What are SMR HDDs (and why you should avoid using them in a NAS)

Unlike SSDs, which can have radically different form factors and interface options, HDDs dont have that many distinctions. Aside from the size difference between 2.5 and 3.5-inch hard drives, RPM is often the most important statistic that sets two hard drives apart. Or so you might think, until you encounter SMR and CMR variants of the same HDD.

Sophia Wilson
Atlanta

I ignored NotebookLM Tools tags for too long, and now I cannot work without them

I had 19 NotebookLM notebooks on my dashboard, and some of their titles didn’t tell me exactly what was in them. Some notebooks were abandoned, while others remained active. I’d try to spot a notebook by its icon, but that didn’t always work either, since some were random ones I’d...

Clara Medina
Spain

Nintendo’s $500 Switch 2 bundle includes a game, and it’s available now

Mario Kart World is one of three games you can choose from in the bundle. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Nintendo recently teased the “Choose Your Game” Switch 2 console and digital game bundle, coming in early June. However, multiple retailers (including Nintendo itself) are already...

Michael Johnson
Chicago

We react to Google I/O 2026

What better way to unwind from a two-hour keynote presentation than to pore over the weirdest and wildest details, from a Gmail bot you can converse with to DeepMind's leader saying the singularity is near. The Vergecast went live right after the show, with senior AI reporter Hayden Field joining...

Olivia Miller
Seattle

Google’s Gemini Omni can generate “anything from any input,” including video

Among a flurry of AI-related announcements at I/O 2026, including more Search AI integration, Gemini 3.5, a new Gemini Spark AI personal assistant, Google revealed Gemini Omni, an AI model that can "create anything from any input — starting with video." The platform's first model, Gemini Omni Flash, is rolling...

Emily Brown
Houston

I almost bought a used Nvidia Tesla GPU for my home lab, then I read what owners actually deal with

A used Tesla GPU listing on a used marketplace is one of the most tempting things for home labbers shopping around. 24 GB of VRAM on a card that originally sold for over $5,000, now hovering around the $300 mark on eBay. For anyone trying to run local LLMs or...

Sophia Wilson
Atlanta

Lossless Scaling is the only Steam Deck plugin worth your time, and here’s why

It's no secret that I love my Steam Deck, and one of the things that makes it better is the plugins supplied by Decky Loader. It's even better on more powerful hardware like the ROG Ally X if you install SteamOS, because it gives you more computing grunt to run...

Ali Çevik
Turkey

I stopped chasing Ultra and my mid-range GPU became a powerhouse

In the tech community right now, it feels like there's a massive wave of ultra-settings fatigue. Between unoptimized PC ports, VRAM anxieties, and the sheer cost of flagship cards as well as other PC components, users are begging for someone to tell them it's okay to slide that graphics preset...

Joanne Davis
Australia

Wear OS 7 will keep track of deliveries and sports scores on your wrist

A Pixel Watch 4 running Wear OS 6, not Wear OS 7. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Amid the flurry of today's Google I/O announcements, Google shared details about Wear OS 7, the next major update to its smartwatch platform. To help you keep track of...

Harold Flores
Ireland

VS Code’s terminal isn’t just convenient — it’s the only editor that remembers your workflow

I have been trying to move away from VS Code and its forks, like Cursor and Antigravity, for the same reasons many developers are experimenting with newer editors. I switched to a leaner editor like Zed because it felt lighter, cleaner, and noticeably faster once I spent a few hours...

William Garcia
Boston

The future of Google is a search box that does everything

Last year, after watching Google's I/O keynote, I wrote that it felt like Google's future was Google googling. After watching this year's I/O keynote on Tuesday, I don't think Google just wants to google for you - I think it wants to do everything for you, all from a search...

Alexis Taylor
Canada

Plex is tripling the price of a lifetime pass to $750 after doubling it last year

I am dying to know how much money Plex is about to make the next six weeks charging people to stream their own video from their own homes. Today, it's giving every prospective customer until July 1st to lock in a lifetime subscription at today's rates - before it triples...