I haven't made the jump to an external SSD. I still use external hard drives to store old backups, movies, shows, images, and videos. External SSDs never really seemed "affordable" enough to me, so I sacrificed the transfer speeds in favor of lower cost per GB. If you're the proud owner of one of the newer external SSDs, boasting 1,000–4,000 MB/s speeds, you might be surprised to know that these blazing-fast speeds require way too many prerequisites. And most people are probably using systems and cables that aren't equipped with the bandwidth needed to deliver these speeds. Your external SSD might feel fast enough to you, but unless you monitor the real-time transfer rate, your drive could be operating at only half its speed, or even worse. External SSDs rated for USB4 need a 40 Gbps connection, which is easy to break if even one link in the entire chain doesn't support the required bandwidth.

New AI models are dropping faster than most of us can even try them. Anthropic alone has been rolling out Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6, Haiku 4.5, and then Fable 5, and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol just went public after weeks of preview. Grok's next version isn't far behind either. The catch with almost all of them is they're built by US companies, which means they now sit under US government review before they even reach us. Fable 5 got yanked globally back in June after a Commerce Department directive, and Sol's release was gated by the same kind of process. So even when a model launches, its availability isn't really guaranteed anymore.

If you've used KDE Plasma on an Nvidia card lately and felt the animations weren't as smooth as they could be, it's not just you. Ever since October 2024, triple buffering has been disabled for Nvidia hardware due to a bug. Fortunately, the fix has just been released as part of Plasma 6.7.3, and you can grab it now.

Samsung’s current generation of foldables (including the pictured Galaxy Z Fold 7) still struggle with display creasing. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung has unveiled a new flexible display technology for foldable phones that's designed to be slimmer, more durable, and less prone to creasing. The Flex Titanium tech is the culmination of everything that the company has learned over seven generations of foldables, according to Samsung, and will debut with the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. And since Samsung Display is a long-time Apple supplier, this improved display might even appear in the rumored iPhone foldable expected later this year.As its name suggests, the Flex Titanium display uses a combination of two titanium-based components to improve strength, flexi …Read the full story at The Verge.

Skelly returns for 2026 with some new capabilities. | Image: Home Depot The Home Depot is once again upgrading its 12-foot-tall skeleton to help keep the viral piece of Halloween decor popular as spooky season creeps closer. Skelly is borrowing some of the tech introduced in the smaller 6.5-foot Ultra Skelly last year, including letting you speak through the skeleton's moving mouth using a mobile app. The new version of Skelly will be available online starting tomorrow for $379 and in Home Depot's stores later this summer, along with a new collection of Halloween characters.Skelly was last upgraded two years ago with eight different animations for its animated LCD eyes, but the new version bumps that to 20 dif …Read the full story at The Verge.

The PlayStation Portal — not a new PS6. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge The video game industry is in turmoil. Microsoft and Sony are starting to pivot to their next consoles, but it's not looking great: Prices are soaring, Sony is killing the video game disc, and Microsoft is jettisoning studios ahead of the transition. What could entice people to pay? On the Xbox front, we genuinely can't say. But on June 5th, Sony dropped an unusual number of hints about the future of PlayStation in an investor "business meeting" Q&A. This Q&A arrived a month before Sony announced the end of PlayStation discs. But when I reread it with the death of discs in mind… it hits differently. Let's walk through it, shall we?Pa …Read the full story at The Verge.

Windows 11 updates usually come with a handful of bugs, but they're not usually as nasty as the July update, which can cause specific Dell devices to overheat and randomly shut down. Fortunately, Microsoft caught the issue before the update went out, but it does mean some Dell users will need to wait for the latest Windows update.

Health startup Neko Health was founded by Hjalmar Nilsonne, left, and Daniel Ek, right. | Image: Neko Health Spotify founder Daniel Ek's body-scanning startup, Neko Health, is setting its sights on the United States after raising $700 million from a star-studded group of celebrities, entrepreneurs, and investment firms. It plans to open its first clinic in New York this year before expanding rapidly across the country. Neko operates private clinics offering full-body scans and blood tests using AI and custom-built medical equipment. Scans are designed to proactively screen customers for conditions including skin cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. The company says its goal is to catch problems early, prevent disease, and help people live longer. …Read the full story at The Verge.

The smaller Starlink V5 (right) next to the larger V4 dish. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX's latest residential dish - the Starlink V5 - is now available in "select areas." It's notably smaller and lighter than the V4 dish with improved power efficiency. It'll be available in more places as SpaceX ramps up production to meet global demand. The company notes that Starlink V5 is not intended for in-motion use - for that you'll have to wait for the revamped Starlink Mini teased alongside the V5 last month.The next generation Starlink Kit is designed to deliver reliable, high-speed home internet. Starlink V5 has a smaller form factor and lightweight design with greater power efficiency than the Starlink V4.With speeds up to …Read the full story at The Verge.

Command Palette is a part of the PowerToys suite, and I find it convenient to use on my Windows PC. The launcher isn't inferior to other offerings like the Flow, and because it integrates with PowerToys tools, it has become a much more sensible choice for my workflow. Command Palette’s main role is centralized file access and search, along with perks like running shell commands, integrating with the native package manager, and a few more features.

Epic Games and Google have just jointly withdrawn their attempt to retroactively settle the lawsuit that's changing how Android app stores work in the United States - and that means Google will be forced to carry rival app stores inside of its own. In fact, Google tells the court, it's ready to begin carrying third-party app stores on Wednesday, July 22nd. Does that mean it's time for Microsoft to launch an Xbox game store on Android?In October 2024, Judge James Donato originally agreed that forcing Google to carry rival Android app stores within its own Google Play store for several years, and forcing it to share its own entire catalog of …Read the full story at The Verge.

Most of the day, I'm writing or gaming on my PC, where an Ethernet connection keeps things snappy and consistent. My phone and TV, however, are still susceptible to the mood swings of Wi-Fi, where unexplained latency can creep up anytime. Either YouTube videos would take an arduously long time to buffer, or sharing images and videos on WhatsApp would stall inexplicably. I've tweaked many router settings already in an attempt to remove possible drag on the Wi-Fi, but the performance was still not where it used to be. Bandwidth was not the problem, and I was running out of quick fixes. That's when I decided to experiment with the router's transmit power, a setting that I always kept at 100%. Reducing it actually improved the Wi-Fi speed and latency on my phone, and I wish I'd tweaked it sooner. Lower transmit power can actually improve your Wi-Fi by limiting the interference from neighboring networks and allowing easier communication with client devices.