AI tools have been around for a while now, but I’d largely strayed away from them. Rather, I began looking into local LLMs a few years ago, and even configured my old PC to serve as a Pop_OS!-based Ollama server. But it didn’t take me long to wipe out that installation and replace it with typical home lab platforms (including my beloved Proxmox), as I failed to see the point in running large language models.

Over the past couple of years, it feels like every browser suddenly decided it needed an AI assistant. You open a new tab and there’s a chatbot somewhere in the sidebar. Search for something and you get an AI-generated summary by default. Even the browsers that used to focus on speed or privacy are now adding AI panels and tools on top of everything else.

Valve wants players to know that it plans on fighting New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit, which last month accused the company of promoting "illegal gambling" through its in-game loot boxes. In an email sent to Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2 players in New York, Valve says it's "disappointed" in the lawsuit's claims, arguing that mystery boxes are "widely used" across other games and also exist in the physical world with baseball cards, Pokémon, and Labubu.Since 2023, Valve says it has worked with the AGs to explain how its virtual items and mystery boxes work. It argues that players "don't have to open mystery …Read the full story at The Verge.

CPUs nowadays run hotter than many of us expect out of the box. In fact, it's not even unusual to see temperatures creeping into the 80s while gaming, especially if you live in a hotter climate. My 5800X3D, for instance, usually sits between 77-82C while playing AAA titles like Battlefield 6, and that's with a 360mm AIO. At first glance, numbers like that can make you think your cooler isn't doing its job properly, but the thing is, modern CPUs are designed to push themselves close to their thermal limits to squeeze out as much performance as possible.

Intel has announced its new Core Ultra 200S Plus series desktop processors aimed at creators and gamers, including the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, marking the company's second pass at its Arrow Lake chip architecture.

Ever since it came out in 2018, ray tracing has been a classic PC gaming dilemma. It's a brilliant piece of technology that came with a frame-rate bill most of us simply didn't want to pay (and half of us couldn't afford). Early implementations looked interesting, sure, but they rarely felt transformative enough to justify the performance hit. Like many PC gamers, I admired the technology from a distance while quietly leaving the toggle switched off.

Humble has teamed up with Frictional Games for a new bundle of PC games that pushed the horror genre forward. The bundle includes the Penumbra Collectors Pack, all four Amnesia titles (The Dark Descent, A Machine for Pigs, The Bunker, and Rebirth), and Soma, which I consider to be its opus in terms of visual aesthetics. All six games are $15 each and redeemable on Steam (buying the same set on Steam would currently cost you $78). Some of the titles work on Mac and Linux, too, and all are at least playable on the Steam Deck.Frictional Games BundleWhere to Buy: $134 $15 at HumbleI know, I know — you probably can’t tell much of what’s going on in the images in this post. You often have to venture into these dark places (sometimes while being pursued by a creature that’s drawn to you when you look at it) to get to the other end. Something I give these games credit for is that the thrills mostly aren’t cheap, and they don’t beat you over the head with jump scares. Mind you, there are plenty of scary moments, but the games afford you enough time to marinate as peacefully as one is able to in the horrendousness of their worlds, some of which are filled with hissing cockroaches.You can get the games to play now, or get them so you have plenty to scare yourself with during Halloween. Either way, it’s a great deal, one that will last until April 1st, with part of your pledge going to the Against Malaria Foundation. The keys expire if unused on April 1st, 2027, so make sure you redeem them beforehand.

The folding iPhone might come with an inner display the size of an iPad Mini, according to Bloomberg. Apple's rumored foldable iPhone will come with an iPad-style interface that will allow users to view apps side-by-side, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman also reports that the outer display will be around the size of a small iPhone. The inner display will reportedly come with a wider aspect ratio, similar to Google's first-generation Pixel Fold, but not foldable flagships currently on the market, like the Pixel Fold 10 or Galaxy Z Fold 7.Though the updated layout could make multitasking easier, Gurman reports that the folding iPhone won't run existing iPad apps. Still, Apple is reportedly trying to take advantage o …Read the full story at The Verge.

Journalist Julia Angwin is one of the writers whose likeness was used in Grammarly’s “expert review” feature. | Photo: Eóin Noonan / Sportsfile via Getty Images For months, Grammarly has been using the identities of real people (including us) for its "Expert Review" AI suggestions without getting their permission, and now it's facing a lawsuit from one of the journalists included, as previously reported by Wired. The class-action complaint filed by journalist Julia Angwin on Wednesday alleges that Superhuman violated the "experts'" privacy and publicity rights by breaking laws against using someone's identity for commercial purposes without their consent.Angwin says she found out her identity was used by way of Casey Newton, who is also one of the experts that The Verge uncovered being used by Gra …Read the full story at The Verge.

Ever since I moved from Windows to Linux, I've developed a love for the terminal. I was once terrified of it (and honestly, I still probably should be), but now I treat it more like a handy tool I can bring up at a moment's notice. Now my problem is less about getting myself to use the terminal and more about trying to find the result of that one command I fired five minutes ago, and I've already forgotten it.

Instead of moving forward with a jury trial against Live Nation-Ticketmaster as expected, the Justice Department announced a settlement Monday that omitted what used to be on the top of its wish list: a breakup. What the DOJ did get was a series of concessions that some industry stakeholders found unsatisfying and even baffling. There are a few bright spots, those who spoke to The Verge said: a 15 percent cap on Ticketmaster service fees at Live Nation-owned or operated amphitheaters, for instance, and a pledge to give artists more transparency on their own ticket sales. But they remained unconvinced the deal would usher in the large-scale …Read the full story at The Verge.

I did the math on my smart home and realized I was paying over $100 a year in subscription fees just for the privilege of seeing who was at my door two hours ago. Ring isn't a doorbell anymore; it's a monthly lease, which can be super frustrating considering I've already invested in the hardware itself when originally purchasing it. For me, it was finally time to find an alternative.