During my stint with Arch Linux, I learned that the Arch User Repository (AUR) was a lifesaver when it came to finding and downloading apps. Unfortunately, as useful as it may be, it's not perfect. It has its fair share of problems, such as malware in the packages and occasional outages, and it's something that has caused KDE Linux's developers to cut out AUR from its build pipeline.

I steered clear of Photoshop for years, thinking that even the simplest tasks would be a little difficult. Last week, I finally decided to give the Adobe AI tools in the Firefly workspace a try, and it turned a simple picture of my desk into a beach scene after one sitting. I had to use a few features, which only took a few prompts, and the tools finished editing the image. I was surprised to see how easy and fun it was to make the edits I needed in half the time it would have taken me to do them myself.

Watch the stream below. | Image: NVIDIA NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang is set to take the stage for his GTC Taipei keynote at 8PM PT / 11PM ET. You can watch all the announcements here and embedded below. Rumors have been flying about what to expect from today's presentation, but the big one is the possibility of a partnership with Microsoft and a renewed Windows on ARM push. Microsoft has been teasing a "new era of PC" for its Surface lineup, and expectations are that new ARM processors from NVIDIA, dubbed the N1 and N1X, will be powering these yet-to-be-announced computers. Microsoft actually tapped NVIDIA's Tegra ARM CPUs for the Surface RT way back in 2012. But that machine was l …Read the full story at The Verge.

IO Interactive’s 007 First Light is here, and it’s just as stunning a James Bond mov — err, video game — as we hoped it would be. Pardon the confusion, the title’s engaging tutorial really feels like you’re watching a great Bond movie at times. Whether you’re a longtime Hitman fan who’s been eagerly waiting for the studio’s latest game or not, there are deals to be had on both the PlayStation 5 and Steam PC versions.007 First LightWhere to Buy: $69.99 $62.99 at Costco (PS5, Standard) $69.99 $60.89 at Fanatical (Steam, Standard) $79.99 $69.59 at Fanatical (Steam, Deluxe)Costco members, for instance, can already take advantage of an online-only deal on the disc-based PS5 version, which knocks it down to $62.99 (originally $69.99). It’s not a big discount, but it’s currently the best out there across major retailers. If you have a desktop PC or handheld gaming PC powerful enough to run the game, the Steam version is a little cheaper at Fanatical. The standard digital edition is going for $60.89, while the deluxe digital edition, which includes in-game cosmetics, is down to $69.59 (about $10 off).First Light is similar in a sense to recent Hitman games. It’s a third-person stealth sandbox game, after all, but it has a little more in common with Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series thanks to its hand-to-hand combat system, quippy protagonist, and wide variety of missions that either have you on foot using fun gadgets or behind the wheel of a muscle car.Read our full 007 First Light review.

Apple isn't just looking to take on Meta in the smart glasses market; it's looking to upend eyewear as a whole, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. When the Apple Watch launched, it wasn't simply competing against the Pebbles and the Motorolas of the world. The company also had Swatch, Fossil, and Seiko in its crosshairs. Similarly, Apple's smart glasses will be positioned not just against Meta and Samsung, but against Oakley, Ray-Ban, and Warby Parker in the $200-$500 range.Apple Watch generates an estimated $17 billion annually, but eyewear is a potentially even bigger prize. Where the watch market is worth an estimated $132 billion, a …Read the full story at The Verge.

Even the cover revels in a low-bit digital aesthetic. | Image: Saddle Creek / Feeble Little Horse From the opening moments of bitknot, it's obvious that Feeble Little Horse has found an entirely new gear. Where on Girl with Fish the blown-out textures were more '90s indie rock and shoegaze, on their latest LP, there's a more modern edge to the distortion and the riffs cut cleaner. Similarly, where the digital glitchiness was mostly relegated to window dressing on their sophomore record, on bitknot it's integral to the arrangements and a core part of their emerging, distinct sound. We got a preview of this new direction on the one-off single, and one of my favorite songs of 2025, "This Is Real." It blended blast beats, Sonic Youth-esque …Read the full story at The Verge.

Squared. Get it? | Image: Mojang The A Minecraft Movie sequel officially has a title: A Minecraft Movie Squared. What's more, we now know that Kirsten Dunst will star as Alex, the game's female character option, and that Matt Berry is set to play an even bigger role in this film. He voiced Nitwit in the first movie, but in this one, he'll be playing a human character. Who exactly he'll be hasn't been revealed yet, but in the clip below, he can be heard dismissing a costume choice because "Steve would not be wearing that," suggesting he might be playing the Herobrine, a creepy pasta evil counterpart to Jack Black's Steve.The director, Jared Hess, and Mojang Chief Creative …Read the full story at The Verge.

A speedy 18-inch Mini LED that needs to be seen to be believed. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge My eyes have seen the PC gaming promised land, and it's a beautifully bright world without a shred of blurriness. It's warm, it looks lovely, and it's impeccably sharp. Also, it's expensive as hell.I've dipped my toe in this world by testing a pre-production version of the upcoming Asus ROG Strix Scar 18, which was recently announced ahead of Computex 2026. It's a gigantic 18-inch gaming laptop that comes with a top-of-the-line 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX CPU and can be fully kitted out with an RTX 5090 Laptop GPU and 128GB of RAM. Asus sent me a model to test that's maxed out on all specs except storage (it's got "just" 4TB). And of …Read the full story at The Verge.

My desk is a dedicated testing ground for new consumer technology, and a workbench for endless tinkering with mechanical keyboards, 3D prints, and the occasional fountain pen. In the process, I consume oodles of video content, necessitating good headphones. After years of tolerating the fragility of mass-market cans and earbuds, I finally built custom 3D-printed headphones from the Variable Openmod project. They are bulky, unapologetically modular, and I refuse to hide them in a corner when not in use.

Living in India, there are a few things that you take for granted. For one, lane discipline is more of a suggestion than a rule, and pedestrians can appear from anywhere, while a fender bender can quickly escalate into a roadside argument. If that's a situation you've ever found yourself in, you would know that having proof is more important than making your point.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about gadgets and smartphones, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.How it startedIn 2023, the European Union agreed on two landmark pieces of legislation mandating how portable tech products with batteries must be designed, aiming to improve longevity, repairability, and recyclability. Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1670 came into force last year and applies specifically to smartphones and tablets, while Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 takes effect next year …Read the full story at The Verge.

An hour in flight UA236 returned to Newark. | Screenshot: The Verge United flight 236 from Newark to Palma de Mallorca on Saturday night was forced to turn around just an hour after takeoff due to security concerns around a Bluetooth signal. Multiple Redditors claimed to be on the flight and reported that the crew repeatedly requested passengers to turn off their Bluetooth. According to one poster, the crew issued a one-minute warning, saying that two devices were still active. One Redditor reported flight attendants making comments like, "This little joke is ruining it for everyone."An archived recording from Air Traffic Control (embedded below) confirms that the root of the issue was the name of a disc …Read the full story at The Verge.