Just a couple of days ago, I wrote about how I wish NotebookLM were easier to pair with other tools. In that piece, I focused on how difficult it is pairing NotebookLM with third-party (non-Google) tools. However, the same point also extends to Google's own ecosystem.

Abynth 6’s very pretty, but questionably useful preset explorer. Absynth is something of a cult classic in the soft synth world. It was originally released in 2000, and quickly found an audience among the growing cadre of people making music on computers. But its last major update, Absynth 5, was released in 2009, and Native Instruments officially discontinued the instrument in 2022, citing a lack of resources to continue supporting software in desperate need of modernization. But now the Absynth is making a grand return with version six, created in collaboration with the original designer Brian Clevinger, and featuring presets from Brian Eno and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.The core of what made it so beloved …Read the full story at The Verge.

Your PC has a variety of USB ports meant for different devices. Most modern computers can feature USB ports of 2–5 different standards, and it's pretty easy to get lost between the options. Now, some devices require higher speeds than others, and plugging them into the wrong port can mean performance loss. Others don't need a ton of bandwidth, and you don't need to occupy high-end ports on your PC for them.

Running your own services feels great once the stack settles in. You have your containers lined up, your reverse proxy is stable, and your dashboards make you feel like you run a small data center from your living room. The trouble starts when you actually need to use all of it. Every service hides behind a different port, which means you end up with a forest of tabs, and things start to feel more scattered than they should. That is when you realize something important. The server is not your primary interface. The browser is.

The flexibility of text editors is their biggest advantage over VS Code and other coding-centric counterparts, making them useful to anyone even remotely interested in computing. With its efficient nature, intuitive macros, and support for most operating systems under the sun, Vim has gathered a lot of followers over the years. Plus, Vim’s barebones nature lets you modify every aspect of this text editor via community-created plugins.

It's that time of the month for Sony to add new titles to the PlayStation Plus Premium and Extra game catalog again. Separate from the Monthly Games offered to subscribers of all PS Plus tiers, these games are being added to a large library of titles that subscribers to the two highest tiers can download and play from at any time.

Grok's track record is spotty at best. But even by the very low standards of xAI, its failure in the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia is shocking. The AI chatbot has repeatedly misidentified 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who heroically disarmed one of the shooters, and claimed the verified video of his deed was something else entirely - including that it was an old viral video of a man climbing a tree.In the aftermath of the attack, Ahmed has been widely praised for his heroism, but some have tried to dismiss or even deny his actions. Someone even quickly whipped up a fake news site that appears to be …Read the full story at The Verge.

My introduction to Sudan Archives was the song "Nont for Sale" from her first EP Sink in 2018. I've been a die-hard fan ever since. With each album, she finds new ways to sculpt the sound of her violin, contorting it in defiance of expectations. Athena found her in conversation with it, leaving its timbre largely recognizable and organic, veering from experimental pop to more ambient passages. Natural Brown Prom Queen embraced the aesthetics of sound collage, samples, and modern R&B, blending her violin with more expressly electronic elements. The BPM has identifiable violin passages, but it fully embraces the more technological elements o …Read the full story at The Verge.

We talk a lot about switching from Windows 11 to Linux for a variety of reasons, and like many of my colleagues, I'm also on board with that sentiment. But moving to a completely new operating system with new UI paradigms can be hard for a lot of people, so it's just as important to find ways to make your new operating system feel familiar.

The Game Awards 2025 was a very exciting night for Star Wars fans who love to play video games. There were two new and upcoming projects announced during the awards show that are set in a galaxy far, far away. While the first takes us back to the era of the Old Republic with Star Wars: Fate of the New Republic, the second game announcement brings back a beloved sport to the Star Wars galaxy. It's time for fans to prepare their podracers and speeders, because Star Wars: Galactic Racing is coming in 2026.

If you're running Home Assistant, there's a good chance that you've built a dashboard or considered one. I get it; dashboards are great. However, a dashboard isn't always the best way to take quick actions on your Home Assistant instance. Most of the time, you're far away from the dashboard, so you reach for your phone. And sometimes, if you're a bit lazy like me, you don't want to pop open your Home Assistant app either. You want to tap once, take action, and then go back to whatever you were doing.

There is an abundance of free encryption tools, but if you’re running Windows, BitLocker is the only tool most people need, especially for home use. Although its encryption function is only available on Windows Pro, Education, and Enterprise editions, the Windows Home edition can still access encrypted drives when given the proper authentication.