buying guide
SD cards cost way more now. Here's how to make yours last
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. SD cards cost way more now. Here's how to make yours last Memory card prices have jumped. Get the most out of yours by understanding how they die and what you can do to keep them going. Thanks to AI data centers, consumer SSDs, flash drives, and SD/microSD cards have doubled or even tripled in price.
Meta's new VR headset forgot about the games
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. The company that brought virtual reality to the mainstream barely mentioned gaming when it showed off its new flagship headset. That's bad news for anyone who likes VR. I have a medium-intensity interest in virtual reality gaming. I'm excited to try Valve's new Steam Frame, and an older VR headset design helped me lose a ton of weight .
Learning piano? This AI teacher gives you live feedback, and a 5-year subscription is on sale for 80
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Instead of grinding through video tutorials, flowkey listens while you play and provides live feedback, and a 5-year subscription is only $80 right now. Learning piano on your own is tough and usually involves hours of staring at tutorials with little progress to show for it. If you want a smarter option, flowkey is an AI piano teacher that listens while you play and provides real-time feedback. A lifetime subscription is also on sale for just $79.99 (reg.
Gemini Gems appear to be on their way out, Reddit screenshots show
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Google's Gemini Gems may be replaced by Spark skills, a feature that currently requires a paid Google AI subscription. If you're a fan of Gems--the Gemini feature that lets you create customized Gemini chatbots with their own instructions and knowledge files--prepare for some big changes coming soon. According to a banner that popped up on the Gems Manager page over the weekend, Google is about to turn Gems into skills, a feature within Google's Spark AI assistant that offers related but also somewhat different functionality. The news comes just a few weeks after OpenAI announced the impending "retirement" of custom GPTs, a popular ChatGPT feature that's similar to Gemini Gems.
Microsoft Office suddenly needs to reactivate? A bad update might be why
PCWorld reports that a faulty Microsoft 365 update, KB5002907, is causing serious licensing and installation failures for some users. The update, intended to sync outdated Microsoft 365 Apps with current channels, has left affected users seeing Office 2016 or 2019 as unlicensed or completely removed. Microsoft has paused the update while investigating the issue, and users are advised to avoid manually installing KB5002907 to prevent disrupting their Office apps. Microsoft recently released optional out-of-band update KB5002907, intended to bring outdated versions of Microsoft 365 Apps back in sync and continuing to receive updates. However, Microsoft quickly halted the rollout of this update due to a serious issue.
Samsung's 49-inch ultrawide monitor is 400 off ahead of Prime Day
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Samsung's 49-inch ultrawide monitor is $400 off ahead of Prime Day Get it for $799.99 at Amazon now. Prime Day is a week away and we're already seeing impressive discounts for tech gear we've been eyeing. Right now, Samsung's impressive 49-inch ultrawide monitor is on sale for $799.98, a whopping $400 discount that matches the best price it's been all year. What's interesting is that high-end ultrawides like this are typically marketed towards gamers, but this one is a business-class model.
The FBI employee data hack offers three useful lessons for all of us
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Hackers say they've stolen sensitive data for thousands of FBI employees--including the results of blood and urine samples. But I've avidly followed the news that ShinyHunters, a prolific hacking group, allegedly broke into the FBI's personnel records. The high profile nature of this hack makes me wonder how well the agency's employees will weather any data theft--and what lessons we ordinary folk can take away from such a situation. Our employee records hold sensitive data, starting with our physical address, birth date, and social security number.
TerraMaster D8 Hybrid 2 review: DIY storage for SSD speed, HDD capacity
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This versatile storage box lets you combine SSD and HDD drives, though you're on your own for RAID software. This eight-bay (four M.2 NVMe and four 3.5-inch SATA) 10Gbps storage box from TerraMaster offers a ton of capacity and decent performance. There's no storage as speedy as NVMe, but the technology is still priced steeply. As such, you might want to augment it with more affordable hard drives by leveraging a dual-technology box such as the 10Gbps TerraMaster D8 Hybrid 2 reviewed here. That said, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that 10Gbps USB is far too slow to take full advantage of NVMe's speed.