Google’s Pixel lineup represents the pinnacle of Android, refined by years of software iteration. Unfortunately, the company may have lost focus on the core pillars of the user experience recently. Every year's Pixel experience seems incrementally better than the last, with most of the hardware bits like the camera sensors, shared, and AI tricks doing the heavy lifting. This makes Pixel devices resemble an on-ramp for Google's subscriptions more than a flagship Android phone.

The barrier to shipping software has never been lower. You can describe an idea to an AI, watch it produce a working prototype in an afternoon, and have it deployed behind a domain name by the end of the evening. The results can be impressive, and I'm not here to argue that vibe coding is inherently bad.

The Steam Machine is in a weird place right now. We know it's a real thing, and we kind of know what it'll do, but we don't know how much it will cost or when it will release. This is largely because of the RAM crisis that struck close to when Valve intended to ship its new batch of hardware, including the Steam Machine.

I've seen many people talk about Mini-ITX motherboards like the compromises are obvious. I mean, to an extent, they are. Yes, you do get fewer PCIe, M.2 slots, DIMM slots, and ports in general, but that's usually where the conversation ends. Since those limitations are easy to see, I understand why they get all the attention. But when you spend enough time looking at SFF builds as a whole, you quickly realize that the limitations you notice on the spec sheet aren't really the ones that end up mattering.

Over the past several years, Nothing’s budget-centric subsidiary, CMF, has built a reputation for producing attractive, inexpensive products with features often reserved for gadgets that cost twice the price. The CMF Headphone Pro — the company’s first pair of over-ear wireless headphones — fit precisely in that lane, especially now that they’re on sale at Amazon in both light gray and a subtle green shade for an all-time low of $69 ($30 off).CMF Headphone ProWhere to Buy: $99 $69 at Amazon (light gray) $99 $69 at Amazon (green)Although the Headphone Pro eschew the retro-transparent design found on Nothing wares like the Headphone 1, I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s a bad thing given the polarizing, squared-off design of the latter. Instead, the Pro go all in on the curves, with circular earcups, cushions, and a plush headband. You can also add an additional pop of color with CMF’s $25 interchangeable cushions, which, as of now, are available in either orange or the aforementioned green hue.Unlike many premium pairs of noise-canceling headphones, the Pro ditch touch-capacitive controls for physical buttons — a plus, as far as I’m concerned — allowing you to control playback, adjust the volume, and tweak a range of other settings using a customizable action button and a multi-function roller. Nothing also includes something called an Energy Slider, so you can adjust the treble and bass balance on the fly without digging into Nothing’s app to make EQ adjustments.The biggest draw of the Headphone Pro, aside from their adaptive ANC, is that they offer a whopping 100 hours of battery life per charge, ensuring you can travel just about anywhere without having to top them off. That number drops to 50 hours with active noise cancellation enabled; however, that’s still 10 hours more than what you’d get with a higher-end pair like Sony’s WH-1000XM6 and 20 hours more than the latest Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. The fact that they support Google Fast Pair and the higher-quality LDAC codec is just a plus.Other alternatives to considerBeats Solo 4With lossless USB-C audio, 50 hours of battery life, Find My support, spatial audio, and comfy ear cups, the Beats Solo 4 offer significant quality-of-life improvements over their predecessors. They still deliver that bass-rich Beats sound, too. Read our review.Where to Buy: $199.95 $129.95 at Amazon $199.95 $129 at Walmart $199.95 $149.99 at Best BuySony WH-CH520The Sony WH-CH520 offer a lot for very little. The on-ear Bluetooth headphones provide 50 hours of battery life and support hands-free voice assistants, including Google Assistant and Siri. They also offer multipoint Bluetooth support and can tap into Google’s Find Hub network.Where to Buy: $59.99 $38 at Amazon $59.99 $38 at Best Buy $59.99 $39.99 at Target

I love creating wacky projects and jumping headfirst into whatever cool GitHub repo I encounter during my doom-scrolling sessions. Rapid deployment platforms like Heroku are pretty useful for my tinkering misadventures, as their one-click installation process and automated update pipelines add a lot of convenience by letting me focus on the coding and troubleshooting aspect.

Liftoff. | Anadolu via Getty Images Today's launch of AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite aboard Blue Origin's reusable New Glenn rocket was a partial success. The New Glenn touched down on its landing pad without incident, making it the second launch and landing for the first stage booster, and officially giving Jeff Bezos a reusable launch vehicle. Unfortunately for AST SpaceMobile, the mission was less successful. Its cell-tower-in-space was delivered to a lower orbit than expected by the second stage of the launch vehicle, rendering it functionally useless.In a statement, the company said:While the satellite separated from the launch vehicle and powered on, the alt …Read the full story at The Verge.

Plex has always been my go-to tool for managing my own media. Yes, there's Jellyfin and Emby, but few apps offer essentials like remote streaming and a great interface as Plex does. It's where all my favorite TV shows live, neatly organized and easy to access across devices. But over time, my use of Plex has evolved. Yes, it still serves up my collection of Blu-rays, but all too often, when I just need something playing in the background, Plex has a built-in feature that makes it easy.

If you're a PC gamer, you've probably already spent hours comparing spec sheets before deciding on a new monitor. You see manufacturers advertising the same things on the box every single time, from refresh rate and response time to HDR support and color coverage. If you've done it long enough, you start to feel like you can judge a monitor just by looking at those numbers. After all, a higher refresh rate means smoother gaming, and a lower response time means better clarity, right?

Vercel, a major development platform that hosts and deploys web apps, was compromised, and the hackers are attempting to sell stolen data. A person claiming to be a member of ShinyHunters, which was behind the recent hack of Rockstar Games, posted some data online, including employee names, email addresses, and activity time stamps. Vercel confirmed in a post on X that a "security incident" had occurred, and that it impacted a "limited subset" of its customers. Vercel said that a compromised third-party AI tool was the avenue for attack, though it did not specify which third-party was involved.We've identified a security incident that inv …Read the full story at The Verge.

As someone who loves watching monitor reviews on YouTube, I've spent way too much time obsessing over the usual specs like response times, refresh rate, panel type, and HDR certification. These are things reviewers test and compare, and for the most part, that's usually enough to decide whether a monitor is worth your money or not. But after daily driving OLED monitors for the last four years, I can confidently say there's an issue that rarely gets mentioned in reviews, and that's VRR flicker.

We've reached a point where practically every new AI tool or feature launching just feels the same. Every company is going after helping you build better presentations, write more "human" emails, or write code faster. I'm not saying these features and tools aren't helpful. I'm a huge fan of NotebookLM's Slide Decks and rely heavily on them for all the presentations I create, and I spend a good chunk of my days building tools using Claude Code. Everything these companies are building is impressive, but at some point, the novelty just wears off.