Ensuring your code is working at its utmost best can be pretty daunting if you're not sure what to pull back, and by how much. However, sometimes the stars align, and you spot a really simple fix that significantly boosts your software's speed. As good as that is, though, not many people can claim they sped up a process by 5% just by moving three chunks of code down by a few lines, which is exactly what one Linux engineer achieved with kernel version 7.2.

Graphics cards are durable components, usually lasting as long as 8–10 years if maintained well. However, they can also fail much earlier, and the reasons can often be self-inflicted. If you use the set-and-forget approach with your PC, push your GPU to the limit, and ignore your PC's constraints, you're essentially putting a dent in your GPU's natural lifespan. Enough strain on your graphics card's internals can degrade it faster, increasing the chances of premature failure. GPU maintenance doesn't mean limiting your PC's performance, but you should also not ignore the best practices that can prolong your hardware's longevity. You need to avoid excess dust, heat, and power if you want to keep your GPU running for as long as possible, especially in this market where a GPU upgrade might not be affordable anymore.

Last year, we called the Alienware 16 Area-51 a "return to form" for weirdness, and this year's refresh is no different. It's packed with power, heavy, hot (in more than one way), and looks like it was beamed down to Earth, and that's everything I need to know about a gaming laptop.

Back in 2021, reports surfaced online of a port of the classic Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye 007 for the Xbox 360. The port was developed by Rare, the same studio that made the N64-exclusive, and was originally intended to release in 2008.

You know, given how much landscape data Google has, I'm surprised it took this long for it to make a simple flight simulator with it. Still, it's better late than never, as the tech giant has revealed that you can now take flight over all of the landscapes it has gathered data on over the years. The best part is, you don't even need to download anything; you can climb into a virtual plane from your browser.

It's not every day that Steam Hardware Survey stats make me stop scrolling, but May 2026's numbers seem to have done exactly that. Windows 7, often heralded as one of the greatest versions of Microsoft's desktop OS, is now down to just 0.07% of Steam users. Meanwhile, there's another story unfolding in the GPU department, where only 8.54% of Nvidia RTX owners are still gaming on an RTX 20 series graphics card. Now, at first glance, those two figures might not have anything to do with one another, but together, they do paint a familiar picture.

Fox is about to take over the TVs in more than 100 million homes worldwide. On Monday, Fox announced that it's acquiring Roku, the streaming middleman that serves as a portal for viewers to hop into services like Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, and more. The $22 billion deal may not change Roku's familiar purple interface, but it could put Fox in control of your data behind the screen.During a call with investors, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said the plan is to keep the two companies separate. Fox aims to grow its business by adding Fox Sports, news content, and local stations to Roku - one of the most popular streaming device and smart TV platfor …Read the full story at The Verge.

I've spent years defending Google's vision of a clean and unadulterated Android experience. However, the ecosystem now bears a closer resemblance to a velvet-lined cage than to an open platform, with upcoming changes such as restrictions on sideloaded apps. I use a Pixel 7 and always praised the stock OS for its design language and feature set, but I also forget how many of those features I love are silently enabled by well-integrated third-party apps, while the tech titan remains focused on AI tools and visual improvements in the OS. Meanwhile, other Android skins have improved tremendously, leaving the reference design in the dust.

Your public Facebook posts could help inform AI-generated results in Meta's new AI Mode. When you search on Facebook, the "AI Mode" option will appear alongside the usual search modes like "People" and "Marketplace." It's one of several new AI features Meta is rolling out starting today, including photo presets that swap sports jerseys onto fans and suggestions for collage templates.Instead of "just links," it gives users AI-generated results that pull from publicly-posted content across Meta's platforms, like the AI search feature in its new Reddit-like Forum app. Users can also ask Meta's AI follow-up questions in response to the search …Read the full story at The Verge.

Xbox is closing down Ninja Theory, the studio behind the Hellblade series, a source tells The Verge. Staffers were told on a call on Monday about the closure, but they are hoping the studio will find a buyer. The closure comes as "several" Xbox studios at Microsoft, including Compulsion Games and Double Fine, are in "active negotiations" about spinning off, Bloomberg reports. The closure and negotiations follow Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and chief content officer Matt Booty warning last week of a "reset" at Xbox, laying out several challenges facing Xbox's business - including that it had "over extended" with its studio system and the hardware c …Read the full story at The Verge.

A while ago I wrote about how Claude Pro had become a daily tool for me, and how none of that had anything to do with coding. That's still true, but I finally caved on the one part I'd been avoiding. Claude Code kept showing up everywhere I looked, and I almost started to feel out of the loop for being one of the few tech writers who hadn't tried it yet.

I have been experimenting with local LLMs for a few years now. Though the results were rarely up to my expectations, and after a few days of usage, I’d go back to cloud models for even basic tasks. After going through community chatter and hype around small local LLMs, I decided again to try a bunch of them on my gaming PC.