I was tired of the mess that came with planning anything with my family. We had too many group chats, emails, and notes all over the place. Whenever we tried to plan a simple trip or a weekend get-together, the important details would just disappear. We needed a single, central location where everyone could contribute and view the entire plan at once. That's when I discovered HedgeDoc, a free, self-hosted tool for collaborative note-taking. It has completely changed how we work, and it's now our family's own private wiki.

Windows 10 end of support is approaching in less than three weeks, and Microsoft has now been forced to make its extended security updates truly free, without a catch, in certain markets in Europe. When Windows 10 goes end of support on October 14th, some European customers will no longer be required to turn on Windows Backup to enroll into its Extended Security Updates (ESU).Microsoft had wanted everyone to turn on Windows Backup to get the extra year of security updates, but thanks to pressure from the Euroconsumers group this is now changing in the European Economic Area. The consumer advocacy group has been asking Microsoft to do more for those still running Windows 10 across Europe, and it has successfully convinced the software giant to offer the extended security updates free without the requirement of enabling Windows Backup.Windows Backup requires a Microsoft Account and uses OneDrive, which could lead consumers to go above the 5GB of free storage by having to back up documents and settings. It’s a catch that benefits Microsoft, as it can then sell Windows 10 users additional OneDrive storage space.“We are pleased to learn that Microsoft will provide a no-cost Extended Security Updates (ESU) option for Windows 10 consumer users in the European Economic Area (EEA),” says the Euroconsumers group in a letter this week. “We are also glad this option will not require users to back up settings, apps, or credentials, or use Microsoft Rewards.”An unnamed Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the changes to Windows Central, noting that it’s “making updates to the enrollment process to ensure it meets local expectations and delivers a secure, streamlined experience.” These changes are only being made in the European Economic Area though, so everywhere else will still need to either enable Windows Backup or pay $30 for the year or redeem 1,000 Microsoft Reward points.Consumers will still only get extended security updates for Windows 10 until October 13th, 2026, but businesses have the option to purchase up to three years of important security updates. Euroconsumers is also trying to convince Microsoft to extend its security updates beyond a year for consumers, to avoid leaving devices “exposed to risk” next year.

PC owners aren't strangers to the usual hardware debacle. If you’ve been using a PC for more than a year, chances are you have probably encountered some common hardware hiccups. Whether it’s an overclocking or undervolting tweak gone wrong, a curious case of a forgotten BIOS password, or the dreaded black screen on startup, a simple CMOS reset could spell the end of your hardware woes.

The CMF Phone 2 Pro was the company’s most recent cheap smartphone. Nothing has announced that it plans to spin off its sub-brand CMF, which focuses on cheaper smartphones, earbuds, and wearables, into a standalone subsidiary based in India. Founder and CEO Carl Pei announced the move on X, claiming he plans to build CMF into India’s “first truly global consumer tech brand.” Nothing is partnering with local manufacturer Optiemus in a joint venture to set up CMF, and announced plans to invest over $100 million and create at least 1,800 jobs over the next three years. Nothing can afford the investment, having just raised $200 million in a funding round that values the company at $1.3 billion. The announcement comes at an interesting time for CMF, which is busy teasing the launch of its first pair of over-ear headphones on September 29th. Like all CMF products, they’re expected to be budget-friendly — its top smartphone, the Phone 2 Pro, is just $279 in its US beta release, with its watches and earbuds all below $100.

The OnePlus 15 no longer has a Hasselblad logo on its camera. OnePlus has revealed a few details about its next flagship phone at a Qualcomm event in China: it’ll be called the OnePlus 15, and it will come with Qualcomm’s freshly announced Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset and a 165Hz refresh rate display.You didn’t blink and miss the OnePlus 14, if you’re wondering about that. The OnePlus 13 will be succeeded by the OnePlus 15, likely to avoid including a “4” in the product name — bad luck in Chinese culture. It’ll pair nicely with the 8 Elite Gen 5 name, which follows the Snapdragon 8 Elite. It all makes sense somehow.The company showed off a black version of the OnePlus 15 on stage at Qualcomm’s second Snapdragon Summit in China, revealing that it looks less like the 13 and more like the 13T, also known as the 13S in India. It shares that phone’s rounded square camera island, and is likely to similarly drop the alert slider in favor of a customizable shortcut button.Aside from the chipset, refresh rate, and name, we also know that the OnePlus 15 will be the company’s first flagship for a few years without Hasselblad-branded camera processing. CEO Pete Lau recently announced that the two brands would be ending their five-year partnership, though confusingly, parent company Oppo will keep working with Hasselblad. But OnePlus is striking out on its own with a new image processing technology it calls the DetailMax Engine. I dunno, names are hard, I guess.

