At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Compact and well-built Good office performance All Copilot Plus features available Good battery life Cons Narrow screen to work on No HDR support No charger included Our Verdict The new little Surface Pro straddles the line between a portable tablet and a compact Windows laptop (with an optional keyboard). Like the old, underpowered Surface Go—but actually good! I wish it had an OLED screen with HDR, but otherwise it exceeds expectations. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Microsoft once pushed tablets as the future of Windows, but the world didn’t bite. Now the company mostly plays it safe with traditional laptops and mouse-friendly interfaces, and yet it keeps making Surface devices. The latest is the Microsoft Surface Pro, more often called the Surface Pro 12 or Surface Pro 2025. This compact tablet runs on a Snapdragon X Plus chip and is built for casual browsing and office work. It’s not high-end, but it delivers a solid, fanless experience Windows tablets have long struggled to provide. And with Qualcomm’s Hexagon NPU, it’s got impressively snappy AI, too. Mattias Inghe Microsoft Surface Pro: Quiet and comfortably cool So it’s completely silent cooling, and I don’t even think it ever gets annoyingly hot to hold the tablet. A little disturbingly lukewarm, but nothing unpleasant. It throttles with graphics performance when I run 3D graphics for long periods, but honestly, who buys a Surface to play games? The price is $799 for a base model with 256GB of SSD storage or you can spend a little extra ($899) on the configuration with 512GB of SSD storage. You also get 16GB of RAM, just enough for all your regular office work, media streaming, basic photo editing, and communication. Most of the multitasking I try goes smoothly. I’m in a Teams video meeting with the editorial team, Googling information in a browser (this is a Bing household–sorry!), have articles in progress open in Word, and am syncing up a large video file for online sharing. All at the same time, without one interfering with the other. Connection with both Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6 is also stable and fast, which of course helps. There is no 5G or LTE version of this tablet. Then you have to go up in size and price. Mattias Inghe Microsoft Surface Pro: Sharp display, but limited space What becomes an obstacle to productive multitasking is rather the small screen area—12 inches isn’t much. Even though it’s high resolution, having many windows and tabs active quickly becomes cluttered. You’ll have to adopt a more traditional tablet mentality and have one or two visible on the screen at the same time and have the others hidden but active behind. The screen has a semi-high brightness IPS panel, 2196×1464 pixel resolution, and a 60 or 90 Hz frame rate. You’ll have to set it up manually; dynamic frequency is not supported. It’s not full pro quality on the screen, as the gamut only goes up a little bit above sRGB level, but pre-calibration from Microsoft means that color accuracy within the sRGB scale is high. That and relatively high black and contrast and wide viewing angles enhance the quality experience. It makes watching films entertaining, even if there is no HDR support. A solid set of speakers with a detailed and rich sound for music, speech, and films also helps. At least as long as I don’t turn the volume up to the ceiling, which is when it gets the loudest. The webcam above the screen provides an acceptable 1080p image without noise and with even, neutral colors. Pale contrast and almost-but-not-quite blurred detail drag down the impression. There’s no need to be embarrassed in the video meeting, especially thanks to good microphones and AI-backed noise filters, but there could be more punch in the image. Surface and the accessories you might need, except a charger then.Mattias Inghe On the back sits a simple 10-megapixel camera that takes decent pictures in daylight, but don’t expect miracles. Especially its jumpy autofocus can cause problems for both filming and things like AR applications. Microsoft Surface Pro: Compact design with minimal drawbacks With a 12-inch screen and 3:2 aspect ratio, the tablet is noticeably compact and short in width. Its pleasantly rounded corners and edges make Surface Pro excellently grip-friendly with its matte aluminum back that is said to be made from 100 percent recycled aluminum. The foldable back support is sturdy. Setting up the Surface Pro as a small digital photo frame or film screen is very practical. But it’s essentially a Windows computer. So you’ll need a keyboard and mouse controller. And if you want to make full use of the touchscreen, you’ll need a pen. All neatly organized.Mattias Inghe You can buy the matching Slim Pen separately or in a bundle with the keyboard for a total of $249.99. It’s built for the Surface Pro with a slot on the back where the pen can snap on with a magnet and charge. Everything plugs in and works right away. I don’t have to fuss with manual pairing or calibration. The precision is excellent from the start. The quality of the keyboard is also uncompromising. It doesn’t even feel like the keys are crammed together, despite its short width. Microsoft Surface Pro: Just two USB ports, nothing more If you prefer to connect your own mouse and keyboard and perhaps a larger screen, all that is possible with a suitable USB-C dock. The disc’s two ports support everything you need to plug in a USB-C dock and charge the battery with it. Chargers are not included. Microsoft doesn’t reveal how big the battery is, but battery life is good, from three to 10 hours of active use with the screen brightness cranked all the way up, and up to 21 hours of frugal use. If I’m working with generative AI, either Microsoft’s own features in the Copilot Plus suite or third-party software, or challenging the graphics card with a lot of 3D rendering, I end up