A new year means another tax season—and all the associated headaches. Not just navigating the byzantine maze of US tax code, but dodging related scams, too. One particular tax scam is especially thorny since it can happen right under your nose. In an attempt to collect a refund, a fraudster files a tax return in your name. But you won’t know it until you go to file yourself and discover a mess to untangle. The risk of this happening is higher in 2025 too after last year’s repeated data breaches. At this point, most everyone’s personal information (including social security numbers) is findable somewhere on the dark web. Fortunately, the IRS makes this kind of scam easy to block. On the agency’s website, you can request an identity protection PIN, a six-digit numeric string that you must add to your filing. It identifies your tax return as the legitimate one—if a filing lacks the PIN, it won’t count.  Previously, this program was only available to victims of identity theft, either by request or decision of the IRS. Now all taxpayers can voluntarily opt into the program. PCWorld To sign up, head to the IRS website. The quickest method for verification is through the government’s ID.me service, but you can also do so through mail or an in-person appointment. The online process takes about 15-20 minutes.  Identity protection PINs are good for only one year and can’t be reused. (A smart system, so that if a number is ever stolen or compromised after use, you’re not vulnerable to fraud again.) When voluntarily enrolling, you can choose to receive a PIN on a continual basis or just one time only. Most people will be best off automatically having the IRS send a new PIN each year—less to think about during an already hectic period. You can use your ID.me login to look up your PIN. Our favorite Password Manager Dashlane Read our review Best Prices Today: $4.99 at Dashlane (Speaking of logins, if you’re not already doing so, a password manager is a secure way to create and keep track of your credentials. You definitely want a unique, strong password for locking down this government account.) You can get more details about how the identity protection PIN program works through IRS’s FAQ page, but overall, it’s a fairly straightforward system. That’s a good thing, too, given how much of a general pain US tax returns are. Read...

The sport of Hyrox is not known to many in the general public, yet is popular enough that UK events have had to introduce ticket lotteries. What does this new craze involve? Read...

Promisia Healthcare Limited (Promisia) (NZX: PHL) advises that group general manager Karen Lake has resigned from the company Read...

You would think that Arm, which arguably has been the vanguard in the smartphone and PC industry push for improved power efficiency, would double down on that strategy in its plans for 2025. Actually, it’s sort of the opposite. PCWorld sat down at CES 2025 with Chris Bergey, senior vice president and general manager for Arm’s client line of business. Bergey is responsible for both the smartphone as well as the laptop and tablet business, where Arm’s designs are licensed by companies like Qualcomm and Apple, who tweak and eventually manufacture them as finished goods. Arm provides multiple types of licenses, but the two most common types are a core license, where a customer will buy a verified core that includes an Arm Cortex CPU, Mali GPU, or other intellectual property. Arm also sells architectural licenses to companies like Apple, which gives them the freedom to design their own cores from scratch, though they must be fully compatible with the Arm architecture. Arm’s RISC architecture is generally considered to be more power-efficient than the X86 architecture used by AMD and Intel, though it requires either that applications be natively coded for it or for an emulator like Microsoft’s Prism to step in and interpret the code for an X86 chip to understand. While the Arm chips are often more efficient — in terms of the work done per clock cycle (instructions per clock, or IPC) or per watt — they still can lag in overall performance. One exception has been Apple’s custom M4 chip, where its single-threaded performance is seen as especially competitive. In 2025, the plan is to improve Arm’s own cores, Bergey said. And the first goal is simply to run them faster. “We think that we are reaching, we’ve reached kind of IPC leadership, and now people are getting very aggressive on frequency, so we’re going to continue to really push there,” Bergey said. “We’re leading on IPC on some of the products in the market,” Bergey said. “But we’re clocking at a lower frequency than some of those products. And so what I’m just suggesting is — you know, IPC times frequency, right, gets you to [higher] performance. We want to continue to provide the highest performance Arm cores, so we’ll continue to make those investments.” Bergey said that Arm’s second priority is to accelerate AI workloads on its own designs, specifically on the CPU and GPU. On the CPU, that entails specific instruction capabilities that Arm is adding to the CPUs, progressing past Neon, its Scalable Vector Extensions (SVE), and 2021’s SVE2. These additional extensions will build off of SVE2 to accelerate some of these AI workloads, Bergey said. Arm also plans to make additional investments in its GPU business — and, like its more established competitors in the PC space, to use AI to improve graphics. “In a mobile handset, you can render at 1080p, 60Hz right? But you could also render at 540p, 30Hz, and use AI to interpolate.” That sort of approach should be very familiar to PC users who have bought graphics cards from AMD or Nvidia, and who will end up using technologies like DLSS 4’s neural rendering to ease the burden on a discrete GPU. In Arm’s case, using AI to interpolate or render an image is simply more power-efficient than directly rendering the image, Bergey said. “We’re going to be a leader in trying to bring total processing to the GPUs in a mobile environment,” Bergey said. Expect to see that as part of what Arm calls the Arm CSS for Client, its next-gen Arm compute platform. “Basically, we’re