Microsoft has confirmed a bug in Windows 11 26H2, 25H2, and 24H2 that can cause some games and applications to crash. That’s right—even the recent major fall update 26H2 contains this issue.

It’ll happen in apps and games that use the Dolby Digital AC-3 audio decoding that’s built into Windows, which may crash when you turn up the volume, change the audio settings, or use certain audio functions.

On this support page for optional September update KB5124010, Microsoft notes this as a known issue labeled “Applications which require AC-3 audio decoding might close unexpectedly”:

After installing this update, some applications that use AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio decoding might fail to launch or close unexpectedly when certain audio features are used. This issue primarily affects legacy applications that rely on Windows built-in audio decoding. Most modern applications are not affected.

According to Microsoft, most users likely won’t encounter this bug, as it affects “legacy” apps and games that rely on Windows’ built-in audio decoding. And to be clear, this issue is unrelated to the other September update issue involving broken USB audio.

This AC-3 problem persists even after installing optional update KB5124010 on Windows 11 25H2, and upgrading to Windows 11 26H2 doesn’t resolve the issue either. The problem is located deep in the system and affects multiple Windows 11 versions because they all share the same code base.

Microsoft is aware of the problem and working on a fix:

Microsoft is working on releasing a resolution for this issue in a future Windows update. We will provide an update when more information is available.

Price When Reviewed

1279.99

Best Prices Today: Acer Aspire 16 AI

The Acer Aspire 16 AI surprised me. It’s the first laptop I’ve looked at in a while that I’d seriously consider buying. It’s just effortless to live with. It’s lightweight and the OLED display is so pretty that even my husband commented on it. 

Are there things I’d change? Yep. That said, the quirks never really got in the way of my day-to-day use.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: The guts

• CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 Processor 355
• GPU: Intel Arc 140V GPU
• NPU: Intel AI Boost, up to 49 TOPS
• RAM: 16GB LPDDR5X
• Storage: 512GB PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD
• Display: 16-inch OLED, 1920×1200, 60Hz
• Display: 100% DCI-P3, 100% sRGB, 300 nits
• Touchscreen: Yes
• Aspect Ratio: 16:10
• Webcam: 1080p FHD
• Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 7
• Bluetooth: 5.4+
• Battery: 65Wh, 3-cell
• Ports: 2× USB4 Type-C, 2× USB-A, HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm audio
• Card Reader: MicroSD
• Keyboard: Backlit keyboard with number pad
• Weight: 3.23 lbs
• Price: $1,279.99 (MSRP)

Acer Aspire 16 AI: It’s pretty light for a 16-inch laptop

At 3.23 pounds, I kept forgetting I was carrying a 16-inch laptop. I could easily pick it up with one hand and carry it around (although I wouldn’t recommend making a habit of carrying any laptop that way!). The aluminum chassis also feels nice in hand—I definitely prefer it to the plastic ones. 

Flip the Aspire 16 over and you’ll see several ventilation openings across the underside, along with a raised section toward the rear. Acer identifies the openings as part of the laptop’s ventilation and cooling system. I didn’t hear much fan noise at all, and the underside of the laptop stayed cool.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: A display made for scrolling

The biggest reason I’d reach for the Aspire 16? The display. Even my husband, who has watched me test many different laptops, noticed the display and commented on how good it looked. 

First, the size. It’s 16-inches with a 16:10 aspect ratio, which means you’re getting more vertical space than a standard 16:9 panel. I appreciated that extra space, especially when scrolling through longer emails and PCWorld articles. 

Second, it’s an OLED panel, so colors are rich and vibrant. Darker scenes have a sense of depth to them, too. To put it through a less scientific (but more entertaining!) test, I watched one of Bjork’s live concerts. And, just as I expected it to, the Aspire 16 handled the concert beautifully. 

Bjork’s white feather mask really popped against the colorful backgrounds—I could easily spot her in faraway shots. I found myself pretty immersed in the performance. In part due to the larger screen size. In part due to Bjork being, well, Bjork. 

I also watched a documentary about Iceland (I was there recently and I’ve never felt more humble), and the sweeping shots of the moss-covered lava rocks were stunning. The chunks of glacier ice looked especially blue.

Brightness is the one thing I wish were better.

Even with the brightness turned all the way up, I still wished I could bump it up a click or two. Acer rates it up to 300 nits, which lines up with my experience. 

