2026 promises to be the most exciting year in the new space age yet! Shining bright is the prospect of an Artemis II launch to send astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972, as early as February. We've already seen news about a medical incident on the International Space Station that will force a crew to return to Earth early, but NASA says this won't affect the Artemis launch. On other news, NASA's budget seems on track to be passed at near 2025 levels, China is preparing to send a robot to the south lunar pole, SpaceX plans robust tests of Starship this year—and hopefully refinement of their lander for Artemis III, Boeing will fly Starliner again (uncrewed), Mars Sample Return is poised to be scuttled, and all this under the leadership of a new—and apparently quite capable—NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman. Join us for an in-depth look at what's coming in 2026!

Headlines:

• Medical evacuation planned for ISS astronauts due to health concerns
• NASA Chief Jared Isaacman leads first big press conference amid ISS medical incident
• Artemis 2 lunar mission remains on track for February launch
• Orion spacecraft heat shield faces scrutiny ahead of crewed flight
• NASA budget nearly secured—Congress backs full funding for 2026
• Mars Sample Return project faces likely cancellation
• SpaceX Starship gears up for crucial orbital and refueling tests
• Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar lander launch delayed, competition heats up
• China's lunar, asteroid, and orbital missions ramp up for 2026
• Boeing Starliner and Sierra Space Dream Chaser schedule ISS cargo missions
• New moon landers, asteroid missions, and global crewed capsule tests coming in 2026
• NASA's Roman Space Telescope possibly launching this year

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

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The App Store Awards are in, and this year's breakout games are shaking up what we expect on iOS, iPad, and even Apple Vision Pro. See which titles are worthy of the hype, who's pushing boundaries, and why the winners really matter for Apple device owners.

• Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket Wins iPhone Game of the Year
• Dredge Named iPad Game of the Year: Sinister Fishing Adventure
• Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition Takes Mac Game of the Year
• Apple Vision Pro Game Spotlight: Portals and Puzzle-Solving in Porta Newbie
• What the Clash Tops Apple Arcade Picks for Multiplayer Fun
• Cultural Impact Winners: Art of Fauna, Chants of Senar, Despalote
• iFixit Launches FixBot App for DIY Repairs and Battery Tracking
• Shortcuts Corner: How to Backup and Restore Apple Shortcuts

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard

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Jacob Ward of The Rip Current joins Mikah Sargent on the show this week! Lego unveils its Smart Brick. Jacob kvetches about AI's overwhelming presence at CES. We get some on-site reporting from CES. And Utah becomes the first state to allow artificial intelligence to renew medical prescriptions.

• Mikah talks about Lego's new Smart Brick technology that allows you to interact and play with your Lego sets more directly.
• Jacob shares his thoughts about the overall theme of AI that has become front and center at this year's CES event.
• Stephen Robles of beard.fm joins the show live from CES to talk about what he saw at the event.
• And Ruth Reader of POLITICO stops by to talk about Utah being the first state to allow artificial intelligence to begin renewing medical prescriptions for patients.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jacob Ward

Guests: Stephen Robles and Ruth Reader

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Windows is gearing up for a transformational year, with smarter Copilot actions, streamlined widgets, and the groundwork for running background AI agents. Discover what these changes could mean for your productivity and privacy.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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Think you know the Health app? Think again. This episode unpacks Apple's quiet rollout of powerful and important features, from crash detection to real-time medication reminders, that are quietly transforming the way you can track your wellbeing.

