Are you tired of shelling out a fortune for creative software subscriptions? Thanks to robust open-source solutions, you don’t need to be tied down by expensive tools to unleash your creativity. From photo editing and graphic design to note-taking and illustration, there is a free and powerful alternative out there.

While Excel is a powerful tool for data management and analysis, it often feels limited when dealing with complex data transformations, large datasets, and repetitive tasks. Here is where Python comes into play. By integrating Python libraries into your workflow, you can unlock its true potential.

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I’m not saying I want to buy one. I’m just very curious to see where this is going. Honda released one of the more interesting concepts at last year’s CES with two Honda Zero prototypes: the Saloon and the Space-Hub. It promised to come back in a year with something a little closer to production. But rather than temper those space-age design elements, Honda leaned into them. Way in. The Honda 0 Saloon and Honda 0 SUV retain a lot of what made the concepts so weird and different — and not necessarily in an off-putting way. But it’s definitely not the electric CR-V that customers have been begging the company to make for years. In fact, Honda seems to be saying to all those people who want normie-looking EVs, “We see you. We hear you. We don’t care.” Much has already been said about the similarities between these Honda Zero prototypes and certain iconic vehicles from the ’70s and ’80s, like the Lamborghini Countach, AMC Gremlin, Aston Martin Lagonda Shooting Brake, and (h/t Jason Torchinsky) the Brubaker Box. My theory is that Honda is reaching for these design inspirations as a way to offset the future shock of an ultra-minimalist interior and all the marketing speak about “software-defined vehicles.” After all, Honda’s real announcement this year was the operating system it developed in-house, named after its iconic Asimo robot. The Zero EVs mostly feel like a lot of window dressing for the actual product, which is software. What better way to draw people into listening to a TED talk about “high-performance system-on-a-chip” than to stand in front of a car that looks like it should be floating in low orbit? Honda 0 SaloonOne of the things I noticed about the Saloon was the lack of a rear window — that rounded rectangle in the back isn’t transparent. The depth effect is very impressive, but it’s not obscuring an incognito window. It’s just the taillight. Something else that caught my attention was the lack of sideview mirrors. Honda is using cameras instead. Drivers who want to check their blind spots will need to use two screens embedded at either end of the long piece of glass that spans the length of the dashboard. Of course, US safety regulations require regular old sideview mirrors, so this seems mostly aspirational. Honda 0 SUVThe SUV is less “out there” than the Saloon, and that probably means we’re likely to see some version of it on US roads before the sedan. There’s definitely a rear window, and the airiness of the greenhouse seems to allude to Honda Zero’s design principles of “thin, light, and wise.”We don’t have any specs for either vehicle, though Honda has said that its Zero EVs will draw from the automaker’s Formula 1 racing experience. The automaker is also aiming for optimum battery efficiency through its e-Axle system consisting of a motor, inverter, and gearbox that convert electric power into energy for driving. Each EV is expected to have around 300 miles of range, which translates to an 80–90kWh battery. Other important details include an effort to consolidate electronic control units, similar to Rivian’s recently relaunched R1 vehicles. By reducing the number of components and wiring, Honda is clearly trying to limit its costs in an environment where the price of production seems to be on the rise. InteriorThe absence of anything remotely resembling a physical knob or dial inside either vehicle is a pretty good sign that automakers continue to ignore the pleas of customers to stop porting every last bit of functionality through its digital interfaces. Yes, I’m an old man yelling at clouds, but for the love of god, give me something to twist or push. Trying to adjust the heat by tapping blindly at a smooth pane of glass while careening down a highway at 75mph isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. The yoke is... a yoke. Automakers love their steering yokes! But when it comes time to actually put something into production, they mostly retreat back to wheel shapes. The moonroof is another one of those features that suggest “thin” principles. And obviously, Honda’s promise that its Zero vehicles will come with Level 3 autonomy, also known as “hands-off, eyes-off” driving, needs a lot more explanation. What’s the handoff between autonomous system and driver look like? And how will it account for our very human tendency to zone out when we’re not actively engaged in driving?There are a lot of questions swirling around these vehicles! Will they ever go into production? There’s a nonzero chance.

Illustration: The Verge Google is testing an experimental AI feature that creates a personalized podcast using your Search and Discover feed history. The Daily Listen feature in Google’s Search Labs is rolling out to Android and iOS users in the US according to 9to5Google, and works similarly to the Audio Overviews feature for Google’s NotebookLM project.Daily Listen references search data and Discover feed interactions to assess which news articles would be of most interest to the user, and then summarizes those stories and topics into a roughly five-minute audio overview. It provides a text transcript, alongside audio scrubber controls that allow users to play, pause, mute, rewind, or skip to the next story. Image: Google (Via 9to5Google) Here’s a few screengrabs of the Daily Listen UI, showing where the feature is located and how it presents related topics. Search Labs users who opt-in to try this experiment will find Daily Listen in the personalized widget carousel underneath the Search bar at the top of the Google app. A “Related stories” tab will appear at the bottom of the audio player that corresponds to content within the overview that allows users to like or disapprove of each story with a thumbs up/down, and explore new topics.There’s currently no word on when/if this feature will be rolled out to the wider public. Google’s AI Search Overviews were tested in a similar way via Search Labs before launching to a general audience last year, so it’s possible that Daily Listen may one day become a persistent feature — hopefully one that’s easier to opt out of than AI Overviews.

