Valve's upcoming Steam Machine has made some promises. You can enjoy your games on the big screen, have the versatility of PC gaming in a compact form factor, and keep the freedom to install your own apps. Now, if any of that sounds familiar, that's because it is. Valve has already built all of that, and it fits right in your hands.

Most of the time, when Microsoft axes a feature, it's usually because it's either getting on in years, it has been made redundant by another app, or nobody was really using it before. However, I've only rarely seen Microsoft remove a feature because nobody knew what it was actually doing.

While it's natural to think that a gaming laptop would run its best at its default configuration, that isn't always the case. The overall gaming performance, for example, can be held back by one overlooked GPU setting, and changing it can lead to an instant boost.

Fans have been eagerly waiting for Valve to finally launch the Steam Machine, and for good reason. The Steam Deck took the world by storm and garnered a passionate fanbase, even compared to other PC gaming handhelds, and the Steam Machine looks to bring that ease of use to the desktop, along with some nice extra perks, like a customizable front plate and a fun decorative light.

Often, the process of fixing one issue solves a host of others that you hadn't considered to be problems in the first place. That happened when I split my network into VLANs, but I wouldn't have discovered that without adding a managed network switch to the network. It's been the most important upgrade to my network, and I soon learned that many other problems (and soon-to-be problems) now had solutions.

As most AI tools started paywalling more and more of their features, I never thought I’d actually give in and pay the subscription. I usually default to free tools whenever I can - if you can cover your bases with the free features, I don’t see a reason to pay. But I made an exception for Perplexity because I wanted to see how good an AI tool could actually get once you remove the limits.

Will Stancil | Photo by Jack Califano / The Verge I met Will Stancil two days before he got booted from his neighborhood Signal chat. We were at the Uptown Minneapolis VFW at an event hosted by Rep. Ilhan Omar, a thank-you party for Minnesotans who fought ICE in ways big and small. There were tacos and drinks, and dancing, though I never saw Stancil dance, which is not to say it never happened. A friend of mine who knows of Stancil from his work on school desegregation was surprised I knew who he was. She had no idea he was a combative, divisive online personality. She didn't know about his arguments with leftists on Bluesky or his fights with white supremacists on X, or about the fact that …Read the full story at The Verge.

The ESP32 community is really creative. Like, really creative. Every week, there's at least one cool new project that someone has worked hard on, complete with open-source code and a full guide on how to make it at home. But sometimes, something incredible comes around, and today just so happens to be that day. Someone has shown off an ESP32-powered 4G smartphone on Reddit, and as you might imagine, the comments are full of people clamoring for the source code, the hardware used, and everything in between.

The ESP32 community is really creative. Like, really creative. Every week, there's at least one cool new project that someone has worked hard on, complete with open-source code and a full guide on how to make it at home. But sometimes, something incredible comes around, and today just so happens to be that day. Someone has shown off an ESP32-powered 4G smartphone on Reddit, and as you might imagine, the comments are full of people clamoring for the source code, the hardware used, and everything in between.

Experimenting with Docker is fun because you can run several containerized services without messing anything up. That’s how I have a bunch of containers running in my humble home lab. However, I often fail to perform maintenance tasks, such as updating containers to their latest images.

Sometimes, using a controller is the best way to play some games, which is why having one in your setup is vital. Of course, there are plenty of different options to choose from, but we think 8BitDo Pro 3 is a good way to go, especially with this recent discount that knocks nearly 30% off its usual retail price.

People who enjoy cold drinks and those who prefer hot ones may have their differences, but they both unite under one banner: a shared distaste for room-temperature things. Refreshingly chilled beverages eventually become a slightly-offputting luke warm 'treat,' while tea and coffee drinkers have to either ensure a stone-cold mug of their favorite drink or toss it and make it anew.