The PS5 Pro looks like a slim that got a growth spurt. | Image: Sony After various rumors and leaks, the PlayStation 5 Pro is finally official — complete with a new GPU, $700 price point, and no built-in disc drive. But is that pretty much it? What makes this new console 40 percent more expensive than the existing PS5 you can buy today for $500? The same one that’s bound to go on sale during the holidays, not long after the Pro’s November 7th launch date.What are the differences between the PS5 and PS5 Pro that make it (depending who you ask) a worthwhile upgrade or a superfluous expense?Spec and performance differencesThe PS5 Pro has three core performance improvements over the standard PS5, according to Sony’s technical presentation announcement, hosted by PS5 lead architect, Mark Cerny. It’s got a... Continue reading…

Image: Bluesky Bluesky, the decentralized X alternative, now supports video. The platform announced on Wednesday that you can share videos up to 60 seconds long on its desktop site and mobile app.The videos will autoplay by default, but Bluesky says you can turn this feature off in the settings menu. You can also add subtitles to your videos, as well as apply labels for things like adult content. There are some limitations to Bluesky’s video feature, as the platform will only allow up to 25 video uploads (or 10GB of video) per day. Bluesky now has video! Update your app to version 1.91 or refresh on desktop!We’ve begun gradually rolling out the ability to post video. Thanks for your patience! Estamos gradualmente implementando a capacidade de... Continue reading…

The Dirigera hub and Ikea's Home smart app. | Image: Ikea Two years after announcing support, Ikea’s Dirigera hub can now be updated to act as a bridge between Ikea’s smart home devices and Matter-enabled systems. The software update builds upon early beta support by letting Ikea’s entire lineup of Zigbee-based smart home devices — like lights, blinds, controllers, air purifiers, and sensors — communicate with Matter-enabled devices from any company. Bridging support for existing devices to Matter is a small but significant step in Ikea’s plan to fully support the new smart home protocol. It’s the same tepid approach Philips Hue has taken but hopefully with better results. Other companies like Aqara have more fully embraced the standard by launching native Matter devices that don’t require... Continue reading…

Years ago, computing was much harder to deal with, especially when upgrading parts. One frustration was the need to reinstall Windows when switching CPUs because of a quirk of Windows's architecture that didn't go away until Windows 8's release. Yes, the tile-based Start menu might have ruffled some feathers, but the underlying changes to Windows were a net benefit. Nowadays, you don't need to reinstall your operating system after swapping CPUs. You don't even need to reinstall it when changing your motherboard or switching between manufacturers. Let's discuss why and how much better this makes computing overall.

Solar cells are run through a PV cell soldering stringer at Elin Energy’s solar panel manufacturing facility. | Photo: Getty Images The US has quadrupled its capacity for manufacturing solar panels in just a couple of years since passing the biggest federal spending package yet on climate and clean energy.Domestic solar module manufacturing capacity grew to 31.3 gigawatts in the second quarter of 2024, according to a report published this week by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association. That’s a significant jump, comparable to around 80 percent of the roughly 40GW of solar the US installed last year. It’s some welcome news as the US tries to meet goals it has set under the Paris agreement meant to keep climate disasters like wildfires and flooding from getting significantly worse. The Biden administration has made domestic manufacturing a... Continue reading…

Don’t want to commit to a new color of paint? Glasst’s Unpaint can be peeled off after a couple of days. | Image: Glasst Glasst has come up with an unusual solution for DIYers struggling to commit to a new wall color. Its Unpaint is a paint alternative that can be applied using standard tools like brushes, rollers, or even sprayers, but not permanently. When it dries, the company claims the paint can be easily peeled off instead of requiring laborious sanding or solvents to remove it.Unpaint uses the Colombian-based company’s proprietary Glasstommer technology, which allows a quickly applied liquid material to become a thin removable film. Glasst considers the exact makeup of the material a trade secret but does divulge that it contains a “biodegradable elastic component” that “dries to create a film that removes as easily as peeling an adhesive.”The... Continue reading…

Hugs and kisses! | Image: Cody Peterson (Each Other) Though I’d heard this XOXO festival would be the last one, many people I spoke to seemed not to believe it. I was told by previous attendees that festival organizers Andy Baio and Andy McMillan — affectionately called “the Andys” — “always say that.” But from the festival’s beginning, it also seemed clear that the Andys didn’t plan to do this forever.Anyway, this year’s XOXO felt like an Irish wake to me. It was like we had all gathered over the body of a specific period on the internet to pay our respects.XOXO began in 2012, born on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, where Baio worked. The basic idea was to celebrate “disruptive creativity” — that is, to take all the artists who make a living online and bring them together with... Continue reading…

The display creases are prominant at certain angles, but are barely noticable when looking at the Huawei Mate XT straight on. | Screenshot: Fixed Focus Digital Now that Huawei has officially launched the Mate XT Ultimate Design in China, demonstration videos are popping up online that reveal what the world’s first dual-folding, triple-screen phone looks like in real-world conditions.Several unboxing videos show that the Huawei Mate XT is shipped in its unfolded position, which is just 3.6mm (around 0.14 inches) thick at its thinnest point — making it slimmer than Google’s 5.1mm (around 0.2 inch) Pixel 9 Pro Fold. When fully folded, the Mate XT measures in at 12.8mm (around 0.5 inches), a smidge thicker than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s 10.1mm (around 0.39 inches) and the 12.1mm Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.A hands-on review from Gizmochina shows that the display can be used to view multiple app windows... Continue reading…

Routers and switches are typically used to connect NAS, PCs, servers, SBCs, and other computing devices over a local area network. However, there are a couple of reasons why you might want to ditch a router/switch and directly interface two devices using their Ethernet ports. Perhaps you dont want other devices in the network to gain access to confidential files. Or maybe you've finally upgraded to 10GbE NICs, but are bottlenecked by the slower speeds of your switchs SFP+/RJ45 sockets. Regardless of your reasons, heres an in-depth guide on how to pair your NAS with a PC over Ethernet.

Photo by Noam Galai/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management Taylor Swift said on Tuesday that she plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November’s presidential election — and that AI-generated images circulating of herself pushed her in part to make her support public.“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift wrote in an Instagram post. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images Less than 30 minutes into the presidential debate, former president Donald Trump brought up a viral racist lie about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio — and repeated it after fact-checkers asserted that it wasn’t true.“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said in response to a question about why he asked Republican legislators to vote against a bipartisan border security bill. After Trump finished his tirade, ABC News moderator David Muir clarified that Springfield’s city manager told ABC reports of migrants eating pets were false — but Trump repeated the lie. “People on television are saying, ‘My dog was taken and... Continue reading…

A while back, I wrote about Twinkle Tray and how it's a fantastic app for customizing the settings for your external monitor. But while that's still a great app, there are other options worth considering if you want monitor controls, with two great examples being ClickMonitorDDC and Monitorian. The latter was actually mentioned by one of our readers in the comments of the aforementioned article.