Spotify appears to be planning free audiobook trials for subscribers

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeSpotify is planning on rolling out a free audiobook trial for subscribers, The Wall Street Journal reports. The pilot program will feature t**les from some of the largest US publishers, and users can expect up to 20 hours of listening — roughly two audiobooks — per month.Spotify first began offering audiobooks last year after acquiring Findaway, an audiobook platform. The main difference is it’s so far been using a pay-per-download model. However, as the WSJ notes, users had to purchase audiobooks via a web browser in an attempt to circumvent Apple’s 30 percent commission for in-app purchases. The pilot program will instead allow users to download books directly within the app. The program will purportedly roll out to English-speaking…

Sophia Wilson
Atlanta

ChatGPT finally got the memory transparency feature it needed — it still isn’t enough to beat Claude

Every time OpenAI releases a new model for ChatGPT, the buzz it generates makes me think I may be missing out if I don't switch. The latest update is GPT-5.5 Instant, and it's the default model for all ChatGPT users. It's paired with an upgraded memory system that shows you...

Sanni Peltonen
Finland

I self-host my PC game library with Moonlight instead of paying for a second PC or GeForce Now

Nothing ever quite beats couch gaming. That's why I often prefer playing on my PS5 Pro sitting under the TV. However, a problem that kept nagging me over and over again was that most of the experiences I wanted simply lived on my desktop PC instead. High ray-tracing, path tracing,...

Sophia Wilson
Atlanta

Your SSD has built-in maintenance tools that Windows keeps hidden from you

Modern-day SSDs are fast enough for most of us to not really think about their upkeep every day. Back when SSD technology was new, everyone treated their SSDs like fragile glass, sharing notes and advice on how to prolong the life of their drive by any means unnecessary.

Slavko Novak
Serbia

Microsoft has spent six months turning Windows Terminal into a rival to Warp, and it’s working

For the last few years, Warp has largely dominated the modern terminal space. The command blocks, AI command generation, agentic mode, Warp Drive, and other QoL features all made it a popular choice, and when Warp arrived natively on Windows early last year, it made the default Windows Terminal look...

Olivia Miller
Seattle

PlayStation exclusives aren’t coming to PC anymore

Sony reportedly won't release its major single-player PlayStation games on PC anymore. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Hermen Hulst, who heads up PlayStation's studios business, informed employees in a town hall on Monday about the change in strategy. Schreier had previously reported on the shift in March, saying that Sony...

Karine Hjelseth
Norway

These 5 simple habits make my PC feel much faster

Over time, Windows PCs start to feel slow. It happens to most of us, and we automatically assume this is linked to hardware limitations. But more often than not, Windows system slowdowns are due to neglect and bad usage habits. Over the years, I have made simple changes to my...

Alberto Olson
United States

I stopped using motherboard audio after one cheap USB DAC solved every problem I had

For years, I treated motherboard audio as one of those PC features that simply existed in the background. As long as sound came through my headphones and my microphone worked well enough for Discord calls, I never paid much attention to the audio side of my setup. I spent more...

Beverly Hudson
United States

You don’t need a 4K monitor to make DLSS 4.5 worth it

I totally understand why many people think enabling DLSS makes the most sense on a 4K monitor. At native 4K, you're almost always GPU-bound even if you have a flagship card like the RTX 5090, so DLSS is a great way to avoid paying the performance tax that comes with...

Holly Green
New Zealand

Claude is still the best agentic coding tool, but Anthropic’s tightening grip is the best argument yet for going local

Claude is typically considered the best agentic coding tool on the market right now. There are plenty of developers I know who use it daily, and Anthropic has spent the last year and a half giving plenty of reasons for that confidence. Opus 4.7 just launched last month, Claude Code...

Matijn Kemmeren
Netherlands

This Altoids tin ESP32 computer comes with a keyboard, and yes, it runs DOOM

Did you know that there's an entire scene around stuffing chips into an Altoids tin and making it do all sorts of things? We've seen it before with the Raspberry Pi, where someone even created a Kickstarter to help get an Altoid tin console up and running. There's something about...

Julie Christiansen
Denmark

Volvo teases a new affordable EV to replace discontinued EX30

Volvo's compact, quirky EX30 had a lot of problems when it was first released. Tariffs essentially erased its affordability, making it more expensive to own, and a battery recall made it dangerous to park indoors. But its discontinuation didn't spell the end of Volvo's efforts to sell more affordable electric...

Milla Haapala
Finland

I stopped using Claude for coding, but now I can’t live without it for everything else

Up until recently, Claude was only spoken about in hushed tones in developer communities. It was the quiet favorite of people who lived in their terminals, and the biggest reason for that was just how good Anthropic's models were at coding. To everyone else, Claude was either invisible or vaguely...

Michael Johnson
Chicago

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