Portable SSDs are a great way to store your data. Not only are the drives extremely lightweight, but you also get excellent performance and durability as well. While it isn't the cheapest option, you can often find good deals if you know where to look. With that said, this SanDisk Extreme 8TB portable SSD is now $210 off, dropping it down to its lowest price to date.

The battle of AMD vs Intel has been going on for as long as I can remember. Over the years, they've both had their fair share of time at the top. These days, it will come down to what you want to do and which will be the best choice for you as they both have a great lineup of CPUs. It's always worth remembering that not all CPUs are made for every task, so it's best to decide what you want to achieve before you go out and purchase a new CPU.

Which RTS game did you grow up on? For me, it was Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2. That probably dates me pretty accurately, but I adored the game's take on the Cold War and all the wild stuff that came out of it. Yes, including those amazing live-action cutscenes with people in costumes, which EA doubled-down on in Red Alert 3 when they got Tim Curry to read the best line he has ever read in his career.

I highly doubt you'd need to guess which app I'm referring to when I say "most useless Windows app"—it's Copilot. With Copilot now integrated into all the Microsoft 365 desktop apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, it's obvious Microsoft has made it its life mission to shove Copilot into every corner possible, even if no one asked for it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're somehow a Copilot fan), Microsoft is now pushing the AI assistant even further into macOS with a dedicated app.

Amazon is gearing up to launch new hardware to go along with its AI-upgraded Alexa. During an interview with Bloomberg, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company has a “brand new lineup of devices that are coming in the fall that are beautiful.”On Wednesday, Amazon revealed Alexa Plus, a more conversational version of the smart assistant that’s capable of performing a wider range of tasks, such as ordering an Uber or finding concert tickets. Amazon says “almost every” Alexa device will support Alexa Plus, save for older Echo generations. Alexa Plus will cost $19.99 per month but will be included with a subscription to Prime.Though Jassy didn’t share any other details about the new devices, it seems like the company plans to put an even bigger focus on displays. When asked about Amazon’s next-generation hardware, Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of devices and services, told my colleague Jennifer Tuohy that, “I believe in screens. I think they matter in a massive way.”We’ve already seen this outlook impact Amazon’s lineup of products, as the company launched a new Echo Show with a larger 21-inch display after Panay joined in 2023.

"How high can it go" is often the question that fascinates PC gamers. Whether it's FPS, clock speeds, transfer rate, or Cinebench scores, PC users can't stop themselves from obsessing over numbers. In a way, that's the only way to quantify performance and benchmark your PC against others, but in this race, you might be hurting the most important thing at the center of it all — enjoying your PC.

Apple announced in a whitepaper that it plans to introduce a bunch of new child safety features, including letting parents share their kids’ age ranges with apps, refreshing the App Store’s age ratings system, and making it easier for parents to set up Child Accounts for their kids. The company says it will introduce the features “this year.”Companies like Meta, Snap, and X have called for platforms to be responsible for verifying the ages of users at the OS or app store level. Apple also reportedly lobbied against a proposed bill in Louisiana that would have required the company to enforce age restrictions.In the whitepaper, Apple argues that age verification “at the app marketplace level” wouldn’t be ideal, as it would require users to hand over “sensitive personally identifying information” to the company. “That’s not in the interest of user safety or privacy,” Apple says. The age sharing system gestures in that direction without going so far as to fully verify each user’s age. With the age range feature, “parents can allow their kids to share the age range associated with their Child Accounts with app developers,” Apple says.The age range will “be shared with developers if and only if parents decide to allow this information to be shared,” and parents will be able to disable sharing. The feature also won’t “provide kids’ actual birthdates.” Developers will be able to request the age ranges with a new API that Apple says is a “narrowly tailored, data-minimizing, privacy-protecting tool to assist app developers who can benefit from it.”“Today’s announcement is a positive first step, however, developers can only apply these age-appropriate protections with a teen’s approval,” Meta spokesperson Jamie Radice says in a statement to The Verge. “Parents tell us they want to have the final say over the apps their teens use, and that’s why we support legislation that requires app stores to verify a child’s age and get a parent’s approval before their child downloads an app.”As for App Store ratings will expand from four thresholds to five; the new categories will be Age 4 plus, 9 plus, 13 plus, 16 plus, and 18 plus. In their app listings, developers will be asked to highlight “whether apps contain user-generated content or advertising capabilities that can impact the presence of age-inappropriate content” and if apps have their own content controls.Apple says that the App Store won’t show kids apps with age ratings “in the places where we feature apps on our storefront” that are higher than what their parents set on their accounts.As for Child Accounts, Apple says that it will introduce a new setup process and let parents fix the age associated with the account if it wasn’t set up correctly.Update, February 27th: Added Meta statement.

