Phones can do a lot more than most people think, especially older Android phones that are probably lying forgotten in a drawer. Smartphones are the consumer devices we use more than almost anything else, which is why even older models often have better hardware than many other consumer devices you own, whether it's a NAS or a Raspberry Pi.

It's unfair but true: no matter how new and powerful a computer or other tech device we buy, it inevitably ends up in a digital graveyard. Most of us likely have a drawer full of tech — namely, phones that became obsolete and were replaced by the latest and greatest shiny new toy. Luckily, there is a lot you can still do with an old Android device to breathe new life into it, similar to repurposing a PC.

Although I have a soft spot for the polished interfaces of Harvester and ESXi, Proxmox’s web UI is just as convenient as its counterparts. Most of the basic home server features and virtualization services are easy to access once you go through its documentation, and if you’re as fond of tinkering with computing projects as I am, you’ll find dozens of cool and, dare I say, ground-breaking tools hidden within the PVE management UI.

I love OLED. Well, more specifically, I love QD-OLED, but that's not always an option on laptops and other screens. The gaming side of my desk has a 34-inch QD-OLED ultrawide, and it's the best panel technology I've played on. Perfect blacks, instant response, high refresh rates, and HDR highlights that make my favorite games pop. It's also the wrong screen for my terminal to live on, and I found that out the hard way.

If you ask any PC builder about the most impactful upgrade they've made to their rig, you'll likely walk into a conversation about a new GPU, a shiny new X3D chip, a high-end motherboard, or perhaps a PCIe Gen 5 NVMe. What almost nobody will mention, however, is a BIOS toggle, because unlocking more performance out of existing components isn't ever seen that way. But there are settings within your UEFI that can change how your PC experience feels, and they're almost certainly toggled incorrectly out of the box.

Reading my email hasn't been a habit I've had for years now. The only times I do end up opening it is on the rare chance of an email-based OTP, or if I'm simply mailing things to myself between devices. Outside of that, I've had zero willingness to actually sift through tens of unread emails every single day. Suffice to say, going through my mail wasn't something I thought would suddenly become a part of my day that I would actively begin looking forward to.

Before agents, before MCP, before every model maker started racing to out-benchmark the last, there's only one word that could win the Guinness World Record for the longest-serving term in the AI dictionary: prompt. Everything else has come and gone or been rebranded three times over, but the prompt has stayed exactly where it started. It's still the single thing standing between you and a good answer. Sure, the prompt engineering workshops and the $200 master ChatGPT courses have mostly faded out, and half the people who called themselves prompt engineers in 2023 have quietly changed their LinkedIn titles since.

The Matic is our favorite robot vacuum by a pretty comfortable margin. If you’ve been thinking about buying one, you may want to plan on doing it sooner than later. The company will raise its price by $250 on September 9th, going from $1,245 to $1,495. Matic told The Verge that the new price reflects its rising costs for memory and other components for the vacuum, which it says are now tenfold.Those who buy one directly from the company will get a year’s worth of replacement bags worth $96 at no extra cost. Each refill contains 12 bags, and they ship for free. Additionally, Matic has increased their return policy from 60 days to six months.MaticA different kind of robot vacuum and mop, Matic reinvents the floor cleaning machine.Where to Buy: $1245 at MaticOur reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy praised the Matic’s “human-like navigation,” noting in her review that it got stuck only twice during six months of use. In her cluttered (Jen’s words, not mine), three-story home with pets, thick rugs, and high transitions, it handled difficult layouts with ease while delivering powerful suction and a great self-cleaning roller mop. It’ll continue vacuuming even if its water tank runs dry, and it’s quiet enough to let it run without becoming a distraction if you work from home.It also requires very little maintenance. Rather than relying on a big multifunction dock, it carries its own water tank and stores dirty water in a disposable bag, so you’ll only need to empty and clean its dirty water reservoir. It even drives itself to the sink when it needs more water. Unlike many competing robot vacuums, it can also operate entirely offline, with maps and other data stored locally instead of in the cloud.Read our Matic review.

I first saw Microsoft's Intelligent Terminal at Computex, running on one of Nvidia's RTX Spark machines. At the time, I had no clue what it was, but it showed a terminal window with an AI agent pane docked to the bottom, diagnosing errors and suggesting fixes in real time. It looked impressive, and they told me that it was using a local Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B model to power it. I later found out what its name was, and I decided to give it a try.

There's no denying the fact that for years, Android phones have been more than powerful enough to handle everyday work. However, actually getting work done on a phone has always felt cramped. Be it writing long documents, juggling multiple apps, or managing files across cloud storage, it isn't very comfortable. Yes, I have a laptop, but often enough when I'm writing down notes on my Android phone, I would like the ability to just use the same device to draft out a full document as well.

Engineers from Katalyst Space Technologies testing Link. | Image: NASA/Scott Wiessinger The Swift Observatory was launched in 2004, but recent solar storms have pushed its orbit lower, and it's in danger of burning up in Earth's atmosphere as soon as this year. To try and stave off its demise, NASA has enlisted Katalyst Space Technologies. The company's Link spacecraft launched Friday with the goal of intercepting Swift, which has no propulsion system, and boosting its orbit back to its original position. Right now, Swift is circling at an altitude of 224 miles, and Link is aiming to raise that by about 150 miles.Using a three-armed spacecraft to lift a satellite 150 miles higher into orbit is challenging enough, but the spee …Read the full story at The Verge.

The US Department of Energy reportedly deleted about 6,000 pages related to energy conservation as a historic heatwave tears across the country. The deletion was suspiciously timed, following Republican outrage over Mayor Zohran Mamdani asking New Yorkers to help reduce strain on the grid by setting their AC to 78 degrees. Republicans like Ted Cruz (who has famously fled severe weather in his home state), Nikki Haley, and Representative Nancy Mace (South Carolina) quickly pounced, framing the request as socialism and an act of war on women in menopause (the Republican Party is notoriously concerned about women's health).Of course, this i …Read the full story at The Verge.