Laptop gaming has come a long way in the last decade. With the efficiency advancements in mobile processors and continued innovation in the graphics space, gaming on the go has never been more viable. That being said, some games still require a more intentional approach to performance in order for them to be playable. With these 7 tweaks, you can be sure you’re getting the most out of your gaming laptop.

Smart homes are convenient, interesting, and wildly insecure. Even if you think you aren't a target, it's still smart to secure your home. In 2024, a man was arrested for distributing video from cameras on wall panels of more than 400,000 homes. The average person likely isn't using a secure enough password or home network, and that can make them vulnerable to bad actors. You can have all the convenience of a smart home with minimal cybersecurity risk as long as you take the right precautions.

Software evolves in both user interface and functionality, or it gets replaced with new technology. Take Microsoft Word, for example. It has undergone countless changes and looks nothing like it did when it first debuted in 1983. The theory of evolution applies not just to us as a species, but also to the things we create. However, some software has seen little to no change since its debut and has still managed to survive. In fact, many applications that are over two decades old remain fully functional on Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 11.

Although most modern graphics cards have a safe temperature limit of 90C, they shouldn't ideally shouldn't exceed 85C when you're gaming. Otherwise, you'll start experiencing problems. While it's a good idea to keep an eye on your GPU temperature with tools like MSI Afterburner while playing games, the overlay—to me, at least—disrupts the immersion. So, I rarely ever use them unless I'm benchmarking a new game for a few minutes.

Eufy’s newest smart lock adds palm unlock and a digital peephole.Anker’s smart home arm, Eufy, has announced its first smart lock that uses palm vein recognition to unlock your door. The $399 FamiLock S3 Max is also a video doorbell with a 2K-capable camera and an interior screen that shows a live video feed through the door lock. The S3 works over Wi-Fi 6 and supports Matter for integration with most smart home ecosystems, including Apple Home and Amazon Alexa.Palm unlock is a new biometric feature on residential locks, joining fingerprint unlock and facial recognition as new ways to access our homes. Philips, TCL, and TP-Link Tapo all recently launched models that unlock by waving your hand over an infrared sensor. Research shows that palm vein recognition is more accurate and secure than fingerprint readers, in part because it works by recognizing that blood is flowing through your veins.Most people who want a smart lock for their home probably aren’t worried about James Bond-style villains swiping their dead fingers, but there are practical reasons families might find palm unlock a better fit. Some younger kids and those with older hands can find fingerprint readers finicky, and a hand wave requires less precision than hitting a small fingerprint reader. Although it still requires your hand to be free, which the other new unlocking method, UWB-unlocking, doesn’t.The FamiLock S3 Max supports up to 50 different palm prints — according to Eufy, the prints are stored locally on the device. In addition to waving, you can also use a keycode on the touchscreen keypad, the Eufy app, or a physical key to unlock the door. The S3 has a 15,000mAh removable rechargeable lithium battery, plus the option of providing extra power with four AAA batteries. Eufy says this keeps the device online while you’re charging the main battery. Eufy promises between six and 12 months of battery life, depending on use. The lock also has the highest ANSI/BHMA Grade 1 certification,The 2K camera has a 150-degree vertical and 180-degree diagonal field of view for a head-to-toe perspective of your porchThe S3’s 2K camera has a 150-degree vertical and 180-degree diagonal field of view, providing a head-to-toe perspective that should be able to see packages on your porch as well as people. With 8GB of onboard storage, there’s no required subscription for viewing recorded footage. The camera can connect to Eufy’s hub, the HomeBase 3, for smart alerts, facial recognition, and increased local storage and works with Amazon Alexa and Google Home smart displays. It’s worth noting that Eufy had serious security and privacy incidents in 2022 around its cameras. The company published a new set of privacy commitments on its website last year, following working with cybersecurity experts.If you don’t like relying on an app or smart display to see who’s at your door, the S3’s screen shows a live feed on the door lock (there’s also a cheaper version without the screen for $349). Eufy says the screen will turn on within one second of the camera sensing motion, so you can more easily see who is at the door before opening it, which should be quicker than pulling up the Eufy app on your phone. This “digital peephole” could also be useful for family members in the house without access to the app, such as a child or a babysitter. Lockly announced a similar smart lock with a screen at CES earlier this year. Its Vision Prestige uses facial recognition to unlock but it isn’t launching until Q4 and will cost $499. Eufy’s FamiLock S3 Max launches on March 17 for $399 on Amazon and Eufy’s online store, but existing Eufy customers can pre-order now on eufy.com for a $70 discount.

SysInternals is a suite of powerful Windows utilities from Microsoft that offers various tools to help optimize, troubleshoot, and monitor your PC. To access these apps, you can opt to download the SysInternals Suite package from the dedicated Microsoft SysInternals Learn page, or you can download each of the tools individually. The suite includes 74 tools, and most of them are mostly useful for troubleshooting purposes, but I picked the ones that will help you optimize your PC.

Nvidia's RTX 50 series has been dubbed a "paper launch" by many, in that it's been seemingly impossible for most normal people to actually get their hands on one of the cards. Unfortunately this trend has been going on for quite a while across the tech industry, upwards of twenty years, and it's likely only going to get worse in the future.

There are many aspects of Windows 11 that draw the ire of its users for one reason or another. Whether it's the forceful push to sell you on other Microsoft products, lack of customization options out of the box, or some of the privacy-invasive features, there's quite a bit users don't like. One of those problems is the fact that you need to use a Microsoft account when setting up Windows 11, a requirement that has only become more strict as time goes on.

There's no denying that File Explorer is not the best file manager on Windows. It often encounters various issues—like recently, after downloading the KB5051987 patch update for Windows 11, many users noticed that File Explorer became unresponsive whenever they tried to open folders. To ensure you don't have to deal with such issues anymore, you can use File Pilot, which is one of the best alternatives to File Explorer.

A week ago, Apple's CEO Tim Cook hinted that something big was on the horizon. Now, the company is ready to reveal what it has been working on. The company has announced the iPhone 16e, and it's shaping up to be a budget-friendly win for Apple fans.

Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 over a year ago, but it seems like customers as well as some software vendors are not ready to give up on it just yet. In the past few months, we have seen users utilize third-party applications to run modern software on Windows 7, and even witnessed a modding enthusiast boot up the operating system on less than 100MB of disk space. Now, another vendor has announced an extension of support for the old, but still popular, operating system.

Microsoft Excel is an extremely powerful spreadsheet tool that you can use for data crunching, as well as crafting lovely Valentine's messages. In the past few months, Redmond has added support for the Python programming language in Excel, along with tons of other capabilities. Now, the company is going one step ahead by adding advanced data ingestion and analysis techniques in Excel.