway. That's because Microsoft has announced that it'll be discontinuing free security updates for these computers starting on Oct. 14, 2025.What happens after the last Windows 10 security updateOnce the last security update is issued, it's strongly recommended that you don't use your PC on the internet. You'll be vulnerable to new types of malware, viruses, and other threats from the internet, and there'll be no real security patches to protect you.You do have the option to pay for updates as part of Microsoft's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, but that is an expensive proposition. It is priced at $61 per device for the first year, and the price doubles with each subsequent year. If you're a part of an educational institution, the pricing is $1 per device per year, which goes up to $4 per year by the third year.However, if you have a working Windows 10 license, the upgrade to Windows 11 is free and comes with free security updates for many years to come.How to upgrade your unsupported PC to Windows 11Before you proceed with your upgrade, back up your PC. You don't want to lose all your data during the upgrade, and backing it up ensures that your photos, videos, and documents are all safely stored elsewhere. When that's done, you can start the upgrade process. First, download a Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft's website. On that page, scroll down to Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices, select the edition you want (usually the most recent one) from the drop-down menu, and click Download Now. Follow the directions and click 64-bit Download once it appears. The ISO file is over 6GB and it'll take a short while to download.While that's underway, download the latest version of Rufus, which is a free tool that lets you create bootable USB drives. I'll mention other methods for upgrading later on, but this is my favorite, and arguably the simplest, way to do it. Don't use older versions of Rufus, as Microsoft periodically blocks ways to bypass TPM checks, and the latest version usually has a workaround. You're also going to need a USB drive with at least 8GB of free space. Take a moment to back up any important data on this drive, because it'll be erased as we proceed. Credit: Pranay Parab/Rufus Once your Windows 11 ISO is downloaded, plug in the USB drive and install and launch Rufus. With this app open, go to the Device drop-down menu and select the correct USB drive. Click the big SELECT button next to Disk or ISO image and pick the Windows 11 ISO that you just downloaded. Now, click the START button.You'll see a pop-up asking if you want to customize your Windows installation. Ideally, enable the following options:Remove requirement for 4GB+ RAM, Secure Boot and TPM 2.0Remove requirement for an online Microsoft accountCreate a local account with usernameDisable data collection (Skip privacy questions)The first option is crucial if you want to install Windows 11 on unsupported PCs. The rest are good to have, but not necessarythey let you skip the online account sign-in process that Microsoft keeps trying to push, and they also skip a few annoying setup questions about data collection. With all this selected, click OK and wait for Rufus to do its thing. Credit: Pranay Parab/Rufus Once that's done, double-check that your data is backed up. It's now time to start your upgrade. There are a couple of ways to proceed here. The most straightforward is to open the newly created bootable USB disk and run the Setup.exe file. This should launch the Windows 11 installer, and you can follow the on-screen steps through the end of the process. Alternatively, you can do what I didboot Windows off the USB drive to install Windows 11. On your Windows 10 PC, go to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery and click Restart now under the Advanced startup section. This will reboot your PC and start the Windows 11 setup process from your USB drive.I used this method to successfully upgrade my PC to Windows 11 and ran into just one hiccup. When the PC restarts for the first time during the upgrade, you should remove all USB drives from the computer (including the one with Windows 11). Otherwise, the installation may get stuck. Other than this, the upgrade went smoothly and I'm now happily running Windows 11. I didn't need to do anything to activate it either. I skipped the step asking me to type the product key and noticed that Windows 11 had activated itself after installation. My Windows 10 Pro key automatically activated Windows 11 Pro after the upgrade.Alternative method 1: use a registry key modificationIf Rufus isn't working for you, there's a few alternative methods you can use to upgrade an unsupported PC to Windows 11.Up until recently, Microsoft used to tell users about a registry key modification that can bypass TPM checks and install Windows 11 on an 'unsupported' PC. That method has since been removed from Microsoft's support pages, but you can still use it by following these steps.Open Registry Editor on your Windows 10 PC.Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup.Create a new registry key here with these values: Name: AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPUType: REG_DWORDValue: 1Visit Microsoft's Windows 11 download page and go to the Create Windows 11 Installation Media section. Click Download Now. This will save the Media Creation Tool file to your computer. Run the Media Creation Tool, follow the on-screen prompts, and it'll create a bootable Windows 11 USB drive for you. Open the USB drive and run Setup.exe. Follow the prompts and your Windows 11 upgrade should proceed while bypassing TPM checks.Microsoft may choose to block this method at some point in the future, but until that happens, you can still use it to get the job done.Alternative method 2: create an automated Windows 11 installerYou can also create an unattended Windows 11 installer to complete the upgrade to the OS, even if your PC has been labelled 'unsupported.' An unattended installer is basically a way to automate the install process. It lets you configure many aspects of Windows 11, allowing you to remove bloatware, change taskbar settings, etc. Follow these steps:Go to the Unattend Generator website.Select Install Windows 11 Using These Language Settings and choose your preferred language, keyboard layouts, and home location (country you live in).Below that, choose the correct processor architecture for your computer. You can choose one of Intel/AMD 32-bit, Intel/AMD 64-bit, or Windows on Arm64. If you're unsure what your architecture is, check it on your Windows 10 PC by navigating to Settings > System > About.The next section is called Setup Settings, and this is the most important one for our purposes. Choose the option that let you bypass TPM checks. Go through the remaining setup options. This includes deciding whether you want to partition the drive automatically or manually, whether you want to remove bloatware from Windows 11, and choosing your key settings. With your choices selected, scroll to the bottom and select Download .xml file. This will download a file called autounattend.xml to your computer. Create a bootable Windows 11 USB drive by visiting Microsoft's Windows 11 download page and navigating to the Create Windows 11 Installation Media section. Click Download Now. Then, run the Media Creation Tool and follow the on-screen prompts. Paste the autounattend.xml file from earlier into this drive and boot from the USB drive to complete setup.This should take care of upgrading your 'unsupported' PC to Windows 11, and also apply all of your preferred settings to the computer.

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