You may be familiar with the "OC" branding that comes with many aftermarket GPUs. These cards advertise higher boost clock speeds compared to their non-OC counterparts and Nvidia's Founders Edition variants. On paper, that sounds like a guaranteed way to get a card that performs slightly better than what Nvidia originally advertised. At least that's what I thought when I paid a premium for the OC editions of the RTX 4090 and RTX 3090 in recent years.

When carefully picking out parts for your PC build, you'll notice that your RAM was marketed with AMD EXPO and Intel XMP as one of the significant features. DDR5 will have one or possibly both of these mentioned, while DDR4 will have XMP or say they're compatible with AMD's Ryzen platform, but whatever the naming scheme, they all behave similarly. They're profiles for frequency, timings, and voltage that the RAM kit will use in the BIOS to try and boot with the best performance, but there's a catch.

The ST50F may have wheels, but can it do a kickflip? Samsung may be partly to blame for unleashing the party speaker upon the world — its Giga line launched over a decade ago — but in recent years its entrants to the field have been strangely restrained, with only small light strips along the sides. Not so with its two new Sound Towers, which add LED lights that would be impossible to miss.The Sound Tower ST50F and ST40F both feature a large LED “racetrack-style” light strip across the front, along with other lights around the tweeters, the edge of the body, the base, and even the underside of the handle. There are six different dynamic lighting patterns, five “mood” presets, and absolutely no accounting for taste.The ST50F has up to 240W output, 18 hours of battery, and integrated wheels for $699.99. The smaller ST40F is 160W, runs for 12 hours, and isn’t rollable, but costs $499.99.

Obsidian is a great tool if you like a local-first approach to note-taking and prefer to write in Markdown. However, there are a variety of Obsidian plugins that can supercharge the software's features, unlocking new capabilities and interesting uses.

The PartyBox 720 can run on battery power, allowing you to blast music without being tied to an outlet. JBL has expanded its lineup of flashy Bluetooth speakers with three new models that let you blast tunes without being tied to a power source. The launch includes the new $1,099 PartyBox 720, which is JBL’s largest battery-powered speaker to date, weighing 7 pounds (3kg) more than the visually similar PartyBox 710 that was released in 2021.The PartyBox 720 measures 16.4 x 37.1 x 16 inches, compared to 15.7 x 35.6 x 17.2 inches for the smaller 710, and expands the two 8-inch subwoofers to 9 inches. Unlike the 710, the 720 can also run on battery power, so users don’t need to hunt for an outlet. It comes with two of JBL’s rechargeable 600 batteries, which provide up to 15 hours of playtime, according to the company’s press release.Aside from the larger dimensions and battery support, both party speakers have similar features — both provide 800 watts of power, customizable lights, an IPX4 resistance to splashing water, and they include built-in wheels and a carry handle to pull them around despite the additional weight.JBL is also launching the $550 Boombox 4 and the more portable $100 Grip — the latter being a new JBL product line that resembles its colorful Flip series, but with customizable ambient lighting built in. Both the Boombox 4 and Grip speakers feature an IP68 rating, making them “waterproof, dustproof, and drop-proof,” according to JBL.All three speakers are available to preorder now. The PartyBox 720 is expected to be available at in-store retailers on September 21st, with the Grip and Boombox 4 arriving later on September 28th.

When it comes to making a video game experience feel cinematic and epic on multiple levels, there are very few series that ever get it done like Metal Gear Solid. For years, gamers have followed the deep and complicated plot of the series involving a CIA spy named Snake, and the many shadowy powers that would steer the world towards chaos. But rather than remaking the very first game in the series, Konami decided to revisit the first tale in the chronology of Metal Gear Solid games, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and give it an entirely revamped look. But like the series itself, there are more layers that go deeper than you realize, showing why Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is a beautiful rehashing of the tale of Naked Snake.

LG’s FURON AI Agent powers the company’s smart home AI ambitions. | Image: LG The holy grail of the smart home is ambient computing - technology that disappears into the background, anticipating your needs without a word or a tap. Lights turn on as you walk in, doors unlock as you approach, coffee brews before you reach the kitchen. This is the proactive home: a space that adapts to its occupants to support their comfort, health, and safety. The tools exist to create this, but today's smart home remains complicated, unreliable, and often invasive - still a long way from truly "ambient."But, just as it's changing every other game in tech, advances in artificial intelligence are a watershed moment for the smart home. …Read the full story at The Verge.

With IFA 2025 just around the corner, people from around the world are keeping a close eye on Berlin to see the latest and hottest tech on display. However, some companies can't wait to show off their hardware and have given us a sneak peek at what we can expect from the event.

PC building has remained fundamentally the same over the last three decades. You pick the same 8 components, assemble them into your dream build, and waste hours optimizing every little aspect of it. What has changed, however, are the underlying trends surrounding the esthetics, and the modifications we make to our rigs. From gigantic cases and custom watercooling loops to delidding and all-RGB builds, some PC building trends aren't "cool" anymore.

