TL;DR: StackSocial is partnering with Babbel this Black Friday! Use code LEARN at checkout to get a Babbel lifetime subscription for $159 for a limited time (MSRP $198.97). If you want to learn a new language but the thought of traditional language classes feels all too overwhelming, a language-learning app like Babbel may be your perfect solution. Babbel offers 14 languages with its lifetime subscription, so you can learn fully on your terms. Babbel’s lessons are designed for real-life conversations, teaching phrases you’ll actually use. It won’t throw you into the deep end but will challenge your brain to learn. The platform’s speech-recognition technology helps you improve your pronunciation privately to perfect your skills without the anxiety of live practice. Plus, personalized lessons adapt to your progress. Another perk: you can download lessons for offline use, so when you travel, you’ll be prepared to practice before you even get there. No recurring fees—this lesson plan fits your life without worrying about subscriptions. Code LEARN expires soon! Get this Babbel lifetime deal at $159 for a limited time (MSRP $198.97). Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages)See Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

If you’ve been enjoying the lack of advertising in Google’s new “AI Mode”, which replaces conventional web searches with a ChatGPT-style conversational interface, then I have bad news. Users are starting to see the former search engine’s omnipresent ads creep into its shiny new mode as of November 20th. Oddly, it only seems to be a small fraction of users or queries that are showing these ads at the moment, and by default it’s appearing below more direct answers. That’s for the results that are marked as “Sponsored” to comply with laws in the US and other countries. This is well below the advertising load in the “All” and far more direct “Web” tabs of Google Search, which show sponsored results immediately (and typically require lots of scrolling to get past for especially lucrative searches). BleepingComputer reports that ads are appearing below both the LLM-generated answers for user queries, centering the most immediate answer to the query, and effectively highlighting the sources for the generated answer on the right. These sources are still pretty lightly featured, especially on mobile, where I have to scroll to the very bottom of the page in order to see the sites that actually provide the information Google is scraping and regurgitating. I was unable to replicate advertising in AI Mode, despite using the same queries that users on Twitter did to find the ads, so they seem to be very limited at the moment (or tied to some other flag that doesn’t apply). Google is under pressure at the moment, desperate to compete with skyrocketing use of tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, while preserving the web advertising empire that makes it one of the most valuable technology companies on the planet. Meanwhile, it’s pushing its own AI tools onto users, in almost the same way Microsoft is trying to shove Copilot into every aspect of Windows and Office. Google still needs web advertising as a backbone in order to remain functional, so expect to see more of the familiar ads popping up into AI Mode and Gemini going forward. Read...

Alteryx appoints Rajkumar Irudayaraj as SVP to lead global AI and technology partnerships, enhancing its cloud and analytics ecosystem worldwide. Read...

