Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Whenever Netflix raises its prices — which seems to happen roughly as often as Ben Affleck falls in love with an A-list celebrity — the company always gives the same reason. It needs the extra money, you see, in order to keep investing in the kind of programming and product its 302 million subscribers demand. That’s how the standard monthly price of ad-free Netflix jumped from $7.99 to $17.99 over the course of the last 13 years, including a $2.50 jump just announced during the company’s recent earnings report. There’s still a $7.99 monthly plan, of course, but that one includes ads — and it’s a dollar more expensive than it was a week ago.But let’s be real with each other. You want to know why Netflix keeps raising its prices? Because it can. Because Netflix won. The rest of the streaming industry is competing ferociously over a finite pool of money, dealing with carriage disputes because of dwindling subscriber numbers, and panicking over the future of TV. Netflix is the future of TV. Over the last couple of years in particular, Netflix has gone from a solid streaming service to a practically unavoidable, virtually uncancellable part of mainstream culture. It has developed a... Read the full story at The Verge.

Path of Exile 2 has been in early access for about a month, and fans of the top-down RPG genre are in love with it. Many flocked from Diablo IV to PoE 2 within days and haven’t looked back. The player count for Diablo IV has plummeted, while Path of Exile 2’s has skyrocketed far beyond what anyone expected. Fans have rallied behind the ARPG, with some referring to it as a staple in the genre, especially on PC.

It can feel magical when it works, but often Live AI feels more like Captain Obvious. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Live AI is neat, but the problem is knowing when (and why) you’d want to use it. Read the full story at The Verge.

The Lenovo Legion Go S with SteamOS. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge It might be time for a more unified platform. Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Oracle and a group of investors that includes Microsoft are in talks to take over TikTok’s global operations, reports NPR. The deal, which the White House is reportedly negotiating, would see ByteDance keeping a minority stake in TikTok while “the app’s algorithm, data collection and software updates will be overseen by Oracle.”Oracle’s server network already provides the bulk of TikTok’s backbone, and under the deal, the company would “effectively monitor and provide oversight with what is going on with TikTok,” according to one of NPR’s anonymous sources, who added that the agreement’s goal is to “minimize Chinese ownership.” Microsoft’s reported involvement isn’t clear beyond that it is “engaged in the talks.” The company was also in the mix with Oracle and Walmart in a 2020 bid to take over TikTok that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had called “a poison[ed] chalice.” Walmart reportedly isn’t involved this time around “after balking at the estimated price” of the app.News of the talks comes after President Trump issued an executive order giving TikTok and others a 75-day reprieve from any enforcement action related to the United States’ requirement that ByteDance divest from TikTok. Trump had previously floated the possibility of a “joint venture” in which the US owns 50 percent of the company. We’ve reached out to Oracle, Microsoft, TikTok, and the White House for comment.

If you've ever been stumped on what a word means in a Microsoft Word document, Smart Lookup always has your back. The handy tool makes it really easy to look up definitions of a word and also powers the software's thesaurus feature to find more ways to express what you're saying. If you get a lot of use out of Smart Lookup, I'm afraid to say that Microsoft is now getting rid of it, and you may not like what comes next.

Photoshop offers endless creative control over your projects, but even experienced users develop bad habits. As a 25-year veteran of Photoshop, I still occasionally catch myself falling back on old habits that I picked up early in my career. Many of these mistakes stem from early learning stages, especially for those who are self-taught users or don’t use Photoshop day-to-day.

Running services on your network-attached storage (NAS) device is one thing but it's a different beast to make these securely available to the outside world with SSL certificates, DDNS, and domain names. That's where handy tools such as Nginx, HAProxy, and Traefik come into play. I've used HAProxy extensively but recently switched to Nginx for a few reasons. These front-end services will catch incoming traffic and route it accordingly, depending on the configuration, what services you're hosting, and conditions set. Here's why you should consider Nginx when looking at reverse proxies.

While people usually get started on a project to solve a problem or explore a new place, some of them are done because "well, why not?" For example, someone has devised a way to store and retrieve data from their PC to a cassette tape with the aid of a 56K modem, and while it's a ton easier to just stick the file on a USB drive and call it a day, you can't deny that this method is pretty darn cool.

Are you tired of juggling endless research materials? If you often struggle to keep track of your notes, PDFs, and images, Tropy is the perfect solution for you. It’s a powerful and intuitive organizational tool to help you manage everything in one place.

I've never had great luck with giveaways or sweepstakes, and frankly, I stopped participating in them years ago. On a fateful day in June 2022, however, I decided to enter an online PC building contest organized by WD and Nvidia. Like always, I didn't really believe I'd win something, but a few weeks later, it became a reality. My tale is 2 years old, but better late than never as they say.

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 68, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you’re staying warm and sane, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Kieran Culkin and insomnia and the eBay for fancy startup stuff, finally watching The Wild Robot, thinking a lot about my shopping habits while watching The Mega-Brands That Built America, adding a bunch of Baseus retractable cables to my travel kit, playing an amazing browser-based rendition of the Atari game Pitfall!, testing out the new Spark calendar for Android, and trying to copy Babish’s delicious-looking breakfast sandwich.I also have for you the biggest new phone in the Android world, the GPU every gamer’s going to want, an impossible test for AI tools, a clever Google alternative, and much more. It’s been a somewhat quiet week for new stuff, honestly, since it’s both post-CES doldrums and utter political chaos. But we’ve still got great stuff to talk about! Let’s do it.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / cooking / downloading / building... Read the full story at The Verge.