The Nintendo Switch 2 has entered the ring, possibly complicating your decision of which handheld to buy this year. While Nintendo’s new console, which comes out on June 5th, may seem similar to handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally, there’s a lot that sets them apart. Everything like how you buy and play games, their control methods, how powerful they are, and how you can expand their storage makes them different. Unique doesn’t always mean “good,” by the way.While tech-savvy folks likely understand the key differences between each of the major handhelds, possibly enough to establish a preference, some could use a hand breaking things down. That’s exactly what I’m going to do here, specifically comparing the Switch 2 to the Asus ROG Ally and the Ally X, two of the most popular handheld gaming PCs that aren’t a Steam Deck (in small part because they’re easy to buy at Best Buy). I’ve already compared the Switch 2 to Valve’s console, so my focus here is exclusively on Asus’ consoles that have a dedicated fanbase and some great specs.Pricing and availabilityAs mentioned, the Switch 2 will launch on June 5th. Preorders were initially s …Read the full story at The Verge.

One night in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, a felting artisan ended her day with a prayer. May our partners have good health. May they be ambitious, and successful, and may their businesses grow. The next morning, sisters-in-law Chinara Makashova and Nazgul Esenbaeva, and the people they worked with awoke to what seemed like a miracle: Shopify orders. So many Shopify orders. They got to work. It felt like everything was falling into place: The company they had built from scratch was exporting felted slippers and artisan products to wholesale partners around the globe. And with help from USAID’s green business initiative in Central Asia, they were expanding their production abilities — and finally building their own modern, direct-to-consumer web store: one with the payment processing and data security infrastructure to help them reach customers directly. But just as their new ecommerce infrastructure was coming together, the USAID funding vanished around the world — leaving them with a $35,000 funding gap. In so many places, the internet makes building a retail business easy — but in the world’s most land-locked country, with a banking system bogged down by sanctions against o …Read the full story at The Verge.

By the time Apple releases M5-powered iPads, using iPadOS may feel closer to working on a Mac, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. It won’t be macOS running on a tablet, but he writes that the changes will be significant enough to make people who want such a thing happy.Updates to iPadOS coming this year will be focused “on productivity, multitasking and app window management — with an eye on the device operating more like a Mac,” according to Gurman. He says these changes are due “about a year” after the release of the M4 iPad Pro, a fantastic tablet with far more power than its software demands. Gurman’s report doesn’t give any indication of what Apple’s updated multitasking will look like, and it’s best to reserve any excitement until we see more. Back in 2022, Apple added Stage Manager to iPadOS 16, a feature that enables windowing and also groups app windows together in a dock-like collection on the side of the display. It might have seemed like an exciting change if you wanted to be able to ditch your MacBook, but what shipped felt too half-hearted to be a useful step in the direction of a proper desktop operating …Read the full story at The Verge.

Using Linux in 2025 is more viable than you may think. Although the operating system (OS) has powered much of the world's servers for decades, it remains a severely unpopular choice for desktop and laptop systems. This is largely down to game and app support on Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS, which have traditionally offered superior experiences to Linux. That's no longer the case, and many Linux distributions (distros) are more polished than commercial operating systems. If you're coming from Windows, here are a few things that will surprise you to learn about Linux.

I love diving into fresh creations and pushing the limits of what my 3D printer can do. Yet, I occasionally hit a mental block and struggle to come up with new designs. Over time, I realized that being open to different sources of inspiration keeps my ideas flowing. By exploring a variety of methods, I have found several reliable ways to jumpstart my next 3D printing adventure.

Note-taking is a task that most of us perform regularly. Whether you're in a meeting, discussing deliverables with your colleague, or have a personal matter to attend to, most of us resort to our Notes app to pen all of them down. Owing to this, it becomes extremely important to pick the right note-taking tool based on one's specific needs. If you end up picking the wrong platform, you may be stuck for a long time, since you may have paid for it, or you wouldn't want to migrate all your data to an alternate app or tool. The fact that there are tons of note-taking apps out there makes things harder for the average user.

Raspberry Pis and Home Assistant are a match made in heaven. The former is great at sensing the world around it and collecting data, and the latter is amazing at taking in data, making decisions, and outputting information to better control a smart home. Put them together, and you have a tag team system that keeps an eye out for stimuli and decides what to do next with that information.

Smartphones, laptops, and other products that are exempt from Trump’s April 9th tariffs will be lumped in with duties on semiconductors in “a month or two,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl on This Week. Yesterday, the Trump administration released updated guidance that excluded smartphones, laptops, and more from Trump’s new tariffs, including the 125 percent additional levy on Chinese-produced goods last week. “This is not like a permanent sort of exemption,” Lutnick told Karl, saying that they will be subject later to “a special focus type of tariff” applied to the semiconductor industry, similar to automotive tariffs Trump has already issued. When asked if the new tariffs will include products like iPhones, many of which are built in China, Lutnick said that’s “correct” and that the goal is to “encourage them to reshore, to be built in America.” ”It’s not like you can open a factory tomorrow to build iPhones,” Karl said, before asking if these coming tariffs will mean higher prices for goods in the US. Lutnick responded: I don’t necessarily think so. I think the idea is that we can manufacture here in America. As I said, there’s a — I saw Panasonic, the battery company. Right? A Japanese company. They built an amazing factory in Kansas, which they’re opening now. They were putting it in the ground when Donald Trump was President, just finishing now.Lutnick may be referring to an EV plant Panasonic announced it had broken ground on in November 2022. Panasonic reportedly stands to gain billions in incentives for the plant under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, which Trump has threatened to “rescind all unspent funds” from.

