For years, budget 3D printers were mostly judged by the obvious things. We looked at speed, auto bed leveling, input shaping, app support, enclosure options, and whether the machine could print a respectable first model without rattling the whole desk. Those things still matter, and I’m not going to pretend they don’t. But lately, the build plate has started to feel like the part of the spec sheet that quietly changes the whole experience.

The Kuxiu D5 keeps Qi-compatible phones cool while also charging a watch and earbuds. Despite my initial skepticism, I'm now sold on wireless Qi chargers that add integrated fans to keep your phone cool while charging. I figured they'd be too loud, or too weak, or too gimmicky, but I'm a convert after spending a week with the new $59.99 Kuxiu D5 Qi2.2 charging dock. Its active cooling system has kept my phone from heating up, unlike every other Qi charger I've tried. Good thing, given my own history with an overheating phone.Last year I fried the logic board on my titanium iPhone 15 Pro. I was on a sweltering train and trying to edit a 4K video on my phone, which was charging from a magnetically attached Qi power bank. Oof, …Read the full story at The Verge.

Look, I thought we all had an agreement. We would allow companies to make the most powerful artificial intelligence in the history of mankind, and in exchange, we would absolutely, definitely not give them robot bodies to control. We've all seen Terminator, right? We know how that usually goes.

When I built my first gaming PC, I made the same assumption almost everyone does. If a processor was advertised as a 125W part, surely that meant it would draw somewhere around that much power under load, right? Right? It seems like the most logical way to choose a CPU cooler, especially when every spec sheet puts that TDP figure front and center. Then, I opened HWiNFO during a benchmark, and watched the numbers climb far beyond what I'd been promised on paper.

When I first started using PowerToys a couple of years ago, I was immediately drawn to PowerToys Run because it addressed a couple of glaring issues I had with Windows Search. I didn't have to deal with the cluttered Start menu or accidentally clicking web results. And since I was already used to Spotlight on my MacBook, PowerToys Run felt oddly familiar even though it was mostly just a launcher. I know some Windows users have wanted an Alfred alternative for years, and PowerToys Run has always been too basic for that comparison.

VS Code is still the safe choice, but it no longer feels like the most exciting one. But 2026 feels like the first time its alternatives are not just trying to copy it, they are trying to replace the way I think about writing code.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to move things around the house. My PC room got swapped with the bedroom, which meant I had to get the Ethernet cable re-routed to the new room. This part turned out to be way less complicated than I had imagined, since the local electrician was more than equipped to do it. He knew exactly which points in the electrical duct to push the cable through, finishing the entire job in less than 30 minutes. After the crimping was done, I paid and thanked the guy, reconnected everything, and launched Foraa Horizon 6 – it was the weekend, after all. A few days later, I noticed my downloads were significantly slower, and fearing the worst, I ran a speed test.

E Ink technology (or general ePaper) is one of my favorite things right now. I love it when technology tries to do something that's very niche, but very useful for the particular crowd it's aimed at, and these displays serve a specific purpose very well.

As creepy as I find memory in AI tools, I've got to admit it makes for a much better experience. After all, that's why all the major AI labs are directing their efforts so aggressively towards developing personalization and persistent context.

Fanfiction communities are trying to hunt down writers who haven’t written works with their own hands. | Image: Álvaro Bernis / The Verge Over the past week, a new fanworks movement has kicked off, with the aim to root out authors using generative AI. But the detection methods being implemented are questionable, and any fanfic writer could be caught in the crossfire.Broad distaste around the use of Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI tools has long been a thing in creative communities, including the world of fanfiction. Readers and writers have passed around tips for spotting supposedly AI-generated works, citing anything from em dashes to the broad concept of purple prose. But on June 29th, an anonymous X account called @heatedrivalryai promised a seemingly more reliable solution …Read the full story at The Verge.

I've been self-hosting all kinds of services in my homelab for years. There's something satisfying about having complete control over your data, choosing your own software, and not relying on third-party providers. But over time, I realized that installing a service is the easy part — maintaining it is where the real commitment begins.

The actual proposition of the Steam Machine is incredibly appealing. A SteamOS box that delivers 4K gaming at 60 FPS to the couch is a solid premise, but that premise has to be backed up in both the performance and the price. The Steam Machine does neither of those things.