Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You may have read headlines last week about Microsoft removing the Control Panel from Windows soon, but the death of the Control Panel has been greatly exaggerated. The inaccurate reports stemmed from a single support document, originally spotted by Neowin. Microsoft has now updated the support document to make it clear that Control Panel isn’t in danger of being removed from Windows anytime soon.“The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app,” said Microsoft in its support note last week. While Microsoft has been working on moving Control Panel items to the Settings interface for more than a decade, this seemingly small update to a support document triggered headlines about the Control Panel being... Continue reading…

The new Garmin Fenix 8 series adds voice commands and a new Messenger app. | Image: Garmin Garmin’s back with two new rugged smartwatches: the all-new Fenix 8 and Enduro 3. The $999.99 Fenix 8, one of Garmin’s top-of-line flagships, will get a built-in speaker and microphone, along with several new training features. Meanwhile, the $899.99 Enduro 3 will feature an LED flashlight plus solar charging to extend battery life up to 320 hours in GPS mode.If there’s any theme to the Fenix 8’s updates this time around, it’s in making the device smarter while also giving athletes more choices. For example, it now has a built-in speaker and microphone so you can make and take phone calls from the wrist. You’ll also be able to issue voice commands like “set a timer for 5 minutes.” For voice commands, a connection to your phone isn’t... Continue reading…

Hi, Barbie! | Image: HMD HMD’s Barbie-branded flip phone arrives a little too late to catch the Hot Foldable Summer wave, but it’s definitely not short on charm. Preannounced at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, the HMD Barbie Phone is now official and goes on sale for $129 in October. The Barbie phone is a true feature phone; no apps, just connectivity for calls and texts. HMD is pitching it as a device for a digital detox so you can “take a vacation from your smartphone.” That’s fine since you probably wouldn’t want to do much more on its small 2.8-inch inner screen, but bear in mind that typing out T9 texts is worse than you remember. There’s a 5-megapixel camera with a built-in flash, which, as HMD points out, is perfect for that early digital camera... Continue reading…

It's kind of weird that the company that helped pioneer the AI assistant with Alexa has been eerily quiet, while other companies announce their brand-new AI models. Even Amazon's smart home rival, Google, is working hard to get its Gemini AI model up and running on people's PCs. However, that silence may soon end, as a leak from Amazon has revealed the existence of what's called a "Remarkable Alexa" to compete with the others.

Image: AMD AMD promised that Microsoft’s upcoming 24H2 update to Windows 11 would improve performance for its new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, but it’s also giving a significant boost to some older Ryzen CPUs. Hardware Unboxed has tested the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7700X and the new Ryzen 7 9700X (Zen 5) on both Windows 11 version 23H2 and 24H2 and found a significant performance increase thanks to Microsoft’s OS update.On average, Hardware Unboxed found an improvement of 10 percent across multiple games running at 1080p resolution on the older Ryzen 7700X running Windows 11 version 24H2. On the latest Ryzen 9700X, Windows 11 24H2 provides an 11 percent performance improvement on average in the same game tests. KitGuru has also tested AMD’s best gaming... Continue reading…

Microsoft has been transitioning more and more capabilities from the old Control Panel to the new Settings app ever since Windows 8 made its debut, but over 10 years later, Windows 11 still comes with both apps. Recently, the company stated that it was deprecating the Control Panel over time, before retracting that statement just a few days later.

Bottlenecking is one of those undying debates in PC hardware circles. And sadly, there aren't many facts involved in many of these discussions, especially among relatively inexperienced PC builders. As common as it is to misunderstand PC bottlenecks, it doesn't justify using online bottleneck calculators that are highly problematic in more ways than one.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Telegram doesn’t have the moderation of most social networks or the privacy of a true encrypted messaging app. That could leave its operator in hot water. Continue reading…

GIMP is a powerful and versatile open-source solution in the image editing space. Released back in 1995, GIMP received its first true major upgrade with version 2.0 in 2004. GIMP went through a massive overhaul in 2018 with the version 2.10 release, and now all eyes are set on the highly anticipated release of GIMP 3. Looking at the companys development plan, its quite evident why GIMP 3 is generating such a buzz. These are the primary reasons I am enthusiastic about GIMP 3 and why you should be as well.

With mini PCs becoming more popular, we are starting to see some great uses for them. A lot of them even have some pretty decent hardware. One of the things that mini PCs can be pretty good for is gaming. While they might not be able to play the latest and greatest AAA titles, they can play older games (and many other modern ones) with ease. This is where emulators come into the story, as they don't require the best hardware to run and can offer some nostalgic fun.

Stress testing your PC is not only crucial to monitoring its stability, but it can also be good fun. When stress testing, you need to make sure you are monitoring your hardware details and temperatures to ensure they are operating within their limits. While most PCs in 2024 have fail-safes in place, things can happen, so it is best to manually monitor your system.

It's pretty clear at this point that foldable phones are here to stay, and that's not likely to change, with new releases like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold setting the bar higher and higher. They're not cheap, but the appeal of a folding smartphone is obvious: the big, beautiful, folding display that effectively transforms your smartphone into a small tablet. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Pixel 9 Pro Fold are top-tier devices for entertainment and multitasking, but considering that these retail for twice as much as standard flagship phones, you don't want to make a blind purchase. Let's look at these foldables side-by-side and see which is the better buy.