Notion and Google Docs are both solid tools. I used to keep Docs in a pinned tab in my browser at all times so I could instantly write and take notes alongside my research in the browser. However, Docs leans too heavily on cloud dependency, and Notion also uses a cloud-only model. I wanted a tool that gives me more ownership of my data and control over how it’s accessed.

The Raspberry Pi 5 is the prominent headline these days, and I get why. It’s faster, it feels more modern, and it has a momentum that makes every older board look like a compromise. Still, the Raspberry Pi I actually rely on day to day is the Raspberry Pi 4, and that choice has less to do with nostalgia than it does with outcomes. When I need something to stay online, behave predictably, and quietly do its job, the Pi 4 keeps earning its spot.

Over the last few months of 2025, Meta spent $6.4 million on an ad campaign running in cities across the country, from Sacramento to Washington, with a clear mission: win over viewers on the construction of new data centers. As the New York Times reports, the ad campaign is anchored by short, folksy video spotlights on Meta's data centers in Altoona, Iowa, and Los Lunas, New Mexico. The ads make the case that Meta's data centers create jobs, revitalizing rural communities.However, they take a fairly idealistic tone. For instance, the Altoona ad portrays a town on the brink of disappearing, but thanks to Meta's data center, its residents …Read the full story at The Verge.

While YouTube Music is a decent music streaming platform, it has always lacked one key feature Spotify and Apple Music have offered for years — the ability to start a playlist on desktop and carry it over to your phone seamlessly, whether it's on Android, an iPhone, or on the desktop (via 9to5Google). Thanks to a recent update, YouTube Music subscribers can now start a song or podcast on desktop and shift over to their phone and not lose their spot in the content as long as they're signed in to their account (this works in reverse, too).

Many of us never think about the router after the ISP configures it for the first time. It blends in with the house like furniture, and only gets noticed when something isn't working. While the ISP-provided router is functional and mostly fine for its intended purpose, it's far from the device you'd ideally want running your entire home network. You might not even realize the number of basic features missing or locked down on your ISP router. Add to that the high probability of it having subpar hardware, an older Wi-Fi standard, and an unreasonable amount of control over your own network, and you begin to see the point of replacing it altogether.

An open-source AI agent that "actually does things" is taking off, with people across the web sharing how they're using the agent to do a whole bunch of things, like manage reminders, log health and fitness data, and even communicate with clients. The tool, called Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot), runs locally on a variety of devices, and you can ask it to perform tasks on your behalf by chatting with it through WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Discord, and iMessage.Federico Viticci at MacStories highlighted how he installed Moltbot on his M4 Mac Mini and transformed it into a tool that delivers daily audio recaps based on his activity in his calend …Read the full story at The Verge.

Plenty of devices can serve as desktop replacements when configured the right way. Gaming handhelds are a great example of this, with the Steam Deck being capable of serving as a server or a desktop with ease. But what about your phone? You can already install multiple distros with Termux, but Local Desktop is a full-on Arch Linux installation with a desktop GUI.

Windows hides many features that most people never know about, and sometimes that's for the better. Not everyone needs the Task Scheduler, Event Viewer, or Performance Monitor. And those aren't even the most obscure examples.

After delaying my OLED upgrade in the hopes of falling prices, I bought the Alienware AW3423DWF a few months ago. It's a fantastic QD-OLED panel at the price I got it for, and the ultrawide form factor further increases the immersion. That said, not everything was an improvement over my previous monitor. The increase in the resolution meant that my 5-year-old GPU was struggling even more than earlier. I didn't think the impact would be too noticeable, but I was wrong. The 3440x1440 resolution exposed my GPU's weaknesses, and a new graphics card is out of the question in the current market.

Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA), from left, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) Sen. John Boozman (R-AK), Rep. French Hill (R-AK), and David Sacks, White House Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Crypto czar, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. | Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Hello and welcome to Regulator, the Verge newsletter about the technology politics happening in our nation's capital. I hope our snowstorm-affected readers are safe, warm, and haven't reenacted The Shining at home yet. Do you know what prevents that? Subscribing to The Verge.Last week, when I was tracking Coinbase's opposition to the Clarity Act, I kept hearing the same fear from worried DC insiders: The crypto industry was running out of time to pass a bipartisan market structure bill that would actually give them a favorable outcome. The midterm elections are imminent, and Congress will switch to campaign mode in the upcoming weeks, mean …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you want something new to replace your desktop PC, but don't want to go down the mini PC route, this HP OmniDesk might be for you. It's perfect for someone who just wants to get the basics down and doesn't want to spend a lot of money.

Between its massive documentation, easy-to-use Compose facility, and compatibility with thousands of first and third-party images, Docker is the best container runtime for newcomers to the self-hosting ecosystem. But when you’re a complete beginner, Docker’s quirks can catch you off-guard, and if you’re not careful, you can end up making a bunch of mistakes while spinning up new containers for your tinkering adventures.