Anyone following along with the AI boom in the past couple of years has likely heard of and used Google's NotebookLM, an academically oriented research assistant grounded solely in the sources you define. It's a brilliant use of Gemini's big data handling capabilities at an individual level, especially paired with tools like Audio Overviews, Interactive Mode, and Flashcard generation.

While modern TVs are engineering marvels, their out-of-the-box settings are often a massive letdown. Have you ever unboxed a brand-new panel only to find the picture looking flat, washed out, or strangely clinical? You aren’t alone.

Microsoft launched Teams' Together Mode during the pandemic to give the illusion of a bunch of people sitting in a conference room together, even if they were really sitting at home without pants on. But times have changed, and it's now being retired in favor of a more simplified Teams experience. The feature used AI to cut your head and shoulds out, and place you in a virtual space with others in the meeting. It could definitely feel gimmicky - especially when you'd tap co-workers on the shoulder, or give virtual high fives - but it did limit visual distractions. The changes are being rolled out gradually, but as they are, the Together Mo …Read the full story at The Verge.

If the Windows 10 to 11 fiasco taught me anything, it's that people are more than happy to hold onto old hardware if it still works perfectly okay. And who can blame them? People are often sold devices on their merits, only to be told years later that those same boons are now old and outdated, and they should really just throw out what they have and buy the next best thing.

I might be all-in on self-hosting, but I'm also a sucker for things that make my life easier while managing my servers. I always hated needing a monitor nearby, even if it was a portable one, partly because of the clutter but also because it takes up a valuable power socket.

Zero Parades: For Dead Spies wants you to question the price of forgiveness. After leading a crew of spies through a failed operation, protagonist Cascade is willing to pay whatever amount is needed to reestablish contact not just with fellow agents, but with the friends she let down. After being "frozen" for five years and forced to do desk work, Cascade is sent to the city of Portofiro with an assignment and a chance to redeem herself.Zero Parades highly resembles Disco Elysium, the critically acclaimed 2019 RPG featuring a disastrous detective dealing with generational heartbreak and a hangover that split his psyche into dozens of voice …Read the full story at The Verge.

I have a lot of devices on my desk, but it's not often I get something in a new format. It's even less often that I get something that I've daydreamed about owning for most of my life, but that's what is here with the HP EliteBoard G1a. It's a mini PC stuffed inside a slimline keyboard, and it's every bit as fun as it sounds. It's essentially an HP EliteBook G1a but without the screen or the extra weight, and I'm here for that.

When it comes to retro gaming, nothing beats having the authentic hardware in front of you while you play your favorite games. However, sometimes you just have to play the original Super Smash Bros with your friends overseas, and having a physical N64 just won't cut it. Fortunately, emulators allow us to play these classics online with friends, as if we were huddled around an actual console, albeit with a bit of lag.

I've never really had any particular gripes with Figma, it's probably the best design tool on the market. I have it open most days and most of my coursework and personal projects live in it. But I always go poking around for an open-source equivalent for whatever tool I'm using. There's Penpot, which is practically a mirror of Figma, it's my top open-source Figma alternative recommendation. However, it's still paywalled. I recently came across OpenPencil, which is an incredible open-source Figma alternative with a great AI-powered workflow. But the search didn't stop there…

Say what you will about ChromeBooks, but it’s hard to deny the utility of lightweight laptops that support most productivity tasks and integrate seamlessly with cloud-based apps – all while significantly less than conventional Windows machines. But as a staunch member of the home lab faction, I’m not very fond of relying on third-party servers for my everyday tasks. With Google doubling down on Gemini-powered services for the upcoming Googlebook, I’m a bit on the fence about clanker tools that not only drain my wallet, but also store data on company servers.

When you see Claude Code and Codex in the same sentence, there's a good chance the article you're reading or the video you're watching is about to pit them against each other. I'm not going to pretend I haven't done that before either. I've been using Claude Code for far longer than Codex, and I've written about my experience using both tools for the same tasks (and there've been times when Claude Code has beaten Codex, and times when it's gone the other way).

During the release candidate cycle for Linux 7.0, Linus began noticing something weird. The number of bug reports for Linux 7.0 was more than usual, but at the same time, the bugs being found were pretty minor and not worth delaying the release. At the time, Linus suspected that the rise in reports was due to people using AI tools to scan for and identify bugs, and it turns out, he was right.