Local LLMs used to feel like a desktop thing. The whole conversation around them assumes a decent GPU, a chunky model file, and a powerful, fully-featured GUI runner. This is the exact setup I have too, and it's been working fine so far, minus the slight limitations of my smaller GPU.

I’d always assumed the eventual replacement for 4K Blu-ray would be easy to recognize. It would arrive with a new logo, a higher resolution nobody had asked for yet, and an expensive first-generation player.

eBay and three former executives will pay $55.7 million as part of a settlement with a Massachusetts couple targeted with a bizarre harassment and cyberstalking campaign in 2019, as reported earlier by CNBC. The settlement will resolve a lengthy legal saga that revealed how eBay's former executives sent live insects, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, and other strange items to David and Ina Steiner over their newsletter's coverage of eBay.The Steiners, who operate the EcommerceBytes newsletter, sued eBay and its former executives - including ex-CEO Devin Wenig - in 2021. The lawsuit accused the company and its executives of launching a …Read the full story at The Verge.

Years ago, I used to consider open-source tools clunky, half-baked clones of established proprietary programs. It wasn't until I had used PowerToys, Audacity, qBittorrent, Firefox, VLC, and ShareX that I changed my mind. Open-source software has come a long way, and many popular programs are often more reliable and feature-rich than their proprietary competitors.

Employees of OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Google, Meta, Thinking Machines, Microsoft, Mistral, and other leading AI labs, have written a statement to the US government supporting a potential slowdown of sorts for frontier AI development - or at least a speed-up of global coordinated governance efforts."Al could help create a dramatically better future, but that outcome is not guaranteed," the employees wrote in the statement. "The world's leading Al companies believe they could be close to automating Al research. It is hard to predict exactly how much this will accelerate Al progress, but there is a real risk that capability developmen …Read the full story at The Verge.

Almost every guide I came across suggested the same thing: if you want to run a local LLM, you need a dedicated GPU. I already had a self-hosted AI setup running smoothly on my machine with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, so I knew what a good local LLM experience looked like. That got me wondering how much of that experience could be replicated on a laptop with only integrated graphics. Instead of relying on benchmarks or online opinions, I decided to test it myself using the same model and everyday tasks I normally use AI for. The results were far better than I had expected.

Whether I'm speaking to other smart home enthusiasts or those who aren't into automation at all, I'm always met with an immediate reaction when mentioning my smart curtains. People assume I'm too lazy to walk a couple of feet and pull a piece of fabric. When it's framed like this, it really does seem a bit ridiculous. However, the reality behind a smart home isn't about saving the actual labor — it's about removing micro friction. For me, having to navigate around furniture, then wrestle with heavy blackout drapes, and fight sticky curtain rings on a metal rod is frustrating and not a simple chore at all.

Working hard, or bear-ly working? | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images It's earnings season, and investors got an unpleasant surprise from Google: an increase on its spending estimate, to as much as $205 billion - from the last quarter's projection of up to $190 billion. Even the lower end of Google's new projected range - $195 billion - is much more than the company had previously forecast as its top end spending. Now, look, I recognize that there's an impulse to say things like "What's $15 billion between friends?" but from an investor's perspective, Google has essentially said that it can't accurately forecast its costs, which is a scary thing. Plus, Google is spending more money than it's making. And Google …Read the full story at The Verge.

In June, UK staff at the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia became the first to announce their intention to form a union. Now, US-based employees at the Wikimedia Foundation are joining the union drive, but management at the nonprofit has declined to voluntarily recognize their union."While the Wikimedia Foundation touts to the public that they plan to take a neutral stance in our organizing efforts, they have already proven that not to be the case behind the scenes," a press release sent by Communications Workers of America, with which Wiki Workers United is affiliated, reads in part. "When the Foundation rejected our request for voluntary rec …Read the full story at The Verge.

There are two kinds of PC users: those who always undervolt, and those who don't know what it is. Once you know the benefits of GPU undervolting, you'll find it impossible to use your GPU at stock settings. If you're still on the fence about tweaking the voltage and power settings of your graphics card, your fears are unfounded.

Ariana Grande filed a lawsuit on Monday in the Los Angeles County Superior Court against the currently unidentified hackers who allegedly stole and leaked private content. It aims to "uncover the identities of these currently unknown and unscrupulous individuals," referred to as "John Doe 1 and John Does 2 through 100." The lawsuit also says that "In 2023 alone, 45 unreleased songs" were "hacked, stolen, and leaked," adding that hundreds of similar leaks have happened since Grande's music debut in 2011. The stolen content is said to include "still-in-production, unreleased masters and demos, footage from recording sessions, music videos, …Read the full story at The Verge.

A Georgia man was charged with a felony for allegedly wiping his phone while being questioned by Customs and Border Protection. Samuel Tunick had something in common with others who have had their devices searched at airports: He was an activist.Unlike others who have had their phones seized with no explanation, Tunick was told that CBP needed to search his device to determine whether it contained child sexual abuse material, according to court filings. But Tunick's attorneys argue that the search "was a pretext for a fishing expedition" into his connections with the Stop Cop City protests in Atlanta, in which dozens of people were charged …Read the full story at The Verge.