making it easier for people to put the technology together, and do so to maximize the performance,” Bergey said. “So if you need to maximize that frequency and get to a four-gigahertz design, we’re going to be able to provide you that recipe for some of the latest [manufacturing] nodes.” Arm’s litigation: It ain’t over ’til it’s over Arm normally enjoys solid relationships with its licensing partners — save for Qualcomm, and an ongoing lawsuit that has simmered since 2022. Last October, that suit boiled over after Arm cancelled Qualcomm’s architectural licensing agreement. But when the suit reached court, a district judge found in favor of Qualcomm in two of the three issues, including that Qualcomm proved that the CPUs acquired via Nuvia are covered by its architectural license, and that Qualcomm did not breach the terms of the Nuvia license it acquired. However, the jury could not come to a conclusion over whether Nuvia itself had breached the terms of its architectural license. According to Bergey, this leaves the case between the two companies “unresolved.” “It’s still an open issue that needs to be resolved between the two parties,” he said. He declined to comment further. Qualcomm, for its part, was undeterred. “We’ve made a public statement that we are happy with the outcome of the case, and [the court] upheld that we have the right to innovate and to the technology that we are bringing, the disruption that we are creating in the marketplace,” said Nitin Kumar, senior director of product management, at CES last week. Read...

Nintendo’s Switch 2 is official. We’ve seen a video reveal of the final design, teasing a more thorough announcement in April. And across the platform fence, the Steam Deck and its many imitators in the PC handheld space have never been hotter. So now it’s time for the inevitable, attention-grabbing headlines pitting them against one another. Which one is better? Which one will win? Neither. Both. It doesn’t matter. This is a dumb comparison to make, in an editorial article or a YouTube video with a goggle-eyed face and arrows in the thumbnail. Because the Nintendo Switch 2 and the Steam Deck, for all that they share in form factor, are serving different markets and different people. As huge gaming products, both of them inform and influence the other. But these two products don’t compete directly, not in the same way that, say, the Xbox and PlayStation compete. Or even in the same way that these consoles compete with the PC. So I’d like to say, with no small amount of self-aware apology, don’t listen to anyone who wants to frame this as a direct competition. Let’s break it down. The Switch saved Nintendo Nintendo released the original Switch a little over eight years ago in 2017. And if you weren’t paying attention at the time, it was a big deal. After the disappointing flop that was the Wii U, Nintendo came out swinging, leaning on its incredible success with gaming handhelds to revitalize its core console business and unify the entire company, all in one product. The Switch wasn’t perfect. It was very underpowered compared to any other major console, it had serious issues with its controllers, it didn’t last long on a charge, and Nintendo hasn’t done a good job managing its digital game store. But denying the Switch’s impact and influence would be impossible. Nintendo The merging of portable and home console form factors via the included dock was ingenious, even if it took the failure of the Wii U’s giant screen-controller-thing to get there. Throw in the Switch Lite to appeal to younger players, who were always far more engaged with portable gaming anyway, and suddenly Nintendo was printing money. Across three models, the Switch has sold 146 million consoles worldwide at the time of writing. Only the PS2 and the original Nintendo DS beat it for lifetime sales, and its nominal competitor the PS4 is way behind on that list. It surely doesn’t hurt that the Switch started at a $300 price point, which is expensive for a portable in context with the Game Boy, but very fair compared to the PlayStation or Xbox. The Switch probably helped Valve make the Steam Deck The Nintendo Switch was such a massive success that it was impossible for it not to influence the PC gaming market. But that’s a couched statement. While there were a few notable handheld devices trying to join PC games to the Switch’s form factor (or at least its shape), none made it into the mainstream. Even big companies like Dell (via its Alienware brand) and Razer experimented with a Switch-style gaming PC handhelds, but they mostly didn’t go beyond mildly interesting trade show demos. Until the Steam Deck. Valve finally revealed its portable PC, running its home-grown Linux OS, in 2021. The Steam Deck resurrected Valve’s attempts to create both console-style PC hardware and its own integrated platform for PC gaming, all with the portable form factor of the Switch. It can also easily dock to a monitor or TV, with wireless controllers or even a mouse and keyboard. It was a smash hit immediately upon its February 2022 release. Steam Deck But it’s important to spot the details here. The Steam Deck was not and is not a direct competitor to the Switch, even though they share a lot of design elements. Sure, both of them are portable game machines with similar layouts, and the Steam Deck uses an integrated store that’s basically the closest thing PC gamers have to the Xbox or PlayStation stores. But that’s about where the similarities end. The Switch is designed with kids in mind, if not exclusively for them. It’s easy to use, hard to break, and the cartridges are even coated in a nasty bitter agent to keep kids from swallowing them. (Which is a very cool touch, Nintendo, kudos.) The Steam Deck, despite starting at a fairly affordable (in PC gaming terms) $400, is very much aimed at grown-ups. It’s much bigger and heavier, and you’re invited to open it up and mod it or repair it if it strikes your fancy. Perhaps more pertinently, the Steam Deck is a full computer, using x64 hardware adapted from AMD’s integrated CPU-GPU combos designed for laptops. You can even install Windows on it if