Getting work done while on the go isn't just a luxury; it's turned into a necessity for many working professionals. A good mobile workstation is incredibly important if you want to maximize your output while away from home, and it starts with a powerful laptop. Unfortunately, working off of a laptop doesn't allow for much screen real estate. Many laptops are limited to just a 14" screen, leaving you feeling cramped in your workflow. Enter the world of portable monitors, which work exactly like you think they would. Here are 4 reasons why their plug and play nature makes them a no-brainer for productivity.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Rivian is planning to launch a hands-free driving assistant system for its electric R1T and R1S vehicles later this year, followed by an “eyes-off” version in 2026, reveals Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe in a press roundtable interview according to a post on Rivian Forums and reported by Electrek. The first part of the system sounds like it will work similarly to Ford’s Blue Cruise or GM’s Super Cruise software, which are Level 2 assistants that only work on highways fully mapped by each manufacturer.It’s unclear if current Gen 1 and Gen 2 Rivian vehicles will support the upcoming hand-free assistant software or if it will come to upgraded models or the upcoming R2 SUV.Gen 2 vehicles already come with exclusive features like matrix headlights and an upgraded light bar that can change colors, which Scaringe says could be used as an indicator to let others know a Rivian is operating autonomously, according to a Rivian Forum user. Gen 2 vehicles also come with a newer Rivian Autonomy Platform, which might mean Gen 1 vehicles aren’t going to get some of the upcoming advanced ADAS features.Currently, Rivian trucks have available “Driver Plus” advanced driver assistant systems (ADAS) that work similarly to Tesla’s standard Autopilot software in that they enable lane keeping and auto speed up / slow down on highways. However, like other Level 2 systems, you still need to pay attention to the road.In an email to The Verge, Rivian’s product communications manager, Courtney Richardson, confirms Scaringe’s comments about the upcoming ADAS upgrades in the interview yesterday. Richardson says there are no further details to add at this time. Currently, only Mercedes-Benz ships a Level 3 autonomous system that works in some states in the US, which allows drivers to look away from the road.

Everyone here at XDA has been excitedly waiting since Valve announced SteamOS 3 will get a beta version for other PC gaming handhelds. The Steam Deck OLED and Steam Deck LCD aren't technically the best handhelds, hardware-wise, but the tight integration of SteamOS makes it a more enjoyable experience than using Windows-based devices.

Microcontroller is a term you hear fairly often in the DIY landscape. Often confused with Single-Board Computers, MCUs like the Arduino series are integrated circuits designed for specific circuitry projects rather than a multipurpose standalone system. However, they’re just as useful for fledgling tinkerers and seasoned maestros alike, with Arduino boards, in particular, serving as excellent additions for DIY enthusiasts. If you haven’t already armed your workstation with an Arduino board, here are five reasons why you should consider checking them out.

Remembering the important things in your life is not always as easy as we'd like it to be, and taking notes is essential to keep track of the information we need access to at any given time. In an age when everyone owns multiple devices, it's also extremely important to have those notes on all of them, so you can always access them quickly when you need them.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects to spend as much as $65 billion on AI in 2025 as part of a “massive effort” to further the company’s AI ambitions. Part of the plan includes a Louisiana data center that Zuckerberg says “is so large it would cover a significant part of Manhattan,” he wrote on Threads today.The announcement reads like a response to the big AI data center news touted by competitors earlier this week. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump joined OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison as they announced Project Stargate, a $500 billion joint venture that will build sprawling AI data centers in Texas and other parts of the country. City documents seen by Bloomberg suggest the Texas data center will be as big as New York’s Central Park.Meta started building its $10 billion AI data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana last December, and its construction is expected to continue through 2030. The data center is one of many Meta started working on last year to power its open-source large language model Llama. Aside from Meta, tech giants including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia are spending billions to scale up their data-hungry AI efforts.Zuckerberg said he expects to end the year with over 1.3 million GPUs, while “significantly” growing the company’s AI team. “This will be a defining year for AI,” Zuckerberg wrote. “In 2025, I expect Meta AI will be the leading assistant serving more than 1 billion people, Llama 4 will become the leading state of the art model, and we’ll build an AI engineer that will start contributing increasing amounts of code to our R&D [research and development] efforts.”

