It's apparent that Doom: The Dark Ages is awell-designed game for PC and consoles. Many who have stuck with the series have praised the game for how good it feels to control and how exciting it can be to rip and tear up hordes of demons. But what makes Doom: The Dark Ages stand far apart from other games is how well-optimized it is on all platforms. Between the highly detailed visuals and the large scope of the environments, not forgetting the crazy characters you encounter, Doom is a technical marvel of a game. And one that is succeeding, whereas many other games seem to fail continuously.

The Pad 3 has already launched in China twice, first as the Oppo Pad 4 Pro, and then as the OnePlus Pad 2 Pro.OnePlus has launched the Pad 3, the first tablet outside of China powered by the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. It’s been upsized since the Pad 2, with a larger 13.2-inch display, but that’s allowed OnePlus to make it impressively thin at just 5.97mm.That big screen is LCD, rather than OLED, but the 144Hz refresh rate and 3.4K resolution are impressive. Combined with a keyboard and stylus — sold separately — it should make the Pad 3 running Android 15 a pretty capable laptop replacement. It’s a bit less portable than its predecessor thanks to the bigger screen and an extra 90g (around 3oz) of weight, though that’s offset by the fact that it’s actually thinner than the latest iPad Air, albeit not quite as slender as the 13-inch iPad Pro, which is double the price.The 8 Elite is backed up by 256GB of storage and either 12GB or 16GB of RAM, with a fairly sizable 12,140mAh battery. 80W wired charging should fully charge the tablet in a little over an hour and a half. OnePlus has also tweaked the tablet’s rear design, ditching the central, circular camera that was a bit of an eyesore on the first two generations in favor of a simpler pill-shaped module in one corner. The other big changes are on the software side. OnePlus has leaned into its popular take on multitasking, upgrading it with streamlined split-screening and smoother ways to drag and drop. OnePlus phone owners will also benefit from direct file-sharing between their devices, smarter notification syncing, and data sharing that allows the tablet to piggyback on your phone’s connection, but only when it needs data — theoretically saving phone battery life compared to leaving a hotspot on the whole time.The O Plus Connect software I saw on the Oppo Find N5 foldable is also included here. That means easy wireless file transfers between the tablet and a Mac or Windows PC, though Mac owners get an extra bonus: direct remote control of their Mac from the Pad 3. That really could make this a laptop replacement, though bear in mind that OnePlus says all these software features are coming to the Pad 2 eventually, too. As for the Pad 3’s updates, it’s been promised three generations of OS updates and six years of security support.The Pad 3 is available to order now in the UK and Europe, hitting shelves on June 19th. It costs €599 / £529 (about $685) for a model with 12GB of RAM, rising to €699 / £599 ($800) for 16GB. The Smart Keyboard costs €169 / £169 ($193), and the Stylo 2 is €99 / £99 ($113). It’s set for a US release too, but we won’t know the price until later today.

The best apps are those that save you a significant amount of time or genuinely fire up your imagination. Room planners make a strong claim to do both. These tools are able to give you 2D or 3D visualizations of your new home quickly and easily, letting you dream about the sort of spaces you want to create while also making sure you don't waste hours on furniture arrangements that don't work.If you're already on the way to moving to a new home, or just thinking about it, these apps can help. They're all different in terms of the exact features and customizations they offer, so you can pick something that suits the amount of time and learning you want to invest - from quick 2D floor plans done in minutes, to 3D fly-byes of your ideal living space that will look better but take you significantly longer.RoomStyler gives you everything you need to put together a floor plan and then visualize it in 3D. There's also a busy community that has built up around the app, so you can share your designs publicly if you want some feedback, or get inspiration from what other people are doing, if you want to. You can even use someone else's design to start off your own with a couple of clic …Read the full story at The Verge.

Happy Nintendo Switch 2 release day! Did you get one? Yeah, me neither. I'm watching as my Twitch following list slowly fills up with streamers playing Mario Kart World and the introductory welcome tour. But that's okay because we have free PC games we can play while we try to ignore how much fun everyone else is having.

One of the main reasons I've stuck with the Steam Deck over more powerful gaming handhelds like the ROG Ally X is the build quality. Other handhelds are built fine, but you immediately feel the quality and consistency of the buttons and joysticks on Valve's handheld. That was until I picked up the GameSir Cyclone 2 controller for my desktop. It's a decent 2.4GHz controller, but the differentiator is that it comes with micro-switches for the D-pad and face buttons. I fell in love with the tactile feedback, and suddenly, it was hard to go back to the membrane-based buttons of my Steam Deck.