I swore off small form factor PCs for years. Worrying about high fan noise, blistering temperatures, and limited space for upgrades, I never paid much attention to SFF PCs and all the nuance that goes into them. But that changed a couple of years ago, and since building my SFF rig, I haven't looked back.

The latest Mario Kart title has officially been revealed by Nintendo, and it is called Mario Kart World. Not only is the game bigger, but so is the number of racetracks, and the number of characters. One look at the trailer, and it is easy to get overwhelmed by the number of racers in the game. Everyone seems to be joining the party this time, from the classic Mario to a penguin. Are you prepared to get passed by a Pokey or lapped by a dolphin? Here are the most obscure characters I saw in the Mario Kart World trailer shown during the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct.

Crosswalk buttons in at least three California cities appear to have been hacked this weekend to give them the seemingly AI-generated voices of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In videos posted online, the apparent voice of Musk begs listeners to be his friend, or that of Zuckerberg brags about “undermining democracy” and “cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop.”A Palo Alto, California city spokesperson told Palo Alto Online that city employees “determined that 12 downtown intersections were impacted,” and have disabled the crosswalks’ voice features pending repairs. The signals otherwise work as they should, they told the outlet. The hack seemed to have taken place on Friday, the person said. The same thing is happening in Redwood City, where a deputy city manager told The San Francisco Chronicle that the city is investigating and attempting to resolve the issue there. Crosswalk buttons in Menlo Park are also reportedly affected. The voice features of these buttons are used to guide people with difficulty seeing, letting them know when to “wait” and when the walk sign on the other end of the street has turned on. It’s hard to tell how much, if at all, the simulated voices interfere with that, but they seem to be playing in addition to, rather than instead of the built-in safety notices, at least in some videos of the phenomenon.Here are some videos with the simulated voice of Musk, along with my transcriptions below each: @rosecampau Replying to @whitney 🍉 ♬ original sound – rose Hi, this is Elon Musk, and I’d like to personally welcome you to Palo Alto. You know, people keep saying, ‘cancer is bad,’ but have you ever tried being a cancer? It’s fucking awesome. @rosecampau our crosswalks just got vc funding apparently #paloalto #elonmusk #tesla #siliconvalley #walkablecities ♬ original sound – rose Hi, this is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering. You know, they say money can’t buy happiness, and yeah, okay, I guess that’s true. God knows I’ve tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck, and that’s pretty sick, right? Right? Fuck, I’m so alone. @lifeashd Emerson st. and University ave. In Palo Alto, CA got hacked! The crosswalk button sound was changed from “wait” to a speech from ElonMusk elonmusknews ♬ original sound – HD Hi, I’m Elon. Can we be friends? Will you be my friend? I’ll give you a Cybertruck, I promise. Okay, look, you don’t know the level of depravity I would stoop to just for a crumb of approval.One had a guest spot from a soundalike of President Donald Trump, clearly making light of Musk’s close association with Trump: @chloeakiko newest feature in silicon valley #elonmusk ♬ original sound – Chloe Not Musk: You know, it’s funny, I used to think he was just this dumb sack of shit. But once you get to know him, he’s actually pretty sweet and tender and loving.Not Trump: Sweetie, come back to bed.One video published by Palo Alto Online featured this quote, spoken by a faked Zuckerberg’s voice: Hey, it’s Zuck here. I just want to tell you how very proud I am of everything we’ve been building together. From undermining democracy to cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop, to — to making the world less safe for trans people. Nobody does it better than us, and, uh, and I think that’s pretty neat. Zuck out!Otherwise, the other simulated Zuckerberg voice messages I found in videos online all had the same content:Somebody uploaded custom audio of AI generated Zuckerberg to a bunch of crosswalk buttons in Palo Alto and Redwood City and it's hilarious— NIC (@wah.gay) 2025-04-13T07:09:25.682ZHi, this is Mark Zuckerberg, but real ones call me ‘the Zuck.’ You know, it’s normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every, every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you, you don’t need to worry, because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Anyway, see ya.

I first became interested in laser engraving because it transforms simple materials into personalized pieces of art. I was eager to customize gifts, create unique décor, and possibly turn my new skill into a small business. However, I quickly discovered that certain aspects of the process were far more involved than I initially realized. By sharing these insights, I hope to save you from a few surprises and help you get the best possible experience with your machine.