Replacing the monitors in my setup with a pair of smart glasses was not on my bingo card for 2023, but here I am sitting on a couch as I type this on a MacBook Air, wearing a pair of glasses. What began as an experiment to improve my handheld gaming experience has now become an obsession, and now I can't put these AR glasses down. Using some smart glasses for gaming with Steam Deck was so fun that I wanted to attempt to use them as a replacement for my monitors. I gave it a shot, and it was surprisingly excellent.

Windows 11 is already a fantastic operating system, and Microsoft consistently adds tons of features, bug fixes, and patches to the Windows Insider channels to bring quality-of-life improvements. Many of these changes eventually make their way to the annual feature update, and this year's Windows 11 version 23H2 brought an impressive suite of new facilities. While most of these new additions were great in their own right, there were a few noteworthy features that elevated the overall user experience a lot more than the others.

With so many people working remotely, computer access away from an office is more necessary than ever. Windows lets you navigate your computer offsite with the Wake-on-LAN function, which also lets you access your computer even when it's turned off. Most Ethernet adapters support Wake-on-LAN, but it's uncommon for Wi-Fi cards to support this feature. You must have a compatible network card, and you must enable Wake-on-LAN on your PC. The process is pretty easy, and the steps are the same for Windows 10 and 11. After enabling, you can turn on your computer and access it from down the hall or across the globe.

It’s a good-looking desk accessory — but is it a good mug? | Image: Ember My coffee routine is needlessly fussy but fairly predictable. I wander bleary-eyed into the kitchen, add some water to the kettle, and start heating it to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, grind some coffee beans, get out the Chemex, add and rinse a new filter, put the whole thing on a scale, add 40 grams of beans, slowly pour in 600 milliliters of hot water, pour it into my trusty silver Yeti Rambler, and pad into the living room to either play with my son or look at TikTok on my phone. It’s a life, you know?For the last few weeks, the Ember Tumbler has wormed its way into that routine. The $199 Tumbler is Ember’s newest product but carries the same promise as the company’s popular mugs: it can keep your drink at the exact temperature you want... Continue reading…

When building a PC, there's a lot to keep in mind. Even though installing a CPU coooler can be annoying, it's still an important part of the building process. Before you've got anything to install, however, you've got to find a cooler that's right for you. You can check out lists of the best CPU coolers around and pair one of those with the best PC case fans out there, but you'll be better off finding a cooler that's a good fit for your particular CPU.

Installing a CPU on a motherboard is easy, but it's incomplete without a heatsink or CPU cooler. Installing a CPU cooler is necessary to maintain the CPU's thermal output. Otherwise, it will just overheat and give up before you even boot the operating system. Thankfully, mounting a cooler — be it a fan cooler or a liquid cooler — is fairly simple and won't take you more than a few minutes. The fan coolers, in particular, are very easy to install as they have fewer parts to worry about overall. If this is your first time installing a fan cooler or you need a little refresh, here's what you need to know/

Windows 11 is a great operating system for productivity, but if you're a programmer, there's a high chance you're going to need to install and use Java as part of your workflow. Oracle has the Java Development Kit (known as JDK for short) that you can use to help build your apps. It comes with all the tools you'll need, like a virtual machine, debugging tools, and more. Installing the JDK on Windows is actually quite easy, so here's how to get started with it.

In iA Writer’s traditional minimalist interface, AI text shows up in grey, while your own words an in black. | Image: iA Writer iA Writer 7, the latest version of the minimalist multi-platform writing software, has a new feature that’s designed to clearly mark text contributed by generative AI systems like ChatGPT. While your own words appear in black, you can choose for AI-generated text copied into your iA document to be greyed out. Then, as you tweak and edit the AI additions you can easily keep track of how much text is your original work and how much is artificially generated.In its blog post about the feature, the company outlines its philosophy about using AI-generated text in writing. Rather than letting AI become a “ghostwriter” that “takes over” and makes you “lose your voice,” iA Writer’s feature is designed to encourage you to use AI “as a dialog... Continue reading…

Following the release of some Windows 11 features in advance back in September, Microsoft began rolling out version 23H2 of its latest operating system almost a month ago. One of the key components in these releases is the Copilot, which the Redmond tech firm is improving further and also making available in Windows 10. Sometimes, new versions of Windows also break existing capabilities - as we learned a few days ago - and now, Microsoft has confirmed another issue in the latest preview build.

Now free users can transcribe up to two messages per week. | Image: Telegram Telegram has introduced a bunch of new features to its Android and iOS messaging apps this week, including easier ways to find channels to join and giving non-paying Telegram users access to voice transcriptions. In its latest update released on Thursday, Telegram said it was opening up the voice-to-text transcription feature instead of keeping it locked behind a $4.99 subscription to Telegram Premium, allowing anyone to transcribe voice and video messages, or translate audio into another language.There is one important caveat: only Premium Telegram subscribers have unlimited access to transcriptions — free users will be limited to converting just two messages per week. Still, that’s better than nothing, and could prove useful in rare... Continue reading…

While people have discovered some great uses for the Raspberry Pi 5, its small form factor means it hasn't been amazing at graphically based tasks. However, this hasn't stopped the Raspberry Pi community from finding a workaround. Now, an avid Raspberry Pi 5 user has found a way to implement a graphics card Raspberry Pi 5, and early tests are promising.

Thermal paste has been a mainstay in the CPU cooling space as the most commonly used thermal interface material (TIM). It's cheap, easy to apply, and does the job. For most people, the best thermal paste available might be more than enough even if they're overclocking the CPU. And for the most extreme overclockers, liquid nitrogen or other such materials would make more sense. So, does liquid metal have a reason to exist, then? Liquid metal has become more popular in recent years as some of the myths surrounding it have been debunked. But, should you still choose it over conventional thermal paste?