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Fall is the season for new gadgets. Apple recently announced its latest iPhones, Amazon showed off new smart speakers and even an Alexa-activated microwave, and Google is hosting its own product launch event next week.

But Tuesday is all about Microsoft, which unveiled a slew of devices ahead of the holiday shopping season. Its lineup includes a new version of its desktop computer, called the Surface Studio 2, and its first pair of smart headphones. It also announced the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2.

The first Surface desktop, an iMac competitor focused on creativity, was introduced in October 2016. Its successor, the Surface Studio 2, offers improved graphics performance and Microsoft says it’s the fastest Surface device ever made. It has a 28-inch display and USB-C support. It’s available for pre-order on Tuesday starting at $3,499.

The Surface Headphones ($349) offer adjustable noise cancellation and automatic pause and play, which will stop the video you’re viewing when you take them off. Microsoft’s voice assistant Cortana is built in and can read your emails aloud or start a conference call. Surface Headphones will be available later this year.

Meanwhile, Microsoft says the Surface Pro 6 is 67% faster than its predecessor but with the same battery life (up to 13.5 hours). Microsoft also says it’s easy to toggle between laptop, studio and tablet mode. It comes in black and platinum and starts at $899.

The original Surface Pro in 2012 was marketed as a tablet. It looked kind of like an iPad, but with the addition of a keyboard cover. Microsoft (MSFT) has since shifted its pitch to a laptop with a touchscreen. This 2-in-1 format is aimed at people like doctors, pilots and students who need tablets for note-taking or reading, but a laptop for full functionality.

The Surface Laptop 2 (starting at $999) comes with faster and quieter typing and up to 14.5 hours of battery life, according to Microsoft. It’s 85% faster than its predecessor, and the Surface Laptop 2 comes in a new color (black), as well as the existing options burgundy, platinum and blue.

“More and more, devices are permeating your whole life. We build these things to appeal for your work and personal life,” Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s corporate VP of modern life and devices, told CNN.

The company also unveiled its next-generation Windows software – called Windows 10 October 2018 Update – which has a focus on productivity. For example, the Your Phone App brings texts and photos from your Android phone to your PC. (Apple allows such an integration for its iMessage service.) You can also integrate a To-Do list with Outlook.com, and drag an item into an open slot on your calendar to block time to finish it.

Microsoft’s main audience for these new devices is enterprise business professionals, according to Andrew Hewitt, an analyst at research firm Forrester. Ahead of Tuesday’s event, he noted Microsoft has heavily invested in productivity elements including Timeline, which lets you go back to where you left off on files and websites, and Focus Assistant, a feature that limits distractions like notifications.

“There is a sense that Microsoft is trying to compete with Apple on the creative front, with new capabilities for picture and movie editing,” Hewitt said. “But the other features are much more aligned with Microsoft’s mission to empower employees to be productive.”

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Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm has raised an additional $225 million to invest in early-stage startups.

It is the fourth and largest fund raised by Initialized Capital, the San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded by Ohanian and Garry Tan.

The new fund, announced on Tuesday, comes as Ohanian spends more time with the firm. About nine months ago, he stepped away from his day-to-day role at Reddit, the popular discussion board platform he co-founded in 2005. When Initialized Capital launched in 2012, Ohanian and Tan were also partners at Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley accelerator fund known for helping companies like Airbnb and Dropbox get off the ground.

Tan and Ohanian credit their past experiences as engineers, operators and investors at Y Combinator for their success as investors at their own firm.

“We know that investors sitting around a table are not going to be able to come up with the future because we aren’t the ones actively building it, but we’ve seen enough and built enough in the way of software and scalable businesses that our ‘Spidey’ senses start tingling when we get on the right track with a founder,” Ohanian told CNN Tuesday.

Together, Ohanian and Tan have invested in several startups that are now “unicorns” -— the term for privately-held startups valued at $1 billion or more. That includes crypto marketplace Coinbase and grocery delivery startup Instacart, among others.