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Earlier this week, several posts on the Instagram page of Aid Access, an abortion pill provider, were inaccessible to the public. Some images were blurred out, with no option to click through and view the post. Others appeared simply as a gray square with nondescript alt text, as if the image didn’t load. Aid Access connects patients with doctors who provide abortion pills via telehealth appointments, and the posts that were blocked from being viewed included instructions for performing at-home abortions using pills. The issues on Instagram — first reported by Jessica Valenti — also reportedly made it difficult to find the Aid Access account using the app’s search function.By Thursday evening, Meta had restored a handful of Aid Access posts, though some appear to still be missing. This latest incident is just another example of how Meta has restricted abortion information online for years. It also comes in the middle of Meta’s right-wing pivot, as the company has begun allowing more transphobic, racist, and otherwise hateful content on its platforms as it courts Donald Trump. Image: Meta The Aid Access Instagram account as of Wednesday evening. Image: Meta An example of how Aid Access posts appeared on Instagram. Medication abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy can safely be done at home, according to the World Health Organization. Licensed providers like those working with Aid Access have prescribed abortion pills to hundreds of thousands of patients. Thanks to shield laws, which protect healthcare workers who provide the procedure, patients in states where abortion is banned or restricted can also order abortion medication.Social media is an important place for patients to seek information about abortions, says Rebecca Davis of Hey Jane, which offers virtual reproductive care like abortions and birth control.“[Patients] will often turn to social media to just make sure we’re legit,” says Davis, who leads marketing at the company. “We’ve spent a lot of time and energy to really build up our social presence, so we’re verified on Instagram, we’re verified on TikTok.”Hey Jane encountered restrictions on Instagram in recent days as well. Davis says the group has gotten messages that its Instagram profile was not easily accessible through the app’s search features. The Verge was able to replicate the issue: typing in “heyjane” or “hey jane” did not display the account as suggested. Users would need to know the account’s full handle, @heyjanehealth, in order for it to appear as a suggestion.“We know that by not showing up in these searches we’re directly impacting people who are actively seeking this very timely, essential healthcare from getting the information that they need to make decisions,” Davis told The Verge.Meta spokesperson Erin Logan told The Verge in an email that abortion rights groups are experiencing “a variety of issues — some due to correct enforcement, as well as over enforcement.” Logan said the company prohibits the sale of pharmaceutical drugs on Meta platforms without a LegitScript certification. (Hey Jane is among the providers certified with LegitScript.) Logan said these incidents were not the result of recent Meta policy updates.“We’ve been quite clear in recent weeks that we want to allow more speech and reduce enforcement mistakes — and we’re committed to doing that,” Logan added, though no specifics were mentioned. Regarding issues encountered by Hey Jane, Logan directed The Verge to Meta’s policies, which state that content promoting the use of pharmaceutical drugs is allowed on the platform but may not be eligible for recommendation. In recent weeks, Meta has rolled back its policies for what users can and can’t say on its platforms, opening the floodgates for more hate speech and offensive content under the guise of “free expression.” But providers have long had information about abortion restricted or removed, according to groups like Amnesty International and Repro Uncensored. Davis from Hey Jane says this isn’t the first time the group’s Instagram profile has been invisible in search: something similar happened in 2023, when fake Hey Jane accounts were appearing in search instead.Even though abortion access groups have encountered issues on Meta platforms, Davis says it’s not as simple as moving to another social media site. Many patients use Instagram and other platforms like TikTok to find urgent information.“While this moment certainly points to the value in diversifying the platforms that we’re on, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people who are seeking abortion care are going to be off of these platforms,” Davis says.

There are plenty of apps out there that let you customize Windows in a variety of ways, whether it's changing the Start menu, taskbar, File Explorer, and so on. Recently, I discovered Windhawk, an app and platform for all kinds of Windows-related mods, and I really like it.

Keeping your Windows PC secure from viruses and malware is an essential part of being a Windows user. Microsoft has the Windows Security app built-in, but you might prefer something else. However, have you thought of going open-source to secure your system?

Annoyed by fake reviews on business pages? So is the CMA. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Google will take firmer action against British businesses that use fake reviews to boost their star ratings on the search giant’s reviews platform. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on Friday that Google has agreed to improve its processes for detecting and removing fake reviews, and will take action against the businesses and reviewers that post them.This includes deactivating the ability to add new reviews for businesses found to be using fake reviews, and deleting all existing reviews for at least six months if they repeatedly engage in suspicious review activity. Google will also place prominent “warning alerts” on the Google profiles of businesses using fake reviews to help consumers be more aware of potentially misleading feedback. Individuals who repeatedly post fake or misleading reviews on UK business pages will be banned and have their review history deleted, even if they’re located in another country.Google is required to report to the CMA over the next three years to ensure it’s complying with the agreement.“The changes we’ve secured from Google ensure robust processes are in place, so people can have confidence in reviews and make the best possible choices,” CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said in a statement. “This is a matter of fairness – for both business and consumers – and we encourage the entire sector to take note.”Google made similar changes to reviews in Maps last year, saying that contributions “should reflect a genuine experience at a place or business.” However, those changes apply globally while Google’s commitment to improving reviews across all its properties appears to just apply to the UK for now.The changes to reviews follow a CMA investigation launched against Google and Amazon in 2021 over concerns the companies had violated consumer protection laws by not doing enough to tackle fake reviews on their platforms. The CMA says its probe into Amazon is still ongoing and that an update will be announced “in due course.”

Better late than never. | Image: Apple Now that we’ve almost hit the second month of 2025, Apple has finally updated its CarPlay webpage to say it won’t be arriving in 2024. As noted by MacRumors, the 2024 timeframe for the first vehicles to support CarPlay 2 has been removed from the website without adding a new launch date.Apple first announced the “next generation of CarPlay” back in 2022, but updates about its arrival have been sporadic. Porsche and Aston Martin haven’t provided any launch dates despite saying their cars would be the first to get the new CarPlay. Some automakers like Ford and Mercedes were slow to confirm support, while others like General Motors and Rivian have snubbed CarPlay entirely in favor of having more control over their vehicles.Despite not posting a revised date, there are indications that Apple will launch it eventually. There are references to next-generation ‌CarPlay‌ in the iOS 18.3 beta released last month, for example, and Apple has recently filed new images of it in an EU database. Apple also told 9to5Mac that it’s working closely with several automakers that will implement the new CarPlay experience.“Each car brand will share more details as they near the announcements of their models that will support the next generation of CarPlay,” Apple told the outlet.

As the proud owner of about a dozen Ethernet cables ranging from 3 feet to 100 feet in length, I'm a proud and practicing Ethernet purist. While the future of Wi-Fi is more exciting than ever, not all of us have access to blazing wireless speeds or a pricey Wi-Fi 7 router in our homes.