Adding a background to your webcam feed can do a great deal to make you look professional. People in our XDA calls use it, and even if we know they're faux backgrounds (evident, given how someone will travel across the world and then show up in the exact same cafe setting on the weekly call), it still looks good. Personally, I love showing off the posters behind me to do that, but it's definitely something every freelancer and work-at-home professional should at least consider.

The OnePlus 13 will likely be the last OnePlus phone to feature a Hasselblad logo. OnePlus CEO Pete Lau announced on the company’s user forums today that its five-year partnership with camera company Hasselblad has come to an end. From now on, OnePlus will develop its own imaging engine instead.OnePlus first teamed up with Hasselblad for the 9 and 9 Pro flagships, and a Hasselblad logo has featured on the camera of all of its top-tier phones since. That’s now set to change with the upcoming OnePlus 14 (which may actually be the OnePlus 15 to avoid the unlucky number “4” in China).Hasselblad didn’t just provide its logo though. It worked with OnePlus (and parent company Oppo) for years to develop imaging algorithms to improve its photography, once a weak point for the brand and now considered a bit of a strength. OnePlus is now taking that work in-house, developing the OnePlus DetailMax Engine. It’ll be interesting to see how close that ends up being to the Oppo Lumo engine, launched this April alongside the Find X8 Ultra (which, for what it’s worth, has a truly excellent camera).Making things a little weirder, Oppo just extended its partnership with Hasselblad in July, promising a new mobile imaging system to come later this year. I’m still struggling to square that circle.

For the past few months, I've been using Linux seriously for the first time in my life. My only other foray was a decade ago, when I tried Ubuntu for about two days and then decided to go back. Now, I've actually forgotten that I even have Windows installed on my dual boot, as I've fallen in love with Fedora KDE.

Microsoft is giving away Microsoft 365 Personal subscriptions to all US college students. This subscription gives students free access to Microsoft’s Office apps and the Copilot AI assistant integration for a year, after which the students are eligible for a 50 percent discount to continue the subscription.While most students have access to education versions of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, Microsoft’s offer is for student’s own personal Microsoft accounts, and is available to claim until October 31st. Microsoft 365 Personal is usually $99.99 a year, or $9.99 a month, and includes 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage.Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed the free offer as part of the White House’s AI Education Task Force meeting yesterday, and announced other commitments to meet the Presidential AI Challenge and the AI Education Executive Order. Microsoft is funding $1.25 million in educator grants, offering free LinkedIn AI courses for job seekers, students, and teachers, and expanding access to its AI tools in schools.

Qualcomm is joining forces with BMW on a new driver-assist system that will allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel on approved roads.Qualcomm, which supplies infotainment, driver-assist, and telematics systems to a variety of automakers, is looking to raise its portfolio in the auto industry, as more car companies turn to advanced processors and chips to power high-tech features. The San Diego-based chipmaker says it currently has $45 billion in future revenue in its automotive pipeline right now.Now it’s teaming up with BMW to bring hands-free driving and more advanced autonomous features to more vehicles. The two companies jointly developed the new software system, which signals a growing role for automakers in the development of their autonomous systems. It’s built on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Ride system-on-a-chip using this jointly developed software stack. And Qualcomm says it was built “to meet the highest safety standards,” citing the European Union’s New Car Assessment Programme for Level 2 Plus systems.The San Diego-based chipmaker says it currently has $45 billion in future revenue in its automotive pipeline right nowThese systems are similar to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving, GM’s Super Cruise, and Ford’s BlueCruise, insofar as they allow drivers to remove their hands from the steering wheel and feet from the pedals on approved roads. (Different auto brands have different rules about when this is allowed, and for how long.)The system, which Qualcomm calls its Snapdragon Ride Pilot, made its debut at the Munich auto show today in the BMW iX3, which is the German automaker’s first “Neue Klasse” next-gen electric vehicle. Qualcomm says the system has been validated for use in more than 60 countries, with plans to expand to over 100 in 2026. Snapdragon Ride Pilot will be made available to all automakers and Tier-1 suppliers. While most hands-free systems are marketed as convenience features, Qualcomm says its new driver-assist features should also help improve safety. “That’s why we believe at Qualcomm that ADAS [advanced driver-assist systems] and automated driving should be as prevalent as seatbelts,” Qualcomm VP for product marketing Ignacio Contreras said in a recent briefing, “not only for the safety benefits that it brings to the car, but also for the convenience and productivity improvements that technology brings to users worldwide.”With more cars equipped with partial automation hitting the road, safety researchers are growing increasingly worried about driver attention and the potential for these systems to cause crashes. There is compelling evidence that, regardless of the company, most driver-assist systems are less safe than normal human driving. Drivers tend to develop an overreliance on these systems to drive the car for them — even after a short period of use. And when it’s time to take back control of the vehicle, their reaction times are slower than what’s considered safe.Qualcomm says the new software will ensure that the driver stays engaged with the road using the vehicle’s monitoring system. “The system has the built-in redundancy from that perspective,” said Dheeraj Ahuja, the company’s head of autonomous driving. “It has multiple algorithms trying to make these decisions as safe as possible. However, life on the road is quite chaotic at times, and this is where the driver engagement is very important.”

