Revisiting games from PC gaming's golden era with titles like Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Bioshock, and Stalker can sometimes feel a little bit disappointing when firing them up on your modern gaming PC. Fond memories are replaced with the painful reality of launching those same games on a 2000 Windows 11 desktop rig.

Following March's big 2026 Pixel Drop, some Pixel users reported experiencing an issue where the smartphone's battery drains rapidly while the phone sits idle and is basically doing nothing.

You can't go wrong with a Samsung gaming monitor for $150. This model, the Odyssey G5, features a 27-inch 1440p screen, 180Hz refresh rate, and 1ms response time. You also get impressive colors and contrast, with support for HDR10. If you've been looking for a gaming monitor that won't break the bank, this one is going to be it.

Asha Sharma. | Image: The Verge, Microsoft After a massive Xbox "reset" that laid off thousands of employees and spun off four studios, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wants to get Xbox back to growth. In a memo obtained by The Verge, Sharma told staff by the end of fiscal year 2027 (which runs through next June), "we will return XBOX to player and revenue growth." Xbox will also "improve profits back in line with industry averages," Sharma said. "Every function and studio will own part of that outcome."Since taking over Xbox in February, Sharma has made sweeping changes to attempt to turn things around. Previously, she has cited challenges like a low accountability margin, increasing compone …Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple's iPhone and Mac sales are on the rise even as a global memory shortage squeezes device makers. In its third-quarter earnings report released on Thursday, Apple revealed that iPhone sales jumped 22 percent to $54.25 billion and Mac sales increased 29 percent to $10.35 billion, driving the company's overall revenue to $109.4 billion.The company expects supply chain constraints to worsen in the coming months. During an earnings call, Apple chief financial officer Kevan Parekh said Apple expects "supply constraints to increase significantly" in the next quarter, adding the shortage will impact the iPhone, Mac, and iPad. Meanwhile, Apple …Read the full story at The Verge.

Neither artificial nor intelligent. I am not by any means an expert at finance but I think I do now have some advice for people who are: Do not name your hedge fund anything that will be hilarious if it blows up. Don't use a name like "Long-Term Capital Management" or "Amaranth Advisors" (named for the floral symbol for immortality). Certainly do not call yourself "Situational Awareness," which might as well just be "Hubris, Inc."Anyway, Situational Awareness, the hedge fund started by a 24-year-old former OpenAI employee that focuses on artificial intelligence bets, has sold most or all, depending on who's reporting, of its entire public stock portfolio to Ken Griffin's Cit …Read the full story at The Verge.

It's a weird time to learn to program. Apparently, all code will be written by AI soon, but experienced developers aren't so sure. Even Linus Torvalds is not immune to backlash for calling AI a tool developers can use. However, beyond the argument about whether you should use AI at all, is how to use it to complement learning rather than hinder it.

A lot of content on LinkedIn might seem like AI slop, and now, you'll be able to report those posts. As part of a series of updates to reduce the volume of AI slop on the platform, LinkedIn is introducing an actual button that lets you flag a post as something that "Seems like AI slop."The new feature is part of a broader push to reduce the volume of apparent AI slop on the platform. AI detector Pangram recently found that 41 percent of longform LinkedIn posts were flagged as being completely generated by AI, as reported by 404Media."AI slop is a top priority for all of us," chief product officer Hari Srinivasan says in a post. "We reall …Read the full story at The Verge.

Like most people, I can be quite bad at keeping the files on my PC organized. I've gotten better at it over time, but I have had some laptops running for years without a proper reset. Files have piled up, and they're scattered all over the place, so finding the exact one I want at any given time can be a nightmare.

Not too long ago, a 4K gaming setup was unviable without a high-end graphics card and gaming monitor. The hit to performance after switching from 1440p to 4K was too much to digest, and upscaling lower resolutions to 4K didn't yield a pleasant experience. This firmly kept 1440p as the target resolution for those building a new gaming PC in the last few years.

For the average consumer, the router's position in the house is probably the Wi-Fi variable they're most familiar with. It's simple to grasp, quick to test, and genuinely matters for coverage and speed. That said, a central router position isn't enough for a snappy Wi-Fi connection.

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Watch 9. | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge The Galaxy Watch 9 launches on August 7th, and not only does Costco have the best preorder incentives we’ve seen so far, the watch is also discounted. The deal includes the 40mm Watch 9 in cream or graphite, two wireless fast chargers for the watch, and a $50 Costco gift card, all for $339.99 — $40 less than the list price for the watch on its own directly from Samsung. The discounted price erases the $30 gen-to-gen price bump, and the extra chargers and gift card further sweeten the deal. If you aren’t a Costco member, a year of membership is only $65, which is less than the value of the free items in this purchase.Samsung Galaxy Watch 9Where to Buy: $379.99 $339.99 at Costco (with $50 gift card and two chargers)There are some changes to the new watches from the Watch 8. The brand says the new chip, a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear Elite, is built specifically for AI performance, and there are new health tracking features, plus better battery life, to boot. We got to spend some time with the Watch 9 and Watch 2 Ultra at Samsung’s July 2026 Unpacked event, so make sure to read our initial impressions of both watches if you’re curious about how the upgrades feel ahead of their early August launch.