Portable SSDs are a great way to save your data, especially since they are now more affordable than ever. With that said though, prices for SSDs are still higher than they were a couple of years ago, which means, if you can find a good deal on one, you should grab it. While there are a lot of great options to go with, we think this 1TB model from SK hynix is an absolute steal, especially at its newly discounted price that comes in at $74.99.

Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Meta is now offering an interest-free $24.99 monthly payment plan to get its Quest 3 VR headset, along with two years’ worth of a Meta Quest Plus gaming subscription and its extended warranty. That starting price is for the 128GB model, but 10 bucks more per month will get you the 512GB version. Whichever way you go, you could pay almost $200 less than you otherwise would by buying everything individually.The loans are supplied by Affirm, one of the more well-known buy now, pay later services that have cropped up in recent years. This “Play Now, Pay Later” package could help Meta get headsets into the hands of people unwilling to pay the entire price upfront, but it’s also a promotion for the Quest Plus service that adds two games to... Continue reading…

Skydance founder David Ellison is set to become Paramount’s new chairman and chief executive. | Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Paramount Global has agreed to merge with Skydance Media in a deal that will see the joint enterprise, temporarily dubbed “New Paramount,” valued at approximately $28 billion.As part of the two-step agreement announced on Sunday, Paramount Chair Shari Redstone (the daughter of Sumner Redstone) will sell National Amusements — which holds her family’s controlling stake in Paramount — for $2.4 billion. Skydance will then merge with Paramount, investing $8 billion to purchase Paramount’s shares and pay off some of the company’s balance sheet. Bloomberg reports that Paramount has $14.6 billion of debt as of March, partially attributed to streaming losses and a decline in the company’s broadcast and cable TV business.“Given the changes in... Continue reading…

Philips Hue smart LED light bulb gear. | Image: Philips Are your Philips Hue smart light bulbs seemingly going rogue, randomly turning themselves up to full brightness even if you’ve set them dimmer? Philips Hue parent company Signify is aware of the issue, has figured out the root cause, and tells The Verge that a fix is coming as soon as next week. “After extensive analysis, we have identified an interoperability issue with the Matter smarthome standard, in which random temporary radio traffic disruptions are incorrectly recognized as legacy switch power toggles, turning low brightness lights to full brightness,” Signify third-party spokesperson Kate Helander tells The Verge. Matter is supposed to be the one smart home standard to rule them all, but it’s been dicier in practice — we had... Continue reading…

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft is finally rolling out spellcheck and autocorrect for its Notepad app in Windows 11, more than 40 years after the simple text editor was first introduced in Windows in 1983. The software giant started testing both features in March, and has now quietly started enabling them for all Windows 11 users in recent days.The spellcheck feature in Notepad is almost identical to how Word or Edge highlight misspelled words, with a red underline to clearly show mistakes. I say almost identical because when you right-click on a misspelled word in Notepad the spelling submenu isn’t automatically expanded like Microsoft does in Word, so you have to click again to see a list of correct spellings. It’s strange that Microsoft hasn’t fully... Continue reading…

AMD has made its first platform change in some time with Ryzen 7000. The new chips are for the AM5 socket, and all of them need to be cooled. AMD doesn't always include a cooler in the box with its Ryzen CPUs, so you'll often need to provide one yourself, especially for high-end models, because the better the cooling, the better the performance - not to mention a better cooler means quieter fans.

Image: Jackson Gibbs for The Verge Moving is one of the most stressful events that can happen in your life. It takes a lot of time and effort, it’s expensive, it’s complicated, and there’s just a ton to do. It’s not just a matter of finding a place you can afford, signing the lease or arranging for a mortgage, and figuring out how to get your stuff from one place to another. There are also a variety of other issues. You probably have to downsize and declutter before you move. You have to figure out which furniture to move, and which to keep, and get rid of all those old and outdated laptops and phones that have been moldering in the closet. And then, once you’re in your new home, you have to set everything up again — including the tech. You have to reassemble your home... Continue reading…

Cloud services are ubiquitous now, with most of us trusting at least some of our data to the likes of Apple, Google, or Microsoft. Whether it's a lifetime of photos, or your contacts or email, chances are you're making use of a cloud provider. But should you trust cloud providers with your most sensitive data?

Image: Jackson Gibbs for The Verge Moving often means downsizing, and fast. Enter: Facebook Marketplace and Buy Nothing. Continue reading…

Image: Jackson Gibbs for The Verge From note-taking apps to all-in-one browser tab managers, here are some of the tools that kept me, a massive mess, organized. Continue reading…

We're now in the final stretch. Samsung's next Unpacked event is just days away, and while the brand hasn't shared exactly what's coming, we're pretty sure we are finally going to see that company's next generation foldables. Of course, if you're excited and looking forward to the announcement of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, then chances are, you're going to want to sign up for this special promotion so that you can save $50 on your upcoming purchase.

There are few things worse than a slow PC when you really need to use it. Unfortunately, the more you use it, the more things that can go wrong and slow down your PC. There's an old saying that goes something like "never move in with someone until you've seen them use slow internet". This is definitely grounded in truth, but unfortunately, there can be other causes as to why your Windows PC is running slow.