Whether you’re a newbie to the ever-expanding world of smart home devices or an IoT enthusiast with years of experience with cool gizmos, Home Assistant is a worthy addition to your setup. It’s compatible with most smart home devices, includes rock-solid automation support, and has a wide array of add-ons that expand its functionality even further.

Chapter 9: Ancestral Forge in Doom: The Dark Agesbrings the Slayer in an ancient mining forge used by the people of Argent D’Nur. The gory brilliance of the id Tech engine 8 is easy to spot here, with a large battlefield to explore and demon parts flying everywhere you go.

You have tons of work files on your laptop, your family photo archive on an old iPad, videos piling up on your phone — and not to forget the tens of thumb drives and external hard drives scattered all over the house. Even though external drives are simple to use and affordable enough to stock up on, they ironically start becoming an inconvenience. Manually backing up your data to these drives turns into a chore pretty quickly, and sharing files is anything but easy.

Microsoft has quietly launched an updated Spotlight-like launcher app for Windows that provides quick access to commands, apps, and development tools. The software maker originally launched its PowerToys Run launcher for Windows 10 nearly five years ago, and the updated version — Command Palette — now includes search for apps, folders, and files, calculations, system commands, and much more.Command Palette is available for any Windows user from the PowerToys app, but it looks like Microsoft is now targeting this particular utility at power users and developers. You use Command Palette to access Windows commands or launch command prompts and shell shortcuts. Command Palette also has the ability to quickly open websites, web searches, and search through folders and files like you’d expect from a Spotlight- or -Alfred-like interface.Microsoft has also moved its previous Window Walker PowerToy into Command Palette so you can easily switch between open windows. The most interesting part about Command Palette is that Microsoft has made it fully customizable thanks to extensions support so you can add additional commands and features beyond what’s available by default.The PowerToys Command Palette has been available since early April, and you can activate it using the Win+Alt+Space shortcut once it’s installed. Microsoft says “Command Palette is intended to be the successor of PowerToys Run,” but both are still available for now. Microsoft made some tweaks and changes to Command Palette this week ahead of its Build developer conference on May 19th.

There was a time I believed I could understand everything I needed to know about a GPU simply based off the spec sheet. This approach makes sense for a lot of products. You choose the right specs you want for your TV or monitor, you lean on core counts when looking at CPUs, and RAM transfer speeds make the difference when comparing one kit to another. Graphics cards are complex beasts, though, and if you read into the specs too much, you'll walk away with the wrong impression.

Roguelike has become an immensely popular genre, but a crowded one as well, making it difficult to know which roguelikes are worth your time. For anyone unfamiliar, Roguelikes, named after the game Rogue, are games where, whenever you fail a run, you have to start over from the beginning. There is usually some type of meta-progression, where you get permanently more powerful, but the extent varies from title to title. The gameplay can take almost any form, although isometric action and deck-building are some of the more common. For this list, we have a few Hall of Fame contenders that you may be familiar with, and a few lesser-known choices that are worth checking out.

Notion is often touted as the all-in-one workspace that’s capable of handling everything from note-taking and project management to wikis and databases. While its flexibility is appealing, the assumption that it can entirely replace dedicated tools is not entirely true. Despite its impressive feature set and growing popularity, several fundamental limitations and obvious advantages of specialized software suggest that the days of dedicated tools are far from over.

Microsoft is going to allow Xbox owners to pin apps and games directly to the Home UI. The latest change to the homescreen section of the Xbox dashboard will be available to Xbox Insiders this week, alongside options to hide system apps, choose the number of apps and games listed, and modify the size of the tiled UI.You’ll soon be able to pin up to three of your recently played games or apps to the homescreen. “These pins will stay near the front of the list as you launch other things, giving you quick access to your go-to titles,” explains Eden Marie, principal software engineering lead for Xbox experiences.If you don’t want to see system apps listed on the homescreen, you’ll be able to disable these to focus solely on games and apps. If you really want to take customization a step further, you’ll also soon be able to reduce the number of visible tiles in the recently played games and apps list. Microsoft says it’s “refining this setting” and it’ll be available to Xbox Insiders soon.Microsoft is making these Xbox Home interface changes because fans have requested more customizability. “We’ve heard from many of you that Home should feel more like your space,” says Marie. “Whether it’s surfacing your favorite games, hiding what you don’t use, or simply making Home feel less crowded, this update is a direct response to that feedback.”Microsoft previously tested a big overhaul of the Xbox Home UI in 2022, before shipping it broadly to Xbox owners in 2023. The software maker made more room for backgrounds, quick access to games, the store, and settings as part of the UI overhaul.

