In my years of building PCs and writing about consumer tech, I've built and fixed several PCs for friends and family. I've embraced the dreaded resident tech support role in my circles, and as a result, my life shares similarities with corporate system administrators now. I've seen that worried helplessness too many times when PCs won't boot and users are left helpless. So now, I show up with a single fix-all bootable USB drive packed full of powerful ISOs and diagnostic and recovery tools. This digital Swiss Army knife easily puts a Windows installation stick to shame.

It finally happened — Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders finally went live, and people have been buying copies as if they'll somehow run out before launch day. I mean no shade, since I've done exactly the same thing. It also proves that the old "no gameplay, no pre-order" mantra goes completely out the window when Rockstar Games is involved. But while excitement around the game is expected, the surrounding discourse right now has been fascinating for all the wrong reasons.

Starting Tuesday, Anthropic's Claude Cowork AI platform will be available on mobile and web for the first time. The expanded access is rolling out first to Max subscribers and coming to Claude users on other plans "in the coming weeks." Claude Cowork was previously only accessible through the Claude desktop app for macOS and Windows, but now users on iOS and Android can also use it. However, Anthropic says the "full experience" for Cowork will still be on the desktop app, including features like local file access. Cowork sessions will also now run in the cloud by default, so you can continue them across different devices or run Cowork ta …Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta is launching the first AI image generation model made by its Superintelligence Labs division. The Muse Image model now powers the image-making tools across the Meta AI app, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and it's coming soon to Facebook and Messenger, according to an announcement on Tuesday.It's part of the growing Muse family of AI models that replace Meta's Llama lineup. Alexandr Wang, who Meta hired to head up its Superintelligence Labs last year, says on Threads that Muse Image is "agentic," meaning it works with its Muse Spark large language model "to reason through your prompt, search the web, and plan before it generates." Meta is al …Read the full story at The Verge.

For the past few months, I had been facing buffering issues with my smart TV. No matter which streaming app I was on, the content always buffered, more so on some than others, but there was always some degree of buffering. I tried countless fixes, from clearing the cache to updating the TV's software, but nothing seemed to work.

Starting on August 3rd, Netflix's streaming library will include video content from dozens of digital media brands including BuzzFeed, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, People Inc, and Tastemade. As reported earlier by TechCrunch, the deal includes a mix of licensed past videos and new ongoing series that would have typically been published on YouTube or other online platforms, like Architectural Digest's "Open Door" or Vanity Fair's "Lie Detector Test." As Netflix puts it, the deal will allow subscribers to watch content "from around the Internet without having to leave Netflix." The announcement follows a Bloomberg report earlier this week …Read the full story at The Verge.

While the auto industry wrings its hands over the electric vehicle market, sweating details like aerodynamic efficiency and range anxiety, a new EV startup based in Lisbon, Portugal, is zagging in a different direction. Amble's new electric buggy won't impress anyone with its 0-60 time or its self-driving features (it has none). Instead, it takes a stab at the belief that cars have gotten too big, too fast, and perhaps could use a bit of a downgrade in both departments.The Amble One is a premium, street-legal buggy with a gorgeous neo-retro design that's currently being marketed to locations where traditional cars are unnecessary or too la …Read the full story at The Verge.

ABC is firing back at the Federal Communications Commission after the agency opened an investigation into The View's airtime of political candidates. In a letter to the FCC on Tuesday, ABC argues that the agency's actions pose a risk to editorial independence by targeting programs "perceived as unfriendly to the current administration," as reported earlier by The Wrap.In February, the FCC Chair Brendan Carr confirmed that he's reexamining The View's classification as a "bona fide" news program after the talk show held an interview with Rep. James Talarico (D-TX), who is running for a spot in the Senate. The View's classification exempts it …Read the full story at The Verge.

Nikita Bier, X's head of product, said in a post on Monday that "[m]any videos from top accounts are simply stolen from other users, sometimes 5 years after they originally went viral," while noting that videos on the platform "make up close to half the impressions on X." According to Bier, X is launching a new in-app video editor and recorder to address this "recycled content," so that "some videos on X can finally be original content that doesn't exist on other platforms."As previously reported by TechCrunch, the new video tools are available now on X's iOS app, and include an option for overlaying captions in multiple languages and a "g …Read the full story at The Verge.

Google is hosting its next Made by Google launch event for Pixel hardware on August 12th in New York City, according to an invitation sent by Google to The Verge. Unusually, the event is taking place in the evening: It'll kick off at 6PM ET that day. The email also includes a brief animation teasing what appears to be a phone in the Pixel 11 family that's gold. Pixel 11 leaks that have popped up so far show that the base phone could have slimmer bezels than the Pixel 10 and a solid black camera bar. Leaks of Pixel 11 Pro indicate the phone could be a touch thinner than the Pixel 10 Pro. And the Pixel 11 Pro Fold could also be thinner than …Read the full story at The Verge.

My home lab is a mix of hardware, from the AMD Radeon RT 7900 XTX that runs one inference box to the Nvidia flagships that run the heftier models, and a scattering of mini PCs. Oh, and a DGX Spark sitting in the rack being weird in its own ARM64 way. I wouldn't change that mix for the world. I love each piece of hardware for different reasons, but for the longest time, they all demanded their own inference stack.

You may not immediately know what an E Ink (or ePaper) screen is, but you've definitely seen one. Pretty much every e-reader, whether it's a Kindle, Kobo, Boox, or even a ReMarkable, uses the technology, which is ideal for long-term use without causing eye strain.