Linux has a bit of a reputation associated with it, and depending on your computer background, that reputation can be positive or negative in connotation. It's the OS built for servers, tinkerers, and developers, and not for the weak-minded. Its incredible robustness and flexibility often feel like a curse rather than a blessing for those who haven't been well exposed to it, and often times that can turn many users away from it for good.

On Thursday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law legislation banning the use of price-fixing software by landlords to set rental rates. New York is the first state to outlaw algorithmic pricing by landlords, following a number of city-wide bans in Jersey City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle. Software companies such as RealPage offer landlords algorithms that can set rental prices. The software can also help determine the ideal number of people to live in a unit or the terms of a lease renewal. RealPage says it can help its clients “optimize rents to achieve the overall highest yield, or combination of rent and occupancy, at each property.” But the “private data algorithms” advertised by these software companies, Hochul says, cause the “housing market distortion” that harms renters “during a historic housing supply and affordability crisis.”Not only does the law outlaw setting rental terms with the software, it also says that any property owners who use the software will be considered colluding. In other words, two or more rental property owners or managers who set rents with an algorithm are, in practice, choosing to not compete with each other, whether they do so “knowingly or with reckless disregard,” the law says. This is a distinct violation from simply using the software itself. The use of this software has cost US tenants around $3.8 billion in 2024, according to Hochul’s press release. A 2022 investigation by ProPublica linked RealPage’s algorithm with soaring rental prices across the country. Two years later, the US government sued RealPage. The bill protects renters from “algorithmic price collusion,” Pat Garofalo, director of state and local policy at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a press release. One of the bill’s sponsors, State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, said of the bill: “This legislation will update our antitrust laws to make clear that rent price-fixing via artificial intelligence is against the law and ensure there are boundaries against behaviors that the federal government has found lead to anticompetitive practices and price fixing.”The law goes into effect in 60 days. 

I initially got into the home lab rabbit hole because of my Network-Attached Storage rig, but I’ve since moved on to dedicated virtualization platforms for server experiments. However, my NAS is still an important part of the setup, as it takes care of all my backup, data archival, and file-sharing needs. I also self-host a handful of services inside the NAS, including apps that help manage my smart home devices.

Apple just announced 14-inch MacBook Pro updates that add a new generation M5 processor, faster storage, and a promise of 24-hour battery life, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman now reports next year’s refresh will be more thorough. For several years, Gurman has said that, according to his sources, the next major MacBook Pro revamp would add touchscreens, OLED displays, and a lighter, thinner frame. He reported last month that nothing has changed about that plan other than pushing it back from a late 2025 launch due to OLED supply issues, and today, he expanded on those rumors with details of codenames (K114 and K116) and other specs.While Windows laptops have had touchscreens for years, Apple has avoided them, instead adding the Touch Bar to its machines for a few years before changing course in 2021. The report also teases another change that’s already a Windows feature but absent on Macs — a shift from Touch ID fingerprint scanning to Face ID authentication, which he says is still years away.Before that, he says we should still expect to see M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro updates with the current design released early next year. Similarly, updated versions of the MacBook Air, Mac Studio, Mac Mini, and two monitors are in the works.According to Gurman, the new MacBook Pros will contain M6 series Apple processors, a hole-punch style integrated webcam that’s more like the iPhone’s front-facing camera with its Dynamic Island, and reinforced hinges that don’t bounce around or shift while using the touchscreen. The bad news? Those changes are expected to increase the prices by “a few hundred dollars,” and they’re unlikely to reach Apple’s cheaper laptops the first time around.

There are a lot of things you can add to your desk setup, but a docking station is going to be one of our favorite options, expanding the capabilities of your devices with new ways to connect. And while we've seen plenty of different docking stations go on sale, this 20-in-1 from iVANKY is a sure winner thanks to its steep $100 discount.

It’s-a-me, Ally-o. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Hey! I'm Sean Hollister, and I've been The Verge's unofficial handheld gaming PC reviewer since 2022, when the Steam Deck and kin took over my life. (I also helped launch this website back in the day!) I also just spent the past week reviewing the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X, Microsoft's very first "Xbox" handhelds that are built and co-developed by Asus.We're doing a neat new thing where we let paying subscribers ask us anything about the hottest new gadgets, stories, and events - and I wasn't about to let my colleague Jen have all the fun! So today, I hosted my own subscriber-only AMA right here in the comments to this story, and I think …Read the full story at The Verge.

Integrated graphics built on desktop CPUs got a bad rap, especially for Intel in the 2010s which saw the introduction of a graphics core on the Clarkdale consumer desktop CPUs, which was the first generation of Intel Core i5 and i3 processors. Despite the bad reputation, the history of integrated graphics goes back more than a decade prior to Clarkdale.

If you own a Steam Deck but you don't want to be limited to playing games on Steam, there's a good chance you've heard about the Heroic Games Launcher. We've covered it ourselves a few years back as a great way to bring Epic Games titles such as Fortnite to the Steam Deck.

A rendering of the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility. | Image: X-energy via Amazon Amazon shared some new details about its plans to help deploy more nuclear energy across Washington State, where the company is headquartered.About a year ago, Amazon announced an agreement with Energy Northwest, a consortium of public utilities in Washington, to support the development of up to 12 advanced reactors by the early 2030s. Once complete, Amazon would have the right to purchase electricity from the first 320-megawatt phase of the project. The additional capacity would be open to Amazon and local utilities to use.What’s different about these reactors is that they’re small and modular, which is supposed to make them cheaper and easier to deploy than America’s existing fleet of nuclear power plants. Amazon shared several rendered images today of what the first plant might look like outside of Richland, Washington. Called the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, it’ll include three sections with a combined capacity of 960 megawatts, about enough electricity to power 770,000 homes in the US. While an old-school reactor with about the same capacity might spread across more than a square mile of land, according to Amazon, Cascade is expected to take up just a few city blocks.Amazon’s blog post today says that the Cascade facility should create about 100 permanent jobs, as well as more than 1,000 construction jobs. Considering these next-generation reactors are still under development and have to go through a licensing process, construction isn’t expected to start until the end of the decade.

It's that time of the year again. Wallets are tighter, game wishlists are longer, and both Battlefield and Call of Duty have arrived at the worst possible time for anyone trying to budget responsibly. Between dinners, parties, and holiday gifts, buying two big AAA shooters back-to-back isn't something all players would be able to do. In fact, it's an important buying decision for the entire friend group, who are going to be spending their available time with the squad on one game instead of constantly hopping between two.

The Raspberry Pi is already one of the most versatile small computers around, but open-source software is what truly unlocks its potential. With the right tools, you can turn it into a dashboard, server, automation hub, or even a robust monitoring system. Whether you use your Pi for home projects, learning, or self-hosting, these tools can significantly enhance its capabilities.

Ever since it was first revealed with a teaser trailer back in 2021, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake is a game that Star Wars fans have wanted to get their hands on. Unfortunately, the project was halted, despite the very positive reception that the reveal trailer had online. The original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake is considered by many to be one of the best video games based on the Star Wars franchise, and is also considered one of the most important role-playing games released for the original Xbox. So it's totally understandable why a remake of the game would be desirable to Star Wars fans. But a recent leak may have given everyone a quick peek at what the game was going to be, and it reveals some interesting things about it.