Initialized Capital will remained focused primarily on funding early-stage startups but will cut larger checks, such as $1 million, compared to $50,000, the size of some of its first investments. That’s a sign of the times — valuations and deal sizes have grown in recent years. The average deal size in the second quarter of this year was $18 million, the highest this decade, according to PitchBook.

The firm now has a team of eight partners who help portfolio companies with everything from product development to legal, design and marketing.

Ohanian and Tan say their approach to funding startups is “thesis agnostic,” but they tend to look for businesses with “software at their core.”

They’ve invested in startups like Voyage — a self-driving car company that operates its vehicles in two retirement communities — as well Ro, a healthcare company whose first brand, Roman, is helping diagnose and treat those with erectile dysfunction.

“We still feel like there’s a lot of work left to be done when it comes to software solving big problems,” said Ohanian, who also sits on the board of Reddit and Ro. “This is our sweet spot.”

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Honda and General Motors are teaming up to create a new generation of fully autonomous vehicles. Honda will invest $2 billion over 12 years into GM’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary, Cruise.

GM and Cruise have been building and developing self-driving versions of GM’s Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car with plans to deploy a fleet of them for public use next year. With Honda’s engineering and financial assistance, Cruise will begin developing a new vehicle that is not based on any existing car, the companies said. It will represent the next step in autonomous driving, one in which controls for human operation are entirely absent.

“This is a purpose-built vehicle that will be the first vehicle produced at scale that is freed from the constraints of vehicle design and having a driver at the wheel,” said GM president Donald Amman.

Amman gave no precise timing on when Cruise Automation’s self-driving vehicles will be shuttling members of the general public, either in the Bolt EV or the new car. The cars will be deployed only when it has been decided they are safe enough, Amman enough.

The Japanese tech-focused investment bank Softbank recently invested $2.25 billion in Cruise, and Honda took a $750 million equity stake. Together, the Honda and Softbank investments give Cruise a total value of $14.6 billion.

“Autonomous vehicles are not simply a Silicon Valley-based dream,” said Zo Rahim, Research Manager at the automotive media company Cox Automotive. “Current auto manufacturers are primed to dictate the direction and growth of the future of mass mobility.”

GM’s stock rose 2% on Wednesday.

Honda and GM have been working together on electric car battery technology and hydrogen fuel cells, which extract energy electricity from hydrogen gas. The new partnership with Cruise Automation grew out of the two companies’ previous work.

GM (GM) boasts that, with the self-driving Bolt EV, it is currently the only company building autonomous vehicles on a production line. The companies would not say where or when the new vehicle will be produced.

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Bumble is the latest online dating app to compete for the hearts of women in India.

Bumble, which requires women to make the first move, announced Wednesday plans to launch in India later this year. Indian celebrity Priyanka Chopra, a new investor in the company, will advise on the expansion.

The news comes less than a week after rival Tinder launched a My Move feature in India that gives women the option to prevent men from initiating a conversation.

But Bumble’s efforts for an expansion in India have been in the works for awhile. Founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said the newly engaged Chopra first told her “Indian women needed Bumble” months ago. Chopra was among a group of high-profile women who helped Bumble kickoff its networking app, Bumble Bizz, in October 2017.

“It was clear then we shared a passion for empowering young women on a global level,” Wolfe Herd told CNN in an e-mail. “From there we began architecting a plan to partner and launch Bumble in India.”

Wolfe Herd said the challenge in entering the Indian market is “localizing the experience and attracting women” — an area in which Chopra will help.

Chopra’s manager, Anjula Acharia, is also an investor and adviser. Acharia helped Chopra — who was already established in India — reach fame in the United States. But Acharia has a long history of crossover efforts. She was instrumental in introducing artists such as Britney Spears and Lady Gaga to India — a background that could translate to Acharia helping Bumble resonate with the local audience.

Bumble’s local app will be in both Hindi and Hinglish — a hybrid between Hindi and English — and available on iOS and Android. It will also roll out new safety features before entering the region, which has a reputation for violence against women. In June, India was named the most dangerous country in the world to be a woman.

Wolfe Herd said it will only require Indian women to provide the first initial of their name — no first or last names — and provide new ways to report “bad behavior” in the app.