on the lower end of that scale. Mattias Inghe If I’m just surfing the web, checking email, and running simple Excel calculations, the Surface Pro handles it much better and that’s what most people do with their computers anyway. For those tasks, it’s as capable as any small, ultralight laptop. It may not be quite as fast, but it’s definitely fast enough. With the right accessories, you get a compact, competent laptop that also doubles as a touchscreen tablet with pen support. It’s perfect for streaming movies on the couch. Is it enough to revive the Windows tablet concept? Maybe. Maybe not. But for fans of the form factor, it’s a great device. Specifications Product name: Surface Pro 2025Tested: May 2025Manufacturer: Microsoft Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus, 8 Oryon 3.4 GHzNPU: Hexagon, 45 topsGraphics: Intel Arc 130VMemory: 16 GB lpddr5xStorage: 256 GB / 512 GB SSDMonitors: 12 inch glossy IPS, 2196×1464 pixels, 90 Hz, approx 400 cd/m2Webcam: 10 megapixel rear, 1080p webcam with IR frontConnections: 2 x USB-C 3 Gen 2 with DisplayPort, keyboard dockingWireless: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4Operating system: Windows 11 HomeOther: Optional keyboard, pen, and chargerSound level: FanlessBattery: 1 hr 45 min (high load, full brightness, 90 Hz) to approx. 19 hr (low load, low brightness, 60 Hz)Size: 27.4 x 19 x 0.78 cmWeight: 686 grams Rating: 4 out of 5 Performance Cinebench 2024, multi-core CPU: 550 pointsCinebench 2024, single core CPU: 107 pointsGeekbench 6, multi-core CPU: 11,241 pointsGeekbench 6, single core CPU: 2,403 pointsGeekbench 6, gpu: 13,834 pointsDisk, read: Up to 3,870.85 MB/sDisk, write: Up to 3,413.79 MB/s Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Sharp 4K video with reliable color and infrared night vision Local storage means no paid subscription Detailed AI-powered alerts with natural-language summaries Solar-powered cameras simplify installation Supports Alexa and Google Home Cons AI features are still in beta and occasionally inConsistent Requires manual charging if solar power falls short Some advanced detection features are hit or miss Our Verdict Aosu’s HomeCortex system delivers smart, capable security without tying you to a subscription. Quirks and all, it’s a strong pick for homeowners who want control without compromise. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: 4K SolarCam P1 Max with HomeCortex (2-cam kit) Retailer Price $369.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Aosu is the latest security camera manufacturer to offer a wireless network-attached storage hub for its cameras. In this review, we’ll examine a kit consisting of two Aosu SolarCam P1 Max cams bundled with its HomeCortex hub. You can also buy 4- and 6-camera kits if you need more coverage. These systems are aimed at people who want the best of what home security cameras can offer—sharp 4K video, smart alerts, local storage, and solar-powered convenience—in a package that’s easy to set up and doesn’t suck money out of your bank account with a service subscription. This HomeCortex kit isn’t flawless, but it delivers where it matters, and it was on sale at Amazon for $370 at the time of this review, a $130 discount off MSRP. IntelliMesh links multiple SolarCam P1 Max cameras together, so they can track motion across zones. Specifications The SolarCam P1 Max cameras record in 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels), delivering sharp video with clear detail even when you need to zoom in on details like faces or license plates. Each camera has a built-in solar panel to keep its battery topped off. If the solar panels can’t keep up during stretches of cloudy weather, you can recharge the cameras manually using the included USB-C cable. It’s only about a foot-and-a-half long, however, so you’ll need to take the camera down from its mount to plug it in. The cameras are also IP65-rated, meaning they’re dustproof and resistant to jets of water (you can learn more about IP codes at the preceding link). The hub is the heart of the Aosu HomeCortex system. It comes with 32GB of onboard storage–expandable via 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD–and handles all video processing and AI tasks.Michael Ansaldo/Foundry The heart of the system is the HomeCortex hub. It’s small, modern-looking, and designed to blend on a shelf or side table. It comes with 32GB of onboard storage—enough for a few days of recordings—but you can expand that up to 16TB with an internal 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD. Like the Eufy HomeBase 3 that comes with the EufyCam S3 Pro Kit I reviewed on May 3, the hub handles all video processing and AI tasks locally, which means faster response times and no reliance on cloud servers and the subscriptions associated with them. Aosu’s TrueSight AI doesn’t just flag motion, it tries to identify what’s happening in real time. It can recognize people, vehicles, pets, and package deliveries, and it learns behavior over time to filter out things you don’t want or need to see. You also get daily summary reports and a “sentence search” tool that lets you use natural language to find what you’re looking for instead of scrubbing through hours of linear footage. Another feature, IntelliMesh, links multiple SolarCam P1 Max cameras together, so they can track motion across zones–another feature also found on the latest Eufy cameras. If someone walks from the front yard to the side gate, the system connects the dots and follows the movement, reducing duplicate alerts and giving you a clearer view of what’s actually going on. Each camera has an integrated solar panel on top. