Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the Steam Machine, and what its actual value proposition is to gamers like myself. Underneath Valve's neat little cubic form-factor, its GPU delivers performance close to a discrete RTX 3060, but that's a GPU tier that has been available in the market since 2021.

Apple CarPlay has always impressed me with its clean interface, slick animations, and seamless integration with iPhone. After spending considerable time with CarPlay, I thought Apple had figured out the better in-car experience.

Instagram is continuing its expansion into living rooms with Instagram for TV, for Apple TV. The company first started testing a version of the platform focused on Reels, live streams, and other video content, blown up for a bigger screen in December of last year. Then, in June, it launched a slew of new features for the app, which is available for Amazon's Fire TV, Samsung Smart TVs, and Google TV. Now Meta is bringing the app to Apple TV, though there's been little fanfare. MacRumors spotted an updated Instagram app in the App Store that added Apple TV to its list of compatible platforms on October 23rd. Archived versions of the app page …Read the full story at The Verge.

I never expected to build my own Chrome extensions. Like most people, I preferred finding a ready-made tool that solved a problem without requiring much effort. But when a few extensions I relied on ended up in the hands of new owners and turned malicious, I started questioning how much I could trust the tools in my browser. Instead of jumping from one extension to another, I decided to try something different. With Claude Code and a few detailed prompts, I built replacements tailored to my needs. The process was much easier than I expected.

Running a local LLM and a game on the same PC usually means one of them will have a bad time. A typical gaming GPU with 16GB of VRAM might have enough memory for a decent model or a game, but running both at the same time? That's a pretty tall order, and it'll likely cause data to spill over into your slower system RAM.

Strix Halo has spent nearly two years answering a question Nvidia wasn't: how do you run big local AI models on a Windows laptop without a desktop GPU? AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395 pairs a strong integrated GPU with up to 128GB of unified memory, enough for a Strix Halo mini PC to generate things locally, and the Asus ROG Flow Z13 has been my portable local AI machine. Then Nvidia launched RTX Spark, with plenty of Blackwell GPU cores and a surprise; Windows on Arm for the OS.

The mods at r/opensource posted new submission rules that, among other things, banned projects that use AI. The post made Saturday evening opens by saying, "If your project uses AI, is made by AI, or is intended for AI, it's not welcome on r/opensource. AI, as it exists today, is incongruent to this Open Source community."The new rules have set off a firestorm in the comments, and even spurred the creation of a rival sub r/trueopensource. Moderator Wolvereness has waded into the comments to explain that there's nuance and room for selective enforcement, such as "software that incidentally has accessibility features that use AI," including …Read the full story at The Verge.

Launcher-like pinned tabs, pop-over glance view, and more make Zen my go to browser. | Image: Zen Browser I know many of you are mourning the loss of the Arc browser, and I get it. It felt like the first app in a long time to really offer a new approach to browser design. Atlassian bought the company last year and shifted its focus to developing Dia, its even more AI-focused browser. And soon enough, Arc will officially be no more, leaving dedicated users in a lurch. But I abandoned Arc quite some time ago for the Zen Browser and haven't really missed it. If you're willing to deal with some minor inconveniences, I think you'll find Zen is the Arc replacement you're looking for.Zen unabashedly rips off all the best bits of Arc. Visually, they'r …Read the full story at The Verge.

The stick and face buttons are too close for comfort. | Photo: Cameron Faulkner / The Verge The Crkd Nitro Deck was a saving grace for the original Nintendo Switch. The slide-on $59.99 accessory brought Hall effect sticks to drift-plagued consoles - no need to open up your Joy-Con for a complicated repair. The Nitro Deck 2, made for both the original Switch and the larger Switch 2, continues the tradition of having better sticks than what Nintendo puts in even the newest Joy-Con (though these aren't Hall effect or TMR). But it doesn't feel as essential, and there's one thing I really can't stand about it.It's too difficult to use the Nitro Deck 2's ABXY face buttons without the right stick getting in the way. The stick-to-button …Read the full story at The Verge.

Most cars have a fairly limited number of USB ports. One is a given, two is generous, and if you need more than that, you're usually out of luck. Unfortunately, I fall into the camp that can never have enough USB ports, thanks to the number of devices I usually need to charge my car.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more about AI's impact on the web, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.How it startedThe digital publishing industry has relied on Google for a very long time. Many outlets spent time and money optimizing their webpages to show up at the top of the search engine, with the goal of getting readers to click on their articles or discover their websites for the first time. For years, the relationship between Google and publishers was largely reciprocal; online pub …Read the full story at The Verge.

When you’re tinkering with ESP32 microcontrollers, choosing the right setup can make the difference between a smooth-sailing project and a barely-functional experiment. And I’m not just talking about the circuitry components, sensor modules, or other accessories, either. The very ESP32 board that you’re using for your DIY project can influence the scope of your project, and although many microcontrollers from this family have plenty of hardware similarities, their specs can differ quite a bit.