you want (but don’t do that). The Switch is a far more locked down and proprietary system built on Nvidia’s Tegra chips, an Arm system that was (at the time) almost exclusively for smartphones and integrated electronics. Try to run anything but Nintendo software on the Switch, and it will fight you every step of the way. It is, in a word, a console. iFixIt For all the inspiration that the Steam Deck and SteamOS take from the console world, Valve isn’t stopping you from doing basically whatever you want with the thing, just like a laptop or desktop. The same is mostly true for the various Windows-based imitators that have sprung up over the last three years, from Asus, Lenovo, MSI, et cetera. These are handheld gaming PCs, not handheld game consoles, a small but crucial distinction. There’s always been a lot of crossover between console gaming and PC gaming, and that’s never been more true than today, when the Xbox and PlayStation are both basically just x64 PCs with a lot of proprietary software. But since the late 90s, Nintendo has stood apart from its competitors. Even when it wasn’t beating them — and it rarely was — it holds a very particular position that it’s carved out for itself. And that gives it a unique relationship to the PC as a gaming platform. You buy a PlayStation or an Xbox or a PC to play video games. There are some exceptions — Sony in particular has some great exclusives, even though it’s sending a lot of them to the PC. But you buy a Nintendo console to play Nintendo games. That’s always been true, and always been the primary draw of its platforms. The Switch is an ideal secondary gaming gadget The Switch was no different, blasting out of the gate with Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Mario Odyssey and Smash Bros. Ultimate quickly following, all experiences you can’t (legally) replicate on non-Nintendo hardware. The immediate success of the Switch also gave Nintendo an opportunity to quickly port in some great games from the Wii U that saw less play on that less successful console, such as Mario Kart 8 and Pikmin 3. Nintendo has steadily released new and successful games for the Switch, plus lots of ports and remakes, throughout its lifetime. Nintendo has plenty of devotees that only care about Nintendo games, and can rely on them to buy new consoles and titles regularly. This core audience has kept the company afloat during the leaner years of the GameCube and Wii U. But more generalized gamers also see the appeal of Nintendo, and generally buy its stuff as a secondary system if they can afford it. So it’s pretty common, at least in affluent markets, to see a setup with a PlayStation + Nintendo console, Xbox + Nintendo, or PC + Nintendo. I’ve got a Switch docked on my desk right now, even with a massive gaming desktop underneath it. Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry With the Switch’s appeal as a portable and relatively affordable system that’s more capable than any mainstream gadget that came before it, this market for Nintendo as an ancillary gaming platform only grew. It grew so much and so quickly that Nintendo was able to attract the third-party developers that often treat it like a second-class citizen. Even though the Switch’s mobile hardware is far less powerful than any other adjacent platform, you can play everything from hardcore games like Dark Souls to multiplayer twitch-fests Overwatch and Fortnite to indie darlings like Balatro on it. The Nintendo eShop, warts and all, is far and away the company’s most successful digital store ever. There’s a lot of crossover with the PC gaming market on that list. But once again, I stress that the Switch and the Steam Deck are distinct enough products that they aren’t really selling to the same customers, or at least not exclusively to the same customers. You can’t play Zelda on the Steam Deck (not without a lot of questionably legal work and compromises). You can’t play Elden Ring or Marvel Rivals on the Switch. A small amount of gamers will want all of that, and be limited to choosing either a Nintendo console or a Steam Deck/gaming laptop/desktop/PlayStation. (I’d put an Xbox in there, if anyone was buying an Xbox in 2025.) But the far greater number of gamers will either be okay with a Switch, okay with a different platform, or okay with buying both. And that’s not likely to change anytime soon. The Nintendo Switch 2 and the Steam Deck are happy neighbors PC gaming is more prosperous than it’s ever been in 2025, even if the industry as a whole is going into it with a notable black eye. The Steam Deck is a big part of that, and will continue to be so if Valve’s latest moves are any indication. But it’s worth keeping things in perspective. While PC gaming as a segment of the market is bigger than Nintendo’s very profitable chunk, the Steam Deck has only sold a few million units by estimate, an order of magnitude fewer than the Switch even limiting it to just the last few years. The Switch was and is an amazing success for Nintendo, striking out on its own path to defy and disrupt its console competition. The Switch 2 might be a continuation of that success…or a disappointing follow-up, like the GameCube and Wii U followed the N64 and the Wii. But either way, Nintendo’s distinct place in the gaming landscape is not a threat to Valve, the Steam Deck, or PC gaming as a whole. These platforms borrow from one another and benefit from mutual successes. They’re happy neighbors, not feuding clans. Willis Lai / Foundry There are a small number of gamers, and hopefully readers of this article, who will need to choose between the Switch 2 and the Steam Deck (or PC gaming in general). But that choice will come down to what games you want to play and, far more pertinently, which one you can afford. Lists of hardware features and specification spreadsheets will play a vanishingly small role in the decision. Buy a Nintendo Switch 2, buy a Steam Deck, buy ’em both if you want to and can afford ’em. But don’t buy into the narrative that this is some kind of zero-sum prize fight between massive corporations. It’s a dumb argument to make, an even dumber one to dwell on. Read...

