You can still grab great deals on Bose headphones and Astro Bot this weekend
Welcome to the weekend, friends! While the rest of our team was checking out Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy S26 lineup and prepping for Apple’s “special experience” next week, we’ve been sifting through Woot’s “Video Games for All” sale and a truly weird slate of deals that, frankly, don’t have a throughline. (Some of us have also spent the last week unpacking what Huel is, but that’s neither here nor there.) Here’s what we can tell you. If you’re thinking of picking up the Galaxy S26 Ultra at launch, putting in your preorder now isn’t a bad idea. It’s also a great time to pick up the midrange QuietComfort Headphones and what many of us at The Verge consider to be the game of 2024: Astro Bot. And who doesn’t want to save on a slick handheld vac? Now let’s get to it. If you’re craving a little peace and quiet, Bose’s QuietComfort Headphones are currently on sale at...
Welcome to the weekend, friends! While the rest of our team was checking out Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy S26 lineup and prepping for Apple’s “special experience” next week, we’ve been sifting through Woot’s “Video Games for All” sale and a truly weird slate of deals that, frankly, don’t have a throughline. (Some of us have also spent the last week unpacking what Huel is, but that’s neither here nor there.)Here’s what we can tell you. If you’re thinking of picking up the Galaxy S26 Ultra at launch, putting in your preorder now isn’t a bad idea. It’s also a great time to pick up the midrange QuietComfort Headphones and what many of us at The Verge consider to be the game of 2024: Astro Bot. And who doesn’t want to save on a slick handheld vac?Now let’s get to it.If you’re craving a little peace and quiet, Bose’s QuietComfort Headphones are currently on sale at Amazon in multiple colors for $199 ($150 off), which is the best price we’ve seen this year.The standard QC Headphones are essentially a refresh of the last-gen QC45s with some new software tricks, including the ability to adjust noise cancellation levels and set custom listening modes. That being the case, you still get up to 24 hours of battery life, excellent comfort, and multipoint support, making it easy to switch between Bluetooth devices on the fly. They lack Bose’s immersive audio mode and the higher-quality Bluetooth found in the newer QC Ultras, though, as well as support for lossless audio over USB-C. Then again, that probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given they’re retailing for $250 less.
Bose QuietComfort Headphones
Where to Buy:
$359 $199 at Amazon
$359 $229 at Best Buy
$359 $229 at Walmart
As we alluded to earlier, Samsung announced its Galaxy S26 lineup this week. There are already plenty of preorder deals to consider, but one of the best comes courtesy of Amazon, which is throwing in a $200 gift card alongside a free storage upgrade when you preorder the 512GB Galaxy S26 Ultra starting at $1,299.99. Other retailers are also running promos ahead of the phone’s March 11th release date, mind you, though they’re not as impressive; Best Buy is only providing a free storage upgrade, while Samsung is offering a mere $150 in credit.While the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus both feel like underwhelming, iterative updates, the 6.9-inch Galaxy S26 Ultra actually impressed our resident phone reviewer, Allison Johnson. That’s largely because of the new Privacy Display, which can help shield your screen from people sitting near you (if desired), and a more powerful camera array that should improve low-light performance. Plus, like the rest of the S26 lineup, the Ultra is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which supports more advanced generative AI tools and a souped-up version of Gemini that can carry out certain tasks in third-party apps on your behalf. No one likes calling an Uber themselves, anyway.
Read our S26 Ultra hands-on impressions.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
Where to Buy:
$1299.99 at Samsung (256GB, with $150 credit)
$1499.99 $1299.99 at Amazon (512GB, with $200 gift card)
$1499.99 $1299.99 at Best Buy (512GB)
You can still grab a physical copy of Astro Bot at Walmart for $32.99 ($27 off), an all-time low. The fantastic PlayStation 5 exclusive — which won Game of the Year at the 2024 Game Awards — has players take on the role of Astro, a lovable robot who sets off on a space adventure after his crew is lost in a sudden attack. Despite the prior game being a pack-in t**le for the PS5, Team Asobi’s full-sized sequel brims with inventive platforming, whimsical power-ups, and a kind of lighthearted fun that recalls the best of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. Thankfully, it never feels outdated, even if ‘90s vibes are totally there.
