It's easy to get carried away with laptop specifications when you're looking for something new. But if there are some rules to follow, it's to buy something that has slightly better specs than what you'll need and to find that at a price that you can afford. Luckily, we've been seeing some pretty good laptop deals lately, and this OmniBook 5 from HP hits all the right marks, and is now down to just $700 for a very limited time.

Recently, I revisited Seelen UI, a desktop environment of sorts for Windows PCs, powered by web technologies. I had originally tested it out almost a year ago, but the platform has evolved significantly since that earlier iteration, and Seelen UI today is a much more interesting piece of software than it was a year ago.

The wireless earbuds can connect to everything from the PS5 to the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch 2. | Image: The Verge A quality pair of headphones can make a huge difference in your gaming experience, and Sony’s InZone Buds are among the best wireless gaming earbuds available. They’re currently $143.98 ($86 off) at GameStop, dropping them to a new all-time low price. The Verge’s commerce editor, Cameron Faulkner, says they deliver excellent sound quality and versatility, with a USB-C audio transmitter that allows them to connect to everything from a PlayStation 5 to a Steam Deck and a Nintendo Switch 2.Sony InZone BudsSony’s wireless gaming buds offer low latency, active noise cancellation, and support for both Bluetooth and USB-C.Where to Buy: $229.99 $143.98 at GameStop $229.99 $198 at Best BuySony’s InZone Buds offer many of the same features as the company’s flagship earbuds, the WF-1000XM5, which remain our favorite overall earbuds. They use the same drivers, and they borrow the XM5’s active noise cancellation and mic transparency capabilities. Additionally, they offer up to 12 hours of battery life on a single charge, or a total of 24 hours with the charging case (which can fit the USB-C transmitter).The InZone Buds feature multiple sizes of silicone ear tips, and if you have a PC, Sony’s InZone app can perform a sound test to help you choose the right ear tip for your inner ear shape. If you struggle to find a comfortable fit, a feature like this can be seriously useful. The earbuds also include a microphone, plus touch gestures for muting the mic, adjusting the volume of your audio, and toggling between noise cancellation settings — all of which can be customized via the InZone app.Other deals worth checking outIf you’re looking for something to charge your phone, wireless earbuds, and smartwatch, the Anker MagGo Wireless Charging Station is down to $65.99 ($45 off) at Amazon. The Qi2 charger features a tree-like design, with three different charging areas. The main charging pad delivers up to 15W to a phone, while a second charging pad can quickly replenish the Apple Watch. Meanwhile, the base features a pad for wireless earbuds. The 3-in-1 charging station comes with a 40W USB-C PD wall charger and a USB-C cable, so you won’t need to buy any additional accessories to start charging your devices.Preorders for the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Trilogy 4K release are now live, with a prelaunch discount of $70 ($30 off) at Amazon. The trilogy includes the original live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. The first TMNT movie from 1990 is still the best one 35 years later, with turtle costumes from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop that still hold up. I remember watching it as a kid and being completely terrified by the building fire fight scene.The Samsung Music Frame is currently down to an all-time low price of $127.99 ($260 off) at Amazon and B&H Photo. The 12.9 x 12.9-inch picture frame can connect to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi with support for surround sound when paired with one of Samsung’s new TVs or soundbars. It also boasts Dolby Atmos support for more immersive audio and a pair of woofers, tweeters, and midrange drivers. The Music Frame can be mounted on the wall or displayed on media furniture with a stand, and it can actually be customized with a physical photo, unlike the Sonos / Ikea Symfonisk frame speaker from a few years back.

Before everyone and their dog had a PC and the internet at home, there was a distinct time in the early 2000s when the internet café was where it all happened. It didn't matter if I wanted to work on a school project, sneak a peek at WWE results since they only aired Raw and Smackdown a week later over in India, or beg the guy behind the counter to let me squeeze in a round of Vice City. All I knew was that those dim little rooms were the place to be.

The built-in solar panel extends the life of the dash cam’s rechargeable battery. | Image: Baseus Baseus has announced a new dash cam that can continue capturing incidents even while your vehicle is turned off. The PrimeTrip VD1 Pro includes both a rechargeable battery and a high-efficiency solar panel it uses to record incidents when motion or impacts are detected for up to 14 days while your car is parked, without draining your vehicle’s battery.It’s available now through Amazon for $169.99 (discounted to $109.99 with a coupon that expires on October 1st) and while the VD1 Pro doesn’t need to be hardwired to your vehicle’s electrical system or fuse box during installation, it’s definitely not a wireless solution. While you’re driving the main unit draws power from your vehicle’s auxiliary outlet so its 4K camera with a 170-degree wide-angle field of view can record continually, ensuring the events leading up to an incident are captured. Another cable, which you’ll need to conceal in the seams of your car’s trim panels, connects the main unit to a second 1080p rear camera with a 120-degree field of view for capturing what’s happening behind your vehicle.The VD1 Pro’s solar panel is about as small as those used on calculators so the unit remains unobtrusive, but it only generates enough power to extend the dash cam’s battery, not keep it charged indefinitely. As a result, you’ll only get up to 14 days of what Baseus calls “standby parking monitoring.” When motion around the vehicle or an impact is detected, the dash cam will wake and capture 30-second clips from the front and rear cameras up to a maximum of 20 incidents or 40 clips that are stored on a 32GB microSD card that can be upgraded. If you’re parking someplace like an underground garage where the available lighting is limited, you can expect the battery life to be reduced.Other features include continuous loop recording that will automatically overwrite the oldest videos when the microSD card gets full, and hands-free voice controls. The VD1 Pro connects to the Baseus mobile app over Wi-Fi 6 for wirelessly downloading videos from the dashcam or uploading firmware updates.

