Every partner, family, and friend group has that one topic where nobody can come to a consensus. With my gaming group, we can never settle on a game to play. We'll list off all the usuals—Peak, Phasmophobia, Minecraft, and so on—and then we'll all reply with "I'm fine with anything." Which is fantastic, because it means that whatever game we do settle on, nobody will have qualms with. The only problem is that no game is actually picked, leaving us in a limbo where everyone's ready to receive a suggestion but not make one.

Well, it's almost October, so you know what that means; it's time to load up on horror games! If you're anything like me, you're already getting into the Halloween spirit and giving your Steam library a once-over for any scary games to play.

The never-ending push for faster personal solid-state storage drives with larger capacities gave NAND manufacturers a complex equation to solve. The late 1990s brought widespread adoption of SSD storage based on NAND flash, and at the time, they stored a single bit per cell, so they were known as SLC SSDs. But scaling the number of bytes per millimeter quickly ran into physical limitations, as the transistors and other electronic structures on NAND can only be shrunk down so far before physics takes over, and you can't store the data bit reliably.

Everyone’s favorite CEO, Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav, thinks HBO Max is ripe for a price hike. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference (doesn’t that sound like a fun time?) Zaslav argued that his company’s premium output can command a premium price.“The fact that this is quality — and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and and streaming quality — we all we think that gives us a chance to raise price,” he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We think we’re way underpriced.”The recently re-re-branded HBO Max currently starts at $9.99 per month, including ads, peaking at $20.99 per month for its premium plan, roughly in line with its rivals. If that wasn’t good news enough, Zaslav also promised that Max is “going to begin to push” on password sharing, backing up a threat from last month’s WBD earnings call to get “more aggressive” on the practice in September.

Smart homes aren't just composed of hardware; they're composed of software, too. In fact, some of my most powerful automations are built using just software. If you're an Opera GX user, then you have a new option, too: it's just been updated to add a new "Smart Home" integration, allowing the browser to both listen to and publish MQTT messages.

Design work is equal parts research and execution, especially if you’re still a beginner learning the ropes. The problem is that those two steps usually live in different worlds — you gather insights in a browser tab jungle, then try to translate them into real visuals in a design software. Since Figma is my top design app, it's usually where that scattered research takes shape.

When it comes to allocating a budget for your next rig, most PC builders focus on the pixel-pushing components like the processor and graphics card, with motherboards and RAM being the next priority. Speaking of mobos, the modern motherboard landscape is filled with loads of expensive features that turn out to be marketing gimmicks. But amid a sea of seemingly useless facilities, there are some less-discussed features that are worth the extra money.

Local LLMs aren't just for messing about and having fun with; they can genuinely be useful tools, too. While there are certainly more obvious use cases if you have a home lab, LM Studio enables you to do a lot of the same stuff without needing to know how to set up Ollama or another alternative LLM hosting solution. With its OpenAI-compatible API, many services that support OpenAI but allow you to designate a custom endpoint can be used this way, and there are many ways to make it work for you.

Windows 10's end-of-life date is just over a month away, and people are still holding onto the operating system. While some are taking Microsoft's offer to extend security support for another year, others will likely force Windows 11 on their system to maintain support.

It’s easy to assume a home server wouldn't necessarily need a GPU. After all, most of the time it sits headless in a closet or rack. But when the day comes that you do need one, you’ll be glad you kept a cheap card plugged in. Over time, I’ve found that a cheap, even pre-owned GPU isn’t just a safety net. It can be a quiet workhorse that makes your entire setup more versatile.

Charlie Kirk, the influencer and activist who co-founded right-wing group Turning Point USA, has died at the age of 31 after being shot while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University, according to his spokesperson Andrew Kolvet, speaking to the New York Times. Deseret News had earlier reported Kirk’s death, according to Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, and President Donald Trump said Kirk is dead in a post on Truth Social at 4:40PM ET.At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that “we have a person of interest in custody,” minutes after FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted an announcement that “The subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.”According to media reports, he appeared to have been hit in the neck. A spokesperson for the university, Ellen Treanor, said in a statement that “shots were fired from a building about 200 yards from the speaker.”Following the shooting, videos on social media seemed to show the arrest of an alleged suspect. Utah Valley University initially said that a suspect was in custody, but Deseret News reported that, according to officials, the status of the shooter is unclear. A spokesperson has also told the New York Times that a person taken into custody after the shooting was not actually the shooter.Ellen Treanor, Utah Valley University: It is with tremendous sadness and shock that Charlie Kirk, who was invited by the student group TPUSA, was shot at about 12:20 when he began speaking at his planned event on the Utah Valley University Orem Campus. Kirk was immediately transported by his security team to a local hospital. Campus was immediately evacuated. Campus is closed and classes have been canceled until further notice. We are asking those still on campus to secure in place until police officers can safely escort them off campus.  The incident is currently being investigated by four agencies: Orem Police, UVU Police, FBI, and Utah Department of Public Safety.  At the time of the shooting, Kirk was speaking at the first event of a scheduled 15-stop American Comeback Tour, and seated at a “Prove Me Wrong Table” taking questions from the crowd, according to the New York Times.We will continue to update this post as the situation develops.

Horrifying videos of influencer and right-wing activist Charlie Kirk being fatally shot were widely available on social media platforms. We’ve reached out to some of the platforms to ask how they will be treating the videos and charged posts about the shooting. So far, we’re aware of responses from Bluesky, Meta, Reddit, and YouTube.Bluesky:“Glorifying violence or harm violates Bluesky’s Community Guidelines,” Bluesky said on its Bluesky Safety account. “We review reports and take action on content that celebrates harm against anyone. Violence has no place in healthy public discourse, and we’re committed to fostering healthy, open conversations.”Meta:Spokesperson Francis Brennan referred The Verge to the company’s policies on violent and graphic content, which Brennan indicated would apply in this case. According to those policies, “we remove the most graphic content and add warning labels to other types of content so that people are aware it may be sensitive before they click through. We restrict the ability for younger users to see content that may not be suitable or age-appropriate for them. By doing so, we aim to provide an appropriate user experience, while continuing to provide space for our users to express themselves.”Reddit:“Our sitewide rules prohibit encouraging, glorifying, inciting, or calling for violence,” spokesperson Gina Antonini tells The Verge. “We’re monitoring the platform to remove violating content, including hashing to prevent its re-upload. We have also reached out to ensure moderators understand and abide not only by the Reddit Rules, but also our Moderator Code of Conduct, and understand the tools and resources available to uphold our policies.”YouTube:“Our hearts are with Charlie Kirk’s family following his tragic death,” spokesperson Jack Malon tells The Verge. “We are closely monitoring our platform and prominently elevating news content on the homepage, in search and in recommendations to help people stay informed.”Malon says that YouTube will be removing “some graphic content” related to Kirk’s death, “particularly if it does not provide sufficient context for viewers.” Some content that shows the attack will be age-restricted, meaning that it can’t be seen by signed-out viewers or users under 18.Malon also says that YouTube’s policies prohibit content “reveling in or mocking the death or serious injury of an identifiable individual.”Discord, TikTok, and X didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.Update, September 10th: Added statement from a Reddit spokesperson.