Over the months and years of using Home Assistant, you likely use the Home Assistant Community Store like an untamed app store, installing custom integrations, themes, and front-end cards for every shiny new smart device or gimmick you test. This leads to your custom_components directory becoming a digital junk drawer filled with abandoned experimental cards, dead API scrapers, and integrations for devices you threw away years ago.

An OpenAI engineer was arrested after the company said it discovered a "sophisticated recording device" hidden in one of its offices. The employee was identified as Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national. Alfozan is charged with using or endeavoring to use a device to intercept oral communications, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.OpenAI's post about the incident says it used its AI models to "understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier."As noted by the DOJ, OpenAI found the device plugged into a TV's USB port in an executiv …Read the full story at The Verge.

When an idea strikes you, how do you keep track of it? Some of us write it down in a notebook or on our phones. Others use voice memos. Whatever your approach, it's likely you'll either forget the idea or where you wrote it down. You'll search for it, give up, and then stumble upon the note years later. No? Just me? I wanted a solution for keeping all my notes and ideas in one place, preferably with a method that works on busy days.

I've been having issues with the head unit in my car, and I want a dedicated screen for navigation and music without pulling my phone out of my pocket every time I get in. Since I already have an old Samsung Galaxy S21 FE that I bought from a friend for a few hundred bucks, I decided to put it to good use. It's a few generations old now, and you can pick one up second-hand for much less than it originally cost. The screen is still perfectly useful for displaying a map.

Linux has forever been considered above Windows when it comes to security. Part of the reason for that, and what people usually assume, is that Linux doesn't have a meaningful market share for attackers to target with sophisticated malware or attacks. While that holds true when compared to Windows's market share, it definitely is not the full picture. Linux also has an advanced permission management system that usually prevents files from being accessed or executed, which provides additional security. I tested this by setting up WSL and an Ubuntu installation, then letting it scan my data, including a file infected with make-believe malware, to see how it responded.

For something as popular as it is, nobody actually likes paying for Adobe products. As a photography enthusiast, I'm married to Lightroom because it's the software that I'm used to, but with every successive update, the app keeps getting more and more bloated and error-prone. I'm also not a fan of the app's subscription, cloud-focussed approach. But things just got interesting.

Installing a desktop app for every little task can quickly become frustrating. Before I know it, my PC is filled with tools I use only once in a while. But I've found that some browser-based alternatives are good enough to handle these jobs without adding more software to my system. From simple utilities to surprisingly capable creative tools, there are plenty of options worth trying. Here are five browser tools that have earned a place in my workflow and made me rethink which desktop apps I actually need.

CANADA - 2025/07/20: In this photo illustration, the Shopify logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) More AI agents will soon be able to browse and purchase from Shopify listings, marking an expansion of the company's agentic commerce ambitions. Shopify announced Tuesday it will let shoppers configure their AI agents to purchase products on their behalf, giving more agents access to over a billion listings in Shopify's catalog. (The catalog consists of both items on and off Shopify storefronts.) In September, Shopify announced it was partnering with Meta to allow its Muse agent to browse and purchase items on a human's behalf; now, shoppers can use any agent without a partnership integration.To set up the feature, customers connect an …Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple Music's iconic red app icon has reportedly been replaced with a black-and-white version in the latest iOS 27.2 beta, 9to5Mac reports. The eighth note on the icon also appears to have a slightly sharper angle than the original. A new Apple Music logo was also spotted last month on the Apple Music Hall website, so the company could be refreshing its app icon to match.According to 9to5Mac, the new icon is a black music note on a white background in light mode, or the opposite in dark mode. The icon's not the only thing that's been drained of color, either - 9to5Mac also says Apple Music widgets now have black backgrounds and the app now …Read the full story at The Verge.

Retro gaming is going through a wild time at the moment, thanks to decompilations and recompilations that are letting gamers port classic titles to new devices, or merge code from two different games into a single new experience. Microsoft has witnessed skateboarding being modded into Call of Duty and Halo being played in a web browser, and the company is now officially embracing the chaos of this new AI-powered era of game modding.Microsoft is putting together a new Xbox Labs group to explore the rapid emergence of these mods, many of which use AI models to help modders remix games in ways we've rarely seen before. Xbox Labs will be a "sm …Read the full story at The Verge.

Claude can be incredibly useful for writing, research, and everyday tasks, but nothing kills the momentum faster than running into a usage limit in the middle of your work. It's easy to assume that you're simply using Claude too much, especially when you rely on it throughout the day. But the problem might not be how often you use it. It could be how you use it. Some common habits make AI workflows less efficient than they need to be. If you keep running out of Claude usage sooner than expected, these are the habits worth reconsidering.

Nothing like a little family togetherness in the morning. | Image: Apple Apple's ad introducing its new HomeView smart display is a little unusual. It's fast-paced and unruly, depicting a family of five as they rush through the morning routine. There's yelling and mess, misplaced keys and discarded eggshells. Apple's typical vibe is clean, simple, orderly; this commercial is chaos.But the spot has parents - those with teen children in particular - feeling seen.I'll admit that it stressed me out the first time I watched it, too. Mornings getting my five-year-old out the door are a special breed of chaos, and usually culminate in us playing whatever ad-libbed game will get him to put his shoes on. But it's not …Read the full story at The Verge.