Smart homes aren't just composed of hardware; they're composed of software, too. In fact, some of my most powerful automations are built using just software. If you're an Opera GX user, then you have a new option, too: it's just been updated to add a new "Smart Home" integration, allowing the browser to both listen to and publish MQTT messages.

Local LLMs aren't just for messing about and having fun with; they can genuinely be useful tools, too. While there are certainly more obvious use cases if you have a home lab, LM Studio enables you to do a lot of the same stuff without needing to know how to set up Ollama or another alternative LLM hosting solution. With its OpenAI-compatible API, many services that support OpenAI but allow you to designate a custom endpoint can be used this way, and there are many ways to make it work for you.

Well, it's almost October, so you know what that means; it's time to load up on horror games! If you're anything like me, you're already getting into the Halloween spirit and giving your Steam library a once-over for any scary games to play.

Windows 10's end-of-life date is just over a month away, and people are still holding onto the operating system. While some are taking Microsoft's offer to extend security support for another year, others will likely force Windows 11 on their system to maintain support.

Every partner, family, and friend group has that one topic where nobody can come to a consensus. With my gaming group, we can never settle on a game to play. We'll list off all the usuals—Peak, Phasmophobia, Minecraft, and so on—and then we'll all reply with "I'm fine with anything." Which is fantastic, because it means that whatever game we do settle on, nobody will have qualms with. The only problem is that no game is actually picked, leaving us in a limbo where everyone's ready to receive a suggestion but not make one.

OpenAI and Oracle signed a deal “to purchase $300 billion in computing power over roughly five years,” one of the largest cloud computing deals ever, reports the Wall Street Journal.In July, the two companies revealed their partnership to build data centers worth 4.5 gigawatts of power as part of the broader Stargate project they announced with Softbank and President Trump, without explaining how much OpenAI planned to pay for the datacenters. OpenAI’s contract will begin in 2027, according to the report. OpenAI, which reportedly expects $12.7 billion in revenue this year, is also likely behind another $10 billion contract with the semiconductor giant Broadcom to design its own AI chip.While reporting quarterly earnings on Tuesday, Oracle CEO Safra Catz announced that three unnamed companies had signed “four multi-billion-dollar contracts” in Q1, part of a trend that she said is increasing Oracle’s cloud infrastructure revenue by 77 percent this year. Overall, the company said that in Q1 it added more than $317 billion in future contract revenue, a massive dollar amount that sent share prices soaring and Chairman Larry Ellison to the top spot of the world’s richest person list. 

Network-attached storage, as its name suggests, is essentially a storage space for all your data. It is a cloud alternative that resides in your home and is under your control. But what actually turns it into a smart, usable machine are the tools and apps you install on it. For my productivity suite, I use a ton of apps every day that make my experience so much better, and my life that much easier. Thanks to them, I have not only cut down on a lot of my subscriptions, but my digital life also now feels a lot more put together.

The never-ending push for faster personal solid-state storage drives with larger capacities gave NAND manufacturers a complex equation to solve. The late 1990s brought widespread adoption of SSD storage based on NAND flash, and at the time, they stored a single bit per cell, so they were known as SLC SSDs. But scaling the number of bytes per millimeter quickly ran into physical limitations, as the transistors and other electronic structures on NAND can only be shrunk down so far before physics takes over, and you can't store the data bit reliably.

The new glasses would go beyond Amazon’s Echo Frames. Amazon, like Meta, Google, Samsung, and Snap, is working on a new pair of augmented-reality (AR) glasses, according to a report from The Information. The AR glasses, codenamed Jayhawk, could reportedly come with a full-color display in one eye, along with built-in microphones, speakers, and a camera.The report comes just before Meta is expected to reveal its “Hypernova” smart glasses at its Connect event. Meta’s glasses are rumored to be a step above its Ray-Ban smart glasses, offering a small display for mini apps and alerts on the right lens, according to Bloomberg. Meta is also working on a pair of AR glasses known as Orion.Amazon launched its third-gen Echo Frame smart glasses in 2023, but their features fall flat when compared to Meta’s Ray-Bans. Though Amazon may launch its first AR glasses in late 2026 or early 2027, The Information reports that Amazon could release a pair made for delivery drivers even earlier.Amazon initially plans on making 100,000 units of the glasses for delivery drivers, called “Amelia” internally, The Information reports. They will reportedly have a bulkier design when compared to the consumer version, along with a display designed to provide instructions to drivers about where to deliver packages. Reuters reported on the glasses last year, saying they would offer drivers “turn-by-turn navigation on a small embedded screen.”