Read our Astro Bot review.
Astro Bot
Where to Buy:
$59.99 $32.99 at Walmart
If you’re looking for a relatively compact handheld vacuum that can reach into car crevices and s*** up crumbs on your desk, Fanttik’s foldable Fold V10 Apex is still on sale at Amazon for $85.49 (about $65 off), matching its best price to date.Fanttik’s 17,000Pa vac features an extendable nozzle that pivots up to 210 degrees, along with a built-in LED light to help illuminate the dark corners of your vehicle. An onboard display, meanwhile, indicates the remaining battery life and suction mode, as well as the status of the washable filter. It also comes with a range of useful add-ons, including an upholstery tool, two brush heads, and an extendable hose with a crevice tool for hard-to-reach areas. It even charges via USB-C, making it easy to juice after the battery runs out in about 30 minutes or so.
Read our recent profile on Fanttik.
Fanttik Fold V10 Apex Foldable Car Vacuum
Where to Buy:
$149.99 $85.49 at Amazon
$149.99 $94.99 at Fanttik (with code V10APEX)
More ways to save this weekend
You can pick up five second-gen AirTags for $99.99 ($24 off) at Costco, though non-members will have to pay a $5 surcharge. That’s the first discount we’ve seen on Apple’s latest location tracker, which builds upon its predecessor with an upgraded ultra-wideband chip and extended range, allowing for more precise tracking from up to 50 percent farther away. It’s also better at locating items in multi-story homes, and the built-in speaker is up to 50 percent louder, making it easier to hear. Read our review.
AOC’s 27-inch QD-OLED gaming monitor (Q27G41ZDF) is on sale for $379.99 ($170 off) at Best Buy, which is its lowest price to date. The 1440p display is a great entry-level OLED, with a sharp 16:9 panel and a speedy 240Hz refresh rate. As a QD-OLED monitor, it delivers the deep blacks and vibrant colors the technology is known for, along with G-Sync compatibility to help reduce screen tearing. It also includes a three-year warranty for added peace of mind.
You can snag the Sharge Pixel 100 from Amazon (with Prime) and Sharge for $69.90 ($30 off) right now, which is its lowest price to date. The small, retro-inspired GaN charger delivers up to 140W of power, which is enough to charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro to 50 percent in about 25 minutes. It also features three USB-C ports for powering multiple devices, along with a customizable dot-matrix display that shows the real-time wattage for each port.
PC gamers are leaving 20-30% performance on the table with this one setting
Let's say you spent months picking out parts or researching a pre-built PC. You made sure to get 16GB of fast dual-channel RAM, so your games would run smoothly, and your desktop wouldn't choke under heavy multitasking. But somehow your system feels strangely sluggish. You notice erratic 1% low frame...
Let's say you spent months picking out parts or researching a pre-built PC. You made sure to get 16GB of fast dual-channel RAM, so your games would run smoothly, and your desktop wouldn't choke under heavy multitasking. But somehow your system feels strangely sluggish. You notice erratic 1% low frame rate, which is stuttering, in CPU-bound games like Cyberpunk or Counter-Strike. Alongside this, opening heavy apps feels slightly delayed. For some reason, despite the fact that you opted for 16GB of RAM, it just feels like your PC is a machine with half of the memory capacity it has.
Michael Johnson Chicago
Published by: aplhsindia.in
Microsoft is letting Office users remove an annoying Copilot b***on
Microsoft is rolling out Office app updates next week that allow users to disable a floating Copilot button. The button appeared in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in recent weeks, and floats above the bottom right-hand section of spreadsheets or documents. It has angered many Excel users in particular, because it...
