Nvidia has released another hotfix driver that primarily addresses bugs and crashes with its RTX 50-series GPUs. The 576.26 hotfix driver is based on the 576.02 driver release earlier this month, which itself included a large amount of fixes for bugs and crashes.This latest hotfix driver includes all the fixes in the 576.15 hotfix that was released last week, including a fix for the newly introduced GPU temperature bug. It also addresses flickering issues in Forza Horizon 5, track corruption on Forza Motorsport, and Black Myth: Wukong randomly crashing on RTX 50-series cards. There are a variety of fixes for Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Dead Island 2, and Resident Evil 4 Remake on RTX 50-series GPUs, too.Nvidia has also included yet another supposed fix for black screen issues plaguing a range of LG monitors when using DisplayPort 2.1 mode. There’s also a fix for “grey screen crashes with multiple monitors” and “momentary display flicker occurs when running in DisplayPort2.1 mode with a high refresh rate” on RTX 50-series cards.This is the fifth time Nvidia has released a hotfix driver over the past couple of months, which is a highly unusual amount and speaks to the persistent bugs and crashes that Nvidia GPU users have been reporting since the release of the RTX 50-series in January. I wrote last week that Nvidia’s GPU drivers are a mess, and just a week later we already have another hotfix that attempts to address the latest problems.It’s a far cry from three years ago when Nvidia was proudly boasting of its driver quality, and mocking AMD for releasing beta drivers. “We don’t release sub-par beta drivers with minimal testing, let alone multiple conflicting beta drivers forked from different development branches that support different games and products, which confuse customers,” said Nvidia in April 2022.

SpaceX is now offering 12-month residential service plans that bring the price of the dish and router — normally $349 in the US — down to $0 in select markets, without increasing the monthly fee. You have 30 days to test or return the kit for a full refund, but after that there’s some fine print to be aware of. If you change the service address or cancel service, for example, you’ll be hit with a change fee equal to the cost of the hardware but prorated over time. Some subscribers will also be slapped with a one-time “demand surcharge” of around $100 in areas where SpaceX sees high usage.Nevertheless, for many, this might be a good deal. At my home in the Netherlands, for example, the Standard Kit costs €349 under the normal Residential plan costing €50 per month. The new 12-month commitment plan brings the hardware cost down to €0 without increasing the monthly fee. The change fee is listed at €349. Presumably, SpaceX did the math and found that bringing in more monthly subscribers by lowering the barrier to entry offsets any losses on the hardware sideThe 12-month residential plan has been quietly advertised in some countries over the last month but now Starlink is promoting it globally. It’s available in select markets in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand, and nationwide in most European countries. In Croatia, the plan only applies to the smaller and slower Starlink Mini kit.

Saying the PC hardware industry isn't doing so hot right now is the understatement of the year. The latest Nvidia and AMD graphics cards are still marked up by 15–100% over MSRP, and stock levels aren't remotely close to where they should be. In the CPU department, gaming chips like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D are either out of stock (at the time of writing) or out of reach of the majority anyway.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace dominate the productivity scene. But what if you could have a comprehensive suite of tools for file sharing, collaboration, communication, and more, all while maintaining complete control over your data? Enter Nextcloud, the open-source powerhouse that puts you back in charge of your digital life and work. This compelling alternative ticks all the right boxes, doesn’t cost a dime, and offers a refreshing approach to getting things done.

The Take It Down Act is heading to President Donald Trump’s desk after the House voted 409-2 to pass the bill, which will require social media companies to take down content flagged as nonconsensual (including AI-generated) sexual images. Trump has pledged to sign it.The bill is among the only pieces of online safety legislation to successfully pass both chambers in years of furor over deepfakes, child safety, and other issues — but it’s one that critics fear will be used as a weapon against content the administration or its allies dislike. It criminalizes the publication of nonconsensual intimate images (NCII), whether real or computer-generated, and requires social media platforms to have a system to remove those images within 48 hours of being flagged. In his address to Congress this year, Trump quipped that once he signed it, “I’m going to use that bill for myself too, if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.”The proliferation of AI tools that make it easier than ever to generate realistic-looking images has supercharged concerns about deepfaked, damaging content spreading through schools and creating a new vector of bullying and abuse. But while critics say that’s an important issue to deal with, they worry that the Take It Down Act’s approach could be exploited to inflict harm in other ways. The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), which was created to combat image-based sexual abuse, said that it can’t cheer the Take It Down Act’s passage. “While we welcome the long-overdue federal criminalization of NDII [the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images], we regret that it is combined with a takedown provision that is highly susceptible to misuse and will likely be counter-productive for victims,” the group writes. It fears that the bill, which empowers the Federal Trade Commission — whose Democratic minority commissioners Trump fired in a break with decades of  Supreme Court precedent —  will be selectively enforced in a way that ultimately only props up “unscrupulous platforms.”“Platforms that feel confident that they are unlikely to be targeted by the FTC (for example, platforms that are closely aligned with the current administration) may feel emboldened to  simply ignore reports of NDII,” they write. “Platforms attempting to identify authentic complaints may encounter a sea of false reports that could overwhelm their efforts and jeopardize their ability to operate at all.”“Platforms may respond by abandoning encryption entirely”Because of the quick turnaround for platforms to remove content flagged as nonconsensual intimate imagery, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warns that especially smaller platforms “will have to comply so quickly to avoid legal risk that they won’t be able to verify claims.” Instead, they’ll likely turn to flawed filters to crack down on duplicates, they write. The group also cautions that end-to-end encrypted services including private messaging systems and cloud storage are not exempted from the bill, posing a risk to the privacy technology. Since encrypted services can’t monitor what their users send to one another, the EFF asks, “How could such services comply with the takedown requests mandated in this bill? Platforms may respond by abandoning encryption entirely in order to be able to monitor content—turning private conversations into surveilled spaces,” including ones that abuse survivors commonly turn to.Even so, the Take It Down Act quickly garnered a wide base of support. First Lady Melania Trump has become a leading champion of the bill, but it’s also seen backing from parent and youth advocates, as well as some in the tech industry. Google’s president of global affairs Kent Walker called the passage “a big step toward protecting individuals from nonconsensual explicit imagery,” and Snap similarly applauded the vote. Internet Works, a group whose members include medium-sized companies like Discord, Etsy, Reddit, Roblox, and others, praised the House vote, with executive director Peter Chandler saying the bill “would empower victims to remove NCII materials from the Internet and end the cycle of victimization by those who publish this heinous content.”Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of two members (both Republican) who voted against the bill, wrote on X that he couldn’t support it because “I feel this is a slippery slope, ripe for abuse, with unintended consequences.”

