Despite them being one of the most observed and monitored elements in human history, I still don't know a ton about the stars and the moon cycle. Fortunately, there are plenty of devices and apps that register your location and inform you of what lies above you, which is great when you see something interesting up there and want a quick and easy way of identifying it.

The Xbox Ultimate Sale, the equivalent of the Xbox Summer Sale, similar to the sales run by Steam and PlayStation this month, is officially live and running through the end of July. While the Xbox ecosystem is dominated by Xbox Game Pass, there are tons of fantastic games that release on Xbox but don't come to Xbox Game Pass. Luckily, many of those games are on sale for relatively cheap, so you can build out your library. If you are planning to get an Xbox Ally X handheld when it releases later this year, check for Play Anywhere in the features' column, which will let you play the game on both console and PC, and the handheld runs PC games. For this list, I put together six deals that include deal discounts on fantastic games across a variety of genres.

Turning your house into a smart home involves the purchasing of connected devices, but did you know there are some hidden costs you should be aware of? I'm talking potential subscriptions, time spent updating hardware, increased utility bills (especially when paired with a home lab), and a more congested wireless network. Depending on what you plan to connect to your LAN and how many smart products you purchased for the home, here are some things to watch out for from personal experience.

There's always a debate when picking your favorite media streaming server, whether to use Plex or opt for something open-source like Jellyfin. The former raises a few concerns, especially after changing their subscription plans and restricting essential features behind a paywall. There are also qualms about the bloated interface and removal of some core features that made Plex a great media server in its heyday.

While NotebookLM is associated with students, there are plenty of ways you can use it to learn more about and understand topics that you're interested in or that are personally important to you. When I tried NotebookLM for the first time, I mostly tested its accuracy by creating notebooks for topics I'm familiar with.

What are your thoughts on Windows 11's widgets? Some people love using them, and for others, they're more of a take-them-or-leave-them sort of thing. And over the past month or so, we've seen Microsoft adding new features to the widgets panel to make it a little better.

A US district court judge has withdrawn his decision in a biopharma securities case after lawyers noted that his opinion referenced fake quotes and other erroneous case information — mistakes mirroring errors in other legal cases that have been attributed to artificial intelligence tools.In a letter sent to New Jersey Judge Julien Xavier Neals, lawyer Andrew Lichtman said that there was a “series of errors” in Neals’ decision to deny a lawsuit dismissal request from pharmaceutical company CorMedix. These citation errors include misstating the outcomes in three other cases, and “numerous instances” of made-up quotes being falsely attributed to other decisions.As reported by Bloomberg Law, a new notice published to the court docket on Wednesday says “that opinion and order were entered in error,” and that a “subsequent opinion and order will follow.” While it’s not unusual for courts to make small revisions to decisions following a ruling — such as correcting grammatical, spelling, and style errors — major modifications like removing paragraphs or redacting decisions are rare.There is no confirmation that AI was used in this case. Nevertheless, the citation errors carry the same telltale signs of AI hallucinations that have appeared in other legal filings as lawyers increasingly turn to tools like ChatGPT for help with legal research. Attorneys defending MyPillow founder Mike Lindell were fined earlier this month for using AI-generated citations, and Anthropic blamed its own Claude AI chatbot for making an “embarrassing” erroneous citation in its own legal battle with music publishers — just two of many examples showing that LLMs won’t be replacing real lawyers anytime soon.