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry Finally, Aosu’s hub also works as a Wi-Fi range extender, helping boost coverage for cameras that are farther from your router. The HomeCortex, however, needs to be connected to your router with an ethernet cable, which could limit the utility of this feature, but it could help keep video quality consistent even at the edges of your property. The system also supports voice control via Alexa and Google Home, giving you the option to integrate it with your broader smart home setup and enabling you to see the cameras’ feeds on relevant smart displays. While the HomeCortex system emphasizes local storage, Aosu also offers a range of optional cloud recording plans if you want remote backup or extended video history. Plans start at $4.99 per month for 30 days of event recording. Subscriptions aren’t required, but the option is there if you want an extra layer of access or redundancy. Setup and performance Getting the HomeCortex system up and running is quick and painless. Plug in the hub, connect it to your router, then scan the QR code on its underside using the Aosu app. From there, just power on the cameras and press the Sync button on the hub to pair them. The whole process took just a few minutes and worked without a hitch. Each camera mounts using four screws, which are included along with hollow-wall anchors. Since the cameras are both solar-powered and Wi-Fi enabled, there’s no need to mess with power cords or drill through walls to reach an outlet. The cameras can be charged manually with a USB-C cable. The port is behind a waterproof panel on the bottom of the camera. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry The Aosu app gives you full control over the system, from live views and alerts to settings and video history. Each camera has its own dashboard where you can review captured events and browse TrueSight activity reports. The interface is clean and intuitive, with most tasks just a tap or two away. The 4K footage I captured was crisp and detailed, with enough resolution to capture facial features, license plates, and subtle movement. Night vision is strong as well. You can choose between standard black-and-white infrared or full-color night vision, depending on your preferences and lighting conditions. When color night vision is enabled, the camera uses a white LED spotlight to illuminate the scene and capture more detail, switching back to black and white when the area is quiet. Both modes performed well in testing, delivering clear and usable video after dark. TrueSight AI impressed me with how contextually aware its notifications were. During testing, the system generated surprisingly detailed alerts like or “A man in a black shirt is seen taking selfies in a backyard”—that was actually me taking the picture of the camera at the top of this article—and “A person in a black hoodie is seen opening a backyard gate.” The tone is clinical, almost like a security transcript, but it’s generally accurate and sometimes unintentionally amusing (“A person is seen holding a pair of scissors and a cup, possibly preparing to cut something.”) Either way, it gives you far more context than a standard “motion-detected” alert. TrueSight’s beta status showed at times. Across several events, it described the same black shirt as black, blue, and purple. In the context of an actual intrusion, that kind of inconsistency could muddy up forensic evidence. And like all AI, it’s also prone to hallucinations. When I dropped the camera on my couch, it recorded the event with the description “A person dressed in black attire stumbled and fell on the escalator, subsequently drawing a crowd of onlookers who gathered around to witness the scene.” That’s quite an imagination–there are of course no escalators in my home. I didn’t observe any such fabrications during more typical use, but the potential is there. The ASOU app provides multiple camera feeds and expansive detection settings to fine tune surveillance. Michael Ansaldo/Foundry Dig into the detection settings and you’ll find even more control. The system offers a wide array of AI-driven surveillance settings you can toggle on or off depending on your needs. Beyond basic human, vehicle, and animal detection, it includes options like Parking Guard, Intrusion Prevention at Yard Wall, Lawn Surveillance, and even Pet Detection. Each setting is designed to monitor specific behaviors—alerting you, for example, when someone approaches your driveway or climbs over a fence. Some of these, like Pet Detection and Yard Wall intrusion alerts, are still in beta and can be hit or miss. Still, the sheer granularity of the system gives you a level of control most DIY security setups don’t offer, and lets you dial in your notifications to avoid unnecessary noise. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best home security cameras. Footage is stored locally on the hub, which means you’re not waiting on the cloud to load video clips. Everything records directly to the built-in storage (or an intenral drive, should you add one), and the “sentence search” feature, also in beta, makes finding what you need fast and intuitive. You can simply type something like “person at back door Tuesday afternoon,” and it should pull the relevant clips. This worked in my testing. Should you buy the Aosu 4K SolarCam P1 Max with HomeCortex? If you’re tired of paying monthly fees for basic features—or stitching together multiple apps and devices to build a halfway decent security setup —the Aosu 4K SolarCam P1 Max with HomeCortex system makes a strong case for itself. It offers a seamless, all-in-one experience with a level of control and intelligence that’s usually locked behind subscriptions. The upfront cost isn’t trivial, especially if you’re adding multiple cameras, but there’s long-term value in a system that runs locally, stores footage on-site, and isn’t constantly nudging you to upgrade. The AI still has rough edges, and if you expect flawless performance out of the box, you might be frustrated. But if you’re comfortable with a few quirks in exchange for smarter alerts, better privacy, and full ownership of your setup, the HomeCortex system is a compelling choice. Read...

