Most people treat their browser as a mere window to the web, but for me, it’s become my most powerful operating system. I used to think that serious work required serious desktop software — until I realized how much time I was losing to bloated installations, constant ‘update available’ pop-ups, and system slowdowns.

When Google’s NotebookLM first dropped, it felt like magic – a dedicated AI research assistant that didn’t just chat, but truly understood my files and documents. But now Microsoft has entered the ring with Copilot Notebooks in OneNote.

Super Bowl LX is nearly here, with the Seattle Seahawks taking on the New England Patriots. While Bad Bunny will be the star of the halftime show, AI could be the star of the commercial breaks, much like crypto was a few years ago.Last year’s Super Bowl featured a Google Gemini ad that fumbled a Gouda cheese stat, and this year’s game is already slated to include an ad for Anthropic’s AI platform that takes jabs at its competitors, namely OpenAI. AI-generated ads could make an appearance, too. Super Bowl LX is set to kick off at 6:30PM ET/3:30PM PT on Sunday, February 8th at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.  Gemini becomes an AI interior decorator in Google’s Super Bowl ad. From Crypto.com to AI.com. Alexa Plus tries to kill Chris Hemsworth in Amazon’s Super Bowl ad. Sam Altman responds to Anthropic’s ‘funny’ Super Bowl ads Anthropic’s first Super Bowl ad dunks on ChatGPT. Don’t expect any Kalshi or Polymarket ads during the Super Bowl.

If you're struggling to find a way to put all your DIY hardware to good use, you could do a lot worse than use it to make a Pomodoro timer. They're easy to make, and once you're done, you're left with a handy device that can help you be more productive with an automatic timer system. Sounds like a great idea to me.

Jeff D’Onofrio in 2015, before ruining Tumblr. | Photo: Getty Images After what can generously be called a contentious tenure as the CEO of The Washington Post, Will Lewis is stepping down following mass layoffs this week. Jeff D'Onofrio, former CEO of Tumblr from 2017 to 2022, will step in as acting CEO and publisher. D'Onofrio has been CFO at the Post since June of last year, meaning he's had a front row seat to Jeff Bezos' dismantling of the once storied paper for the last nine months. D'Onofrio's resume doesn't include extensive experience in traditional news media, nor many notable success stories. He was briefly the general manager of Yahoo News while it was still a Verizon property, before shifting h …Read the full story at The Verge.

Linux desktops used to treat design as something you handled after installation finished. If the wallpaper was decent and the panel landed where your muscle memory expected it to, that was considered a win. Everything else was a pile of options, plus a quiet assumption that you would enjoy sorting them out. That era is fading fast. Today, more distros ship with a deliberate look, a consistent tone, and a clear opinion about how the desktop should feel.

I had been considering building a dedicated productivity PC lately, and since I have an AM4 gaming PC, I wanted to put together a new AM5 build instead of just getting a new AM4 chip. I picked the Ryzen 9 9900X for its 12-core, 24-thread configuration and 32GB of DDR5 RAM. I used my old GTX 1660 Ti for GPU duty and moved the Gen3 NVMe SSD from my main PC to the new build. The specs looked good enough for Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve, and I didn't think I'd need any major upgrades anytime soon. However, the overall performance on the Ryzen 9 9900X didn't feel like a huge upgrade over that of the Ryzen 7 5700X on my gaming PC. That's when I switched to a Gen5 SSD, and it delivered the snappy performance I was looking for.

I'll be honest, I used to love reading NAS spec sheets. The longer the list, the better it felt. More features meant better value, right? After setting up a few NAS systems of my own and helping friends choose their first ones, that excitement wore off pretty quickly.

To preface this article, I need to make one thing very clear: I hate spending money. I'm a student, I work full-time, and if an opportunity ever passes me by to either make more money or save it, I will always chase it.

Machine learning has most certainly taken off, even if many are sick and tired of reading and hearing about artificial intelligence (AI). Just about everything sold today has AI slapped onto the device, including appliances, PCs, and even smart home hardware. Large language models (LLMs) are frequently used, with the most popular option being ChatGPT, but it's possible to self-host these impressive tools from home.

Recently, I talked about how using your old Android phone as a security camera isn't the best approach for repurposing it, and discussed the possibility of using it as a smart home remote of sorts. But even though that's my preferred use for an old Android phone, there's actually quite a lot you can do with one, and another great option is turning it into a sound sensor.

Every time you install Windows 11, you go through what's called an out-of-box experience (OOBE). If you've used a new Windows 11 install before, you've definitely already seen it; it's all the screens Microsoft shows you before you land on the desktop. The company claims that these screens are essential for the setup process, but personally, it feels more like advertising to me.