Spotify is adding new personalization features to Discover Weekly, the popular and influential playlist streamed by millions of users. The regularly updated playlist will now have buttons for genres like pop, R&B, and funk at the top, allowing users to tell Spotify what they want more of.The Discover Weekly playlist is one of the more noteworthy things Spotify has introduced: the company says songs on the playlist have been streamed more than 100 billion times. The weekly mixtape — generated via Spotify algorithms — promised to introduce users to new music that they might enjoy, pulling from listener data. But more recently, there have been complaints that Discover Weekly playlists, meant for finding new music, were spitting out the same songs, and that the platform’s systems weren’t accurately classifying genres. (Spotify told Business Insider in May that it had updated genre accuracy and the Discover Weekly recommendation algorithm.) In addition to the genre options, the Discover Weekly playlist is getting a refreshed look with different cover art.Spotify reshaped how people listen to music, prioritizing the playlist over the album or even the artist themselves: playlists became a battleground for labels and artists who wanted exposure. In the last few years, the music platform has taken personalization even further, tailoring selections to the individual user. The company has introduced features like an AI-powered “DJ,” an AI text-to-playlist builder tool, and even a fake AI podcast with fake AI hosts that discuss users’ listening habits. The ability to more closely guide the Discover Weekly offerings signals that hyper-personalization remains a priority — and perhaps that Spotify is aware of some of the user dissatisfaction.

Serious security flaws have been found in hundreds of Brother printer models that could allow attackers to remotely access devices that are still using default passwords. Eight new vulnerabilities, one of which cannot be fixed by patching the firmware, were discovered in 689 kinds of Brother home and enterprise printers by security company Rapid7. The flaws also impact 59 printer models from Fujifilm, Toshiba, Ricoh, and Konica Minolta, but not every vulnerability is found on every printer model. If you own a Brother printer, you can check to see if your model is affected here.The most serious security flaw, tracked under CVE-2024-51978 in the National Vulnerability Database, has a 9.8 “Critical” CVSS rating and allows attackers to generate the device’s default admin password if they know the serial number of the printer they’re targeting. This allows attackers to exploit the other seven vulnerabilities discovered by Rapid7, which include retrieving sensitive information, crashing the device, opening TCP connections, performing arbitrary HTTP requests, and exposing passwords for connected network services.While seven of these security flaws can be fixed via firmware updates detailed in Rapid7’s report, Brother indicated to the company that CVE-2024-51978 itself “cannot be fully remediated in firmware,” and will be fixed via a change to the manufacturing process for future versions of affected printer models. For current models, Brother recommends that users change the default admin password for their printer via the device’s Web-Based Management menuChanging default manufacturing passwords is something we should all be doing when we take a new device home anyway, and these printer vulnerabilities are a good example as to why.

Video editors can feel heavy on your system, crash often, or be subscription-only tools. Using Omni Tools, I can edit my videos in multiple ways directly in the browser for free. This open-source tool offers many other features, including image editing that rivals basic Photoshop tasks and PDF tools, among others. Having an open-source, browser-based video editing tool is helpful for many reasons, including better accessibility and privacy.

Google's AI-powered research assistant, NotebookLM, is one of the few AI productivity tools that offers an entirely unique set of features and is genuinely game-changing for productivity. The AI tool was launched in 2023, so it's still fairly new. Given NotebookLM's success, their team has been constantly directing its efforts toward improving the tool by adding new features, fixing quirks, and improving the overall user experience.

I haven't played a ton of DOS games, mainly because they came and pretty much went out by the time I got to this world. Regardless, that doesn't keep me from knowing full well how pivotal the DOS era was. These were the early days of first-person shooters, weird, horror puzzle games, and above all, unhinged creativity. Thankfully, they remain relevant even today, not through their retroactive importance to their genres, but through respectful resurrection.

Dashboards are a pretty good software implementation that organizes and presents all the available apps under one roof. It's easy on the eyes, and you don't have to conjure a terminal to accomplish basic tasks like launching an app. There are ample dashboards available for Raspberry Pi that can turn your headless Pi with a non-graphical interface operating system into a visually accessible medium. But the DietPi Dashboard is quite different from a traditional app launcher or a customisation-rich Pi dashboard you're familiar with.

Five years ago, budget GPUs were free from the stigma of subpar performance and poor value for money that we see today. Buying a budget graphics card didn't mean that you were settling for an uninspired gaming experience. We had sub-$250 GPUs in the GTX 16 series that were great performers not only at 1080p but also at 1440p. I used a GTX 1660 Ti for years before moving to an RTX 3080 in 2022. Today's so-called budget GPUs are markedly different from the ones we were familiar with, and I don't like where the industry is going.

Everyone is familiar with the heavy hitters when it comes to JRPGs, like Final Fantasy and Persona, but there are plenty of underrated games in the genre. While the J in JRPG stands for Japanese, the term has expanded to include turn-based RPGs that are heavily inspired by those classic Japanese games, or emulate their style, like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The primary difference between JRPGs and RPGs is usually action versus turn-based combat, although there are other aspects of the style, like the storytelling style and the type of characters and themes used.

Rainmeter is one of the most powerful Windows customization utilities. It can transform the way you view and interact with the desktop. Skins allow you to add widgets for system performance, the weather, and more. Rainmeter is one of the best graphical tools available for creating beautiful desktop experiences on Windows.

If you're looking for a premium pair of wireless headphones, you can't go wrong with the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H95s. Not only are you getting premium materials here, but you're also getting excellent sound and noise cancellation. Furthermore, these headphones are now $600 less, which is nearly 50% off the original retail price, dropping them down to their lowest yet. Grab them now ahead of Prime Day.

Would it sound crazy if I said one notebook changed my entire workflow? It might sound a tad bit dramatic, but that's exactly what happened.

The Snipping Tool is one of the most useful features in Windows 11, not only because it can capture screenshots, but also because it has all sorts of features like text recognition, automatic redaction, and more. But what if it could have even more? Enter Snipping Lens, a third-party tool that integrates Snipping Tool right into Google Lens, allowing you to look up objects, text, and more on Google just by taking a screenshot of it.