Claude Code is useful right out of the box, but it didn’t really click for me until I stopped treating it like a clever terminal app. The real shift came when I started using hooks to make it behave more like part of my own workspace. Not a whole new personality, not a maze of novelty commands, and not some grand automation altar I’d have to keep dusting. Just a few small rules that made it respond to the way I already work.

The Chromecast with Google TV launched in 2020, and for $30, it turned any TV into a proper smart TV with a remote and a real interface. It was the first Chromecast that didn't need you to cast everything from your phone, and for a while, it was the budget streaming device to beat. Google killed it in February 2025, and the Google TV Streamer, its official replacement, costs $99.99.

Xbox is making some big changes — again. On June 10th, a few months after Asha Sharma took over as CEO, she and newly-promoted chief content officer Matt Booty sent a memo to staff warning of an “Xbox reset.” The business, they said, is facing significant challenges, including a 3 percent “accountability margin,” massively higher component prices for consoles due to the memory and storage shortage, and an “over extended” studio system.That same day, The Verge and Bloomberg reported that the Xbox division was planning layoffs in July. The cuts, expected to be announced on July 6th, could include studio closures or spinoffs. The Verge‘s Tom Warren reported on June 30th that Microsoft is looking at closing at least five studios and potentially canceling games like Blade.Under Sharma’s leadership, Xbox has already made some other major changes, including upcoming price hikes for Xbox consoles, lowering Game Pass prices but cutting out new Call of Duty games, rebranding Xbox to XBOX, and making both Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution Xbox console exclusives.Read on for all of our coverage of the shifts at Xbox. Xbox will reportedly still publish Hideo Kojima’s OD. 007 First Light’s developer lays off staff but claims its next franchise will continue Xbox weighs canceling Blade game and shuttering Arkane Xbox prices spike another $100 or more Xbox is closing down Hellblade creator Ninja Theory Xbox turmoil continues with a studio closure and executive departures Microsoft hasn’t ruled out spinning off Xbox Xbox warns of a ‘reset’ as it prepares for layoffs Xbox exploring ‘radically different’ console business models RAMaggedon’s making Xbox “rethink” its Helix console. Xbox exclusives are back and more complicated than ever Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball to lead strategy Xbox fans want exclusives, more backward compatibility, and free online multiplayer Xbox is now XBOX Inside the return of Xbox

This USB condenser microphone from Razer delivers in value thanks to its recent price drop to just $30. We've seen this microphone go on sale before, but this is the lowest price that we've seen so far. You get impressive audio quality, it's easy to use, and it's now extremely easy on the wallet. If you've been thinking about upgrading your setup, or just wanted to give a new microphone a try, we can't recommend this one enough.

Microsoft will likely soon follow Sony and stop the production of physical discs for Xbox games. But instead of leaving physical discs behind entirely, sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell me the company has quietly been working on a disc-to-digital feature that will allow Xbox owners to digitize their existing physical game collections.Xbox employees recently started testing this new feature, after references to "enable Disc2Digital" appeared in the Xbox PC app code in May. I'm told that Microsoft's disc-to-digital feature will work on Xbox One and Xbox Series X discs only, and not those for the Xbox 360 or original Xbox console. …Read the full story at The Verge.

Building a PC is an enjoyable and rewarding process, but things can go wrong. Perhaps a RAM module has not been seated correctly, the GPU is not fully clicked into its PCIe slot, or the HDMI cable connecting your graphics card to the monitor has quietly given up. Whatever the cause, there is a good chance the motherboard’s power-on self-test, or POST, will catch it before Windows or Linux even starts loading.

NBCUniversal executives are about to find out whether Peacock will sink or swim in the streaming industry. Now that Comcast is planning to split NBCUniversal, Peacock, and Sky from its broadband and wireless businesses, Peacock will be forced to stand on its own - without the backing of a combined company that pulled in more than $123 billion last year.In the years following its launch in 2020, Peacock was treated as an accessory to an Xfinity subscription. But once Comcast stopped offering it as a free perk to Xfinity X1 and Flex subscribers and axed its free membership tier in 2023, it was a sign that Comcast believed Peacock had somethi …Read the full story at The Verge.

Google has built some of the most consequential consumer AI tools in the past two years. NotebookLM, Gemini, Google Opal, and a handful of others sit on a list of products that have advanced what consumer-facing AI can do for research, learning, and creative work. Each one solves a key problem that competing tools haven't addressed, or rather, addressed less elegantly.

If you’re a hardcore PC enthusiast, you’ve probably upgraded your system at least once to keep up with the ever-growing hardware requirements of newer titles. However, things are radically different in the home server ecosystem, as your outdated hardware can last several years without requiring you to upgrade to the latest and greatest paraphernalia.

Elon Musk says a report about a SpaceX AI phone prototype is "utterly false." The report, published on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, says SpaceX showed off a "handset-like prototype" to some investors before launching its record-breaking initial public offering in June.The device was "slimmer than an iPhone," and they were told it would run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, according to the WSJ. It would also reportedly use its own AI-enabled operating system with features powered by the SpaceX-owned xAI.Last week, the Financial Times reported that SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell told investors that the company is con …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Kobo Libra Colour lets you take notes. | Image: Rakuten Kobo Kobo recently raised the price of its Libra Colour e-reader to $259.99, but today’s deal effectively erases that hike. The company, Best Buy, and Target, are all selling it for its old $229.99 price as part of broader sales, making now one of the best times to grab my favorite alternative to Amazon’s Kindle.Kobo Libra ColourWhere to Buy: $259.99 $229.99 at Best Buy $259.99 $229.99 at Rakuten Kobo $259.99 $229.99 at TargetIf you’re not heavily invested in Amazon’s ecosystem, I think the Kobo Libra Colour is a better buy than its closest Amazon rival, the $249.99 Kindle Colorsoft. It offers many of the same core features, including a sharp seven-inch color display that makes book covers, comics, and highlights pop with only slightly less vibrancy than the color Kindle. It’s also waterproof so you can rest easy at the beach, and features adjustable warm lighting for more comfortable nighttime reading.The Kobo also has a few advantages over Amazon’s e-reader. It supports EPUB and a broader range of file formats, making it easier to read books from a variety of sources, while offering twice as much storage (32GB). Unlike the Colorsoft, the Libra Colour includes physical page-turning buttons, which I find make for a more intuitive reading experience. It also supports Kobo’s optional Stylus 2, letting you annotate ebooks, jot down handwritten notes, use built-in notebook templates, and even convert your handwriting into typed text. Due to its size, I wouldn’t recommend it as a dedicated digital notebook over something bigger like the Kobo Elipsa 2E or Kindle Scribe, but it’s far more practical for quick notes than using your phone. It also works with Instapaper, making it easy to save web articles for offline reading.Read our Kobo Libra Colour review.

After a lengthy legal dispute, Krafton has settled with its subsidiary Unknown Worlds Entertainment, which is developing Subnautica 2, and will pay bonuses to the studio's staff, Bloomberg reports.The dispute began last year after Krafton pushed out Unknown Worlds' cofounders, Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, and its CEO, Ted Gill, ahead of a potential $250 million bonus for hitting certain financial goals that would have been shared with the studio. After the executives sued, a judge reinstated Gill as CEO in March, and Subnautica 2 finally launched in early access in May. The game passed four million copies sold in five days.Details …Read the full story at The Verge.