The AI-powered “Pocket Health” feature shows whether the quarterback is at risk. Amazon’s Prime Video is bringing more AI to the football field with new features designed to give viewers more insight into Thursday Night Football games, as highlighted earlier by Deadline. One feature, called Pocket Health, uses AI to analyze “tens of thousands of data points” across the offensive line during a play, allowing Prime Video to display on-screen visuals indicating the threat level to a quarterback.As Amazon gets ready to air its first game of the 2025 NFL season, it’s also debuting a new set of AI-powered End of Game tools. That includes one that gauges the potential possession scenarios for losing teams, and another that attempts to predict how much time a team would need for a comeback or victory. These features add to the AI tools Prime Video has already adopted for its Thursday Night Football streams, such as Defensive Alerts, which uses machine learning to identify players that could blitz during a play.

The work of creating artificial intelligence that holds to the guardrails of human values, known in the industry as alignment, has developed into its own (somewhat ambiguous) field of study rife with policy papers and benchmarks to rank models against each other. But who aligns the alignment researchers? Enter the Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers, an organization purporting to coordinate thousands of AI alignment researchers into “one final AI center singularity.”At first glance, CAAAC seems legitimate. The aesthetics of the website are cool and calming, with a logo of converging arrows reminiscent of the idea of togetherness and sets of parallel lines swirling behind black font. But stay on the page for 30 seconds and the swirls spell out “bullshit,” giving away that CAAAC is all one big joke. One second longer and you’ll notice the hidden gems tucked away in every sentence and page of the fantasy center’s website. CAAAC launched Tuesday from the same team that brought us The Box, a literal, physical box that women can wear on dates to avoid the threat of their image being turned into AI-generated deepfake slop. “This website is the most important thing that anyone will read about AI in this millenium or the next,” said CAAAC cofounder Louis Barclay, staying in character when talking to The Verge. (The second founder of CAAAC wished to remain anonymous, according to Barclay.) CAAAC’s vibe is so similar to AI alignment research labs — who are featured on the website’s homepage with working links to their own websites — that even those in the know initially thought it was real, including Kendra Albert, a machine learning researcher and technology attorney, who spoke with The Verge. CAAAC makes fun of the trend, according to Albert, of those who want to make AI safe drifting away from the “real problems happening in the real world” — such as bias in models, exacerbating the energy crisis, or replacing workers — to the “very, very theoretical” risks of AI taking over the world, Albert said in an interview with The Verge. To fix the “AI alignment alignment crisis,” CAAAC will be recruiting its global workforce exclusively from the Bay Area. All are welcome to apply, “as long as you believe AGI will annihilate all humans in the next six months,” according to the jobs page. Those who are willing to take the dive to work with CAAAC — the website urges all readers to bring their own wet gear — need only comment on the LinkedIn post announcing the center to automatically become a fellow. CAAAC also offers a generative AI tool to create your own AI center, complete with an executive director, in “less than a minute, zero AI knowledge required.” The more ambitious job seeker applying to the “AI Alignment Alignment Alignment Researcher” position will, after clicking through the website, eventually find themselves serenaded by Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

I built my current PC on the AM4 platform three years ago, just months before the launch of AM5. While waiting a few months wasn't an option then, I'm starting to feel the consequences of my decision. Don't get me wrong: I've not missed out on much during these three years. The Ryzen 7 5700X and RTX 3080 have been more than enough for most titles, but I admit that I locked myself out of CPU upgrades. Plus, I'm not even confident about upgrading the parts I can because of concerns about crippled performance.

Despite my love for virtualizing operating systems and containerizing services, I always feel a little terrified of messing around with network utilities. After all, I grew up seeing the “It’s always DNS” meme, and have had many projects thwarted by incorrectly set up network files. And as is customary for home labbers, those were errors that I only diagnosed after bringing my entire home’s Internet down.

I love me a stupid-ass action movie. Something where the plot is thin while the muscles and accents on all the henchmen are thick as hell. Think Broken Arrow or Eraser - movies that were artistically and sometimes commercially terrible but nevertheless thrilling watches that you forgot about almost immediately after leaving the theater. Borderlands 4 is the video game equivalent of that movie. Is it artistically creative? No. Profound in its narrative? Nope. Innovative in its gameplay? Not really. Fun? Absolutely. And honestly, that's all you really need out of a Borderlands game.If you're new to the Borderlands series, it's a looter sho …Read the full story at The Verge.

NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. | Photo: Anadolu Agency via Getty Images An exciting discovery on Mars is being overshadowed by turmoil at NASA, with budget cuts threatening to destroy a scientific legacy that has been built over decades.Yesterday, the agency shared a finding, published in Nature, of potential biosignatures identified by the Mars Perseverance rover in a 3.5 billion-year-old rock."This very well could be the clearest sign of life that we've ever found on Mars," said Transportation Secretary and Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy in a press conference.Leftover fossilsScientists involved in the research were careful to emphasize that the findings - related to unusual textural features of r …Read the full story at The Verge.

There are two ways to connect hardware to your local area network (LAN). The first is through the use of Ethernet, which is the tried and tested method, but wireless technologies have come a long way over recent years and are now the preferred route for most people. Depending on what you plan to connect to the network, it's important to consider what you need to use the device for, which can often make wired networking the better option. It's sometimes even believed by some that wireless networking has replaced Ethernet, but that's far from the truth.