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The notorious Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) is finally heading to a junkyard upstate. This error message has been a key part of the Windows experience for almost 40 years. Microsoft has been teasing this change for years, but now we know the crash screen will be removed in an update to Windows 11 that's coming later this summer.

Windows computers are still going to crash, so there needs to be some sort of error screen. Microsoft is transitioning to a Black Screen of Death instead. This new crash screen will be black, as the name suggests, and there will be no cutesy frowny face and QR code. It'll just be a black screen with a short message that tells users they need to restart.

Microsoft

The new BSOD recalls the black screen shown during a Windows update, but it will list the stop code and system driver that contributed to the crash. This should make life easier for IT admins.

“This is really an attempt on clarity and providing better information and allowing us and customers to really get to what the core of the issue is so we can fix it faster,” David Weston, vice president of enterprise and OS security at Microsoft, said in an interview with The Verge. “Part of it is just cleaner information on what exactly went wrong."

The new BSOD will debut alongside the Quick Machine Recovery feature. This tool is designed to restore machines that won't boot. These changes are being made in the wake of last year's CrowdStrike incident that crashed over 8 million Windows devices. That massive outage impacted banks, airlines and major corporations.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/windows-is-finally-kicking-the-blue-screen-of-death-to-the-curb-172011343.html?src=rss

"ExpressVPN never keeps data that could tie you to any online activity," the VPN provider claims on its website. An independent audit from late February supports those claims. Accounting firm KPMG found "reasonable assurance" that the VPN provider's system prevents the logging of user activity. The product is one of Engadget's top VPN picks.

RAM-based VPN servers

The firm's audit put ExpressVPN's TrustedServer system under a microscope. That's the company's RAM-based system. In theory, this approach means user data is wiped with every server reboot. (Doing so would prevent even the possibility of long-term storage.) Some competitors, including NordVPN, also use RAM-based servers. Meanwhile, ProtonVPN counters that properly encrypted hard drives are just as secure.

Another counter-argument to RAM-based servers is that they're only as effective if they're rebooted. In theory, a company could run RAM servers for marketing purposes, but then never restart them. That's where audits can help.

KPMG's findings

KPMG has a high level of confidence that the no-logging system functioned as advertised in late February. "Controls provide reasonable assurance that the ExpressVPN TrustedServer does not collect logs of users' activity," KPMG's paper reads. That included "no logging of browsing history, traffic destination, data content, DNS queries or specific connection logs."

KPMG's assessment was an ISAE 3000 Type I audit. That means it focused on ExpressVPN's control design and implementation at a specific point in time. (Meanwhile, a Type II audit would have gone farther, testing the effectiveness of those controls over an extended period.) If you aren't familiar, KPMG is one of the Big Four accounting firms. It's a trusted name that corporations shell out big bucks to for audits like this.

The assessment looked at several factors. These included documentation reviews, observing the system at work and interviewing ExpressVPN personnel. The audit's conclusion applies "as of February 28, 2025." You can read KPMG's full paper for a more detailed breakdown.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/expressvpns-external-auditors-confirm-no-logs-policy-as-of-february-171957335.html?src=rss

Intel will outsource marketing roles to Accenture and artificial intelligenceCompany CEO Lip-Bu Tan pushes structural cuts to speed up operationsMarketing staff may help train replacements as layoffs are plannedIntel has begun informing its marketing staff that many of their roles will be outsourced to Accenture, which will use artificial intelligence to manage parts of Intel’s marketing efforts, potentially powered by Intel’s own processors.This move is part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s broader plan to overhaul operations, cut costs, and speed up decision-making.Intel revealed its plans with a statement describing Accenture as “a longtime partner and trusted leader,” and said it is expanding that relationship, with affected employees notified by July 11.Significant changes to team structures“The transition of our marketing and operations functions will result in significant changes to team structures, including potential headcount reductions, with only lean teams remaining,” Intel wrote in a staff notice. The company did not reveal how many employees could be affected by the cuts.Intel added, “We are focused on modernizing our digital capabilities to serve our customers better and strengthen our brand.”Intel describes the shift to Accenture as a way to streamline marketing work.“We need to change our ‘go to market’ model to be more responsive to what customers want,” the company reportedly told its marketing team. “We have received feedback that our decision-making is too slow, our programs are too complex, and our competitors are moving faster.”Intel is struggling to regain ground after losing market share in PCs, data centers, and AI chips. Its sales have dropped by about one-third in recent years.“We are partnering with Accenture to leverage AI-driven technologies with the goals of moving faster, simplifying processes and reflecting best practices, while also managing our spending,” Intel told employees, adding that some staff may be asked to train their replacements during the handoff period.A few days previously, manufacturing employees were warned that up to 20% of their jobs could be cut in July 2025.Via Oregon LiveYou might also likeIntel debuts super-fast AI chips to match AMD in the race for supremacy Intel's former CEO invests in hardware startup that wants to make Nvidia obsoleteHow Intel is bringing AI advantage and unrivaled security to every industry

After a six-year wait, Panasonic's S1 II is finally here and there's a lot to unpack. As you’d expect from this company, it’s creator-centric with up to 5.8K ProRes RAW internal video recording. At the same time, it’s Panasonic’s fastest full-frame photo camera ever with 70 fps burst speeds and reduced rolling shutter distortion thanks to the new partially stacked 24-megapixel sensor. And with an AI-powered hybrid phase detect system, autofocus is no longer a weak point as it was with the original S1.

