Sometimes, you want the convenience of a digital film without sacrificing all the benefits that come with owning the movie physically. Fortunately, you don't need to pick between one or the other; you can go for both at the same time. Someone has designed a smart Arduino-powered NFC scanner that lets you slot in a movie case as if it were a cartridge, and it'll play the movie with the press of a button.

A frustrating element of running a smart home is having to climb on ladders every 3 to 6 months to swap out CR2032 batteries or rip down your sensors to plug them in. Realistically, the reason behind this is that retail starter kits push cheap Wi-Fi sensors that wake up, spin up a full TCP/IP stack, perform a DHCP handshake, open a TLS session, and ping a cloud server every time a door opens (burning through a tiny battery in months).

You might've noticed that the AI giants have, at least somewhat, slowed down their habit of launching new models left and right over the last few months. That's relative, of course. New models are still arriving constantly, but compared to the breakneck pace we got used to, it feels like a lot more attention is being directed toward improving the actual experience around them.

Satechi makes some excellent peripherals with a specific focus on Apple's ecosystem, and the CubeDock is one of most powerful ones yet. It's designed to take advantage of Thunderbolt 5 while offering a varied supply of ports you just don't get with Apple's PCs, and it does that very well.

One of the trickiest arts when living in the UK is trying to predict whether it will rain or not. Precipitation chance percentages mean next to nothing, as predicted rain fails to appear and supposed dry days soak everyone looking for a nice day out. As such, someone made their own cloud tracker with a Raspberry Pi to give them at least an educated guess as to how the weather will be.

The FCC has announced it's waiving its rules limiting foreign equity ownership to 25 percent in the Paramount-Warner Bros. case and will allow three sovereign wealth funds run by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi to own 49.5 percent of the company. During Brendan Carr's tenure, the FCC has repeatedly threatened ABC, tried to block stations from airing interviews with Democrats, censored late-night TV hosts, and tried to bully journalists. However, it seems to have no qualms with repressive foreign governments owning a significant stake in a giant American media conglomerate. In its ruling, the FCC defended the decisio …Read the full story at The Verge.

Waymo Ojai fully autonomous ride-hailing vehicle travels along a city street, San Francisco, California, August 20, 2026. | Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Waymo says it will launch a robotaxi service in Singapore in 2028, as the Alphabet-owned company continues to eye overseas markets for expansion.Waymo's vehicles will begin arriving in Singapore in "the coming months," the company says, in preparation of mapping and autonomous testing with human safety drivers behind the wheel in 2027. Waymo says it is "working toward offering fully autonomous ride-hailing to the public" by 2028. Waymo will need approval from Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) before it can begin accepting passengers. The city-state requires all autonomous vehicles to undergo a safety assessment conducted at the …Read the full story at The Verge.

There are likely a lot of differences in how you, the reader, and I use AI tools. Your usage habits, the tasks you use AI tools for, your preferred models, and even how heavily you rely on them might all look completely different from mine (or anyone else's for that matter). There's one thing I'm willing to bet all AI users have in common, though. Everyone's tired of the brutal usage limits.

Anyone shopping for a Windows laptop with a $1K budget should head to Best Buy, where for the rest of the day you can get a great deal on a capable Lenovo laptop. The Yoga Slim 7X is a slim 14-inch machine with a 2K 16:10 OLED touchscreen, Snapdragon’s high-end X2 Elite processor with 12 cores, plus 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD. The specs are about the best you can get these days for $1,000, as worthwhile laptop deals are in short supply during RAMageddon.Lenovo Yoga Slim 7xWhere to Buy: $1649.99 $999.99 at Best BuyThe Yoga Slim 7X seems like a great alternative to spending more (and getting less) with Microsoft’s latest Surface Laptop. In fact, you’d spend $1,549 on a similar model and still get half the storage that’s in this particular Yoga Slim 7X configuration. Its Arm-based processor can run most Windows apps very well, and yields superior battery life compared to laptops with x86 processors.The laptop includes three USB-C ports, and a hardware switch for disabling the webcam. It supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3. It seems like a great machine for work, watching movies, or playing some games that aren’t too graphically intensive.More great Verge-approved dealsThe PlayStation 5 version of Starfield hasn’t been available for as long as the Xbox and PC version, so it’s been a little slower to see major discounts. However, it recently hit $29.99 (originally $49.99) at Amazon and Best Buy, making now a good time to pick up the RPG. While Starfield didn’t have nearly as large of a cultural impact as Bethesda’s other first-person RPGs, it’s still worth playing if you love space, guns, and quests. It’s probably the studio’s most polished game yet. Buyers will be able to download the Free Lanes update that hit alongside its PS5 debut in April, and there are multiple paid expansions available if you want more. Read our review.As mentioned in a previous deal roundup, DoorDash is offering DashPass members a $25 DoorDash digital gift card when they spend $50 or more on a game (non DashPass members get $10). Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave just came out, and that’s a great game to use this promotion for if you have a Switch 2 and enjoy turn-based tactics gameplay. The digital title costs $69.99. Those who have had success with this deal note on Slickdeals that the gift card should arrive within a few days of making your purchase. Read our review of the game.The Baseus VD1 Pro dash cam recently dropped in price by $20, selling for $99.99 at Amazon. There are so many dash cams out there, but this one’s unique in a few ways. It includes both a 4K front- and 1080p rear-facing camera to record multiple angles, and the front camera includes a battery that can be recharged via its built-in solar panel to keep it going even when your car is off. It captures continuous footage while your car is giving it power, though it can detect incidents for up to 14 days with its built-in battery while your car is parked. A long USB-C cable connects the two cameras, so you’ll need to get clever with how you hide it in your trim. Read more about the camera’s features here.

If you're someone who appreciates minimalism, you're probably not a huge fan of what Windows 11's lock screen looks like before you customize it. By default, it comes with a selection of widgets that not everyone may appreciate, which you need to manually turn off. Fortunately, it seems that Microsoft has gotten the memo, as it has seemingly reduced what appears on the lock screen to just the bare essentials.

On the morning of June 9th, Laura Lin was working from her home in Lanesville, a rural southern Indiana town about 15 miles from the Kentucky border. She was on a Zoom call, unaware that the heavy rain outside was beginning to flood her yard. "I look over to where the barn is over there, and I see pieces of my wood floating, and I was like, 'What?' And I immediately was like, 'I have to go.' Close my laptop, and I get my kids up, and I'm like, 'Something's wrong,'" Lin recalls.Lin and her family got out safely and sheltered at a neighbor's house, but Lanesville got over 8 inches of rain within just a few hours that day, way over the thre …Read the full story at The Verge.

FunnyPlaying, a Chinese company known for its Game Boy and GBA upgrade kits, has announced a new handheld that plays original Nintendo cartridges and ROMs. The FPGB Mini's cartridge support is limited to the Game Boy and Game Boy Color so it isn't as capable as the Analogue Pocket that's also compatible with the GBA and Sega Game Gear. What still makes the FPGB Mini a tempting alternative is its extremely pocketable design resulting in a handheld only slightly wider than a Game Boy cartridge, and its cheaper price.Following recent price hikes the Analogue Pocket is now $239.99 while the FPGB Mini is currently discounted from $89.99 to $69. …Read the full story at The Verge.