There are budget PCs, and then there are budget PCs. If you're on a mission to grab the cheapest gaming PC possible, you might want to look at old Xeon workstations. Intel's Xeon CPUs might not be relevant in the enterprise space anymore, but they're quite popular with hobbyists and home lab users. For gaming, they might seem an odd choice due to the outdated single-core performance, but they're surprisingly capable when compared to, say, 5-year-old consumer chips, such as the Ryzen 5 3600 or Core i5-12600K.

Automation is, nowadays, an important part of any system. From a smart home built with Home Assistant to the management of teams, there are countless solutions out there built for automating workflows in a quick, easy, and secure way. Open‑source projects like n8n gave developers a taste of that power without enterprise price tags, but there are other options out there, too. That's why I've been trying out Tines, and I've been loving it so far.

When I first got into NAS systems, I used to obsess over processor speeds, RAM, hardware transcoding, and whether the interface had all the bells and whistles as some of the alternatives offered. Dual Ethernet ports for aggregation, maybe even PCIe expansion to add a 10GbE card, were some of my more recent obsessions. But over time, I realized none of that really mattered as much as one thing: whether I could actually expand my storage down the line. Because, as anyone who stores a lot of data will tell you, it creeps up on you fast. One minute you’re backing up a few photos, and the next you’re hoarding 4K videos, photos, music, and a whole lot of data. And the primary purpose of a NAS is to serve up storage. Everything else, including the ability to work as a server, is effectively secondary.

I've been a fan of mechanical keyboards for over four years now. Ever since I moved from a Cooler Master membrane keyboard to a cheap mechanical keyboard, I knew I was never going back. A single keyboard turned into over a dozen, but there was one type of keyboard I ignored for a long time — low-profile keyboards. I loved the distinctive sound and feel of mechanical keyboards, and didn't want to sacrifice them by going low-profile.

Gaming as a hobby is appearing to get more expensive. With the rise in prices for hardware and other aspects of video games, everyone is going to have to shell out more to engage with their favorite pastime. However, while the price of home game consoles and PC gaming has increased over time, one aspect of video games that's attracting a lot of debate is the price of individual releases. Not that long ago, it felt like $60 would be enough to buy most new releases that would come out at retail. But now it seems some developers are aiming to reach an $80 price point for their newest releases. And most players are not happy about it.

The Bing Video Creator is rolling out now to Bing mobile app users.Microsoft has added a new AI video generator to its Bing mobile app that’s built on OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video model. The Bing Video Creator announced on Monday provides a free way to generate short clips with Sora, which is normally locked behind ChatGPT subscriptions starting at $20 per month for Plus users.“Bing Video Creator represents our efforts to democratize the power of AI video generation,” Microsoft said in its announcement. “We believe creativity should be effortless and accessible to help you satisfy your answer-seeking process. We’re excited to empower anyone to turn their words into wonder through an AI-generated video.”The Video Creator is now rolling out globally (excluding China and Russia) to the Bing Search apps for Android and iPhone, and Microsoft says desktop and Copilot Search support are also “coming soon.” The video generator can be accessed via the menu at the bottom right corner of the Bing app, or by adding a description of the clip you want to make directly to the Bing search bar.Microsoft says that users can queue up to three video generations at a time and will receive a notification when they’re ready. You can choose between a “Standard” generation speed, which is free for all users, or a “Fast” option that works “in seconds,” according to Microsoft. 10 Fast generations are provided for free, after which users will need to use the Standard speed or redeem 100 Microsoft Rewards points for each Fast generation.Videos are five seconds long, in a 9:16 vertical format, and support for 16:9 format video creation will be added at a later date. Videos will be stored on the Bing app for up to 90 days and can be downloaded or shared with other platforms.The example videos that Microsoft has released are a far cry from the quality showcased by other AI models like Google’s Veo 3. The movements in the otter chef and sweeping hamster demos show unnatural clipping, for example, and the characters themselves look a little cartoony at times. Still, judging by our time experimenting with Sora after it launched in December 2024, these are a better representation of what the video model is capable of than the polished (and presumably cherry-picked) clips that OpenAI released when Sora was being teased.