You likely have a smart assistant on your phone, a robot vacuum cleaner that sweeps and mops your floors, smart switches that turn off the lights without you even getting out of bed, a smart speaker that instructs your go-to assistant to play your favorite songs, and so on. Why don’t you also have a smart robot lawn mower for your yard? The Segway Navimow i Series could be the missing link in your smart home setup. Segway’s smart robot lawnmowers can be a great addition to any house, freeing up countless hours spent mowing for more pleasurable activities, such as spending time by the pool, having fun with the family, or just enjoying your hobbies. By adding a Navimow to your smart home setup, you’ll get a perfect lawn without any of the effort usually required. Since the robot can also cut the grass more frequently, it will keep down the weeds, removing another one of your yard chores. View deal on Segway Navimow i Series Segway Navimow i Series Key Features Automatic mowing with app remote control Multi-zone management Voice command with Google Home and Alexa, integrated with Sprinklr Mowing reports Segway Avoids all obstacles You won’t need to worry about deck chairs or your dog’s chew toys left in the middle of the yard: the Segway Navimow i Series will intelligently recognize and avoid them. Likewise, if you have a pet that happily lounges in the sun, right in the path of the lawnmower, the i Series will give them a wide berth. It’s not just dogs that the Segway recognizes, but also cats and even hedgehogs, so everyone’s safe roaming the grounds while it cuts your lawn. Segway Crosses the toughest terrains The robot is ready for any yard, even if you have rock paths or steep inclines. In fact, it can easily handle lawn slopes with up to 30% incline, and its large wheels will cross difficult terrain with ease. Mobile app and voice assistant control The Segway Navimow works with an app you install on your phone. You simply pair the robot to the app, let it map the yard, and send it off to do its job. Since the robot works with both Alexa and Google Assistant, you don’t even have to launch the app–you just issue a voice command. Segway Automated docking and GPS tracking Once the job is done, the robot returns to its docking station to charge. Since you never know how the weather may change, it will also return to this station if it begins raining or snowing, or the temperature gets too high. Since it comes with built-in GPS tracking, you’ll always know its location, even if it gets stolen. Automate your lawncare today There are two Segway Navimow robot lawnmower models in the i Series. Between June 2-8, the i105N is available at the discounted price of $849 (usual price $999) and is perfect for smaller yards, capable of mowing around 1/8 of an acre on a single charge. The Navimow i110N, currently discounted to $1,099 (usual price $1,299), is better suited for larger lawns up to 1/4 of an acre. So go ahead and make your yard just as smart as your house with a Segway Navimow i Series lawnmower. Get Dad the perfect gift with up to 15% of Segway Navimow i Series View Deal Read...

