I just got done playing Death Stranding 2, and it left me a sobbing mess at the end of fifty hours. An absolute masterpiece from start to end, Death Stranding is a must-play, generational experience, and I said as much in my excellent review of the PlayStation 5 exclusive game.

Slack is using AI to help business users quickly understand confusing company language and concentrate on their most important tasks. The communication platform announced that it will “soon” be adding a feature that explains workplace jargon, and an AI writing assistant for Slack canvases that automates repetitive writing tasks like summarizing conversations and note-taking.The AI message context feature will instantly explain messages that contain an acronym or unfamiliar phrase when the user hovers over them with their cursor. For any company jargon or terminology, Slack says the feature will draw on the vocabulary and conversation history of the user’s workspace to help break down project names, internal tools, or team-specific shorthand. The idea is to save the user time by avoiding having to manually look up these terms or bug a colleague for an explanation.The writing assistant coming to canvases similarly aims to streamline workflows so users can concentrate on more important tasks. It can generate project briefs based on Slack conversations, extract and assign action items, and rewrite content to fit different tones, such as formal or friendly. It can also provide a full transcript for Slack huddle meetings and highlight the key points raised.An AI-generated action item feature will soon summarize task requirements when users are mentioned in messages that include a follow-up, deadline, or request, helping to prioritize the users’ highest priority tasks. Slack is also introducing AI profile summaries that provide a quick overview of another user’s role and recent contributions to give users context about unfamiliar teammates at a glance. All of the features mentioned above are in the pipeline, but Slack hasn’t specified when they will be available.Slack has announced that two other features are now generally available, however. Users on paid Enterprise plans can access Slack’s Enterprise Search chatbot, which answers questions using information pulled from their workspace’s database, while AI-powered translations are now fully available to customers on Business Plus plans.

Although it doesn't get nearly enough attention, your PSU is probably the most important component in your PC. Without it, nothing works, and a bad PSU can even leave you with damaged or underperforming components. It's the worst area of a PC to cheap out, which has led me to spend up on expensive, high-wattage PSUs for years, even though I didn't need them.

One thing I love about Nvidia GPUs, aside from their unmatched performance in the high-end segment, is their software suite. When you buy an Nvidia GPU, you're not just getting the raw hardware but also gaining access to an ecosystem of software features that promise to enhance your overall gaming experience. But after spending the past few years using both an RTX 3090 and a 4090, I've realized that not every Nvidia software feature actually helps. In fact, some of them have only made my PC perform worse.

Consumer location trackers often come with tradeoffs that include privacy concerns, data collection, and a sense that you’re constantly being watched. Russell Eveleigh wasn’t comfortable with those compromises, especially when it came to his son becoming a latchkey kid for the first time. So, he decided to build something better for his family: a beautiful, ambient location tracker powered by a Raspberry Pi and Raspberry Pi Pico, running entirely on his own hardware.

For a long time, Obsidian was my go-to for daily journaling. It's incredibly powerful, and I loved the idea of building my "second brain". However, as a tech blogger, I'm always looking for ways to streamline my workflow, and I found myself craving something more intuitive for daily reflection. That's when I stumbled upon Logseq. Yes, it has its quirks and perhaps a slightly different learning curve, but the more I used it for my daily notes, the more I realized its distinct advantages. Here are the key reasons Logseq has become my best companion for daily journaling, even after my time with Obsidian.

TikTok will now let songwriters highlight tracks they’ve written or co-written directly on their profiles. The list of songs will live within the “Music” tab on their profile, similar to the one TikTok already offers for artists on the platform. Users who register as songwriters will also get a “Songwriter” label beneath their account name.These new features build upon some of TikTok’s existing tools for songwriters, including the “New” tag that appears on newly released music and the ability for users to save a song on a music streaming service. TikTok also rolled out a “BehindTheSong” hub in 2023, where songwriters, artists, and producers can share more about the making of their music, in addition to the more recently launched “Off the Record” series with artists like Shakira, Charli XCX, and Meghan Trainor.Music is a huge part of TikTok, with the platform helping boost the popularity of songs and even drive TikTokers to stardom. It has also worked with artists like Taylor Swift to build hubs to promote their music, and added the ability for users to save songs to their SoundCloud accounts in May. In 2023, it launched a standalone music streaming app, but shut it down in 2024. For now, TikTok is launching its new songwriter features in a closed beta with a “limited number” of publisher partners. Songwriters and publishers can sign up for a waitlist to gain access to these features in the future.

