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Gaming laptops are too expensive right now, but this one’s a good value

It’s not a great time to shop for a gaming laptop . The unprecedented rise in cost for RAM (and storage to a slightly lesser extent) has made laptops with low-to-midrange specs cost much more than they should. Recent deals on gaming laptops worth your attention have been uninspiring, but one recently caught my eye: MSI’s Katana laptop with a 15.6-inch 1440p display, Nvidia’s RTX 5060 GPU, a fast Intel Core i7 CPU, and the pairing of 16GB DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD costs $1,133.67 at Amazon . MSI Katana 15 HX (2025) Where to Buy: $1499.99 $1133.67 at Amazon (Core i7 14650HX, RTX 5060) It’s a little painful to be able to recall a time when you used to be able to sometimes find the 4070 or the 5070 GPU variants in laptops around this price point, but those times are behind us for now (but hopefully ahead of us, too, sooner than later). Regardless, the Katana is a good value if you’re shopping in the $1,100 ballpark. I particularly like that its screen h...
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Fi’s Starlink-enabled pet tracker found my dog when LTE couldn’t

Gus, the wirehaired pointing griffon, models the Fi Ultra while overlooking Charleston Harbor. Fi Ultra is the first Starlink-enabled pet tracker you can buy. It expands on GPS and LTE trackers, adding automatic failover to T-Mobile's T-Satellite-branded direct-to-cell service when venturing into cellular dead zones. That lets owners tap into SpaceX's constellation of low Earth orbit Starlink satellites to track their pets anywhere in the US. But it comes with a few tradeoffs based on our early testing, including relatively poor battery life for a pet tracker. Built to fit "adventure dogs of any size," according to the company, the Fi Ultra is designed to be compatible with the dog collar or harness you already use. It costs $199 for … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/Wk89Iyj

The Steam Machine fits my TV, my desk, and my life

For the last couple weeks, I've been in an extremely lucky position: I've been spending a lot of time playing games on Valve's Steam Machine. We gave the Steam Machine a 6 , and I don't disagree with my colleague Sean Hollister's review. But even though I already own a PS5 and an Xbox Series X, and even though I've experienced the Steam Machine's drawbacks for myself, I would spend the $1,049 to buy one right now. My PS5 and Xbox Series X can't play the hundreds of games in my growing Steam library, don't support Steam's cloud saves that let me seamlessly carry progress between my Steam Deck and Steam Machine, don't support my beloved Ste … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/R0irdNE

The robotaxi law that could ban Tesla

For more than a decade, one question has loomed over the race to build autonomous vehicles: Are cameras alone enough to safely replace human drivers, or do truly driverless cars need additional, overlapping sensors like lidar and radar to navigate the world reliably? Tesla has bet billions of dollars that artificial intelligence and cameras are sufficient. Nearly every other major autonomous vehicle developer has gone the opposite direction. Until now, that argument has largely been left to executives and engineers. New Jersey lawmakers are trying to settle it in state law. A bill expected to come up for a vote later this year would requir … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/YtgJzKR

Xbox’s bold plan for the future sounds nearly impossible

It's another bad week for the video game industry. Microsoft outlined a series of layoffs on Monday that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma described as " the most significant restructure in Xbox history ." But buried in Sharma's memo was a curiously optimistic statement: "I want Xbox to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect," she wrote. Xbox has been a shambling mess after Microsoft spent billions of dollars with little to show for it, and now it aims to reach a much bigger audience with a much smaller team, amid one of the most challenging times in the ind … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/VBWfQ3H

Are you ready for what it takes to stop ghost guns?

In the summer of 2024, former Army National Guard member Andrew Scott Hastings spent a sweaty afternoon carefully packing boxes with parts he made using his 3D printer. These weren't novelty figurines or replacement Ikea pieces. The boxes were instead filled with a handful of homemade firearm lower receivers and more than 100 "switches," small devices capable of converting a semiautomatic gun into a fully automatic weapon. Their intended recipients, federal prosecutors allege , were al-Qaida operatives. Months later ATF agents busted two men in Colorado Springs for allegedly using 3D printers to churn out hundreds of illegal machine gun conv … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/AT16rHc

Nothing’s new earbuds can record calls and what you’re listening to

Nothing is adding a new pink color option to its upgraded Ear 3A earbuds. | Image: Nothing Nothing announced a new pair of budget-friendly wireless earbuds, but not as part of the company's affordability-focused sub-brand , CMF. The new Nothing Ear 3A are available starting today through the company's online store for $99, which is the same price as Nothing's original Ear (a) . That's good news in a time when price increases are becoming the norm , and somewhat surprising given the new 3A are introducing the ability to record what you're listening to directly on the earbuds. It's a feature that's somewhat reminiscent of Nothing's Ear 3 introduced last September . Those come with a wireless charging case equipped with upgraded microph … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/ZYpGFg0