Google has dreamed up a potential new way to get around resource constraints for energy-hungry AI data centers on Earth — launching its AI chips into space on solar-powered satellites. It’s a ‘moonshot’ research project Google announced today called Project Suncatcher.If it can ever get off the ground, the project would essentially create space-based data centers. Google hopes that by doing so, it can harness solar power around-the-clock. The dream is harnessing a near-unlimited source of clean energy that might allow the company to chase its AI ambitions without the concerns its data centers on Earth have raised when it comes to driving up power plant emissions and utility bills through soaring electricity demand. “In the future, space may be the best place to scale AI compute,” Travis Beals, a Google senior director for Paradigms of Intelligence, writes in a blog post today. The company also published a preprint paper, which has not undergone academic peer review, detailing its progress so far on this endeavor. “In the future, space may be the best place to scale AI compute.”There are major hurdles Google would need to overcome to turn this plan into reality, which it explains in the blog and paper. Google envisions its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) orbiting Earth on satellites outfitted with solar panels that could generate electricity almost continuously, making them eight times more productive than similar panels on Earth, according to Google. A major challenge will be to ensure that the satellites can communicate well with each other. Competing with data centers on land “requires links between satellites that support tens of terabits per second,” Google writes. Maneuvering constellations of satellites into tight formations can help them achieve that, perhaps flying satellites within “kilometers or less” of each other. That’s much closer than satellites operate today, and already space junk from collisions is a growing risk. On top of that, Google has to ensure that its TPUs can withstand higher levels of radiation in space. It has tested its Trillium TPUs for radiation tolerance and says they “survive a total ionizing dose equivalent to a 5 year mission life without permanent failures.”It would be pretty pricey to send those TPUs into space at the moment. But a cost analysis the company performed suggests that launching and running a data center in space could become “roughly comparable” to the energy costs of an equivalent data center on Earth on a per-kilowatt/year basis by the mid-2030s. Google says it’s planning a joint mission with the company Planet to launch a couple prototype satellites by 2027 in order to test its hardware in orbit.

If you desire a DIY-friendly laptop that can be serviced and maintained without requiring third-party support, you'll want a Framework. The company has carved itself a position in the laptop market dominated by soldered components and sealed chassis. Take a look at the MacBook range. These are some exquisite designs, but good luck trying to service them yourself without help. That's where Framework comes into play with a range of Linux and Windows laptops.

Apple Podcasts will soon include automatically-generated chapters for shows in English and allow creators to add links at specific timestamps in their episodes. Timed links may also be added to episodes automatically whenever creators mention another podcast. Creators can opt-out of both features, and chapters will only be generated when creators don’t add their own. Automatically generated chapters will also be marked as such above an episode’s chapter list. Spotify rolled out a similar auto-generated chapters feature earlier this year. With the timed links feature, creators can “provide links to Apple Music, Apple News, Apple Podcasts, Apple TV, and more” timestamped to appear at specific points in their episodes. The links will pop up in a banner in the Now Playing screen and show up in the transcript and episode details page. Both features will launch in iOS 26.2, which is currently in developer beta testing.

Did your Stream Deck sprout a red “Device Not Supported” badge where a button used to be? If so, you were probably using BarRaider’s popular plug-ins, which apparently check to see if StreamDeck.exe is digitally signed — and it just so happens that Elgato’s digital signature expired yesterday (see image below). But as of 5PM ET, closing and re-opening the app should fix it, as long as you log into Elgato’s marketplace first (inside your Stream Deck app) so it can update the plugin.My colleague Richard Lawler and I just checked, and everything’s working smoothly. But also, Elgato’s digital certificate still looks like it’s expired to me: perhaps the Corsair brand found a workaround?Here’s the BarRaider update and an apology:Here’s what Elgato said in its own Discord earlier:

Windows 11 is full of great surface-level features. However, there are hidden Windows features not everyone knows about that can help you get things done faster. Some of these tools are tucked away in settings menus or only appear if you know where to look. However, once you find them, they can significantly enhance your PC experience by making multitasking easier.