The improved AI wallpapers now let you prompt with anything you like. Google has released a new version of ChromeOS that allows you to sync desktops between devices, ideal for anyone who works across more than one Chromebook. It also significantly improves the AI wallpapers available on Chromebook Plus laptops with a completely freeform prompting field.Desk sync is designed to help you pick up where you left off when changing devices. It will sync your windows, tabs, and cookies so you can change devices without losing where you were. Google suggests it’ll be particularly useful for workers in healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing who might share a pool of devices. It’s optional, but can be enabled in the ChromeOS user settings under “Desk sync.”ChromeOS version 138 also delivers a major update to AI wallpapers, which remain exclusive to the more powerful Chromebook Plus models. The previous version, introduced in May 2024 along with Gemini, limited users to specific art styles and a narrow range of prompt formats. Now it offers a freeform text field for prompt inputs, allowing users significantly more control over generated wallpapers. If that sounds like too much freedom, the “Inspire me” button will generate wallpapers and prompts to give you a few ideas to start from.Chromebook Plus users will also get the AI-powered “Help me read” feature, which will simplify jargon-heavy or technical text. All ChromeOS devices will get the ability to use Lens to search from on-screen content or directly select text from images, along with a variety of bug fixes intended to improve accessibility.

One thing that Raspberry Pis are really good at is squeezing into really small devices. This makes them a potential choice if you want to build a portable device; sure, it may not be as mighty as some other options, but if you don't need something that's super powerful, a Raspberry Pi is both an affordable and easy means to get the job done.

I switched from Chrome to Brave around 3–4 years ago due to its popularity as one of the fastest privacy-focused browsers. Plus, I was interested in crypto back then, and getting paid in BAT to watch some ads sounded like a nice incentive for switching to a browser that resembled Chrome a lot (both are Chromium-based). For the last year, however, I've been feeling that Brave isn't as fast as it used to be. The BAT novelty is over for me, and the browser just feels bloated. The built-in VPN, crypto wallet integrations, and "Leo AI" never interested me anyway.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved Skydance’s $8 billion purchase of CBS-owner Paramount after the companies agreed to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs but feature a “diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.”In light of the Trump administration’s critiques of CBS’s alleged anti-conservative bias — including collecting a $16 million settlement over the president’s lawsuit over an allegedly deceptively edited video of then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on 60 Minutes — the companies’ commitment to address bias in the lawsuit likely means featuring more conservative programming. Skydance agreed to employ an ombudsman for at least two years, “who will receive and evaluate any complaints of bias or other concerns involving CBS.” “Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change,” Republican FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement announcing the agency’s approval. “That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.” He said the commitments “would enable CBS to operate in the public interest and focus on fair, unbiased, and fact-based coverage,” and mark “another step forward in the FCC’s efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination.” Carr also boasts that Skydance “reaffirms its commitment to localism as a core component of the public interest standard,” and that the approval will “unleash the investment of $1.5 billion into Paramount.”Carr has made no secret of his distaste for news coverage he sees as disproportionately unfavorable to the right and DEI policies he believes contribute to unfair treatment. He’s opened investigations into all three major networks as well as NPR and PBS (NBCUniversal and its owner Comcast are investors in The Verge parent company Vox Media). A week ago, CBS announced it was retiring The Late Show, hosted by Trump critic and comedian Stephen Colbert. The network said it was “purely a financial decision.”The FCC’s only remaining Democratic commissioner, Anna Gomez, dissented, writing that, “In an unprecedented move, this once-independent FCC used its vast power to pressure Paramount to broker a private legal settlement and further erode press freedom … Even more alarming, it is now imposing never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law.” Still, she gave Carr credit for calling a vote on the matter, rather than rubber-stamping the merger through one of the agency’s bureaus, like it did for the Verizon-Frontier merger, which similarly required an end to DEI programs.Gomez warns that this agreement is just the canary in the coal mine. “The Paramount payout and this reckless approval have emboldened those who believe the government can—and should—abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment, and secure positive media coverage,” she writes. “It is a dark chapter in a long and growing record of abuse that threatens press freedom in this country. But such violations endure only when institutions choose capitulation over courage. It is time for companies, journalists, and citizens alike to stand up and speak out, because unchecked and unquestioned power has no rightful place in America.”

One ever-present danger in the home lab is how to gracefully shut down your home servers when there's a power cut. Adding a UPS to your setup is one way to ensure you don't lose data when power goes out, but most UPS models only have one USB connection for sending the shutdown signal, and you might have several devices plugged into it in your home lab.