Although SSDs are pretty much the best way to go for storage, there's still a place for HDDs in 2025. Not only do HDDs come in larger sizes, but they're also more affordable. For example, this massive 22TB external hard drive from Seagate is great for backing up all your information, or you can use it as a shared drive on your local network. Get it now for just $250, which is the lowest price we've seen.

Windows Update is a core component of Windows 11, and obviously, it's an important one. Delivering security fixes and improvements, along with new features, it keeps your PC running safely and can often make it better in many ways.

Many Nintendo fans have great memories of playing all sorts of games on the Nintendo 64. It was a home console with a few quirky aspects to it, but also possessed features that made it one of the great Nintendo consoles that impacted the industry in a big way. As a pioneering platform for 3D gaming, some games on it went on to become iconic classics that future releases became inspired by. For some players, the console got them to play games together with good friends and introduced new Nintendo characters and series to their lives. It may not be seen as the best Nintendo console of all-time, but the Nintendo 64 has a solidified spot in gaming history from the mid and late 90s.

Whenever a new Doom game is released, there's going to be a lot of people who show up to play it. The latest entry in the series from Bethesda, Doom: The Dark Ages, garnered a positive reception from many who were eagerly awaiting its release. But not everybody showed up to a retail store or hopped onto the Xbox Live marketplace to grab their copy of the game. With the latest Doom game being available on Day 1 through Xbox game Pass, tons of people downloaded it as soon as the game went live for everyone. Unfortunately, this may have had some unintended consequences on the release of Doom: The Dark Ages that many have been saying about the subscription service for some time.

Moving is stressful at the best of times, and while moving to a new country is exciting, it also adds a layer of logistical complications, especially when it comes to tech. As someone who's tackled several international moves - most recently, from my native Australia to the US in mid-2023 - here are some tips for figuring out what to bring and how to bring it, and for making sure that your tech works with you, not against you, in your new home.Before you leaveWith all the paperwork and legwork involved in moving countries, it can be easy to put off more minor matters, like what to do with your electronics. Laptops, tablets, and phones should travel with you, but if you're planning on taking relatively large, bulky items like monitors, desktop computers, stereo equipment, TVs, and so on, it'll be cheaper (and easier) to ship them in advance, along with other similarly bulky items like furniture.If you do decide to do this, you'll need to decide between air freight and sea freight. The former is faster; the latter can take months but is generally far cheaper. If there are devices you need with you right up until departure and / or as soon as you arrive - a work computer, for i …Read the full story at The Verge.

Home Assistant was one of the first services I tinkered with when I started my self-hosting journey. Even as a complete newbie, I had no trouble controlling my smart home devices – and I attribute that to Home Assistant’s clean, uncluttered UI. What I didn’t know at the time was that HASS has a really high skill ceiling, and I’d eventually spend hours learning the ins and outs of the platform.

Storage drives tend to have a shorter lifespan than other PC components. The mechanical parts of hard drives wear out after constant use, while SSDs tend to have limited write cycles and can reach their end once that count runs out. Since you wouldn’t want to lose your essential files when your storage drive kicks the bucket, most PC enthusiasts frown upon using aging HDDs and SSDs in their setup.

I've never been much of an athlete, but lately, I've been trying to work on my fitness. As a self-professed data nerd, quantifying data and my activity patterns is essential. So, I turned to the de facto choice — Strava. But, if you’re someone who tracks every ride, run, or hike on Strava, there’s a good chance you’ve stared at the activity feed of your fitness tracker and wished for just a bit more. More control, more context, more meaning. It's not that Strava doesn't offer all that. However, much of it is locked behind a paywall, and you can't really play with it beyond what Strava will let you.

Happy Nintendo Switch 2 release day! Did you get one? Yeah, me neither. I'm watching as my Twitch following list slowly fills up with streamers playing Mario Kart World and the introductory welcome tour. But that's okay because we have free PC games we can play while we try to ignore how much fun everyone else is having.

By now, almost everyone has seen some kind of coverage about the disappointing Arrow Lake launch, and how Intel took one step forward, two steps back. What was supposed to be Intel's comeback after the disastrous instability saga of its Raptor Lake chips became just another cautionary tale for gamers. The Core Ultra CPUs were slower than the 14th Gen CPUs in gaming, but that's not the only reason you should avoid them. Intel still has a long way to go in terms of thermal efficiency, platform longevity, and pricing, when compared to the competition.

AI still doesn’t know what kissing looks like.Doomscroll on TikTok long enough, and you'll come across an ad for AI video apps. In one ad, a stereotypically nerdy girl puckishly smirks as she uploads a picture of herself and her much more handsome crush. Boom - suddenly, thanks to AI, they're smooching. In another, I'm shown a woman in a blouse and jeans. Do I want to know what she looks like in a blue bikini? Psst. There's an app for that. The ad then shows me the woman in said blue bikini. These apps aren't peddling the digital nudes many people associate with AI deepfakes, which are proliferating in their own right on app stores. Slapped together by opportunistic developers and sprinkled with subscription fees and microtransactions, they're all pitching tools to help you make benign fantasies a bit more tangible - but the results feel more cursed than magical.AI video ads link out to apps with titles like Boom.AI, VideoAI, and DreamVid, made by companies you've probably never heard of - a short perusal of Apple's App Store brings up roughly two dozen options. Despite their titillating promotional material, they feature plenty of innocuous video templates. By uploading one or two photos and hitting a "generate" button …Read the full story at The Verge.

One of the main reasons I've stuck with the Steam Deck over more powerful gaming handhelds like the ROG Ally X is the build quality. Other handhelds are built fine, but you immediately feel the quality and consistency of the buttons and joysticks on Valve's handheld. That was until I picked up the GameSir Cyclone 2 controller for my desktop. It's a decent 2.4GHz controller, but the differentiator is that it comes with micro-switches for the D-pad and face buttons. I fell in love with the tactile feedback, and suddenly, it was hard to go back to the membrane-based buttons of my Steam Deck.