Once I’ve unpacked a new Windows PC, the anticipation wears off and reality sinks in. It’s time to get everything set up and that’s one heck of a time consuming process, it’s work. So, of course, I install my favorite programs. And there are quite a few. get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro When it comes to browsers, I always choose either Chrome or Firefox. Edge is just there for the first few initial downloads. When it comes to image editing, I’m torn between the powerful but not intuitive GIMP and Paint.net, which is much easier to learn and use. I also want my messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp on the desktop. With all of these programs, I’ve got alternatives to choose from. This applies to Microsoft Office, which I can easily swap out for LibreOffice. Antivirus and VPN are also plentiful. But there’s one tool I don’t even think twice about. Total Commander is a must-have There’s only one tool in particular where I never have to choose between multiple options; I’ve always used a single one for decades. I’m talking about Total Commander, which you can download here and try free for 30 days. I’ve been loyal to this brilliant file manager since around 2000. Back then, this indispensable tool even had a different name: Windows Commander.  I grew up with Norton Commander in the 1990s . So, I absolutely want the convenient two-pane view. Total Commander offers exactly that. I’ve also maintained several websites for decades. For that, I needed an FTP client. Total Commander already has one built in, so I saved myself the trouble of having to use an additional program. The feature that allows me to rename a whole batch of files at once has always been very useful . It saves a lot of time and keeps my hard drive organized. The fact that Total Commander also unpacks archives isn’t as important anymore, since Windows can do that now, too. But the TC has always been able to do that. Truly lifelong What I find absolutely brilliant is that once you’ve licensed Total Commander or its predecessor, Windows Commander, you receive – as of today – free updates indefinitely. “Lifetime” is a promise that companies like to make every now and then. Until, suddenly, it’s over. But with Total Commander, things are different: pay once, never pay again, and still get regular updates with new features. Great. That’s why I always download Total Commander first onto a new Windows PC along with Edge. Only then do the other browsers end up on my computer to replace Edge. Read...

As a longtime advocate of Chromebooks, I’ve repeatedly heard the same old myths and misconceptions about Google’s laptops time and time again. It’s been a while since I switched from Windows to ChromeOS, and I can say a lot of those once-true objections are now outdated. Here are some of the most common Chromebook misconceptions that still get passed around yet can be safely ignored. Myth: Chromebooks always have to be connected to the internet Dave Parrack / Foundry Lots of people think that Chromebooks must always be connected to the internet and that they become useless bricks when offline. That just isn’t true! Yes, ChromeOS is designed to be cloud-based with a focus on web apps, but there’s plenty you can do with an offline Chromebook. Some of those things include using offline-capable apps, playing downloaded games, watching downloaded media, managing files and working on documents, among other things. (But how often in this day and age are you not connected to the internet, anyway?) To ensure you can keep using your Chromebook while offline, be sure to download apps and games with offline support, store your important files locally, and/or enable offline mode in Google’s core productivity apps such as Gmail, Drive, Docs, and Sheets. Myth: Chromebooks are only for students Karolina Grabowska / Pixabay While it’s true that the Chromebook has developed an identity as the affordable laptop option for educational environments, that doesn’t mean Chromebooks can’t be useful elsewhere. I’m a middle-aged man who writes for a living and I’ve been using Chromebooks for years, both for personal and professional use cases. Given how easy it is to set up and use ChromeOS, a Chromebook is suitable for anyone of any age—it just so happens that the ease of use makes it a great tool for the student demographic. In fact, I consider Chromebooks perfect for older folk who just need access to the internet with minimal tech interference. Not only are Chromebooks easy to use, but they come with several built-in security features that are important for users who are less tech-savvy. Myth: Chromebooks are cheap, low performance, and disposable Dave Parrack / Foundry There’s a difference between a laptop that’s “affordable” and one that’s “cheap”—and in the context of Chromebooks, that distinction is key. While lots of Chromebooks are pretty cheap and slow, not all of them are. The old adage that “you get what you pay for” is true here. There’s a huge range of Chromebooks available, from the plasticky low-end models to the high-end models made with premium materials. The key is to do your research before you buy, and don’t settle for the cheapest model available. You wouldn’t buy a bottom-of-the-barrel Windows laptop and then say all Windows PCs are trash, right? Weigh up the cost versus build quality, specs, and brand. The cheaper models are more likely to suck in some way—I know from experience—while the higher-end models can be as good as Windows laptops. On that note, it’s important to know the differences between Chromebooks and Windows laptops so you get the right machine for your needs. Myth: Chromebooks are just a wrapper for the Chrome browser Dave Parrack / Foundry ChromeOS is certainly a simple and elegant operating system. But people who think it’s just a wrapper for the Chrome browser—and who see that as a negative—are misguided at best. Even though Chrome