LG announcing that it's decided to stop making 8K TVs, following Sony last year and TCL in 2023, got me thinking about how useless the 8K television era has been.

The close timing of Jeffrey Epstein coming into contact with 4chan founder Chris 'moot' Poole and the launch of the "politically incorrect" message board /pol/ that became a breeding ground for QAnon and the white supremacist alt-right movement was coincidental, says Poole. In a statement given to The Verge, Pool writes, "The decision to add the board was made weeks beforehand, and the board was added almost 24 hours prior to a first, chance encounter at a social event."Speculation about the timing arose after emails found in the millions of documents released by the Department of Justice showed Epstein and venture capitalist Boris Nikolic …Read the full story at The Verge.

I'm sure none of you are rushing to buy PCIe 5.0 SSDs in this crazy market, but when things were normal, Gen5 SSDs were tempting, if nothing else. Storage speeds have reached a new threshold as Gen5 SSDs touch the 15,000 MB/s figure. Despite the initial hype surrounding PCIe 5.0 SSDs, though, they didn't really disrupt anything for the average consumer. They may be relevant for only a small niche of consumers, but the more interesting observation is that most people don't even need Gen4 speeds. PCIe 3.0 SSDs may feel "outdated", but they're perfectly fine for the majority of users, gamers included. Most real-world use cases don't scale at all beyond Gen3 NVMe speeds, so if you were in a rush to switch to a faster SSD, think again.

Ever since NVIDIA dropped DLSS 4.5 globally, I haven't been able to get enough of it. I've been quite vocal about how the new upscaler version took my 1440p machine and gave me the confidence to finally start using a 4K display for my games. After all, DLSS 4.5 is allowing me to jump down to presets like Balanced, Performance, and Ultra Performance — ones I never thought I'd touch.

Even after years, the debate between Windows 11 and Windows 10 continues, with the primary aspect often being performance. Some find Windows 11 faster, while others favor Windows 10 on older hardware. But there's one thing both sides agree on: Windows 11 comes with more bloatware than the previous iterations. And it's often these apps that affect your laptop's performance, even when you are not actively using them. Over the last few days, I have been trying to speed up my Windows 11 laptop without modifying any core components, and disabling the background activity of a few apps did have an impact on performance.

One of the worst things that can happen when I’m giving a presentation is that the cursor is hard to follow. The moment the cursor disappears, I have to either move the mouse around to find it or press Ctrl to have Windows 11 highlight it (since I enabled that shortcut in Settings). So I started using a few PowerToys Mouse Utilities features that make the cursor harder to lose in the first place. Now it’s much easier to spot, and my audience doesn’t have to pause while they try to figure out where I’m clicking.

I'm still only around nine months into my Linux journey, and I already believe that the FOSS community has been introducing some really huge changes to the operating system scene. I didn't even know what an "atomic" OS was when I used Windows, and now that I run one on the regular, I don't think I can go back.

Valentine's Day is often thought of as the quintessential Hallmark holiday - and why wouldn't it be? Most of the time, it's marketed to us with massive floral arrangements and heart-shaped chocolates, both of which can come off as borderline twee. But no one says you have to play by the rulebook when it comes to holidays, especially if your husband or boyfriend couldn't care less about the classics.If you're hoping to express your affection for the man in your life with something a little different this year, we have some thoughts. Quince's cashmere crewneck is quickly becoming a staple in our closet, while past favorites like Glocusent's …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you like how well AirPods work with iPhones but want something more colorful and flexible, the Beats Studio Buds Plus are a nice middle ground. They’re platform-agnostic and are on sale for $99.95 ($70 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart for Presidents Day. The deal includes the eye-catching translucent option and is just $10 shy of the buds’ best price to date. Beats Studio Buds PlusWhere to Buy: $169.95 $99.95 at Amazon $169.95 $99.95 at Walmart $169.95 $99.99 at Best BuyUnlike Apple’s AirPods, the Beats Studio Buds Plus play well with both iOS and Android devices, which is why they’re among our favorite wireless earbuds. You don’t get every ecosystem perk, but you do get a lot of the essentials. Apple iPhone owners, for example, get hands-free Siri, Find My support, one-step pairing, and Control Center integration. You miss out on AirPods-exclusive features like automatic device switching and spatial audio head-tracking, but in exchange, Android users get native support for Google’s Find Hub platform, Fast Pair, and audio switching.Aside from software perks, the Beats Studio Buds Plus also sound excellent and deliver good noise cancellation that works well, even if not as impressively as the AirPods Pro. The tiny wireless earbuds are also among the most comfortable you can buy. Beats includes four swappable ear tips for a more secure fit. It’s a shame they lack wireless charging, but they can last up to 9 hours on a single charge, with up to 27 hours total with the case. Plus, they offer IPX4 water resistance, so they can handle sweat and light rain. Read our Beats Studio Buds Plus review.

If you finally upgraded to 2GB/s or even 5GB/s fiber internet, bought yourself a Wi-Fi 7 router with a 10GBE WAN port, plugged it all in, and then ran a speed test on your desktop and got 940MB/s, you're probably wondering where you went wrong.

User reviews on Steam may get more informative after a Steam Client Beta update released on Thursday, which adds an option for users to attach their hardware specs to game reviews. Steam users have always been able to share their specs in the text of their reviews, but the option to automatically include that data could encourage more users to add it, potentially making reviews more useful. When a user posts a negative review or reports having performance issues, the attached hardware specs could reveal why, highlighting when performance issues might be caused by a player's hardware rather than a problem with the game itself (such as specs …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Flipper Zero is a beloved security testing tool that has seen its fair share of controversy. It's essentially a Swiss Army knife of penetration testing and hacking, combining many tools into one. After releasing version 1.0 of its firmware in late 2024, the company said it was shifting development to a “new product,” widely believed to be the Flipper One. Now, a year and a half later, the Flipper One might be at risk of never materializing.