Moving sucks. Ever since leaving college more than a decade ago, I've only lived in apartments, so I've had to get good at living small and managing my inventory of belongings before, during, and after a move.A lot of what makes that possible is that I really like decluttering. But it didn't come naturally - it's a skill I've had to practice, learn, and occasionally fail at. So I thought I might share my experiences here in case you find it helpful for a current or future move.I got good at decluttering when my wife (then girlfriend) and I decided to downsize from a one-bedroom apartment to a studio. We loved the one-bedroom for a lot of reasons, including its view of Seattle's Space Needle. But eventually, we realized we could afford to live in a more walkable part of the city if we could squeeze into a studio.That meant reckoning with the volume of stuff we had each brought into the apartment. Our move into the one-bedroom apartment was two people stuffing their separate lives into one. Our move into a studio meant we had to really decide what would make the jump to the next phase of our lives. It was an emotional thing.We made the decision to downsize a while before we …Read the full story at The Verge.

I’ve been a Windows user for decades, and have used the OS series for most of my workloads, be it gaming, testing new hardware, or even writing articles such as this one. However, I’m not too fond of burdening my daily driver with too many apps, especially when said applications lie on the coding side. Conflicting packers are a hundred times more annoying to troubleshoot on Windows than on Linux, and I’d rather not pollute my system with a barrage of packages and dependencies.

NotebookLM has managed to convince me that AI can truly be a game-changer for productivity. If you aren’t aware, NotebookLM is Google’s AI-powered personalized research assistant. Take a moment to read that last bit again — research assistant.

Laurene Powell Jobs (left) said that Ive’s design process is a “wondrous thing to behold.” | Image: Getty ImagesThe mysterious AI gadget being created by OpenAI and former Apple design chief Jony Ive has been given the thumbs up from Laurene Powell Jobs. In a new interview published by The Financial Times, the two reminisce about Jony Ive’s time working at Apple alongside Powell Jobs’ late husband, Steve, and trying to make up for the “unintentional” harms associated with those efforts.“Many of us would say we have an uneasy relationship with technology at the moment,” Ive said, adding that working on the incoming AI device alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is motivated by a sense that “humanity deserves better.” In May, Ive said his latest work is driven by owning the “unintended consequences” associated with the iPhone, alluding to smartphone-related concerns like users being addicted to screens and social media.Ive again acknowledged this, and says the collaboration with Altman has revived his optimism for technology. “If you make something new, if you innovate, there will be consequences unforeseen, and some will be wonderful and some will be harmful. While some of the less positive consequences were unintentional, I still feel responsibility. And the manifestation of that is a determination to try and be useful.”Powell Jobs, who has remained close friends with Ive since Steve Jobs passed in 2011, echoes his concerns, saying that “there are dark uses for certain types of technology,” even if it “wasn’t designed to have that result.” Powell Jobs has invested in both Ive’s LoveFrom design and io hardware startups following his departure from Apple. Ive notes that “there wouldn’t be LoveFrom” if not for her involvement. Ive’s io company is being purchased by OpenAI for almost $6.5 billion, and with her investment, Powell Jobs stands to gain if the secretive gadget proves anywhere near as successful as the iPhone. The pair gives away no extra details about the device that Ive is building with OpenAI, but Powell Jobs is expecting big things. She says she has watched “in real time how ideas go from a thought to some words, to some drawings, to some stories, and then to prototypes, and then a different type of prototype,” Powell Jobs said. “And then something that you think: I can’t imagine that getting any better. Then seeing the next version, which is even better. Just watching something brand new be manifested, it’s a wondrous thing to behold.”

Many PC components and peripherals can be overclocked, allowing them to operate beyond their factory settings. It's more common for CPUs and graphics cards, but overclocking gaming monitors is also pretty common. Sometimes this is done at the factory, as displays sold at a 144Hz refresh rate often use panels with a 120Hz native refresh rate.

My NAS has become such an integral part of my setup that I don’t even think about it as a separate device living on the network. I use it for both work and personal stuff without actively thinking about using it — it’s just second nature now.

It's been a quarter of a century since I first got a PC at home. For context, I'm 32 years old, and got an HP Brio pre-built when I was in third grade. According to what my father had told me, and calculating based on the USD-INR exchange rate around that time, the machine cost around $1,600. That's pretty much what my existing PC costs — although I didn't have to pay for it.

