It hasn't been a great few years for purchasing hardware. With the RAM crisis continuing, we've seen price hikes on everything from handheld game consoles to SBCs. Even the once-affordable Raspberry Pi got a price increase due to events getting "unsustainable."

Google is fighting back against SERP tracking. The explosion of AI agents may cause it to clamp down harder.The post Google Is Fighting SERP Tracking. AI Agents May Make It Worse appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

The Matic is our favorite robot vacuum and robo-mop, and it's also now the first to escape the FCC's Roomba ban. Well, sort of - because the Matic wasn't banned to begin with. Here's what's actually happening: On October 2nd, the FCC added the original Matic, model 4MA0001, and its charging dock model 4DK0008 to its ban waiver list. That allows the FCC to approve these radio products for import, marketing, and sale. But the Matic doesn't need a waiver, because its radios were already approved years ago. The FCC's foreign drone, robot, and router bans only keep future products from getting imported into the United States, not existing o …Read the full story at The Verge.

Google may be expanding its "Call for Me" AI feature beyond business calls so you can use it to send messages to friends and family. Android Authority reports finding a "Gemini Calling" introductory screen in an APK teardown with examples that include "Call Mom and tell her I will be 15 minutes late" and "Call John and ask if he is coming for dinner." Based on those examples, even with this expansion, Gemini would likely be limited to basic, text message-like calls. While Google's AI might not automate an entire catch-up phone call with your relatives, it could deliver quick messages to people who prefer a phone call, miss texts often, or …Read the full story at The Verge.

The retro game PC port world keeps kicking things up a notch.

Google Maps is great, and Waze is even better when I need up-to-date road-condition information. Between road reports and effective rerouting, it makes getting where I want to be exceptionally easy. But a navigation app is more than that. Whether it relies on a constant data connection or collects more information about me than I'm willing to share.

Everyone told me a NAS needs a NAS OS, and for years I believed it. TrueNAS 25.10 ran my home server, and plenty of people keep coming back to it for good reasons. Then I looked at my dashboard and saw 3.2GB of my 8GB of RAM gone before a single file moved.

Obsidian's graph view is probably the most satisfying part of the app. If you have hundreds or thousands of notes, opening it gives you a really cool-looking interconnected web of dots, and everything is clickable. This graph view also seems to be a core part of second brain setups, and it can make any folder of markdown look a lot cleaner than it is. But getting something out of it is a different story - most people just zoom around for a bit before closing the tab.

Google's John Mueller says AI training crawlers usually don't offer sitemap submission and suggests default sitemap names or RSS feeds to help them find sites.The post Google’s Mueller Says AI Crawlers Access Sitemaps & RSS In His Logs appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

It’s a wild time for retro gaming. Thanks to decompilations and recompilations of classic titles, those games are becoming unshackled from their proprietary code and original hardware to be ported to new devices or updated in ways to completely change the original game. Ever imagined skateboarding in Call of Duty? Or playing the original Halo right in your web browser, complete with multiplayer?  These are unofficial versions of games, so they may sit in a legal gray area. It seems unlikely that Nintendo, for example, is particularly happy about people finding ways to play The Legend of Zelda on non-Nintendo hardware. Many of these projects are also made with the assistance of AI, which, for some people, is a non-starter given ethical or environmental concerns surrounding the technology.Below, you’ll find our coverage of gaming decomps, recomps, and all the other ways gamers are reverse-engineering games to go previously unimaginable places. Here’s a video of Half-Life: Alyx running natively on a Vision Pro. Just think: You could be playing Halo in a web browser right now. This unofficial Lego Racers remake runs in your browser with split-screen and online multiplayer. How an online community took back the Legend of Zelda

