Topgolf’s VMware costs were going to increase by 400 percent under Broadcom. To avoid that cost, the sports entertainment company moved 12,000 virtual machines (VMs) to VergeIO’s VergeOS and has saved over $11 million so far.

Before migrating, Topgolf’s VMware connection “ran very deep,” Scott Forehand, Topgolf’s global infrastructure manager, told Ars Technica.

Topgolf has over 100 locations worldwide featuring interactive golf games with real-time shot tracking and digital analytics. The company used vSphere and ESXi for decades and started using VxRail, the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform that VMware co-engineered with Dell, in 2017. Topgolf employees previously participated in numerous VMware customer councils and have been interviewed for books on how Topgolf used vSphere and Horizon (now Omnissa Horizon), per Forehand, who is a leader of the Dallas/Ft. Worth VMware User Group.

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Google is releasing its second Fitbit tracker of 2026, offering fans of the aging Charge 6 a more refined option. The new Fitbit Edge slots right in between the Pixel Watch 5 and the Fitbit Air, featuring a compact screen and more health sensors than the Air. You won't get all the apps and features of the Pixel Watch 5, but the Edge is only about half as expensive.

The Fitbit Edge is essentially a new Charge 6, but it has more of a Pixel Watch aesthetic. Squish Google's smartwatch from the sides, and you've got the Edge. It has a pill-shaped 1.34-inch OLED touch display inside a slender aluminum frame that is rated IP68 (5 ATM) for water and dust protection. Google says the screen has 46 percent more viewable area compared to the Charge 6. It's very close in overall size to the Fitbit Air and uses the same magnetic charging puck.

Left to right: Fitbit Air (with new metal mesh band), Fitbit Edge, and Pixel Watch 5. Credit: Google

The Edge works with Android or iPhones via the Google Health app, and it can run for about seven days on a charge. If the tracker is away from your phone, it can still follow your activity all week with support for seven days of full health data storage (or 30 days of basic data). However, the generous weeklong battery life does not include always-on display mode. If you turn it on, battery life drops to about two days, barely longer than the Pixel Watch 5.

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PC shipments saw a steep drop of about 20 percent in Q3 2026, analysts reported this week.

The industry saw its “sharpest decline since “Q1 2023," Omdia said in an announcement toady. Global shipments of laptops, desktops, and workstations fell 21.2 percent year over year (YoY) to 58.1 million devices, the analyst said.

Desktop PC shipments (including desktop workstations) decreased 23.5 percent to 11.7 million units, and laptop shipments (including laptop workstations) declined 20.6 percent to 46.4 million, per Omdia.

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Attackers hijacked three top-level domains and used their control to mint counterfeit TLS certificates for Google and other large organizations, Google said Tuesday.

The attackers launched a series of attacks on the .gh, .sl, and .as country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) and then modified authoritative DNS records for selected domains within those namespaces. By controlling those DNS records, the attackers were able to pass automated domain control validation checks and obtain unauthorized certificates for “several Google domains” and “several leading global brands and widely used online services.” Google said it updated Chrome to block all certificates it identified as unauthorized, and worked with the issuing certification authorities to ensure the unauthorized certificates for Google properties were revoked.

Certificate issuance: The weak link in the chain

TLS certificates are the cryptographic credentials that underpin authentication and encryption protections for websites, mail servers, and other Internet infrastructure. These x.509 certificates use a digital signature to bind a domain name such as google.com to a public key. The public key is publicly available, while the private key is held only by the website operator. When a connection shows that the keys match, the visiting party knows it’s connected to the authentic site rather than an impostor. Possession of unauthorized certificates allows attackers to cryptographically impersonate the affected infrastructure.

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