Unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you know about the PC hardware crisis we're going through. It started with RAM, but soon engulfed GPUs, SSDs, and even hard drives. Storage may not be a priority for gamers, but NAS and home lab users need tons of it at affordable prices. And that combination has all but disappeared if you look at consumer and NAS drives.

Saving money is one of the big reasons people can get into self-hosting, though whether that actually works out really depends on what you're doing with your server. Just replacing cloud storage with a home server may not actually be cheaper, but once you start replacing enough services, it can make a positive difference.

Given how many times Windows 11 throws seemingly messy and complex problems to solve, I'm willing to bet that almost every long-time user has been at the brink of wiping the OS and reinstalling it from scratch.

I've been using Claude Code since its early days, and if there's one thing I've learned from my experience between now and then, it's that there's almost always a way to make it do more than you initially thought possible. Just when I think I've figured out everything the tool has to offer, Anthropic ends up launching yet another feature that changes the way I use it entirely.

Less than a month after its mass release of hundreds of manuscripts that it said contained solutions to long-standing mathematics questions, OpenAI is back with three more "major" discoveries in math, computer science, and physics. What's different this time is the choice to have external experts that OpenAI describes as "shepherds" guiding the results in computer science and physics, while for the math problem it says that they advised it to release the AI output for researchers to work through their own explanations. OpenAI results added to GitHub today:Local smoothing for the Euclidean wave equation. The proof uses an auxiliary par …Read the full story at The Verge.

Running out of space on your Nintendo Switch 2? Thankfully, Samsung’s P9 MicroSD Express card is discounted at multiple retailers, with the 256GB version going for $47.99 (Amazon, B&H Photo) and the 512GB version $99 (Amazon, B&H Photo). The smaller card typically sells for around $80, and the larger option usually sells between $150 and $200, though both are higher than their original launch prices, likely because of the ongoing memory shortage.Samsung P9 microSD Express CardThe P9 is great if you need more storage for your Nintendo Switch 2. The microSD Express card offers sequential read speeds of up to 800MB/s, but only gadgets with a microSD Express card slot can take full advantage of the highest speeds. That includes certain cameras, tablets, and drones with a microSD USH-I slot.Where to Buy: $74.99 $47.99 at Amazon (256GB) $149.99 $99 at Amazon (512GB) $74.99 $47.99 at B&H Photo (256GB)First-party Switch 2 games generally run between 10 and 30 gigabytes each — the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is 27GB, for example — while third-party games can take up even more space (Cyberpunk 2077 is 60GB). Until recently, the Switch 2 was one of the few devices that could take advantage of the faster MicroSD Express standard, but this year’s Asus ROG Ally X20 also added support for MicroSD Express. While expensive, the latter is an impressive gaming handheld that runs Windows 11, giving it a versatility that’s hard to find elsewhere.

I can’t drive without music playing, and Android Auto makes it easy to bring whichever music app you prefer into the car. I spent a month switching between Spotify, YouTube Music, and Plexamp, which plays music from my own Plex server.

As it prepares to go public, Anthropic's S-1 filing makes generative AI's methane dependency glaringly obvious."Competition for access to electrical supply and data center locations with adequate power availability is intense."In documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Monday, Anthropic acknowledges that data centers are becoming increasingly reliant on "natural gas" - the fossil fuel industry's marketing term for what is primarily methane - leaving the company's AI data center buildout vulnerable to rising fuel costs and existing supply chain constraints. And in a possible catch-22, Anthropic admits that rising gl …Read the full story at The Verge.

It seems a big pattern with GPT-6 is offering better performance for cheaper. When Anthropic revealed Claude Opus 5.5, OpenAI fired back with GPT-6 Sol and Luna, which OpenAI claimed were both better and more affordable than GPT-5.6. Now, OpenAI has pulled back the curtain and revealed GPT-6.1 Terra, which offers better computer use for less.

Every computing device, big or small, has seen an astounding price rise in the last few months. Memory and storage prices have quadrupled, and it's even hard to find “in-stock” products. Like everything else, the Raspberry Pi lineup is feeling the impact. Nothing is selling at its original price, and if you've got an older board like the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, it's a valuable commodity now.

GPU longevity is a touchy subject with gamers, since everyone has a different definition of what's "good enough." In a market where GPU pricing has gone off the rails, advocating an upgrade is not easy, but we sometimes have to admit the obvious. Every GPU reaches the end of the line sooner or later, no longer able to deliver a gaming experience that can be termed acceptable.

Using the second or third PCIe slot on your motherboard is usually pretty straightforward. Whether you're installing a capture card, a network adapter, or even an expansion card to add more NVMe SSDs, you'd naturally assume that you can just plug it in and call it a day. After all, when you see three full-length slots on your motherboard, there's really no reason to think otherwise. Except things aren't always that simple, especially on modern motherboards where PCIe and M.2 slots can share lanes and limit the bandwidth available to your GPU.