The Cricut Maker 4 and Explore 4 crafting machines in their new seashell and sage color options. | Image: CricutCricut has announced new versions of its crafting machines designed to print, cut, and emboss various materials using a collection of swappable tools. The new Cricut Maker 4 and Cricut Explore 4 are the first updates to both machines in nearly four years and offer faster cutting speeds for some materials, improved accuracy, and cheaper price tags. The machines will be available starting on February 28th, 2025. They’ll still start at $249.99 for the Cricut Explore 4, and at $399.99 for the Cricut Maker 4, and both will be available in sage and seashell color options. The four-year-old Cricut Explore 3 sells for $319, while the Maker 3 is $439, so the cheaper price tags for the 4-series line could help make the new machines more accessible to new users. Both models come with a bundle of crafting materials to complete 10 initial projects.The Cricut Maker 4 and Explore 4 look nearly identical to their predecessors but are up to twice as fast when cutting through materials like cardstock and vinyl, Cricut says. The speed improvements won’t be quite as dramatic when using thicker materials, but the upgrade will still appeal to crafters who sell their creations on sites like Etsy and are looking to upgrade their output.Cricut has also introduced a new optical sensor on both models that works alongside a light that better illuminates materials, according to CNET. The upgrade should help improve cutting accuracy, no matter what the lighting conditions are in your crafting room.Although there are differences between both machines’ capabilities, they’re mostly dependent on the types of projects you’re looking to create. The pricier Cricut Maker 4 is designed to work with over 300 different types of materials, including thicker options like leather and balsa wood, and a wider variety of cutting and embossing tools. The cheaper Cricut Explore 4 is limited to around 100 different materials, including thinner stock like vinyl, card stock, and iron-ons.In 2021, the company frustrated existing users with plans to limit monthly uploads to its Design Space software used to prep projects before sending them to the machines. Subscription fees were announced for users wanting to expand the number of designs they could upload, but after much backlash, Cricut scrapped those plans entirely.While the new machines don’t require subscriptions, the company still offers a Cricut Access subscription for users who heavily rely on pre-made designs and projects available through its Design Space app. Cricut Access also expands the number of fonts and images available through the app and includes discounts on materials.

AMD's Ryzen X3D CPUs have been ruling the gaming charts for almost three years. Ever since the Ryzen 7 5800X3D came out in 2022, AMD's 3D V-Cache propelled its chips to gaming supremacy, and nothing that Intel has put out since then has been able to turn the tables. The latest Ryzen 7 9800X3D turned out to be a whopping 30% faster (on average) than the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Meta is planning to launch a dedicated app for its AI chatbot, according to a report from CNBC. The Verge can also confirm that Meta is working on the standalone app. The new app could launch in the second quarter of this year, CNBC says, joining the growing number of standalone AI apps, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.Meta has already brought its AI chatbot across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, but launching a standalone app could help the company reach people who don’t already use those platforms. Similar to rival chatbots, Meta AI can answer questions, generate images, edit photos, and more. It recently gained the ability to use its “memory” to provide better recommendations.In a response to CNBC’s report, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joked, “ok fine maybe we’ll do a social app.” Meta declined to comment.Meta has ramped up its efforts to compete in the AI industry in recent months, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing plans to invest up to $65 billion to further the company’s AI ambitions. The company also plans on holding an event dedicated to AI on April 29th.Additional reporting by Alex Heath.

Jitter is a lesser-known networking issue that I can guarantee that most of you have experienced, probably recently. It's most apparent in any type of real-time communications, like video calls, VoIP systems, livestreaming, and in-game comms, but can also affect video and audio streaming from services like Spotify or YouTube.

It has been a rough month for Nvidia. First, it sold out of its RTX 50 series GPUs, which ended up becoming prey for scalpers. Then, people discovered that when updating the GPU, they had a chance of encountering a nasty black screen issue.. Finally, a small number of GPUs had fewer-than-usual ROP counts, which Nvidia stated would be covered under RMA. Well, the company can (hopefully) knock one of those off of the list, as the latest driver aims to fix the black screen problems.