Over the past six months, I have been convinced that my router was quietly dying. The pages loaded slowly, video streams buffered every minute, and video calls often dropped. Whenever that happened, I’d run a speed test, take a screenshot of the results, and send it to my ISP, who simply suggested, "Did you try turning the router off and on again?"

A new tool has dropped that lets users rip proprietary optical media for a wide range of retro consoles, including the GameCube, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360, and more, so you can back up your games without delving into the murky waters of piracy.

Gaming handhelds have absolutely fantastic hardware. Devices like the Asus ROG Ally X are marvels of modern engineering, packing 120Hz variable refresh rate screens, 24GB of RAM, and massive batteries into an ergonomic shell that you can literally hold in your hands and take on the go. However, there's a major visual disconnect: the jarring experience of turning the handheld on. You pass through a beautiful blue animation only to be dropped face-first into a microscopic Windows 11 desktop. You are suddenly using a thumbstick to drag a tiny mouse cursor over a closed window button that is literally three pixels wide and impossible to click on.

An exceptionally weird controversy has come back to haunt Cox Media and a pair of marketing firms, which claimed they were secretly listening to users via phones and smart devices - despite little evidence they actually could. On Thursday the Federal Trade Commission announced that Cox, MindSift, and 1010 Digital Works would pay a total of $930,000 to settle allegations that they were in fact lying about spying on people to target ads.As chronicled by Techdirt a couple of years ago, Cox publicly boasted about a system called Voice Data back in 2023, telling potential digital marketing clients they could ensure "every casual conversation be …Read the full story at The Verge.

AI is promising, but it's also reaching a point where it's no longer very economical to run, especially at scale. Even consumer-focused AI subscriptions are becoming expensive. For example, Claude's higher-tier plan starts at $200 per month, which is not the kind of subscription fee you typically see in the consumer market.

Microsoft tested a lot of new stuff after the Windows 10 release, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Windows Subsystem for Android are two prime examples. WSA had a rocky start and didn't last long before Microsoft axed the project. However, WSL continued to survive and improve, and with the WSL 2 update, things have gotten better. I am not new to WSL and have found the idea of running a real Linux machine with a Linux kernel on a Windows PC quite fascinating. It is lighter than standard virtualization, and most people don't even know that Windows ships with it.

If you are looking to upgrade your PC, storage shouldn't be your next priority, especially if you are already using an NVMe SSD. At a time when SSD prices are near an all-time high, you should focus on better storage organization. Modern SSDs are already fast enough, and a hardware upgrade won't bring any meaningful or noticeable change to performance for the average user, but better organization can.

Our car dashboard has become the final frontier for our digital attention. Apple CarPlay is a powerful tool, but without a deliberate setup, it can quickly become just another screen competing for your focus while you are behind the wheel. That’s why I have streamlined my interface to prioritize only what is essential: seamless navigation, effortless audio control, and glanceable information.

In the last few years, DLSS is becoming one of the settings most gamers instinctively look for whenever they launch a demanding AAA title, especially if it features an open-world setting and supports ray tracing. After all, Nvidia has improved DLSS to the point where the upscaled image looks almost as good as native while boosting your frame rates. So there's really no reason not to take advantage of it.

Sennheiser is sticking with the redesign it introduced with the Momentum 4 Wireless. | Image: Sennheiser Nearly four years after the last version of Sennheiser's Momentum headphones debuted with a redesign that traded a retro aesthetic for a more contemporary and comfortable design, the company has announced its Momentum 5 Wireless headphones. They look very similar to their predecessors, the Momentum 4, with large ear cups and a design that doesn't quite stand out from the competition. But under the hood there are welcome upgrades, including improved ANC and, for the first time, a user-replaceable battery to extend their life.The Momentum 5 Wireless will be available starting on June 30th for $399.99, a $50 price bump over the Momentum 4. Th …Read the full story at The Verge.

Vibe-coding and vibe-designing tools have become their own category, and the bigger names get most of the attention: Replit, Lovable, Bolt, Figma Make, and more recently Claude Design. As someone studying design alongside writing about it, I've been pulled into testing most of them partly out of curiosity, but also because it's not something we can ignore in the UX/UI space for much longer. The appeal isn't even really about replacing design tools either, it's about speeding up workflows or giving yourself a starting point when you're staring at a blank canvas.

The Ferrari Luce will start at €550,000 in Italy, but US pricing hasn’t been announced. | Image: Ferrari After months of teasers, Ferrari is offering the first full view of its Luce electric vehicle. The Luce is notable not just for being Ferrari's first EV, but for being designed in collaboration with Jony Ive and Mark Newson at their collective LoveFrom. It's also going to be Ferrari's second four-door car and its first five-seat one.We already knew Ive and Newson were working on the Luce's interiors, which were shown off earlier this year. Now Ferrari says LoveFrom was allowed to "define the design direction of the project from the outset," inside and out. Tim Stevens reporting for Engadget offers a few firsthand impression …Read the full story at The Verge.