My productivity journey has included a lot of switching between task management apps and note-taking software to try to find a workflow that works for me. But I've also found that identifying specific issues I struggle with has helped me find ways to make apps work better for me.

Yes, I know. Every year is the "year of Linux," even if it has never actually happened yet. It'd be a lot easier if I just wrote a template, "[Year number] is the year of Linux," and then updated the number every January 1st. However, I really do think that 2026 is going to be the year that people take gaming on Linux seriously. A lot of cool things happened in January 2026 alone that made me feel like this is the year, so I'm pretty confident that, at the very least, this'll be the year where we see people take gaming on Linux seriously.

After rolling out age verification last year, Roblox is aiming to grow the number of players over 18 on its platform. As noted in its 2025 year-end earnings report, 45 percent of Roblox's daily active users have completed an age check as of January 31st. Of those who have verified their age, 27 percent are adults. Roblox also reported that this age category is spending more money on its platform than users under 18. Roblox is planning to try to pull in more adult players by expanding certain "high-fidelity" genres on its platform, as the earnings report notes: "We are prioritizing some of the largest and highest-monetizing genres in the ga …Read the full story at The Verge.

As traditional streaming services slowly become more expensive, self-hosting alternatives like Plex and Jellyfin are rapidly gaining in popularity. Hosting media you acquire from various online sources, or ripping your own Blu-rays, takes more work than signing up for a Netflix or Disney+ subscription, but it's undeniably cheaper and allows you to be far more intentional with your media consumption. I've found it to sort of be like a refreshing digital version of Blockbuster.

Even saying that AI companies are dropping new models left and right feels like an understatement at this point. A quick scroll through Reddit or Discord shows that some releases are far more anticipated than others, and Claude’s newest model has been one users have been waiting on for a while. To mark the much-anticipated launch of Claude Opus 4.5, Anthropic is offering users $50 in free usage credits for a limited time.

Monitor arms are usually the last item on your mind when you are building a fresh setup. I vividly remember the first time I built a desk with my own money. The priority is obviously getting the desktop and display; everything else comes later. I bought a laptop first, but the small screen didn't suit my workflow after a few months. The 27-inch monitor was a hasty addition to my setup, but the default stand design soon became a burden.

As a movie, Iron Lung is occasionally thrilling but mostly forgettable. It's a small-budget horror flick that has some cool ideas and pulls them off in an extremely efficient way, creating a sense of tension that unfortunately never turns into outright scares. But the most important thing about it is what it represents. At a time when movie theaters are dominated by only the biggest blockbusters and smaller films are trying to forge their own paths, Iron Lung managed to make more than $20 million at the box office without the backing of a major studio. All it took was a lot of help from YouTube.The circumstances around Iron Lung aren't exa …Read the full story at The Verge.

Ever since the launch of the original Raspberry Pi back in 2012, this single-board computer family has dominated the DIY ecosystem. The situation is largely the same even in 2026, though rival systems have gotten significantly better over the last couple of years. Leaving aside the Zero series, the Raspberry Pi is no longer the budget-friendly champ it used to be back in the day, with many boards outright beating it in performance-per-dollar terms.

On Thursday, Bitcoin's value fell over 10 percent in a single day, dropping to around $64,000, the lowest it has been since the 2024 Presidential election, as CNBC reports. After crossing $100,000 in November 2024 and peaking at over $122,000 in October 2025, the cryptocurrency has been in a steady decline for the last several weeks. Here are some other crypto headlines that have popped up as Bitcoin's price continues to slide:Ethereum-focused treasury BitMine's hoard lost over $8 billion in value on Thursday as Ether dropped below $2,000, CoinDesk reports. Bitcoin has effectively erased "all gains since its $69,000 all-time high in …Read the full story at The Verge.

When Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos entered the Senate office building on Tuesday, he got thrown a curveball. What started as a standard antitrust hearing relating to the Warner Bros. merger quickly devolved into a performative Republican attack about the spread of "woke" ideology on the streaming service. At the same time, arguably a much more influential platform was completely ignored: YouTube.After grilling Sarandos about residual payments, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) launched into a completely different line of questioning: "Why is it that so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology?" Hawley asked, making an unsub …Read the full story at The Verge.

HBO is developing a Baldur's Gate TV show that will continue the story of Larian Studios' hit RPG Baldur's Gate 3, according to Deadline. The Last Of Us co-creator Craig Mazin will serve as the show's creator, writer, executive producer, and showrunner.While it's set to feature new protagonists, the plan is for existing characters from the game to return, and Mazin plans to reach out to cast members from Baldur's Gate 3 with "ideas for them to participate in the TV adaptation and ways that would make that possible," Deadline says. (I hope the whole main cast returns because they're all so great.)It's unclear when this new Baldur's Gate s …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Steam Machine might quietly end up being one of the smartest PC gaming purchases of the coming year, but only for a specific kind of player. If you're completely new to PC gaming, or still clinging to genuinely ancient hardware, Valve's console-style box suddenly makes a lot of sense. It does promise a streamlined, living-room-friendly experience without Windows nonsense, driver roulette, or background services nibbling away at your performance.