Image: The Verge Valve is now explicitly disclosing that you don’t own the games you buy from its Steam online store. The company has added a note on the payment checkout screen stating that “a purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam,” as reported earlier by Engadget.We confirmed the message appears in the Steam desktop app, but we haven’t seen it in the mobile app yet. Some Steam users noticed the disclosure go live earlier this week and posted their findings on Reddit. Image: Steam My colleague Sean is not actually buying this yet; he says he has to play Persona 3 first. Why? Probably, a new law. California has a law going into effect next year that’ll require digital storefronts like Valve’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Internet Archive will come back within “days” following a cyberattack that brought down the organization’s vast digital library and the Wayback Machine, according to an update from founder Brewster Kahle. It’s been struggling due to a data breach and DDoS attack earlier this week that revealed the email addresses, screen names, password change timestamps, and other information associated with more than 31 million unique email addresses.Currently, if you try to access the Internet Archive’s website, you’ll see a notice that says it’s “temporarily” offline. Links to the Wayback Machine also won’t load.The data is safe.Services are offline as we examine and strengthen them. Sorry, but needed. @internetarchive staff is working hard.E... Continue reading…

It's hard to state just how important case fans are. Not only are they required to keep your PC build cool, but they can also add a nice pop of color if you choose the right ones. Of course, there are lots of different options, but we think the Corsair LL 120 RGB fans are going to be some of the best that you can buy, offering a solid mix of performance and good looks.

When it comes to budgeting and personal finance, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While there is no shortage of expense management apps out there, none of them quite suit my needs. This is why I decided to take matters into my own hands and have created a budgeting template in Excel. It was easier than I thought, and now I can reuse this template and remain in complete control of my finances.

There's always a new gaming trend to keep an eye out for, and right now, that's Hall effect. The technology isn't new by any means, but it's now starting to take the gaming world by storm, hitting gaming handhelds, controllers, and even the best keyboards. Essentially, magnetic (Hall effect) keyboards use magnets and sensors rather than a direct electrical connection for actuation. This makes features like dynamic actuation points, Rapid Trigger, and Snap Tap possible. They're objectively faster than the top mechanical keyboards.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google is working on a fix for a buggy Wear OS 5 update. The company says it paused the OTA update rollout on September 26th after people, including my colleague Richard Lawler, reported their Pixel Watch 1 and 2 devices were stuck on a blank screen due to the update.Google plans to resume the Wear OS 5 rollout for older Pixel Watches “later this year,” as previously reported by Droid Life.If the update bricked your watch, there are ways to get it working again. Google’s support site has a bunch of general troubleshooting steps for getting out of a frozen watch, as well as instructions on how to factory reset from Fastboot if you can’t get to the usual settings.If your Pixel Watch is healthy and working, Google also just rolled out a... Continue reading…

Photo by Kevin Carter / Getty Images Boeing will be laying off “roughly” 10 percent of its workforce, president and CEO Kelly Ortberg announced in an email to staff on Friday. That number equates to 17,000 jobs, Reuters reports.The layoffs will take place “over the coming months” and will include “executives, managers and employees,” Ortberg says. Leadership teams plan to share more information about how the layoffs will affect specific organizations in the company next week.The announcement of layoffs follows what’s been an extremely difficult year for the company. In January, Boeing 737 Max planes were grounded after a hole blew in one mid-flight. In July, the company accepted a guilty plea deal over 737 Max crashes that happened in 2018 and 2019 and killed more than... Continue reading…

Whether you're building a new system, or just need to upgrade, grabbing a new SSD can go a long way when it comes to improving performance. Of course, there are a lot of great SSDs to choose from, but if you're not looking to spend a lot, and want good performance, we think Samsung's 990 Evo SSD is going to be a solid choice.

Everyone wants to get the most performance they can from their PC, and rightly so. Upgrading the components in your PC can be a great way to help with this, and the process doesn't have to be intimidating. It all comes down to knowing where you need the extra performance and what component can best help with this.

Unlike Sony’s robotic dog, Aibo, Casio’s Moflin can’t run away on its own. | Image: Casio Casio has opened preorders for its robotic pet called Moflin that looks like a cross between a hamster and Star Trek’s Tribbles. Unlike Sony’s robot dog Aibo that can follow you around, Moflin is designed to be held and cuddled, and over time, Casio says it will learn who you are and attempt to develop a simulated bond expressed through unique sounds and movements.Originally developed through a collaboration with a Japanese startup called Vanguard Industries, Moflin is now being manufactured and distributed by Casio. It can be preordered for ￥59,400 (around $398 USD) and is expected to be available starting on November 7th. Casio is also offering an optional subscription service called Club Moflin for ￥6,600 (about $44 USD) per year,... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is planning to support the streaming of Xbox game libraries next month. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is getting ready to test the ability to stream games that you own that aren’t part of the existing Xbox Game Pass library.As part of a long-running project known as Project Lapland inside of Microsoft, the software giant has been readying its Xbox Cloud Gaming servers to be able to support streaming thousands of games. I’m told Microsoft will first test its new Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming capabilities with Xbox Insiders in November, before expanding them to more Xbox users and more games.The Xbox Cloud Gaming expansion comes in the same month Microsoft plans to enable game purchases... Continue reading…

Image: AMD Somebody goofed — and now AMD’s unannounced Ryzen 9000X3D desktop processors have been partially revealed. But like Intel’s new Arrow Lake desktop CPUs, it doesn’t look like they’ll be a huge performance improvement on their predecessors. If so, that’s a shame given how poorly received AMD’s Ryzen 9000 was, to begin with.According to slides from an MSI presentation published by HardwareLuxx today (via VideoCardz), the new chips may have respectable multicore performance gen-over-gen, with an eight-core 9000X3D outperforming a Ryzen 7 7900X3D by up to 28 percent in Cinebench R23. But they can offer as little as 2 percent gains in Black Myth: Wukong and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, according to MSI’s preliminary testing. And against the... Continue reading…