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.

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.

Gamers love chasing high refresh rate monitors for better motion clarity and smoother gameplay, especially in fast-paced titles. Of course, a 144Hz monitor will be better than a standard 60Hz panel, but that doesn't mean refresh rate is the only spec that matters for gaming. There's a reason we recommend some 144Hz monitors over others, and that usually comes down to response times. Despite identical refresh rates, two monitors can look very different during fast motion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here's a thought: what if the next-generation Siri is awesome? Not just awesome for setting timers and dictating text messages (though that would be nice), but so awesome and fun to talk to that people actually start falling in love with their iPhones. We may not be prepared for what happens next.On this episode of The Vergecast, Sexy Siri is just one of the topics at hand. Nilay and David are joined by Joanna Stern, senior tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal, to talk through their most mild, medium, and spicy predictions for the year to come. Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Pocket Casts | MoreThere are some re …Read the full story at The Verge.

By 2010, the iPhone era was in full swing. Smartphones were still a new and unfinished idea - the iPhone had only just gotten copy and paste! - but it was clear that these big slabs of glass were going to change the way we did pretty much everything.Apple was also already on an annual launch strategy, so we all knew there was another iPhone coming. Then an Apple employee left a prototype in a bar. Gizmodo bought it, took it apart, published all the sordid details, and pretty much broke the internet. And thus, the story of the iPhone 4 began well before the launch of the iPhone 4.And that's just the beginning of the drama! For this epis …Read the full story at The Verge.

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.

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.

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.