I didn’t use the touchscreen much, though. That’s purely because I just prefer navigating on the touchpad and keyboard. Still, the touchscreen is nice to have at this price point ($1,279.99 at the time of this writing). 

By the way, the screen is pretty reflective (as you can see in that horrifying picture above), especially under brighter lights. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: A keyboard that takes some getting used to

The Aspire 16 has a large keyboard with a dedicated number pad, which will be a welcome addition for anyone who regularly works with numbers.

Me? The Aspire 16’s larger layout is a little too big for my hands, so it took me longer to get accustomed to typing on it. I found myself landing on the wrong key more often than not. That’s probably because I’m used to using a 14-inch laptop on a daily basis, which has a smaller keyboard. I also struggled with the size of the vertical (up and down) arrow keys. I just kept wishing they were the same size as the horizontal ones.

I appreciated the backlight, as usual. I’m a creature of the dark, so I like being able to see the keys when I’ve got the lights switched off. You can also toggle the backlighting on and off with a dedicated key rather than getting yourself lost in Windows settings.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: And yes, the speakers do get loud

Back to Bjork for a moment.

The Aspire 16’s speakers got loud enough that, while I was watching the concert in the kitchen area, my husband called out from a different room, “Is that Bjork?”

That’s not exactly a laboratory measurement of audio quality, but it does tell you about how far the audio can carry. For watching concerts and YouTube videos, the Aspire 16 can get plenty loud.

But volume is just one part of it. 

The other part is the quality of sound, which I’d describe as “OK.” They’re fine for most folks. But if you’re a big music lover and want to hear every little sound, you’re better off buying a good pair of headphones. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: A decent spread of ports

For such a thin machine, the Aspire packs a good range of ports. There are two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI 2.1, and a headphone jack, so I didn’t find myself reaching for an adapter just to connect to the usual stuff.

But there’s one issue (it’s a minor one, but it’s still a thorn in my side).

You can only charge the Aspire 16 on one side of the laptop. Both USB-C ports support charging, which is all well and good, but I wish they were on either side. It’d be more convenient that way!

Acer Aspire 16 AI: The AI stuff

I don’t want to dawdle on about the AI stuff because, well, I’m a bit tired of it.

The Aspire 16 AI is a Copilot+ PC (the NPU can go up to 49 TOPS), so it can do all the usual stuff. Recall saves snapshots of what you’re looking at, Live Captions adds transcriptions to videos, and so on.

Honestly? The only thing I used was Live Captions, as I have a harder time processing things through audio alone. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: It’s capable of handling the day-to-day stuff

Performance was snappy enough for the daily stuff. My workload is fairly light, though. I’ve usually got a few tabs open: Google Docs, YouTube, Facebook, X, PCWorld’s main page, etc. I didn’t notice any slowdowns. 

• Acer Aspire 16 AI ($1,279.99 at MSRP): Intel Core Ultra 7 355 (Panther Lake)
• Acer TravelMate P2 14 AI ($1,699 at MSRP): Intel Core Ultra 5 322 (Panther Lake)
• Dell XPS 13 ($699.99 at MSRP): Intel Core 5 320 (Wildcat Lake)

The Aspire 16 AI did well in our benchmark testing, too. I ran the benchmarks with Acer’s Standard Performance profile enabled. I also compared it against the recently reviewed Acer TravelMate P2 14 and Dell XPS 13. The Aspire 16 and TravelMate P2 both use Intel’s Panther Lake processors (different tiers), while the XPS 13 uses a Wildcat Lake chip.

Let’s take a look at PCMark 10, which measures overall productivity performance. The Aspire 16 AI’s score of 7,135 puts it ahead of both the Acer TravelMate P2 14 (6,581) and the Dell XPS 13 (6,103). The Aspire uses the higher-tier Core Ultra 7 355 processor, so the higher score makes sense here. Interestingly, graphics performance is where the Aspire 16 pulls away from the TravelMate P2.

The Aspire’s 3DMark Time Spy score of 3,236 is more than twice the TravelMate’s 1,479. The difference likely comes down to (at least in part) the Aspire’s newer Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics.

That extra graphics performance means the Aspire 16 can handle some casual gaming without getting loud or too hot. I played ComboLands for a couple of hours one night and didn’t notice any slowdowns whatsoever. The laptop got slightly warm, but I never heard the fans ramp up—even with it sitting on my lap while I played.