Doom: The Dark Agescame out last month in May 2025, and boy did I love the heck out of it. Inarguably the strongest entry in the revived Doom franchise, Doom: The Dark Ages, The Dark Ages managed to feel fresh with new ideas, new weapons, and an overall new feel to the game.

Almost all of The Verge’s staff have had the experience of moving to a new house or apartment. While the experience was different for everyone, one thing we all had in common is that, during this highly stressful process, we had each discovered at least one tool, app, or other gadget that turned out to be really (and sometimes unexpectedly) helpful in making things just a little bit easier.Here are some of the items — tech and otherwise — that could be useful if you’re moving from one home to another.Sharpie markersMy partner and I have many years’ worth of books in our basement, and we’ve finally gotten around to sorting them into what we want to keep, what we think we can sell, and what we’ve decided to donate (many, many of them). In order to make sure the right boxes of books go to the right places, I use thick-tipped Sharpies to write on the sides and tops of the boxes, using labels like: Shelve, Store, Autographed, or Book Fairies (yes, that’s the name of the charity). The words are very visible and won’t smear off — and I can be sure I won’t give away my beloved childhood copy of Little Women by accident. — Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editorColored dot stickersThey’re cheap, easy to get, and already color-coded for you. Here’s my advice: color-code your boxes by room, one on every side, making it quick and easy to figure out where every single box and container should go. Then grab one of those Sharpies, write numbers on them, and keep a Google Sheet or other spreadsheet telling you where all your stuff is and where it’s supposed to go. — Kate Cox, senior producer, DecoderA roll of shrink-wrap with handlesIt’s been nearly six years since I last moved, but the one tool that still stands out in my mind as the absolute hero of the ordeal was a simple 15-inch wide roll of plastic stretch wrap. It was not only an easy way to secure random piles of disassembled furniture and keep all the parts organized, it also came in handy for sealing up overpacked boxes that were on the verge of tearing, protecting couch cushions inside a dirty moving truck, and preventing dresser drawers from opening in transit. It was also useful for creating impromptu bags for holding miscellaneous furniture hardware. You’ll want to ensure you buy a roll with handles, which make it much easier to wrap around things. — Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter, newsPaper packing tape“You’ve gotta use this tape, it’s amazing,” said the girl at the U-Haul store, so I bought exactly two rolls, because I had already bought a six-pack of the regular plastic packing tape and I am an old soul who is suspicious of new-fangled things, especially when someone appears to be trying to upsell me on something at the counter. Over the week, as our paper tape supply steadily diminished, we fought over who got custody of the paper tape and who was consigned to the hell of packing with subpar plastic tape. Paper tape is better by every possible metric. It’s quite sturdy but you can tear it with your hands. There’s no need for a tape cutter or a tape gun. It doesn’t get tangled. It’s easy to find the end and lift it off the roll without it splitting. You can write right on it if you need to. I was concerned that paper tape would be flimsier or less sticky; there was no noticeable difference between the boxes that were taped up with plastic versus paper tape, except that a few times when I had used plastic tape, I injured myself on the serrated tape gun and spurted blood everywhere. — Sarah Jeong, features editorProtective glovesFunnily enough, I had already had the premonition that I was, at some point during this move, going to cut myself. This has somehow happened with every move I’ve done. I don’t know what this says about me, other than I have pathetic, soft little hands that are only fit for typing at a computer. For that reason, I bought these Bellingham Wonder Grip gardening gloves in size XS. I picked them because they were the smallest gloves at the Ace Hardware I was in. As it turns out, these are the only work gloves that have ever properly fit my tiny, tiny adult hands, which makes a huge difference when you’re trying to get an actual grip on heavy objects. The gloves are protective, but aren’t so thick that you lose manual dexterity. This is nice, because the last thing you want while packing or unpacking is to have to take your gloves off and on and off and on. If you, like me, are prone to paper cuts while packing, moving, or opening boxes, you should consider buying a pair of these gloves, which come in a nicely inclusive range of sizes that will accommodate even people with weak little hands who have trouble holding onto their iPhones, let alone anything actually heavy. — Sarah Jeong, features editorCross-line laser levelIf you’re mounting something to a wall, whether it’s a simple framed photo, a gallery wall of artwork, or a massive shelf, a cross-line laser is incredibly handy. Just flip it on, and perfectly level lasers shine across your room in both vertical and horizontal directions. It’s helpful for a variety of home DIY projects as well as simple redecorating. It’s still good to use a trusty old bubble level in tandem with it, but the laser gives you a convenient shortcut that makes mounting and measuring easier and faster. And it’s friggin’ laser beams! — Antonio G. Di Benedetto, reviewerStud finderYou can use a strong magnet to find metal screws and pinpoint the location of wooden studs behind drywall for securely hanging pictures or a TV mount. But Franklin Sensors’ ProSensor M210 Stud Finder makes that task so much easier. Using 13 sensors and 21 LEDs that light up to indicate areas behind the drywall that have a greater density, you can quickly determine the location, size, and center of hidden studs. It also works with wood and plaster finishes, and, for an extra level of safety, it includes a live wire meter that warns you where it may not be safe to drill. — Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter, newsElectric screwdriverIf you own a drill that comes with screwdriver and hex key attachments, then you might think that adding an electric screwdriver to your toolbox is kinda pointless. After finding myself fighting with my partner over who gets to use said drill during my last move, however, I don’t ever want to be without a backup option again. We had mountains of Ikea furniture to assemble, shelves to put up, and an assortment of random hole-drilling or screw-related tasks that needed to be done to turn our apartment into a home. Nobody wants to get stuck using a manual screwdriver when time is of the essence and your friend, partner, or parent needs the drill more than you do. Electric screwdrivers are also far lighter than hefty drills, so your wrists will thank you after several hours of assembling flatpack furniture. – Jess Weatherbed, news writerNight-lightsNavigating my home in the middle of the night with the lights off is easy now that my brain has memorized the floor plan, but during the first week of living here, the potential for stubbed toes was high. Shortly after I moved in, I installed SnapPower’s outlet covers, which feature integrated night-lights that draw power without the need for doing any wiring. Supporting both duplex (roundish) and decor (rectangular) outlet styles, the cheapest $21 version features a light sensor that automatically turns it on when it’s dark. A pricier $24 version includes a motion sensor that only activates when you’re nearby, with options for brightness and how long the LEDs stay on. — Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter, news