Microsoft is rolling out Office app updates next week that allow users to disable a floating Copilot button. The button appeared in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in recent weeks, and floats above the bottom right-hand section of spreadsheets or documents. It has angered many Excel users in particular, because it obstructs cells and you can't fully disable it."While we are seeing increased engagement with Copilot in Office apps with this update, we are also hearing the need for more control over how Copilot appears," admits Katie Kivett, partner group product manager at Microsoft. "While one of our goals is to evolve Copilot to be more adapti …Read the full story at The Verge.
Olivia Miller Seattle
Published by: aplhsindia.in
Someone built a Simpsons-style retro TV that plays NES games and 90-minute movies on a tiny display
We love the Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) here at XDA. If you've never heard of it, it's basically an ESP32 hooked up to a display, and it's, well, cheap and yellow. We've crowned it one of the best additions you can make to a smart home, and we've even made...
We love the Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) here at XDA. If you've never heard of it, it's basically an ESP32 hooked up to a display, and it's, well, cheap and yellow. We've crowned it one of the best additions you can make to a smart home, and we've even made a distributed computer with three of them.
Florentina Araújo Brazil
Published by: aplhsindia.in
Someone built a full Wayland compositor inside Minecraft, and it actually works
Wayland has been the center of a few big Linux stories this year. We've seen some distros adopt it, we've seen some drop X11 in favor of it, and we've seen people creating alternatives to X11 to stave off Wayland. But nobody asks, "What about adding Wayland to Minecraft?" mainly...
Wayland has been the center of a few big Linux stories this year. We've seen some distros adopt it, we've seen some drop X11 in favor of it, and we've seen people creating alternatives to X11 to stave off Wayland. But nobody asks, "What about adding Wayland to Minecraft?" mainly because, why would they? Minecraft is a game, not an operating system.
Emily Brown Houston
Published by: aplhsindia.in
I stopped forcing every coding job through Claude and started using this instead
I like Claude Code, but I don't like its limitations. You're largely restricted to Anthropic's models like Claude Sonnet and Opus. They're excellent models, but they can get expensive quickly, even for relatively simple tasks. Claude Code is also closed-source. Whether you're an enterprise concerned about data governance or an...
I like Claude Code, but I don't like its limitations. You're largely restricted to Anthropic's models like Claude Sonnet and Opus. They're excellent models, but they can get expensive quickly, even for relatively simple tasks. Claude Code is also closed-source. Whether you're an enterprise concerned about data governance or an individual who prefers transparent tools, that can be a drawback.
Michael Johnson Chicago
Published by: aplhsindia.in
AMD is giving older Radeon cards an unexpected upgrade, but it’s a bigger deal than it appears
AMD officially confirmed on Thursday last week that FSR 4.1 will be coming to RDNA 3 GPUs in July 2026, with RDNA 2 hardware following in early 2027. It's a game-changing feature expansion by itself, but it becomes considerably more significant than the announcement lets on.
AMD officially confirmed on Thursday last week that FSR 4.1 will be coming to RDNA 3 GPUs in July 2026, with RDNA 2 hardware following in early 2027. It's a game-changing feature expansion by itself, but it becomes considerably more significant than the announcement lets on.
William Garcia Boston
Published by: aplhsindia.in
Microsoft’s big Copilot rollback continues as Office now lets you move its b***on to the ribbon
Microsoft is in a little bit of a pickle. It spent the better part of 2025 getting excited over Copilot and rolling it out to every app it has. Now, in 2026, the company is clearing up the mess it made after people told Microsoft that they'd actually prefer not...
Microsoft is in a little bit of a pickle. It spent the better part of 2025 getting excited over Copilot and rolling it out to every app it has. Now, in 2026, the company is clearing up the mess it made after people told Microsoft that they'd actually prefer not to have an AI in everything they use.
Adam Christensen Denmark
Published by: aplhsindia.in
I tested TrueNAS, Unraid, and OpenMediaVault to the perfect NAS OS, and there’s a clear winner
If you’ve set your mind on putting together a NAS for your home lab, there are a bunch of factors you’ll want to consider. On the hardware front, the drive bays and Ethernet provisions are the most obvious factors you’ll want to keep an eye out for, with the RAM...