The year 2001 was a monumental time for gaming, as that November marked the release of the original Xbox from Microsoft. At that point, the games industry changed forever, as another giant entered the ongoing console war between multiple companies. To many, the first Xbox console went on to have a library of games that would help reshape the landscape of the console market, impacting multiple game genres in ways that would be felt through the decades. Not only was it the console where franchises like Halo began, but it was also the jumping point for online gaming becoming mainstream with features like Xbox Live. And through its five-year lifespan on the market, the Xbox accumulated a great library of amazing, boundary-pushing games.

I remember when "gaming" and "Linux" were words that never gelled well in a sentence together. It was pretty much Windows or bust if you wanted to play games. There were some valiant efforts to get Linux users gaming, but it was mostly when (or if) a developer made a version that worked on Linux. If they didn't, you were out of luck.

Microsoft’s changes in response to the Digital Markets Act already included allowing Windows machines in the regions it covers to uninstall Edge and remove Bing results from Windows search, but now the list is growing in some meaningful ways. New features announced Monday for Microsoft Windows users in the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) include the option to uninstall the Microsoft Store and avoid extra nags or prompts asking them to set Microsoft Edge as the default browser unless they choose to open it.That last one is one I’d like to have readily available in the United States, and according to Microsoft, it’s already live in the EEA, starting with Edge version 137.0.3296.52 that rolled out on May 29th.Additionally, setting a different browser, like Chrome, Firefox, Brave, or something else, will pin it to the taskbar unless the user chooses not to. While setting a different browser default already attaches it to a few link and file types like https and .html, now users in the EEA will see it apply to more types like “read,” ftp, and .svg. The default browser changes are live for some users in the beta channel and are set to roll out widely on Windows 10 and Windows 11 in July.Microsoft also explained that even after removing the Store app from Start and Settings, “Apps installed and distributed from the Microsoft Store will continue to get updates,” and it can always be reinstalled. Other changes mentioned include automatically enabling third-party apps to add their web search results in Windows Search upon installation, and the option to move search providers around based on user preference. With updates rolling out in “early June,” the Microsoft Bing app, as well as the Widgets Board and Lock Screen, will open web content with the default browser instead.

TikTok is back online after a brief outage last night. Many people started reporting problems with the platform just after 11PM ET, noting that while TikTok wasn’t completely offline, it was definitely dealing with some kind of technical issues that impacted users trying to access the service and view video comments.Based on reports from Reddit, Twitter, Bluesky, and looking at our own devices, some videos were able to load in TikTok’s mobile apps, but accessing other features like comments or switching between accounts wasn’t working reliably, leading some users to wonder if their accounts were banned. Trying to pull up the TikTok website, or even its support pages, displayed a message saying “An error occurred while processing your request” along with a reference code.TikTok didn’t make any public acknowledgement about the outage or what was causing it. At the time, status pages for some of its service providers, like Akamai and Oracle, didn’t indicate any wider problems. Downdetector listed 44,000 reports at our last check before regular service was restored at around 12AM ET, so while it’s unclear what was behind the technical issues, at least everything was restored swiftly.Update, June 3rd: The TikTok outage has now been resolved.

Home Assistant may have a beginner-friendly UI, but you shouldn’t underestimate its capabilities. Thanks to integrations (especially those of the HACS variety), blueprints, and trigger-action workflows, there are tons of cool projects you can build with Home Assistant. Throw in the Node-RED add-on, and you’ve got a powerful automation server that can control every aspect of your smart home.

We've seen the base model of the Mac Mini go on sale plenty of times before, dropping to just $500, which is an absolute steal for what you get. But if you're someone that's looking to grab one with a little more RAM and storage, this model should be right up your alley.