One thing digital libraries lack that physical ones don't is the freedom to customise how your games are sorted. If you don't like the box a game came in, you could easily move it to another one; for a digital title, you're pretty much just stuck with whatever the developer bestowed upon you.

Doom: The Dark Ages definitely left its mark on us. When we reviewed it back in mid-May, we gave it a shining 9/10 score, praising the new Shield Saw weapon and how brutal the combat can get. In fact, given how the review was written under three months ago, the digital dust hasn't even begun to settle on it.

Have you already ditched your old PC due to low-end specs? You are not alone. I faced the same struggle with my eight-year-old HP Spectre x360, which is lying in the corner of my home office. But instead of buying a new, expensive HP EliteBook or Omnibook, I found a surprisingly simple and effective solution right under my nose: I transformed my old, dusty HP machine into a dedicated, distraction-free workhorse.

With the Home Assistant running in my home lab, I’m slowly attempting to keep most of my data local. To further that, I started using local LLMs with Home Assistant to explore the extent of achieving much without any cloud dependency. Of course, the performance of a local LLM is directly dependent on the CPU and GPU power it uses. Keeping that in mind, I attempted to integrate smart home automation in Home Assistant with local LLMs.

This is one of those monitors that can be a real game-changer. Not only are you getting a fantastic QD-OLED display, which delivers impressive colors and black levels, but it also packs tons of performance as well. And while it used to be pretty pricey, you can now pick up this model for $610. This isn't the cheapest monitor out there by any means, but you're getting impressive value here with this newly discounted price, so grab it while you can.

I've been exploring what useful self-hosted services are out there and have been pleasantly surprised by just how many types of tools you can self-host. Many of the current containers I've set up are mostly for personal projects and tasks. However, while researching resource management software, I discovered some self-hosted invoice software that I could try out.

Far be it from me to anthropomorphize AI, but my singular experience with Google's new Gemini CLI appeared to give it an existential crisis, caused it to crash out, and proclaim its embarrassment at failing to solve the task appropriately. Given the nature of the task, I'm not all too surprised, yet I will proudly wear the badge of causing an LLM to completely crash out when dealing with my code.

The LeapMove could make gaming a more active pastime. | Image: LeapFrog LeapFrog has announced a new electronic learning system that swaps controllers for a camera. In fact, the LeapMove looks like an oversized, kid-friendly webcam, but is designed to connect to TVs like a console and get kids off the couch using educational games that require full-body movements to play. It’s reminiscent of the Xbox Kinect or the PlayStation 2’s EyeToy, but simpler and much cheaper than competitors’ products like the $249 Nex Playground.The LeapMove will be available through retailers including Target, Walmart, and Amazon for $69.99, and comes with 25 motion-based games designed for kids aged 4 to 7. It might be hard to pull the older end of that demographic away from games like Roblox, Among Us, and even Fortnite, but in addition to motion detection, the LeapMove uses its camera to make players appear as themselves or “whimsical characters” in several games, which may appeal to younger kids.The games cover “foundational school subjects” including math, reading, and spelling, and require players to do everything from dancing around to waving their arms and even attempting to catch on-screen objects. The LeapMove connects to a TV over HDMI, and instead of rechargeable batteries it needs access to a power outlet. It can be used either sitting beneath a TV or perched atop it like a webcam using a fold-out support.LeapFrog says additional games will be made available for the LeapMove at a later date, which can be loaded by connecting the device to a computer and using the company’s LeapFrog Connect desktop app. They won’t be free, but unlike the Nex Playground, the LeapMove doesn’t come with any subscription fees.Parents concerned about privacy, particularly with devices that rely heavily on a camera, may appreciate that the LeapMove has no wireless connectivity. In 2018, VTech, LeapFrog’s parent company, agreed to settle for a $650,000 fine after the FTC alleged it collected kids’ personal information, including names, emails, and genders, through its KidiConnect mobile app. The LeapMove is completely standalone and keeps track of up to three players’ progress locally.

Ever since I've gone Bluetooth with my headphones, I've freed myself from the tyranny of my office chair's wheels. Beforehand, I would eventually lose audio clarity as the wheels rolled over the cables over time, until it was so rough that I'd have to get a new one.

People love to play a good fighting game with their friends. The genre has always had a foothold in the hearts of players for its drive towards competitiveness and hard-hitting action. But while a number of great fighting game series continuously release new games over time, they also try to attempt something new for their audience. These offshoot games are often viewed as spin-offs from the main series which they come from, not being fully representative of the core aspects of their franchises. Unfortunately, not all of them are winners and usually fade into obscurity.

If you're building a PC today or picking up a mini PC or laptop, you'll likely be using DDR5 memory. It's been a while since a CPU that supports DDR4 was released; all the current motherboard chipsets only support DDR5, and it's now a mature technology pushing the boundaries of what the specifications promise.

Tim Cook sure knows how to sell an iPhone. Apple has been the target of a fair amount of criticism over the past year, from its AI missteps to a strong distaste for its new design ethos. But the numbers don’t lie, and if Apple knows how to do anything it’s sell iPhones. Specifically, three billion of them, as CEO Tim Cook announced on the company’s earnings call today. That’s an impressive number on its own, but it’s even wilder when you consider that Apple is picking up the pace. The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and the company reached 1 billion iPhones sold nine years later in 2016. Getting to 2 billion took only five years; from there it’s been just four years to sell another billion. Considering the rate at which young people — in this country, at least — prefer iPhones over Android, it seems like a trend that’s bound to continue.That’s also a lot of eggs in one basket. Apple’s own Eddy Cue recently admitted that “you may not need an iPhone 10 years from now.” That should be pretty worrying if your biggest business is selling phones! Apple’s most notable foray into a forward-looking form factor hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, either. It has somewhat famously fumbled its first attempts at adding meaningful AI features to its phones, too. At least from the outside, Apple doesn’t seem terribly well prepared for that world we might be living in ten years from now.The dilemma is clearly on Cook’s mind. Later in the earnings call when asked about the fate of phones as the dominant mobile platform, he mentioned that the company is “thinking about other things as well,” but thinks that emerging technologies “are likely to be complementary devices, not substitution.” Phones certainly seem safe in the short term, but maybe whatever Sam Altman and Jony Ive are cooking up will slow Apple’s roll a bit on the way to its four billionth iPhone sale.