The PlayStation Plus service is arguably one of the best values on a subscription service for people that enjoy playing games on platforms like PlayStation 5. On the higher tiers, players have access to a number of recent releases and classic PlayStation games that are readily available to download, with more that are periodically added. In the most recent update for PlayStation Plus, subscribers finally have access to one of the most legendary fighting games to release on the original PlayStation console.

It's not a new movement, but taking back control from large corporations has been gaining momentum. Whether it's data storage, apps and services, or even communication. For the longest time, we've trusted big tech to handle messages, photos, and private conversations. But there's no ownership here. Whether it's WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, or Telegram, your messages sit on someone else's servers. Most of us made that trade willingly because of convenience. In return, you get polished apps, features, updates, and ubiquitous availability. But that same convenience is also a compromise.

Valve is testing a low-power way to complete downloads on your Steam Deck without having to leave the handheld running with the screen on. As part of an update that’s currently on the Steam Deck’s Beta and Preview channels, the handheld can “complete all active downloads in a new display-off low-power mode before going to sleep,” Valve says.I’m glad this change is in the works; I download a lot of games and updates on my Steam Deck and I have often wished that I didn’t have to leave the display on while doing so. The Verge asked Valve about this two years ago when the Steam Deck OLED launched, and the company seemed to think Deck was good enough without it.“We burn a substantial amount of power when you’re downloading,” hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said at the time, suggesting to us that players might not want to accidentally leave a hot Steam Deck in their bag if they mistakenly think it’s asleep. Valve’s solution announced today seems to solve some of those concerns.With the update installed, when you press the power button while your Deck is downloading something, you’ll see a new dialog that asks if you want to keep downloading but have the screen off. If you choose Continue, your Deck will enter the low-power mode. “While in this mode, if you press a button or move Steam Deck, a new status screen will be shown with download progress,” Valve says. “From here you can fully wake Steam Deck or let it continue downloading with the screen off.”The feature is on by default when your Steam Deck is plugged in. You can also choose to enable it while running on battery in settings, though if your Steam Deck falls below 20 percent battery, your device will go into full sleep mode.

Gaming laptops come in a variety of shapes and sizes to suit different needs. However, on average, gaming laptops tend to feature larger screen sizes and thicker chassis. After all, gaming laptop components put out a lot of heat, require robust cooling solutions, and you want a larger screen to be able to see more detail in your games.

I really like my RDNA 4 GPU. My Radeon RX 9070 XT is a great GPU: it runs very cool, undervolts supremely well, and performs really well at 1440p. Biding my time and waiting for the release of RDNA 4 seemed like a good choice when I got my GPU months ago, but AMD's recent statement regarding driver support for GPUs utilizing the RDNA 1 and 2 architectures left me really disappointed as a consumer. AMD has a history of targeting the buyer who wants value and longevity of performance for their hard-earned money, and considering that RDNA 2 GPUs were still being sold as recently as this year, I'm left questioning whether my investment in a Radeon card was a misplacement of trust in AMD.

There sure is pride in running your own setup. You put it together from scratch, see it come to reality bit by bit, control every little aspect of it, and get your hands dirty when something fails. It all feels joyful early on, but soon things turn into the fatigue of maintenance. That’s when the freedom you chased starts to feel like a lot of work. When you start expecting your NAS to be everything, it turns into a nightmare that is not at all worth it.

The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is finally out, bringing together an ensemble of the early years of the franchise into one big package. Fans of Mortal Kombat can relive the glory days of challenging others in the arcades, or simply go on a nostalgia run with the many different versions of titles included in the collection. Everything that people loved about these games is present and exactly as they remember. But that also includes one thing that can still get my blood boiling when I play any of the classic Mortal Kombat titles.