I've been on the Home Assistant grind for quite a while at this stage. It's a fantastic way to automate your smart home, linking up services and devices you never would have thought possible. I have some truly magical automations that bridge services in ways I couldn't do with any other software, like using a spare slider on my GoXLR Mini to control my light brightness, or deploying my own voice assistant that sounds and acts like GLaDOS. It's amazing, and I absolutely love that for the time I've spent on it, I've got a lot out of it.

It’s official: Skydance Media’s deal to purchase CBS parent company Paramount Global for $8 billion is complete, and incoming chairman / CEO David Ellison’s first order of business is a massive restructuring.In an open letter about his plans for Paramount, a Skydance Corporation (the merged companies’ new name), Ellison announced that, going forward, the business will be split into three distinct units: studios, direct-to-consumer, and TV media. Ellison explained that the restructuring is meant to boost efficiency as the new company prepares to transition its entire enterprise to a single technology platform for the first time.“In doing so, we will be able to reduce our technology spend while driving substantial efficiency and performance gains and enabling leaders across the company to make faster and better decisions,” Ellison said. “That investment, combined with other initiatives to achieve efficiencies in costs associated with labor, real estate, procurement, and workflow gives us even greater confidence in our ability to not only achieve—but meaningfully exceed—the $2 billion in real efficiencies we previously announced.”Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison, also stressed that he sees Paramount, a Skydance Corporation, as a “tech-forward company” that will be taking more cues from Silicon Valley. Ellison listed AI-assisted translation, virtual sound stages, and proprietary ad-tech stacks as some of the things he wants to see more widely implemented. And beginning next year, the company plans to move Paramount Plus and Pluto TV onto “a unified technology stack” to boost performance and cut operational costs.“This integration will elevate the consumer experience across our services—enhancing our recommendation engine, accelerating delivery speed and quality, while also giving us the opportunity to position Pluto TV as the ‘top of the funnel’ to attract new customers to Paramount Plus,” Ellison said.As Variety notes, closing the new deal cleared the way for Larry Ellison, Skydance, and RedBird Capital to buy out all of Paramount chairwoman Shari Redstone’s shares in National Amusements Inc. (NAI), which was the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global. Redstone will not be a part of the new Paramount’s board of directors, and NAI shareholders are reported to have received a collective $1.75 billion in cash because of the deal. The new company’s launch comes just weeks after the FCC’s approval of the merger, which hinged on Skydance and Paramount’s willingness to capitulate to the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in corporate America. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at the time that Skydance had “made written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.” Skydance also agreed to “adopt measures that can root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media,” which is why there will now be an ombudsman tasked with bringing complaints about “bias or other concerns” to the president of CBS News.It was clear that the FCC would not sign off on the Paramount / Skydance merger until Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the company over claims that CBS News edited a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris in a way that misled voters during the 2024 elections. Trump’s lawsuit was “so ill grounded that it comes close to being sanctionable as frivolous,” according to one legal expert, but had Paramount stood its ground, it could have jeopardized Skydance’s chances of securing a deal.There’s also widespread belief that Paramount’s payout to Trump contributed to the “financial” reasoning behind CBS’ decision to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last month. But now that all the dust has settled, we can all step back and plainly see what these deals were for: to get some shareholders paid.

Did anyone else play Road Rash? It was one of my favorite games on the Sega Genesis as a kid. The gist was that you were in a motorcycle race where you could punch, bump, and swing weapons at your rivals while dodging the cops. I really enjoyed it, and growing up, I was sad to see that nobody else really did anything with that formula.

Zach Cregger's first major film Barbarian was tense and frightening, but it was also infused with a healthy dose of absurdity. The movie's twisted sense of humor made it easier to stomach its grotesque violence and a bit more difficult to anticipate how its unhinged story would unfold. But Barbarian also worked surprisingly well as a commentary on who really benefits from the redevelopment of decaying cities.Barbarian's unpredictable tonal shifts and impressive production value made it feel like Cregger had captured lightning in a bottle - the kind that is often difficult to replicate. But with his new thriller, Weapons, Cregger proves tha …Read the full story at The Verge.

