I've been running local LLMs for a while now on all kinds of devices. I have Ollama and Open WebUI on my home server, with various models running on my AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. It's always been functional, but never quite good enough to replace cloud-based coding assistants for real work. The models are typically too dumb to handle anything beyond basic autocomplete, and instead, I've played around with Claude Code a fair amount.

We've highlighted some pretty great Android tablets over the past week, with one that's perfect for gaming, and another one that can really do it all. With that said, they aren't exactly cheap, with both coming in at around $400 with a steep discount. The good news is that we've also found a great deal on a solid budget tablet, just in case you were looking for something that isn't going to hurt your wallet.

Common wisdom suggests that if you want more performance from your GPU, you have to feed it more power. However, my experiments with undervolting seem to suggest that the opposite may be true.

Valve's Steam Machine was announced in what feels like an eternity ago. It's essentially a tiny custom-built HTPC that runs SteamOS, compatible with their new Steam Controller and Steam Frame VR headset. While the specs are well known, the price was never announced, and this naturally led to a lot of speculation.

If you're thinking about ditching cloud storage, or just want to upgrade your existing NAS setup, this Seagate IronWolf 12TB HDD is going to be a good way to go. Not only is this drive reliable, but it also delivers tons of storage. Furthermore, it's the price that we're seeing on this drive that makes it worth taking a look at, with a hefty discount from Newegg that drops the price down to $270.

AI search startup Perplexity is distancing itself from ads amid fears users won't trust chatbots with an agenda to upsell. The move highlights an emerging crossroads for the AI industry as the sector's biggest players hunt for stable sources of income to bankroll massive spending, with giants like OpenAI leaning into ads and others like Anthropic promising to keep them out. Perplexity began phasing out ads late last year and isn't exploring any new ad deals at the moment, executives said on Monday at a roundtable event, according to Business Insider and the Financial Times. It is a noteworthy U-turn for the US startup, which became one of …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Late Show host Stephen Colbert says CBS blocked him from broadcasting an interview with James Talarico, a Democratic representative from Texas. During his opening monologue on Monday night, Colbert says the network's lawyers told him in "no uncertain terms" that he couldn't have Talarico on the show, forcing him to post the interview on YouTube instead, hours after news broke that Anderson Cooper is leaving his position at the network as a 60 Minutes correspondent."He [Talarico] was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast," …Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta has struck a multiyear deal to expand its data centers with millions of Nvidia's Grace and Vera CPUs and Blackwell and Rubin GPUs. While Meta has long been using Nvidia's hardware for its AI products, this deal "represents the first large-scale Nvidia Grace-only deployment," which Nvidia says will deliver "significant performance-per-watt improvements in [Meta's] data centers." The deal also includes plans to add Nvidia's next-generation Vera CPUs to Meta's data centers in 2027. Meta is also working on its own in-house chips for running AI models, but according to the Financial Times, it has run into "technical challenges and rollout …Read the full story at The Verge.

LLMs have gotten to the point where they're better at certain tasks than others. As such, it's not uncommon for people to have a toolbox of LLMs at their disposal, which they can pick and choose from depending on what they want to achieve. Personally, I go to Google Gemini when I want lifestyle tips, and I visit Claude when I want programming or technical advice.

PC maintenance is one of those inescapable things you need to go through as a PC user. It comes with the territory. Where PC gaming offers superior control and performance, it also demands more involvement from you. Building a PC is just the beginning; the real journey begins after that. Maintaining your PC's performance and thermals, and keeping it clean and up-to-date, aren't optional tasks; they're bare necessities. Until a few months ago, I assumed I was on top of PC maintenance. Little did I know that I was lagging in terms of proper and timely PC upkeep. I realized I needed to mend my ways if I wanted my PC to last a few more years. After all, I need to make the most of my existing rig in this terrible PC hardware market.

The general notion of a computer is a big machine that can run operating systems and software. Even though laptops have gotten slimmer and desktops also come in small sizes without any compromise in power, we never correlate small devices with functional systems. A single-board computer (SBC) is the last thing on anyone's mind when planning to build a dedicated device. I too, thought the exact same thing and never considered them as capable units.

Tesla is no longer using the term "Autopilot" to describe the self-driving capabilities of its vehicles in California, avoiding a 30-day sales suspension in the state. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced that Tesla has taken corrective action after finding in December that the EV manufacturer's marketing was violating state law and misleading customers into thinking its cars would drive autonomously. The DMV's complaint is connected to written marketing materials for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) features that Tesla started publishing in May 2021, which later led to the EV maker appending "(Supervised)" …Read the full story at The Verge.