• Dive into emergency SOS, medical ID, and safety alerts
• Apple Watch-exclusive notifications: heart rate, crash, fall, and walking steadiness
• Hypertension and blood pressure notifications arrive for Apple Watch users
• Cardio fitness, ECG, and irregular rhythm alerts explained
• Court drama and a workaround for Apple's blood oxygen feature
• Monitoring vitals, hearing safety, and sleep apnea detection
• AFib history versus irregular rhythm notifications
• Health data trends and fresh health records notifications
• Sleep tracking, wind down routines, and schedule-based alerts
• Medication reminders with smart time zone adjustments
• Mental wellbeing tracking with state-of-mind check-ins and depression/anxiety quizzes
• Walking steadiness notifications and quick access to the checklist

Host: Mikah Sargent

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The next generation of over-the-air TV is ATSC 3.0, also known as NextGen TV. Michael Heiss talks with Scott Wilkinson about what it is, how it works, how you can get it, and why it's important.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Michael Heiss

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Jason Hiner gives us a look at the AI products at CES 2026, as big tech and chip makers blurred the lines between consumer gadgets and enterprise innovation, leaving even veteran insiders wondering: will this tech boom actually benefit everyday users?

• NVIDIA's Christmas Eve 'Hackquisition' Miracle
• No, Grok can't really "apologize" for posting non-consensual sexual images
• Introducing ChatGPT Health
• 'We have to reject that with every fiber of our being': DeSantis emerges as a chief AI skeptic
• Waymo Updates Vehicles to Better Handle Power Outages - But Still Faces Criticism
• The most exciting AI wearable at CES 2026 might not be smart glasses after all
• 2025's AI-fueled scientific breakthroughs
• Google engineer says Claude Code built in one hour what her team spent a year on
• Microsoft CEO Begs Users to Stop Calling It "Slop"
• Stanford's AI class on YouTube
• Tamiflu
• Babka from Zabar's (or elsewhere)
• Happy birthday Nic Cage
• Floor796

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau

Guest: Jason Hiner

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PC makers are shaking up CES with wild designs and next-gen chips, but the real story is Microsoft's bold software moves, AI's hardware hunger, and a candid debate over whether any tech company still puts users first. Come for the Windows updates, stay for the whisky warnings and robot bathroom assistants.

CES 2026 is here with the 4K hummingbird feeder of your dreams

• New PCs and more from HP consumers/commercial, HP gamers, Lenovo, others
• The first official Copilot+ PC desktops
• Snapdragon X2 Plus joins X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme
• Intel Panther Lake has meaningful CPU and graphics performance gains, but predictable reliability issues
• AMD Ryzen AI 400 series is a minor bump

Windows

• Paul was the first to report that Microsoft is refactoring it all with Rust
• A Microsoft distinguished engineer wrote about his desire to refactor all C/C++ code in the company with Rust by 2030
• Some mistook this to mean "rewriting Windows with Rust,ˮ so he had to issue a clarification. But I never wrote that.
• Heads-up: That will happen, but this is really about Azure first and the core underlying code in Microsoftʼs most important platforms
• Microsoft released hardware-accelerated BitLocker in late 2025 and never told anyone. It requires the latest PC CPUs
• Copilot app update that adds text editing actions to Copilot Vision across channels
• Dev and Beta got first previews of AI agents on the Taskbar, starting with the Researcher agent, plus underlying Agent Launchers experience
• IDC says the global memory shortage (thanks, AI!) could screw up PC and smartphone growth this year

AI

• ChatGPT now has an app store, but it has a ways to go
• Mozilla Firefox will have a "killswitchˮ for AI
• Our national nightmare will soon be over, LG will let users remove Copilot app from their smart TVs

Xbox and gaming

• First Xbox Game Pass releases of 2026 include Resident Evil Village and Star Wars Outlaws
• Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to Hisense smart TVs and to the latest Fire TV smart TVs
• GOG goes independent, will continue DRM-free push
• "Have a blastˮ and other FPS throwbacks from the 1990s
• Valve quietly killed the LCD Steam Deck model

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Itʼs time to give Little AI a look
• App pick of the week: Bonjourr
• RunAs Radio this week: What AI can do for SysAdmins in 2026 with Cecilia Wiren
• Brown liquor pick of the week: The Singleton of Dufftown 12

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

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

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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