I used to pay a small fortune each month for various services, including Minecraft Realms, Netflix, Apple TV+, iCloud, and Microsoft 365. This added up to more than $50 per month when everything was calculated. That's a lot of money, almost $1,000 per year on services, and if I somehow decided not to pay for one for a month, I would lose access to what was granted. That's no good and led me down the path of self-hosting as much as I could. I managed to save just shy of $80 per month, all said and done, which is a colossal saving, reminiscent of cutting cable.

I realize that the headline has probably made me a few enemies, but know that I’ve been an avid dark mode user for many years. In dim environments, the darker display offered my eyes comfort. And when checking a mobile notification in the middle of the night, dark mode prevented the screen from feeling like a camera flash going off inches from my face.

Capable of running entire operating systems in isolated environments, virtual machines have a lot of utility for tinkerers. If you’re a fan of distro-hopping, you can spin up VMs to try out some fun distributions without setting up dual-boot. Likewise, the ability to relegate packages and project files to separate environments makes virtual machines quite useful for developers, as you won’t have to worry about unnecessary clutter or dependency-hell on your main system.

My Raspberry Pi Zero 2W is an excellent test platform for running self-hosted services with minimal system resources. Previously, it served as a media server with Plex and Jellyfin, and then evolved into a barebones cloud storage system with File Browser. However, File Browser lacked sync properties and was more of a web-based file management utility with remote playback, sharing, and download capabilities. So, I thought of switching to NextCloud, which is an entire self-hosted ecosystem in itself.

We're living in a time when PC hardware has progressed to the point that things have started to look boring. We have SSDs breaching 14,000MB/s speeds, gaming monitors casually sporting 500Hz refresh rates, and high-end graphics cards rewriting what top-tier gaming means. That said, I'm not fully convinced by many of these technologies and features, especially those that have the word "next-gen" tied to them. Whether it's bleeding-edge Wi-Fi standards or even Ryzen X3D CPUs, I'm still not buying into modern PC hardware.

The Nvidia app is getting improvements to DLSS override, more control panel features, and Project G-Assist changes this week. Nvidia has been gradually improving its new app over the past 18 months since its release, and it’s getting closer to fully migrating all the legacy control panel options.This week’s Nvidia app update will include anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing, and ambient occlusion options, meaning you won’t have to navigate to Nvidia’s older control panel app to improve classic games. The setup tool for Nvidia Surround will also be part of the Nvidia app now.You also won’t have to configure DLSS override features on a per game basis anymore, as Nvidia is now adding a global option. You can set your DLSS preferences across all override supported games, and Nvidia’s overlay will also show which DLSS settings are active if you toggle this option on.Nvidia is also bringing its new Smooth Motion feature, which was previously exclusive to RTX 50-series GPUs, to all RTX 40-series owners. It’s a driver-based AI model that enables smoother gameplay for games that don’t support DLSS Frame Generation. Smooth Motion can be applied to games running with DLSS Super Resolution, at native resolution, or even titles with other upscaling technologies. Nvidia says it will typically double “the perceived frame rate.”If you’re a fan of Nvidia’s G-Assist AI assistant, Nvidia is changing the AI model behind the scenes so it will use 40 percent less memory. The smaller footprint won’t affect performance either, as it’s designed to respond even faster to queries.These latest Nvidia app changes will arrive on August 19th for beta users at 9AM PT / 12PM ET, followed by a general release next week.

My self-hosting journey has seen some ups and downs. Although I replaced several productivity apps with their self-hosted rivals, I kept coming back to OneNote (and sometimes, Google Keep) for my notes. I tried everything, from Joplin, Outline, Blinko, and even AppFlowy, but none of them felt robust enough to ditch my cloud convenience. And then I came across Docmost, and it changed everything.

