I have become so dependent on AI that even for small tasks like summarizing or replying to emails, I always turn to cloud AIs like ChatGPT or Claude. Since I can’t stop going to AI, I have been trying to cut down on cloud AI and use self-hosted local LLMs whenever I can.

Some European countries are taking their first steps toward digital sovereignty by removing their dependency on foreign tech. One such hurdle is getting rid of Microsoft products, such as Windows and Office, which is easy enough on paper. The only question is, what do you replace it with?

CrystalDiskInfo has been synonymous with SSD and HDD monitoring for years. It reads your drive's Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) attributes and presents them on a single screen for easy reference. Checking your SSD's health percentage, temperature, or other metrics is pretty simple with this free tool.

Claude Pro proves its worth most of the time. Anthropic's models are accessible pretty much anywhere through API, but the Claude workspace has become almost necessary in my workflow, especially Projects and Artifacts - and more recently, Claude Docs too. But when I scroll back through weeks of chats, I realize the sessions themselves are pretty basic, they mostly revolve around helping me understand things. So ultimately, I'm paying for the desktop app features, but these can be replaced by local tools like AnythingLLM or even PewDiePie's Odysseus.

Long before we had the ChatGPT vs. Claude vs. Gemini vs. Perplexity debate, and even before people started arguing about Spotify vs. Apple Music, there was another debate that had tech enthusiasts divided: which web browser is the best?

For almost the entirety of 2026, I've run countless experiments with several dozen local LLMs week after week, and yet it feels as though I've barely scratched the surface of how capable local AI has become in such little time.

The TV is one of the most important devices in any home, as it's the central piece of an entertainment hub. Having a high-quality panel and sound system is crucial to a satisfying home theater experience, but using your TV's default settings can easily ruin your experience. It still boggles my mind how the average consumer is expected to know which settings to disable on a new TV before they can enjoy it to the fullest.

People have been doing some really cool things lately by pointing their webcams at their screens. Just a few days ago, we saw someone breach their Samsung TV by letting Claude take photos of the screen while it was working. Now, someone has used Claude to create a light gun-esque digital shooting range that uses a red laser instead.

Adding another home server should mean more room for your applications. Somehow, it also becomes an invitation to learn Kubernetes and spend your weekend figuring out how everything talks to everything else. I already have working Compose files, and I’m not particularly interested in turning a few machines into another job.

BBC's Blue Planet III is looking to prove its authenticity by leaving in the less-than-perfect shots. Previous incarnations of the nature series were defined by their gorgeous, crystal-clear footage that seemed almost too good to be real. But one dead giveaway of AI is when things look too polished and seamless. To counter that, Blue Planet III goes warts and all.Executive Producer Elizabeth White told The Guardian in the past, "the amount of plankton and things" floating in the water would have caused them to cut a shot. Or "we might have framed out a boat or a buoy or gone: 'Oh, actually … the water conditions are not really good enough …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you take a long, hard look at your motherboard, you'll notice that it comes with some legacy ports on them, such as Serial (COM), Parallel (LPT), and PS/2 headers. It can be really tempting to assume they're there because the motherboard companies are lazy, but in fact, there's a good reason they're there. And the answer lies about three decades ago.

Smart home lights are really cool, but we often pay too much attention to what the bulb looks like or what it can do. But the humble light switch is sitting there, ripe for renovation. Fortunately, someone showed off this incredible console with faders that control his home's lights, and it's a seriously impressive piece of kit.