Many Nintendo fans have great memories of playing all sorts of games on the Nintendo 64. It was a home console with a few quirky aspects to it, but also possessed features that made it one of the great Nintendo consoles that impacted the industry in a big way. As a pioneering platform for 3D gaming, some games on it went on to become iconic classics that future releases became inspired by. For some players, the console got them to play games together with good friends and introduced new Nintendo characters and series to their lives. It may not be seen as the best Nintendo console of all-time, but the Nintendo 64 has a solidified spot in gaming history from the mid and late 90s.

Moving is stressful at the best of times, and while moving to a new country is exciting, it also adds a layer of logistical complications, especially when it comes to tech. As someone who's tackled several international moves - most recently, from my native Australia to the US in mid-2023 - here are some tips for figuring out what to bring and how to bring it, and for making sure that your tech works with you, not against you, in your new home.Before you leaveWith all the paperwork and legwork involved in moving countries, it can be easy to put off more minor matters, like what to do with your electronics. Laptops, tablets, and phones should travel with you, but if you're planning on taking relatively large, bulky items like monitors, desktop computers, stereo equipment, TVs, and so on, it'll be cheaper (and easier) to ship them in advance, along with other similarly bulky items like furniture.If you do decide to do this, you'll need to decide between air freight and sea freight. The former is faster; the latter can take months but is generally far cheaper. If there are devices you need with you right up until departure and / or as soon as you arrive - a work computer, for i …Read the full story at The Verge.

AI still doesn’t know what kissing looks like.Doomscroll on TikTok long enough, and you'll come across an ad for AI video apps. In one ad, a stereotypically nerdy girl puckishly smirks as she uploads a picture of herself and her much more handsome crush. Boom - suddenly, thanks to AI, they're smooching. In another, I'm shown a woman in a blouse and jeans. Do I want to know what she looks like in a blue bikini? Psst. There's an app for that. The ad then shows me the woman in said blue bikini. These apps aren't peddling the digital nudes many people associate with AI deepfakes, which are proliferating in their own right on app stores. Slapped together by opportunistic developers and sprinkled with subscription fees and microtransactions, they're all pitching tools to help you make benign fantasies a bit more tangible - but the results feel more cursed than magical.AI video ads link out to apps with titles like Boom.AI, VideoAI, and DreamVid, made by companies you've probably never heard of - a short perusal of Apple's App Store brings up roughly two dozen options. Despite their titillating promotional material, they feature plenty of innocuous video templates. By uploading one or two photos and hitting a "generate" button …Read the full story at The Verge.

I've never been much of an athlete, but lately, I've been trying to work on my fitness. As a self-professed data nerd, quantifying data and my activity patterns is essential. So, I turned to the de facto choice — Strava. But, if you’re someone who tracks every ride, run, or hike on Strava, there’s a good chance you’ve stared at the activity feed of your fitness tracker and wished for just a bit more. More control, more context, more meaning. It's not that Strava doesn't offer all that. However, much of it is locked behind a paywall, and you can't really play with it beyond what Strava will let you.

Windows Update is a core component of Windows 11, and obviously, it's an important one. Delivering security fixes and improvements, along with new features, it keeps your PC running safely and can often make it better in many ways.

By now, almost everyone has seen some kind of coverage about the disappointing Arrow Lake launch, and how Intel took one step forward, two steps back. What was supposed to be Intel's comeback after the disastrous instability saga of its Raptor Lake chips became just another cautionary tale for gamers. The Core Ultra CPUs were slower than the 14th Gen CPUs in gaming, but that's not the only reason you should avoid them. Intel still has a long way to go in terms of thermal efficiency, platform longevity, and pricing, when compared to the competition.

Whenever a new Doom game is released, there's going to be a lot of people who show up to play it. The latest entry in the series from Bethesda, Doom: The Dark Ages, garnered a positive reception from many who were eagerly awaiting its release. But not everybody showed up to a retail store or hopped onto the Xbox Live marketplace to grab their copy of the game. With the latest Doom game being available on Day 1 through Xbox game Pass, tons of people downloaded it as soon as the game went live for everyone. Unfortunately, this may have had some unintended consequences on the release of Doom: The Dark Ages that many have been saying about the subscription service for some time.