Combining layers in Photoshop is a simple task. Layers in Photoshop allow you to manipulate and stack multiple images, edits, and text. This allows for flexibility in editing without permanently changing the original image. Photoshop wasn’t the first software to introduce layers, but it has popularized the feature. Working with layers isn’t exclusive to Photoshop, and every Photoshop alternative has some way of working with layers. The non-destructive nature of working with layers is essential in graphic design and in many other creative projects.

Razer makes some of the best gaming mice that you can buy. And if you're looking for one that offers excellent customization and features large amounts of RGB lighting, then the Razer Basilik V3 is going to be right up your alley. This model, which is exclusive to Best Buy, comes in white, and is now 45% off for a limited time. That means, instead of paying $70 for it, you can now score this mouse for just $38.

Let's face it: Windows 11's Start menu isn't the best out there. While previous versions of Microsoft's operating system let you tweak your taskbar to your liking, Windows 11 is quite restrictive. As such, all those people who enjoy having their taskbar on the left or right-hand side of the screen have been disappointed to hear that the operating system doesn't support moving the taskbar around without third-party aid. Well, if you're tired of Windows 11's Start menu and taskbar, you can now stick them to the sides using Start11.

Motherboards can cost as little as $100 but you can easily spend up to $1,000, if not more. Depending on the motherboard, the more you spend the more features and functionality you can expect to have available. When shopping around for a new motherboard for your PC, should you spend a small fortune on one of the more premium options or are the budget-friendly boards just as good? Here are some reasons you should consider more affordable motherboards for your next PC build.

Image: Google Experts believe that one day, quantum computers could make today’s systems of encryption utterly obsolete. But Google tells The Verge its new “breakthrough” Willow chip is nowhere near ready for that. “The Willow chip is not capable of breaking modern cryptography,” Google Quantum AI director and COO Charina Chou tells The Verge. A so-called “cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer,” or CRQC, could “jeopardize civilian and military communications, undermine supervisory and control systems for critical infrastructure, and defeat security protocols for most Internet-based financial transactions,” the White House warned in 2022, ordering that US agencies must transition to new systems to mitigate that risk by 2035.But Willow is not a CRQC, according to Google. While the company does claim it can solve a computing challenge in five minutes that would take the world’s fastest supercomputer ten septillion years, Google has only produced 105 physical qubits worth of that computing power and suggests it would need millions to literally crack the codes.“Estimates are we’re at least 10 years out from breaking RSA, and that around 4 million physical qubits would be required to do this,” Chou writes. She says Willow doesn’t change the timeline at all. And though Chinese researchers have repeatedly claimed to discover new ways to break RSA encryption with much smaller quantum computers, ones with just a few hundreds or thousands of qubits, security experts have repeatedly been skeptical.Google is one of the many companies preparing to defend against the potential threat of broken encryption with post-quantum cryptography, or PQC, ever since the Edward Snowden leaks revealed that spy agencies like the NSA were quietly funding code-breaking quantum computer research. A few years back, we wrote about how the National Institute of Standards and Technology created a competition to develop quantum-safe cryptography standards back in 2016. This August, NIST released three finalized algorithms and its standards for integrating them into products and systems, and plans to select one or two more by the end of the year.The RAND Corporation, a think tank famous for advising on US national security in the past, suggested in a 2023 editorial that the moment an RSA-breaking quantum computer exists, it’ll trigger a worldwide rush to defend against it: “As soon as the existence of the CRQC becomes public knowledge — or is even considered plausible — and the threat becomes concrete, most vulnerable organizations will immediately move to upgrade all their communications systems to post-quantum cryptography.”

