Single Board Computers (SBCs), like the Raspberry Pi, are known for being affordable, but they aren't obviously immune to global market forces. However, since they're already low-cost, the price increase remains modest as compared to higher-end electronic products, as seen with some Raspberry Pi models.

The Q16 HE 8K is visually unassuming but its all-ceramic build will be noticeable when handled. The latest product from China-based mechanical keyboard specialist Keychron is a functional ceramic artpiece you can type on. The Q16 HE 8K is the “first-to-market full-ceramic build keyboard,” according to Keychron’s press release, pairing custom analog magnetic switches with niche kiln-fired materials to provide a “distinct tactile and auditory profile unlike metal or plastic.”Keychron is launching the Q16 HE 8K via a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign — which is pretty typical for specialist keyboard hardware — starting at $229.99 for early backers. It comes in a 65 percent layout and is available in blue or minty white color options. The estimated delivery for Kickstarter orders is currently set for November 2025. There are already companies like Cerakey that provide ceramic keycaps, but Keychron’s Q16 HE 8K goes a step further by having both a full ceramic body and keycaps. The ceramic material is described as durable, scratch-resistant, and suitable for day-to-day reliability. It’s probably not ideal for users who need something portable, and that durability likely won’t extend to surviving being dropped, but it may appeal to careful keyboard enthusiasts looking for something a little unique.The Q16 HE 8K features an 8,000Hz polling rate and adjustable actuation sensitivity up to 0.01mm for setting personalized controls. The keyboard also includes Keychron’s custom Ultra-Fast Lime switches built with Tunneling Magnetoresistance (TMR) technology, a type of Hall effect switch that uses magnetic induction to improve accuracy and power efficiency. Keychron says this TMR tech enables faster and more precise inputs compared to traditional Hall effect switches.“Great keyboards should feel fast, sound great, and look like objects worth keeping,” said Keychron’s operations head, Paul Tan. “With Q16 HE 8K, we explored ceramic for everyday use, then matched it with magnetic sensing and 8K performance so users get both a new material experience and elite speed.”

The late English writer Douglas Adams is best known as the author of the 1979 book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But there is much more to Adams than what is written in his Wikipedia entry. Whether or not you need to know that his birth sign is Pisces or that libraries worldwide store his books under the same string of numbers — 13230702 — you can if you head to an overlooked corner of the Wikimedia Foundation called Wikidata. There, images, text, keywords, and other information related to Adams are stored both in a webpage and, for the robots among us, in formats designed for machines like JSON. Now, Wikidata is getting a new AI-friendly database that makes it easier for large language models to ingest the information. The database comes from the Wikipedia Embedding Project out of the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland, which oversees Wikidata. The Berlin-based team spent the past year using a large language model to turn the 19 million entries within Wikidata from clunkily structured data into vectors that capture the context and meaning around the Wikidata entry. In this vectorized format, information is best imagined like a graph with dots and interconnected lines — Adams would be connected to “human” as well as the titles of his books, Lydia Pintscher, Wikidata portfolio lead, told The Verge.While the front-end user experience will remain the same — no, Wikipedia is not becoming a chatbot, the project leaders say — the back end will become easier for AI developers to access when building, for example, their own chatbots using the data. The goal of the project is to level the playing field for AI developers outside the monied core of Big Tech, Pintscher said. Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have the resources to vectorize Wikidata, just like Pintscher and her team did. It’s the smaller outfits that most benefit from the new access to curated data stored in the vaults of Wikidata. “Really, for me, it’s about giving them that edge up and to at least give them a chance, right?” Pintscher said. She points to Govdirectory as an example project that harnessed Wikidata’s vast data curated by volunteers for good. The platform allows users to find the social media handles and emails for public officials across the world. Most AI chatbots prioritize popular words and topics across the internet. In addition to giving Little Tech a leg up, the team hopes that easier access to Wikidata will result in AI systems that better reflect niche topics not widely represented across the internet, Pintscher said. This could be a better way to get information into ChatGPT, for instance, than “generating a ton of content and then waiting for the next time for ChatGPT to retrain, and maybe, or maybe not, taking into account what you contributed,” Pintscher said. In practice, the vectors will allow AI systems to better access the context around information in addition to the information itself, Philippe Saadé, Wikidata AI project manager, told The Verge. The team used a model from AI company Jina AI to turn Wikidata’s structured data, captured through September 18th, 2024, into vectors. IBM company DataStax currently provides the infrastructure to store the vector database to the project for free. The team is waiting for feedback from developers who use the database before updating it with information added over the last year. While the current database does not include entirely new information added in the last year, Saadé says small edits or tweaks to existing Wikidata will not diminish the database’s usefulness. “At the end of the day, the vector that we’re computing is like a general idea of an item, so if some small edit has been made on Wikidata, it’s not going to be super relevant,” he said.