Choosing the right monitor can be challenging due to the countless models available on the market. Monitors are available in various sizes and resolutions, with many designed for a specific type of user or task. Entry-level options are usually fine for basic office work and other daily tasks. However, competitive gamers will want a high-refresh-rate model, while creators might prefer an OLED monitor with exceptional color accuracy for animation or graphic design.

I’ve been a member of the home lab faction for a while now, and have tested numerous server operating systems using my device collection. Having tried several permutations and combinations, my dual-Xeon Proxmox server has remained the centerpiece of my experimentation lab. While its energy consumption leaves a lot to be desired, it’s capable of running everything from NAS distros, firewall setups, and self-hosted app stacks to virtual machines that can handle demanding games.

The 27 Project Kuiper satellites were carried into LEO by a United Launch Alliance rocket on Monday.Amazon’s Kuiper broadband internet constellation is starting to take shape, with its first batch of satellites shipped and deployed into space on Monday. The launch is just the first of 80 that Amazon has lined up to take all 3,236 Project Kuiper satellites into low-Earth orbit as part of the retail giant’s effort to compete with Starlink — SpaceX’s market-dominating satellite internet business.The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying Amazon’s first 27 Kuiper satellites was launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7PM ET on April 28th, after its first attempt on April 9th was scrubbed due to poor weather conditions.“While this is the first step in a much longer journey to launch the rest of our low Earth orbit constellation, it represents an incredible amount of invention and hard work,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on X. “Am really proud of the collective team.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by United Launch Alliance (@ulalaunch)The Kuiper satellites were deployed 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth, and Amazon has confirmed that the satellites are successfully activated and communicating with ground systems. If all goes to plan, Amazon said it expects to start providing “high-speed, low-latency” satellite internet to customers “later this year.”“This launch marks the first step towards the future of our partnership and increased launch cadence,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a post-launch statement. “We have been steadily modifying our launch facilities in Cape Canaveral to support the capacity for future Project Kuiper missions in a manner that will ultimately benefit both our commercial and government customers as we endeavor to save lives, explore the universe and connect the world.”The $10 billion Project Kuiper plan was announced in 2019 and is now under a deadline from the US Federal Communications Commission to have 1,618 satellites deployed by mid-2026 — half of its total constellation, but significantly fewer than the more than 7,200 satellites that Starlink already has in operation. By contrast, SpaceX announced yesterday that it had completed its 50th Starlink mission of 2025, passing a total milestone of 250 dedicated Starlink launches to date. The company is currently aiming to have 12,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, but already has regulatory approval to expand to 34,400 satellites. Amazon is one of several companies, including France’s Eutelsat and China’s Spacesail, seeking to provide a viable alternative to Starlink’s network, but SpaceX has a substantial head start — and low-Earth orbit is already starting to look pretty cluttered.

Laptops are our trusty companions, whether we're working, studying, or binge-watching our favorite shows. But much like any reliable partner, they need attention and care to perform at their best. Unfortunately, neglecting essential maintenance tasks can turn a well-oiled machine into a sluggish, chaotic mess. Here's how my oversight landed me in laptop turmoil, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes.

There's just something really cool about people making really, really tiny devices for the sole purpose of making them. If you're making a notetaker, for instance, you'll at least want some real estate to, you know, type comfortably on. Or, you can squish all that hardware down to the size of a matchbox and roll with it, because why not?

For many years, I used to manage my Windows setup in the traditional manner — installing apps one by one, customizing the environment, and manually checking for updates. It worked, until it didn't. System reinstalls, updates, frequent app conflicts, and overall disorganized configurations began to disrupt my workflow, resulting in a loss of productivity.

Tweaking the BIOS/UEFI settings is one of the best ways to ensure you're not only extracting the most out of your PC, but also getting the basics right. Settings like XMP/EXPO, Secure Boot, TPM, and fan curves are something that every user should configure when they set up a new PC. However, there are some settings that only power users should care about. For most people, messing around with these settings can cause more problems than they're worth, especially when the performance benefits are slim at best.