If you’ve set your mind on putting together a NAS for your home lab, there are a bunch of factors you’ll want to consider. On the hardware front, the drive bays and Ethernet provisions are the most obvious factors you’ll want to keep an eye out for, with the RAM capacity being just as important for ZFS-powered pools. But the operating system you choose for your NAS matters at least as much as its specs, if not more.
Daniel Martinez Dallas
Published by: aplhsindia.in
Microsoft’s consumer marketing chief to leave next year
Yusuf Mehdi launching Copilot Plus PCs in 2024. | Image: Getty Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, is leaving the company after 35 years. Mehdi announced his departure in an internal memo on Thursday, noting that he will leave Microsoft next year. He will...
Yusuf Mehdi launching Copilot Plus PCs in 2024. | Image: Getty Yusuf Mehdi, executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft, is leaving the company after 35 years. Mehdi announced his departure in an internal memo on Thursday, noting that he will leave Microsoft next year. He will remain focused on marketing for Windows, Copilot for consumers and the Microsoft 365 consumer business until 2027."As I thought about this decision, one thing was crystal clear: I want to ensure I have the time and space to set the team - and our mission - up for continued success," says Mehdi in his memo. "We are in the middle of an incredibly important moment for Microsoft and for our customers." …Read the full story at The Verge.
Charlotte Harcourt Canada
Published by: aplhsindia.in
Samsung’s memory chip employees negotiated $340,000 bonuses this year
48,000 Samsung workers had threatened to strike unless bonus caps were lifted. | Photo: Jung Yeon-je / AFP via Getty Images Details have emerged about a tentative deal struck between Samsung and semiconductor employees who had threatened to strike. The deal reportedly makes some workers eligible for average annual bonuses...
48,000 Samsung workers had threatened to strike unless bonus caps were lifted. | Photo: Jung Yeon-je / AFP via Getty Images Details have emerged about a tentative deal struck between Samsung and semiconductor employees who had threatened to strike. The deal reportedly makes some workers eligible for average annual bonuses of $340,000.The proposed 18-day strike had hinged on Samsung's bonus cap for employees in the semiconductor division and followed a substantial rise in the possible bonuses available to employees of SK Hynix, another South Korean chipmaker enjoying a boom thanks to demand for AI components.Under the terms of the new deal, Reuters reports that all chip workers will receive 50 percent of their annual salary as a regular bonus in cash. Further …Read the full story at The Verge.
Lisa Cunningham United States
Published by: aplhsindia.in
My favorite alternative to VS Code isn’t Cursor or Claude Code: it’s something way cooler and productive
Like most developers, I have spent the last few months hunting for the ultimate VS Code successor. I have jumped between the slick context-awareness of Cursor and the command-line power of Claude Code.
Like most developers, I have spent the last few months hunting for the ultimate VS Code successor. I have jumped between the slick context-awareness of Cursor and the command-line power of Claude Code.
Josefina Dueñas Mexico
Published by: aplhsindia.in
Stop treating the Raspberry Pi 5 as a smart home hub — it’s actually built for something bigger
The Raspberry Pi has always been easy to recommend for home automation, but the Raspberry Pi 5 complicates that recommendation in a useful way. If all you need is a box to run Home Assistant, a few Zigbee devices, and some basic automations, it’s more machine than the job really...
The Raspberry Pi has always been easy to recommend for home automation, but the Raspberry Pi 5 complicates that recommendation in a useful way. If all you need is a box to run Home Assistant, a few Zigbee devices, and some basic automations, it’s more machine than the job really needs. A Raspberry Pi 4 can still handle that workload comfortably, and older models can remain useful for modest setups. The Pi 5 starts to make more sense when the home automation hub becomes part of a wider home lab rather than a single-purpose appliance.