As a journalist, I often have to sit through hours of recorded interview audio, trying to catch nuance, but mostly just transcribing it for important quotes. Sure, there are services like Otter, but outsourcing transcription can be expensive and risky, often both. File privacy is a legitimate concern, and accuracy isn't quite the best, anyway, for the amount of money these services charge. I've been looking for a tool that I can control, one that runs locally, and that can handle transcription. If it came with a few extra features, that would be even better. And that's how I came across FileWizard. This self-hosted, open-source app is astonishingly capable at wrangling files of all sorts, and just as easy to get up and running. Here's why FileWizard is a great choice not just for journalists, but for anyone in search of an easy transcription tool.

PC cooling myths are everywhere. They spread through forums, build videos, and even manufacturer marketing, and while some of them used to make sense, they don’t always apply to modern hardware. In fact, sticking to these outdated ideas could leave your rig running hotter than it should.

This is one of those laptops that's absolutely massive, but also packs all the power you need to play the best games out right now. It features a large 18-inch screen with a 240Hz refresh rate, an AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX processor, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, 2TB of SSD storage, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card. So when we say that this thing can handle anything you throw at it, we really mean it. Naturally, it carries an eye-watering $2,700 price tag, but for a very limited time, you can save $700 off.

The Brompton Electric G when I reviewed it last year. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge The Brompton Electric G folding e-bike I reviewed last year is now available to buy in the US starting at $4,950. While it looks like a regular Brompton, it’s been scaled up with 20-inch wheels and an extended wheelbase that improves the ride dramatically on all types of terrain, leaving behind the twitchiness of its 16-inch brethren. Despite this embiggening, it still folds down small enough to be taken onto a train or hoisted into the back of a car, making it ideal for multimodal commuters or as a companion vehicle for vanlifers.The US bike has been tweaked a bit from the European model, now with a top speed of 20mph from the 250W rear-hub motor, and a module on the handlebar that lets you control the power-assist level and lights. Before the controls were awkwardly positioned on top of the battery.In my experience, the Electric G lived up to Brompton’s claim that it’s “the most versatile e-bike in the world.” And now it’s even better for anyone that can afford a $5,000 e-bike.

Smart speakers like the Google Nest Hub or Amazon Echo are convenient, but they come with trade-offs: you sacrifice control, flexibility, and often privacy as well. As I've gone down the Home Assistant rabbit hole, I've begun to play with more open-source alternatives, starting with the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition. Once I'd used that particular device, I realized that I didn't need to rely on commercial hardware anymore. Through the power of ESPHome and amazing hardware like those in the ReSpeaker line and a separate foray with an ESP32-powered display, I discovered how easy it was to build my own open source replacements without the compromises.

The new Bike Plus will cost $2,695. Peloton has been angling for a redemption arc ever since its status as a pandemic darling started faltering when the world reopened for business. It tried to steady the ship with a series of layoffs, a pivot to subscriptions, and a leadership shuffle. Now, Peloton's hoping to kick off a new era with the Cross Training Series, a total refresh of its product lineup consisting of a new Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Tread Plus, and Row Plus."The impetus behind the Cross Training series is, 'Let's just give people one place to do all the strength and cardio workouts in one spot," says Nick Caldwell, Peloton's chief product officer. "We now make that …Read the full story at The Verge.

