With the yearly release window for new MacBooks fast approaching, you might be tempted to upgrade. After all, the M4 iPad Pro is a beast, so it's a given that MacBooks (or any other Macs) using the M4 chip will also be fantastic. They're not among the most popular and best laptops on the market for nothing, especially after the transition to Apple Silicon. The thing is, if you already have a Mac or MacBook with Apple Silicon, you probably don't need to upgrade. Sure, newer M-chips are faster, but you might not notice them in everyday use. Here are a few other reasons you might want to quash your itch to upgrade.

Building your network-attached storage (NAS) device from scratch is an excellent way to tailor the system to your precise requirements. It's also enjoyable and provides a strong sense of accomplishment when everything is up and running. Still, there are some mistakes you should bear in mind to not repeat with your NAS build. From picking the wrong CPU to not using enough active cooling, I'll go through some beginner mistakes to show what to look out for.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft that launched NASA’s Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station is pictured docked to the Harmony module’s forward port on Wednesday, July 3, 2024. | Image: NASA The Starliner is flying home empty after undocking autonomously, while the astronauts it took to the ISS will make a separate trip back to Earth in 2025. Continue reading…

Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are two of the popular spreadsheet solutions out there. Although Google Sheets is widely appreciated for its ease of use and real-time collaboration features, Excel continues to be the preferred choice for professionals and businesses that require robust capabilities, versatility, and superior performance. From boasting a rich templates library to handling complex calculations, Excel constantly edges out its web-based counterpart.

Google's Pixel 9 Pro just launched, and it looks like another great phone for anyone who loves mobile photography. It's also packed full of AI features powered by Google Gemini, and has a very distinct design with a rounded camera bar. It's going to be one of the best Android phones you can get, backed up by seven years of software support and security updates. It's also covered in glass, which means you'll want to put it in a protective case so that it has a chance of surviving long enough to experience all those years of updates. Keep in mind that the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro both utilize the same cases. To help narrow the choice down for you, here are our top picks for the best cases.

A still image of Doom on a volumetric display. | Photo by James Brown (@ancientjames) In 2022, I introduced you to James Brown, the Weta Workshop graphics engineer whose hobby is building amazing displays. Now, he’s built a crystal ball filled with shimmering, spinning volumetric light — and of course he’s playing Doom on it. But not just any Doom. Voxel Doom, where every dot of the game’s graphics lives in 3D space, just like the dots of the volumetric display he’s created. As he explains on YouTube, the physical illusion is fairly simple: “It’s like a hologram fan, but instead of spinning a 1D strip to make a 2D image, it spins a 2D panel to make a 3D image.” On his Mastodon, he breaks it down a bit more with visual aids: Brown’s been working on this for over a year now: if I’m not mistaken, he introduced the... Continue reading…

Closing your laptop lid while using a great external monitor is a practice mostly seen in offices. It allows users to connect their laptops to a dock and use a bigger monitor or a dual monitor setup without keeping their laptops open. It provides more screen space to work with, helps to prevent accidental damage, and can even prolong the life of the laptop screen.

You can buy a disassembled iPhone 4S framed for just $99. | Image: Grid Studio If you’re a fan of all things retro, Grid’s framed disassembled gadgets are a celebration of vintage tech you will likely find charming. The company turns obsolete smartphones, gaming consoles, controllers, and other old-school gizmos into collage-like artwork placed in shadowbox-style frames, making for incredibly unusual pieces of home or office decor. And right now through September 12th, many of our favorite Grid items are up to around 40 percent off in honor of the company’s fourth anniversary.A wide range of nostalgia-inducing gadgets are on sale; you can check them all out here. You can, for instance, buy the translucent Game Boy Color and the iPod Photo from 2004 for $159.20 when you use promo code GRID4 at checkout. For me,... Continue reading…

While Microsoft 365 is the most popular productivity solution out there, it clearly isnt an ideal fit for many, especially those who prefer to stay away from the Windows ecosystem and are on a tight budget. While Google Docs is widely known as an ideal alternative to the Microsoft 365 suite, you cant completely rule out other alternatives. Among them, WPS Office remains an overlooked productivity powerhouse that strikes the perfect balance between features and asking price.

The launch of AMD's Zen 5 processors didn't exactly go as planned, with AMD dropping the ball with the Ryzen 9000 CPUs in some major areas. Arguably, the most disappointing aspect of the 9000 series was the lackluster gains in gaming performance compared to the previous-gen Ryzen 7000 processors.

If you've ever looked at the prices for curved monitors, they aren't cheap. Some of the best ones can easily cost $1,000, which can leave you scratching your head if you're trying to buy one for a good price. Luckily, there are alternative options that still offer a good experience and can save you a lot of money in the process.

Regular iPhone, rise up. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Look, I get it. People aren’t buying phones like they used to, so Apple’s really gotta put the squeeze on us every upgrade cycle. And recently, that has meant pushing more people toward the Pro iPhone, rather than the regular one. Every year for the past few years, Apple has withheld more and more features for its Pro phones, bring them down to the standard iPhone at a drip. But that might be changing this year, if the rumors are true, and to that I say: it’s about damn time.In the past couple of cycles only the “Pro” models have gotten the latest Bionic chipset. That doesn’t just mean that the Pro models are more powerful — it also means that the regular iPhone won’t be eligible for the same feature updates that the Pro models get... Continue reading…