Neal Stephenson speaks onstage during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Austin Convention Center on March 16, 2022 in Austin, Texas. | Getty Images for SXSW Neal Stephenson didn't invent the virtual reality headset. But Meta certainly knows his name - in 1992, his seminal cyberpunk novel Snow Crash coined the phrase "Metaverse" to describe a virtual reality world experienced through VR goggles. It inspired many key VR developers - and in 2021, Facebook decided to rename its entire company to Meta to chase that metaverse dream. Now, Stephenson says he no longer believes face-worn computing is the future. He thinks Meta's glasses are creepy: "People don't like wearing things on their faces and don't trust those who do." He thinks goggles are no longer the future in a world in a world filled with …Read the full story at The Verge.

Remember back in lockdown days of the pandemic when Plex and pretty much every streaming service had a watch together feature? Those features got removed pretty quickly by the streaming services, but apps like Discord still kept the dream alive. But what if you don't want to use Discord after its recent age-verification issues? Wouldn't it be better if you could use your web browser, from anywhere, and still have a livestreaming-style chat for you and your friends?

Gamers never used to care about VRAM as much as they do today, and it's easy to see why. Before 2020, even high-end games didn't demand more VRAM than what most mainstream GPUs had to offer. Slowly but surely, the VRAM requirements kept going up, but GPU manufacturers didn't get the memo. Today, 8GB VRAM GPUs can affect performance even at 1080p, and in the worst cases, they can make games objectively unplayable. While you may not be able to upgrade your 8GB VRAM GPU right now, you can at least avoid buying a new one. The market doesn't exactly have too many affordable GPUs right now, but I'd recommend 16GB VRAM even if it costs you more at the outset. It won't take long for you to realize the importance of sufficient VRAM as games get more demanding, and you increase the resolution at which you play.

I love projects that combine e-ink displays with DIY chips. You usually find them cropping up around the smart home and productivity niches, as the low refresh rate of the e-ink display is suitable for picture frames, calendars, and displays. However, why settle for a regular UI when you can make it look as cool as possible?

The Lego Game Boy is a joy to assemble and display. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Deals on the Lego Game Boy are virtually nonexistent, save for the $10 discount that Costco and Sam’s Club offered their members when the set launched late last year. The deal is back — this time, at Kohl’s — and no membership is required to get $10 off. You can purchase the Lego Game Boy and have it shipped (or elect to pick it up in-store) for $49.99 when you use promo code TOYS10 at checkout.Lego Game BoyWhere to Buy: $59.95 at Amazon $59.99 at Lego $59.99 $49.99 at Kohls (with code TOYS10)The Lego Game Boy is a 421-piece homage to Nintendo’s influential handheld from 1989. And, unlike most Lego sets, there are various ways to interact with the brick-based Game Boy that might evoke some strong memories if you ever owned this model. It features clickable buttons, a movable floating directional pad, and a set of Lego car tires that act as the Start and Select buttons. Clearly, Lego and Nintendo had fun designing this.The set includes two cartridges you can assemble (The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Super Mario Land). While the mock cartridges obviously don’t boot into real games, the set includes lenticular screens that make it look like these games are running on the hardware. My colleague Sean Hollister reviewed the Lego Game Boy, and he adores the attention to detail and almost everything about it except the screen, which doesn’t match the original hardware’s limited green color palette. Even if you’re as particular as Sean is, there’s still a lot to love here.

There's a lot to love about Logitech's G515 wireless mechanical gaming keyboard. We spent some time with it and found that it features a sleek design that not only looks good, but feels good too. Furthermore, the typing experience is quite comfortable, and there's also plenty of customization available to make the experience even better.

The mini PC has been one of those ideas that sounds better the more you talk about it. A small box that can replace your console and desktop at the same time. Plug it into a TV, grab a controller, and you're done. Except you're usually not. You're in a settings menu, or troubleshooting something, or wondering if the game you just downloaded is going to cooperate.

I'm a big proponent of having a NAS in your home, even if the setup is rudimentary, as opposed to paying for cloud services. A NAS allows you to keep your files secure in your own network, though it does come with downsides when it comes to file sharing. Setting up access to files on your NAS can be a complicated process if you don't want to risk exposing your entire server to the internet, which is a major security risk.

As PC gamers, we love the idea that PC gaming is way ahead of consoles like the PS5 Pro and Xbox Series X. Better visuals, higher frame rates, and more importantly, the freedom to tweak everything exactly how we want. That appeal is what made me ditch my PS3 for a high-end gaming PC back in 2012, even though it cost me a lot more. Since then, gaming has come a long way, and so has PC and console hardware. But ever since the current generation of consoles came out, I can't help but wonder if PC gaming isn't as far ahead as it should be.

If you're looking to go all out on a new gaming monitor, the Asus ROG PG32UCDP is going to be the way to go. Not only are you getting a bright and impressive OLED panel, but the performance numbers are also through the roof, with up to a 480Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms response time.

iOS 26.4 is here, and it comes with a bunch of small but notable updates. That includes a new Playlist Playground launching in beta in Apple Music, which uses AI to generate a song playlist - complete with a title, description, and tracklist - based on a text prompt.Apple Music is also adding a new concert discovery feature, allowing you to find nearby shows featuring artists from your library, as well as new ones recommended by the app. Other updates include full-screen backgrounds for album and playlist pages, along with a new Offline Music Recognition tool that "identifies songs without an internet connection and delivers results automa …Read the full story at The Verge.

With home servers being as popular as they are, a while back I invested in a mini PC for a new build out for my home office. I wanted to solve a few specific issues, like keeping scattered files sorted, arranging scanned documents better, and, most importantly, having a unified place to keep all my passwords. While they're not necessarily the biggest problems individually, trying to solve these problems individually, multiple times a day, certainly slows things down to a crawl.