To be fair, ComboLands isn’t exactly a demanding game. It’s a citybuilding game where you’re tasked with stacking the correct buildings. Most of the time, you’re just looking at a relatively static map and placing things like houses and crops on it as you work toward different goals. So I wouldn’t take this as evidence that the Aspire 16 is a gaming laptop. But for lighter games, it was perfectly comfortable to use.

Acer Aspire 16 AI: Battery life is pretty good

Battery life is pretty solid, too. I ran one of UL Procyon’s battery benchmarks and it lasted 11 hours and 47 minutes. Almost 12 hours! It’s not the 36-hour result we saw with the Dell 14S, but nearly 12 hours is still more than a full workday. 

Acer Aspire 16 AI: Should you get it?

The Aspire 16 AI is the laptop I kept reaching for (even after the testing period was over). Sure, the keyboard was a little big for my hands and I wish I could charge it from either side, but those things never really got in the way of me wanting to use it. 

There are a lot of things I like about it. The spacious OLED display is great for light gaming and watching concerts. There are also plenty of ports, and it handled my daily workload without issue. 

For $1,279.99, I think the Aspire 16 AI makes the most sense for someone who wants a big, beautiful screen without lugging around a heavy 16-inch machine. 

Amazon Prime membership includes loads of benefits—including the ability to shop Amazon’s best deals during big sales periods, like Prime Day and Black Friday. But here’s a secret: You don’t have to pay to take advantage of the benefits. At least, not at first.

Before you pay Amazon’s $139-per-year (or $14.99-per-month) subscription fee, you can sign up for a free trial. You get all the benefits of membership, including free two-day shipping on all orders, access to the Kindle lending library, Prime Video streaming, and much more. See our rundown of the top Amazon Prime benefits for the full list.

Here are a few ways to score a short-term Prime membership.

Phishing is alive and well in 2026, as even with robust antivirus and antimalware protections, the weakest link in the security chain is often the human element. We all make mistakes, skim an email and think it’s probably fine to click that link. But wait! Don’t do it! Phishing scammers rely on you not using due diligence to protect yourself, your data, and your devices with good personal security practices.

The best way to spot phishing emails is to know what to look for. Here’s a list of some of the big phishing red flags which should send you running when you spot them.

Asking for anything

For a scam to be worth doing, the scammers need to make money. For that, they need to get you to send them something of value. That can be in the form of cash, cryptocurrency, or Amazon gift cards, or something they can sell on later, like your passwords or digital identity.

Although friends and family may occasionally ask you for something, they probably aren’t going to do it over Facebook messenger, Email, or a Whatsapp message out of the blue. If you think it might be real, contact that person directly using another method and discuss it with them.

Don’t immediately respond with what they want. Take a pause and think it through first.

Urgency

The scammers best tool is urgency. Whatever it is they need, they need it RIGHT NOW. You need to respond, quickly. Do it before you stop and think about what they’re actually asking you to do. Do it before you remember to consider demands and urgency with caution and skepticism.

Although this tip is broad and doesn’t specify exactly what the scam might be like, many of them will encourage a swift response from you. Whatever it is the person claims to need, it’s incredibly rare that someone who needs something quickly will email or message you for it. If you’re concerned a digital account may be compromised, it’s still worth taking the time to login through a secure method rather than clicking the link in the email.

Whenever any email asks you to do something with urgency, take a second and consider whether this might be a scam. Look for other signs, and if in doubt, contact the person or organization through a different method that you know is safe and secure and confirm whether the request is legitimate.

Suspicious activity warnings

As organizations have improved their digital security, you’ll sometimes get an email warning you that there has been some suspicious activity on your account. Usually this is just you logging into your email account on a new phone or via a different browser. Sometimes it is legitimately someone trying to login to your account without your permission.

But sometimes it’s someone sending you a fake warning. In those cases, they’ll push you to update your login information, or confirm some aspect of your account.

If you think it’s a scam, don’t click on any buttons or links. You can safely delete the email and forget it. If you want to be sure, close the email down and navigate to that site or service using a different tab and login that way. If there’s a problem with your account, you can address it manually yourself.

Spelling and grammar errors

This one is less common in 2026, as just as we all do, scammers have access to Grammarly and ChatGPT—they can easily write convincing sounding emails. Still, for the odd scammer out there still doing the hard work of handwriting phishing scams, they’re not always native English speakers, and their typing skills aren’t as strong as the writers at PCWorld; they make mistakes.