Unless you’re a die-hard tinkerer, PC maintenance probably feels as much of a chore as servicing your car. Fortunately, maintaining your computer is a lot easier than that — and you don’t get dirty to boot. Still, it can be a drag. Fortunately, if you want to take a lot of the complexity, monotony, and uncertainty out of PC maintenance, there are apps out there that can handle most of the hard work of giving your PC a physical, and they can alert you to things you might otherwise miss. The best part? A lot of these apps are free! Here are some of the best apps for performing a PC health checkup without paying a cent. Related: Is your PC slowing down? Here’s how to find out why Microsoft PC Manager for a quick check Microsoft If you run only one PC health check app on your computer, Microsoft PC Manager might be the one to use. It’s far from the most in-depth app out there, and it has limited potential for fixing any problems it does find, but it’s super easy to run, it has a clean interface, and it’s readily available on the Microsoft Store. Download it, run it, and you’ll find that it can help you clean up your storage for better SSD operation, manage larger files, and update your PC’s startup apps to improve system startup speed. Intel XTU or AMD Ryzen Master to check CPU temps, clock speeds, and voltages AMD How do you check the health of your PC’s processor? Well, there isn’t a way, per se… but you can sort of estimate its health by pushing it to its limits and seeing how it handles the pressure. More specifically, you can run performance tests on your CPU and if it starts running too hot, throttling speed, or struggling with inadequate voltage, then there might be an issue. Otherwise, if none of that happens, it’s probably good. You can keep an eye on this with the Intel XTU app (for Intel CPUs) or the AMD Ryzen Master app (for AMD CPUs). Both of these let you look at per-core temperatures, clocks, and voltages to see if anything is out of whack, underperforming, overheating, etc. Intel XTU even has a range of power-related warnings, which are particularly relevant if you’re using a very high-power-draw CPU, such as an Intel Core i9-14900K. Both apps also have built-in stability tests for stress-testing your CPU. Both tools are built for overclocking, so if you want to play around with that (or underclocking to better preserve CPU health for longer), that’s readily available — but make sure to do your reading first. CrystalDiskInfo to check the health of your SSDs and hard drives Jon Martindale / IDG Storage drive health is one aspect of your PC that you should very much keep an eye on. An old drive that dies unexpectedly can, at best, be expensive to recover. At worst? You lose your data forever. Fortunately, you can freely check on the status of all of your storage drives using CrystalDiskInfo, a handy app that tells you everything you need to know about how your drives are doing. Download the app and launch it to find all the information you could need on all your storage devices — not just your SSDs and HDDs but even your USB flash drives and SD cards. It can tell you how much data has been written to them, how long they’ve been running for, and how many times you’ve started them up. All of that is boiled down into a convenient percentage health status and an associated rating. Windows Memory Diagnostic to check the health of your RAM Windows 10 and 11 both have a built-in memory diagnostic tool you can use to check the health of your RAM sticks. To use it, search in the Start menu for “memory diagnostic” and launch Windows Memory Diagnostic. You’ll then be prompted to restart your PC, allowing the memory diagnostic test to run. The test looks like an ancient blue screen, but don’t worry — your system hasn’t crashed. When the test is finished, you’ll boot back into Windows and you should see a pop-up summarizing the results. (If you don’t, you can find them in the Windows Event Viewer, located under Windows Logs > System > MemoryDiagnostics-Results.) MemTest86 for more in-depth RAM tests PassMark Software MemTest86 has been the decades-long gold standard for RAM testing, so if there’s a problem with your RAM, you can rest assured that MemTest86 will suss it out and help you diagnose it. When the test is done, you’ll get a detailed report that marks your memory as either pass or fail. If it fails, it might be time to consider an upgrade. You can also put MemTest86 on a USB drive and carry it around with you, allowing you to have a handy RAM test that you can run on any device. It works on all recent generations of memory, and on both traditional BIOS PCs and more-modern UEFI-based systems. HWInfo for all the hardware stats you need Jon Martindale / IDG If you want an incredibly in-depth look at how all of your PC’s components are doing at a moment’s notice, HWInfo is