It used to be that gaming on Linux was treated as a strange novelty, something relegated to indie titles and a few open-source experiments. But times have changed, and how. With Steam Deck helping shift the industry and Proton compatibility evolving faster than anyone expected, AAA gaming on Linux has gone from being a pipe dream to a legitimate reality.

Big monitor, little pop-up camera. HP is announcing a new jumbo-sized ultrawide monitor designed for productivity and office use. The HP Series 5 Pro 49-inch Conferencing Monitor uses a 32:9 VA IPS panel with 5120 x 1440 resolution, 165Hz refresh, and an 1800R curvature. Like other monitors of this size and resolution, it’s equivalent to using two 27-inch displays side by side. But unlike offerings from Samsung, Dell, Lenovo, and LG, the Series 5 Pro sports a hidden 5-megapixel webcam that extends from its top when you push to unlock it. I got to briefly see the 49-incher at a preview event, where HP reps demoed software that lets it act as two or three virtual displays for multi-monitor-like use. The panel looked decently bright and contrasty in a well-lit office environment, and its rear has HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, ethernet, and some USB ports (complete with KVM functionality). While the panel goes up to 165Hz and covers 99 percent of the sRGB color space, its 5ms response time and 8-bit color depth make it less than ideal for gaming or color-sensitive content creation.Pricing will be revealed closer to the monitor’s November launch.

Touchscreens are typically found everywhere, aside from one place... your PC. It makes sense; it's designed to be operated with a mouse and keyboard, and sure, there are computers out there with touchscreens built in, and there are add-ons you can get to bring that compatibility over, but by and large, they're rather rare here. In an effort to add touchscreen support to my PC because, I don't know, vibes I guess, I turned an ESP32 into a tool to control my PC with.

The term "future-proof" gets thrown around a lot in PC enthusiast circles, and while the term isn't as prevalent as it once was, it's still something you hear every now and again. I remember fawning over "future-proofed" builds in my teens; PCs with insane core counts, 4 GPUs in SLI or CrossFire, running Crysis at triple-digit framerates. It was hard to imagine that the hardware in those rigs would eventually be completely obsolete. How could we, consumers, possibly need anything more powerful?

As part of the massive Steam Autumn Sale, a multitude of games have been discounted significantly; however, not all of them have dropped to the $3 mark. You'd be forgiven that the games that have fallen below the price of a coffee may not be very good; in fact, we've seen some really solid and well-received titles see a generous discount for this sale.

Despite their inferior isolation capabilities, containers have a couple of advantages compared to virtual machines. Unlike virtual machines, they’re extremely lightweight, so you can run a handful of containers on weak devices without running into performance issues. Sharing your graphics card with containers is also a lot easier than doing so for their VM counterparts.

Taylor Swift’s label, Republic Records, is a division of Universal Music Group, one of the two labels reportedly close to an AI deal. Universal Music and Warner Music, record labels whose catalogs include Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Charli XCX, are within weeks of striking licensing deals that could redefine how the music industry handles the AI era, according to the Financial Times.  Talks are underway with tech heavyweights like Google and Spotify and a slew of AI startups including Klay Vision, ElevenLabs, and Stability AI, the report says. Some — notably music-generating ventures Suno and Udio — are actively involved in copyright disputes with the labels.Negotiations have reportedly focused on how labels license their songs for training AI models and creating AI-generated music. Compensation is a big part of it, and labels are apparently pushing for something like streaming, where each play earns a micropayment. To make this work, AI companies would need to develop software to track how and when music is used.

RSS is still a great tool for keeping up to date with news, and there are plenty of amazing RSS feeds out there that you can use to track your favorite sites. However, what if I told you that you could make RSS even better with a free, open-source tool, powered by your local large language model and a Markdown reader like Obsidian? That's where Matcha comes in, a fantastic command line-based RSS parser.

A portable monitor isn't always on my travel packing list, but after bringing a 14-inch monitor with me on my recent work trip, I don't know if I can travel without one. But a good portable monitor can be useful for more than just productivity and travel; it can be a necessary piece of home lab equipment.

Smart home gadgets have become a lot more affordable these days – to the point where you can nab dozens of cool gizmos and IoT products without spending more than $100. Heck, I often end up splurging on cheap smart devices to increase the comfort and convenience of my living space, though this setup introduces a couple of headaches. Since I tend to nab smart home products from different manufacturers, I’d have to use multiple applications to manage them all. Many of these first-party apps are rather restricted in their automation provisions.

There was a time when multi-monitor setups were something you’d only see in movies — the hacker’s desk or the corporate exec’s office. Fast-forward to today, you seldom see anyone using just a single screen. While a multi-monitor setup definitely has a long list of benefits, one of the biggest drawbacks (other than typically being expensive) is that it ties you to a desk.

When we think about premium motherboards in general, the first things that usually come to mind are PCIe 5.0 lane counts, high-speed USB4 ports, and robust VRMs. However, what matters just as much to me are the quality-of-life features that make building, upgrading, and troubleshooting my PC so much easier. Sure, they don't improve performance, but you'll be glad you paid extra for a board with these features once you start working inside your case. From BIOS flashback to POST code displays and tool-less M.2 latches, it's these little extras that push me toward premium motherboards.