Most of the discourse around Valve's upcoming Steam Machine revolved around the underwhelming specs, high price tag, and delayed launch. People were legitimately skeptical about the value proposition, and Valve didn't help by declaring that it would price it like a PC, not a console. However, I feel a large section of gamers is dismissing the Steam Machine prematurely. Valve is being careful to avoid comparisons with consoles, given the disparate price points, but the Steam Machine is absolutely going to compete with consoles in the living room. It has the might of Steam, the perks of PC-centric features, and Valve's excellent track record behind it. Even those within the industry believe the Steam Machine is poised to be the biggest competitor to the PlayStation. When you look at the real value proposition of Valve's SteamOS box, in line with the recent console price hikes, even pricing starts to seem like a non-issue. We might be entering an exciting new age of console wars where Sony, Valve, and even Microsoft will be making huge moves.

Windows 11 made major changes to the Taskbar, and they weren't well-received. The centered Start button, unnecessary additions like Widget board and Copilot icons, and locking it at the bottom weren't exactly the surprises Windows users were eager for. I made peace with the Windows 11 taskbar after trying third-party apps like Explorer Patcher, which let memove it to any position.

AI has become incredibly good at helping us move faster. It can brainstorm ideas, generate solutions, and expand on almost any thought within seconds. But after months of experimenting with AI for technical planning and decision-making, I started wondering whether speed was actually the right metric to optimize for.

Google's new "24/7" AI agent, Gemini Spark, can be shockingly good at doing things on your behalf. But I'm not sure it's worth the financial cost and potential privacy tradeoffs.The company gave me access to Spark last week. Google advertises Spark as an AI agent that can take on tasks and work on them in the background - even tasks that have multiple steps - allowing you to put your phone down or walk away from your computer. It also advertises at the very top of the Spark website that it's "always under your direction," that "you choose to turn it on," and that "it's designed to check with you before taking major actions." Given the moun …Read the full story at The Verge.

Setting up a new Jellyfin server always starts the same way for me. I spend hours organizing libraries, fixing metadata disasters, downloading posters online, and then realizing that the sun has set while I micromanage every part of the server. The real fun, however, comes from installing plugins that transform Jellyfin into a genuinely premium media server.

Claude is still the AI tool I reach for most days and that's probably not going to change any time soon. But even on the Pro plan, I still hit the limit caps, especially when I've been doing visual work with Artifacts or Claude Design, and then there isn't much left for regular chat without turning on extra usage. Opus eats through that allowance way faster than Sonnet, and I run Opus a lot. There's also the privacy side - everything I send Claude lives on Anthropic's servers, and while that's fine for most things, the personal documents I'd rather keep on my device. Plus, having a tool that works regardless of whether Anthropic's having a bad server day is its own kind of insurance.

Nvidia's announcement that it's getting into the consumer laptop chip space with RTX Spark is huge. Apple has proved for years that Arm-based chips can perform incredibly well while also delivering great battery life - at least on the Mac. In the Windows world, performance hasn't fully matched up under Qualcomm chips, mostly in the graphics department. There's clearly still untapped potential, and Nvidia seems to be promising to deliver it.This could be Windows' moment to blow us away with a new generation of supremely capable chips, much like Apple's back in 2020, with the introduction of the M1. But why does this launch feel simultaneous …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you’re planning to travel this summer, both a Bluetooth tracker and a personal safety device can come in handy, especially if you’ll be exploring on your own. The Pebblebee Halo combines those two gadgets into one, and it’s currently on sale for $49.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, which is the best price we’ve seen. Amazon is also throwing in a fourth Halo for free when you buy three as a part of a limited time promotion.Pebblebee HaloWhere to Buy: $59.99 $49.99 at AmazonWhether you’re touring a new city or heading back to your hotel after a night out, the Halo can help in a variety of situations. Like the Pebblebee Clip 5 — our favorite AirTag and Tile alternative — the rechargeable, water-resistant tracker does a good job of accurately helping you keep tabs of bags, wallets, keys, and other valuables. It offers up to 500 feet of Bluetooth range and taps into both Apple’s Find My network and Google’s Find Hub, so you can locate items even further away.What really sets it apart is that it’s also a personal safety device. With a quick pull, you can trigger off a piercingly loud 130dB siren, bright strobe lights, and automatic location sharing with one trusted contact. If you’d like to send your real-time location to multiple contacts at once, you’ll need Pebblebee’s Alert Live subscription (which costs $24.99 a year), but the good news is the service is included free for the first year, making the Halo an even better value at this price.Read our hands-on impressions of the Pebblebee Halo.

Just when the tech world thought Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex had locked down the AI-driven development space, Google went ahead and flipped the script.

Most of us have tried a PC optimization app at some point. I did too, only to later realize that they rarely work. Apart from that, I know countless people who have run into issues after using a system-optimization or performance-boosting app. That's because many of these apps rely on the same set of tweaks regardless of the PC they are running on. And that's precisely the problem. No two Windows PCs are exactly alike. Every computer is set up differently, has different apps, and system settings are typically configured to suit our needs.

We may just have gotten an early look at the Google Pixel Watch 5 - and from an unusual source. Randy Pitchford, the creator of the Borderlands game franchise, posted a pair of images of a watch on X, saying that his friend found it underwater while scuba diving near Saint Martin, as reported earlier by Kotaku."He noted that the reverse of the watch indicates that it is a Google Pixel 5, which has not yet been announced, let alone released," Pitchford writes. "It seems to be fine. The face indicates an empty battery, but seems to have enough reserve power to display the correct time." After putting out a call to find its owner, Pitchford s …Read the full story at The Verge.

Aside from the classic, handheld Game Boy, the Nintendo 64 (N64) is my favorite video game console ever.