Server-grade hardware may be ideal for home lab projects, but you don’t need to spend an exorbitant amount of money on the rigs (and electricity prices) to get your experimentation hub up and running. Depending on the scope of your DIY projects, you can go for cheap N100 mini-PCs and x86 Single-Board Computers, and still expect reasonable performance. Better yet, you can even repurpose old, worn-out systems into solid server nodes.

Most home servers begin their lives using whatever storage connectivity happens to be built into a consumer motherboard. You plug drives into the onboard SATA ports, maybe enable a BIOS RAID option if you're feeling spicy, and for a while everything works well enough. With only a few disks and lighter workloads, you can get by just fine with what your hardware gives you. The trouble is that home servers and home labs almost never stay that simple. They accumulate more drives, start running continuously, and slowly become responsible for data you actually care about.

Let me get this out of the way first and foremost: Elden Ring is damn near perfect. It's one of those games where finding faults feels almost disrespectful, like nitpicking brushstrokes on a masterpiece. And yet, when a studio like FromSoftware drops something monumental, it's impossible not to start wishing for more, for better, smarter, cleaner, and bolder.

The Mui Board is a minimalist, screen-free interface for controlling tech in your home. One of the fun parts of being a tech journalist for over a decade is that occasionally you get to watch a truly unique gadget go from concept to reality - and, eventually, into your living room. That's the case with the Mui Board, a smart home controller built into a piece of wood.The Mui was first demoed at CES in 2019, and I've seen it at several shows over the years, in various iterations, always with the promise that it would ship soon. Well, this year it did (in limited quantities!), and I finally got to try one out in my living room. Mui BoardA minimalist smart home controller made from a piece of wood, the Mui Board works with Mat …Read the full story at The Verge.

Shortly before the US military launched an attack on Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro, an account on Polymarket made some very suspiciously timed investments. The prediction market had been running bets on when or if Maduro would be removed from power, with prices for "out by January 31, 2026" as low as $0.07 late Friday evening. But within 24 hours of the military action, a newly created account invested tens of thousands of dollars, racking up several hundred thousand in profits.The account was created less than a week ago, and invested over $30,000 the day before the assault, turning a profit of over $408,000. The activit …Read the full story at The Verge.

The parking lot was packed. That's the first Strange Thing.A little background. Just about every mall is struggling now, but the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, Pennsylvania is more or less comatose. As Defector's Dan McQuade, a lifelong Pennsylvanian and mall fan, wrote in his fond remembrance of the shopping center, the once bustling complex is mostly a shuttered ghost town, with half of it set to be demolished. There are only two real reasons to go there: a well-stocked Barnes & Noble and the AMC movie theater. And people do go there for the movie theater. It's one of only three theaters in the Philly area with an IMAX screen, making it a …Read the full story at The Verge.

I, like many others, have fallen victim to the "New year, New build" excitement. I had the part list ready, the case picked out, and way too many tabs open with all the components I was hoping to purchase. But the reality is that a RAM crisis has sent me back, with pretty much all kits facing a price hike.

Hot on the heels of new year’s celebrations, the annual Consumer Electronics Show will get underway in early January 2026. Once again, Las Vegas will host a sprawling sneak peek at the tech that will shape the industry throughout 2026.The Verge will be on the ground at CES 2026 covering the biggest announcements, press conferences, and gadgets and we’ll be sharing hands-on impressions and takeaways of the best new tech making its debut in Vegas. The show floor officially opens on Tuesday, January 6th, for four days, but you can expect some of the major news to drop in the days and weeks leading up to the show.You can stay on top of all of The Verge’s CES 2026 coverage right here including standout innovations, clever upgrades, and even the weird stuff the show is often known for. This CES post comes to you via Starlink. Why hang a painting in your home, when you can tell an AI to put slop on your wall? This smart home controller is literally a piece of wood This smart fridge wants to solve the hassle of grocery shopping LG announces the ‘world’s lightest 17-inch RTX laptop’ Fender’s first wireless headphones have a long-lasting, replaceable battery Fender’s new Bluetooth speakers can play audio from four sources simultaneously What to expect at CES 2026 The Clicks Communicator is a Blackberry for your phone The Clicks Power Keyboard is also a backup battery for your phone Punkt’s German-made MC03 smartphone comes to the US this spring Samsung adds much needed brightness to its Freestyle projector Petkit’s first automatic wet food feeder keeps track of how much your pet eats Qualcomm, Intel, or AMD? HP’s leaked Elitebook X reportedly lets you pick. Leak: Dell is about to bring back XPS. LG’s new karaoke-ready party speaker uses AI to remove song vocals GameSir put a tiny force feedback steering wheel on its new Swift Drive controller LG is announcing its own Frame-style TV at CES LG announces new UltraGear evo gaming monitors with AI upscaling Two new wireless Samsung speakers for 2026 lean into aesthetics LG teases a new chore-completing home robot Samsung’s 2026 gaming monitors promise 6K, 3D, and up to 1,040Hz Birdfy’s Hum Bloom captures 120fps slow motion footage of hummingbirds A GoPro laptop from ASUS. You can stick any TV to your wall using the Displace Hub suction mount. LG and Dolby partner to release the first FlexConnect soundbar Samsung’s 2026 Micro RGB LED TVs can actually fit in your living room LG enters the RGB LED fray in 2026 with the Micro RGB evo TV Get ready to hear Sony say True RGB a lot in 2026.