the app to use. HWInfo (short for “hardware info”) pulls data from just about every sensor in your PC, so it can tell you what the various voltages are in your CPU, how every single core is performing, from clock speed to temperature. It also has motherboard temperature readouts, GPU memory speed readings, and everything in between. That said, one could argue that HWInfo is overkill for most users. If you find it overwhelming and want a simpler alternative, HWMonitor is excellent. And Core Temp is an even simpler alternative if all you want is a closer look at your CPU and its current temperature(s). MSI Afterburner to check on GPU clocks, temperatures, and voltages MSI In the same way that Intel XTU and AMD Ryzen Master are great tools for tracking CPU health, MSI Afterburner offers a lot of similar benefits for your graphics card. It’s technically an overclocking tool, but that’s why it serves up so much information about your graphics card: temperature, clock speed, fan speed, and voltages. If your GPU is running too hot, or isn’t operating at peak performance, or its voltages aren’t quite right for some reason, then this is where you’ll see it. And if you also want to overclock your graphics card for added performance, or undervolt and underclock to reduce temperatures and noise levels, MSI Afterburner is a great tool for that, too. WizTree to visualize your PC storage data Jon Martindale / IDG If you’re trying to free up space on an SSD or hard drive that’s getting far too full, it can be tricky to know what to delete to have the biggest impact, and even trickier if you have stray files hidden throughout the file system that don’t get picked up by Windows. One of the best ways around that headache is to use a disk space analyzer tool, like WizTree. This free app fully scans all of your drives, gives you a visualization of how all your data is organized, and highlights the largest apps, files, and folders for your convenience. It works for hard drives and SSDs, it’s fast and effective at analyzing drives of any size, and it can help you prioritize the deletion of games, apps, and folders that take up the most room — and freeing up space on your SSD can help it to run faster and more efficiently. AIDA64 Extreme as a premium honorable mention for auditing PC health FinalWire All of the apps on this list so far are free. This last one might just be the best of all, but it isn’t free… so consider it an honorable mention. AIDA64 Extreme is a popular memory and storage benchmarking tool that’s also great for checking up on general PC health. It includes benchmarks for a range of components as well as access to hundreds of sensors in your PC, allowing you to keep an eye on various parts. On top of that, AIDA64 Extreme can audit your software, diagnose hardware errors, stress-test components, all with a customizable sensor panel that gives you all the PC hardware information you need at a glance. This one-stop-shop tool can replace several of the above apps, but it comes at a price. For many, the price is worth it. Further reading: Free ways to make an old PC run faster Read...

More than a year has passed since Asus’ acquisition of the NUC brand from Intel, which marked the first major change the brand had seen since Intel launched it back in 2013. After more than a decade of continuity — including last year’s transition year where Intel still had a say on design — this will be the real first year in which Asus has done most of the groundwork, fronting up with its own designs and innovations. So how is the NUC different now in this new era? I spoke to Kuo Wei Chao, general manager of Asus IoT business unit, to find out. The new Asus NUC models and 2025 focus The Asus NUC lineup announced at CES 2025 in Las Vegas included the NUC 14 AI and the more premium NUC 14 Pro AI+ with 48 TOPS NPU AI power and a dedicated Copilot+ button for quick access to the AI assistant. They were on display alongside two new powerful mini-PCs for everyday use featuring the latest Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) chips: the NUC 15 and NUC 15 Pro+. A fourth model, the NUC 14 Essential is the efficiency workhorse, designed to provide maximum performance while sipping tiny amounts of power. Last but certainly not least, Asus’ ROG NUC makes a comeback with the most powerful CPU and GPU combination we’ve seen to date. Chao said Asus’ focus for its second year of NUC is threefold. Like other PCs at CES 2025, the addition of AI hardware is a big change allowing users a high degree of AI task mobility. Asus is also keen to communicate its commitment to “improving performance while keeping NUC sizes as small as possible.” The third focus reeks of Asus’ company ethos and is arguably the reason why it has been so successful with product lines like the Asus ROG gaming laptops. Chao said there has