Sometimes you just don't need that clunky old desktop PC. Even if you've gutted it and rebuilt with modern parts, an ATX desktop case takes up a ton of space. And that's not including the keyboard, monitor, and mouse you need to actually use your desktop. This is why mini PCs and all-in-one desktops exist. While I've had a desktop PC for the last several years, I've gone through various tech permutations for my daily device, from a laptop to a desktop to an all-in-one.

Meta’s consumer VR headsets are already among the best you can get for their price points, but at a conference next week, the company is showing off some impressive-sounding research prototypes that could be a peek at what its headsets might be capable of in the future. One headset, called “Tiramisu,” brings a “new milestone for realism in VR,” Meta says in a blog post. Tiramisu has “high contrast — roughly 3x that of Meta Quest 3 — combined with an angular resolution of 90 pixels per degree (PPD) — 3.6x that of Quest 3 — and brightness up to 1,400 nits — 14x that of Quest 3.” There are apparently some trade-offs, including that it’s “bulkier and heavier” than consumer headsets available today and has a limited field of view (FOV), but it’s “the closest we’ve come to a visual experience that passes the visual Turing test yet.”Two other headsets, the “Boba 3” and the “Boba 3 VR,” instead have a very wide FOV. While the Quest 3 has a horizontal FOV of 110 degrees and a vertical FOV of 96 degrees, the Boba 3 headsets have a horizontal FOV of 180 degrees and vertical FOV of 120 degrees. That horizontal FOV brings the headsets much closer to the FOV of the human visual system, which Meta says is “roughly” 200 degrees.The Boba 3 headsets, which leverage “displays in mass production and similar lens technologies to those found in Quest 3,” have a display resolution per eye of 4K by 4K. That’s higher than the 3K by 3K display resolution per eye of last year’s Boba 2 prototype and the 2K by 1K display resolution per eye of the previous Boba 1 prototype.The prototype headsets will be shown at next week’s SIGGRAPH 2025 conference, and I recommend checking out Meta’s blog post to see videos of them in action. While Meta says they are “purely research prototypes, with novel technologies that may never make their way into a consumer product,” you can see how they might eventually lead to headsets that can offer much more immersive VR experiences.

While mini PCs are getting a ton of attention right now, sometimes, the devices just aren't small enough. As you can imagine, there's a solution to this particular problem that already exists, and this tiny and compact stick PC is going to be it.

Home labs, by their very definition, are all about experimenting with different services and gaining new insights into the server side of computing. But in my experience, the learning part mostly comes from accidentally messing things up, troubleshooting the source of the error(s), and restoring the home lab to its healthy state – or starting from scratch while creating a mental memo to never repeat the same mistakes again.

