Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge When the Mac Mini was first introduced in early 2005, it was pitched as a compact “stripped-down” desktop — and the most affordable Mac in Apple’s lineup. Steve Jobs referred to it as a “BYODKM” system: you’d bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse, and the Mini would provide a dependable computing experience with all the benefits of macOS. The Mac Mini has carried on ever since. There have been periods where the Mini has been sidelined and ignored by Apple for long stretches of time. But the debut of Apple Silicon gave it a new lease on life. Even if the overall design didn’t change much in the transition from Intel to Apple’s in-house chips, the Mini’s potential soared. But now, that design is about to change. And if the... Continue reading…

The Raspberry Pi family has grown a lot since the progenitor board started making the rounds in 2012, and the same can be said about the collection of projects you can build with these credit-card-sized systems. From the community-favorite ad-blocker Pi-hole and retro gaming setups to complex Home Assistant and weather station configurations, these tiny boards pack enough oomph to bring all your tinkering fantasies to life. But if youve grown bored after running the usual tried-and-tested experiments, here are some obscure ideas that are worth trying out on your green SBC.

Image: Finji I used to hate jigsaw puzzles. I thought they were frustrating, messy, and took way too long to solve. But my wife showed me how those parts of jigsaw puzzles can actually be fun: there’s something satisfying and meditative about working through those frustrations, sorting through the mess, and putting a picture together, one piece at a time, over the course of a few hours. (Or days.)The makers of Wilmot Works It Out, a new puzzle game, understand this, and everything about the game is designed to make solving puzzles fun instead of annoying.In the game, you play as Wilmot, an adorable white square with a face who has a puzzle-by-mail subscription. (He’s the same smiley square from Wilmot’s Warehouse, a 2019 puzzle game also made by... Continue reading…

A smart home display that looks like the iMac G4 would be irresistible. | Photo: Wes Davis / The Verge The smart home display that Apple is rumored to be releasing next year could sport a look that harkens back to the iMac G4, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests in his Power On newsletter today.The new smart home display will apparently be small. Gurman writes it will have a square display angled above a small base that makes it “reminiscent of the circular bottom of the iMac G4 from a couple of decades ago.” It may have speakers, essentially making it the HomePod with a screen that’s been rumored as one of Apple’s possible smart home futures.Gurman didn’t say how much this device might cost but has hinted at an “affordable” smart home device with a square display in the past. Rumors have suggested Apple will release a $1,000 model with a... Continue reading…

While OneNote has been a darling of Windows users, handy for jotting down quick notes, Evernote has rapidly become a strong contender among power users. Since being acquired by Bending Spoons, an Italy-based company, the popular note-taking app has rapidly gained new features. Its now right up there with OneNote and even beats Microsofts solution in some critical areas.

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 58, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, Batman forever, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Simone Giertz and billionaire assistants and Checo Pérez and Call Her Daddy, learning about “Earthrise,” listening to Quinta Brunson and Conan O’Brien talk comedy, trying to decide whether to get super into Bluesky or just quit social altogether, and throwing myself into baseball so I can pretend I know what I’m talking about during the World Series.I also have for you an excellent new VR game, a delightful new reading gadget, a nice RSS reader update, a new browser worth trying, and much... Continue reading…

The price of solid-state drives (SSDs) has continued to fall in recent years, and it's now easier (and more affordable) than ever to upgrade your gaming PC with faster load times and more responsive gameplay. Thanks to these savings, it's possible to buy an SSD for not only storing and running the main operating system but also plenty of apps and games without spending an arm and a leg.

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Ever wondered why some of your Instagram videos tend to look blurry, while others are crisp and sharp? It’s because, on Instagram, the quality of your video apparently depends on how many views it’s getting. That’s according to a video AMA from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, in which he explained why some videos are lower-quality than others.Here’s part of Mosseri’s explanation, from the video, which was reposted by a Threads user today:In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can ... But if something isn’t watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video. And then if it’s watched again a lot then we’ll re-render the higher quality video.He... Continue reading…

Lets say youve finally caved into the desire to build your own Network-Attached Storage server and bought the hardware necessary for the endeavor. The next course of action is to pick the perfect operating system that can fulfill your storage needs. While you can technically build a makeshift file-sharing server using Windows 11, dedicated NAS operating systems are better when it comes to privacy, resource utilization, and above all, storage provisions.

Microsoft recently refreshed the Xbox Series X, and while it comes with multiple improvements to power usage, one thing has been taken away. The new base model Robot White Xbox Series X with 1TB storage is all-digital, so the Blu-ray drive has been removed. Sure, it's $50 lower in price for that, but it's a worrying trend when access to physical media is shrinking fast. To get an optical drive on the Xbox now, you have to pony up for the 2TB version, which costs $600, or buy the older and more power-hungry model while it's still available. With optical drives disappearing on laptops, and PC gaming handhelds all being digital only, it really looks like the end of the road for physical media.

When sharing files, whether via email, the cloud, or through the old-school style of using a flash drive, you probably want those files to be as small as possible. This saves space on your drive, or it may be required to fit the restrictions of sending files over email.

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge While there aren’t a lot of new features in Android 15, it does offer some useful additions for your phone — and one of the most interesting is called “Private Space.” Think of it as a separate app vault that locks away specified apps on your Android device. Of course, the main lockscreen already stops other people from accessing your phone, but Private Space puts an extra barrier in place. The idea is that if you lend someone your device to make a call or look at a photo, they won’t accidentally (or deliberately) stumble into something they shouldn’t. It’s also an extra safety net if your phone is lost or stolen while it’s unlocked.I tried the feature on a Pixel 8 phone running Android 15. Here’s how it works.Setting up Private... Continue reading…