Cloudflare was already handling my DNS, DoH, and tunnels. Tailscale handled the rest: CGNAT, remote homelab access, and phone-PC connectivity, and I had no major complaints. Then I asked myself, if Cloudflare was already handling most of the stack, did I still need another company handling remote connectivity?

The contextual suggestions feature has started appearing on some Pixel 10 series devices. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Google is rolling out a new AI-powered "contextual suggestions" feature to Android users that recommends actions based on your daily habits, Android Authority reports. The feature is designed to predict your next action based on your location and habits - such as allowing music streaming apps to suggest your usual playlist when you arrive at the gym for your regular workout.Contextual suggestions were previously available in the Play Services beta, but now Google seems to have expanded it to the stable channel. While Google hasn't announced that the feature has officially launched, some reporters at Android Authority and 9to5Google are see …Read the full story at The Verge.

ChatGPT has a few paid tiers that offer better response times, an expanded daily limit, and the latest language models. I used ChatGPT Plus for nearly six months while working on a social media content project that required extensive use of the AI tool. It was a simple workflow that involved fact checks, content ideas, and image generation. The free option was slow to respond, and the image generation times were abysmal, which prompted the team lead to allocate ChatGPT Plus subscription budgets.

PCIe 5.0 or Gen5 SSDs have been on the market for a few years now, even dropping to relatively affordable levels before the DRAM crisis upended everything. The adoption, however, has been rather tepid. For one, countless PC users are still using PCIe 4.0 systems, and building a new PC with PCIe 5.0 support is anything but affordable right now. Even before PC hardware prices skyrocketed, there was little incentive for a complete platform overhaul. Secondly, the much-hyped transfer speeds of Gen5 SSDs don't translate to any real-world benefits for the majority of gamers. Gen4 SSDs are still more than enough for gaming. PCIe 5.0 storage does, however, benefit heavy file transfer and productivity workloads, more than justifying the investment in these cases. Before you shell out a premium for an expensive Gen5 drive with 15,000 MB/s speeds, decide whether it will even benefit your use case.

Microsoft is on a mission to fix Windows 11, and part of that involves improving the often-frustrating Windows Update experience. While you'll soon be able to pause updates indefinitely, Microsoft is also adding a new feature that automatically rolls back problematic drivers that have been installed through Windows Update.Microsoft has created a new "Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery" feature that can replace a faulty driver installed on a PC with a previously working driver through Windows Update. Right now, Windows 11 users have to manually roll back a driver or hardware vendors have to publish a new one to work around any problems, but th …Read the full story at The Verge.

The late '90s were an exciting time for tech enthusiasts, with new and experimental gadgets appearing constantly. Looking back now, it's easy to remember early portable storage media like floppy disks, CDs, and flash drives. But that's because those are the devices that won the war, at least for a little while. A plethora of other storage technologies helped mold the industry into what it is today, but many of them were so short-lived that their impact is easy to overlook.

For the last week, I've spent every evening unwinding by speeding through the Japanese countryside, blaring Babymetal as I take in the sights. Forza Horizon 6 is ostensibly a racing game, one in which you play an up-and-coming driver intent on making a name for themselves. But, like the rest of the series, it's also an open world, one in which you can spend as much - or, in my case, substantially more - time exploring as you do racing. And it's that element that's substantially improved in Horizon 6. It's a combination of structure and setting: The fictional take on Japan isn't just the largest map in a Horizon game, but it's also incredibly …Read the full story at The Verge.

I spent a long time building the gaming PC I wanted, iterating over the last decade and finally landing on a PC that the younger me could have only dreamed of. I've got an Nvidia RTX 5090 and an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and it handles every game that I throw at it without breaking a sweat. On top of that, I do a lot of local heavy computational workloads, like machine learning, data analysis, and development.