There is one issue though, and a surprising one for Panasonic: the price. The $3,200 S1 II is similar to Nikon’s Z6 III, right down to the partially stacked sensor and internal RAW video. However, the latter is some $700 cheaper and can often be found on sale for even less. Since Panasonic often undercuts rivals, that puts the S1 II in the unusual position of being overpriced next to the competition. After testing it for the last month, I’ve found that whether it's worth it depends on your priorities.

Handling and design

The S1 II shares its excellent body design with the higher-resolution S1R II and the cheaper, non-stacked S1 IIe. It’s considerably lighter than the original S1 at 1.76 pounds and much smaller as well, both of which make it less burdensome. It’s also easy to hold thanks to the big ridged grip. However, it’s more angular and has a harder rubber skin than Canon’s rival EOS R6 II, so it’s not quite as comfortable over long shooting sessions.

The excellent control layout makes the S1 II a breeze to use. It has all the buttons and dials you need and they’re well located — particularly the joystick and control dials. There’s a dedicated switch for photos, video and slow and quick (S&Q) modes, and each has separate adjustments so you won’t mix them up. It also has a dedicated autofocus switch, two video record buttons (top and front), 10 other programmable buttons and a tally light.

I rarely needed to search for settings thanks to the logical color-coded tabs and easy-to-use quick menu, both accessible by touch or the joystick. Panasonic also made it simple to program buttons, dials and the quick menu to your personal preferences and it allows you to save them to a memory card as a backup.

The S1 II’s electronic viewfinder is bright and sharp, matching the Z6 III with a resolution of 5.76 million dots and 0.78x magnification. The rear display not only swivels out but also tilts up and down for overhead or hip-level photography. In comparison, Nikon’s Z6 III screen doesn’t tilt, so it’s not as versatile.

As with the S1R II, battery life isn’t a strong point here, with only 360 shots on a charge or 320 when using the EVF. To be fair, that matches the Z6 III exactly (and Panasonic’s non-stacked S1 II is only slightly better at 380 shots), but Canon’s cheaper R6 II has more than twice the battery life at 760 shots.

Steve Dent for Engadget

In order to capture RAW video, the S1 II has a CFexpress Type B card slot along with a slower SDXC UHS-II slot. Like the S5 IIx and GH7 (and several Fujifilm models), it also supports high-bandwidth RAW video capture to an SSD via the USB-C port.

The S1 II comes with a full-sized HDMI port that supports Blackmagic and ProRes RAW capture. You also get mic and headphone ports, and you can capture 32-bit float audio via the optional XLR2 accessory to reduce the possibility of clipping. Finally, the S1 II has a carbon fiber curtain that comes down to protect the sensor like recent Canon and Sony models.

Performance

The S1 II can fire bursts at a pedestrian 10 fps in mechanical shutter mode, but supports a superb 70 RAW images per second with the electronic shutter. And if you’re worried about skewed images, don’t fret. Distortion is minimal in electronic mode thanks to the partially-stacked sensor that has a rapid readout speed of around 12 milliseconds. That’s fast enough for sports or wildlife photography, unless the subject moves very rapidly.

Pre-burst capture, which starts when you half-press the shutter, is also available at the highest speeds. That lets you save up to 1.5 seconds of photos you might have otherwise missed once you fully press the shutter button. The buffer is a bit small, though, so you can only capture about three seconds (220 shots) at the 70 fps speed.

The hybrid phase-detect autofocus is the best of any Panasonic camera I’ve tested to date. However, it’s not yet up to Sony and Canon’s standards for speed and accuracy, and falls a bit short of Nikon’s Z6 III. If you’re shooting a fast-moving subject at the maximum burst rate of 70 fps, you may see more than a few out-of-focus photos.

Steve Dent for Engadget

The S1 II supports multiple AI modes — including animals, birds and vehicles — on top of human eye-tracking modes. I had mixed success with those as the camera had trouble locking onto the eyes of some birds and marine mammals I shot at the Vancouver Aquarium. However, it was better with more typical animal subjects like dogs, cats, horses and geese. Panasonic also introduced an AF mode called Urban Sports that improves tracking for breakdancing, skateboarding and parkour. I tested that mode with some skateboarders at the highest burst settings and saw a high percentage (90-plus) of in-focus shots.

