Microsoft Office has recently received a steep price hike. If you aren’t a fan of Windows or the sales tactics being used, it’s time to look for an alternative. Among them, open-source alternatives can be compelling solutions. These free and flexible software packages offer a range of features and benefits, and also come with their own set of considerations. In this post, I will go over the key pros and cons of switching to an open-source office suite to help you determine if making the switch is the right move for your needs.

Ever since the performance leaks about Nvidia's RTX 50 series started coming in, gamers knew that AI-generated frames aside, Blackwell wasn't going to be a revolutionary upgrade over Ada Lovelace. And with the third-party reviews of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 now out in the open, calling them the RTX 4090 Ti and RTX 4080 Ti Super respectively is more accurate.

Waymo’s robotaxis in Austin will be co-branded with the Uber logo.Uber is getting ready for the launch of Waymo’s public robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, prompting customers to join a list of people interested in riding in the Alphabet-owned company’s AVs when they finally go live. It also revealed photos of the new co-branded robotaxis that will operate across a swath of the Texas capital as part of the new service. Currently, Waymo isn’t open to the public in Austin. The company’s driverless vehicles are only available to a small group of people who joined Waymo’s waitlist to become early testers of the service. Waymo has not said when the service will open up to the broader public, but reading between the lines of this Uber announcement, it sounds like it may be soon. (A spokesperson for Waymo didn’t respond to a request for comment.)When it does launch, Waymo’s vehicles will be available exclusively on Uber’s app in Austin. The two companies first announced their partnership to put Waymo’s robotaxis on Uber’s app back in 2023. They ran a short-lived pilot in Phoenix and now plan on launching the first official version in Austin, with Atlanta to follow.Waymo’s own ridehail app, Waymo One, will not be operational in Austin. Customers who open Waymo One will be redirected to Uber’s app. To prepare, Uber is asking customers in Austin to indicate their interest in being passengers in Waymo’s fully driverless (the company calls them “rider only”) vehicles. In the app settings under “Preferences,” customers can choose to join the “interest list” to get updates about Waymo’s launch and increase their chance of being paired with an autonomous vehicle when the service goes live.The co-branded vehicles will also soon be spotted tooling around Austin without a driver behind the wheel. The vehicles will only operate within a geofenced 37-square-mile swath of the city that includes Hyde Park, Montopolis, and downtown.Uber customers that get paired with a Waymo will “pay the same rates as UberX, Uber Green, Uber Comfort, or Uber Comfort Electric,” the company says. (Ride prices for all ridehailing, robo or otherwise, fluctuate based on traffic and the time of day.) Those fares will be provided upfront before customers accept the ride, and once the vehicle arrives, customers can unlock and start the ride from the Uber app. (There’s also a “start ride” button in the vehicle.)The two companies will share the responsibilities of running and managing a fleet of autonomous vehicles. Uber will use contractors for vehicle cleaning, repair, and other general depot operations, while Waymo will handle roadside assistance (when the robotaxis inevitably get stuck) and customer service. They will obviously share in the costs and the revenue produced by the robotaxi service, though both companies have declined to share the split.Waymo currently operates its own Waymo One ridehail service in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles; it recently hit the milestone of operating 150,000 rides each week in all three cities. Studies have shown that Waymo has better customer retention than human-powered ridehail services like Uber and Lyft.

Sending large files like videos, high-resolution images, or hefty documents can be challenging, especially when email services impose size limits (usually around 20-25 MB) to limit attachments. Fortunately, there are several reliable methods to share large files with your friends.

What do you think of when you hear the word "MIDI?" If you're like me, you probably think of old Geocities fan pages that used the format to play popular TV show and movie themes with a tinny but charming array of instruments. It turns out that things have gotten a lot more developed in the scene, as Windows 11 is now getting support for MIDI 2.0.

If you've made any storage upgrades recently, you may have come across PCIe 5.0 SSDs. They're pretty fast, but right now, upgrading to them doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's a lot more money for little benefit, and the major drawback of their power consumption and heat generated makes them difficult to actually use at full pelt. With the PCIe 6.0 specification being published by PCI-SIG, it's possible that it's going to run the exact same risk of being too hot to handle, or worryingly, even more so.

Stacking network switches can prove useful when building a local area network (LAN) at home or in the office. If you have many devices to connect, grouping network switches can allow them to share the characteristics of a single switch. This makes it easier to manage the network with increased bandwidth, thanks to the number of ports, higher availability, scalability, and improved performance. Stacking switches can also prove a cost-effective solution versus a flat upgrade to larger and more powerful switches. This isn't the same as simply stacking switches on a shelf and calling it a day.

Adobe has constantly stood out in the world of creative software. While there is no shortage of free and open source solutions out there, these five apps hold a unique position. It’s just not about the features; it’s about the ecosystem, the polish, and the decades of refinement that rivals simply can’t match.

Early access games are a great way to test titles in development, but the creators aren't forced to actually release them. As such, you may purchase an Early Access game, clock a few hours, and then realize that the game was last updated three years ago and will probably never see the light of day. Fortunately, a new Steam update will give you information on each Early Access game so you don't waste your money on a game that's dead the moment you install it.

If you've been out of the loop about Microsoft's recent changes to Office, I hate to break it to you, but it's no longer Office. Rather, it's still Office in the sense that it was Word and Excel and the like, but it's no longer called "Office." Microsoft has performed a sweeping rebrand, changing the productivity suite's name to " Microsoft 365 Copilot." This also included a logo change from the Microsoft 365 icon to one that looks like Copilot's but has a little "M365" at the bottom right.

If you've been in the market for a new laptop, you can't go wrong with HP's OmniBook Ultra Flip 14. The laptop is sleek, packed with great features, and is our top pick when it comes to being one of the best laptops you can buy in 2025. While this laptop is certainly one to consider even when it's at its full price, you can now save quite a bit with this promotion from HP that knocks $450 off its retail price. So grab this deal while you can because it won't be around for long.

Automation helps streamline repetitive tasks and improve productivity, and the Windows Task Scheduler is one of the most commonly used tools for this purpose. While it does the good job for simple task automation, its functionality is quite limited when compared to more advanced automation tools like RoboTask.