After using Windows all my life, Linux always seemed like something of a scary beast. It didn't help that when I tried Ubuntu a few years ago, I didn't like the default UI whatsoever, and I found myself wanting to stay on Windows for the familiarity. Many years later, though, the popularity of the Steam Deck finally got me to try converting a Windows gaming handheld into a Linux one, and that's when I learned that Linux desktop can actually be good. And eventually, I ended up switching to Linux on my main PC.

I've used many different large language models since the release of ChatGPT 3.5 in 2022, and the underlying rules in order to gear a model to your needs have remained more or less the very same. The most persistent point of friction in working with any model relates to everything that has to happen before the model can be useful. You have to explain the context, the rules, the constraints, and perhaps even demonstrate what kind of output you're looking for. You do all of that, and when the session ends or the task is completed, the very next task requires you to start from scratch all over again.

Microsoft's Xbox division will be hit with significant layoffs next month, according to people familiar with Microsoft's plans.The company has been preparing for the layoffs internally for weeks, with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma hinting about "making hard choices" last month. Sources suggest the cuts could even involve a studio closure, or changes to the Xbox studio lineup. In a recent Giant Bomb episode, rumors of 1,000 layoffs for Microsoft's Xbox division were mentioned. Bloomberg also reported today that the cuts would be "major," and involve budget cuts for marketing and other areas of Microsoft's Xbox business.Moments before Bloomberg's r …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Google TV Streamer has been updated to Thread 1.4, allowing you to access a way to manually share its Thread credentials. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Apple and Google are updating their smart home streaming devices to Thread 1.4. As first spotted by Matter Alpha and 9to5 Google, the latest spec has arrived on compatible Apple TVs in the tvOS 27 developer beta and the Google TV Streamer through a software update.This lays the groundwork for these devices, which serve as Thread Border Routers, to implement Thread credential sharing, enabling them to connect more easily to an existing Thread network rather than creating their own.Thread is one of the connectivity protocols the interoperability standard Matter runs on. The original plan was for Thread Border Routers to all work seamlessly …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Framework Laptop 13 Pro is delayed. The new 13-inch Framework flagship was set to launch in June, but shipments from the first batch are now expected in July - and there's still a chance some shipments could slip to early August. If you're not in the first batch, your Laptop 13 Pro shifts from a July shipment to August, though some could be as late as early September. Framework informed customers who preordered a Laptop 13 Pro of the delay via email, outlining the reasons for the extra wait. The main culprits are the new haptic trackpad and custom display. Mainboard preorders and any orders that didn't include these components are sti …Read the full story at The Verge.

Typing a few letters and numbers into my web browser, I find myself gaping at the identity documents of complete strangers. The passport of a young woman from Germany. The passport of a man from Spain with glasses resting on his head. The front and back of another man's driver's license, a stereotypically goofy expression on his face.They were all sitting unprotected at public URLs, with no password or access control of any sort. If I sent you a link, you could have looked at someone's passport."We have to do something about it as fast as possible, because people will find this and resell it. It will do damage," Sammy Azdoufal told me i …Read the full story at The Verge.

Ask an AI to make you a 3D model and, depending on the service you use, the results can be genuinely decent at best and utterly awful at worst. The tools made to turn text into 3D models that have floated around for a few years often make a vaguely correct sculpture that looks fine in a preview but doesn't actually work on a geometric level. It may not have clean dimensions, it might not be editable, and half the time it might not even be a geometrically valid object.

The GTX 1080 Ti is widely considered a legendary GPU among PC enthusiasts, not just because it set the benchmark for value, but because it stayed relevant for many years. Even though Nvidia introduced newer RTX cards that supported hardware-accelerated ray tracing and DLSS, many gamers simply didn't feel compelled to upgrade. That's why I think the Ryzen 7 5800X3D deserves a similar reputation in the CPU world. It's the CPU that kept AM4 relevant all these years, and it makes sense why AMD relaunched it this year.

The CFTC is considering its first regulation for prediction markets, as arrests over "insider trading" on everything from military operations to Google Search data continue to stack up. As CoinDesk reports, a notice of proposed rulemaking says "the proposal would establish a structured framework for evaluating whether such contracts involve an activity enumerated in Section 5c(c)(5)(C) of the Commodity Exchange Act -activity that involves terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or conduct that is unlawful under federal or state law-and, if so, whether that contract is contrary to the public interest."Separately, Kalshi announced on Wednesda …Read the full story at The Verge.

My home lab has grown over the years from an old gaming rig given new life and ex-enterprise networking gear to more of a coherent whole. The tasks handled by the hardware have changed as technology evolves, and they're running substantially more powerful programs than before.

Apple's new Siri AI is finally here, and so far, it seems like it works. I have access and have been messing around with it, and my biggest impression so far is that Siri AI is quite curt - which I mean as a compliment.Many AI chatbots are cheery and wordy. While a more verbose and casual personality can make a chatbot seem friendlier and more fun to talk to, there are instances of users becoming extremely attached to their chatbot of choice. People have fallen in love with chatbots. When OpenAI suddenly shut down GPT-4o, users grieved its loss, and the company brought the model back for paid users. And while some companies have dialed bac …Read the full story at The Verge.

Of all the various streaming services I've ditched over the past year, Crunchyroll held on the longest. The reason is simple: I watch a lot of anime, and Crunchyroll was the best bet for finding simulcasts and more niche options.