If you're on a Windows 10 PC and your computer doesn't match the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft would prefer that you purchase a new one. However, it's not your only option; some people have come forward and devised ways to install Windows 11 on a PC while dodging the system requirement check, allowing any PC, TPM 2.0 or not, to use the operating system. And with Windows 10 falling out of support this coming October, we'll only see more and more people take that avenue.

It's been a while since PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs were released, but the stance on picking up these blazing-fast SSDs as an upgrade is starting to soften. Sure, not everyone is going to need the latest and greatest, but if you're thinking about going with the best option available, then a PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD is going to be it.

Man, this SteamOS thing is getting a little out of hand, isn't it? Ever since Valve opened the gates and allowed SteamOS to roam free on any device it pleases, we've seen people install it on all kinds of things to compare it to stock performance. For instance, when it comes to handhelds, it seems that using SteamOS can help boost framerates over using Windows 11, which is good news for people who want to get even more bang for their buck.

Some Steam achievements are tough. Others? They’re downright ridiculous. These aren’t just about grinding XP or finishing a story; they’re brutal challenges that test your patience, skill, and maybe even your sanity. Here are the rarest, most absurdly difficult achievements you can try to earn on Steam, if you dare.

Have you ever wondered what bops powerful figures are listening to on Spotify? You'd be amazed what you can get with a profile search - but just in case you want them all in one place, there's the Panama Playlists, a newly published collection of data on the musical listening habits of politicians, journalists, and tech figures, as curated by an anonymous figure.The site appears to have data for a number of notables, including Open AI CEO Sam Altman, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Late Night host Seth Meyers. Five people featured on the website confirmed to The Verge that data for them is accurate: "T …Read the full story at The Verge.

I've been using Adobe Photoshop since the old Creative Suite 2 days, and I've been resistant to switching programs because breaking years of habits in order to use a free product never felt worth it. Most of my general day-to-day photo editing could be handled in the built-in image editor program on my laptop, and when I needed anything fancier, I had an old version of Photoshop that was still working for quite a while.

All of us have a digital footprint in the online world. Whether you use services like Google Workspace for work or Outlook for your emails, these are all online tools that send data to remote servers. While that's not necessarily unsafe since the data is encrypted, letting a third-party handle your data can always be risky — especially with sensitive documents and files. That's when I realized the importance of self-hosted apps and services, and made the switch soon thereafter. I now have a self-hosted home lab with my entire digital life offloaded onto it. Apart from enhanced data control and privacy, I enjoy benefits such as offline access to several services, long-term cost savings, and complete flexibility in tailoring services to meet my needs.

E-ink displays look great, and Home Assistant is a really handy way to keep your smart home ticking over, so why not combine the two? Smart home displays don't usually need to update a ton of times every second, so you can get away with using an e-ink display without sacrificing too much.

Mark Zuckerberg’s AI hiring spree is costing a lot of money. His investors don’t care.Meta’s stock price shot up over 10 percent on Wednesday after the company reported better-than-expected earnings. Revenue generated in the second quarter was $47.5 billion, up 22 percent from a year ago. Daily users across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp grew to almost 3.5 billion. Meta also warned Wall Street that it would spend more on data centers and hiring next year. In response to all this, the company’s valuation increased by over $175 billion, or more than 12 Scale AI deals.”Our business continues to perform very well, which enables us to invest heavily in our AI efforts,” Zuckerberg said during today’s earnings call. Meta’s cash cannon is now fully pointed at his new moonshot of achieving superintelligence, or as he puts it, AI that “surpasses human intelligence in every way.” He bragged about providing the richly compensated members of his new superintelligence lab “access to unparalleled compute” for training new models that will “push the next frontier in a year or so.” Zuckerberg’s last moonshot was the metaverse, which came up only once at the very end of today’s earnings call. It’s too early to compare the two projects, but they share a key similarity: they need the kind of funding that only a company like Meta can provide.Where AI differs from the metaverse, however, is that it appears to be already improving Meta’s ads business. A new AI model for delivering ads has driven approximately five percent more conversions on Facebook and three percent more conversions on Instagram, according to CFO Susan Li. Large language models are also starting to power how posts are ranked in feeds across the company’s apps, including Threads. While Meta is still spending heavily on the metaverse (it’s on track to spend a total of $100 billion on its Reality Labs division this year), there’s no mistaking the fact that AI is officially Zuckerberg’s top priority. This time, though, he’s playing catch-up in a heated race, not trying to invent a new platform from scratch. The stakes are much higher, even if he’s playing the game with house money.

When we talk about a "smart home," people often fall into one of three camps. The first camp is made up of those who love the idea of their home being truly "smart", being able to automate their day in a way that makes life easier. The second camp is simply made up of those who don't care, haven't heard of it, or feel as if it's not worth the money. The third camp, meanwhile, is typically made up of those who vehemently hate the idea, pointing to the invitation of potential tech problems into your home, vendor lock-in, and data collection. Futurehome, a Norwegian-based smart home company, has recently given firepower to that latter camp.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that will suspend the de minimis exemption — which allows packages with goods valued less than $800 to enter the US duty-free — for all countries. Earlier this year, Trump ended the de minimis exemption for goods from China and Hong Kong.The White House says the change goes into effect on August 29th. Per the executive order, for the next six months, goods shipped through the international postal system will either be charged the flat tariff rate based on country of origin (an ad valorem duty) or a specific duty ranging from $80 to $200 per item. After six months, all duties will be calculated as ad valorem duties.The White House’s argument for ending the exemption is that packages using it are “subject to less scrutiny than traditional imports” and could “pose health, safety, national and economic security risks.” The White House claims that 98 percent of narcotics seizures (by “number of cases”) are from de minimis shipments. It also says that low-value packages from China and Hong Kong accounted for “the majority of de minimis shipments to the United States.”

It's no secret that I adore projects that use e-ink displays. There's just something about their appearance that I really love, and I'm always on the hunt for new projects that use this cool tech in all kinds of different ways. Because as long as you don't need to refresh the screen a ton, you could try putting an e-ink display on anything, really.