We've been hearing bits and pieces about the new Xbox Elite Controller (Series 3) for some time now, and this latest leak is the biggest one yet. It initially leaked as part of the big Xbox documents drop during the Activision-Blizzard acquisition hearings, and then later via the Brazilian equivalent of the U.S. FTC. But wait, there's more! During the summer, an early Xbox Elite Controller Series 3 unit leaked in full on social media, giving us full pictures of what to expect. Now, we might even have its full spec sheet. Shared by the fine folks at /r/GamingLeaksAndRumours on reddit, it seems the Xbox Design Lab itself might've just giving us the best glimpse yet at what to expect in the new Xbox Elite Controller, and it sounds rather enticing. Although the APIs were already taken down by the time I saw the listing, it seems reddit was able to scrape the providers of the Xbox Design Lab storefront and discovered a variety of information about what to expect. The highlights includes "advanced haptics," PlayStation-style, as well as full Design Lab integration for customization. It also comes with options for silent sticks, swappable d-pads as is typical, an adjustable scroll wheel (confirming previous leaks), and full TMR anti-drift Hall Effect thumbsticks — which is great news for accurate movement and aiming. Here's the Xbox Elite Controller Series 3 spec summary in full from the reddit post. Xbox Elite Controller Series 3 Specs (Rumored)FeaturesDetailsThumbstick ModulesHall-effect and TMR thumbstick options, with standard, loose and tight tension variants available.Haptics & TriggersImpulse trigger motors (ERMs) and "advanced haptics" using VCA motors.Audio ControlsDedicated audio scroll wheel.FaceplatesMultiple faceplate options including metal finishes, named designs, colour variations and engraving.Silent SticksLow-friction/silent stick option alongside standard and long stick variants.Rear PaddlesMultiple paddle designs including standard, classic, doublewide, short, long and butterfly-style options.D-Pad OptionsStandard, cross and grippy/faceted D-pad designs, with cosmetic and performance variants.Accessory ConfigurationsSupport for 27 mapped topper and paddle combinations.PriceUnknown?!The post alleges that there were four SKUs listed. Two with, and two without the full haptics motors, split between base models and "complete" models that likely come with additional bells and whistles like charge docks, carry cases, and so on. Other features I've been hearing about include direct-to-WiFi connectivity to minimize Xbox Cloud Gaming latency, as well as easier device switching and management between Xbox, Bluetooth, and other sources. I had heard that the Xbox Elite Controller Series 3 was imminent for a reveal. If this API leak is indeed true, its addition on the Xbox Design Lab suggests Microsoft may want it out in time for Christmas and the holiday shopping season. Although, the leaks make no mention of price ... and that'll be the big kicker for many. The new Xbox Elite Controller (Series 3) is doubtlessly imminentA short while ago, the Xbox Elite Controller (Series 3) leaked in full on social media. (Image credit: Reddit (r/Controller) | Xbox)I teased on the Xbox Two Podcast last week that I was expecting the Xbox Elite Series 3 out before Christmas, and this leak aligns with what I've been hearing. I really enjoy the Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 for the convenience of having a permanently-charged controller. The battery life on the Series 2 is truly absurd, and the convenient and weighty charge dock beats all the other options I've seen on the market. Although ... the Series 2 is indeed notorious for quality issues. I've gone through at least two of them, maybe even more, with issues ranging from shoulder button failures to rubber grips falling off. From speaking with sources about the Xbox Elite Controller, quality control and repairability has been a priority for the Xbox Elite Controller Series 3. It remains to be seen of course how it functions in practice. I'll be eager to get my hands on it and do a full review and teardown video so you guys know whether or not this is the one to buy. I, for one, am pretty excited. Although there's no information yet on price, and the split between haptic and non-haptic versions makes me wonder just how pricy the haptic-based version will be if they're going as far to split them into separate SKUs. 🤔Take this all with a pinch of salt for now, of course, but it probably won't be long until all of this is confirmed by Microsoft itself. Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

While I continue building and managing my home lab, I keep a handful of browser tabs open. One shows the Proxmox dashboard for my HP ProDesk 600 G6, with the different VMs and LXCs on the mini PC. A second tab is the router's admin page, a third is Home Assistant, and a fourth is Jellyfin. Switching between these tabs is faster with keyboard shortcuts, but it can get tiring.