Once you've narrowed down the best CPUs to the best Ryzen chips, and finally landed on the 8700F, you'll still have some important decisions to make. Whether to splurge on a super premium motherboard is a personal choice, but considering the 8700F isn't necessarily a super premium chip, you may want to save some cash, unless you plan on upgrading in the future.

Maybe your home should be dumb! | Illustration by Adrián Astorgano for The Verge It turns out your TV can actually mess up your computer — at least if you’re using a Hisense TV and Windows. Priscilla Snow, a sound designer and composer for games, wrote on Cohost that they’d been having trouble with their PC. The “Display Settings” menu didn’t open. The “Task Manager” started hanging. Then things necessary to making the computer work started to fail. Spelunking in hidden comments on Microsoft forums revealed the problem: Snow’s TV.“I felt like I’d solved a murder.”Basically, the TV had been generating Universal Plug and Play IDs and had, over the course of several years, convinced Snow’s computer that there were essentially an infinite number of devices on their network. Snow’s smart TV, a Hisense 50Q8G, had... Continue reading…

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge Europe is warming up at twice the global average, leading to deadly heatwaves and severe flooding, according to the European State of the Climate (ESOTC) report for the year 2023, released Monday. According to the report, temperatures in Europe are rising 2.3 degrees Celsius (or 4.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, according to a five-year average, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius (roughly 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) globally. The report, jointly issued by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization, covers the year 2023, which was the second warmest year on record for Europe. Parts of southern Europe experienced between 60 and 80 days of “strong heat stress,” with... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Microsoft is starting to improve the experience of downloading Windows store apps from the web. The software giant has built what it calls an “undocked version of the [Microsoft] Store” that works like a typical executable to install apps from the Microsoft Store. It should cut down on the complexity involved in finding Windows store apps on the web and installing them.Instead of launching the Microsoft Store and a mini window, now when you download apps from the web version of the Microsoft Store it will download a standalone installer instead. This means you don’t have to click install on the web, then allow Chrome or Edge to open the Microsoft Store, and finally hit install to actually install the app. A lightweight installer will be... Continue reading…

How Meta envisions an Xbox-branded VR headset. | Image: Meta Microsoft is teaming up with Meta to create a limited edition Meta Quest VR headset that’s “inspired by Xbox.” While both Microsoft and Meta aren’t sharing full details on this VR headset, it sounds like it’s simply going to be a skinned Meta Quest 3 (or future unannounced version) that comes bundled with an Xbox controller.“We’re working together again [with Microsoft] to create a limited-edition Meta Quest, inspired by Xbox,” says Meta in an announcement today. It’s part of Meta opening up its operating system that powers its Quest VR headsets to third-party hardware makers. Asus and Lenovo are creating dedicated headsets that run the Meta Horizon OS, but the partnership with Microsoft sounds like it’s simply a limited-edition headset... Continue reading…

Embracer Group will house major properties like the Lord of The Rings under its new Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends company. | Image: Warner Bros. Swedish gaming conglomerate Embracer Group announced plans on Monday to split itself into three distinct games and entertainment companies: Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends. These will be separate, publicly listed companies, according to Embracer, which says the move will allow “each entity to better focus on their respective core strategies and offer more differentiated and distinct equity stories for existing and new shareholders.”“This move towards three independent companies reinforces Embracer’s vision of backing entrepreneurs and creators with a long-term mindset,” says Lars Wingefors, co-founder and Embracer Group CEO, “allowing them to continue to deliver unforgettable experiences for... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Former Meta executive Jason Taylor is joining Microsoft’s AI supercomputing team. In a LinkedIn post on Monday, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott says Taylor will take on the role of corporate vice president and deputy CTO to help “build the next set of systems that will push the frontier of AI forward.”Taylor worked at Meta from 2009 to 2022, where he most recently served as the company’s vice president of infrastructure. He handled AI, data, and privacy infrastructure, as well as managing the company’s server budgets, according to his LinkedIn profile. Taylor was also the chair of the Open Compute Project Foundation from 2015 to 2017, an organization that promotes open-source designs in data centers.Microsoft and OpenAI need more robust... Continue reading…

Mark Zuckerberg onstage at Meta Connect 2023. | Getty Images Meta has started licensing the operating system for its Quest headset to other hardware makers, starting with Lenovo and Asus. It’s also making a limited-run, gaming-focused Quest with Xbox. On the theme of opening up, Meta is also pushing for more ways to discover alternative app stores. It’s making its experimental App Lab store more prominent and even inviting Google to bring the Play Store to its operating system, which is now called Horizon OS. In a blog post, Meta additionally said that it’s working on a spatial framework for developers to more easily port their mobile apps to Horizon OS.Crucially for Meta, Horizon OS includes the Horizon social layer, a 3D, Roblox-meets-The Sims open-world platform. After a buggy and sluggish... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games Finally, you can bury a friend as Billie Eilish. Fortnite has revealed its next major musical collaboration, and it will see Eilish become a playable character starting on April 23rd. You should see her in a Victory Crown.There aren’t many details just yet, but the singer will be the featured artist for the next season of Fortnite Festival, the Rock Band-like in-game experience that launched last year. That means you can expect her songs to be playable in that mode and her neon green character skin to appear in the in-game shop (presumably with a Lego variant).Of course, this is far from the first big-name star to be featured in the game. Eilish follows the likes of Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Eminem; more recently, Fortnite held its... Continue reading…

Another week has passed, and Microsoft hasn't disappointed us with its consistent effort to keep us updated about what new features it's working on for Microsoft 365 apps. And like every week, we're at it again to tell and explain to you in detail about all the important capabilities that Microsoft added to its roadmap website last week.

Doris Ríos is a Cabécar leader who has fought to reclaim Indigenous territory in Costa Rica. | Collage by Israel Vargas | Photos by Justine Calma These women took back their land in Costa Rica, and now they plan to reforest it. Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia | The Verge Open platforms keep gaining support out there — newsletter platform Ghost just published what amounts to a manifesto in support of the ActivityPub protocol with plans to ship ActivityPub integration “in 2024.”That’s a big shot of support for the fediverse — the network of open and interoperable social services that have all been gaining momentum over the past year. Ghost founder John O’Nolan recently said that federation over ActivityPub was the platform’s “most requested feature over the past few years” — a comment he made on Meta’s Threads, which itself is slowing beginning to federate.The idea here is that all these networks will allow users to follow and share content between them, keeping you from needing to have multiple accounts... Continue reading…