Choosing between air and water cooling can be tough when it comes to cooling your PC. While both options have advantages, they also have drawbacks, making the decision hard sometimes. You will also need to consider the other components that make up the PC, as things like the case and memory can play a big part in which type of cooler you choose.

Photo by Ashley Carman / The Verge Spotify has officially shut down its Car Thing accessory that offered simple and slick control over music and playlists while driving, and it’s giving owners just over a month (January 14th) to reach out to the company and get a refund. The device started to display its final words early today as enthusiasts mourn the loss of the device on its dedicated subreddit.The final message on the Car Thing reads:Car Thing is discontinued and no longer operational. Thank you for being on this journey with us, safe travels. For more information, visit carthing.com. Contact customer service by no later than January 14th, 2025 to discuss your refund options.Spotify announced in May that it intended the already discontinued devices would shut down in December, and now they have. The company also said, eventually, that it would work to issue refunds, but owners need to contact the company and provide proof of purchase to receive compensation.For most users, the Spotify Car Thing is just another piece of e-waste humans will have to deal with later. The company recommends resetting it to factory settings and “safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines.”However, tinkerers are finding new uses for the hardware: Car Thing can be hacked to run custom software that doesn’t require Spotify’s backend. As 9to5Google notes, it’s a bit underpowered to run full-on Android, but some projects like “Desk Thing” can repurpose them as a controller at your computer desk.

Keyboard shortcuts are a way of life for many Windows 11 users, and they help you get things done a whole lot faster. Windows itself already has a never-ending list of shortcuts you can use to speed things up in your daily workflow, but what if you could make things even easier for yourself?

Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Meta has announced the v72 Quest update, and it’s packed with features like faster hand tracking, an easier way to pair your headset with a Windows 11 PC, and better support for showing your keyboard while you’re in full virtual reality. The update is rolling out gradually, which also goes for certain features so you may not be able to use them immediately.Meta says you can now connect to a paired PC with the Quest’s Remote Desktop feature simply by looking at it and tapping the “Connect” button that appears above your keyboard. That’s similar to how it works on the Vision Pro, but here, you’ll need the Mixed Reality Link app installed on your computer before you can pair the devices together from within your Quest headset’s Settings app. The feature requires Windows 11 22H2 and newer. Image: Meta Now you can connect to your PC just by looking at it. Also, in Quest v72, the company says it’s “rolling out a more general keyboard tracking system” that should detect and let any keyboard around you appear through a passthrough “window” while you’re in a virtual environment, similar to the Vision Pro. Quest headsets have had a feature that shows a virtual version of your keyboard where your real one is since 2021, but that has only ever worked with specific keyboards.Meta also says it has made the hand cursor more stable when navigating, pinching to select things, and pinching and dragging windows. The company also says it’s now easier to use your hands while in confined spaces and that it added a “hand ray visualization” to help find and target things with the cursor.There is a little bit more in the update, too, including new live captions for calls from the People app and the addition of direct messaging in the Instagram app. Meta also added a Media Gallery app for viewing your images, videos (spatial included), and screenshots.

Network-Attached Storage enclosures work well when you want to expand the data-storing capacity of the devices on your local network. Aside from fulfilling your file-hoarding needs, these neat systems can even double as file-sharing and backup servers, making them useful for pretty much every type of user.

Microsoft Excel is one of the oldest pieces of software we still use today, and one of the most important, too. Some may have you believe that there are far better ways to do the things you can do in Excel, but this tool that was first crafted all the way back in 1985 is still the king when it comes to spreadsheet management and everything you can do with it.