been a concerted effort to “incorporate a lot of user feedback in the NUC range.” In other words, it has added features and design elements that specifically tailor the NUC experience to what consumers want. But what does all that product talk actually mean? I picked one model, the 2025 ROG NUC to find out! The Asus NUC 14 Essential Asus The 2025 Asus ROG NUC leads the charge The Asus ROG NUC is perhaps the most impressive of the 2025 NUCs, and the best example of those Asus changes to the NUC brand in action. Here Asus has not only increased the performance power on offer by bumping the ROG NUC’s CPU and GPU up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 mobile CPU and mobile Blackwell variant of the Nvidia RTX 5080 GPU, respectively — both titans of Intel and Nvidia’s 2025 performance offerings — but it has also made cooling, upgradability, and connectivity priorities in 2025. Asus didn’t reveal what model of the Intel Core Ultra 9 (Series 2) chip it has used in the 2025 ROG NUC at CES, but based on the turbo clock speed of 5.5GHz in the specs sheet, I surmise that it can only be Intel’s flagship Arrow Lake mobile CPU, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX. No other mini gaming PC announced at CES is as stacked for performance, upgradable, overclockable, and yet so portable. The 2025 Asus ROG NUC. Asus It goes without saying that’s one heck of a chip. It puts 24 cores of raw processing power at your disposal, including 36 TOPS of AI power to capitalize on innovations in AI. Personally, I’m not sure what 5.5GHz looks like in a game, let alone the kind of performance I’d get when that’s paired with 16GB of fast DDR5-6400 memory and the 7,680 CUDA cores in the RTX 5080. But I’m really excited to find out. The RTX 5080 GPU in particular is a great choice in hardware. It means the 2025 ROG NUC’s GPU will be fully compatible with Nvidia’s new DLSS 4 AI technology so it can access a full suite of features including Nvidia’s Multi Frame Generation, which older Nvidia RTX GPUs cannot. More changes including overclocking Another cherry on top of the cake with this year’s ROG NUC is, wait for it… overclocking! Yep, the bump up from an Intel H series chip in 2024 to an Intel mobile HX Series Arrow Lake chip in 2025 gives gamers more control over their NUC’s maximum CPU speed, for the first time. Overclocking is accomplished in Asus’ Armory Crate software, where gamers can also control their fan speed settings. Among the other cascade of changes is a “more comprehensive cooling system,” Chao explained. “It comprises an integrated triple-fan design with twin vapor chambers that not only provides enhanced cooling but also makes the 2025 ROG quieter than its 2024 counterpart,” he said. It works in conjunction with a perforated chassis that provides more airflow than before, too. Asus’ NUC mini-PC lineup. The Asus ROG NUC is shown top left.  Asus A new chassis size measuring 11.1 x 7.4 x 2.2 inches does make this year’s model slightly larger (3 liters versus 2.5 liters in volume), but the larger size provides users with “more capacity to upgrade,” Chao promised. “We upgraded the CPU to support a higher TDP and reserved some buffers because we know that many gamers want to overclock and increase performance. So, gamers who want to upgrade, it will be easier to do that,” he said. In regard to that upgradability, the 16GB starter RAM can be expanded to a whopping 96GB. Swapping out RAM is also made easier by a new single-screw design that allows gamers to access the internal components in seconds. Connectivity options galore The ROG NUC also hits the right note with connectivity. In fact, the I/O lists off like a fine wine menu, including no less than 6x USB-A 3.2 ports, 2x HDMI 2.1 FRL ports, and 2x DisplayPort 2.1 ports. It also has a Thunderbolt 4 port, a USB-C 3.2 Gen2 port, a 3.5mm combo jack, and a 2.5Gb Ethernet port. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 make up the wireless connectivity. The choice of Thunderbolt 4 port instead of the newer Thunderbolt 5 is an interesting choice considering that Asus’ own 2025 XG Mobile eGPU uses the latter this year. On that point Chao said: “We listened and had many discussions with gamers. I think that Thunderbolt 5 would be very important in the long term. But I think right now, from an ecosystem perspective, it’s not so complete and in its infancy. So, we focused on what the majority want and the best choice for gamers in 2025 — that’s Thunderbolt 4.” On top of all that, Asus’ ROG branding brings the device in line with Asus’ ROG portfolio aesthetically. If you’re thinking Asus just won over a whole lot of gamers this year, you may be right. No other mini gaming PC announced at CES is as upgradable, overclockable, stacked for performance, and yet so portable. Let’s hope it lives up to expectations. Read...