During today's Nintendo Indie World showcase, I had two epiphanies. The first was the realization that friendslop games are about to hit the Switch 2 like a falling piano in a Road Runner cartoon. The second was that I love that for me, because that means I can finally play them.My friends love "friendslop," the initially derisive but now descriptive nickname given to indie co-op games with a loose gameplay structure that permits the kind of chaos that can make games go viral on social media. And from what I've seen, I would love it, too. Friendslop is known for low-quality graphics (hence the "slop" part) that give a game a stylized look …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Buds FE come with a charging case that provides up to 30 hours of listening time. | Image: The Verge Samsung’s latest Unpacked event came and went with no major announcements related to the company’s Galaxy Buds lineup. However, if you don’t want to wait for what’s next, you can currently save on the Samsung Galaxy Buds FE, which are down to $46.99 ($53 off) at Woot. That’s their best price yet and a deal that will run until September 2nd or while supplies last.Samsung Galaxy Buds FEWhere to Buy: $99.99 $46.99 at WootDespite being nearly two years old, the Buds FE remain a solid pair of wireless earbuds. They offer good sound and impressive noise cancellation for the price, but it’s the fit that really stands out. Unlike the pricier Galaxy Buds 3 and Buds 3 Pro, the Buds FE feature a wing tip design that provides a more comfortable, secure fit. Meanwhile, a flattened touchpad area makes pausing, playing, and skipping tracks more foolproof.The Buds FE miss out on more advanced features, including a conversation mode and proper multipoint Bluetooth support. They also lack wireless charging and carry a meager IPX2 rating for water resistance, which means they could get damaged if dropped into a pool of water. That being said, a transparency mode ensures you stay aware of your surroundings by letting ambient noise in, and battery life is solid enough to last a full day.Read our Galaxy Buds FE review.More deals to check outThe second-gen Backbone One with USB-C is down to $69.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Backbone’s storefront, matching the largest discount we’ve seen this year. The controller is one of our favorites for gaming on the go, especially when playing titles like Resident Evil 2. It boasts a compact design complete with analog sticks, a D-pad, and a 3.5mm headphone jack to connect wired headphones. Meanwhile, its USB-C connector means it can work with both Android smartphones and the iPhone 15 or newer. It also supports passthrough charging, so you don’t have to stop your game because of a low battery notification.The Dyson Zone are currently down to $199 ($500 off) at Woot through the end of the day, the lowest price we’ve seen on the noise canceling headphones. What makes them unique — aside from their retro-future look — is the Zone come with an air purifier you wear over your mouth. The magnetic visor does a decent job filtering pollutants, giving you clean air wherever you may be. They also deliver top-notch noise cancellation — better than the AirPods Max — and are comfortable despite being relatively heavy at 1.3 pounds. Read our review.The starting price of the Switch 2 Pro Controller was recently raised to $89.99 following Nintendo’s sweeping price hikes. However, you can still get it for $74.99 ($15 off) at Costco if you have a membership. The controller features two extra programmable buttons embedded into its grips, a dedicated GameChat button, and a 3.5mm headphone jack that can output game audio to wired headphones. While it’s a nice upgrade over the original Switch Pro Controller, it still includes drift-prone potentiometer joysticks instead of the more durable Hall effect or TMR joysticks. Read our review.

Replacing the thermal paste is one of those PC maintenance tasks most people, including myself, don't think about until performance seems off. You apply it when you first build your PC, or it comes pre-applied from the factory in the case of CPU coolers and GPUs, and it quietly does its job for years without any obvious signs of wear. The thing is, thermal paste doesn't last forever, even the expensive ones. Over time, it dries out, loses its consistency, or simply stops performing as well as it did when it was fresh.

Yet another reason to be wary of period tracking apps. A California jury has found that Meta illegally collected user health data from the Flo period-tracking app, violating the state’s wiretap law. The verdict concludes a lawsuit filed against Flo, Google, Meta, and app analytics company Flurry in 2021, in which Flo app users accused the companies of collecting their private menstrual health data without consent for targeted advertising. While Flo promised to keep users’ sensitive reproductive health information private, the lawsuit alleged that Flo allowed Google and Meta to eavesdrop on in-app communications between November 2016 and February 2019, violating California’s Invasion of Privacy Act. The cases against Flo, Google, and Flurry were resolved through undisclosed settlements before the trial, leaving Meta as the only remaining defendant. The jury reached a verdict on Monday that there was a “preponderance” of evidence showing Meta had “intentionally eavesdropped on and/or recorded conversations using an electronic device,” unbeknownst to Flo app users. While financial damages have yet to be decided, each violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act can result in a penalty of $5,000, with the lawsuit filed on behalf of “millions” of Flo users.“This verdict sends a clear message about the protection of digital health data and the responsibilities of Big Tech,” lead trial attorneys Michael P. Canty and Carol C. Villegas said in a statement. “Companies like Meta that covertly profit from users’ most intimate information must be held accountable.”Meta has objected to the verdict and will likely appeal the decision.“We vigorously disagree with this outcome and are exploring all legal options,” Meta said in a statement reported by TechCrunch. “The plaintiffs’ claims against Meta are simply false. User privacy is important to Meta, which is why we do not want health or other sensitive information, and why our terms prohibit developers from sending any.”