This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the e-bike movement, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.How it startedLast week, I did something I don't typically do, which is call up one of my elected officials and yell at them about a new bill. New Jersey's car-brained lawmakers had just passed legislation that would impose heavy restrictions on e-bike ownership in the state, and I was livid. Obviously there's been a lot of concern about the growing number of teenagers being injured and killed w …Read the full story at The Verge.

Turning your phone into a handheld with the M4 could be risky. As a retro gaming fan, I was thrilled when Apple opened its App Store to emulators in 2024, but I've yet to find a controller that makes me want to fully embrace retro gaming on my phone. Clamp-on controllers like the Backbone Pro are a bit too bulky, and I don't want to prop my phone up somewhere to use a standalone gamepad. The Abxylute M4 seemed exactly what I was looking for when it debuted a few months ago. It's a compact wireless gamepad that uses a magnetic mount to attach to my iPhone. It's a clever design, but one that's let down by stiff thumbsticks and a magnetic mount that doesn't always feel like it's securely supporting my ph …Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft hasn't been alone with its aggressive push for the concept of the AI PC. This new category of personal computers was launched to highlight available processing power that could be dedicated to artificial intelligence. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it turned out to be quite the mess for consumers and partners alike, and confusingly, Copilot+ PCs are a different beast altogether since Copilot has been mired in confusion and frustration from consumers.

The Sony LinkBuds Clip can be customized with different colored covers for the case. The Sony LinkBuds Clip are the company's first clip earbuds. They follow the innovative donut-hole LinkBuds and LinkBuds Open and, like their predecessors, allow you to listen to music or podcasts, make phone calls, or be active outdoors while still maintaining awareness of your surroundings. The clip design has become more popular over the past couple of years, and while the LinkBuds Clip have a solid design and good sound, there's nothing significant that sets them apart from competitors, especially at their $229.99 price.Like other open earbuds, the LinkBuds Clip wrap around your ear helix like an ear cuff. The small spherical speaker e …Read the full story at The Verge.

You've probably heard it a few times before, but Windows Search isn't good. Whether you're trying to find apps or files, the search bar on your taskbar and Start menu almost always falls short. It functions alright for some things, but I'd always recommend replacing it.

Federal officers line up outside as demonstrators protest outside of the Whipple Federal Building on January 17th, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Protests have ramped up around the Minneapolis / St. Paul metro area following the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an immigration enforcement agent during an incident in south Minneapolis on January 7th. | Photo by Steven Garcia / The Verge Shortly after federal agents killed Alex Pretti Saturday morning, the Department of Homeland Security began to run with the story that the dead man had been armed and dangerous. He had a gun, DHS said. (A Bellingcat analysis of the video concludes that Pretti was unarmed when he was shot.) He had approached the agents holding the gun, DHS said. (He was holding a phone, The New York Times reports.) Pretti died on his knees, surrounded by armed Border Patrol agents, with shot after shot unloaded in his direction. America's Second Amendment is beloved by conservatives. Minnesota allows open carry with a permit. Pretti lived in a city where pe …Read the full story at The Verge.

It's 2026, and AI can do a lot for the average consumer, ranging from writing an email to summarizing a research article or planning a trip. So, the question has to be asked: can it provide similar utility to someone looking to build a gaming PC, specifically, a newbie with no real knowledge of PC parts? To answer that, I decided to use ChatGPT to help me scout for the best PC parts for a given budget.

Americans do not like masked secret police. There is really no other way to put it. The reasons why are manifold: accountability, trust in law enforcement, and just plain overall vibes. More concretely, not being able to tell who's a cop and who's not is dangerous. An assassin masquerading as law enforcement killed Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband last year. How is anyone supposed to tell whether they're being dragged out of their home in their underwear by ICE or by mere amateur thugs?Last year, California passed the No Secret Police Act, which restricts masking for federal law enforcement, alongside the No Vigilantes …Read the full story at The Verge.

It's not surprising when the guy who's been yelling about the horrors of late-stage capitalism on Instagram for the last five years turns his ire towards ICE. But something different has been happening over the week or so, following the most recent shootings of civilians by federal agents - even accounts that stay laser focused on golfing, chopping wood, and playing cats like bongos have started to speak out. The tenor on social media and Reddit took an even sharper turn yesterday, following the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE. Even the moderator of normally politics-free r/catbongos (a subreddit "Where gentlemen, gentlewomen, and gentlethem …Read the full story at The Verge.

Running multiple Proxmox nodes doesn't require clustering them together. While clusters offer high availability and live migration, they come with strict requirements. Corosync needs a latency under five milliseconds, making cross-site deployments nearly impossible. There are always split-brain scenarios that can corrupt data, and Quorum loss can render your infrastructure read-only.

Even though I’ve already built a pretty solid open-source graphics stack at this point, I’m always on the lookout for new tools or hidden gems. That’s exactly how I discovered some of my favorites, like Photopea and PhotoDemon. Recently, I came across a tool called miniPaint. It’s a free, open-source, lightweight image and graphics editor that runs in your browser, and it’s self-hostable too.

A brand-new B650 full-ATX motherboard. The latest processor on the market (that I could afford). The most expensive GPU I'd ever owned, and arguably the best cabinet in the business. That's what I finally pulled together when I built my gaming PC back in 2023, and that first boot is burned into my memory — the fans springing to life and the RGB lighting up the room.