The Magic 8 Pro has a dedicated AI button along the side. Honor has revealed the design of its upcoming Magic 8 Pro flagship in a selection of images shared exclusively with The Verge, confirming that the phone will include a dedicated AI button. When the Magic 8 series launches in China next month, the phones will be among the first powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, which was announced today by Qualcomm.The Magic phones are Honor’s flagships, and the Pro models tend to launch first in China and then later in Europe, where they typically cost upwards of €1,000 (around $1,200) and lean on flagship chips, big batteries, and powerful cameras. From what we know so far, the Magic 8 Pro will be no exception.In broad strokes, the Magic 8 Pro looks much like the Magic 7 Pro. The phone’s back is flat, rather than having subtle curvature like the previous model, but otherwise things seem familiar. Even the light blue color looks a lot like one of last year’s hues.The biggest difference is on the phone’s side, where we can see an extra button in addition to the power button and volume rocker. Honor tells me that this is a dedicated AI button, rather than a camera control, though exactly what AI functions it will enable I don’t yet know. Honor is also announcing a new AI feature called Magic Color, which lets you restyle images and videos using the color palette from another image of your choice, but presumably it has more AI tricks in mind for the phone. On the back we can see a round rear camera island, boasting what looks like four camera lenses, but is most likely three plus a ToF (time of flight) sensor for depth detection. We don’t know much about those cameras, but Honor’s CMO Guo Rui did share a camera sample to Weibo taken on a 200-megapixel, 85mm-equivalent, f/2.6 camera, which should mean a more powerful telephoto than the Magic 7 Pro’s 72mm periscope.Honor has also confirmed that the Magic 8 phones will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the latest iteration of the company’s flagship phone chip. Honor isn’t the only company ready for the 8 Elite Gen 5 though. Xiaomi has previously announced that the new chipset will be used in its Xiaomi 17 series, set for a full reveal Thursday.Last year Honor announced the Magic 7 and Magic 7 Pro, eventually joined by a Lite model too, so I’m expecting the company to announce two phones at its Chinese launch event on October 15th. They’ll be joined by the MagicPad 3 Pro, also powered by the 8 Elite Gen 5, and will hopefully see a European release some time early next year. The company is rumored to be working on new Magic 8 Ultra and Mini models too, though those will also reportedly arrive in 2026.

Living in Ireland, my electricity prices have gone from bad to worse in recent years, and a recent further price increase across most of the providers has pushed us to either the top spot in terms of energy prices in the world, or second place, depending on who you ask. Plus, some have had us at the top spot for several months at this point. With that price increase has come a re-evaluation of all of the tech that I use, with an attempt to consolidate as much as I can and to decrease the power usage of my appliances, too. As it turns out, though, your PC probably doesn't consume a whole lot of power.

I don't mean it lightly when I say that Halo: The Master Chief Collection is one of the best bundles of games I've ever seen. Not just because you score a whole ton of amazing first-person shooters for a very agreeable price, but because the collection itself goes above and beyond what was expected of it. The end result is a, quite frankly, legendary product that I will always wholeheartedly recommend.

Package managers are less common among the general Windows user base. Most of us still prefer the old Microsoft Store or web search method for finding and installing software packages on our PCs. I also followed the same procedure whenever I had to install an app on my Windows 10 or 11 PC. WinGet debuted in 2022, and it was my first time trying a command-line tool for installing and managing system packages.

