The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is approaching pretty fast. Many fans of the series are looking forward to diving into the new multiplayer content the game will bring online, as well as the new campaign that will present a new story with futuristic combat. But despite how much Black Ops 7 is set to make a massive splash in the gaming industry, it still will have a lot to live up to in the eyes of Call of Duty players. Just because it bears the Call of Duty name in the title, that doesn't mean fans of the series won't have their expectations for what Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 should deliver upon its release.

The definition of "high-refresh-rate displays" is a dynamic one. For many of you, anything below 240Hz might not qualify, while for others, a 144Hz display will still be a fast and smooth display. Whatever the case, one thing is common between these two camps: most people never max out their high-refresh-rate monitor. You might be playing at 80 FPS on your 144Hz monitor or enjoying 100–150 FPS on your 240 or 360Hz display, but the true potential of your fancy display remains untapped, except in esports and indie titles, or through the use of flawed tricks like frame generation.

Running local LLMs is all the rage these days in the self-hosting circles. And if you've been intrigued, or have dabbled in it, you'd have heard of Koboldcpp and LM Studio both. While I'd previously dabbled in LM Studio, I recently discovered Koboldcpp and decided to give it a whirl to see if there are any notable differences. Turns out, despite running the same LLM, the two apps use fundamentally different approaches that give their own unique strengths. Specifically, if you are someone who cares about narrative workflow, like storytelling or even role playing, Koboldcpp stands out in a few ways over LM Studio. Here's what I discovered.

There was a time I was a staunch Windows user, particularly when Windows XP was still the ruling Microsoft operating system. That was some time ago, and now I would rather buy a Mac and boot up macOS than install Windows on my primary system. That's simply because I don't get on with Windows 11 as it stands today and Microsoft as a company. I don't like being forced to log into a Microsoft account to install an OS. I don't like being bombarded with advertisements during boot up, and I sure don't like having most control taken away from me for various parts of the software. It's not a bad OS, mind you, it's just not for me anymore, and that's perfectly fine. I've been using Linux for years now and won't be returning anytime soon.

Single-board computers are an affordable and convenient means to kick off a DIY project. As popular Raspberry Pi models get, they work best as full-fledged computers apart from assisting with some DIY functionalities. For specific tasks, the ESP32 can prove to be a suitable tool.

PC hardware design has gone through quite an evolution in the last couple of decades. We departed the beige boxes of the 90s and early 2000s for powder-coated black chassis with single-colored lighting, plexiglass panels, and finally to tempered glass side panels and internals lit up brighter than the monitor you game on. Personal expression is great, but in my opinion, there are 5 hardware aesthetics that are beginning to be overdone, and for one reason or another, deserve to be left behind.

The Neo 2 adds obstacle avoidance but still features prop guards as a backup. | Image: DJI After launching exclusively in China last month, DJI is announcing wider global availability for its Neo 2 selfie drone, including Japan, Canada, the UK, and other countries where the company sells its drones. But as with the Mavic 4 Pro and 8K Osmo 360 camera, the Neo 2 won’t be available in the US. “DJI remains committed to the US market and serving our US-based customers. Like many global companies, we’ve had to adjust our market strategies as the local conditions and industry environment have evolved,” DJI spokesperson Daisy Kong told The Verge in an emailed statement.The Neo 2’s upgrades include a lidar-based obstacle avoidance system to detect and avoid crash hazards, an improved following speed of nearly 27mph, better wind resistance, and a new gesture control system allowing the drone’s distance and position to be adjusted without a remote. For pilots who prefer a controller, the Neo 2 has an optional antenna that can be installed, but it’s not needed for autonomous flying. Without the DJI Neo 2 Digital Transceiver attached, the drone weighs 151 grams and can fly for up to 19 minutes.Chinese pricing for the Neo 2 started at 1,499 Chinese yuan, or around $211. DJI does not yet have US pricing for the drone since it’s not planning on selling it here through the company’s official website. Canadian pricing is listed in US dollars at $229 without tax, but the company says “this shouldn’t be considered a proxy for an official US price.” In Europe it will start at €239, or £209 in the UK with taxes included, while Japanese pricing starts at ¥38,390, or around $248.Some US stores may sell the Neo 2, as was the case with the DJI Mavic 4 Pro, but DJI’s spokesperson wouldn’t confirm if the company would honor its warranty if the drone were purchased from an authorized US retailer. For warranty claims, the company instead recommends “customers contact DJI Support to determine if their case qualifies for repair.”

If you do any type of creative work, you’ve probably had at least one Adobe subscription, or thought about getting one. I used to shuffle through pretty much every Adobe plan – All Apps, Photography, and the individual apps. Most people end up in this predicament because we usually need at least one app for images, another for videos, and so on. I ended up canceling all my subscriptions this year because of this subscription fatigue.

It feels like Wi-Fi 7 connectivity is only starting to get a foothold in the devices we use daily. You might not have noticed either, as the majority of devices available use fewer antennas, limiting their maximum throughput. But the next major version, Wi-Fi 8(IEEE 802.11bn), has been in development since 2021, and it's not far from appearing in consumer devices.

People love to hop online for matches of Call of Duty multiplayer, especially when the servers are filled with players to squad up with. With Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 coming out, the online servers are going to be bustling with people that are ready to drop in and start racking up killstreaks. But not every match of Call of Duty multiplayer can end up being a fun time, regardless of what platform you're on. There are moments that can be a real dampener on the excitement of playing online with others, especially when they're the result of something out of our control. As action-packed as Call of Duty multiplayer can be, it can also lead to endless amounts of frustration for even the most patient of gamers.

Security and privacy are increasingly large concerns for a lot of people, and data breaches and leaks have weakened consumer trust in a lot of companies. That, combined with rising costs, have made a lot of cloud services unappealing to people, and for some of us, that may include a password manager. There are plenty of subscription-based (and some free) password managers that offer to keep your passwords safe and make them available to you on all your devices, but that investment can sometimes feel like a little much.

My home lab has a problem, and it's me. If I create documentation of the experiments I've been doing, it invariably ends up as a Notepad file in the Dropbox folder I use for home lab things. While at least it's saved, it's not very searchable for future use. Other files are saved to GitHub, some are backed up from the folders I use for Docker, and it's all a glorious mess.