SSD prices show no signs of coming down, so making your existing drive last for longer has become more important than ever. My main drive is a 1TB Gen4 NVMe SSD, with a 1TB Gen3 drive reserved solely for games. My C: drive is decently large at around 230 GB, but that doesn't stop Windows from nearly filling the partition every few months.

Not many people know that you can install Linux on your phone, and I don't mean Android, either. It's not exactly ideal, as you may find some apps and services won't work, but it is entirely possible to install a Linux distro on your phone like you would on a PC. For instance, someone dug up an iPhone 6S and slapped Linux on it, and while it was a pain to get working, it's a cool example of how you can give old tech a new lease on life.

As audio-focused generative tools and platforms have gotten more sophisticated, the internet has become increasingly filled with AI-generated music whose melodies and vocals are algorithmically derived from the work of human artists. While some of the people pumping out this kind of content immediately own up to using AI, others have denied using the technology until increasing public scrutiny forced them to tell the truth. For musicians - especially those creating art in technologically-focused spaces like electronic dance music - the increasingly complicated question of what is "real" and what isn't feels particularly urgent and personal …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Xbox gaming scene is a little strange right now. This time last year, Xbox was moving to scrap as many of its exclusivity deals as possible, allowing its titles to migrate over to rival consoles and PCs. It seemed to be working (to the point where Xbox games dominated the PlayStation's top-selling charts), but recently, the new Xbox CEO has pulled back, instead citing exclusives as required for the brand.

10 out of 10 beard. | Photo: Ben Mekler Joseph Fink is the cocreator and cowriter of Welcome to Night Vale, arguably the most important fiction podcast ever. He's also the creator of the noir podcast Unlicensed and Alice Isn't Dead, which takes some of the conspiratorial cosmic horror of Night Vale and turns it into fodder for a more serious series about relationships, trauma, and the open road. There's also a sequel series out now called Don't Tell Alice that takes the story down an even darker path in which protagonist Keisha is the one with a secret.Joseph is also an accomplished author. In addition to co-writing the three Welcome to Night Vale novels, he's also penned the Al …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Z Flip 8 is designed to be used shut more than ever before. | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge What do you want from a flip phone when it's closed? A simple interface, perhaps notifications and a widget or two, for handling the basics? Or a fully fledged Android experience shrunk down for the Flip form factor? For years, Samsung has insisted on the former, even as some fans - and Razr rival Motorola - have pushed for the latter. With the Galaxy Z Flip 8, Samsung has given in.Although the Z Flip 8's hardware is almost unchanged year-on-year, Samsung has fundamentally rethought how this phone is meant to be used when shut. The cover screen feels more like a regular Android phone, with easier access to the full versions of every single …Read the full story at The Verge.

Ever since I realized the sheer potential of the tools within Nextcloud’s App Store, it has become an essential part of my self-hosted stack. Thanks to Collabora Office, I was able to edit conventional text documents, spreadsheets, and presentation slides directly from Nextcloud, while Tasks, Notes, and Collectives fill their own niche roles in my productivity toolkit.

BYOK is a no-frills, single-purpose gadget that 90 percent of people will find absolutely frivolous. But for those who spend a significant chunk of their lives putting words to virtual paper, there is an obvious allure. Personally, I think it's at its best when you just stick to the bare minimum, focusing on pure text drafting. Certain users, though, need more. They want BYOK to take notes, they want to use it for writing screenplays, or maybe they want to organize a sprawling novel. Balancing the wants and needs of these more demanding users has been a challenge that BYOK founder Nick Sjolinder has been trying to figure out how to tackle. …Read the full story at The Verge.

One of the cooler aspects of getting into tinkering and 3D printing is that, if you need a specific piece of furniture or a gadget for your home, there's a good chance you can just make it. For example, if you're feeling the need for a plant-shaped lamp for your room that glows pretty colors, someone has already filled that niche for you. Best of all, you can grab all the files, build instructions, and the Bill of Materials right now.

I have used both Ollama and LM Studio to run local models, and neither is particularly difficult to set up. But if you actually want to integrate local LLMs into working systems, you'll find Ollama just a little cumbersome. As your stack grows, your AI setup will become hard to maintain and even harder to rebuild. I faced this recently and started exploring options. I now run my models through Docker Model Runner and keep the rest of the setup in a Docker Compose file. The file defines how the services connect and where they store data. If something breaks, I run one command, and Docker recreates it. Mind you, the whole process takes about four minutes.

Sony Music and Warner Chappell have filed suit against Anthropic in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking damages for "tens of thousands" copyrighted works. The companies are asking for up to $150,000 per work, plus up to $25,000 for each instance when identifiable copyright data was stripped. In total, the damages could amount to several billion dollars if a court finds in Sony and Warner's favor and awards the maximum amount. This is just the latest high-profile suit against Anthropic, which recently settled a suit brought by the publishing industry for $1.5 billion. It's also faced multiple lawsuits from …Read the full story at The Verge.

An Android phone comes with several Google apps built in. You get Maps, Photos, Gmail, and Chrome, along with a bunch of others that you rarely open. Chrome has a large user base on desktop, and this strategy expands its reach to most Android users. The browser is the default gateway to the internet and to browsing websites, and its popularity pushes you to use it instead of any other pre-built browsing app.