NVMe drives have been supported for a long time on Windows, but the definition of "native" has changed over time. Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 added it first, in the form of StorNVMe. As far as we can tell, this has been the standard way of interfacing with an NVMe drive since then, with Microsoft adapting NVMe devices to a storage model built around long-standing SCSI abstractions, rather than as its own protocol. Now, that's changing, as Microsoft is rolling out a truly native NVMe driver for Windows Server 2025 and, as a result, Windows 11, too.

It doesn't feel that long ago when people said that Linux was for work, and Windows was for gaming. The idea of games working on Linux was pretty much a pipe dream, and it wholly depended on developers working hard on a separate Linux build for them to work.

When The Lego Group announced that its biggest innovation since 1978 would be a tiny proprietary computer brick, the reactions were divided. I heard from people concerned this was the death of imagination from a company that's all about imagination - and from people who thought it sounded pretty cool!Personally, I walked in skeptical. My kids loved Lego's previous computer bricks, the Lego Mario toys, but don't play with them for long because they're predictable and fiddly to use! But I walked out with a grin on my face. These Smart Bricks are far smarter and more imaginative than I expected. This isn't like Lego Mario where scanning a b …Read the full story at The Verge.

Intel announced yesterday that it's developing an entire "handheld gaming platform" powered by its new Panther Lake chips and joining an increasingly competitive field. Qualcomm is hinting about potential Windows gaming handhelds showing up at the Game Developers Conference in March, and AMD's new Strix Halo chips could lead to more powerful handhelds.According to IGN and TechCrunch, sources say Intel is going to compete by developing a custom Intel Core G3 "variant or variants" just for handhelds that could outperform the Arc B390 GPU on the chips it just announced. IGN reports that by using the new 18A process, Intel can cut different di …Read the full story at The Verge.

SpatialAware lets Hue know where lights are in your room, so it can apply lighting scenes more effectively. Color-changing lights are a lot of fun, but it can be hard to figure out how to best use them in your home. Most smart lighting companies offer pre-designed scenes to help you light your space, but the lights don't know where they are physically in your home, and the effect can get diluted. Philips Hue has a solution to this problem: SpatialAware.SpatialAware knows your room's layout and the placement of your Hue lights, so it can determine the best way to distribute the scene's colors and effects across them. It gets the data when you scan your space with your smartphone in the Hue app. Using your phone's AR capabilities …Read the full story at The Verge.

As tends to happen every year, CES is here to ring in 2026, and with it comes some of the most exciting tech of the whole year. CES always sets the stage for the next 12 months, and as per usual, this year's edition brings us some incredible new devices to look forward to.

Ever since I made the jump over to Linux, I've grown a new respect for the terminal. When I first started with the OS, I feared it, and for good reason; the terminal can easily do damage to your system if you copy-paste the wrong command. However, now that I have some experience with it, I love using it for pretty much everything.

We get to test a lot of laptops each year, and most of the ones we get to spend time with are actually pretty good. However, price becomes a huge factor in this day and age, especially one that sits on the line between good and great.

Most of the work I do in Affinity isn’t even editing or designing; it’s spent thinking of ideas, remembering constraints, remembering where tools and features are, re-reading briefs, problem solving, and second-guessing myself. Actually using the app is secondary to all of my mental processes, especially when I’m working on larger projects or batch files. This is where NotebookLM comes in.

By 2022–2023, building a DDR5 system stopped being "too expensive," with prices of motherboards and memory dropping sufficiently to incentivize mass adoption. By 2024–2025, DDR5 had become the norm, and building a DDR4 system had become a niche instead, relevant only for budget builders. What has happened in the last few months, however, has turned the scales again, making people think twice before building a DDR5 PC. Thanks to outrageous RAM prices, it's now much more expensive to build a DDR5 system than a DDR4 one. The performance differences are getting dwarfed by the huge gulf in the price of DDR4 and DDR5 RAM. We're now at a stage where building a DDR4 system is the smarter recommendation.

It's been less than a year since I got into the idea of self-hosting, but in that time, it's already changed a lot about how I use my devices and services. Of course, I no longer pay for Microsoft 365 or Google One since I have my own storage, but self-hosting has also removed the need for many extensions I used to have in my browser.

Roblox is rolling out its previously announced requirement for all users to go through an age estimation process to be able to use the platform's chat features. The policy was announced in November 2025 and was rolled out to Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands in December, but now users will be prompted to complete an age check to be able to chat in "all regions where chat is available," Roblox says.The company's facial scan age check process uses technology from Persona, which is also used by Reddit. If a user wants to appeal the result of their age check, they can also verify their age via ID verification, and a parent can also u …Read the full story at The Verge.