Reusing old electronic hardware is a great way to help the planet, as it avoids sending more e-waste to landfills. Sometimes, you can find really fun ways to do it, too—like turning an old laptop into a MU/TH/UR 6000 terminal from the Alien universe. That’s what I did this past weekend for a tabletop RPG session, repurposing an old 2018 HP Spectre x360 laptop and powering the whole thing with ChatGPT. It went brilliantly. Here’s how I did it—and if you want to give it a try, how you can do it, too. What’s the story, MUTHUR? I love tabletop roleplaying. I have several ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, I’ve run a bunch of Call of Cthulhu investigations over the years, and I’ve dabbled in a few one-off megagames that were fantastic fun. But one game I’ve always wanted to run? Alien RPG. I bought the starter set in 2019 and spent the next few years repeatedly planning for that first game that always got postponed. Finally, I pulled it out just as the Evolved Edition hit Kickstarter and was able to run the excellent “cinematic scenario” called “Chariots of the Gods.” Note: I’m keeping this as spoiler-free as I can, but if you’re going to play this at some point, maybe skip down to the next section. The setting for Chariots of the Gods involves a derelict spaceship and, like most ships in the Alien universe, this one has a MUTHUR computer system at its core that’s full of interesting information. Although I like to think I do a fantastic interpretation of the robotic MUTHUR voice system, I thought it would be a lot of fun to actually make one. My programming is rudimentary at best, though, so coding a terminal from scratch was out. But I’m pretty good at prompting ChatGPT, so over the course of a couple of months I crafted a custom GPT that had all the information it needed to act like a retro-70s-future computer terminal. How I built MUTHUR Jon Martindale / Foundry “This GPT model will act as the Weyland (Key: Not Weyland-Yutani) MUTHER 2000 terminal aboard the USCSS Cronos for an Alien RPG game,” read the custom GPT instructions. “Responses must look like a 1970s/1980s terminal display but must not use Markdown code blocks” to avoid snippets that break immersion. I told it to add periodic delays, random corrupted characters, and ASCII symbols to generate boxes and layout elements. I gave it a list of commands players could give it and I told it to disregard everything else. I loaded each of those commands with the information the players would need in clear bullet points, then asked ChatGPT to extrapolate that data into a log system, ship status, and personnel records. You can see it in action with my MUTHUR GPT here. It worked fantastically well! ChatGPT built out a whole system of 10 logs from various characters and only embellished a little. I gave it several test runs and tweaked the wording of its instructions to avoid giving the players too much information too early. I also added an admin override code in case I needed to update its instructions mid-game (e.g., if the players ended up doing something unexpected). Jon Martindale / Foundry The finishing touch was installing the GPThemes Chrome extension to remove some of the on-screen elements that make it look like a ChatGPT window and give it a green tinge instead. Icing on the cake! Bringing MUTHUR to life Using an old touchscreen laptop for all this is great, but really that’s far too advanced technology for the retro-future vibe of the Alien universe. For that, I really needed a CRT monitor… but my partner would kill me if I tried justifying something like that for a one-off RPG. So I opted for the next best option, which was to craft one myself out of cardboard, spray paint, and Weyland-Yutani stickers. I propped the laptop up inside using that handy laptop stand I reviewed recently. I also bought a retro PS/2 keyboard off eBay with yellowed plastic and hooked it up using a PS/2-to-USB adapter. The overall effect was decidedly janky, retro-looking, and just perfect for the kind of scenario we were running: an ancient spaceship with a busted old computer. But what secrets might it hold? Our corporate Weyland-Yutani player looked at home interfacing with the terminal.Jon Martindale / Foundry This culminated in a fantastic moment in-game where the corporate liaison character was poring through the records while I roleplayed with some other characters on the other side of the room. Another player sidled over to the corporate stooge to read over their shoulder, and they quickly cleared the screen to hide what they were up to. Very Alien. Very tabletop. Despite the cardboard taking up just as much room as a CRT, I’m going to have to keep it around. I have a feeling MUTHUR will make a reappearance in future games, too. Read...

