The CPU is one of the most important components in a computer; without it, you won't have a working PC. It's also among the most expensive components, so it obviously needs to be handled with the utmost care. Installing a CPU is a fairly simple task, and you're not all that likely to damage it while building a computer. However, shipping a CPU is a completely different thing. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, even if you're being careful. But there are a few things you can do to make sure your CPU is safe during transit and that it reaches its destination undamaged.

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Checks are apparently hitting the bank accounts of people affected by Apple’s decision to slow down iPhones with older batteries back in 2017. MacRumors reported that readers of its site said they’d seen checks deposited to their accounts amounting to $92.17, later updating the story with an embedded post from one of the readers. Indeed, the website set up for the settlement was updated in December to say the payments were expected to go out this month.So ends the batterygate saga. It began in 2017 when a developer showed that certain iOS 10 updates throttled performance for older phones like the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7. The company wasn’t upfront about the purpose of the slowdown before this, but later said the goal was to keep phones... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The new year was supposed to begin with a brand spanking new calendar app. But roughly 72 hours after the premium email service Hey announced its latest feature — an integrated calendar — co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson received some unwelcome news from Apple: it was rejecting a standalone iOS app for Hey Calendar, because non-paying users couldn’t do anything when they opened the app up.New users can’t sign up for Hey Calendar directly on the app — Basecamp, which makes Hey, makes users first sign up through a browser. Apple’s App Store rules require most paid services to offer users the ability to pay and sign up through the app, ensuring the company gets up to a 30 percent cut. The controversial rule has a ton of gray areas and... Continue reading…

An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 in Seattle on January 6, 2024. | Photo by Stephen Brashear / Getty Images The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered the “temporary grounding” of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes this morning after a section of fuselage separated from the side of an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday, leaving a gaping hole in the plane. The agency said in its announcement that it will send an Emergency Airworthiness Directive out soon to require an inspection of all of the grounded planes that “will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.”The New York Times reported yesterday that flight 1282 from Portland International Airport had made an emergency landing back at the same airport just 20 minutes later because of a “pressurization issue” that resulted in a wall of the plane blowing out. According to the Times,... Continue reading…

A great CPU is at the heart of every PC; it works in tandem with other components to power and enable all your day-to-day tasks. Knowing what CPU you have is crucial, as this lets you determine which programs you can run and also understand the limits of your PC. Thankfully, you don't need any third-party tools to identify the CPU that's installed on your computer. This can easily be found by using existing tools in Windows.

Gaming is a bigger hobby than ever, and sharing your best moments with the world is something many of us want to do. But it can be hard to find the right software to record or stream your games, even though there's no shortage of options. To help you pick the right one, we've tested a wide range of options from the more basic to the more advanced, and we've rounded up the ones you're bound to love the most.

It's not been a great time to be a PC gamer recently, with stock shortages and scalped prices. That's abated somewhat in recent months, but the general maxim is that the best graphics card you can buy is the one that's in stock near MSRP. If you've got specific needs, like the best GPU to run Blender, then the shortlist narrows considerably. While lower echelons of graphics cards are to be found in plentiful supply, that's not the case for higher-end models like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, as the large VRAM amount and plentiful Tensor cores mean they get snapped up for AI training purposes. We're looking at two such cards here, the Asus TUF Gaming Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 and the MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 4080. Both are triple-fan models with plenty of cooling capacity, but which one should you pick up?

Image: The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery’s add-on sports tier for Max is going to remain free for a little longer than originally planned, as reported by Deadline. The Bleacher Report Sports add-on was added last October, and while it’s been available at no cost to subscribers so far, it was set to become a paid add-on on February 29th, 2024. However, the switch to a $9.99 monthly fee has been pushed out a few months as Warner Bros. Discovery works out some tech issues.“The B/R Sports Add-On will continue to be made available to Max subscribers on us for a few more months as we finalize some tech integrations that will ensure a more seamless customer experience with our platform partners,” Max spokesperson Jeff Cusson said in a statement to The Verge.T... Continue reading…

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge The DreameBot L20 Ultra robot vacuum / mop is one of our top picks when it comes to robovacs, as long as you don’t mind spending a fair bit of coin. But there’s good news today, as the L20 Ultra is now cheaper than ever before. As a reader of The Verge, you can get the premium DreameBot for $1,049 ($450 off) at Wellbots when you use promo code DREAMEVERGE150 for an additional $150 off the list price. The L20 Ultra is about as easy as it gets for managing a hybrid robot vacuum and mop in a single unit. It’s got a high suction power for thick rugs, AI-powered obstacle avoidance, and mapping software. Plus, it’s compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Siri Shortcuts.Tabletop games are great, but a digital version is sometimes much... Continue reading…

It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's Copilot, the AI assistant that has permeated almost all of the company's products over the past several months. My focus is on Windows, and the current implementation of Copilot there is next to useless. That said, I do think it has potential, especially if it's implemented properly so that it lives in Windows more discreetly.

The retractable panels help generate up to 4.96kWh per day in the western US, according to Jackery. | Image: Jackery Jackery has converted the humble rooftop tent into a powerful solar generator that lets any car escape the grid for a weekend or longer. Although it’s just a concept on show at CES right now, Jackery says it will put the tent into production sometime near the end of 2024.The retractable solar panels are said to produce up to 1000W when the car is parked and the tent is open and facing south. That’s enough to generate 4.96kWh per day in the western US, or 4kWh as you move east, according to Jackery’s estimates. There’s no mention of its resilience to wind, but that’s hardly a concern for a concept parked on ugly carpet inside the Las Vegas convention center.Rooftop tents can already be fitted with solar panels made by any number of... Continue reading…

There are regular PC users, and then there are gaming PC users. I play a lot of PC games, and I've experienced things most other PC users haven't, like constantly coping with low FPS, managing CPU and GPU temperatures, moving around the backlog of unplayed games to make space for new ones, and dealing with in-game voice chats that are woefully terrible. To help you out, here are six free apps that every PC gamer should use to make things run a bit more smoothly.