It’s been two and a half years since Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service got a big boost in graphics, latency, and refresh rates — this September, Nvidia’s GFN will officially add its latest Blackwell GPUs. You’ll soon be able to rent what’s effectively an RTX 5080 in the cloud, one with a whopping 48GB of memory and DLSS 4, then use that power to stream your own near-maxed-out PC games to your phone, Mac, PC, TV, set-top, or Chromebook for $20 a month.The news comes with some caveats, but a bunch of other upgrades, too, the biggest of which is called “Install-to-Play.” Nvidia is finally bringing back the ability to install games without waiting for Nvidia to formally curate them. Nvidia claims that will double the GeForce Now library in one fell swoop.No, you can’t just install any old PC game you own — but every game that’s opted into Valve’s Steam Cloud Play will immediately be available to install. “Literally the moment we add the feature, you’ll see 2,352 games show up,” Nvidia product marketing director Andrew Fear tells The Verge. After that, he says Install-to-Play will let Nvidia add many more games and demos to GFN on their release dates than Nvidia can manage on its own, just so long as publishers tick that box.Currently, Steam is the only platform compatible with Install-to-Play, but Fear tells me many publishers tend to opt in through Valve’s distribution network, including Ubisoft, Paradox, Nacom, Devolver, TinyBuild and CD Projekt Red.One important caveat is that Install-to-Play games won’t launch instantly like curated titles; you’ll need to download and install them each time, unless you pay Nvidia extra for persistent storage at $3 for $200GB, $5 for 500GB, or $8 for 1TB per month. Installs should be fast, though, since Nvidia’s servers are linked to Valve’s Steam servers. When GFN originally launched with a similar feature, I remember downloading games far faster than I’ve ever done at home.And Nvidia has a new use for your home bandwidth, too. If you’ve got enough, GFN will also now let you stream at 5K resolution (for both 16:9 monitors and ultrawides) at 120fps, or at up to 360fps at 1080p. There’s also a new optional Cinematic Quality Streaming mode you can toggle that Nvidia claims can reduce color bleed and restore detail to dark and blurry areas of a scene as it’s streamed over the net, and you can now stream at up to 100Mbps, up from 75Mbps previously, to help maintain that quality. (It uses HDR10 and SDR10, with YUV 4:4:4 chroma sampling, streamed over AV1 with an added AI video filter and some optimizations for clearer text and HUD elements.)Plus, Steam Deck OLED owners will be able to stream at its native 90Hz refresh rate (up from 60Hz), LG is bringing a native GeForce Now app directly to its 4K OLED TVs and 5K OLED monitors — “no Android TV devices, no Chromecast, nothing, run it directly on the television,” says Fear — and Logitech racing wheels with haptic feedback are now supported too.How much more performance will you truly get from an RTX 5080 in the cloud? That’s the real question, and we don’t have a clear answer yet. For one thing, Nvidia isn’t promising you’ll always have an RTX 5080-tier GPU for every game you play. The company’s $20-a-month GFN Ultimate tier will still include RTX 4080-class cards too, at least for the time being.Fear says there’s no ulterior motive there — it’ll just take time for 5080 performance to roll out “as we add the servers and bring up capacity.” He also rattles off a laundry list of popular games that’ll have 5080 performance right away, including Apex Legends, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Baldur’s Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, Clair Obscur, Cyberpunk 2077, Doom: The Dark Ages… you get the idea.The other caveat is that while Nvidia claims its new Blackwell Superpods are up to 2.8 times faster at gaming, that’s only if you have DLSS 4 generating three fake frames for every real frame (4x MFG) and being OK with any resulting lag. We weren’t blown away with the uplift from RTX 4080 to RTX 5080 in our review of the physical card, and latency is even more important when you’re streaming over the net.That said, Tom and I have been impressed with GFN’s latency in the past. I’ve parried Expedition 33 foes and Sekiro bosses with it — and in lightweight games, Nvidia’s latency may have gotten even better this gen thanks to partnerships with ISPs like Comcast, T-Mobile and BT for low-latency L4S tech and the new 360fps mode. The company claims the 360fps mode can deliver end-to-end latency of just 30ms in Overwatch 2, a game where you don’t need multi-frame generation (MFG) to get that many frames. That’s more responsive than a home console — assuming you’re close enough and peered well enough to Nvidia’s servers to get 10ms ping, like I do in the San Francisco Bay Area. The good news is, you won’t have to pay an extra cent for the RTX 5080 performance boost either way. GeForce Now Ultimate will remain $19.99 a month for now. “We’re not going to increase our price at all,” says Fear, in a group briefing. When I ask him privately whether Nvidia will increase it later, he can’t say, but claims GFN has only ever increased price when Nvidia saw a big increase in power usage or needed to rebalance currency exchange in some regions. “Nothing’s written in stone, but we’re saying for now no plans to make a price increase.”Additionally, Nvidia is trying an intriguing new experiment that bakes GeForce Now into Discord so gamers can instantly try new games for free right from a Discord server, no GeForce Now login required. Epic Games and Discord are the first partners demoing the technology at Gamescom this week.“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 Fear. He tells The Verge that it’s merely a “technology announcement” as of today, but that Nvidia hopes game publishers and developers will reach out if they’re interested in potentially adding it to their games. I hope so, as I’ve been in awe of try-before-you-buy cloud gaming ever since Gaikai introduced the idea 15 years ago, but Gaikai’s founder told me years later that publishers didn’t necessarily want it.I’m looking forward to trying GeForce Now’s 5080-class servers when they launch in September, alongside the new 90Hz mode for Steam Deck OLED, and I’m curious whether the influx of games will finally make it feel like a true console alternative for me. One of my last big remaining reservations is how many of my Steam games are still missing. Speaking of which, don’t expect to see Sony or Rockstar games like Grand Theft Auto on the service anytime soon. “I have no updates, they have chosen not to be on GFN, and you should go ask them,” Fear tells me.

Since 2016, 70mai has established itself as a leading innovator in automotive technology, and dash cams in particular. There are millions of 70mai dash cams operating in over 100 countries around the world, keeping drivers safe and ensuring that the paperwork and legal issues following a road incident are kept to a minimum.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be the first game to get Nvidia’s new RTX Hair features next month. Instead of using triangles to model hair, Nvidia will use spheres to improve Harrison Ford’s virtual hair in the Indiana Jones game.RTX Hair is designed to improve lighting and shadows, all while maintaining performance in the game and not taking up too much extra memory. It also makes Ford’s hair look fuller and more realistic, and will be available as an update to the real-time path tracing mode in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.The RTX Hair improvements use new hardware capabilities in RTX 50-series GPUs, as Nvidia added hardware acceleration of ray tracing for hair and fur and support for the linear swept sphere (LSS) primitive. Nvidia says LSS is a “big step toward rendering high-quality digital humans in real time.”

While there was an initial rush to get a Switch 2 in hand, it looks like stocks of the console have stabilized just a couple of months from the initial release, as it can be easily ordered from most major retailers, like Best Buy. Naturally, it's always a good idea to get some protection for the handheld console, as it's not a cheap piece of hardware.

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.