My old Windows laptop from 2020 had been sluggish for quite a while now, and I had almost come around to accepting the performance decay of its aging hardware. Having a lighting-fast desktop right next to it didn't help, because I was constantly drawing comparisons that the old Lenovo has no business being on the losing end of. I had considered third-party "system boosting" tools, and briefly toyed with the idea of a clean Windows reinstall too. The former was ineffective, while the latter seemed like too much work on a machine with almost 5 years worth of data.

Last year, I was surprised to test out a couple of ReMarkable tablets and find that they're a fantastic way to take notes in a digital format that still feels analog and satisfying to use. But ReMarkable isn't alone in this market, and now that I got to try the new Boox Go 10.3 (Gen II) Lumi, I have to say I find it hard to recommend anything else.

Even if you have a mini PC, you likely still have cable spaghetti and a box taking up space where your coffee mug or a charging pad could go. The solution to all of this, if you have a mini PC, is to use the fact that most monitors have four threaded holes on the back, in the form of a VESA mount, that 90% of people never really use. Why buy an iMac with unupgradable parts when you can mount a high-performance mini PC to a monitor and get that all-in-one look with DIY freedom?

Daniel Moreno-Gama is now facing federal charges after allegedly traveling from Texas to California with the intent to kill OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. On April 10th, he was arrested after throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's home and attempting to break into OpenAI's headquarters. According to prosecutors, at the HQ, "Moreno-Gama attempted to break the glass doors of the building with a chair and stated that he had come to burn down the location and kill anyone inside."His charges include "attempted damage and destruction of property by means of explosives and possession of an unregistered firearm," according to the Departmen …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you're going to show off your Linux PC's specs, you'll use fastfetch. It's easy to run, it shows all the info you need, and the little ASCII art of your chosen distro's logo looks really cool on the side.

Whether you've bought yourself a 34-inch ultra-wide monitor or a dual 27-inch setup, just so you can see more, you'll find that your main screen is probably still a mess of Slack pings, Spotify playlists, and hardware monitors. This creates major friction, as every time you Alt-Tab to change a song or check your CPU temp, you break your deep work flow.

A year ago, Mercedes-Benz did the prudent thing and paused its EQ lineup of electric vehicles in the US. With customer demand drying up for luxury EVs, and federal incentives getting axed by vengeful Republicans, Mercedes put its first-generation EVs on ice.But then, in January, Mercedes quietly reintroduced the EQS brand in the US, with The Drive declaring that the "blobs are back" - a reference to the sedan's much-maligned jelly-bean shape that prioritized aerodynamics over a more traditional profile. But we didn't yet realize how back the EQS truly was.Today, Mercedes is reintroducing its electric sedan to a wary, cash-strapped market …Read the full story at The Verge.

My home media setup has been a work in progress for years now. I like something, discover something better, break things, and, occasionally, switch back. And for the longest time, the Nvidia Shield was the backbone of that setup. Between AI upscaling, long-term software support, and generally excellent hardware, everything just worked. That is, until it broke down by itself. Well, not quite as straightforward as that. Apps stopped working properly, playback would often jerk, and the box would need a restart. After half a decade of reliable use, the hardware was finally giving up the ghost. In a bid to get a similar set-up, I thought the solution was to recreate the old Nvidia Shield TV setup using newer hardware. Except that similar hardware is hard, if not impossible, to find. Yes, I tried the Raspberry Pi and Jellyfin or Kodi approach, but it wasn't for me. That approach just doesn't work anymore because you're too accustomed to the conveniences afforded by a commercial streamer.

What's cooler than emulating retro systems on an ESP32? Doing so in a way that you can actually use the device for your day-to-day job. After all, bringing the old into the modern era is awesome in a nostalgic way, but most of the apps created back then aren't suitable for your daily driver. However, there are ways you can make a retro system useful in 2026 with a few modern-day adjustments.

We've seen great prices on TVs before, but this one from TCL really takes things to another level. It's a massive 98-inch smart TV that's now down to its lowest price, coming in at just $1,500. You get impressive picture quality with its 4K resolution, along with a high refresh rate that makes it fantastic for fast-paced visuals like sports and gaming. If you've been looking to bring the theater experience home, now's going to be the perfect time to do it.

This past Saturday at the Coachella music festival, Justin Bieber played the first of two headlining sets in a deal reportedly worth $10 million. It was his most significant solo performance in years. But Bieber spent some of his time on stage the way many of us do on Saturday nights: on YouTube. For some of the set, Bieber played parts of his older songs right off YouTube from a Mac laptop. Behind him, on the stage's screen, you could see YouTube's website as he searched for songs in real time and then put the videos on full-screen while he sang along on stage. "I'm sorry to cut it, but these are little snippets. I just want to see how fa …Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft just raised the prices across its line of Surface devices amid the global RAM shortage. Now, the 13-inch Surface Pro 11 and the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 cost $500 more than their original starting price, going from $999 to $1,499, as reported earlier by Windows Central.Last year, Microsoft stopped selling the $999 versions of the Surface Pro 11 and the 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 in favor of the $1,199 models with more storage. At the time, it seemed like Microsoft was trying to make room for the cheaper 12-inch Surface Pro and 13-inch Surface Laptop that launched last May. However, these newer devices aren't safe from the pric …Read the full story at The Verge.