I constantly change Windows 11 settings, tweaking them, so its behavior is less irksome and file management is more efficient, improving my productivity. Making specific changes on Windows often requires too many steps if done through the GUI. But I found Sophia Script (available on GitHub), which lets me fine-tune Windows more easily. It’s a PowerShell module that allows you to fine-tune Windows from the CLI.

After abruptly pulling their support from what would have been the Senate’s first stablecoin regulatory bill, Senate Democrats announced Tuesday that they would introduce a new bill that would prevent federal officials and their families from issuing digital assets – a bill directed at Donald Trump and his family’s current stablecoin and meme coin holdings.“Currently, people who wish to cultivate influence with the president can enrich him personally by buying cryptocurrency he owns or controls,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), who introduced the bill to the Senate floor, in a press release. “This is a profoundly corrupt scheme. It endangers our national security and erodes public trust in government. Let’s end this corruption immediately.”The End Crypto Corruption Act comes in response to concerns inside the Democratic party that the GENIUS Act, which previously had strong bipartisan support, was inadequate at preventing corruption. Though the Senate Banking Committee passed the bill in March with a bipartisan vote, two subsequent developments reportedly pushed the Democrats to change course. First, a New York Times report last week revealed that the Trump family could potentially earn $2 billion from a stablecoin transaction with a Dubai-based investment firm under the current regulatory framework. Second, Trump announced a contest in April wherein the top holders of his meme coin would win a private dinner with the president, and the top 25 holders would win an additional guided tour of the White House. According to a report from Chainalysis, the meme coin’s issuers, Official Trump, have earned $320 million from trading fees from the contest alone.Though they admitted that there’s not much they can do to stop the president right now (see: no laws), Senate Republicans also expressed skepticism over the $TRUMP contest to NBC, and at least one staunch Trump ally, Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, offered to partner with the Democrats on efforts to regulate lawmakers holding digital assets. “Even what may appear to be ‘cringey’ with regard to meme coins, it’s legal, and what we need to do is have a regulatory framework that makes this more clear, so we don’t have this Wild West scenario,” she told NBC.

With episode 4 of The Last of Us season 2 now behind us, we’ve officially crossed the halfway mark. And if it wasn’t clear already, this season isn’t shy about taking big swings with its adaptation. With the adaptation comes plenty of changes and tweaks, and HBO’s The Last of Us is no stranger to that.

The Steam Deck is a solid gaming handheld right out of the box. But if you're the kind of person who likes to tweak and personalize your tech, Decky Loader opens up a world of customization. With the right plugins, you can streamline updates, clean up storage, and even give your Steam Deck a fresh look and sound. After spending time testing various options, here are ten plugins that have become essential to my setup.

Amazon-owned Zoox says it issued a software recall for all 270 of its vehicles after an unoccupied robotaxi in Las Vegas crashed into a passenger vehicle on April 8th, Reuters reports. The update rolled out between April 16th and 17th to address a risky situation that could arise when the vehicle operating at over 40mph closed in on another vehicle that approaches its lane from a perpendicular driveway before stopping.In a press release on Tuesday, Zoox said there was only minor damage to both vehicles and no injuries were reported. Zoox shared how the incident played out in the voluntary safety recall report it sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on May 1st:The incident involved a passenger car quickly approaching the lane where our purpose-built robotaxi was traveling. Anticipating that the passenger car would proceed forward, the Zoox robotaxi slowed down and steered to the right. Instead, the car came to a stop, fully yielding to the Zoox robotaxi and remaining in the shoulder lane. The Zoox robotaxi braked hard, but contact was unavoidable.The report states that, prior to the update, the company says, “In situations where Zoox vehicles are operating at speeds greater than 40mph, and a vehicle incrementally encroaches from a perpendicular driveway approaching the Zoox vehicle’s lane, the Zoox vehicle may make an inaccurately confident prediction that the vehicle is going to proceed into the Zoox vehicle’s lane.” Reacting based on that inaccurate projection could cause a crash, as happened here.A March recall notice from Zoox also notes that after two incidents where its Toyota Highlander-based robotaxis performed sudden hard braking, causing approaching motorcyclists to rear-end them, it rolled out a software update to address the problem last November.

Like most kids, the first laptop I ever got to call my own was a clunky hand-me-down from my parents. That Dell was the sole reason behind a lot of my breakdowns. For instance, it refused to work unless it was plugged in, took hours to boot up when it did manage to turn on, and even stopped connecting to Wi-Fi at one point. I had to use an Ethernet cable just to be able to work on it, imagine!

Using Home Assistant for smart home automation is for the brave. Want to make the IoT systems work with Home Assistant? You've got to put in some hours and embrace the learning curve. If you're game for a challenge, you can add Node-RED into the Home Assistant and level up smart home automation with some complex ones.

Docker has become a crucial part of modern software development and deployment. While we are all aware of Docker’s primary use cases, the flexibility of containerization opens up a host of possibilities in your workflow. Let me share a collection of the weird and wonderful ways I have personally leveraged Docker beyond its typical scope. From unexpected productivity hacks to creative solutions for everyday tech challenges, here are some of my most unconventional Docker use cases.

Despite how much some of my XDA colleagues have written about NAS and home labs, I didn't think I would ever get into these topics. But, after many articles, and one in particular from Adam Conway (which I've linked below), I recently bit the bullet and finally set up a home lab and NAS for myself.

Home labs may be the perfect testing grounds for your virtualization projects and computing experiments, but they can also double as rock-solid self-hosting workstations once you arm them with the right containers and VMs. However, remembering the credentials for each service can become a problem once you’ve deployed dozens of containers for your productivity, media consumption, and storage needs.

Mother's Day is just around the corner, which means plenty of folks are making plans to celebrate, which can mean spending a day at home, going out for brunch or lunch, or gifting something to show appreciation. Of course, for those moms who are more into the tech scene, getting some new gear as a gift wouldn't be such a bad idea, which is why we've picked out some of our favorites to grab that are on sale ahead of the busy weekend.

It's rare to find a piece of tech that can do so much without taking up a lot of space. The Anker 675 docking station is a great example, taking on the role of a docking station, while also seamlessly fitting into your setup as a monitor stand. Best of all, it's not all that expensive, despite taking on all these roles, coming in at a discounted price of $190.