Black Friday may be a time of rampant consumerism. But I treat it as an opportunity for savvy consumerism—if this period of sales is baked into the system, we may as well take advantage of it. I try to shop smart. Unfortunately for me (and everyone else), the definition of “smart” is a lot harder to figure out this year. Memory prices have risen, for starters. In the past few weeks, the cost of DDR5 RAM shot up by 100 percent or more, depending on the kit. DDR4 trailed not far behind. (Yet one more thing AI is ruining.) Module vendors won’t be increasing supply much either, which is apparently causing PC manufacturers to buy up as much as they can. Also, delays in the release of new RAM kits. Meanwhile, the full effect of the U.S. tariffs looms in the background, too. After the holiday retail rush, experts anticipate that businesses will have run out of goods stockpiled at lower prices. Which means come 2026, building a PC (or buy any tech gadget) may become financially rough. Painfully expensive RAM is the start. Next will be higher prices for graphics cards, followed by even slower release of new mid-range GPUs. I could see next year and beyond feeling worse than 2021’s dark combo of pandemic shortages and cryptomining. So I keep asking myself what tech I should buy this month.  Not just PC parts, but everything. I’m weighing what else could quickly change in availability or cost—and how fast it could change. I’m thinking over my small inventory of goods and their ages, and how much life they have left. I’m racking my brain for items I never think about but would hate to replace at exorbitant cost. Storage is also going up in price, though not as fast as memory. I’m very likely picking up a drive or two during this Black Friday.Foundry And I’m asking myself what I think would hold up, especially if tech starts to slow or even stagnate with its releases, due to high production costs. Components usually aren’t cost effective to buy and hold, for example—you lose money for the privilege of holding them in storage. But if they become more expensive and scarce, and their performance holds? That changes the calculus. So extra RAM and SSDs? With how I operate, I’ll need them down the line. But my Ryzen 5000-series build that I only use periodically for encodes? I can make that stretch. As for my laptop situation, where I squeak by with a few old ones ranging from 8 to 11 years old, I’m resigned to eventually moving to Linux until the hardware finally feels too slow. Honestly, shopping this Black Friday feels like a grocery store run—juggling what I want, what’s good for me, and what will help me use up what I’ve already got on hand. Deal hunting is less entertaining as a result, but I prefer that to the prospect of paying 50, 100, 140 percent more (or even greater) for items I’ll need in the future. In this episode of The Full Nerd  In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Brad Chacos, Alaina Yee, and Will Smith answer everyone’s questions during a Q&A blitz. Well, not everyone, since we can’t podcast for the entire day (sadly). But we did tackle the Steam Machine (again), Windows subscriptions, AI making us stupider, and a heck of a lot more. A lot of Xbox talk more. I may have also dug deep into my thoughts on the Steam Machine. (I’m still so bummed to have missed the discussion last week when Steve and Sean were around.) Also, we dunked on the idea of Windows as an agentic OS. As is proper. Willis Lai / Foundry Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time! Don’t miss out on our NEW shows too—you can catch episodes of Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition now! And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds.  This week’s pocketful of nerd news After last week’s Steam Machine announcement, the news feels comparatively quiet—but no less interesting. I definitely uttered a phrase I can’t repeat here after seeing the bit about the tape storage standard and the 100TB of compressed data it will hold. hito_hiro7265/Twitter Silverstone is now serving up a smaller dose of nostalgia: I’m still not as sold on this retro case’s looks as the rest of the PCWorld staff—though that’s definitely not Silverstone’s fault. (Some things I just wish to leave in the past.) But if I were to do a sleeper build, it’d be in this littler mATX box. Respect to an OG: Tape storage isn’t just still alive and kicking, it’s thriving. A new standard that can hold 100TB of compressed data on a 40TB cartridge? Daaaaaaamn. File under ‘Don’t need it, but want it’: Mike Crider reviewed another nifty Raspberry Pi-powered writer’s gadget. I don’t need it, since I use my phone with a Bluetooth keyboard for distraction-free writing. (Don’t know why it works for me, but it does.) But gosh, this looks so neat. The internet went spotty because of one file: I’m glad that for once, a major internet outage (this time, it was Cloudflare’s servers that barfed) is due to good old-fashioned, simple human error. I needed a break from all the security attacks this year. Are NPUs already dead in the water? PCWorld contributor Chris Hoffman neatly dissects the state of “AI PCs” and how GPUs still eclipse NPUs for local AI computing. “It’s not a matter of if the capacitors will fail, simply when”: Still own a Voodoo 2 card? You may want to perform some elective surgery on it to help preserve its longevity. Tyler Keillor / Fossil Lab ‘Dinosaur mummies’ would make a great band name: I think it’s metal as heck that living creatures can die and leave impressions in the environment so detailed, you can see the texture of their skin in clay millennia later. Don’t get scammed during Black Friday! Worried about your loved ones and scams during this holiday shopping period? I got you. You can just pass along these tips on how to stay safe during this chaotic time of year. Love that efficiency: As someone who watches her utility bills like a hawk, I dig this concept out of the UK: Build a server shed in a person’s yard, then take the heat generated and repurpose it to warm up homes. I’m all about that repurposing. Heck yeah, I want Firefox custom shortcuts: I love Firefox, and I advocate its usage to anyone who’ll bother listening to me. (Its reader mode is A+.) I also love custom keyboard shortcuts, so I’m looking forward to the marriage of these two things. Redstone Redstone Redstone: Part of AMD’s new FSR Redstone technology already launched with Call of Duty 7, but more is still to come on December 10. I expect The Full Nerd crew will chew hard on whatever info comes to light. Uh, guess I’m getting my flu shot ASAP: Chalk this up as a general PSA. In case you were thinking of delaying this year due to previous milder flu seasons (or even outright skipping), perhaps reconsider. As I am. Catch you all next week—I’ll be in the thick of covering Black Friday sales on PCWorld, in addition to whatever deals we chat about on the show. That includes a live blog on Black Friday proper (November 28) helmed by yours truly, from about 9am to 12pm Pacific (and Brad before that).  If you see nothing but “Yo, get this HDMI cable for $4,” “Hey, this very decent office chair is $130,” and “This insanely badass router dropped to $280,” well, you already know the reason behind my laser focus on boring stuff. Alaina Read...

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