I used to obsess over thermal paste far more than I should have in my early years as a PC builder. Every time my CPU temperatures started creeping above 80C, my first instinct was to order a premium thermal paste like the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. In my head, better paste meant better heat transfer between the CPU's IHS and the cooler, which obviously meant lower temperatures. Considering high-end pastes cost only around $20, I didn't hesitate to convince myself it was money well spent.

Jack Dorsey's Block, the financial tech company that runs Square and the Cash app, is cutting its workforce by "nearly half" and axing more than 4,000 jobs. The company will shrink from more than 10,000 people to less than 6,000, Dorsey says in a post on X. And the reason why? AI."We're not making this decision because we're in trouble," Dorsey says. "Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. But something has changed. We're already seeing that the intelligence tools we're creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new …Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: WindowsLatest Lenovo's next gaming laptop could be a shapeshifting foldable called the Legion Go Fold, which can be used as a laptop or a handheld gaming PC with two different display sizes, as WindowsLatest reports. Leaked images of the device show it attached to both a keyboard and controllers, with a hinge in the middle of the POLED display, allowing it to unfold from 7.7 inches to 11.6 inches. Users can attach the controllers with the display folded or unfolded, use the display in a vertical split screen mode, or attach it to the keyboard for laptop mode, for a total of four different form factors rolled into one device. Even the controllers are con …Read the full story at The Verge.

You may not be aware, but there's an impending deadline for Windows Secure Boot. Come June 2026, and you and your Windows PCs could be affected by this potential issue. When configured, Secure Boot verifies the system before Windows even boots, making full use of cryptographic certificates, and this is what is set to expire later this year. Devices without updated certificates lose access to new Secure Boot protections and updates, but continue booting Windows normally.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus are "more of the same for more money," my colleague Allison Johnson reported this week. Now, Samsung is confirming what we previously only suspected: RAMageddon is partly to blame.Samsung's Won-Joon Choi, the COO of its mobile business, tells The Verge that the memory shortage alone made a "significant contribution" to the price. All the increasing material costs factored into the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus costing $100 more than their predecessors this year, as did tariffs, but the memory was "significant," he tells me.The S26 does come with double the storage this year at its higher price, with 256GB ra …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Federal Trade Commission is encouraging companies to adopt age verification technologies by announcing it will not enforce a children's online privacy law against certain websites that collect and use minors' personal data in order to verify their ages."Age verification technologies are some of the most child-protective technologies to emerge in decades," Christopher Mufarrige, the director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a press release. "Our statement incentivizes operators to use these innovative tools, empowering parents to protect their children online."There are certain criteria that websites need to meet in order …Read the full story at The Verge.

I gladly left the world of smart home apps and cloud service subscriptions behind. Instead, an ESP32-S3 running ESPHome quietly, locally, and reliably operates my smart home. So even when the internet connection is down, the dashboard doesn't break. It got me curious to know what my house actually does all day.

The smartphone industry could experience a record-breaking decline in 2026 as a result of the RAM shortage stemming from memory-hungry AI giants. That's according to the latest report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), which forecasts smartphone shipments to plummet 12.9 percent this year, marking its "lowest annual shipment volume in more than a decade."At the same time, the average selling price for smartphones is set to hit new highs, with IDC predicting a 14 percent increase to a record $523. "While memory prices are projected to stabilize by mid-2027, they are unlikely to return to previous level," IDC senior researcher Na …Read the full story at The Verge.

Magnet rings have changed my life. I grip and mount and satisfyingly snap awesome accessories on and off my phone all day. Even Samsung sells neat ones like these folding magnetic mirrors. But unlike Apple and Google, Samsung refuses to put the magnets inside the phone.Why? I asked Samsung's Won-Joon Choi, the executive in charge of both R&D and operations for Samsung's mobile business. He says the added thickness of magnets is a bad tradeoff to make, because you're just going to buy a case anyhow."About 80 or 90 percent of people are using a case, and cases with magnets are very popular these days," he tells me. @verge Double magne …Read the full story at The Verge.

My daily AI workflow and routine look like what most people end up with. An AI browser for deep research, and a chatbot to make sense of the information. In my case, Gemini and Perplexity fill those roles for the most part. It works, but it also involves a lot of context and tab switching just to get my hands on small snippets of information or check something quickly.

Most people plug the Amazon Fire TV Stick into the TV to use the streaming apps and never look back. Usually, that plug-and-play works just fine, but did you know you can make the Fire TV Stick dance to your tunes for a smarter streaming experience?

Microsoft is previewing a new AI system, Copilot Tasks, that it says is designed to take care of busywork for you in the background, the company announced on Thursday. The feature takes the load off your device using its own cloud-based computer and browser, allowing it to handle a variety of jobs ranging from scheduling appointments to generating study plans while you do something else.As noted by Microsoft, you can describe what you need to Copilot Tasks using natural language, and assign Copilot Tasks to complete jobs on a recurring, scheduled, or one-time basis. Copilot Tasks will provide a report once its work is complete.You can ca …Read the full story at The Verge.