Email might not be terribly exciting, but it quietly runs a considerable part of our lives. Somewhere around 15 years ago, though, it feels like we quietly solved most of the hard problems around handling email, then decided to get bored and start fussing with everything that was already working. Clients from that era focused on speed, reliability, and enabling you to slice through a messy inbox without overthinking the tool. Today, we keep getting new coats of paint, subscription tiers, AI sidebars, and chat-inspired layouts, but very few real upgrades to the fundamentals. It leaves you with the sense that the best era of email clients is behind us, even as we drown in more messages than ever.

PowerShell is one of the core components of Windows 11, and even less tech-savvy users may find themselves fiddling with it from time to time. But when you start wanting to make bigger changes to your PC, PowerShell can be an essential tool with a lot to offer, and that's mainly thanks to scripts.

We posted a couple of times about Meta’s Quest 3S during the holidays. The virtual reality headset that typically sold for $299.99 was — and still is — available for $249.99. Better yet, you can get in on a promotion at Amazon that includes a $50 digital account credit with purchase. You can find a similar sale price of $249.99 at other retailers, but it seems like Amazon is the only one that includes a gift card.The Quest 3S is a wonderful device for first-time virtual reality explorers. It builds on what made the Quest 2 so good (comfortable, easy to use, surprisingly capable) and adds more power. In fact, it has the same chipset as the pricier Quest 3, but with similar optic materials and screens as the Quest 2 it’s meant to replace. The Meta Quest store is filled with fun games and apps, and PC gamers can link the headset (wired or wirelessly) to their machines to play Steam VR games, such as the immersive VR showpiece Half-Life: Alyx. Read our review.Meta Quest 3SThe Meta Quest 3S is a battery-powered standalone VR headset that has the same chipset as the pricier Quest 3, but with the same lenses and screen resolution as the Quest 2. In addition to being able to play many games from the Meta Store, it can also be connected to a gaming PC to play VR games like Half-Life Alyx. Read our review.Where to Buy: $299.99 $249.99 at Amazon (128GB, with Gorilla Tag)Apple AirTags are the kind of gadget that you know right away if you’d benefit from using them, or if someone you live with would. These Bluetooth trackers are great for keeping tabs on suitcases, keys, handbags, wallets, or any other kind of everyday necessity that has a small place to slip in Apple’s Mentos-sized tracker. The best deal running on a four-pack of AirTags is still going strong, in case you realized after the holidays that you wanted some. Normally $99 for four (already a $20 savings versus the price of buying four individually), you can get a set for $64.98 at Amazon and Walmart. This knocks the price per AirTag down to $16.25.Apple AirTagApple’s AirTag is unobtrusive, waterproof, and taps into the massive Find My network for out-of-range locating. Read our original review.Where to Buy: $99 $64.98 at Amazon (four-pack) $99 $79.99 at Best Buy (four-pack) $99 $64.98 at Walmart (four-pack)Steam’s big winter sale on PC games is ending Monday, January 5th, at 1pm ET / 10am PT. It’s the last huge, catalog-spanning sale event until mid-March when its spring sale kicks off. There will be sales between now and then, but there’s no better time than now to stock up on games. There are too many discounts to list, but fans of any genre will likely find several titles worth buying — if they don’t already have them. Just looking at my wishlist on Steam, Silent Hill F at $41.99 (was $69.99) is pretty attractive, but I might first jump at some indie game deals, like 25 percent off The Seance of Blake Manor.Other Verge-approved deals from this weekLaugh all you want, but Apple’s Crossbody Strap could be great for some people who own iPhones. The convenient (and fashionable, some may say) strap connects to only select iPhone cases that launched this year alongside the iPhone Air and iPhone 17 series, letting you dangle your device on your chest so that it’s easy to grab if you need a quick photo or to authenticate an Apple Pay purchase. Most color schemes are discounted from their original $59 price at Amazon, the cheapest among them being the light blue and light grey models that are just under $42. Seems great for teenagers!I really like the Baseus 163W car charger that has dual retractable 31.5-inch USB-C cables. I got one last year, and it’s just overflowing with power and utility considering that it costs just $28.49 right now at Amazon (originally $49.99). It’s nice to not have to bring my own USB-C cables, and it’s great that the charger itself can rotate to make it easier for its cables to reach my gadgets. As if it needed to do anything more to justify its price for drivers, it has an extra USB-C port and a USB-A port at its base, letting you charge four devices at once.Like most people, I don’t consider myself to be the target demographic for a power station — until the power goes out. Whether you’re experiencing an outage, or you’re heading into the wilderness for a camping trip, Anker’s 521 portable power station seems like a fantastic companion — and it’s cheaper now than it was right before Christmas. Normally $199.99 for this 256Wh battery that can output up to 300W through each of its two AC outlets, you can snag one for $129.99 at Amazon. It also offers a 60W USB-C port and a car outlet port. You can use it to charge devices, and to power bigger appliances, including a 40W mini fridge for five hours. Its SurgePower feature lets it boost up to 600W via an AC outlet, in case you want to use it with a coffee grinder, or some other appliance that requires a lot of power.

Obsidian is a powerful app, not only due to its base feature suite, but also because of the extensive community plugin library. The community has created more than 2,700 plugins that do nearly anything you can think of, from useful options like Dataview and Templater to incredibly targeted, niche plugins like TsumugiMark. But here's a secret: not every plugin is available via the plugin library.