Fortnite is no longer available from the iOS Epic Games Store in the EU.Fortnite maker Epic Games has announced that Apple has blocked the game’s return to iOS. Following the rejection, Fortnite is no longer available on iPhones and iPads even in the European Union, where it had previously been available to download through the Epic Games Store.“Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the US App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union,” the company posted on the official Fortnite X account. “Now, sadly, Fortnite on iOS will be offline worldwide until Apple unblocks it.”The Verge has confirmed that the game is no longer available to download on iOS from the Epic Games Store or the alternative marketplace AltStore PAL in the EU, where it had previously been available. It’s not yet clear if Apple blocked the game’s availability through those stores, or if Epic itself chose to make it unavailable. We’ve reached out to both Apple and Epic for comment.Fortnite returned to iOS in the EU last year, but only through those two storefronts, and not Apple’s App Store. The return was made possible by the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which required Apple to allow third-party app stores on iOS.Epic had resubmitted Fortnite to the US App Store this month following a recent ruling in Epic’s lawsuit against Apple. That ruling prohibited Apple from restricting developers’ ability to link to external payment systems, one of the issues that had started their long-running legal battle. Epic was forced to use its EU developer account to resubmit the game, as its US account was terminated in 2020 when it first broke Apple’s rules by introducing its own in-app payments to the game.This week Epic CEO Tim Sweeney announced that the company had pulled its previous Fortnite submission and submitted a new version that included an update due to release today, noting that “all platforms must update simultaneously.” He’s since taken to X repeatedly to complain that unofficial Fortnite knock-offs have been allowed into the App Store while Fortnite hasn’t, claiming that Apple’s app review process has been “weaponized by senior management.”

After xAI’s chatbot Grok spent a few hours on Wednesday telling every X user that would listen that the claim of white genocide in South Africa is highly contentious, the company has blamed the behavior on an “unauthorized modification” to Grok’s code.Wednesday’s hours-long outburst saw Grok insert discussion of alleged white genocide in South Africa into various responses on X, no matter the topic. Grok discussed white farmers’ deaths in reply to a video of a cat drinking water, related the song “Kill the Boer” to a question about Spongebob Squarepants, and broke down the issue in full patois. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman got in on the action, poking fun at the rival chatbot’s public breakdown.In a statement on X the company said that someone had modified the AI bot’s system prompt, “which directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic.” That modification “violated xAI’s internal policies and core values,” and the company says it has “conducted a thorough investigation” and is implementing new measures to improve “transparency and reliability.”We want to update you on an incident that happened with our Grok response bot on X yesterday.What happened:On May 14 at approximately 3:15 AM PST, an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot's prompt on X. This change, which directed Grok to provide a…— xAI (@xai) May 16, 2025Those measures include publishing Grok’s system level prompts publicly on GitHub, launching a 24/7 monitoring team to catch issues like this more quickly, and adding “additional checks and measures to ensure that xAI employees can’t modify the prompt without review.”xAI has had this problem before. The company blamed an unnamed ex-OpenAI employee in February for pushing a change to Grok’s prompts that saw the chatbot disregard any sources that accused Elon Musk or Donald Trump of spreading misinformation. At the time xAI’s head of engineering, Igor Babuschkin, said the employee had been able to make the change “without asking anyone at the company for confirmation.”

Despite primarily using my Xbox Series X console as my primary gaming platform, it's become increasingly difficult to recommend people pick up the console. That line recently got fully crossed, as Microsoft announced that Xbox consoles would cost a hefty amount more than previously. An Xbox Series X now costs $600 in the United States and the Series S 512GB costs $380, bringing the prices significantly higher than the launch costs of these consoles. Those prices also bring them above the prices of a PlayStation 5, which still costs $500, and the Xbox Series X is within range of the PS5 Pro, which costs $700. With Xbox stepping away from traditional console exclusivity, why would you pick one up?

Chapter 8: Abyssal Forest in Doom: The Dark Agespits the Slayer in the darkest map yet, with moonlight piercing through trees and fog, showcasing the new id Tech engine 8’s capabilities. Going through the dark, misty woods, the Doom Slayer has plenty of hidden collectibles and secret areas to unlock in order to get 100% completion of this sizeable level.