For years, I had a Game Wizard for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) tucked away in my collection, without realizing how mysterious it truly was. I originally owned it as a kid in the 90s, likely purchased on a whim through GamePro or a similar magazine. Years later, I discovered it again while selling off parts of my vintage collection on eBay. When I went to write its product listing, I found almost no reliable information about it—no definitive product descriptions, no big reviews, and hardly any forum or Reddit posts. At the time, I simply wrote a quick mention that it was a cheat device, put it up for sale, and didn’t think about it again.

OpenAI just made its Super Bowl debut with a 60-second spot that positions AI alongside humanity’s greatest innovations.The commercial traces humanity’s technological evolution through a distinctive pointillism-inspired animation style, transforming abstract dots into iconic images of progress – from early tools like fire and the wheel to modern breakthroughs like DNA sequencing and space exploration. It culminates with modern AI applications, showing ChatGPT handling everyday tasks like drafting business plans and language tutoring. The ad cost roughly $14 million for the first-half placement.The commercial, developed under new CMO Kate Rouch, deliberately avoids mentioning AGI or superintelligence, which are at the core of OpenAI’s mission. Instead, it focuses on practical applications. “We want the message to feel relevant to the audience that is watching the Super Bowl, which includes tens of millions of people who have no familiarity with AI,” Rouch tells The Verge, noting there should be about 130 million people watching.While OpenAI’s text-to-video AI Sora was used during conception to rapidly prototype ideas and explore different camera treatments, the final …Read the full story at The Verge.

Mind mapping is a visual technique that involves creating diagrams to represent ideas, tasks, or concepts branching out from a central theme. It’s also why I quickly became comfortable with the node-based AI software ComfyUI. The ability to visually organize information hierarchically has proven helpful in business and my personal life.

Anker makes a ton of charging accessories, but we think this is one of its best because it doesn't cost all that much, offers plenty of power, and is quite versatile thanks to its port selection. For a limited time, you can pick up this Anker 727 charging station for just $40 from Amazon. This is the lowest price we've seen for this device, so get it while you can.

Love them or hate them, Large Language Models are increasingly woven into the fabric of technology across the internet, smartphones, and personal computers. Your office suite now comes integrated with CoPilot, and Adobe's creative suite has its own AI assistant built in. But working with cloud-hosted LLMs comes with some tradeoffs -- privacy.

Rivian’s electric commercial van. | Image: RivianRivian’s electric van is now available to be purchased by anyone with a commercial fleet, the automaker said today. For several years, Rivian’s van was exclusive to Amazon. Now, the platform on which the e-commerce giant based its delivery van is open to anyone with a fleet of commercial vehicles and some money to burn.Amazon agreed to buy 1000,000 Rivian vans in 2019 as part of a blockbuster deal that would also include a $1 billion investment into the startup. Under the terms of the agreement, Rivian would sell its vans exclusively to Amazon. But that partnership ended prematurely in November 2023, with Amazon only acquiring around 20,000 vans from Rivian — or about 20 percent of the original commitment. Amazon remains Rivian’s largest shareholder, with an estimated 17 percent stake in the company. Rivian says it will sell anywhere from a single van to thousands to individual buyers, depending on their needs. However, the vans can’t be for personal use (sorry #vanlifers) and must be registered as part of a business. The vans come in two sizes and two prices: the RCV 500 starts at $79,900, while the RCV 700 starts at $83,900.Rivian says it has spent the time since the end of its exclusivity deal with Amazon trialing the van in some larger fleets (like AT&T’s), while also building out a service and software business for its future van customers.“Over the last year we have been focusing our efforts on testing with some larger fleets, and we’re really pleased with how those trials have gone,” said Tom Solomon, senior director of business development at Rivian, in a statement. “As a result, we’re excited to now be able to open sales to fleets of all sizes in the US, whether they want 1 van or thousands.”The electric van market has been volatile. General Motors spun off and then reabsorbed BrightDrop, its electric commercial vehicle business, after deciding the market was too fragile for BrightDrop to stand on its own. Ford has seen some success with its E-Transit vans, selling 12,610 of them in 2024, which was a 64 percent increase from 2023. And Mercedes-Benz revealed its eSprinter van in 2023, with deliveries expected to begin later this year.Being able to sell its electric vans to a wider pool of customers could be good for Rivian’s financial situation, which has been relatively shaky over the past few years. The vans have better profit margins than the company’s R1T and R1S vehicles. And Rivian can also sell subscriptions to the various software features within the van, boosting its long-term value overall.

Self-hosting, which involves hosting your own servers instead of relying on the cloud of a service provider, seems to be growing in popularity once again. Once considered a niche hobby, services that allow you to host your own software seem to be getting more attention than ever. While it takes some technical know-how to self-host software on your own private servers, there are plenty of resources online to help you start your self-hosting journey, including subreddits and YouTube tutorials.

Setting up your first NAS is quite an exciting affair. You discover new features and their unique use cases — the sheer joy of the experience is much like assembling your own PC. However, in all the excitement, it’s easy to overlook critical details that can potentially leave your NAS vulnerable to security risks, drive failures, and data loss. Many of these factors also affect your NAS’s longevity — and you want it to last a very long time! When setting up your first NAS unit at home, you should keep these key points in mind to avoid any snags down the line.

It's no more than a common misconception that if you want to get any gaming done on your PC, you'll need to have a PC purpose-built for gaming. There are in fact plenty of games you can play that don't need the bells and whistles of the latest and greatest hardware.

The allure of the flagship PC hardware drives the bulk of the conversation every single generation. Hopes of owning the fastest CPUs and GPUs money can buy keep the community engaged, and the hype surrounding every new launch successfully capitalizes on that. While the high-end components represent the latest peak of computing every year, they're not what most people buy.

Like every other industry, video games aren't immune to trends — battle royale, live service, NFTs, and more — but when all you see are negative trends sucking the life out of modern games, you're bound to yearn for the good ol' days. Many of you might never have played split-screen games with a sibling, desperately hunted for cheat codes, or unlocked characters instead of paying for them.

If you buy a hard disk from eBay or a reseller, there’s always the chance of getting a used hard disk. Or perhaps you’ve found yourself a great deal on a used hard disk but need to know how old it is. If you’ve ever wondered how old your hard disk is, you’re not alone. Knowing the age of your drive can help you predict its lifespan, check warranty status, or decide if you need to upgrade.