A lot of our work happens inside a browser, whether it's sending emails, attending meetings, or using services like Google Drive. However, many people, myself included, prefer a native desktop app over visiting a web page. For one, I have found apps to be faster and more responsive than websites. A good example is the Asana app, which is much faster than the website. However, not all web services are available as standalone desktop apps.

Xbox is kicking off the new year once again with its Developer_Direct event returning on Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BT. Like last year's event, we have some idea of what Xbox is bringing to the table, with confirmation that we'll hear more about South of Midnight from developer Compulsion Games, DOOM: The Dark Ages from id Software will be shown off again and developer Sandfall Interactive will showcase more on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Beyond those three games, there's also at least one more currently unrevealed game that'll be shown at the event.

Microsoft Outlook is among the best free email apps because of its Office 365 integration and handy features like the shared mailbox. Shared mailboxes are ideal for company departments, like inquiries that receive large email volumes, because multiple users can access the inbox and share an Outlook calendar. They’re also great when one user is out of the office in Outlook and someone else needs to complete their work while they are away.

It always feels good when a rumor turns out to be true. We recently reported on a leak claiming that the Raspberry Pi Foundation was about to release a 16GB version of its fifth SBC, and sure enough, the company did just that. However, if you're used to SBCs coming in with price tags below three digits, you may need to sit down for this one.

Traditional word processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs cater to the majority of users who write on their computers. They're easy to use and have a plethora of tools and functions to format text in any required manner. However, most word processors use custom formatting exclusive to their platform. For example, you may have observed that copying text from a Microsoft Word file onto Google Docs or vice versa may mess up the formatting. The same applies to migrating text from LibreOffice to MS Word. This is especially annoying for people like me who constantly need to input text into online content management systems.

Illustration: The Verge Apple is refuting rumors that it ever let advertisers target users based on Siri recordings in a statement published Wednesday evening describing how Siri works and what it does with data. The section specifically responding to the rumors reads:Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose. We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so. The conspiracy theory the company is responding to resurfaced last week after Apple agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit over users whose conversations were captured by its Siri voice assistant and potentially overheard by human employees. While Apple’s settlement addresses an issue that The Guardian reported in 2019. The report showed human contractors tasked with reviewing anonymized recordings and grading whether the trigger was activated intentionally, would sometimes receive recordings of people discussing sensitive information. But it doesn’t include any reference to selling data for marketing purposes. After The Guardian’s report in 2019, Apple apologized and changed its policy, making the default setting not to retain audio recordings from Siri interactions and saying that for users who opt-in to sharing recordings, those recordings would not be shared with third-party contractors.However, reports about the settlement noted that in earlier filings like this one from 2021, some of the plaintiffs claimed that after they mentioned brand names like “Olive Garden,” “Easton bats,” “Pit Viper sunglasses,” and “Air Jordans,” they were served ads for corresponding products, which they attributed to Siri data. Apple’s statement tonight says it “does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users explicitly opt in to help improve Siri, and even then, the recordings are used solely for that purpose. Users can easily opt-out at any time.” Facebook responded to similar theories in 2014 and 2016 before Mark Zuckerberg addressed it directly, saying “no” to the question while being grilled by Congress over the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.So, if Apple (and Facebook, Google, etc.) is telling the truth, then why would you see an ad later for something you only talked about? There are other explanations, and attempts to check the rumors out include an investigation in 2018 that didn’t find evidence of microphone spying but did discover that some apps secretly recorded on-screen user activity that they shipped to third parties. Ad targeting networks also track data from people logged onto the same network or who have spent time in the same locations, so even if one person didn’t type in that search term, maybe someone else did. They can buy data from brokers who collect reams of detailed location tracking and other info from the apps on your phone, and both Google and Facebook pull in data from other companies to build out profiles based on your purchasing habits and other information.

If you spend a lot of time working on your computer, chances are a good chunk of that time is spent managing files and making sure things are organized enough for you to navigate your files easily. The built-in File Explorer covers all the basics of file management and it's good enough for most people, but it does fall short in some aspects.

MSI isn't new to the back mount design (BMD) game, having released a few motherboards since showcasing Project Zero in 2023. For CES 2025, the company is teasing Project X, a gorgeous panoramic PC case designed with reverse connector motherboards in mind. BMD motherboards have some headers and ports moved to the rear of the PCB to aid with cable management, something that continues to prove challenging when building a PC.