One area where Panasonic tops its rivals is stabilization. That’s been boosted to eight stops (slightly short of the R6 II’s eight and a half stops), which allowed me to shoot at shutter speeds down to a half second and still get sharp shots. And as I’ll explain shortly, the S1 II is peerless when it comes to video stabilization.

Image quality

I’ve been impressed with Panasonic’s color science of late, finding that it matches Nikon in delivering some of the most color-accurate images of any system. By comparison, Canon’s images skew warmer, and I feel that Sony models like the A7 IV lack some accuracy, particularly with blue-green colors.

The S1 II delivers pleasing JPEGs with a nice balance between sharpness and noise reduction, though the latter can get overly aggressive at high ISO levels. RAW images offer plenty of detail in light and dark areas of the image, letting you tweak and correct to a fine degree. Keep in mind that using the electronic shutter in burst modes reduces RAW bit depth from 14 to 12.

The downside of any stacked sensor is additional noise, and the S1 II is no exception. This is most apparent at higher ISO levels where the camera exhibits a bit more grain than Panasonic’s S5, which has the same resolution but isn’t stacked. That said, the S1 II has about the same low-light prowess as the Z6 III and beats most fully stacked cameras.

If the native 24MP resolution isn’t enough, the S1 II offers a high-resolution mode that captures eight images with a slightly offset sensor position and composes them into a single 96-megapixel file (either RAW or JPEG). I was able to take sharp images in that mode without the use of a tripod thanks to the S1 II’s excellent in-body stabilization system.

Video

The S1 II doesn’t shoot 8K RAW like the 44MP S1R II due to its lower resolution. However, it does support 5.8K 30 fps ProRes RAW, open gate full sensor video and super slow-mo (4K 120p) — all with far less rolling shutter distortion. Because of that, I think this is a better camera overall for creators.

Of course, the S1 II offers 10-bit video in both MP4 and Quicktime formats on top of RAW. Panasonic’s V-Log is also on tap to boost dynamic range, and thanks to a recent firmware update, you can pay $200 to get ARRI LogC3 to match that company’s pro digital cinema cameras.

With that same firmware update, the S1 II now supports 17 frame aspect ratios (up from 10), and enables simultaneous display of up to three frames at once (unlike the LogC3 update, these are free). That will let you shoot open gate, for instance, while seeing how the image will look in both vertical and horizontal aspect ratios.

Overall, video quality is outstanding with sharp oversampling, excellent color accuracy and decent dynamic range. The latter can be increased using Panasonic’s dynamic range boost option, although that effectively doubles rolling shutter distortion. Without the setting enabled, skew from rolling shutter is only an issue with whip pans or very fast-moving subjects.

Video AF is solid, keeping subjects in focus as long as they don’t move too quickly. Face, eye, animal, urban sports and vehicle detection work well, though you’ll see a bit more accuracy and speed on Canon and Sony’s latest models.

Steve Dent for Engadget

The S1 II offers better video stabilization than its rivals, though. Optical stabilization provides good results for handheld video, while electronic stabilization (EIS) provides gimbal-like smoothness at the cost of a significant crop. As with other recent Panasonic models, the S1 II also offers “cropless” EIS that corrects corner distortion when using wide lenses, while also reducing rolling shutter.

Thanks to a built-in fan, overheating is rarely an issue with the S1 II. The only time I ever saw a problem was with 5.8K at 60 fps and 5.1K open gate recording, when the camera shut down after 50 minutes and 40 minutes respectively. That’s still excellent for a small mirrorless camera. Those limits are eliminated, by the way, if you record to an SSD via the USB-C port.

Creators may wonder how the S1 II compares to Nikon’s Z6 III. The latter offers more RAW options, with the choice of 5.8K Nikon RAW (N-RAW) at up to 60 fps rather than just 30 fps. Both offer similar video quality as they use the same sensor. The Z6 III has slightly better autofocus, but the S5 II has superior stabilization and handling. Finally, the S1 II has some nice pro features like timecode, waveform monitoring and pro audio. I’d say the S1 II is slightly better for video shooters, but the Z6 III is significantly cheaper.

Wrap-up

Panasonic’s S1 II is a powerful hybrid camera, and if it wasn’t so expensive, it would be a no-brainer for creators. However, Nikon’s Z6 III has nearly the same video capabilities, is a better camera for photography and costs at least $600 less, so I’m inclined to recommend that model for most users.

Another option at a lower price is Panasonic’s new $2,500 S1 IIe, which was announced at the same time as the S1 II. It has the same body and mostly the same feature set, but uses the non-stacked sensor from the S5 II, so rolling shutter is more of an issue.

If you favor photography, the higher-resolution S1R II is a better option and costs just $100 more. However, if you’re a video pro who needs features like time code, ARRI LogC3 and advanced monitoring or audio features, the S1 II is a solid choice. Those folks might want to wait for a sale though.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/panasonic-s1-ii-review-a-near-perfect-creators-camera-if-money-is-no-object-174509182.html?src=rss