I’ve been a longtime advocate for self-hosting my digital life, and for me, it's about reclaiming privacy and control from big corporations. I even self-host LLMs to bring local AI into my daily workflow.

I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with video editors that feel like they’re built for full-blown studio productions, all just to make a few cuts and add some titles to my clips. So, I set out to find something lighter — a tool that covers all my bases without turning every edit into a technical marathon.

Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer now known for his science-focused stunts he publishes to more than 70 million subscribers on YouTube, will launch a competition show on Netflix in 2026. Rober will also bring “some of his most beloved, ambitious, and informative experiments to Netflix later this year,” Netflix says.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that Netflix had talked to Rober. According to that article, Netflix has also had discussions with the creators at Dude Perfect, a channel with more than 60 million YouTube subscribers, about a new series. And earlier this year, Netflix brought videos from Ms. Rachel, known for her videos for toddlers and early education, to its platform.The push from Netflix into bringing on YouTube creators follows the success of MrBeast’s Beast Games game show on Prime Video. That show debuted last year and quickly became Prime Video’s “most-watched unscripted show ever.” It has been renewed for two more seasons.

My home network is never quite finished, partly because I had some oversights while wiring it up, partly because the existing wiring wasn't designed well, and partly because it's a large task and I never have the time or the budget to finish it in one go. The number of things I'm learning along the way is also never finished, whether that's software setup likeVLANs, or physical skills like how to terminate 8P8C connectors (and how there are two different wiring schemes).

As Windows 10's end-of-support date looms, people have to choose between the options available to them. Some will continue using Windows 10 and grab extended support, some will move to the LTSC branch, and some will even migrate to Linux. However, there is the option of forcing Windows 11 on a device that doesn't officially support its hardware requirements, usually because the CPU doesn't have TPM 2.0 compatibility.

When I first started with Linux, I used to mostly rely on the graphical interface simply because it felt familiar and straightforward, especially since I am used to the Windows OS. However, after spending some time, I realized the terminal offers more power and speed. At first, learning even the basic commands was a task, but when I picked up a few essentials, my workflow improved significantly.

I’m a long-time Windows user, to the extent that I attended college for it and earned certifications in PC, network, and Windows administration. I was employed in IT in network and database admin positions, where Windows is king in business. I’ve been using and covering Windows for my entire tech writing career. I won’t date myself, but needless to say, it’s been a minute.

Nvidia’s GeForce Now is getting a big upgrade next month — and it’s also part of an intriguing new experiment. Nvidia, Discord, and Epic Games have teamed up for an early test of instant game demos for Discord servers, which could theoretically let you immediately try a game without buying it, downloading it, or signing up for an account.Sound familiar? That’s probably because instantly try-before-you-buy was the original vision for Gaikai, one of the first cloud gaming services, and Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service also tried it many times by letting you demo games in a web browser or even in Google search. Now, Nvidia will be showing off the idea at Gamescom this week by letting people try Fortnite from within Discord.“You can simply click a button that says ‘try a game’ and then connect your Epic Games account and immediately jump in and and join the action, and you’ll be playing Fortnite in seconds without any downloads or installs,” says Nvidia product marketing director Andrew Fear. Here’s a screenshot of what it might look like, from an Nvidia video, which also shows the Fortnite demo is currently limited to a 30-minute free trial:It doesn’t sound completely frictionless if you still need an Epic Games account to play, and it’s not clear if Nvidia, Epic and Discord will offer the demo outside of Gamescom just yet. Nvidia is calling it a “technology announcement” rather than a confirmed feature, one that’ll hopefully see game publishers and developers reach out if they’re interested in potentially adding it to their games.After Sony bought Gaikai in 2012, it initially suggested it would offer instant try-before-you-buy game demos on the PlayStation 4 too, but that never happened. Years later, Gaikai’s founder told me that publishers didn’t necessarily want it.

I’m ashamed to admit it: when I’m working, my mouse frequently drifts to Instagram, YouTube, Reddit — even LinkedIn and Amazon — for bursts of dopamine. I can spend hours mindlessly scrolling from one reel to the next without realizing the day is slipping through my fingers. Suddenly, the sun is cresting, and my page is still blank. Cue deadline anxiety and a mad scramble to finish my work.

You probably know SSDs are quite a bit faster than spinning hard drives. They've replaced conventional HDDs in most use cases, and might become the universal standard when prices become comparable to those of hard drives. You might be curious about SSD caching, and whether it could help you increase drive performance even more. By using an SSD as a dedicated cache, you can improve access times significantly, but the benefits aren't worth it on every system. With the right hardware, however, you stand to gain a lot, and setting it up is a breeze.

Microsoft first introduced a dark mode option in Windows 10 in 2016, but there were still plenty of areas of the operating system that looked like a mish-mash of light and dark modes. Nearly a decade later, the latest preview build of Windows 11 now includes even more darkened UI elements.Windows watcher Phantomofearth spotted updated file operation dialogs with a dark theme. If you’re copying files or deleting them, these dialogs will finally have a dark mode instead of light-themed prompt. It’s clearly a work in progress though, as the buttons on these prompts still have light buttons instead of dark ones.Windows 11's file operation (copy, access denied, etc.) dialogs are FINALLY getting support for dark mode! Here's how the dialogs look in dark mode at this point, hidden in build 26100.5061.Also notice the light buttons in the top right, still a work in progress of course. pic.twitter.com/3D00lWIJcn— phantomofearth 🌳 (@phantomofearth) August 15, 2025Microsoft hasn’t officially announced any improvements to its Windows 11 dark mode, but these small changes could indicate a broader overhaul is coming in time for the 25H2 update later this year. The Control Panel, Run prompt, and file properties UI are all still stuck in light mode, so hopefully Microsoft finds the time after nearly 10 years to address these, too.I’m not holding out much hope, though. It took Microsoft a few years to even add a dark mode to File Explorer in Windows 10, after the OS shipped with a mixture of light and dark modes. Apple has long had a consistent dark mode in macOS, since it shipped with macOS Mojave in 2018. A new Liquid Glass redesign is even on the way later this year, with a bigger focus on translucency.

During the last half month, we've covered a lot of interesting gadgets and apps and thought we'd highlight a few that caught our attention the most. For example, we have a robovac that can mop the edges of your walls (something that my manual mop usually fails at), a charging cable that with any luck will last a good long time, and a new dock for the Mac Studio that adds a bunch of ports. And what's cooler than 3D printing a lightsaber? Let's dive in.Cool gearNarwal FlowWhere to Buy: $1499.99 $1099.99 at Narwal (basic)One of these years, I will get myself a robovac - hopefully one that will clean and mop the floor, pick up stray detrit …Read the full story at The Verge.