A lot of our work happens inside a browser, whether it's sending emails, attending meetings, or using services like Google Drive. However, many people, myself included, prefer a native desktop app over visiting a web page. For one, I have found apps to be faster and more responsive than websites. A good example is the Asana app, which is much faster than the website. However, not all web services are available as standalone desktop apps.

If you spend a lot of time working on your computer, chances are a good chunk of that time is spent managing files and making sure things are organized enough for you to navigate your files easily. The built-in File Explorer covers all the basics of file management and it's good enough for most people, but it does fall short in some aspects.

Desktop PCs take up so much space that most people have moved on to alternate solutions. And if you're not looking at a laptop, then a mini PC is going to be a fantastic option. With that said, this one from GMKtec is now on sale for a discounted price, coming in at just $123 for a limited time. Not only are you getting something that's ultra-compact, but there is also plenty of power here, making it great for a wide variety of applications.

MSI isn't new to the back mount design (BMD) game, having released a few motherboards since showcasing Project Zero in 2023. For CES 2025, the company is teasing Project X, a gorgeous panoramic PC case designed with reverse connector motherboards in mind. BMD motherboards have some headers and ports moved to the rear of the PCB to aid with cable management, something that continues to prove challenging when building a PC.

Traditional word processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs cater to the majority of users who write on their computers. They're easy to use and have a plethora of tools and functions to format text in any required manner. However, most word processors use custom formatting exclusive to their platform. For example, you may have observed that copying text from a Microsoft Word file onto Google Docs or vice versa may mess up the formatting. The same applies to migrating text from LibreOffice to MS Word. This is especially annoying for people like me who constantly need to input text into online content management systems.

Illustration: The Verge Apple is refuting rumors that it ever let advertisers target users based on Siri recordings in a statement published Wednesday evening describing how Siri works and what it does with data. The section specifically responding to the rumors reads:Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose. We are constantly developing technologies to make Siri even more private, and will continue to do so. The conspiracy theory the company is responding to resurfaced last week after Apple agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit over users whose conversations were captured by its Siri voice assistant and potentially overheard by human employees. While Apple’s settlement addresses an issue that The Guardian reported in 2019. The report showed human contractors tasked with reviewing anonymized recordings and grading whether the trigger was activated intentionally, would sometimes receive recordings of people discussing sensitive information. But it doesn’t include any reference to selling data for marketing purposes. After The Guardian’s report in 2019, Apple apologized and changed its policy, making the default setting not to retain audio recordings from Siri interactions and saying that for users who opt-in to sharing recordings, those recordings would not be shared with third-party contractors.However, reports about the settlement noted that in earlier filings like this one from 2021, some of the plaintiffs claimed that after they mentioned brand names like “Olive Garden,” “Easton bats,” “Pit Viper sunglasses,” and “Air Jordans,” they were served ads for corresponding products, which they attributed to Siri data. Apple’s statement tonight says it “does not retain audio recordings of Siri interactions unless users explicitly opt in to help improve Siri, and even then, the recordings are used solely for that purpose. Users can easily opt-out at any time.” Facebook responded to similar theories in 2014 and 2016 before Mark Zuckerberg addressed it directly, saying “no” to the question while being grilled by Congress over the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018.So, if Apple (and Facebook, Google, etc.) is telling the truth, then why would you see an ad later for something you only talked about? There are other explanations, and attempts to check the rumors out include an investigation in 2018 that didn’t find evidence of microphone spying but did discover that some apps secretly recorded on-screen user activity that they shipped to third parties. Ad targeting networks also track data from people logged onto the same network or who have spent time in the same locations, so even if one person didn’t type in that search term, maybe someone else did. They can buy data from brokers who collect reams of detailed location tracking and other info from the apps on your phone, and both Google and Facebook pull in data from other companies to build out profiles based on your purchasing habits and other information.

Are you tired of shelling out a fortune for creative software subscriptions? Thanks to robust open-source solutions, you don’t need to be tied down by expensive tools to unleash your creativity. From photo editing and graphic design to note-taking and illustration, there is a free and powerful alternative out there.

It always feels good when a rumor turns out to be true. We recently reported on a leak claiming that the Raspberry Pi Foundation was about to release a 16GB version of its fifth SBC, and sure enough, the company did just that. However, if you're used to SBCs coming in with price tags below three digits, you may need to sit down for this one.