While cloud storage services are a popular option, you can't go wrong with local storage, especially if you're able to find some good deals. With that said, this Crucial X10 8TB portable SSD can be had at a great price right now as it falls to its lowest to date. For a limited time, you can score $340 off, dropping it down to $440. Now, this isn't cheap by any means, but you're getting a massive amount of storage for a great price.

No one can prepare you for how chaotic the process of writing a novel can get. I had notes scattered in a dozen places and half-formed ideas in every note app I've ever downloaded. It was time to find a tool that would keep everything organized in one place and keep my workflow streamlined.

20 iPhones: great for filming horror movies and protecting your modesty.Upcoming horror threequel 28 Years Later is far from the first Hollywood movie to be shot with the help of an iPhone, but it might just be the first shot on 20 iPhones. That’s how many phones director Danny Boyle had mounted on a special rig for select shots in the movie, which releases June 20th.For Boyle, shooting on iPhones is more than just a gimmick. He returns to the series after directing the 2002 original 28 Days Later, which was shot on a digital video camcorder, a meta nod to the fact that this was how home videos were shot at the time. He and returning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle took that as an “influence” in choosing to shoot partially on a phone, the camcorder’s closest modern equivalent. It was first reported last year that Boyle had shot 28 Years Later on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, but according to IGN the movie actually uses a mix of regular cameras, drones, and iPhones, including three special rigs designed to hold eight, 10, or 20 iPhones at once.“There is an incredible shot in the second half [of the film] where we use the 20-rig camera, and you’ll know it when you see it,” Boyle told IGN. “It’s quite graphic but it’s a wonderful shot that uses that technique, and in a startling way that kind of kicks you into a new world rather than thinking you’ve seen it before.”Boyle calls the 20-phone rig “basically a poor man’s bullet time,” explaining that it allowed the crew to shoot some of the film’s more violent scenes in new ways. “It gives you 180 degrees of vision of an action, and in the editing you can select any choice from it, either a conventional one-camera perspective or make your way instantly around reality, time-slicing the subject, jumping forward or backward for emphasis.”It’s not the film’s only unusual cinematographic choice. It was also shot in an especially wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio, the equivalent of 70mm film, to keep viewers guessing about where the film’s infected could pop up: “If you’re on a widescreen format, they could be anywhere… you have to keep scanning, looking around for them.”