It has been an excellent past few weeks for anyone who loves gadgets and airplanes. We've covered a few flight trackers in the past, and our own Adam Conway took a crack at making his own for $20. Fortunately, it looks like even more are being made, and this one can even track space flights.

After its 1.0 launch last month, Palworld is coming to iOS and Android with a new open-world MMORPG launching later this year, Polygon reports. Garena, the developer behind the new game, says in its announcement that Palworld Online "reimagines the depth, freedom, and scale of the original PC survival creature-collecting title for mobile." The core features of the new mobile game sound a lot like the original Palworld, with crafting, creature collecting, and multiplayer options for co-op, PvP, and PvE. Garena says it will introduce a "new narrative setting with original story elements," and "expand the narrative with new side stories creat …Read the full story at The Verge.

For years, every app that claimed to be an Obsidian alternative ended the same way for me; I tested it for a few days, appreciated a few ideas, and went right back to my existing vault. Obsidian simply offered the right mix of flexibility, reliability, and a mature ecosystem that was hard to beat. That's why I didn't expect Logseq 2.0 beta to change my mind. But after spending time with the latest release, I realized this wasn't just another update. For the first time, I found myself wondering whether my long-term note-taking setup still belongs in Obsidian.

I never owned the original Steam Controller. It launched in November 2015 at $49.99, sold somewhere in the region of 1.5 to 1.6 million units across four years, and was eventually discontinued in November 2019 with the remaining stock dumped at about a fiver each. I was aware of its existence at the time, though it never interested me, and I wouldn't become interested in Valve's hardware until the Steam Deck arrived and I got my hands on one.

I was convinced my perfect note-taking app simply did not exist. I had moved years of notes between OneNote, Notion, and Obsidian, rebuilding my setup more times than I could count.

The Alibaba logo is displayed outside its headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. | Image: NurPhoto via Getty Images Chinese tech giant Alibaba released what it says is its largest and "most capable AI model to date," claiming performance rivalling the best systems from US frontier labs Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as domestic rivals like Moonshot AI's Kimi K3. Alibaba said it was making the model, Qwen3.8-Max, widely available to users in a blog post published on Monday. The release had been expected after the company previewed the model last month, when it claimed it was "second only to Fable 5," Anthropic's flagship.The open release of another highly capable Chinese AI model adds to sky-high tensions along multiple fronts in Silicon Valley and Washi …Read the full story at The Verge.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is joining The Odyssey in IMAX theaters after both movies led the biggest weekend in box office history. On Monday, IMAX announced that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be available in select digital IMAX locations across North America starting Thursday, August 6th.The news comes as The Odyssey's exclusive three-weekend run in IMAX theaters comes to an end, allowing Spider-Man: Brand New Day to play alongside it, as reported by Variety. Spider-Man: Brand New Day raked in $355 million following its July 31st release, making it the second-biggest box office debut in North America since Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Chris …Read the full story at The Verge.

I have a hard time trusting the responses I get from AI models. Recent releases have become far more accurate, and hallucinations have reduced considerably. That is a welcome change, but I still don’t trust a standalone AI response as much as something I can verify through Perplexity.

Next to buying RAM, finding a fast, high-capacity NVMe SSD at a reasonable price has been a challenge during RAMageddon. I don’t want to say it’s getting easier, but one of Samsung’s latest SSDs is cheaper than it has sold for since February 2026. That’s something, right? Amazon has the heatsink-less version of the Samsung 9100 Pro with 2TB of storage for $302.99, which is about $100 less than the usual price. Granted, it sold for a low of $169.99 back in October 2025, but it’s a smart purchase right now compared to buying the 1TB model for $250.Samsung 9100 Pro NVMe SSDWhere to Buy: $500 $302.99 at Amazon (2TB, no heatsink) $500 $399.99 at Best Buy (2TB no heatsink)The 9100 Pro is Samsung’s first SSD to support PCIe Gen 5, making it a great fit if you have the right motherboard and other parts to get as much speed from it as possible. Its theoretical maximum random read and write speeds are at least twice as fast as the 990 Pro SSD that it replaced. However, it’s good (albeit slower than advertised) in a PCIe Gen 4 setup, as well. It’ll work fine without a heatsink in a PC or laptop (though, it’s never a bad idea to use one that fits in your system). However, you’ll need to install a heatsink in order to use this in a PlayStation 5, due to potential heat issues that could damage the SSD if used without one. Thankfully, heatsinks are super affordable, and come in a range of designs and price points.Other great Verge-approved dealsAnother Samsung-made product made the cut for today’s roundup. Its Smart Monitor lineup is worth considering if you want a PC monitor that can double as a TV, as well as a screen that you can do video chats on. Its 32-inch M8 4K monitor just hits its lowest price at Amazon and B&H Photo, selling for $349.99 — exactly 50 percent off its original $699.99 price that it hasn’t sold for since the turn of the year. In addition to boasting USB-C and HDMI inputs for your desktop or laptop, the M8 natively supports video streaming apps, plus picture-in-picture models to let you multitask. I reviewed one of its older models released in 2022, and a $350 price would have seriously changed my thoughts on the value at the time. You’re getting a lot of features, not to mention a slick design, at a good price.Google’s getting ready to launch Pixel 11 series phones next week at its August 12th Made by Google event. The company has indicated that the costs of phones will increase, but one of its phones got a little cheaper over the weekend. The Pixel 10A with 128GB of storage is down to $424 at Amazon, Best Buy, and at the Google Store in all of its colorways (including the fantastic berry), which is its second-best price to date. It’s $75 off, and we’ve only ever seen it go down to $399 once in a flash-in-the-pan sale during Prime Day. While we thought the Pixel 10A was a little too safe (not enough unique features to justify upgrading from the Pixel 9A), it’s a solid phone that offers great camera quality, seven years of software support, and other great specs. Read our review.The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni wireless gaming headset received its first-ever price drop at Amazon, Best Buy, and from SteelSeries directly. It’s a small one, though. Normally $399.99, it’s down to $379.99, bringing it closer in price to its main competitor, the $350 Turtle Beach Stealth 2 Pro. The headset has numerous features, the most intriguing being its battery-swapping feature and the included base station that can beam wireless audio from multiple gaming platforms at once. As SteelSeries’ latest model, it has slightly better sound and mic quality than its 2022 Arctis Nova Pro wireless headset. Oddly enough, both the Omni and the last-gen Nova Pro are selling for the same $379.99 price, so definitely get the newer model if you’re shopping right now.

Before there was Navidrome or Plex Amp, most of my music listening happened on an iPod Classic. A vestige of my childhood, I have a lot of fond memories associated with it. But despite its recent comeback, iPods aren't exactly practical in 2026. Today, I keep my entire music library on a Navidrome server running on my NAS. But much as I enjoy the experience of using Navidrome, truth be told, I haven't really enjoyed any of the mobile apps, and I've tried them all.

Over time you might notice that your boot times get slower even if you do have a lightning-fast NVMe SSD. If it ever gets to a point where it feels like pressing the power button leads to a delayed black screen and minutes of sluggish desktop responsiveness, you might actually have an issue in your hands. It's not always the fault of background startup apps, fast startup, or failing hardware.

Windows has felt like an operating system that dictates the features you can use and actions you can perform for many years now. Each time I get a new PC or have to do a non-custom new install, it takes many hours to get past its stock behavior with locked taskbars, Copilot integration, and telemetry-driven settings I don't want.