Tech

A collection of 3978 posts

Tech

Best VPN services 2026: Expert tested and recommended

Virtual private networks encrypt your traffic, mask your IP address and add a layer of security that helps keep online communications private. They can limit marketer tracking, prevent data collection and sharing, unblock location-restricted content and give access to streaming libraries outside your region. Many subscriptions also bundle extras such

Tech

Dark Souls 2 lighting mod creators experiment with path tracing

Dark Souls 2 is widely regarded as the second-best entry in the series, but it has long carried a reputation for being the ugliest. A central gripe is that the game's original lighting engine—the one FromSoftware went to great lengths to show off back in 2013—was

Tech

Valheim leads' side project Begraved gets free Steam demo

Back in November, a team of Valheim leads quietly announced their new studio Grip Jaw and debut project, Begraved. The studio has released a free demo for Begraved on Steam, giving players the chance to try the game firsthand. Begraved is billed as a mishmash of Lethal Company, Phasmophobia, and

Tech

This flexible phone accessory makes cases pointless for me

How many times have you lost your phone or left your keys behind somewhere? I prefer prevention over cure, which is why I tether important stuff to myself when traveling or hiking. The tether I’ve used for many years is from a US company called KeyBak. The model I

Tech

Black Ops 7's best loadout is this rapid-fire ricochet assault rifle

New weapons are always exciting in a Call of Duty game, but sometimes the new stuff ends up being a little too strong. The EGRT-17 assault rifle in Black Ops 7 is the latest example of this, and it's the best weapon you can use right now across

Tech

Grasshopper Manufacture sees little benefit from Steam sales, Suda51 says

Grasshopper Manufacture has survived for 27 years and has ported much of its back catalog to PC. A look at the difference between the studio's developer page on Steam and its publisher page highlights a common problem for teams that cannot afford to publish their own work: they

Tech

Samsung confirms Galaxy S26 preorder deals, including up to $900 trade‑in

Samsung confirmed its winter Unpacked event will take place in San Francisco on February 25 at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET, scheduled just before Mobile World Congress. The company said it will unveil a new Galaxy S series and that Galaxy AI will be more seamlessly integrated

Tech

YouTube Argues It Isn’t Social Media in Landmark Tech Addiction Trial

YouTube told jurors on Tuesday that it is an entertainment platform, not a social network, and insisted its recommendation algorithm is not designed to be addictive. “It’s not trying to get in your brain and rewire it,” Luis Li, YouTube’s lawyer, said. “It’s just asking you what

Tech

Minecraft-like Allumeria pulled from Steam after Microsoft DMCA

Unomelon announced its lo-fi voxel sandbox Allumeria would be playable in Steam Next Fest after a year of development, but two weeks later the game was removed from Steam following a DMCA takedown from Microsoft claiming it infringes Minecraft's copyright. "I genuinely do not know what to

Tech

Exchange Online is tagging legitimate emails as spam — what to do

Microsoft says some legitimate email messages in Exchange Online have been marked as phish and quarantined, preventing them from appearing in users' inboxes. The company acknowledged the problem in a service alert, saying the issue began on February 5. Investigators traced the issue to a new URL rule that

Tech

Expert: 'Rookie' suspect made grave error in Nancy Guthrie case

An expert said the suspect made a grave error when breaking into Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home on Feb. 1. A Nest camera mounted beside her front door was tampered with and disconnected, but the last image sent to the company’s servers remained recoverable. Andy Kay, a longtime private

Tech

Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent turns Descent into a digital dungeon crawler

Fantasy Flight’s 2005 board game Descent helped define the dungeon crawler board game genre. Artefacts Studio is adapting Descent into a video game called Terrinoth: Heroes of Descent, set a year before the events of Legends of the Dark and due sometime this spring. Up to four players control

Tech

Discord's age checks push users toward IRC

Discord announced that very soon, users who want to be treated like they're not still in their junior year of high school may have to submit to a facial scan, or provide approved ID, to prove they're an adult. Some folks aren't keen on

