Although a PoE home network can be convenient, it's not always the cheapest way to go. The good news is that since we're in the holiday shopping season, we're now seeing heavy discounts on PoE hardware, making it easier to get started. Some of the more popular options to go with relate to home security. And if you've been thinking about grabbing something to monitor your home, we think this PoE video doorbell by Reolink is going to be a fantastic option. Not only is it sleek and durable, but it's also feature-packed as well. Plus, it's on sale right now, coming in at just $77.

Monitor specs can often be very misleading, regardless of the panel type you're looking at. It's easy to assume that a monitor with impressive numbers on the box will automatically deliver a great experience, but that's not really the case most of the time. A lot of these specs only reflect ideal conditions that you rarely ever encounter once you start gaming, working, or web browsing. Manufacturers highlight the most flattering numbers possible because they know most buyers won't dig deeper to understand what those numbers truly represent.

I had a very similar reaction to everyone else when Valve announced their new hardware this month: cautious excitement. The Steam Controller and Frame are super cool pieces of tech in their own right, but the real star of the show, for me, was the Steam Machine. Valve have tried to make a Steam-forward living room PC in the past, but it was essentially just a small ITX PC with off-the-shelf components with branding from different system integrators. This iteration of the Steam Machine is fully Valve's, and while their attempts at producing their own hardware have only become better with each passing release, I'm still wary of buying Steam Machine, and there are 4 main reasons for that.

I’ve been using Perplexity a lot lately. For one, I’ve swapped out ChatGPT for Perplexity for studying and research, which was a smart move given how much better it is. But Perplexity is not just a search engine; it can act almost like a brain extension…if you set it up and prompt it correctly.

In August, Apple Music launched a tool for importing playlists from other streaming services. The bruhahah over Daniel Ek’s war profiteering was in full swing, and artists were starting to flee. The two things may have been unrelated, but the timing was certainly fortuitous. Now Spotify is launching its own playlist transfer tool, in hopes of winning over some defectors from other platforms.The feature isn’t something brand-new, built from the ground up. Instead, it’s a direct integration with TuneMyMusic, which lets you shuttle playlists between services like Tidal, YouTube Music, Qobuz, Beatport, and even Napster. Of course, TuneMyMusic is just one of several services that offer the same ability, including Soundiiz and SongShift, which powers Apple Music’s import feature.While you could go straight to these third parties to move playlists between services, often, there are limits on how many playlists and how long they can be at the free tier. Going directly through Spotify and Apple gets you the full premium, unlimited transfer experience, albeit in one direction only. The ability to transfer your playlists from directly within the Spotify mobile app is rolling out now globally.

The more than 20,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein emails released earlier this month by the House Oversight Committee have been enough to prompt more investigations into the convicted child sex offender and the people around him, like former Harvard president and OpenAI board member Larry Summers. Now, Luke Igel and Riley Walz have reformatted the source documents into a more familiar format for anyone looking into them by copying the Gmail inbox on a website called “Jmail.”Walz, who has previously authored stunts like a website that unearths long-forgotten iPhone clips on YouTube and a fake Manhattan steakhouse, said they used Google’s Gemini AI to do optical character recognition on the source documents, making them more readable and searchable than the originals. You can type in a word like “Trump” or “SEO” and see exactly what discussions were happening in the emails released so far, and a one-click shortcut that goes from the Jmail site to copies of the source documents on the government’s website, so you can verify the text yourself.Fun project to do with Riley the other night! https://t.co/XZ5qqytw4w— Luke Igel (@lukeigel) November 21, 2025In the weeks since these files were released, the president has signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which says the Attorney General must “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice” within 30 days. That doesn’t mean all of the remaining files will be released, as CNN points out. The law’s language allows information that might “jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution” could be temporarily exempt, but whatever is released could end up sorted into this more easily-scanned version pretty quickly.

Microsoft has really helped get the Snapdragon X Elite into the public eye. Acting as the beating heart in the company's big Copilot+ push, we're seeing a ton of devices enter the market running a Snapdragon chip under the hood. In response, we're seeing third-party developers announcing native Arm versions of their apps to take advantage of the architecture.