Motor traffic in Long Beach, California, as the sun sets behind a reddish veil of smog on Wednesday, September 20th, 2023. | Photo: Getty Images Americans will pay more at the pump if Donald Trump succeeds in tossing out tailpipe pollution regulations, a new analysis shows. That’s on top of job and GDP losses that could result from stifling innovation in cleaner transportation. The Trump administration wants to do away with the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, policies that have encouraged carmakers to manufacture more fuel-efficient cars and electric vehicles over time. Trump has misleadingly cast the climate pollution standards as an “EV mandate” that would force consumers to buy more costly electric cars. But Americans could wind up paying up to $310 billion extra over the next 25 years without those rules, mostly in higher gasoline prices, according to a report published today by nonpartisan climate policy think tank Energy Innovation. Broken down by household, each household is likely to pay an average of $83 extra each year in energy costs over that time period.It’s all pretty simple, really. Rolling back pollution standards stops people from adopting cleaner, more fuel efficient technologies. Burn more fuel, pay for more gas, live in a less healthy environment. “This will have an adverse impact not just on the US economy, but at the household level, at the kitchen-table level.”“When you are putting fewer efficient electric vehicles on the road, you’re also driving up demand for gasoline and diesel. And as a result of that, households are going to be paying more to drive,” says Sara Baldwin, senior director of electrification at Energy Innovation. “This will have an adverse impact not just on the US economy, but at the household level, at the kitchen-table level.”Following evidence that planet-heating pollution endangers public health, the Environmental Protection Agency has regulated greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Automakers might meet those requirements by developing more efficient chassis, cleaner-burning engines, or designing and selling more electric vehicles. Then in July, the Trump administration proposed rescinding the scientifically backed endangerment finding, which would ultimately repeal greenhouse gas emission limits for vehicles. Today also marks the end of the Biden-era EV tax credit that Republicans voted to sunset early this year.Energy Innovation modeled the potential impact of finalizing that proposal to get rid of greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks (you can see how its open-source model works here). They take into account factors including rising electricity costs in the US and higher upfront costs for electric vehicles, neither of which are enough to wipe out the economic benefits that come with a cleaner transportation sector. Pushing companies to design more efficient vehicles winds up pumping more money into the economy, perhaps going toward hiring more scientists or designing new chassis using new materials. “That money gets passed around the economy and that results in more jobs, both from the automotive sector [and] also in steel manufacturing and aluminum manufacturing,” says Dan O’Brien, a senior modeling analyst at Energy Innovation. There’s less of that when automakers keep selling the same old gas-guzzlers rather than designing more efficient vehicles. Eliminating the greenhouse gas tailpipe standards could lead to cumulative losses in GDP of $710 billion by 2050, the report says. The labor force could also see 110,000 fewer jobs annually over the next 25 years compared to a future that keeps those standards in place. Then there are the health costs that come with pollution. While electric vehicles still create particle pollution from the wear and tear of roads and tires, getting rid of tailpipe emissions cuts carbon dioxide plus soot and smog-forming pollutants. Repealing the greenhouse gas standards could lead to as many as 700 pollution-related premature deaths per year, the analysis finds.The report says that zero-emission vehicles would make up a smaller percentage of new car sales in 2035 if the greenhouse gas tailpipe standards are repealed; 55 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2035 compared to 70 percent if the standards stay in place. With higher demand for oil inflating prices at the pump, Energy Innovation estimates a 6-cent-per-gallon increase in the price of gas by 2030, rising to 36 cents per gallon in 2040, and 31 cents per gallon in 2050. It all adds up over time; an average household could spend as much as $400 more on gasoline by 2043, according to Energy Innovation’s analysis.The Trump administration has its own contested estimates of the economic impact of eliminating the endangerment finding based on limited data. The EPA analysis claims that repealing all greenhouse gas regulations — for vehicles, power plants, and everything else — would save $54 billion annually. But that doesn’t include costs incurred by the consequences of climate change. It also assumes lower gas prices and only takes into account two and a half years of fuel savings, Baldwin points out. Consumers are considering a longer timeline for fuel costs when buying a car, she says, and gas prices are subject to global market pressures beyond US control. “To assume that we’re going to see lower gas prices in the future … when you’re increasing demand for that product, that just runs counter to what basic economics tells us,” Baldwin says.

iOS 18.6 has been a turning point. The Epic Games Store has seen an uptick in downloads since the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) prompted Apple to streamline its process for installing third-party app marketplaces, according to a new blog published by Epic. Stats shared by the gaming software giant on Wednesday show the drop-off rate for Epic Games Store installations on iOS has gone from 65 percent down to around 25 percent following the release of iOS 18.6 in July.The “updated user experience” for installing alternative app marketplaces was introduced in iOS 18.6 following the EU commission raising concerns in April that “Apple makes it overly burdensome and confusing for end users to install apps when using such alternative app distribution channels.”“They’ve reduced the install flow from 15 steps to 6, eliminating their former scare screen and its misleading message, and eliminated a dead-end that left the user stranded in iOS Settings,” said Epic. “For the first time, we are starting to see iOS users install the Epic Games Store with a success rate approaching Windows users and Apple’s own Mac users.”Epic says there are still improvements to be made, however, alleging that Apple’s anticompetitive behavior towards third-party app stores continues to violate the DMA, and is pushing developers to distribute fewer games through the Epic Games Store on iOS compared to Android. Epic also called out Google’s 12-step installation process on Android, saying its  “deceptive user interface sabotages Epic Games Store install attempts on Android” more than 50 percent of the time.

Apple has hit back at Elon Musk over his claims its partnership with OpenAI to build ChatGPT directly into the iPhone is stunting AI industry competition. In court documents filed on Tuesday and seen by Bloomberg, Apple’s lawyers asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Musk’s companies xAI and X Corp, decrying claims they have been harmed as “speculation on top of speculation.” In August, Musk’s companies filed a lawsuit accusing Apple of rigging App Store rankings against chatbots and apps competing with OpenAI, including Grok and X. Apple’s lawyers said Musk’s AI and social media companies had done nothing to “plausibly” stand up their allegations, explaining that the agreement with OpenAI is “expressly not exclusive.” In any instance, Apple’s lawyers said it is also “widely known that Apple intends to partner with other generative AI chatbots,” adding that competition law does not require it to simultaneously partner “with every other generative AI chatbot” on the market, regardless of quality.