2025 was a pretty great year for Windows on Arm. If you're unsure as to what that means, Windows on Arm is a special branch that allows Microsoft's operating system to take advantage of a device that uses Arm's architecture. If you've purchased a Windows device lately and it came with a Snapdragon processor inside, that's Arm.

I'm sure you've encountered a point when moving files to a solid-state drive (SSD) suddenly grinds to an unexpected halt, and wondered what was causing this to take place. After all, the manufacturer likely promised considerably higher speeds for the SSD, which lured you into a false sense of hope with drive performance. The reasons for these slowdowns can vary depending on the SSD and wider system it's connected to, but for cheaper flash storage, it can be caused by the SLC cache. This can cause transfer speeds grind to a crawl, sometimes reaching figures you'd typically see with hard drives.

It is an interesting time for the handheld market. Analysts estimate the U.S. portable gaming console market is expected to reach $7.69 billion by 2032 at a compound annual growth rate of 8.75%, and the sales numbers speak for themselves. Valve's wild-card entry into the space, the Steam Deck, sold nearly 4 million units since its release, outselling all other handheld PC gaming consoles.

Before we saw the Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, we had the Sega Channel. This was a service that lasted from 1994 to 1998, and let you download content and demos via cable TV signals. Sounds kind of lame right now, but trust me, a device downloading games off cable TV signals in the 90s was near-witchcraft. And, much like the modern-day gaming subscriptions we have today, Sega Channel had a rotating library of games that changed every month.

In just the past couple years, the art TV category that's been dominated by Samsung's The Frame has seen growth, with additions from both TCL and Hisense. Now LG has announced its own entry, the LG Gallery TV. The TV will leverage the Gallery+ service that LG released earlier this year, which includes thousands of display visuals ranging from pieces of art to cinematic images to gaming scenes. Much like Samsung's Art Store, Gallery+ has a limited free option, but its full capability requires a subscription.The new Gallery TV shouldn't be confused with the G Series OLED TVs, like the LG G5, even though the G Series used to be called the Gal …Read the full story at The Verge.

Cloud storage is the way most people will go if they're looking to get their hands on storage space that can be accessed from anywhere with nearly any device. However, over time, it becomes less affordable, especially if you're someone that's constantly adding to your collection.

I've been on the fence about buying a 3D printer for a long time. I never fully bought into the popular idea that 3D printing is just an endless stream of solutions in search of problems, but I also wasn't convinced I’d get enough real value out of one to justify the space, cost, and learning curve. It felt interesting and the projects I've seen have been impressive, but it didn't necesarilly feel useful.

When it comes to playing retro games, I like to take the middle ground between using the real deal and emulation. If I can, I prefer to use a physical game on an emulator on my PC. That way, I can use the collection that I've accrued over the years, but still take advantage of quality-of-life features that emulation brings, such as save states and retro achievements.

I have a love-hate relationship with the native Windows Photos app. It feels like an AI-powered oversimplification designed for a touch-first world that I don't live in. It also hides the file structure behind a clumsy timeline view and struggles to render high-resolution images without a noticeable stutter. For power users who manage thousands of assets, the native tool feels like a handicap. I can tolerate it if Photos is still bound to some obscure image format, and I open an image or two in a hurry. I've also found that Photos forces me to spin up a full-fledged editing suite like Photoshop for the simplest editing besides cropping and rotation.

Lately, my digital life felt like a mess of half-finished to-do lists, buried browser bookmarks, and a dozen different apps that never quite talked to each other. I wanted to be organized, but the friction of switching between tools was more exhausting than the work itself. Everything changed when I finally went all-in with Notion.

Samsung's Odyssey series monitors have always had a pretty great reputation, which makes them a pretty good choice if you're looking for something new. And if you're looking for something new, we can easily recommend Samsung's G91SD model, which features a 49-inch ultrawide OLED panel, that's now on sale for a pretty good price.

In early December, Joshua Aaron, the developer behind the ICEBlock app - designed to let people alert others about the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents - filed a federal lawsuit alleging his First Amendment rights were violated. The Department of Justice had urged Apple to remove Aaron's app from its App Store, which the suit called unconstitutional. And Apple had complied - in the process, setting its own precedent for suppressing anti-ICE speech.The year 2025 has marked perhaps the biggest leap back for American free speech in generations. The Trump administration's war on immigrants and civil liberties has le …Read the full story at The Verge.