Random-access memory, or RAM, is one of the most crucial components of a desktop computer and other computing devices like smartphones. It's essentially a short-term storage solution that benefits applications, games, and even the operating system, as they can store important information and files for quick and easy access. Not only is it important to have enough memory installed in your system, but it's also crucial to optimize RAM to churn every bit of performance out of it for your PC. I've highlighted a few tried-and-tested ways to optimize RAM and improve the overall performance of your system.

Photo by Nathan Howard / Getty Images This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.I hope you all had a great weekend/eclipse/first moment of NYC sunshine. Today, I’ve got a look at Ted Cruz’s eyebrow-raising arrangement with iHeart and news on two new acquisitions. Let’s get into it.iHeart doesn’t pay Ted Cruz for hosting Verdict. It pays a Ted Cruz super PAC.This is certainly one way to raise campaign money. Sen. Ted Cruz hosts an iHeartMedia podcast, Verdict, which performs reasonably well among right-wing political shows. He does not get paid for hosting the podcast, but reporting in recent weeks from Forbes and the Houston Chronicle shows that iHeart has paid more than $630,000 to a super PAC that supports... Continue reading…

Gaming has always been a passion of mine, and I'm an avid competitor in games such as Counter-Strike and Valorant. How these games work under the hood has always been an interest of mine as well, and when I can, I love to poke around and see how things work. Games like those are protected by an anti-cheat, but plenty of indie games and single-player games are surprisingly easy to analyze with tools like x64dbg and Cheat Engine. One such game that's easy to modify is Brotato.

In the consumer technology space, time seems to move much faster than in the rest of the world. New products can become outdated in just a few months, and buying a piece of tech multiple years old is usually never a good idea. But every once in a while, a product appears that breaks the mold and stays at the top of the market years after release. For one, Sennheiser's HD 600 open-back headphones have stood the test of time for decades. In the world of computer peripherals, Logitech's MX Master 3 might be on its way to a similar level of timeless fame.

Miku Expo 2024 in Portland, Oregon. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge If you made it through that headline and you’re confused, don’t worry — I was, too, at first. Hatsune Miku is an internet fandom thing. She’s not a real person, and she didn’t get her start in some obscure anime — she’s a Vocaloid, which is a synthetic voice that can be fed melodies and song lyrics to output as vocal performances, and she puts on concerts. Here’s a succinct summary from my colleague Jess Weatherbed: Okay, a quick crash course is that Miku is the mascot and most recognizable character for Vocaloid voice synthesizer software. Each Vocaloid “character” has a specific, unique voice that’s resulted in some of them gaining fan followings like real human performers.404 Media called Miku a “bonafide virtual pop idol with a... Continue reading…

The new Acer Predator Helios Neo 14. | Image: Acer Acer announced Tuesday two new 14-inch gaming laptops: the Nitro 14 and Predator Helios Neo 14. It’s exciting to see Acer’s fabulous and well-beloved budget-friendly Nitro enter the 14-inch gaming laptop space, but even more so for the new Predator since it’s priced and specced competitively with the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and Razer Blade 14. The company is also releasing an updated Nitro 16 that can be configured with either a current-gen AMD Ryzen or Intel Core processor.The new Nitro 14 starts at $1,299.99 and can be configured all the way up to an AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, 32GB of LPDDR5X SDRAM, and 1TB of NVME SSD memory. It’s available with 120Hz G-Sync displays at either 2560 x 1600 or... Continue reading…

Take back control of your lock screen. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge I don’t think I’m alone when I say that notifications are a nuisance. There are simply too many of them, and the helpful ones are often drowned out by the spam. Whether promotional notifications should be allowed at all on our phones is an open question (I have my own feelings on that!). In the meantime, it is possible to coexist peacefully with your phone — it just takes a little work. iPhone owners have more ways to fight the firehose of notifications than they used to, but it’s not necessarily an easy system to navigate. Here’s a quick primer on how iOS handles notifications and your options for taking control of them.iOS notification basicsThere are two places where your notifications can live on iOS: in recent notifications or... Continue reading…

Not many PC manufacturers out there have the sheer recognition and popularity of HP. It's one of the biggest makers of computers, and for good reason, as the company tends to make some of the best laptops on the market each and every year.

The new Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3406) starts at $999.99. Asus has released two new laptop models: the Asus Vivobook S series and the Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3406). Along with offering OLED displays, the laptops run on some of the latest AMD and Intel processors.We’ve yet to put the laptops to the test, but the new chips should be able to better handle AI with neural processing units built for it, while improving power efficiency and making gaming, multitasking, and editing faster. The keyboard even sports dedicated Copilot keys that allow for easy access to Windows 11’s AI tools. Three of the Vivobook S laptops range in size from 14 to 16 inches and are powered by the Intel Core Ultra 9, while a fourth model, also 16 inches, comes with the AMD Ryzen 8040 Series chip. The 14-inch Vivobook S model... Continue reading…

We wouldn’t recommend the 10th-gen iPad for most people at full price, but it’s certainly a better value at $349. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge With each passing day, it seems increasingly unlikely that Apple will introduce a new slate of iPads before the end of April — which isn’t surprising when you consider the latest reports now indicate Apple’s forthcoming tablets won’t arrive until early May. The iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini are all rumored to receive a refresh, though, the same isn’t true of Apple’s entry-level model, which is currently matching its all-time low of $349 ($100) in its base configuration at Amazon and Best Buy. You can also pick it up at Target for the same price if you’re a member of Target Circle, the retailer’s free rewards program.As for where it sits in Apple’s current tablet lineup, the 10th-gen iPad resides somewhere between the ninth-gen... Continue reading…

For a little while now, we've been waiting for Microsoft to release the Moment 5 update for Windows 11. We've seen hints of what Moment 5 has in store for us in the beta branches, but people on the release version of the operating system couldn't experience the new features. Fortunately, this Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has finally unleashed Moment 5 for everyone to use.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is going off on piracy again. During CinemaCon in Las Vegas, MPA CEO Charles Rivkin announced that the organization plans on working with Congress to pass rules blocking websites with pirated content.The MPA is a trade association representing Hollywood studios, including Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Disney (it’s also behind the ratings board that gives you an R if you say curse words too often). It has long lobbied for anti-piracy laws, but it seems the battle is heating up again. In his speech on Tuesday, Rivkin highlights what a major problem piracy in the US has become, saying it costs “hundreds of thousands of jobs” and “more than one billion in theatrical ticket sales.”It’s true: piracy has... Continue reading…