Image: The Verge Moderators of multiple Reddit communities say the company has banned posts that include the alleged manifesto of Luigi Mangione, who has been charged for murder in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.In a post on Wednesday, a moderator of r/popculturechat wrote (emphasis theirs):We wanted to reach out to tell you all that we have officially been notified by Reddit that we must adhere strictly to their site-wide rules regarding violent content. Specifically, Reddit has told us that we are not allowed to post Luigi Mangione’s manifesto, even if it is reported neutrally.The moderator says that if they do not enforce the guidelines “to the letter,” there could be site-wide permanent bans on user accounts and “the potential shutdown of this subreddit.”As a result, the moderator team is doing the following to adhere to Reddit’s rules:• Any posts or comments that repost or encourage the manifesto will be removed.• Any posts or comments that show support for violence, including expressing positive feelings toward the death of Brian Thompson or similar content, will be removed.• We will be extremely strict in moderating these discussions to ensure compliance with Reddit’s policies.• If rule violations persist, we will be forced to implement a “cool down” period, meaning we will temporarily remove any posts about Luigi Mangione for a period of time to allow the situation to settle.It’s unclear if r/popculturechat is the only subreddit to have received a specific warning from Reddit. A post from moderators of a subreddit about Mangione claims that “Reddit is prohibiting posting the manifesto” and that “the mods must remove if posted,” but doesn’t say where that information is from. A moderator of another subreddit, r/wineandcrimepodcast, posted a slightly modified version of r/popculturechat’s message but says that “they had gotten warnings that some of us did not.”Reddit appears to be taking some actions of its own: a user on r/esist says that Reddit is deleting posts with excerpts from the manifesto, “including my last post,” and that their account has “a warning on it for encouraging violence.”But Reddit also seems to be inconsistently removing the manifesto, as we were able to find a link to the manifesto in Reddit search without much work. Reddit’s new AI-powered Answers tool also showed me information about the manifesto and where I could find it. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Reddit didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. The first rule of Reddit’s content policy states that:Remember the human. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence. Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.In its content policy, Reddit also says that “we ask that you abide by not just the letter of these rules, but the spirit as well.”

While you can use one without a case, if you have the chance or funds to buy one, we recommend grabbing one to use with your Raspberry Pi 5. Not only can it protect the board from debris and other elements, but if you grab the right one, it can also add some much-needed cooling as well.

Not a photo of an Nvidia LAN, since I can’t find my old photos of them! | Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images It’s been 13 years since Nvidia hosted its last LAN party, inviting hundreds of people to physically haul their gaming PCs onto a decommissioned aircraft carrier and jack them in for networked gaming bliss. Now, the GeForce LAN is finally coming back — and you’re theoretically invited, should you manage to reserve one of the 400 available spaces right here on December 16th at 6AM PT / 9AM ET.The GeForce LAN 50 will run January 4th through January 6th, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada, with satellite events in Berlin, Taipei, and Beijing, and it promises to be a “online & in-person 50 hour gaming marathon” with contests, tournaments, raffles, and swag. It’ll kick off 4:30PM PT on January 4th, and you’ll need to provide a fully refundable $125 deposit to sign up. Nvidia tells me those 400 slots are for everyday gamers, and do not count the influencers who may also show up.If you can’t or don’t want to make it, Nvidia says it’ll offer one small set of rewards online — if you stream Diablo IV, The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, The Finals, or WoW from its GeForce Now cloud gaming service “continuously for 50 minutes,” there’ll be some kind of in-game reward. Nvidia will also be offering prizes in a marketing celebration it’s calling “GeForce Greats”.The LAN party is happening right before Nvidia’s CES 2025 keynote in Las Vegas, where we’re expecting the company to announce the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and possibly the RTX 5070 as well, and the fact that this is the “GeForce LAN 50” is probably a tease for those 50-series cards — the last LAN that Nvidia hosted was the “GeForce LAN 6,” not “GeForce LAN 49” or anything like that. Starting in 2004, the GPU company began to host major LAN parties almost every year until it stopped in 2011. Here’s one of my minor claims to nerd fame: I helped set a Guinness World Record for the largest, longest LAN party at one in 2008. Image: Sean Hollister Record scratch, freeze frame, yep that’s me (on the left)... That Nvidia LAN wasn’t held on an aircraft carrier, but rather the San Jose Convention Center, as part an event that Nvidia called “NVISION 08.” The company never held another NVISION, but it rebooted its event the very next year, at the very same location, as the GPU Technology Conference (GTC). There was a time Nvidia would sponsor third-party LANs as well. Apparently Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a soft spot for LANs, making a surprise visit to a small one in Vietnam last year. While gamers have largely moved online for multiplayer games, the LAN party subculture has been getting a bit of nostalgic attention as of late — there’s even a coffee table book now documenting the era.