There’s certainly some retro appeal to Insta360’s new action camera accessory. The pill-shaped Insta360 Go 3S 4K action camera launched in June 2024 as an updated version of the 2.7K Go 3 that debuted a year prior. While last year’s Go Ultra introduced a redesign with a larger sensor and higher frame rates, the Go 3S has stuck around as a smaller but still very capable alternative. To broaden its appeal, the action cam is now available with a new optical viewfinder accessory for framing shots when using it as a handheld camera, but you may be better off splurging on Insta360’s more expensive dock that adds an LCD screen.The Retro Viewfinder accessory is available today through Insta360’s online store on its own for $47.99, or as part of a new Go 3S Retro Bundle starting at $299.99 that includes the 64GB version of the action cam. That’s cheaper than the $349.99 Standard Bundle that pairs the same version of the Go 3S with Insta360’s Action Pod dock.Insta360 GO 3S Retro BundleWhere to Buy: $299.99 at Insta360 (64GB) $319.99 at Insta360 (128GB)As with most tiny action cameras, the Insta360 Go 3S lacks a screen of its own. You can connect it to a smartphone app to see live previews and adjust camera settings, but the Go 3S is designed to be mounted where you wouldn’t be able to see a screen (like atop a helmet) where it captures nearly all the action in front of you using a wide-angle lens.The new Retro Viewfinder is an attempt to repurpose the action cam as a handheld shooter that lets you frame subjects like a classic camera. It works similar to the Insta360’s Action Pod where the Go 3S slots into the front of the accessory. There’s no spring-loaded latches to keep it securely attached, but a strong magnet kept the camera in place during a vigorous shake test.Instead of holding the accessory up to your eye to frame shots, you hold it at chest level and look down into the viewfinder. The front panel of the Go 3S functions as your shutter button, snapping photos with a single press and starting and stopping video recording with a double press. It was designed this way to create a “vintage shooting experience inspired by classic film cameras,” according to Insta360.  And while framing and snapping photos this way does have some novelty (at one point I felt a little like Ansel Adams as I framed a row of community mailboxes instead of mountains), Insta360’s execution comes with some frustrations. The viewing angle is extremely limited, and tilting the Retro Viewfinder just 15 to 20 degrees front, back, or side to side results in you seeing nothing at all. The image in the viewfinder is also flipped horizontally. Even after a week of practice, I struggled to intuitively know how to move or adjust the angle of the camera to position a subject exactly where I want them in frame, or to just ensure a shot is level. The process still feels like trial-and-error.The Go 3S is an excellent camera, but its wide field of view doesn’t help the Retro Viewfinder. As a result, the accessory doesn’t provide an accurate preview of the photos and videos you’re capturing. Walking around my neighborhood one evening, I tried to snap photos that focused on tree lines and a beautiful cloudy sky but ended up with images that included random people, houses, and cars that I deliberately tried to keep out of frame. It’s easy to fix with a quick crop in the Insta360 app, but it feels counterintuitive for an accessory designed to make framing more deliberate. There’s still an element of shoot and see what you get.Framing is more accurate when capturing selfies with the Retro Viewfinder, but still tricky. You can use the front lens as a selfie mirror, but it’s difficult to frame photos because of dark reflections — especially indoors. Battery life is limited, even with an included clunky clip-on battery pack/charger that more than doubles the Go 3S’ battery life from 310mAH to over 700mAh. I was able to grab about 150 photos during an hour walk before the camera completely died. Capturing 4K video will drain it even faster, as does connecting it to the Insta360 mobile app.Changing any settings, including selecting film-emulating filters or different color profiles, requires a direct Wi-Fi connection to your smartphone. The Retro Viewfinder includes a hidden NFC tag that streamlines launching and connecting to the app with a tap (the process still takes about 15 to 20 seconds to fully connect), but it’s still far less convenient than pairing the action camera with Insta360’s Action Pod whose touchscreen provides on-device access to most settings.Turning the Insta360 Go 3S into a pocketable handheld camera is a clever idea given how popular tiny retro cameras like Kodak’s Charmera still are. But the execution here isn’t ideal. The Retro Viewfinder succeeds in making the Go 3S easier to hold, but its other functionality is often frustrating. On its own, the accessory is cheap enough to consider if you already own the Go 3S, but spending an extra $50 for a bundle with Insta360’s Action Pod will serve you better in the long run no matter how you plan to use the camera.Photography by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge

The tyranny of software is almost over. Since the first computer programmers wrote the first computer programs, we, the users of that software, have been forced to live in the worlds those programs create. The features are the features. The design is the design. Want something else, something better? Learn to code, I guess.Until now, the people making a given piece of software - mostly well-paid professional developers - have rarely been the same as the ones using it: lawyers, doctors, churches, schools, me. (Where they overlap most directly is with developer tools, which are often the best and most passionately designed software you'll …Read the full story at The Verge.

In January, Colorado lawmakers introduced a proposal to make operating systems collect users' ages and pass them to app developers. The bill, SB26-051, had clearly been designed for commercial platforms like iOS and Android - one of numerous plans to age-gate the internet through users' devices. It was intended to provide information that would let developers disable age-inappropriate experiences for kids. But as it made the rounds online, Linux laptop maker Carl Richell read the proposal with dismay. Carl Richell is the founder and CEO of Denver-based System76, which also develops the Pop!_OS Linux distribution. The law, he realized, woul …Read the full story at The Verge.

NotebookLM is one of those rare tools that actually lives up to the hype. For the past few months, it quietly changed how I work, turning scattered documents into a sharp, AI-powered brain. But as I started relying on it for my full research hub, I hit a hidden catch. My data piled up much faster than the system could handle. I went from loving the simplicity to fighting the limits very fast.