It's all too easy to fall into the trap of using smart home automation tools like Home Assistant to only manage those devices that already have some level of "smarts." All too easy indeed, and this was me when I first started getting to grips with how the operating system works. Yes, I said operating system, because the full installation of Home Assistant (HAOS) is no less complex than OPNsense or the OS running your laptop. But we might also want to monitor the other devices in our homes, the "dumb" ones that might not even be connected to Wi-Fi, let alone have any sort of algorithms onboard to control them.

My inbox used to be an absolute mess. Between press releases, bills, bank statements, and random PDFs, it was impossible to find anything when I actually needed it. Gmail’s search is straight up bad when it comes to documents, and digging through years of emails just to find one attachment is not how I want to spend my time. Honestly, I should’ve created a separate email just for documents a long time ago.

When my brother and I were building a budget gaming PC for him back in December 2020, in the thick of the pandemic, we were about to settle on a GTX 1660 Super. Just before that, however, we found a listing for a pre-owned RTX 2070 Super. The price was attractive, and frankly, better than any other listing we could find, so we decided to stretch our budget and build a seriously powerful rig instead. What followed was a series of bad luck, wrong decisions, and the lesson that you should always do your homework before buying any used component.

As a tech blogger deeply integrated into the world of self-hosted media, Jellyfin is my go-to. It smartly manages my vast collection of movies and shows. Yet, one persistent challenge remained: watching YouTube videos directly within Jellyfin. Despite YouTube being a massive content hub, there's no direct way to integrate it with Jellyfin. This gap always felt like a missing piece in my perfect media setup.

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and President Donald Trump during the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on July 15. | Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images At an AI and fossil fuel lovefest in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last week, President Donald Trump - flanked by cabinet members and executives from major tech and energy giants like Google and ExxonMobil - said that "the most important man of the day" was Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin. "He's gonna get you a permit for the largest electric producing plant in the world in about a week, would you say?" Trump said to chuckles in the audience. Later that week, the Trump administration exempted coal-fired power plants, facilities that make chemicals for semiconductor manufacturing, and certain other industrial sites from Biden-era a …Read the full story at The Verge.

T-Mobile’s satellite service is now available to people across the US — and not just T-Mobile customers. On Wednesday, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert announced that the Starlink-powered service is officially out of beta, though it only supports text messaging and location-sharing for now.The new satellite coverage option is called “T-Satellite,” and it’s currently available as a standalone subscription. It’s being offered at $10 per month for a “limited time,” before increasing to $15 per month. It also comes included for customers on the carrier’s $100 per month Experience Beyond or older Go5G plans.Your device will automatically connect to T-Satellite if you’re in an area with no cellular coverage. As long as there isn’t a heavy amount of cloud coverage or trees blocking your view of the sky, you should be able to send and receive text messages, including to 911, as well as share a link that temporarily tracks your location. T-Mobile’s support page says the ability to send pictures is available on “most” Android phones, and the company plans on adding support for more devices soon.T-Mobile is also aiming to enable voice messages and will eventually allow devices to connect to “satellite-optimized” apps, which it previously said could include AllTrails, Accuweather, and WhatsApp. The more than 650 Starlink satellites used by T-Mobile cover the continental US, Hawaii, parts of southern Alaska, and Puerto Rico. The carrier says it’s working on offering satellite connectivity while abroad and in international waters as well.Apple currently offers the ability to send texts and emergency messages from the iPhone 14 and later for free, but it plans to eventually charge for it (there still aren’t any details on price). Google also added a satellite SOS feature to the Pixel 9 that’s free to use for two years after activation. While signing up for satellite service through T-Mobile may seem redundant, the carrier offers support for more phones, and also plans on adding new capabilities like picture and voice messaging.In order to use T-Satellite, you’ll need to have an unlocked device with support for eSIMs and satellite connectivity. Right now, more than 60 different phones can use T-Satellite, including the iPhone 13 and up, Google Pixel 9, and the Samsung Galaxy 21 and newer. You can view the full list of eligible devices on T-Mobile’s website.Verizon launched its free satellite messaging service with Skylo earlier this year, but unlike with T-Satellite, the service is only available to Verizon customers who have newer devices like the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Google Pixel 9. AT&T is also partnering with AST SpaceMobile to launch satellite texting and voice capabilities.

Apple is announcing a new AppleCare subscription called AppleCare One that lets you cover multiple products with a single plan. For $19.99 per month, AppleCare One covers up to three products, and tacking on a new product costs $5.99 per month each.With the products covered under AppleCare One, you get the same coverage you would under AppleCare Plus, including battery coverage, unlimited repairs for accidental damage, and 24/7 priority support.If you subscribe to AppleCare One, you can also add products that are up to four years old to your plan — a big jump from the 60-day window you have to add AppleCare Plus coverage to a product after you buy it. However, Apple says that older products that you add to your AppleCare One subscription have to be in “good condition” and that the company may run diagnostic checks on them before adding them to your plan. Apple will also only allow you to add headphones to an AppleCare One plan if they are less than a year old.Theft and Loss coverage is also available for the iPad and Apple Watch with AppleCare Plus, and if you cover an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch under AppleCare One, Theft and Loss coverage will be included.Apple says you can sign up for AppleCare One from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac or at an Apple Store beginning July 24th. AppleCare One just the latest services push from Apple, which also includes the Apple One subscription that bundles together a bunch of Apple services into one plan. Last quarter, the company announced that its services revenue reached another all-time high.

