One of the cool things about (some) Fire TV sticks is that they are cheap, include essential apps, and let you sideload through the Android-based OS.

If you ask the Linux community which FOSS operating system someone should use as a Windows alternative, they'd usually point to Linux Mint, and for good reason. One of our editors, João Carrasqueira, named it "still the safest bet for people who want Linux without surprises" in his Linux Mint review, and it was also my first taste of using an operating system not made by Microsoft.

When I started with automations in Home Assistant, I built a few that worked, and I had no idea why they kept working after every update. I promised never to touch them as long as they didn’t break. They were stitched together, taking inspiration from forum posts and a little guesswork around the sensor states. They were built out of trial and error, and I left them alone. I was worried the magic that made them work might stop.

Anker’s Nano Travel Adapter can power up to five devices at once. | Image: Anker If you’ve got international travel coming up, an adapter is essential for keeping your phone, earbuds, power banks, and other gadgets charged. Anker’s Nano Travel Adapter is one of our picks from our guide to the best gadgets for summer travel because it can charge up to five devices at once, yet it’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It’s also available in black for just $19.99 ($6 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Anker (with code WS7DV2BNB82J) matching its best price to date.Anker Nano Travel Adapter (5-in-1, 20W)Where to Buy: $25.99 $19.99 at Amazon (black) $25.99 $19.99 at Anker (with code WS7DV2V9Q3TQ)The Nano’s four built-in sets of prongs should keep you covered in “over 200 countries and regions,” according to Anker. It also features two USB-C ports and two USB-A ports, along with an AC outlet for plugging in a standard wall charger. A single USB-C port delivers up to 20W, which should be enough to get an iPhone 17 to 50 percent in less than 30 minutes. That’s not enough power to charge most laptops, making the USB ports better suited for smaller gadgets like phones, tablets, earbuds, and power banks. You can still charge your laptop, however, by plugging its wall charger into the AC outlet.What’s more, it’s designed to take up as little space as possible. The adapter’s only an inch thick with its prongs folded in and, at 3.8 ounces, weighs less than a smartphone. Just keep in mind that the Nano doesn’t convert voltage, so you’ll want to make sure gadgets like hair dryers and electric razors support the voltage at your destination before plugging them in. 

Recently, a man I was rock climbing with told me about how he'd used AI to make a motivational poster for himself, which he'd hung on his bedroom wall: a bear, walking a slackline over a canyon, holding a sign that said, "Do cool shit." I made what I hoped was a polite noise. What reaction was this man looking for? He probably hoped someone, maybe me, would say it was cool or inspiring. It seemed I was not the first person he'd told about this poster. "You know, it's funny," he said to me. "No one ever says anything about it." I have been thinking about this now for several days. There's a sort of turducken of things that I find off-puttin …Read the full story at The Verge.

Note apps are in a category that have a weird way of stacking up. You start with one for documents in the Google ecosystem, then you need another one you can share with a team, and another one for journaling, and the list keeps going. Soon enough, you end up with a massive pile of apps, and if you paid their subscriptions, a big monthly bill.

Ever since my first experience with Arch Linux last year, my preference when it comes to Linux desktops has been KDE. It has enough familiarity with Windows, but a ton of useful features built on top it that make it all the more useful.

I find it fascinating that we can spin up an entire AI model on something as meager as a laptop. I can have a coding model running on the same device I use for Google Chrome. Frontier models generally require massive data centers packed with accelerators, so the fact that a smaller version of the same technology can run locally and not completely suck is genuinely impressive.

This Ugreen Nexode GaN USB charging station aims to alleviate any charging issues you might have. It features 200W of total power and features eight USB ports in total. With this kind of hardware, it usually comes at high prices, but the $100 Ugreen Nexode GaN USB charging station is seeing a steep discount right now from Amazon that knocks 30% off, dropping it to $70.

I’ve been running coding agents on my main PC and other boxes for months. I've used Claude to orchestrate Codex agents, watched one clean up my messy Windows 11 install without issues, and spent a week working out how far to trust a local LLM with my code.

The Ugreen PoE+ switch is one of the most important upgrades you can make to your network this year. Not only does it provide additional LAN ports to add more hard-wired networked devices, but it can also provide Power over Ethernet (PoE), which can really revolutionize your network. This Ugreen PoE+ switch normally retails for $50, but can now be had for much less thanks to a 24% discount from Amazon, dropping the price to just $38.

Despite being a solid console by itself, people just can't resist making their own DIY Steam Decks. It usually involves taking the hardware and rearranging it to fit into a new form factor. However, none are as inventive or as cool as this project that packs all of the Steam Deck's hardware into a Game Boy form factor, and now I'm really jealous.