sits at the core of the operating system, you could (if you really wanted to) go months without ever actually launching Chrome. Actually, ChromeOS is based on Linux—and you can actually enable the Linux subsystem to unlock more power. Between that and the ability to run Android apps via the Google Play Store, you can actually do a lot with a Chromebook beyond Chrome. Throw in some progressive web apps that can run apart from the browser and you have a winning combo. Myth: Chromebooks can’t print anything Dave Parrack / Foundry Back when ChromeOS first debuted, some older printers weren’t compatible with it because they needed proprietary drivers that couldn’t be installed on a Chromebook. Google Cloud Print tried to get around that with a print-over-the-web service, but then that got discontinued. Users were also unfamiliar with ChromeOS’s printing interface. And so Chromebooks developed a reputation as laptops that had trouble printing. But that isn’t true anymore. ChromeOS now supports Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) for sending print jobs to network-attached printers, and as of 2019, IPP is available on 98% of printers being sold. In short, this means you can print with a Chromebook as long as it’s up-to-date and as long as you have a somewhat modern printer. Some advanced printing features might be missing, but these days you can print almost anything you’d need with a Chromebook. Myth: Chromebooks lack offline storage Dave Parrack / Foundry While Chromebooks are designed to rely mostly on cloud storage, they all come with some amount of offline storage. That amount depends on what Chromebook you buy and in what configuration. My Pixelbook Go, for example, has 64GB of internal storage—and I haven’t felt limited by that in the years I’ve been using it—but I could’ve chosen 128GB or 256GB options. There are others like that out there, including the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus with 256GB storage and the Acer Chromebook Plus 514 with 512GB storage. Regardless of amount, you’ll be fine as long as you pay attention to what you’re downloading and clean up your files every once in a while. That means uninstalling apps you no longer use, deleting files when you’re done with them, and using cloud storage when you can. The perceived lack of offline storage is only an issue if you neglect this. Myth: Chromebooks can’t run the apps you need to use every day Dave Parrack / Foundry One of the biggest misconceptions about modern Chromebooks is that you can only run extensions and apps from the Chrome Web Store. If that were true, I’d understand the complaint—any laptop would be seriously hampered by such limited access to software. These days, Chromebooks can run Android apps, Linux apps, and progressive web apps. And given that most app developers maintain support for at least one of those platforms, you should be able to run most of the apps you need on ChromeOS. The one caveat here is if you rely on apps that are only available on Windows and/or macOS. Worried about Microsoft Office? Slack? Photoshop? Evernote? They all run on Chromebooks! And if you have any apps that simply aren’t available on ChromeOS for whatever reason, you can usually find a good enough alternative to fill in the gap. Chromebook software available is only an issue if you’re using niche and/or industry software. Myth: Chromebooks can’t play games Dave Parrack / Foundry This one we need to approach with some nuance. Yes, you can play games on a Chromebook—with caveats. We wrote an entire article about whether Chromebooks are good for gaming, but here’s a recap. If you care about local gaming, you can think of Chromebook gaming like mobile gaming. You have access to Android games and web games, plus you can also run a beta version of Steam for Chromebooks. With Steam, you’ll need a higher-end machine with at least an Intel i3 or Ryzen 3 CPU and 8GB of RAM, and only a small fraction of Steam games are natively compatible with Chromebooks. However, cloud gaming is growing more and more popular, and that’s great news for Chromebooks. Notable platforms include Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming, which allow you to remotely stream demanding games for a monthly subscription. You’ll need a fast internet connection and you’ll run into input lag, but it’s a darn good way to play a much wider selection of games on a Chromebook! Further reading: The best Chromebooks to buy this year Read...

The latest cryptic posts from the singer features what appears to be an Auckland beach, a link for fans to explore and an invite to meet tonight. Read...

Microsoft has begun adding Copilot to the “new tab” page of Microsoft Edge, as expected — possibly making you yearn for the current crazy-quilt layout instead. Generally, browser makers allow you to either open a predetermined home page when you open a new tab, or else populate it with a variety of different content. On Edge, a new tab looks similar to the Widgets menu in the lower left. But a change is coming. According to a Microsoft Edge support page, at the end of May Edge users may see a Copilot field, together with suggested prompts, when they open a new tab. According to Windows Latest, this is part of what Microsoft has begun calling “Copilot Mode,” a special toggle that allows you to “try out the latest AI browsing innovations,” according to the site. I’m not seeing this in my “live” browser yet, and neither is Windows Latest. However, the site did discover that the option can be turned on via Edge’s built in “flags,” or developer options, to get an idea of what this will look like. You can see the same. Essentially, the “new tab” experience within Copilot Mode in Edge opens up a new tab that’s almost entirely bare except for a Copilot prompt underneath the question, “How can I help you today?” Below the prompt field are slightly different choices than Microsoft presents elsewhere, as the first option is to “Search and Chat” rather than a list of models. Edge then presents a series of small icons below, which seem to be sites that you’ve recently viewed. Mark Hachman / Foundry Your queries seem to be sent to Microsoft’s Copilot site, where they’re answered as part of the Copilot interface, with embedded ads, links, and so on. I also noticed a significant change: Microsoft isn’t providing links at all, unless you specifically ask for them. Put another way, Copilot will happily point you to a list of best laptops for college students, with links to buy them at various online storefronts. When I searched, it wouldn’t tell you the sources for those recommendations without asking. Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be making you jump through hoops to enable this new experience. For now, you’ll have to enable the various flags inside the developer mode. Second, you’ll have to manually enable the “Copilot Mode” yourself, even when that experience becomes available. How to test Copilot Mode within Microsoft Edge Testing Copilot Mode within Microsoft Edge isn’t difficult, and doesn’t require downloading a separate browser. In the search bar, simply type Edge://flags, which will enable the menu. There are dozens of flags to choose from, and the warning at the top applies: Simply enabling flags willy-nilly may cause your browser to crash and for you to lose data. In the case of Copilot Mode, however, enabling the “Edge Copilot Mode” and “Allow Copilot Search” seemed to work. Note that you’ll have to restart your browser to get these features to work, even after the flag is toggled on. To actually turn on Copilot Mode, you’ll need to toggle on the feature by clicking your user icon and selecting the appropriate icon. Then, when you open a new tab, you’ll see the screen that’s underneath the drop-down menu option. Presumably, leaving Copilot Mode on will signal Microsoft to add any new AI-powered features when they’re ready. Mark Hachman / Foundry Microsoft also includes a small list of settings for you to adjust within the Edge settings menu. I manually searched for “Copilot Mode,” but there appears to be a designated shortcut in the left-hand navigation menu, too. Note that the “Context clues” feature appears to allow Edge and Copilot access to your browser history. That might result in better answers, but it’s also a potential privacy risk. However, Microsoft doesn’t allow you to control this feature separately. Mark Hachman / Foundry Microsoft seems to feel that users will begin turning to AI-powered search, and is pushing Copilot into every nook and cranny of your PC. Personally, I find that the current “new tab” page, even with the crazy mix of stories and content, at least showcases the analysts, journalists, and bloggers who create the content that Copilot seems determined to appropriate without attribution. I’m sticking with it for now. Read...

Don’t expect too much from the Arc browser in the future. The browser’s developer admitted over the weekend that while Arc is being maintained, new features are no longer in active development. The explanation, however, is convoluted. In a blog post, the company explained that while they concluded that the Arc browser was “incremental,” its novel features weren’t being used, either. For example, just under 6 percent of users took advantage of what Arc called a “space,” or workspace. “After a couple of years of building and shipping Arc, we started running into something we called the ‘novelty tax’ problem,” the company wrote. “A lot of people loved Arc — if you’re here you might just be one of them — and we’d benefitted from consistent, organic growth since basically Day One. But for most people, Arc was simply too different, with too many new things to learn, for too little reward.” For now, Arc seems to be in limbo. Because Arc runs on a custom infrastructure knows as the Arc Development Kit, it’s “too complex to break from Chrome,” the company wrote, and it’s the company’s “secret sauce.” Instead, the company has shifted work to Dia, which the company says will be an “AI-first” browser. That browser is currently in alpha testing. The problem, the company says, is that ADK is split between the two browsers, preventing the company from moving forward with Arc. “So while we’d love to open-source Arc someday, we can’t do that meaningfully without also open-sourcing ADK. And ADK is still core to our company’s value. That doesn’t mean it’ll never happen. If the day comes where it no longer puts our team or shareholders at risk, we’d be excited to share what we’ve built with the world. But we’re not there yet.” The Browser Company of New York said it still believes that the world will move on from the current browsers like Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, and that traditional web pages won’t be its foundation. “Imagine writing an essay justifying why you were moving on from your candle business at the dawn of electric light,” the company said. “Electric intelligence is here — and it would be naive of us to pretend it doesn’t fundamentally change the kind of product we need to build to meet the moment.” It’s certainly possible that the (sigh) The Browser Company of New York will end up being correct, perhaps even ahead of its time. But the metaphors being used here, which carried over into the Arc browser’s visual aesthetic, were too twee for me. Perhaps Dia will offer a helping hand to those of us who are still stuck in the past. Perhaps not. There’s certainly room for a product that simply wants to break with history and embrace an AI-powered future. Doing so, though, limits your market appeal and also locks you into a younger aesthetic that, incidentally, seems to be aggressively rejecting the use of AI. I’m happy to admit that I don’t quite understand what the company is going for. Maybe Dia will make it all clear, someday. Read...