Look for silly typos, odd word ordering, strange sentence structure and other indicators that a person might not be whoever it is they’re claiming to be. You aren’t going to get typos in an email from Amazon claiming your account has been hacked and you need to send half a Bitcoin to fix it.

Also consider emails or messages that are out of character. If you get an email from your boss at 6:45 at night but you know they always clock off at 5:30, trust your gut. Delete. The worst case if you’re wrong is still far better than not trusting your instincts and getting caught out by a scam.

Nefarious buttons and links

I make it a habit of not clicking on buttons or links in emails as a matter of course. Sure, that means I often have to take a few extra steps to login to a service that’s emailed me, but I think it’s worth the added security.

You don’t need to go quite that far, but when you are thinking of clicking on a link or button in an email, be sure to check the bottom-left of your browser window. There you’ll see the URL that the button or link is trying to send you to. If it doesn’t line up with the site or service you’re expecting to use, don’t click it.

Odd attachments

Email attachments are one of the most popular ways for hackers to spread malware, as there’s no real way to guarantee they’re safe before you download them. Some email platforms will automatically scan them for you, but that’s no guarantee either.

If you aren’t expecting an attachment from someone, if they don’t reference it in the email, if the file type or file name looks odd, or if anything else about the email feels off, don’t open it.

If you want to be doubly sure, contact the person who sent it to you using a different communication system and ask them to send you the file over a more secure medium like a cloud service.

Generic or random sender email

Email scams can be sophisticated enough to look like they come from someone you know, but often they don’t change the email it’s sent from. If the email you’ve received claims to be from an official account like Microsoft, Amazon, or Paypal, check the sender email. If it’s a generic Hotmail, Live, Gmail, or other email that technically anyone could have created, delete it. It’s almost certainly a scam.

The same goes for if the email is a random string of numbers and letters. That’s likely set up automatically by the scammers on mass to build out their phishing infrastructure. Your friends, colleagues, and official institutions don’t have emails like that.

Also watch out if you aren’t addressed personally in the email. If it feels generic and unspecific, “Dear sir/madam,” or if they just get your name wrong, be wary. These are other signs the sender might be trying to cast a wide net for their scams.

Spoofed voice not using your password

This one’s not an email phishing scam but it’s still worth looking out for. One of the most nefarious and underhanded scams in recent years has been AI voice spoofing. Like a deepfake, but for a voice, the scammers emulate a loved one’s voice and call you up in a panic, asking for money to solve an immediate problem. The voices can sound almost identical to the real person—especially when you throw in the mild distortion you often get with a phone call.

The combination of urgency and realism can make this a hard phishing attack to spot. The best way to check if it’s real or not, is with a pre-determined password or phrase. Maybe you have a favorite TV show, or a little family motto, or some other secret that is only known to you and your loved ones. Ask them to say it. If the person on the other end of the phone can’t or won’t do it, then you know it’s a scam and can safely hang up and report it to the relevant authorities.

Two people can keep a secret if one is dead, or so goes the saying. But what happens when you share the details of your life with an AI agent? 

Unfortunately, data can’t die the same way humans do—especially so if Meta Muse is involved. Choose it as your AI executive assistant and you may end up revealing more of your personal life than intended.

Letting an AI agent work autonomously on multi-step tasks (like booking travel, making purchases, and even offering suggestions based on your plans) offers a deep view into your world. It requires direct access to connected services like your email account, too. But Meta doesn’t keep all of this information strictly private. By default, it trains its AI on your Muse data.

Deleting data also isn’t a complete wipe, either. Nuke a conversation or another interaction, and Muse could still retain info related to it. Meta describes this as “Muse may still remember information it learned from what you deleted.”

Meta says in its privacy policy that training data is anonymized, disconnected from the original users and scrubbed of personally identifiable details like names, Social Security Numbers, email addresses, and phone numbers. You can also ask Muse what it recalls about you—or go on an excavation tour of various Muse files, to see what still lingers after initial data deletion.

In a vacuum, this approach may have worked as a reassurance. But we live in the real world, where mistakes happen. Mistakes like a zero-day exploit that gave macOS apps and terminal commands access to Muse (and all its connected services), discovered just a couple of weeks after Muse’s launch. Or Muse allegedly gaining access to private messages, due to configuration settings in macOS that can allow the AI agent to see data in other apps

I have similar feelings as the security researcher who discovered the zero-day—I recommend not installing Muse on devices, particularly macOS. But I’d go one step further and caution against using Muse all together for now. 

