Google has built some of the most consequential consumer AI tools in the past two years. NotebookLM, Gemini, Google Opal, and a handful of others sit on a list of products that have advanced what consumer-facing AI can do for research, learning, and creative work. Each one solves a key problem that competing tools haven't addressed, or rather, addressed less elegantly.

Tailscale is one of those services that I added almost casually, and it quickly became part of my workflow. After the initial implementation, it just worked quietly in the background and never asked for attention. I knew WireGuard was handling most of the work under the hood. I even tried replacing Tailscale with raw WireGuard, but CGNAT killed it on my home server.

The Chromecast with Google TV launched in 2020, and for $30, it turned any TV into a proper smart TV with a remote and a real interface. It was the first Chromecast that didn't need you to cast everything from your phone, and for a while, it was the budget streaming device to beat. Google killed it in February 2025, and the Google TV Streamer, its official replacement, costs $99.99.

Note-taking apps have been trying to top one another for years by releasing new features. To me, a lot of it feels like unnecessary flash that I didn't ask for. My workflow wasn't suffering because of a lack of GUI features, so I didn't pay much attention to who was revamping their interface. The real bottleneck was switching to the GUI at all. Every time I needed to log a quick thought, it'd require alt+tabbing into the right window and clicking into a certain note before I could jot down my thoughts and get back to what I was doing.

Xbox is making some big changes — again. On June 10th, a few months after Asha Sharma took over as CEO, she and newly-promoted chief content officer Matt Booty sent a memo to staff warning of an “Xbox reset.” The business, they said, is facing significant challenges, including a 3 percent “accountability margin,” massively higher component prices for consoles due to the memory and storage shortage, and an “over extended” studio system.That same day, The Verge and Bloomberg reported that the Xbox division was planning layoffs in July. The cuts, expected to be announced on July 6th, could include studio closures or spinoffs. The Verge‘s Tom Warren reported on June 30th that Microsoft is looking at closing at least five studios and potentially canceling games like Blade.Under Sharma’s leadership, Xbox has already made some other major changes, including upcoming price hikes for Xbox consoles, lowering Game Pass prices but cutting out new Call of Duty games, rebranding Xbox to XBOX, and making both Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution Xbox console exclusives.Read on for all of our coverage of the shifts at Xbox. Xbox will reportedly still publish Hideo Kojima’s OD. 007 First Light’s developer lays off staff but claims its next franchise will continue Xbox weighs canceling Blade game and shuttering Arkane Xbox prices spike another $100 or more Xbox is closing down Hellblade creator Ninja Theory Xbox turmoil continues with a studio closure and executive departures Microsoft hasn’t ruled out spinning off Xbox Xbox warns of a ‘reset’ as it prepares for layoffs Xbox exploring ‘radically different’ console business models RAMaggedon’s making Xbox “rethink” its Helix console. Xbox exclusives are back and more complicated than ever Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball to lead strategy Xbox fans want exclusives, more backward compatibility, and free online multiplayer Xbox is now XBOX Inside the return of Xbox

Elon Musk says a report about a SpaceX AI phone prototype is "utterly false." The report, published on Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, says SpaceX showed off a "handset-like prototype" to some investors before launching its record-breaking initial public offering in June.The device was "slimmer than an iPhone," and they were told it would run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, according to the WSJ. It would also reportedly use its own AI-enabled operating system with features powered by the SpaceX-owned xAI.Last week, the Financial Times reported that SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell told investors that the company is con …Read the full story at The Verge.

Cody Spencer, the co-owner of the small games retail chain Pink Gorilla Games, put it well when I asked about the impact of Sony's recent announcement that it will stop making discs for new games starting January 2028. "It's sad to see. This decision is only a negative for gamers. We're losing the ability to sell games, to share games, and to own games."Sony's announcement has been devastating news for many in the games industry. Not just players, but also groups like independent retail stores and preservationists that try and make gaming more accessible."This is unfortunate news for those who still prefer buying games on physical media, …Read the full story at The Verge.

If you’re a hardcore PC enthusiast, you’ve probably upgraded your system at least once to keep up with the ever-growing hardware requirements of newer titles. However, things are radically different in the home server ecosystem, as your outdated hardware can last several years without requiring you to upgrade to the latest and greatest paraphernalia.

The last six months have shown that no component that goes into a PC is ever too safe from random price hikes. Unfortunately, it looks like flash storage is next in line. NAND prices have gone up nearly four times over the last nine months, so naturally, everyone's looking at their old hardware a little differently than they used to before.

Building a PC is an enjoyable and rewarding process, but things can go wrong. Perhaps a RAM module has not been seated correctly, the GPU is not fully clicked into its PCIe slot, or the HDMI cable connecting your graphics card to the monitor has quietly given up. Whatever the cause, there is a good chance the motherboard’s power-on self-test, or POST, will catch it before Windows or Linux even starts loading.

Claude Code is useful right out of the box, but it didn’t really click for me until I stopped treating it like a clever terminal app. The real shift came when I started using hooks to make it behave more like part of my own workspace. Not a whole new personality, not a maze of novelty commands, and not some grand automation altar I’d have to keep dusting. Just a few small rules that made it respond to the way I already work.

Apple is working on a "revamped" version of its entry-level MacBook Pro that it could launch as soon as the first half of 2027, Bloomberg reports. The company is also testing four new iPad Pros that are set to launch in the spring with a focus on "internal improvements."The updated MacBook Pro, which will keep the 14-inch screen size, will have a design that's "in line" with what Apple is planning for the touch screen MacBooks it also has in the works, Bloomberg says. Those new touch screen laptops are set to be released between "the end of this year and early next year," and Bloomberg has previously reported that they will get a Dynamic I …Read the full story at The Verge.