Xbox is kicking off the new year once again with its Developer_Direct event returning on Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BT. Like last year's event, we have some idea of what Xbox is bringing to the table, with confirmation that we'll hear more about South of Midnight from developer Compulsion Games, DOOM: The Dark Ages from id Software will be shown off again and developer Sandfall Interactive will showcase more on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Beyond those three games, there's also at least one more currently unrevealed game that'll be shown at the event.

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge Microsoft is rolling back a model upgrade to its AI-powered Bing Image Creator, reports TechCrunch. The rollback came after weeks of complaints by users that the tool just didn’t work as well after Microsoft “upgraded” to a new version of the DALL-E 3 model on December 18th.Microsoft declined to comment on its decision to roll things back or offer specifics on what may be causing the gap between user’s expectations and its output.Today, Microsoft’s head of search, Jordi Ribas, tweeted that they could reproduce “some of the issues reported” and are reverting to an older version of the DALL-E model for now, although it could take a few weeks until it’s complete.Since the launch of Bing Image Creator last spring, users have generated billions of images with text prompts. I'm pleased to share our latest updates to enhance your creative experience. Starting today, we’re rolling out the latest DALL-E 3 model PR16, which will create images… pic.twitter.com/3p9HsYMlr6— Jordi Ribas (@JordiRib1) December 18, 2024Thanks again for the feedback and patience. We've been able to repro some of the issues reported and plan to revert to PR13 until we can fix them. All Pro users and about 25% of the requests using boosts are now on PR13. The deployment process is very slow unfortunately. It…— Jordi Ribas (@JordiRib1) January 8, 2025As soon as Ribas posted about the change in December, there were complaints that Bing Image Creator was producing less-detailed results or images that didn’t accurately reflect their prompts. In his initial replies, Ribas said the model’s output quality “should be a bit better on average” than before. It was the same story in posts and comments on Reddit and OpenAI’s community forums. On OpenAI’s forums, a person complained about the model’s handling of fabric on an anime-style character’s dress. The person who posted the below images says the one on the left is “perfect quality” while the one on the right is “over-lit.” Screenshot: OpenAI community forum Another didn’t like the way Bing placed starburst effects: Screenshot: OpenAI community forum All of these things are subjective, and I can’t claim to think any of them look better than any others. If anything, it feels like an indication that Microsoft doesn’t just have to deal with complaints about bugs or people upset about feature changes — now it has to deal with AI art critics comparing the machine’s output to what they imagine it should create. Perhaps they should ask the artists whose work the generators were trained on for tips about managing a client’s expectations?

Microsoft Outlook is among the best free email apps because of its Office 365 integration and handy features like the shared mailbox. Shared mailboxes are ideal for company departments, like inquiries that receive large email volumes, because multiple users can access the inbox and share an Outlook calendar. They’re also great when one user is out of the office in Outlook and someone else needs to complete their work while they are away.

Illustration: The Verge Google is testing an experimental AI feature that creates a personalized podcast using your Search and Discover feed history. The Daily Listen feature in Google’s Search Labs is rolling out to Android and iOS users in the US according to 9to5Google, and works similarly to the Audio Overviews feature for Google’s NotebookLM project.Daily Listen references search data and Discover feed interactions to assess which news articles would be of most interest to the user, and then summarizes those stories and topics into a roughly five-minute audio overview. It provides a text transcript, alongside audio scrubber controls that allow users to play, pause, mute, rewind, or skip to the next story. Image: Google (Via 9to5Google) Here’s a few screengrabs of the Daily Listen UI, showing where the feature is located and how it presents related topics. Search Labs users who opt-in to try this experiment will find Daily Listen in the personalized widget carousel underneath the Search bar at the top of the Google app. A “Related stories” tab will appear at the bottom of the audio player that corresponds to content within the overview that allows users to like or disapprove of each story with a thumbs up/down, and explore new topics.There’s currently no word on when/if this feature will be rolled out to the wider public. Google’s AI Search Overviews were tested in a similar way via Search Labs before launching to a general audience last year, so it’s possible that Daily Listen may one day become a persistent feature — hopefully one that’s easier to opt out of than AI Overviews.