As much as I love the idea of portable PC gaming, I haven't bought a console yet. The Steam Deck is a little pricey for me to give the hobby a shot, and third-party models tend to go the opposite direction of affordability, opting instead to make more powerful models. However, when I reported that there might be a Lenovo Legion Go "S" model, I got interested. It seemed like the perfect way to get started with handheld gaming without making too much of an investment. So, here's why the Lenovo Legion Go "S" might finally get me into the hobby.

Adobe’s Reflection Removal tool is now available as a technology preview inside Camera Raw. | Image: Adobe Adobe’s Project See Through, a tool that is capable of eliminating distracting reflections in photos taken through windows, is now available as a technology preview and is now called the Reflection Removal tool. Originally revealed as a “Sneak” during the Adobe’s annual Max conference last year, you can use the tool through Adobe Camera Raw in preview with a Lightroom release “coming soon,” according to Adobe.The best way to ensure a photo isn’t marred with reflections is to avoid shooting through a window, but Adobe’s new tool will increase the chances that the beautiful mountain vista you captured during a flight will actually be worth sharing. The tool works by distinguishing the two scenes that make up an image with a reflection, which are often distinguished by different content, white balances (indoor scenes tend to look warmer than outdoor ones), and their sharpness. Image: Adobe An example of the artificial reflections Adobe created for training data by merging thousands of photos together. The AI model the Reflection Removal tool uses was trained on a database of thousands of photographs without reflections that were paired and merged to create millions of images with simulated reflections. Through a reinforcement process, the model learned how to extract the original photos from a single combined image, which are both available in the new tool. The results are often impressive, but Adobe points out that “if a reflection is so strong or complex that a person looking at the photograph struggles to figure out what is what, then our model might struggle as well.”To access the new tool, which currently only works with RAW images (support for JPEGs and HEICs is planned) you need to open the Camera Raw tool and then the Technology Previews section of its Preferences Panel where you can enable the New AI Settings and Features Panel before restarting Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Bridge. Image: Adobe The original photo (left) next to a version with reflections removed (center) and the reflected image itself isolated (right). With a RAW file imported, you’ll find a Reflections option in the Distraction Removal section of the Remove panel. After a few seconds of processing a reflection-free version of the image will be presented (hopefully!) along with a slider set to 100. Dragging the slider down to zero will restore the reflections, while dragging it to -100 will reveal only the reflected image.

DDR5 RAM is the current generation of system memory for laptop and desktop PCs. When building your next system, I recommend DDR5 memory for the best performance, lowest energy usage, and excellent processor support. DDR4 continues to be supported by older platforms, some even rocking new CPUs such as the AMD Ryzen 5800XT, but it's simply not as good as DDR5 RAM.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Brandon Bell, Getty Images Two of tech’s biggest leaders have plans to meet with President-elect Donald Trump soon. The Information reports that Google CEO Sundar Pichai is flying to Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday, and Trump has said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is meeting with him next week.Trump has had a tumultuous relationship with Google, claiming the search engine is “rigged” to hide positive coverage about him. However, in recent weeks, Trump claimed multiple times that Pichai called him on the phone. Pichai said during The New York Times DealBook Summit last week that the calls had “nothing to do” with the government’s antitrust cases against Google.As reported by The Information, sources don’t expect Pichai to “make any direct overtures to Trump about the antitrust lawsuit or other regulatory topics.” Trump said in October he would “do something” about Google when asked whether he’d go as far as breaking the company up. Google declined to comment about Pichai’s reported visit.Additionally, Trump confirmed that Bezos “is coming up next week” during an interview with CNBC on Thursday. Despite Trump’s feud with Amazon during his presidency, Bezos said he’s “very optimistic this time around.” The Verge reached out to Amazon with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.Pichai and Bezos aren’t the only tech leaders trying to smooth over their rocky histories with Trump. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — who Trump threatened to put in prison — met for dinner at Mar-a-Lago in November. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, according to The Wall Street Journal.