Why? You don’t need to sacrifice your privacy or security to be a beta tester. (Yes, beta tester. For a service marketed as “built for everyone,” I’d expect it to be far more private and secure. An everyday person will not be reading privacy policies or following cybersecurity news the way I do.) 

Instead, wait for Meta’s Muse Confidential VM to launch. Right now, each Muse agent has its own virtual machine on Meta’s servers. Theoretically, this type of configuration should prevent Muse agents from reading data being stored or handled within other virtual machines. In practice, we already know that virtual machines are not bulletproof (their isolation from one another can fail). We also know that AI agents made by rival companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have escaped their sandboxes more than once.

Muse Confidential VM adds encryption as an extra layer of defense. Meta says such virtual machines and all their data will be “encrypted with a key only they hold, so not even Meta can access it.” If you’re going to hand your life over to an AI agent, keeping its developer (and any agents sharing your server) from reading your data is a smart move.

In the news

I’m wary of Meta and AI agents both individually and combined—for good reason. Meta of course has its history of playing fast and loose with user data, but AI agents are even more unpredictable. Hacking into the Australian government? Uploading user images to third-party sites? All in a day’s work.

The good:

• Signal, one of the most highly recommended end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, now supports encrypted local (on-device) backups for its iOS and desktop apps. You can also now do direct iPhone-to-iPhone transfers of Signal data. (Finally, less headache when setting up a new phone.)

The bad:

• As part of its ongoing investigation related to the Hugging Face hack, OpenAI disclosed another discovery of its AI agents behaving inappropriately. In this incident, 53 images from users were uploaded to third-party sites.

• OpenAI also detailed why one of its AI agents ended up hacking into an Australian government server. The short version: The agent just wanted to complete its task. If it weren’t so concerning, AI models’ single-minded focus on getting the job done would be admirable.

The ugly:

• Microsoft published a report on the use of AI in cybersecurity—and says that bad actors currently have the advantage. A particularly noteworthy stat? The speed between discovery of a vulnerability and its exploitation is now “well below 24 hours.” Good habits for computer use and online browsing matter more than ever.

The interesting:

• ShinyHunters’s hack into the FBI is turning into a saga. An arrest was made as part of the investigation, and the FBI also issued a direct warning to the group to turn themselves in. We learned how the break-in even happened, too.

Tip of the week

You know the password that unlocks your password manager. But do you also have your password to your email account memorized, too?

I always recommend that people commit these two passwords to memory. If you lose access to your password manager, you’ll avoid getting locked out of your email address. (Arguably, that’s worse than not having your password vault available.)

If your email account’s password is difficult to remember, consider changing it to a passphrase. (Six words long is recommended, and it should be randomly generated.) If not using a traditional password makes you nervous, also enable two-factor authentication. With such a combo in place, your account should remain secure.

If you like audiobooks but don’t want to be tied down to Audible, there are actually some good free alternatives out there. Two that I recommend are Audiobookshelf and Storyteller.

Both are self-hosted, which means that your library stays on your own computer or server, rather than in a company’s cloud. The only catch being that you need to own your audiobooks to use them—something that isn’t possible if you’re switching directly from Audible.

Both are perfectly fine Audible audiobook listening alternatives, but they have slightly unique features that set them apart from one another.

Audiobookshelf

Audiobookshelf feels a lot like a Plex server but for audiobooks and podcasts. You can upload your audiobook files and it builds a library with cover art, metadata, chapters, and listening progress for you.

You can listen to your audiobooks in a web browser or in the AudiobookShelf Android and iOS apps, which both support offline downloads. It also syncs your progress across devices, allowing you to pick up at the exact same spot if you switch from one to another.

If you have a big pile of DRM-free audiobooks on a hard drive, then go ahead and start here.

Storyteller

Storyteller also offers basic audiobook functions, but it’s really designed for those who often switch between reading a book and listening to it. If you upload both a DRM-free ebook and a DRM-free audiobook of the same title, Storyteller will sync your progress between the two as you progress.

I use this feature almost everyday between listening to an audiobook in my car and then switching to my e-reader to continue reading at home. Storyteller effortlessly saves my spot across both using EPUB 3 media overlays. And much like Amazon’s Whispersync, it can also highlight the current line of text as the audiobook plays.

Setup is a little more technical, but as a free alternative to Audible, Storyteller offers the best e-book/audiobook alignment that I’ve found.

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