Image: Google Google’s quantum computing lab just achieved a major milestone. On Monday, the company revealed that its new quantum computing chip, Willow, is capable of performing a computing challenge in less than five minutes — a process Google says would take one of the world’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years, or longer than the age of the universe.That’s a big jump from 2019 when Google announced its quantum processor could complete a mathematical equation in three minutes, as opposed to 10,000 years on a supercomputer. IBM disputed the claim at the time.Along with more powerful performance, researchers also found a way to reduce errors, something Google calls “one of the greatest challenges in quantum computing.” Instead of bits, which represent either 1 or 0, quantum computing uses qubits, a unit that can exist in multiple states at the same time, such as 1, 0, and anything in between.As noted by Google, qubits are prone to errors because they “have a tendency to rapidly exchange information with their environment.” However, Google’s researchers discovered a way to reduce errors by introducing more qubits to a system and were able to correct them in real time. Their findings were published in Nature.“This historic accomplishment is known in the field as ‘below threshold’ — being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits,” Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven writes on Google’s blog. “You must demonstrate being below threshold to show real progress on error correction, and this has been an outstanding challenge since quantum error correction was introduced by Peter Shor in 1995.”Introducing Willow, our new state-of-the-art quantum computing chip with a breakthrough that can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits, cracking a 30-year challenge in the field. In benchmark tests, Willow solved a standard computation in <5 mins that would…— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) December 9, 2024Willow, which has 105 qubits, “now has best-in-class performance,” according to Neven. Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM are working on quantum computing systems of their own.Google’s next goal is to perform a first “useful, beyond-classical” computation that is both “relevant to a real-world application” and one that typical computers can’t achieve. Going forward, Neven says quantum technology will be “indispensable” for collecting AI training data, eventually helping to “discover new medicines, designing more efficient batteries for electric cars, and accelerating progress in fusion and new energy alternatives.”

A thin layer of ice thaws on a puddle in the sunshine in Bavaria, Marktoberdorf. | Photo: Getty Images Scientific advisers to the European Commission are calling for a moratorium across the EU on efforts to artificially cool Earth through solar geoengineering. That includes controversial technologies used to reflect sunlight back into space, primarily by sending reflective particles into the atmosphere or by brightening clouds.Proponents argue that this can help in the fight against climate change, especially as planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. But small-scale experiments have triggered backlash over concerns that these technologies could do more harm than good.The European Commission asked its Group of Chief Scientific Advisors (GCSA) and European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) to write up their opinions on solar geoengineering, which were published today alongside a report synthesizing what little we know about how these technologies might work.Experiments have triggered backlash over concerns that these technologies could do more harm than goodThere’s “insufficient scientific evidence” to show that solar geoengineering can actually prevent climate change, says the opinion written by the GCSA.“Given the currently very high... Read the full story at The Verge.

Will Manchester City’s next uniform feature AI-generated cats? | Screenshot: Puma AI Creator Manchester City is holding a competition that asks fans to generate its future kit design with AI. Players will wear the winning design during the 2026-2027 season as City’s official third kit, and it will even be sold to fans.The club partnered with Puma to launch a text-to-image uniform generator powered by the AI company DeepObjects. To use the tool, you’ll have to create an account and enter a prompt that describes the look you’re going for. You then have to choose a style the AI will use when generating your design, such as “abstract,” “emotive brushstrokes,” or “dream visions.” Screenshot: Puma AI Creator This wasn’t quite what I was envisioning when I entered a prompt for “soccerballs shooting through space like stars on a galaxy background.” The Puma AI Creator will then generate four different design options that appear on a virtual uniform, allowing you to customize the collars, trim colors, and badges.You get 15 credits to create designs (generating one design costs one credit), but you can only enter two of your creations in the contest, which ends December 20th. Fan ratings, along with experts from Manchester City and Puma will help determine the winner. Image: Manchester City City players designed this goalkeeper kit with AI. Manchester City says its players, Ederson, Stefan Ortega, and Rico Lewis first used the Puma AI Creator to design a goalkeeper kit “creatively inspired by the net of a football goal.” It will be the first AI-generated soccer uniform to be worn on the pitch, according to the club.The announcement comes at an awkward time for City, which is mired in a poor run of form and awaiting the verdict of an investigation into breaching Premier League financial rules.

Thanks to their lightweight design, massive number of app images, and high compatibility with other tools, Docker containers are amazing for self-hosting FOSS services on your local hardware. Plus, getting Docker Desktop, Engine, Compose, and other tools running on Linux operating systems is fairly simple, as all you have to do is run a few commands in the terminal and watch the scripts work their magic.

It has been an excellent few days for people who enjoy using Windows on their mobile devices. Just the other day, we saw a Redditor install Windows 11 on Arm onto their Android device. Now, someone is showing off using Launcher 10 on their Android phone, and it'll make diehard Windows Phone fans everywhere shed a tear in memoriam.

So we've only just got our hands on the new iPad Mini, but what about an OLED version? It feels like a natural progression, but Apple hasn't disclosed any information on whether it will add an OLED screen to the iPad Mini. Well, if a leaked release timeline is to be believed, we will get one; just don't expect it to drop anytime soon.