I've been using local LLMs for a good while now, which has been an exciting journey, but means I haven't really spent much time on how commercial models have evolved. Claude, for example, has turned from a coding curiosity into a powerhouse of agentic precision, as I discovered recently by putting Claude Code into Obsidian to organize notes for me. Sure, that's the equivalent of using a V12 engine to drive to the corner store, but it showed me how much I'd been missing.

The world’s first playable gaming magazine? Tetris has been immortalized in a playable McDonald's plastic chicken nugget, a playable fake 7-Eleven Slurpee cup, and a playable wristwatch. But the most intriguing way to play Tetris yet is encased in paper. Last year the Tetris Company partnered with Red Bull for a gaming tournament that culminated in the 150-meter-tall Dubai Frame landmark being turned into the world's largest playable Tetris installation using over 2,000 drones that functioned as pixels. Although the timing was a coincidence, Red Bull also published a 180-page gaming edition of its The Red Bulletin lifestyle magazine around the same time as the event, with a limite …Read the full story at The Verge.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Laurie Spiegel for the site. As preparation for the interview, I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks revisiting Spiegel's records, most notably The Expanding Universe, her 1980 masterpiece that blends synth experimentalism with early examples of what would eventually be called ambient music, and algorithmic composition techniques. It's a marvel that sounds both nostalgic and cutting-edge at the same time.Tracks like "Patchwork" and "A Folk Study" dabble in the sort of bouncy arpeggios that beg comparisons to The Who's "Baba O'Riley," while "Old Wave" and "East River Dawn" conjure ea …Read the full story at The Verge.

Former Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice at the State Department on September 26, 2023. | Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images Donald Trump threatened that there would be "consequences" for Netflix if it didn't fire board member Susan Rice. Rice served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, and recently appeared on Preet Bharara's podcast, where she said corporations that "take a knee to Trump" are going to be "caught with more than their pants down. They are going to be held accountable."Right-wing influencer and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer was quick to jump on the appearance and accused Rice of "threatening half the country with weaponized government and political retribution." She also pointed out that Netflix, whose board Rice is on, is trying to me …Read the full story at The Verge.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the dire state of tech regulation, follow Adi Robertson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.How it startedIn 1973, long before the modern digital era, the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) published a report called "Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens." Networked computers seemed "destined to become the principal medium for making, storing, and using records about people," the report's foreword began. These systems could be a "powerful management …Read the full story at The Verge.

I was an early adopter of smart home tech, as I have been with most technological advances. I remember a lot of Bluetooth-only devices, and then Wi-Fi started to take over. Specifically, 2.4 GHz W-Fi, in the days way before 5 GHz or 6 GHz made an appearance.

Windows isn't the perfect operating system, but the last few iterations focused heavily on internet-reliant services like OneDrive and MSN. Microsoft is injecting ads into various parts of the operating system, most of which try to promote services like cloud storage, collaboration tools, and gaming subscriptions. I hate this new, greedy approach where the company goes beyond the initial, soft nudge to promote something. Instead, it's canvassing most areas of the operating system to display ads and banners.

Buying used enterprise SSDs feels like one of those “too good to be true” home lab shortcuts. You see a 2 TB drive for the price of a brand-new consumer 1 TB, the listing says it came out of a data center, and your brain immediately jumps to the worst case scenario: hammered 24/7, on the verge of failure, and ready to take your ZFS pool down with it.

Most users probably spend the most time choosing the CPU and GPU during a build, but the motherboard is increasingly becoming a widely researched component. Thanks to modern CPU and RAM behavior being impacted significantly based on the motherboard choice, your motherboard features matter more than ever. That said, this has led to many users overpaying for features they think they'll need someday, but never end up using. In an attempt to future-proof their PC, they spend on higher-end chipsets, overclocking-ready VRMs, and 5GbE LAN. Most people know, deep down, that they'll replace their build before ever requiring these features for their regular workflow. There's a good chance that you, too, paid a premium for one or more of the following motherboard features.

If you have ever used a smart TV in your life, you know the pain I'm about to cry about. Smart TVs with Google TV or Android TV are available from almost every brand, but even after all these years, they still suffer from poor performance, basic navigation challenges, and limited discovery features. Even the relatively expensive models from the likes of LG and Samsung with first-party operating systems feel like they're begging you to bypass the software entirely and buy a streaming device. And that's exactly what I did a while back on my Hisense TV. I was already invested in Apple's ecosystem, so the Apple TV 4K (3rd gen) was an easy pick. While much more expensive than the alternatives, it's one of the most polished experiences in its category. It's still not without some minor flaws, but my TV experience has never been better.

I wish I could talk to my Plex server… | Image: Samsung. In addition to summoning Bixby or Gemini, Galaxy S26 users will be able to call on Perplexity by saying "hey, Plex." The integration of Perplexity into Galaxy AI is just one element of the company's embrace of a "multi-agent ecosystem."Often, people will use different AI agents for different tasks, depending on where their strengths lie. So Samsung is opening up the ability to integrate different agents into the OS. Hey, Plex isn't just some transparent version of the app baked into a Galaxy phone to quickly get answers to questions. Perplexity will have access to Samsung Notes, Clock, Gallery, Reminder, and Calendar, as well as select thi …Read the full story at The Verge.

Local LLMs have gotten a lot of attention lately, especially now that tools like LM Studio make them easy to run. But one thing I keep noticing is that people treat them the same as cloud LLMs, expecting the same results they’d get from ChatGPT. Sometimes this could work, but more often the responses will likely be weaker or disappointing, which can lead to people thinking the model itself is the problem.