Tech

Bethesda to refresh Fallout 76's older public events

The Burning Springs update added a chunk of Ohio to the Appalachia map, but Bethesda plans to spend 2026 improving the rest of Fallout 76. Creative director Jon Rush said the team has "been growing the play space with Skyline Valley [and] Burning Springs," and that the next

Tech

The Kia PV5 electric van combines futuristic looks and thoughtful design

The driver gets a hefty 7.5-inch digital instrument binnacle alongside a 12.9-inch infotainment display. Nearly everything is run through that screen, which is sad for those of us who want a return to physical buttons. It’s quick and responsive, but it lacks the haptic feedback that confirms

Tech

Roku adds nine free live channels you can watch without a Roku TV

Roku has quietly expanded the free streaming available in the Roku Channel app, adding nine new channels to its Live TV lineup. The Live TV section functions like traditional cable: scheduled programming with ad breaks, no fast-forwarding or rewinding, and all channels are free. The new additions are Pokémon; The

Tech

Fortnite will require Secure Boot, TPM and IOMMU on PC

Starting Thursday, Feb. 19, Fortnite will add new anti-cheat requirements for Windows PC players. The game will require Secure Boot, TPM and IOMMU, joining Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Battlefield 6, Valorant, Highguard and League of Legends in enforcing those checks. Secure Boot is a hardware-level BIOS feature that

Tech

ThinkPad X13 is a featherweight office champ with standout battery life

Lenovo’s sixth‑gen ThinkPad X13 aims for ultraportable business use, packing an Intel Core Ultra 7 255 U‑series processor into a 13.3‑inch chassis that weighs just 2.05 pounds. The design keeps the classic black ThinkPad look, TrackPoint and physical buttons, while positioning the X13 as

Tech

Fake-wood slab was the most surprising thing at Logitech HQ

During a recent visit to Logitech, I saw a lot of engineering and testing kit—giant antennas, padded rooms, and machines that swipe mice. Still, the thing that surprised me most was a block of wood in the company's design room: a piece of chemical wood, more like

Tech

G.Skill to pay $2.4m in settlement over RAM speed claims, denies wrongdoing

PC memory specialist G.Skill has agreed to pay out 2.4 million dollars to settle a class action that alleged it advertised the operating speeds of various DDR4 and DDR5 RAM kits deceptively between January 2018 and January 2026. Rather than fight the case in court, G.Skill settled

Tech

Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial adds magnetic RAM fan and hidden PCIe covers

With so many motherboards on the market, it's hard for vendors to make something that really stands out. At a glance the Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Glacial caught my eye only because it ships with pre-installed Wi-Fi drivers, but a closer look reveals plenty of features: M.2

Tech

Are gaming laptops worth it? The answer might change in the next few years

I get asked every time I tell someone I review gaming laptops: are they worth it compared with more powerful, upgradeable PC towers? My career so far has been spent finding the best gaming laptops for all kinds of use-cases, so of course I think they're worth it

Tech

Google expands Search tools to remove sensitive personal data

As part of Safer Internet Day, Google announced updates to its "Results about you" tool so users can request removal of Search results that include government ID numbers such as a driver’s license, passport or Social Security number, in addition to phone numbers, email addresses and home

Tech

Razer Cobra HyperSpeed review: a compact, satisfying mid-range mouse

The Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro still sits at the top of Razer's lineup, but the Cobra HyperSpeed makes a persuasive case at a much lower price. For $99/£99 it pairs a 26,000 DPI Focus X sensor with a 1,000 Hz polling rate as standard, boostable

Tech

Linux 6.19 arrives, closes out 6.x era with cloud-focused updates

Linux kernel 6.19 has been released, marking the end of the 6.x series and opening the merge window for Linux 7.0. Linus Torvalds said the final week of the cycle was uneventful, allowing the release to land on schedule, and confirmed the next kernel will be branded