Bumble already has photo verification features and more than 4,000 content moderators who review photos and profiles.

Before Bumble, Wolfe Herd was an early employee and exec at Tinder but left the company in 2014 after suing for sexual harassment and discrimination. The case was eventually settled.

But tension between the two dating companies has become increasingly palpable as a result of very public litigation between the Bumble and Match Group, Tinder’s parent company.

In March, Match Group targeted Bumble with a lawsuit accusing the company of patent infringement and stealing trade secrets. Bumble asked the court last week to dismiss the case.

Separately, Bumble filed a counter lawsuit against Match Group. Bumble argues that Match Group is using litigation as revenge over failed acquisition talks. Both lawsuits are ongoing.

While Bumble already operates in over 160 countries, India is a significant market because of its size. According to a report from Bain & Co, India has 390 million internet users, the second largest of any country behind China.

The internet industry is suing the state of California over its days-old net neutrality law.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday by major trade groups representing broadband companies, is the second major lawsuit filed against the state over the law — the first was brought by the Justice Department.

On Sunday evening, California Governor Jerry Brown signed what is considered to be the strictest net neutrality law in the country. Under the law, internet service providers will not be allowed to block or slow specific types of content or applications, or charge apps or companies fees for faster access to customers.

Hours later, the federal government filed a lawsuit in which it alleged that California was “attempting to subvert the Federal Government’s deregulatory approach” to the internet. The DOJ argues states can’t pass their own laws governing internet companies, because broadband services cross state lines. It is fighting the state over a clause in the 2017 order repealing Obama-era federal net neutrality protections. In that order, the FCC said it could pre-empt state-level net neutrality laws.

The impending legal battle could drag on for many months if not longer, Daniel Lyons, an associate professor at Boston College Law School who specializes in telecommunications and Internet regulation, told CNN.

A lot is riding on the outcome. The California law is considered the most thorough state-level net neutrality legislation yet passed, and other states are expected to use it as a blueprint for their own laws.

If California wins in court, it would open the door for those other states to take similar actions. However, the FCC could try to come back with an order to block their efforts again, Lyons said.

California will likely claim that the pre-emption provision is invalid, Lyons said, while the federal government will attempt to get an injunction to stop the law from taking effect. in doing so, it will claim that the law will cause harm if allowed to take effect.

“These attempts at getting a preliminary injunction seem weak and are likely to fail for the same reasons that the Internet Service Provider [ISP] industry was unable to obtain a stay of the FCC’s former net neutrality rules in 2015,” said telecommunications attorney Pantelis Michalopoulos, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP who has argued net neutrality cases. “The Internet Service Providers offer speculative theories about why they will suffer irreparable injury. These theories do not appear to satisfy the test for a preliminary injunction.”

The industry groups taking part in the new lawsuit represent major companies including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, as well as other cable companies and wireless providers across the US. The groups had previously lobbied against the state law. (CNN is owned by AT&T.)

“We oppose California’s action to regulate internet access because it threatens to negatively affect services for millions of consumers and harm new investment and economic growth. Republican and Democratic administrations, time and again, have embraced the notion that actions like this are preempted by federal law,” the trade groups USTelecom, CTIA — The Wireless Association, The Internet & Television Association, and the American Cable Association said in a statement. “We will continue our work to ensure Congress adopts bipartisan legislation to create a permanent framework for protecting the open internet that consumers expect and deserve.”

In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Attorney General Xavier Becerra indicated the state would fight to protect its new law.

“This suit was brought by power brokers who have an obvious financial interest in maintaining their stronghold on the public’s access to online content. California, the country’s economic engine, has the right to exercise its sovereign powers under the Constitution and we will do everything we can to protect the right of our 40 million consumers to access information by defending a free and open Internet,” Becerra said in a statement.

State Senator Scott Wiener, a co-author of the bill, previously told CNN he expected the ISPs to sue over the law.

“The internet service providers have every right to sue California, just like California has every right—indeed an obligation—to protect our residents’ access to an open internet,” Wiener said after the trade groups filed their suit.

CNNMoney (San Francisco) First published October 3, 2018: 5:46 PM ET