Somewhere between the power jack and Ethernet ports on your router lies a lonely USB port or two. Most of the time, these sit dormant, and remain unused for the lifespan of the router, and most people assume it's for firmware updates via a USB stick, or maybe just for powering a small accessory. In reality, on most modern consumer routers, that port can turn a spare USB drive into a basic network share accessible by every device in your home. It's not glamorous, and it's nowhere near a proper NAS, but for the right use cases, it's a genuinely useful trick hiding in hardware you already own.

Bambu Lab makes some of the easiest 3D printers to recommend, which is exactly why its ecosystem decisions matter so much. My P1S has been one of the most reliable printers I’ve used, and I don’t want to pretend otherwise. It prints quickly, handles multicolor jobs well, and removes much of the old tinkering tax from desktop 3D printing. That convenience is real, but it also makes the walls around the ecosystem easier to accept.

Nearly a year after rolling out Threads direct messaging to everyone on mobile, Meta is finally bringing the feature to the web. Meta says it's "testing" DMs on the web now, but plans to make the feature "available to more people soon."In your DM page on the web, you can see your inbox and message requests. Like on mobile, you can also choose to let anyone DM you or just people you follow. The company is also planning to test group chats on the web - group chats are currently available on mobile - and is also working on "more controls.""While there's nothing better than a good conversation in the replies, we know you all like to sidebar …Read the full story at The Verge.

When I first started using Claude Cowork, I thought I would mostly use chat. But when I started testing out more of what I could do in Cowork, I knew it was a part of Claude I would keep using. After I scheduled my first task and saw it work the way it should, I started thinking about giving it the smaller tasks as well. Before long, Cowork stopped feeling like something I was just testing and turned into something I was using daily.

I've been paying for Claude Pro for a while now. And that's not a complaint, I use it enough that the cost makes sense…on paper at least. But I also have Gemini open half the time, Qwen running locally almost every day, and a couple of other AI tools in rotation, none of which I'm paying for. So the math gets fuzzy when I start to think about it. There's always that background hum of "is the subscription actually giving me something I don't already have?"

When your Windows PC acts up, everyone almost instantly thinks of a factory reset. And while that works, you end up losing personal files, installed apps, and more. Remember, the former can be saved, but the latter is wiped out every time. It might come as a surprise to many, but reinstalling lost apps isn't the worst part. That takes about 10 minutes. It's reconfiguring every change you previously made to Windows' settings, which takes the maximum time.

Staffers at Google DeepMind's headquarters have voted to unionize in an effort to prevent the AI firm's technology from being used by Israel and the US military. In a letter to Google management on Tuesday, employees requested that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite the Union be recognized as joint representatives, with 98 percent of CWU members at DeepMind voting in support of the move."We don't want our AI models complicit in violations of international law, but they already are aiding Israel's genocide of Palestinians," an unnamed DeepMind employee said in a statement shared by the CWU. "Even if our work is only used for ad …Read the full story at The Verge.

The next update to Apple's operating systems could allow users to choose their preferred AI model for running Apple Intelligence. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to allow third-party chatbots to power its AI features system-wide in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, all expected for this fall. In addition to running Siri, compatible third-party AI models, called "Extensions," will also now be able to run other Apple Intelligence features like Writing Tools and Image Playground. According to Gurman, Apple will also allow users to choose different Siri voices for different AI models - Siri responses from one of Apple's …Read the full story at The Verge.

Xbox is "winding down Copilot on mobile" and "will stop development of Copilot on console," new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced on Tuesday. The move follows Sharma's reorganization of the Xbox platform team earlier on Tuesday, which added executives from Microsoft's CoreAI team - where Sharma worked before taking over Xbox - to the Xbox side of the company.Sharma, on X:Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers.Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward. This balance is important as we get th …Read the full story at The Verge.

Facebook and Instagram have a new way to detect and remove users under 13: AI bone structure analysis. In a blog post on Tuesday, Meta - Facebook and Instagram's parent company - says its AI system will scan photos and videos posted to its platforms for "general themes and visual cues," including height and bone structure."We want to be clear: this is not facial recognition," Meta says in the blog post, adding that it "does not identify the specific person in the image." This system is part of Meta's efforts to keep kids under 13 off its platforms, and will also analyze posts, comments, bios, and captions to search for "contextual clues" t …Read the full story at The Verge.

I don't know when HDMI cables became one of the easiest ways to make people overspend, but here we are. I've had a couple of friends pay over $30 for "premium" cables they assumed would improve their picture quality, when they could've gotten the exact same result for a fraction of the price. I'm not saying it's a good idea to cheap out on an HDMI cable, but paying more just because a cable has gold-plated connectors or braided sleeving doesn't mean it'll be better at handling the signal.

The new Bose Ultra Speaker can be used individually, as a stereo pair, or as the rear speakers in an Atmos setup. Last Thursday, in a staged home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I sat on a couch that was a bit too low and a tad too deep in front of a small, beige-colored smart speaker sitting on the middle of a trio of arched midcentury storage cabinets. On either side of the smart speaker sat two tall curved white screens.The speaker was the new $299 Lifestyle Ultra, Bose's answer to the Sonos Era 100. Alongside a $1,099 Ultra soundbar and $899 subwoofer, it's one of three new home audio products the company announced today, all of which seem to be gunning directly for Sonos - hopefully minus that company's recent missteps. I heard all three at …Read the full story at The Verge.