IFA, the European tech trade show equivalent to CES in the US, is just around the corner. Companies are gearing up to showcase their latest innovations, bringing us the latest product announcements, feature demonstrations, and design concepts that will shape future consumer tech releases.IFA will open its doors between September 5th and 9th, but many of the biggest announcements will start dropping shortly before the show’s public opening. And, as always, The Verge will be covering all the latest news live from the IFA 2025 show floor in Berlin, providing you with our hands-on product experiences and first impressions of upcoming releases.If previous years are any indication, we can expect to see a plethora of new smart home gadgets and AI-laden devices, including laptops, tablets, appliances, and even robots that will do your household chores for you — sometimes equipped with incredibly specialized features.The Verge will be tracking all the biggest announcements on this page, so follow along with our coverage below to avoid missing out. Samsung’s new party speakers are less subtle than ever AI could bring us a smarter home — if we can trust it The PartyBox 720 is JBL’s largest battery-powered party speaker My brief hands-on with Acer’s new convertible Chromebook has me cautiously optimistic Acer’s 16-inch Air weighs even less than a 13-inch MacBook Air Acer’s new Amadana and CE270 monitors are unusually, strikingly stylish It’s easier to count the PC makers that *don’t* sell an Nvidia micro-desktop now. Acer gives its 18-inch Predator Helios gaming laptop a 4K screen and top GPU Acer has a dual-mode 720Hz OLED monitor, too. Ooni’s newest pizza oven adds AI to your slice Dolby Vision 2 goes beyond HDR with more AI and ‘authentic motion’ smoothing AI fish tank. This liquid-cooled projector promises an incredibly bright 6,200 lumen image

The Paper Pro Move is similar in size to the iPad Mini but about an inch narrower. | Image: Remarkable A year after Remarkable introduced its Paper Pro digital notebook with an 11.8-inch color E Ink screen, the company is following up with a smaller version that prioritizes portability. The new Remarkable Paper Pro Move feels like what you’d be left with if you were to snap last year’s Paper Pro in half over your knee. With a 7.3-inch screen, it’s closer in size to a thin paperback novel you can easily slip into a pocket, but since the Paper Pro Move is as tall as the Paper Pro is wide, when turned sideways it provides a similar amount of writing real estate that shouldn’t feel cramped.The new Paper Pro Move is available to order starting today for $449, which includes the company’s Marker stylus that charges while magnetically attached to the device. The Move is also available in a $499 bundle that includes Remarkable’s upgraded Marker Plus stylus with a built-in eraser button. The larger Remarkable Paper Pro will still be available for $629, so despite being less than half the size, the new Move is far from being less than half the price.At 7.7 inches tall and 4.24 inches wide, the Paper Pro Move is similar in size to the 7th-gen iPad Mini but narrower by about an inch. It’s slightly thicker but less than half the weight of the original Paper Pro, and while both devices include 64GB of internal storage, the Paper Pro Move has a slower 1.7GHz dual core Cortex-A55 processor and a much smaller 2,334mAh battery which, according to the company, should keep the device powered for up to two weeks.Although companies like Amazon and Kobo continue to use E Ink’s Kaleido screen technology that generates colors using an added filter layer atop a black and white screen, the Paper Pro Move uses a 7.3-inch custom version of E Ink’s more advanced Gallery 3 panel that is also found in the Paper Pro. It’s capable of producing more vivid and accurate colors by mixing four shades of microscopic ink particles, but at the cost of noticeably slower refresh rates.Despite its size and more advanced color screen, the Paper Pro Move isn’t a replacement for color e-readers like the Kindle Colorsoft. It lacks access to online book stores, its document support is limited to PDFs and ePub files, and its front light is much dimmer than other E Ink devices. It’s still first and foremost a note-taking device with a large selection of templates such as day planners, the ability to convert handwritten notes into text for sharing over email, and the ability to annotate documents.Remarkable also plans to introduce new features to its devices starting with the Paper Pro Move, including the option to reposition the on-screen toolbar that provides quick access to different pen types and writing tools, and the ability to search handwritten documents. However, while features like handwriting conversion, third-party cloud storage options, and accessing notes in Remarkable’s mobile app are all included, more advanced features, including editing notes in the mobile apps, sharing to Slack, and searching handwritten documents, will only be available as part of a $2.99/month subscription to Remarkable’s Connect service after a 100-day free trial.

I used Grammarly for about 10 years before finally switching to LanguageTool. It wasn't the easiest switch since I had become accustomed to Grammarly's UI. I also couldn't take anything away from Grammarly's performance, which likely explains its popularity among many writers. There are several Grammarly alternatives, and I have used quite a few of them. However, after testing LanguageTool a couple of times, I realized that it's equally a great tool. And as a cherry on top, this relatively new app also has a free version.