Setting up a personal cloud with a Raspberry Pi can be an exciting venture. Many people enjoy the freedom of storing and accessing their files on their own terms. However, it is easy to make oversights that complicate everything from security to day-to-day usage. A little extra preparation can help ensure a more secure and stable system. By avoiding common pitfalls, you will likely have a smoother experience and enjoy your personalized cloud solution for a long time.

Despite Wi-Fi 7 routers getting cheaper, they still aren't for everyone. But if you're someone that's looking to take their internet to a new level, then it's probably going to be a good idea to see what kinds of Wi-Fi 7 routers are available if it will benefit your scenario. With that said, this one from TP-Link is now on sale, coming in at $200 less than its original MSRP. This is the lowest price we've seen for this model, which delivers impressive performance.

Whether it’s running different operating systems or hosting useful applications inside containers, there’s a lot you can do with your home server. But if you love performing wacky computing experiments on your workstation, you run the risk of rendering your essential services offline. Considering the experimental nature of home labs, you could easily break your network stack, access privileges, or storage mounts (or even all three, at the same time) if you’re not careful.

It all starts with trying out a smart TV or smart lights. Soon, you'll find smart speakers, smart plugs, smart switches, and smart locks. Like many, I have a hodgepodge of smart devices in my home. Now, I have a hard time making them all work together. That's because smart devices use different wireless protocols for IoT devices, such as Zigbee and Z-Wave. Neither protocol is interoperable, and their devices do not communicate with each other.

In a letter to the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General’s office requesting an investigation into DOGE, Ranking Member Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) alleged that the government entity created by Elon Musk supposedly to reduce the size of the federal government is now constructing a “cross-agency master database” of sensitive personal information.Wired appeared to back up Connolly’s allegations on Friday, detailing an effort at DOGE to fold this  database into the Department of Homeland Security, the counterterrorism agency founded after 9/11. Specifically, “mass amounts” of personal data harvested from the IRS, SSA, and voting records in Pennsylvania and Florida were recently uploaded into servers at the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), which processes immigration cases.Connolly cited testimony from SSA whistleblowers who witnessed DOGE engineers accessing the agency’s IT system with “backpacks full of laptops, each with access to different agency systems”, with the aim of combining them into one database. Connolly warned that not only would such a database pose a threat to government cybersecurity, which siloes its inform …Read the full story at The Verge.

When building a new PC, we often allocate most of our budget to the critical components, like the CPU and GPU, as they're the ones that are primarily responsible for the core performance. However, if you're on a tight budget and cut corners elsewhere, like buying a cheap PSU, your new PC may not operate at peak performance or last nearly as long.

Wyze has been in the home security space for some years now, and, since the beginning, has offered some of the most affordable devices that you can buy. Of course, it's not all about the price when it comes to Wyze, with the brand constantly updating its lineup to offer better audio and visual quality, along with more features.

The government should be scrutinizing Meta’s power. Unfortunately, its legal attack isn’t cutting to the heart of what keeps Meta big.This week, I spent three days in a Washington, DC courtroom watching Mark Zuckerberg testify. He was there defending his company from being broken up by the Federal Trade Commission, which is seeking to unwind his acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp on the grounds that they were anticompetitive. At times, he was made uncomfortable and challenged with evidence that he wanted to “neutralize” rivals. Primarily, what I observed was the FTC’s misunderstanding of how social media works. To establish the market it argues Meta has a monopoly in, the FTC has defined a subset of social media that it calls “personal social networking services.” This category includes apps that primarily facilitate sharing between friends and family, but for some reason, doesn’t include private messaging apps. The government argues that Meta’s only competitors in this market are Snapchat and MeWe, an obscure, blockchain-based social network that claims to have 20 million users. Conveniently for the FTC, including only these two companies gives Meta a de fac …Read the full story at The Verge.

It's common knowledge: when you get a game for a new console, it won't work if you play it on an older device. However, in a strange twist, it seems that may not hold true with the Switch 2. We're receiving reports that some, but not all, Nintendo Switch 2 cartridges will fit in an original Switch. However, please note that the graphical fidelity will not be the same as when playing on the newer console.

Have you checked out LiDAR scanners yet? If you haven't, they're really handy for taking in data from an environment and reproducing it as a 3D model. If that sounds like something you'd like to try, but you're unsure where to start, allow me to introduce you to this excellent Raspberry Pi project, which guides you through the steps of creating your own LiDAR scanner.

As the US government imposes high tariffs on products imported from China, businesses have had to adapt. Some companies have resorted to delaying pre-orders of future hardware, as seen with the Switch 2. Businesses that were selling products that relied on Chinese components removed their items from sale, like we saw with Framework's cheaper laptops. Now, we're seeing a third effect of these new laws, as Retroid has had to reduce the number of colors it can ship for its new Pocket Classic console.

With Windows 10 approaching the end of life in a few months, Windows 11 is the only free alternative for those who want to stay in the Windows ecosystem, even though you may not like the upgrade. One of the major reasons could be some of the missing features, like the ability to move the taskbar, though Microsoft is hard at work to convince users to upgrade by adding long-requested Windows 10 features to Windows 11.