Another year has almost passed us by, and it's time to round up the worst PC hardware launches, trends, and realities that we witnessed in the last 12 months. The year was relatively thin in terms of new products since neither Intel nor AMD released any new desktop CPU lineups. Still, we had enough drama and mayhem to last us well into the next year (and maybe even beyond that). From motherboards killing CPUs and GPUs missing crucial internals to disappointing products and worrying trends, the year had it all. While we wait for the next year to bring new products (and problems), let's nurse old wounds as we look back at the year that was.

A Falcon 9 launched 29 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit on December 1st, 2025. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX says it has lost control of a Starlink satellite that's now falling back to Earth after suffering an anomaly. The sudden loss of communications, drop in altitude, "venting of the propulsion tank," and "release of a small number of trackable low relative velocity objects," suggests the anomaly was some kind of explosion. SpaceX says it poses no threat to the crew of the ISS and will burn up in the atmosphere "within weeks."This mishap comes a week after SpaceX reported a near miss with a Chinese satellite. On December 17, Starlink experienced an anomaly on satellite 35956, resulting in loss of communications with the vehicle at 41 …Read the full story at The Verge.

Most of us in the Northern Hemisphere spend the holidays indoors, but you can only watch so many TikToks about cute cats and cooking hacks before the need for something a little more substantive kicks in. Choosing the right game or movie to gift is tough, though, especially if you don't have an exact read on what your friends and family like. And if you choose poorly, remember that you might also be on the hook to play or watch it with them.That's why, this year, we made it our mission to find gifts that appeal to people with diverse interests across a wide price range. If you know a Wes Anderson devotee, Criterion's lavish box set is a gr …Read the full story at The Verge.

Ever since I've started using Linux, I've wished to be able to switch to it full-time, at least on my Windows PCs. However, there have always been some barriers in my mind — after all, not every Windows app is available for Linux. And one of the last holdouts for a while was image editing, because there really isn't a good competitor to Photoshop out there, and certainly not a free one.

BMX’s SolidSafe 5K in that Apple orange color. | Image: BMX A new company called BMX, founded by accessory royalty, has emerged from Kickstarter to make its SolidSafe semi-solid state power banks available to the general public. Like the Kuxiu semi-solid state power banks I've recently reviewed, BMX's promise to have twice the longevity and be safer than traditional power banks, which have been the subject of recall after recall in 2025, attracting the attention of the FAA and airlines.BMX, which stands for Better Mobile Xperience, is lead by Daniel Chin, the man who founded Sanho, the company behind those Hyper-branded batteries and accessories long adored by Apple users. Targus bought Sanho in …Read the full story at The Verge.

It's easy to forget about your router if everything is working fine. But upgrading occasionally can be a good idea, especially if you're looking to get added benefits like better speed and range. While there are new technologies always on the horizon, we think that going with a Wi-Fi 6E router is going to be a good middle ground.

There's something about retro projects and Raspberry Pis that just go hand-in-hand with one another. One of the more prevalent use-cases I've seen involves turning the SBC into a retro gaming console, as it's small enough to fit in a tiny case yet powerful enough to emulate the classics.

A few days ago, Mozilla appointed a brand-new CEO, Anthony Enzor-DeMeo. As part of his big introduction, Anthony made it clear that he was very interested in exploring AI solutions for Firefox, but also made sure to mention how he understands that not everyone is keen to use LLMs in their browser, and will thus keep the process as transparent and customizable as need be.

Self-hosting has always been a big part of how I manage my digital life. I try new self-hosted tools, swap out services, and fine-tune my setup to keep everything fast, private, and under my control. For the longest time, StirlingPDF felt irreplaceable in my productivity stack, one of those rare tools that just stayed. But then I stumbled upon BentoPDF, and everything changed. What started as a quick test turned into a complete shift in how I handle PDFs every day. The more I used it, the more I realized: this wasn’t just an alternative; it was an upgrade for my workflow.

Thermal paste has an interesting reputation in the PC hardware space. Its application method is something that was incredibly divisive in the 2010s, but more recently, it's becoming more of an afterthought. It’s treated as both a consumable and a performance upgrade, something that supposedly dries out, degrades quickly, and quietly sabotages your CPU temperatures if you don’t stay on top of it.

With RAM and storage prices going through the roof, prebuilt devices are becoming more and more attractive, especially if you're looking to start a new project at an affordable price. That's where mini PCs are pretty much the best way to go right now, providing plenty of power and versatility, along with a price that's hard to ignore.

TAE Technologies’ fusion research reactor ‘Norm.’ | Photo: TAE Technologies Trump Media - yup, the parent company of Truth Social - is the latest entrant in the near century-long race to develop a nuclear fusion power plant. It announced a merger agreement with fusion company TAE Technologies on Thursday and a bold plan to break ground on the first utility-scale fusion plant some time in 2026.TAE doesn't plan to start generating power from its first plant until 2031, which is still an incredibly ambitious timeline. There will likely be a myriad of financial and regulatory issues to contend with along the way, of course. But the scientific and engineering challenges to overcome, which we'll dive into here, are also …Read the full story at The Verge.