There’s a lot of stuff happening right now. Here in the US, it seems kind of inescapable. And it surely doesn’t help that a lot of people might be without their short-form social video fix very soon. TikTok, for all its many, many faults, is something millions of people use in the US. That said, a TikTok ban seems increasingly likely. But there is another. There are a lot of others, actually, all initially trying to ape TikTok’s success, now poised to try and fully replace it. My personal poison (only slightly joking) is YouTube Shorts, perhaps because it happens to be built into the thing I already use. I have a lot of beef with YouTube as a platform, but that doesn’t take away from the many talented creators that are on it. YouTube Shorts is filled with a lot of the same garbage littering TikTok. Clips blatantly stolen from movies and TV shows, reactions that add nothing to the original video, AI-generated slop that the uploader didn’t even bother to check. But there’s some genuinely entertaining, interesting, and instructional stuff too. Here are 25 of my favorites to get you started. I’m so sorry, puppets. We’ve all failed you. Food I don’t know how to cook SJohnsonVoiceOvers, AKA SnackDaddy: Stefan Johnson is a professional voice actor, but lately he’s been diving into his love of food, in both the snack/junk and home-cooked varieties. He’ll do earnest and often hilarious reviews of fast food and restaurant products, try out trending recipes, and generally give you some great ideas. It doesn’t hurt that his takes and advice are easy to follow even for amateur cooks like me. Turkuaz Kitchen: Betel Tunc is a cook who loves using traditional methods, ingredients, and tools to make amazing meals. Frankly she’s way beyond me in all of these areas, but I love watching her intense focus in short, bite-sized videos that leave my mouth watering from whatever she ends up with, all set to some chill music with no narration. Check out her full YouTube channel (and cookbook!) if you want more detailed instructions. Jose.elcook: As a recovering Texan, I almost hate this guy, if only because it’s really hard to find good Mexican food in rural Pennsylvania. Jose’s passion for Mexican and other recipes from Latin America shines through in his simple and straightforward delivery, though he’s not at all limited to that niche. Inject that salsa verde straight into my veins, please. Longer recipes and equipment reviews are on his main YouTube channel. CookShowTrevor: This idiot makes pizzas that should not exist, and I say that in full confidence that he would agree with me. Trevor, or at least the caricature that he plays for YouTube, puts pretty much everything on lovingly handmade pizza just to see what happens. Frequently it burns, occasionally it explodes, every once in a while it’s a legitimately good result. I give it the highest honor I can bestow: a seven out of ten. Crafts I don’t know how to do JonPaulsBalls: Get your hand off that HR report, this is a guy named Jon-Paul Wheatley who makes soccer balls. That’s footballs, if you live somewhere civilized. Watching Jon-Paul’s design process from start to finish for balls I never would have imagined is hypnotizing, as is his soothing narration. Watch as he combines modern and old-fashioned methods and materials to create the best balls of them all, and give it a try yourself if you want with his personal website. SaraMicsPottery: Sarah Luepker mixes the usual crafting instruction videos with a bit of personal insight and vlogging. I appreciate that she includes her pottery screw-ups in her videos — it makes me feel better about spending six hours on a PC build that won’t boot. Sara’s shorts are less about full instruction than the satisfying tactile process and a lot of commentary, but there are plenty of of things to learn if you dive deep. EoinReardon: I’m even more useless at carpentry than I am at most crafts, and that’s amazing, because my first job was at a sawmill. Eoin Reardon gives me a glimpse into the life I might have had, if I hadn’t quit after six weeks and six stomachfuls of sawdust. Though he’s all about traditional techniques and results, his practical and straightforward techniques could be applied to household jobs. I assume they could, anyway. I fix computers. Tanner.Leathertein: Less about the actual craft of leatherworking and more about educating yourself on leather goods and the designer fashion industry, Tanner’s channel literally dissects handbags, wallets, and other goods to… well, show you the goods. In addition to the cathartic thrill of seeing fashionista items destroyed, he breaks down the value of the components and materials, helping you spot a good deal versus an unconscionable markup (or a plain old fake). GirlWithTheDogs: As a life-long dog owner, I can appreciate that washing and grooming one is not a task for the faint of heart. Vanessa De Prohetis is positively unflappable as she cleans dogs and cats of all stripes (and spots, and stippling… you get the picture). You might find some great tips for DIY pet grooming, but I’m more impressed by how she handles the toughest cases — no dog is too big, no cat is too crazy. Animals I don’t own HaydenKristialandandCo: My grandparents raised racehorses and my parents still raise miniature horses. So I’ve spent decades taking care of them, which is why I really don’t like them. But pro standup comedian Hayden Kristal does, and shares the best and worst of keeping a bunch of horses and donkeys on a Colorado ranch. Her hilarious insights and off-the-cuff takes almost make me want to go back to Texas. Almost. Cleolonglegs: Good grief these Borzoi dogs are goofy. DustyMDouglas: Okay, this is one of the most prolific and popular shorts makers out there. I am basic. But come on, you can’t deny that the voiceovers done in the style of America’s Funniest Home Videos (I am also old), cliché and pun-filled as they are, are often freakin’ hilarious. Other stuff I watch UFDTech: I’d be doing a real disservice if I didn’t acknowledge the work of Brett Stelmaszek and his team, who put out some fantastic and punchy short-form consumer tech videos. UFD Tech covers PCs, phones, video games… pretty much all the stuff that I’m interested in. And yeah, their pointed, no-frills style is definitely an influence around here. Check out their full channel for more long-form videos on topics that don’t fit into 50 seconds. PunkeyDoodles8: Audio from popular videos, with cartoon illustrations and a bit of animation. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. Who am I kidding, it’s a lot more than I can do. Miniminuteman773: Pro archeologist Milo Rossi has made it his life’s mission to take apart the kind of conspiracy theory bullshit you see thrown around Facebook by amateurs and Ancient Aliens by actual, paid adults. Rossi’s short-form videos are quick and dirty debunks (in both the literal and figurative senses). But if you really want to dig into the ridiculousness of the topic (or alternately, look at some real archeology), check out his full channel. MakeSomeNoiseDO: Dropout.TV is great. It’s the best five bucks I spend every month. And while the all-improv quasi-game show Make Some Noise is often hilarious, a little bit goes a long way — I often struggle to get through the half-hour episodes. I think the skits tend to work better in short form, which is fortunate, because a lot more people can enjoy them for free. ProZD: SungWon Cho got his comedy start in ye olden days of Vine, basically doing TikTok before TikTok was a thing. He’s now a full-time voice actor (you can hear his flexible pipes in everything from the latest Batman and Pokémon cartoons to games like Yakuza), his older geeky YouTube skits make great shorts. Check out his full channel for longer compilations. Jill Bearup: I fell into a deep hole of Jill Bearup’s longer-form content, breaking down movie swordfights from a theatrical perspective using her expertise in stage combat. But her shorts are great too, generally eviscerating fantasy and romance tropes. Her series of back-and-forths between a heroine and the author writer her has been adapted into a full novel, Just Stab Me Now. Jerry Wayne Live: Fellow Texan Jerry Wayne is a standup comedian who’s kind of like Larry the Cable Guy, if that character was actually a genuine person instead of a city slicker’s idiotic impression. His series of “Truck Astrology” videos demonstrates real and loving knowledge of what pickup trucks and SUVs are supposed to be, and for that, I am grateful. I’d ask Jerry to review my ’03 Ranger Edge if it hadn’t blown its transmission long ago. OceanX: I was that kid in elementary school who was obsessed with Robert Ballard and the Titanic, before the movie came out. So there’s no small amount of envy in my recommendation for this channel, which chronicles the work of a team of oceanographers on a research vessel complete with submersibles and ROVs. They also have general education videos on a variety of topics. Oh yeah, follow PCWorld please Did you know that PCWorld is on TikTok? At least at the time of writing. Including me, Michael, the guy writing this. I record short little summaries of some of the articles that I and my coworkers write, and the video team over in California posts it with neato backgrounds and links. And they do it on YouTube Shorts, too. The PCWorld YouTube channel also has longer dives into all the latest PC news and hands-on coverage of the newest parts, laptops, handhelds, and anything else that strikes our fancy. Subscribe to TheFullNerd while you’re at it — that’s our sister channel for the weekly podcast (live every Tuesday and for most major PC-related events). Read...

Trump`s pick for US attorney general was pressed on claims of election fraud and pardons for January 6 rioters. Read...

I’ve been trying hard to resist the urge to upgrade my monitors to OLED for a while now, reserving said money for silly inconsequential things like food and gasoline. But it looks like a lot of other PC gamers have made the switch already. According to a statement attributed to LG, more than a fifth of gaming monitors are now using upgraded OLED panels. The sourcing on this one is a little circuitous, to be honest. The statement comes from popular YouTube channel HDTVTest, which has a sponsored video covering LG’s new OLED monitors at CES (spotted by PCGamer). Presumably LG gave the channel the statistic: “It’s only been two years since LG introduced its first UltraGear OLED gaming monitor, but OLED is already sitting at 22 percent of the total gaming monitor market share.” That’s even more impressive if you also take LG’s estimation of the television OLED market share, 18 percent, into account. And according to the wording, that’s monitors currently in use, not monitors shipping to retailers…though it wouldn’t surprise me if the latter is the actual statistic in play. HDTVTest attributes both of these figures to a virtual briefing held before CES. It’s an interesting number to be sure, but pay close attention to those qualifiers. LG cites the 22 percent penetration figure for “gaming monitors,” while 18 percent is for the much wider television market as a whole. It follows that PC gamers, especially those who use desktops (and are thus more predisposed to buy separate monitors), would be more interested in upgrading to the latest and greatest screens than PC users as a whole. Whereas the general TV-buying public is much more inclined to go for bigger and/or cheaper screens, and OLED TVs mostly appeal to those who want to build a high-end living room setup. So yes, we’re seeing a lot more OLED monitors out there, and thankfully they’re becoming much more attainable — a few models hit below the $500 mark during Black Friday late last year. But more affordable, conventional monitors aren’t going anywhere, even if gaming monitors seem poised to switch to OLED panels very quickly. Now come on, Samsung, give me that 57-inch, double 4K ultrawide OLED already. I don’t need to eat that much food. Further reading: The best monitors we’ve tested Read...