Guns and explosions might be what our parents have always considered video games to be, but there's so much more to this platform we all love. In fact, where going in guns ablazing is a different kind of power fantasy we all love from time to time, there's an entirely different kind of power fantasy that is just as rewarding — stealth.

Charlie Kirk, the influencer and activist who co-founded right-wing group Turning Point USA, has died at the age of 31 after being shot while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University, according to his spokesperson Andrew Kolvet, speaking to the New York Times. Deseret News had earlier reported Kirk’s death, according to Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, and President Donald Trump said Kirk is dead in a post on Truth Social at 4:40PM ET.At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that “we have a person of interest in custody,” minutes after FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted an announcement that “The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.”According to media reports, he appeared to have been hit in the neck. A spokesperson for the university, Ellen Treanor, said in a statement that “shots were fired from a building about 200 yards from the speaker.”Following the shooting, videos on social media seemed to show the arrest of an alleged suspect. Utah Valley University initially said that a suspect was in custody, but Deseret News reported that, according to officials, the status of the shooter is unclear. A spokesperson has also told the New York Times that a person taken into custody after the shooting was not actually the shooter.Ellen Treanor, Utah Valley University: It is with tremendous sadness and shock that Charlie Kirk, who was invited by the student group TPUSA, was shot at about 12:20 when he began speaking at his planned event on the Utah Valley University Orem Campus. Kirk was immediately transported by his security team to a local hospital. Campus was immediately evacuated. Campus is closed and classes have been canceled until further notice. We are asking those still on campus to secure in place until police officers can safely escort them off campus.  The incident is currently being investigated by four agencies: Orem Police, UVU Police, FBI, and Utah Department of Public Safety.  At the time of the shooting, Kirk was speaking at the first event of a scheduled 15-stop American Comeback Tour, and seated at a “Prove Me Wrong Table” taking questions from the crowd, according to the New York Times.We will continue to update this post as the situation develops.

Horrifying videos of influencer and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk being fatally shot were widely available on social media platforms. We’ve reached out to some of the platforms to ask how they will be treating the videos and charged posts about the shooting. So far, we’re aware of responses from Bluesky, Meta, Reddit, and YouTube.Bluesky:“Glorifying violence or harm violates Bluesky’s Community Guidelines,” Bluesky said on its Bluesky Safety account. “We review reports and take action on content that celebrates harm against anyone. Violence has no place in healthy public discourse, and we’re committed to fostering healthy, open conversations.”Meta:Spokesperson Francis Brennan referred The Verge to the company’s policies on violent and graphic content, which Brennan indicated would apply in this case. According to those policies, “we remove the most graphic content and add warning labels to other types of content so that people are aware it may be sensitive before they click through. We restrict the ability for younger users to see content that may not be suitable or age-appropriate for them. By doing so, we aim to provide an appropriate user experience, while continuing to provide space for our users to express themselves.”Reddit:“Our sitewide rules prohibit encouraging, glorifying, inciting, or calling for violence,” spokesperson Gina Antonini tells The Verge. “We’re monitoring the platform to remove violating content, including hashing to prevent its re-upload. We have also reached out to ensure moderators understand and abide not only by the Reddit Rules, but also our Moderator Code of Conduct, and understand the tools and resources available to uphold our policies.”YouTube:“Our hearts are with Charlie Kirk’s family following his tragic death,” spokesperson Jack Malon tells The Verge. “We are closely monitoring our platform and prominently elevating news content on the homepage, in search and in recommendations to help people stay informed.”Malon says that YouTube will be removing “some graphic content” related to Kirk’s death, “particularly if it does not provide sufficient context for viewers.” Some content that shows the attack will be age-restricted, meaning that it can’t be seen by signed-out viewers or users under 18.Malon also says that YouTube’s policies prohibit content “reveling in or mocking the death or serious injury of an identifiable individual.”Discord, TikTok, and X didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.Update, September 10th: Added statement from a Reddit spokesperson.