I've spent the better part of a decade optimizing my productivity systems. I've tested Notion databases with so many different views to count and customized Obsidian for a client until it looked like a spaceship control panel. And somewhere in all that optimization, I realized I'd built myself a prison made of features. The revelation came on a Tuesday afternoon when I spent twenty minutes trying to remember which custom property in Notion I'd used to track project urgency. Was it "Priority" or "Importance"? Did I use numbers or emojis?

What's a Pi-hole setup without some kind of cool display, showing off all the essential stats in an easy-to-read way? After all, you want to see things getting blocked in real time, right? Not just to make sure everything is working correctly, but so you can sit back and smirk as you watch all the requests you've blocked go splat against your digital wall.

Google is pushing back on viral social media posts and articles like this one by Malwarebytes, claiming Google has changed its policy to use your Gmail messages and attachments to train AI models, and the only way to opt out is by disabling “smart features” like spell checking.But Google spokesperson Jenny Thomson tells The Verge that “these reports are misleading – we have not changed anyone’s settings, Gmail Smart Features have existed for many years, and we do not use your Gmail content for training our Gemini AI model.”You may want to double-check your settings anyway, as one Verge staffer also says they had opted out of some of the Smart Features, but had been opted back in to having them on. In January, Google updated its smart feature personalization settings so that you could turn off the features for Google Workspace and for other Google products (like Maps and Wallet) independently of each other. In addition to things like spell checking, having Gmail’s smart features turned on enables features like tracking orders or easily adding flights from Gmail to your calendar. Enabling the feature in Workspace says that “you agree to let Google Workspace use your Workspace content and activity to personalize your experience across Workspace,” according to the settings page, but according to Google, that does not mean handing over the content of your emails to use for AI training.

Every motherboard manufacturer has jumped on the AI bandwagon. Asus has "AI Overclocking," MSI markets "AI Boost" to overclock the NPU and also has "AI Tweaker," and Gigabyte pushes various AI-branded tuning utilities. They all seemingly promise the same thing: performance gains enabled through machine learning that analyzes your specific CPU, predicts overclocking potential, and dynamically tunes settings based on your workload.

Black Friday isn’t here quite yet, but that hasn’t stopped Sony from kicking off an excellent holiday promo, which runs through December 18th. The ongoing sale spans everything from PlayStation 5 consoles to Sony’s latest accessories — including Sony’s standard DualSense Wireless Controller, which is now matching its all-time low of $54.99 ($20 off) in multiple colors at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.Although the aforementioned deal price applies to Sony’s base models — including the go-to black and white variants — you can also pick up limited edition models inspired by Astro Bot (Walmart / Best Buy), God of War (Amazon / Walmart), and Ghost of Yōtei (Walmart / Best Buy) for around $64 (also $20 off). The controllers start at a higher price than the vanilla models, but recognize that you’re still getting them for $10 less than a regular DualSense normally costs.Sony DualSense Wireless ControllerWhere to Buy: $74.99 $54.99 at Amazon $74.99 $54.99 at Best Buy $74.99 $54.99 at TargetAstro Bot “Joyful” DualSense Wireless ControllerWhere to Buy: $84.99 $64.99 at PlayStation $84.88 $64 at Walmart $84.99 $64.99 at Best BuyThe DualSense will look familiar to longtime PlayStation fans, but it has significant technical features that set it apart from Sony’s earlier DualShock gamepads. A good example is the wireless controller’s haptic vibrations, which can make gameplay feel more immersive. Feeling a slight rumble on alternating sides of the controller as a character walks through sand is an example of what’s possible. The triggers have variable tension, too, which, in some games, requires you to push down with more force during certain sequences. It’s a terrific feature, and something we wish more developers would adopt.As for table-stakes features, the DualSense features some nice textured grips and a built-in microphone, which lets you chat with other players online without a headset. You also have the option to plug a wired headset (or headphones) into the controller’s 3.5mm audio jack. It charges via USB-C — no surprise there — and can last up to eight hours or so, which should be enough to get you through most gaming sessions. It isn’t compatible with other consoles, but you can use it with a Mac or PC via Bluetooth or by plugging in with a USB-C cable.Read our full DualSense Wireless Controller review.