I have seen enough success with local agents to take them seriously. They work especially well for coding because they can inspect a project, edit files, run tests, and correct their own mistakes. That experience convinced me that one local agent could handle more of the routine work happening across my laptop.

When I started using a NAS, I spent the first couple of years in a false sense of security, believing that redundant drives meant my data was safe. The problem is that RAID (or RAIDZ, if you're running ZFS like I am) protects you from a drive failure, and that's about it. It doesn't help if you overwrite the wrong file or delete something you meant to keep. The redundancy just means that your mistake is synchronized across all the hard drives in the pool.

In May 2026, Flathub maintainer Bart Piotrowski announced that the platform would no longer accept apps that used AI-generated code. People speculated that it might do more harm than good, but as one person has discovered, vibe-coded apps tend to be abandoned or deleted far more often than human-made ones.

You can clip the versatile cooling gadget, wear it, and use it as a desk fan. | Image: Shark Portable fans are one of the easiest ways to stay cool during the summer, and you don’t have to spend much to find a decent one. If you’re looking for something more versatile, though, Shark’s ChillPill Personal Fan and Cooling System combines a rechargeable fan with a dry-touch evaporative mister in a design that can be worn, clipped, or used on a tabletop. Right now, it’s on sale for $99.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, matching its all-time low. If you’re a Costco member, you can get it for the same price with a free clip, crossbody strap, and InstaChill Cooling Plate which you can press against your neck or wrists for quick relief.Shark ChillPill Personal Fan and Cooling SystemWhere to Buy: $129.99 $99.99 at Amazon $129.99 $99.99 at CostcoUnlike a standard handheld fan, the two-in-one device is designed so that you can wear it or twist it into tabletop mode, making it useful whether you’re commuting, waiting in line at a theme park, working out, or just trying to stay cool at your desk. You can even clip it to a purse or stroller, so it’s always within easy reach while you’re on the go. It also offers 10 fan speeds and matching noise levels, allowing you to choose anything from a quiet breeze for indoor use to stronger cooling outdoors.When a fan alone isn’t enough, you can switch on the dry-touch evaporative mist, which cools your skin without leaving your clothes soaked. You can also choose between continuous and interval misting depending on how long you want the water to last. Plus, Shark says the ChillPill can run for up to 11 hours on its lowest setting, which should be enough to get through a full day at a festival or while traveling. When it’s time to recharge, the device uses USB-C, so you can likely use the same cable you’re already carrying for your phone, tablet, or laptop.

There's nothing more frustrating in this hardware economy than investing in expensive components, only to find out they aren't delivering the full value for your money. And yet, thousands of builders are living exactly this scenario without knowing it by running flagship NVMe drives only at a fraction of their rated speed. That's a problem because the speed of your storage is a key determiner of your PC's user experience.

I've been running local LLMs for a while now. Tools like Ollama make it trivial to pull a model and start chatting right away, and some of the better models like Qwen2.5-Coder have closed the gap with cloud models for everyday tasks. The main reason I kept my ChatGPT Plus subscription alive was for the convenience of accessing AI when I'm away from my desk. I had the app on my phone and used the website whenever I was on my laptop away from home.

There's been a surge in retro game recompilations in recent years. These projects take the original files of classic console games and compile them to run natively on your PC, with all the performance and quality-of-life improvements available on that platform.

When I first picked up the Asus ROG Ally X, I thought it was an amazing piece of kit. It had a massive 80Wh battery, 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and a great chassis. On paper, it had every single physical ingredient required to be a Steam Deck Killer. However upon switching it on, I was met with immediate abrasive software friction that makes it feel so far removed from the perfect gaming handheld.

Times are tough if you're trying to build a new PC, but this motherboard delivers the perfect combination when it comes to specifications and price. The $80 price tag makes it an easy one to pick up, and since it's an AM4 motherboard, the other components needed will be a lot more affordable too.

Agriculture - Harvested Iceberg lettuce / Santa Maria, California, USA. (Photo by: Tony Hertz /Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Food producer Taylor Farms released a statement on the Cyclospora outbreak Friday, confirming that it's "voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the US market." Reuters reports that, according to a source, Taylor Farms told customers like Yum Brands owner Taco Bell and the food distributor Sysco on Thursday to pull shredded lettuce that had been produced initially as 5-pound bags at a facility in Guanajuato, Mexico, from distribution.Taco Bell said on Thursday that "The affected ingredient from our supplier is being indefinitely removed from our supply chain nationwide and will be replaced within 24 hours …Read the full story at The Verge.

There are many tips and tricks people use to improve workflow efficiency and increase productivity. From using power user apps to automating workflows with PowerToys on Windows, there are plenty of ways to increase productivity. The newer trend that I have avoided for years is AI tools like Claude or Perplexity.

TikTok is starting to test an opt-in tool that scans for AI likenesses and lets creators report them to the company, as spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra. The tool is initially being tested with "some" US creators, TikTok US spokesperson Zachary Kizer tells The Verge. YouTube has been working on a similar tool and recently made it available to all adult users.Creators who are part of TikTok's test and want to use the tool will first have to verify their identity with a company called Jumio. You'll have to do a real-time selfie scan and an ID check, but Kizer says that "TikTok does not retain ID documents, and facial informati …Read the full story at The Verge.