When I first got into PC gaming, I used to overclock my graphics cards to squeeze out more performance than what was advertised. All I needed to do was move a couple of sliders in MSI Afterburner for a 5% improvement in frame rates. Nowadays, though, those performance gains feel far less exciting, especially since my RTX 4090 has no trouble running most games at over 100FPS at 1440p. And when I want to game at 4K, I can always rely on DLSS upscaling and frame generation to improve frame rates.

Smart-home upgrades don’t always need to come with a hefty price tag or a long shipping wait. With a 3D printer at home, you can turn out practical and stylish accessories that enhance your connected devices in just a couple of days. These quick projects not only improve the look and functionality of your setup but also provide the satisfaction of having built them yourself.

There's no denying that I love Google Keep. It has been my companion for a long time, helping me jot down new article ideas, create shopping lists, and make to-do lists. It's pretty minimalist, fast, and most importantly, synced across devices. But then I wanted something that doesn't feel like writing inside Google's walled garden. Every note or idea I create on Keep feels like creating just another data point sitting on Google's server.

Windows Mixed Reality headsets in 2018. | Image: Getty Images Windows Mixed Reality headsets were left in a non-functional state last year, after Microsoft suddenly discontinued the platform with its 24H2 update to Windows 11. Now, an Xbox engineer at Microsoft is bringing these headsets back to life, thanks to a new driver that enables SteamVR support.Matthieu Bucchianeri, a software engineer that worked on Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality headsets, has released a free “Oasis Driver for Windows Mixed Reality” on Steam. It’s named Oasis as that’s the codename Microsoft used for its Windows Mixed Reality efforts. The driver, spotted by UploadVR, requires an Nvidia GPU, simply because it relies on features “missing in the AMD and Intel graphics driver,” according to Bucchianeri.This Oasis driver doesn’t require the Mixed Reality Portal application, and it can run OpenVR and OpenXR applications through SteamVR. “The driver offers full headset and motion controller tracking as well as a native SteamVR rendering pipeline,” says Bucchianeri.While Microsoft should have delivered this type of driver to ensure Windows Mixed Reality headsets weren’t useless with the latest Windows 11 updates, Bucchianeri — who is now an Xbox engineer at Microsoft — has created this independently by reverse-engineering Nvidia and SteamVR code. He’s not releasing the source code as a result, and the Oasis driver will remain free to use.If you’re interested in trying out the Oasis driver, you can download it from Steam. Make sure you also follow the quick start steps in the documentation for the driver, too.

IFA 2025 officially starts today, and Lenovo is kicking things off with a wide range of announcements, as the company usually does. From the Think brand, we're getting a new ThinkBook concept and a few new ThinkPads.

Google has announced a pretty major upgrade to the convenience of the translation built into Circle to Search on Android, which will now continue translating as the content on-screen changes.Google has slightly undersold the feature with the name “Scroll and translate.” In fact, it will now continue to translate as you swipe through screens, scroll down pages, or even switch apps entirely, saving you from triggering a new translation every time new text appears.Google says the update is rolling out across Android from this week, starting with select Samsung Galaxy phones.

Generally, the stack of apps that the average self-host enthusiast has going will aim to reduce cloud dependency and those monthly subscription fees that add up all too quickly. Or you might be running local LLMs to keep your queries and training models local and private, or any number of other, ostensibly useful tasks.