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a Soulslike action RPG set in feudal China, featuring grotesque monsters and fast-paced difficult combat. If that description sounds like a ton of games released in the last few years, like Black Myth: Wukong and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, that's because it's incredibly familiar in both setting and genre. While Wuchang: Fallen Feathers has a few original ideas when it comes to combat, it is ultimately doing what FromSoftware has been doing for years, but nowhere near the same level of quality as games like Elden Ring.

The White House unveiled its long-awaited “AI Action Plan” on Wednesday, and it included a zombie: a resurrected form of the controversial AI law moratorium that died a very public death. The failed congressional moratorium would have stipulated that no state could regulate artificial intelligence systems for a 10-year period, on pain of being barred from a $500 million AI development fund and potentially losing rural broadband funding. Trump’s new plan has a similar, albeit more vague, provision buried within it. It states that “AI is far too important to smother in bureaucracy at this early stage” and that the government “should not allow AI-related Federal funding to be directed toward states with burdensome AI regulations that waste these funds,” though it should also “not interfere with states’ rights to pass prudent laws that are not unduly restrictive to innovation.”The White House’s Office of Management and Budget will work with federal agencies that have “AI-related discretionary funding programs to ensure, consistent with applicable law, that they consider a state’s AI regulatory climate when making funding decisions and limit funding if the state’s AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award.” Essentially, states that do choose to enforce their own AI regulations may be punished for it on a federal level, under a different sort of AI law moratorium — one with, as described in this plan, no expiration date. The AI Action Plan also states that the Federal Communications Commission will lead a charge to “evaluate whether state AI regulations interfere with the agency’s ability to carry out its obligations and authorities under the Communications Act of 1934.” No word yet on what the penalties for that will be. The official White House press release made no mention of the state guidelines. More detail about Trump’s plan — which encourages rapid adoption of AI tech and expansion of AI infrastructure, as well as attempts to root out diversity and climate science in AI systems used by the government — will come in a series of executive orders this week.The congressional moratorium initially passed the House of Representatives, but it was largely condemned by Democrats and divisive among some Republicans. Some industry activists believed it would prohibit not just new AI regulation, but data privacy, facial recognition, and other tech-related rules in states like Washington and Colorado.After an intense 24-hour period of lobbying and back-door dealmaking — including 45 rounds of votes — 99 out of 100 senators voted for the moratorium’s exclusion from Trump’s funding bill. Now, against all odds, the provision may be coming back from the dead.

We've seen plenty of SSD deals over the past month or so, but this one has to be one of the best. You can now grab this 4TB M.2 SSD for the lowest price that we've seen as it drops to just $159 for a very limited time from Amazon. Now, we understand that not all SSDs are the same, but this model is perfect if you're looking to upgrade the storage of your device for cheap.

Proton, the company behind the encrypted email service Proton Mail, has launched an AI assistant aimed at preserving user privacy. The new chatbot, called Lumo, can summarize documents, generate code, write emails, and more, while storing data locally on users’ devices.Proton says it will protect this information using “zero-access” encryption, which grants users an encryption key that only they can use to view their content, preventing third parties, including Proton, from accessing the information. This helps ensure that Proton can’t share user data with advertisers or governments, or use it for training large language models, Proton says.Though Lumo comes with the ability to search the web, Proton turns this feature off by default to “give users maximum privacy.” If users enable the feature, Lumo will search the web for answers using “privacy-friendly” search engines. Additionally, Proton says Lumo can analyze uploaded files, but it doesn’t save any of its information. Users can link Proton Drive files to Lumo as well, which are supposed to stay end-to-end encrypted when interacting with the chatbot.Proton positions its AI chatbot as an alternative to the ones offered by larger companies, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta AI, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. “Big Tech is using AI to supercharge the collection of sensitive user data to accelerate the world’s transition to surveillance capitalism,” Andy Yen, the CEO and founder of Proton, says in the announcement. “Our vision for Lumo is AI that puts people ahead of profits.”Lumo is powered by several open-source large language models that run on Proton’s servers in Europe, including Mistral’s Nemo, Mistral Small 3, Nvidia’s OpenHands 32B, and the Allen Institute for AI’s OLMO 2 32B model. The AI chatbot will field requests through different models depending on which is better-suited for the query. “For instance, programming-related questions are handled by OpenHands, which specializes in coding tasks,” Proton spokesperson Betsy Jones tells The Verge.You can access Lumo now by heading to lumo.proton.me, or downloading the Lumo app for iOS and Android. Users who don’t have an account with Lumo or Proton can only ask the chatbot a “limited number” of questions each week, and they won’t be able to access their chat histories. Meanwhile, users with a free account can view an encrypted chat history, upload small files, and favorite a limited number of chats. There’s also a $12.99-per-month Lumo Plus plan for access to unlimited chats, extended encrypted chat history, unlimited favorites, and the ability to upload large files.

The Nintendo Switch 2 has been out for just over a month, with the fantastic new console feeling like a success so far. With the first big release since launch, Donkey Kong Bananaza, just around the corner, it seems like a great time to reflect on accessories for the Nintendo Switch 2. While the console itself is all you really need, there are a few accessories that feel essential to getting the most out of your shiny new console. For this list, I've gone with accessories that feel genuinely useful and great to have, not accessories that are novel, but ultimately not for everyone, like the camera.