Playground Games is launching the next instalment in the Forza Horizon franchise next year, and this time it’s set in Japan. After revealing Forza Horizon 6 a little early on the official Forza Horizon Instagram account this morning, Microsoft unveiled an official teaser trailer during the Xbox Tokyo Game Show stream.The teaser trailer doesn’t offer up any gameplay, but Forza Horizon 6 players will be able to experience the neon lights and buildings of Tokyo City, as well as an open world set in various other parts of Japan. “This has been the most requested location since the very first game, and we can’t wait to share more next year,” says Matt Booty, Xbox president of game content and studios.Forza Horizon 6 will debut initially on Xbox and PC in 2026, but not on PS5 day and date. Playground Games and Turn 10 Studios are “working together to bring Forza Horizon 6 to PlayStation 5 post-launch.“ The developers are planning to reveal more about Forza Horizon 6 in ”early 2026.“The confirmation of a 2026 release window for Forza Horizon 6 means it’s a busy upcoming year for Xbox, and Playground Games in particular. Xbox chief Phil Spencer casually revealed earlier this year that the next Forza would arrive in 2026, and Forza Horizon 6 will also be joined by Gears of War: E-Day, a Halo CE remaster, and Playground Games’ Fable.Forza Horizon 6 will debut a year after Microsoft released the previous instalment, Forza Horizon 5, on PS5. The four-year-old game topped Sony’s PlayStation store charts, and became one of the most popular PS5 games this year.

Uber is launching a new discount program aimed at fighting against rising produce prices. The company is launching a new feature called “Fresh Days,” in which customers will receive discounts of up to 50 percent on “local fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy.” The exact day and discount amount will vary from market to market, but Uber plans on launching the new feature in the US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, France, Japan, Taiwan, and Spain — with more countries to follow. Grocery customers are experiencing sticker shock across the nation, with most of the price increases affecting fruits and vegetables. Apple prices are up 9.6 percent year-over-year, according to the latest Consumer Price Index. Overall, fresh fruits and vegetables are up 2.3 percent compared to August 2024. This “veggie-flation” comes as farmers and growers face increasing costs of their own, with the USDA estimating that farm production expenses will reach $467 billion in 2025, up 2.6 percent from the previous year and more than 36 percent higher than in 2018.Uber’s Fresh Day new discount program will hopefully take some of the bite out of that grocery order. The company is offering its steepest discounts to its Uber One subscribers; for example, an Uber One member in the US could get an exclusive 30 percent off every Tuesday on select fresh produce, meats, dairy, and eggs.Uber Eats is also rolling out a number of other updates, including an new AI-powered replacement suggestion tool in case the item you ordered isn’t in stock. Uber Eats couriers can also now share photos with customers while shopping to better communicate when an item is out-of-stock or “low quality.” And Uber is now offering a freshness guarantee, meaning the company will replace any item that arrives spoiled, damaged, past its date, or stale.

Apple says it’s having to delay bringing some product features to Europe because it’s struggling to make them compliant with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). In a statement published on Wednesday, Apple said that DMA rules have created “more complexity and more risks for our EU users,” blaming the obligation to open Apple features to third-party devices for the delays.Features impacted include AI-powered Live Translation for AirPods, iPhone Mirroring, and  Visited Places and Preferred Routes on Apple Maps. While interoperability requirements under the DMA specify that companies make proprietary apps and device features available on third-party hardware, Apple says it hasn’t found a way to make these features available on non-Apple devices without compromising users’ data security and privacy.DMA requirements to make it easier to pair, transfer data, and display notifications between iPhones and third-party devices are bearing some fruit, however. The latest iOS 26.1 beta suggests that a “notification forwarding” feature will allow iPhone notifications to surface on non-Apple devices, such as smartwatch competitors to the Apple Watch. The beta also includes references to a feature that will make it easier to pair iPhones with third-party accessories.Despite its ongoing opposition to the DMA, Apple insists that it’s “spending thousands of hours” to be compliant with the law’s requirements, and that the “list of delayed features in the EU will probably get longer” due to these impediments. The EU has given Apple until the end of this year to open up most of these features if it makes them available to European users, or risk facing additional fines under the DMA. The company was hit with a $580 million penalty in April after the App Store violated anti-steering requirements under the rulebook. The iPhone maker has called for the DMA regulation to be repealed “while a more appropriate fit for purpose legislative instrument is put in place,” according to a feedback submission seen by the Financial Times. While Apple’s concerns around user security may hold merit, the company is also motivated to see the DMA scrapped to prevent the legislation from tearing down the walled garden that incentivizes consumers to stay in its product ecosystem. Denying Europeans access to features over DMA compliance concerns may help Apple keep its user base on-side in its argument with the EU.