OPNsense and pfSense are both forks of m0n0wall and FreeBSD. While they may work similarly, there are some notable differences between the two firewall solutions. I made the switch from pfSense to OPNsense due to a variety of reasons, namely more frequent updates, a better user experience, and questionable support from Netgate, closing down access to various parts without paying.

Roblox is introducing a way to let trusted friends chat more freely among themselves, but it will require that they use a new age estimation tool to verify that they’re over 13.The platform is renaming Friends to Connections, and people can only use unfiltered text chat and the Party social feature with a more exclusive group of “Trusted Connections.” The new age estimator tool prompts users to take a video selfie, “which is analyzed against a large and diverse dataset to estimate their age,” according to a blog post from chief safety officer Matt Kaufman.“If the system is not able to estimate the user’s age with high confidence, then the user’s age will remain unconfirmed and the user won’t be able to access Trusted Connections,” Kaufman says. If a user doesn’t pass the age estimation tool but they are actually over 13, they will be able to confirm their age via ID verification “and, in the future, verified parental consent.”Roblox partnered with identity verification company Persona on the age estimation technology, Roblox’s Ryan Ebanks said in a call with reporters, and he says biometric data will be deleted 30 days after collection “except for a few exceptions where legally required.” Persona is “providing the core age estimation and ID verification services to Roblox,” spokesperson Juliet Chaitin-Lefcourt tells The Verge, and “Persona’s model is integrated into the Roblox app with additional UI and logic that has been customized by Roblox.”Users 13 through 17 who have their age confirmed will be able to add each other as Trusted Connections. Teens will only be able to add someone older than 18 as a Trusted Connection if they know them in real life, Kaufman says, and they can do that by scanning a QR code in person or using Roblox’s Contact Importer feature.Although chats with Trusted Connections can be unfiltered, Roblox will monitor the conversations for “critical harm.”“This includes, but isn’t limited to, any predatory behavior aimed at manipulating or harming minors, the sexualization of minors, engaging in inappropriate sexual conversations with or requesting sexual content, and any involvement with child sexual abuse material,” Chaitin-Lefcourt says.Last year, a Bloomberg report highlighted issues with predators on the platform, and the company introduced safety tools like letting parents block and report people on their child’s friend list and has banned kids under 13 from accessing “social hangout” spaces. Age verification has growing momentum behind it — platforms like Bluesky and Reddit also recently rolled out age verification tools in the UK to comply with the Online Safety Act, and the EU is testing a prototype age verification app.Roblox is also introducing new features intended to support users’ well-being. A new option will let people control who sees whether they’re online. (Before, they could only hide which experience they were in.) Users can also set a Do Not Disturb timeframe to silence Roblox’s push notifications, and teens will be able to set their own screentime limits (a feature previously limited to parents).

When it comes to figuring out how to spend your gaming weekend, one of the best places to start is Xbox Game Pass, if you are subscribed to the service. If you are subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, you have access to an ever-changing catalog of a couple hundred games, available on both Xbox consoles and on PC via the Microsoft store. It might be hard to decide what to play with that many games at your disposal, but don't worry, I've narrowed it down to three games, with a nice mix of genres. Two of these games you could finish in a weekend, but the third you can play enough to know if you want to continue with it.

If you're looking to build a new PC with tons of power at a great price, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is an absolute beast of a CPU, delivering on all fronts, but especially potent when it comes to games and creative projects. While this CPU used to cost a small fortune when it was first released, it can now be had for much less, with Amazon offering a discount that drops it down to just $275 for a limited time.

A few weeks ago, I switched from Docker to Podman, as the latter provided some extra features for my containerization needs. That said, Docker is still a neat container runtime despite all its faults, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to familiarize themselves with the nitty-gritty of containerization.