When people think about AI, they often think about models that run in the cloud like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. But there’s an incredibly simple way of running local AI on your PC that Microsoft just implemented. Microsoft announced Microsoft Foundry Local this past week at its Build conference. It’s basically a command line tool that runs LLMs locally on your machine. Although it’s initially targeted at developers, it’s one of the easiest ways of trying out local AI simply because it does everything for you. And it does something else, too: it optimizes your PC. get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro One of the coolest features about Windows that you don’t use is what’s known as “winget,” which is like DoorDash for applications. Instead of navigating to a website or the Microsoft Store, finding the download link, and telling Windows where everything should go, you simply open a command line and “winget” what you want. Windows and Microsoft just does everything else for you, automatically. You don’t need to log in at a third-party website, either. Foundry AI Local works in the same way. All you need to do is basically cut and paste two commands from this article, and you’ll be up and running in no time. Here’s how to do it, with a helping hand from Microsoft. Microsoft does not say that you need a dedicated GPU or NPU, but it does help. Essentially, you’ll need Windows 10 or 11, at least 8GB of RAM and 3GB of storage (16GB RAM recommended alongside 15GB of disk space). A Copilot+ PC is optional, but you’ll benefit from a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor, an Nvidia RTX 2000 series, an AMD Radeon 6000 series GPU or newer. A couple of commands in a command-line terminal and you’re ready to go.Mark Hachman / Foundry To use Foundry Local, first you’ll want to… 1.) Open a command-line terminal. Just type the Windows key and start typing “terminal”. You should see the Windows Terminal app pop up in list of suggested apps, although it may also appear as Windows PowerShell. It doesn’t really matter. 2.) At the prompt, type: winget install Microsoft.FoundryLocal You’ll have to wait a minute or two while the necessary files download. But Microsoft will handle everything for you. 3.) Microsoft suggests running the Phi-3.5-mini model, which is a good choice: it’s small, pretty quick to download, and will probably give you a fast response. To download and run it, type: foundry model run phi-3.5-mini That’s all you need to do. You’ll then see the Terminal app basically tell you to enter a prompt such as “Is the sky blue on Mars?” or something else. 4.) You don’t have to stick with just the Phi-3.5-mini model, either. You can type foundry model list and get a list of available models. Just swap “phi-3.5-mini” with one of the available models and you’re good to go. (Use the model name from the left-hand column, but don’t sweat it — it seemed to know what I wanted.) A partial list of the available AI models for installing locally. Again, what’s nice about Foundry Local AI is that it’s local to your PC — although the Phi-mini model insisted that it was communicating with Microsoft to process the information. (To double-check, I put my PC into airplane mode.) It’s also quick and efficient, in part because Foundry AI Local downloads the best model for your PC. If you have an available NPU or GPU, it picks the right version. Foundry AI Local is designed for developers, so you can branch out and convert other models to something that you can run on your PC or even hypothetically tap into “agents” to perform tasks. The example videos I viewed suggested using things like extracting text using a Text Extractor widget, which is being built into the Windows Snipping Tool. You may has well use that instead. I’ve argued before that hardware makers and chipmakers need to invest in local AI app development. Intel’s AI Playground does just that and it’s simple and easy to use. But Intel has restricted it to a subset of its own processor lineup, and at the end of the day, it’s optimized just for Intel processors. Intel’s AI Playground is geared to making art as well as LLM chatbots.Mark Hachman / Foundry Microsoft Foundry AI Local is open to everyone, but it’s also just an LLM chatbot for now. That’s handy, and Microsoft has really just begun work on it. Could we see art added to it? The ability to upload and train the model on your own documents? Who knows. I’m not here to tell you that Foundry AI Local is better than ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot running in the cloud. It’s not. Foundry AI Local is a local text-based application that can’t do anything more than a bunch of available cloud-based services already can. But it is so very quick and easy to run, and Microsoft is quietly building it into Windows. That might bear fruit in the future. Read...

Late last week, Mozilla noted in an announcement blog post that the address bar in Firefox has been upgraded with new improvements over past versions. It’s a lot smarter now and designed to give you more control over how you search and browse. Firstly, you can now switch search engines directly in the address bar, thanks to a new button that lets you switch between Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, as well as certain marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, plus information resources like Wikipedia. Secondly, when you perform a search in the address bar, Firefox no longer wipes out your search query. Previously, the search query was replaced by the search engine’s query URL. But now, your search query remains, making it easier to repeat or tweak further searches. Thirdly, you can now use special keywords like @bookmarks, @tabs, @history, and @wikipedia to perform specific types of searches right from the address bar. For example, @bookmarks dog will search only your bookmarks for dog-related content, whereas @wikipedia charlie will search only Wikipedia for that term. Fourthly, the address bar now also lets you perform actions, turning it into a productivity aid that lets you quickly do what you need to do without navigating through numerous menus. For example, you can type clear history to clear your browsing history, or take a screenshot to snap a screengrab of the current tab. It’s the latest update in a line of updates that have seriously leveled up Firefox, including ones from last month that brought tab grouping functionality as well as native profile switching. Further reading: Real reasons to switch from Chrome to Firefox Read...