Author: News Room
Welcome to Decoder! This is Casey Newton, founder and editor of Platformer and cohost of the Hard Fork podcast. I’ve had a lot of fun guest-hosting a few episodes of Decoder while Nilay is out on parental leave this summer. If you listened to the last couple of Monday shows, you know I’ve been doing a series with founders who are focused on productivity.This is my third and, sadly, last time joining the show during the break, but I’m very excited about this episode. Today I’m talking with Steph Ango, who is the CEO of Obsidian.Obsidian is a note-taking and…
The Fan Edition Galaxy Buds 3 have ditched the blob for a stemmed design popularized by Apple and found in Samsung’s higher end Galaxy Buds 3 models launched last year. The Galaxy Buds 3 FE arrive with improved sound, enhanced active noise cancellation, and IP54 resistance to dust and rain, according to Samsung.For music, the Buds 3 FE promise 6 hours of listening with ANC on, or 8.5 hours with it off. Those numbers extend to 24 hours / 30 hours, respectively, when recharged in the case. Talk time is 4 hours with ANC on or off, which can be…
When you bought your PlayStation 5 (one of the best gaming consoles around), it came with one official Sony PS5 controller and that undoubtedly felt like enough. Then your mate came over and you wanted to play some couch-based multiplayer and you realised that you need one of our list of the best PS5 controllers. These days, you can spend $200/£200 on a PS5 controller if you want. We’re not automatically saying to do so but by investing that much, you often get more advanced controls with extra paddles or feedback, and you tend to be able to choose almost…
There’s a scorching heatwave coming and a good fan is the next best investment after an ice bath in the garden shed and an outdoor grill. If you don’t want to Wim Hof your way through the next heatwave, try one of the best fans money can buy. See, open windows won’t do much if the weather’s heavy and your walls are built for chilly winters. Luckily, these fans can add soothing circulation to even the stuffiest of spaces. From desktop fans to powerful floor fans, we’ve included all kinds of coolers in this guide. There are options fit for…
During the last half month, we’ve covered a lot of interesting gadgets and apps and thought we’d highlight a few that caught our attention the most. For example, we have a robovac that can mop the edges of your walls (something that my manual mop usually fails at), a charging cable that with any luck will last a good long time, and a new dock for the Mac Studio that adds a bunch of ports. And what’s cooler than 3D printing a lightsaber? Let’s dive in.One of these years, I will get myself a robovac — hopefully one that will…
Handheld gaming is having a moment. If you’re looking for the best way to play your games on the go, you’ve come to the right place. From big hitters like the Switch and Steam Deck, to powerful Windows machines, cloud-based creations and curios like the Playdate, we’ve reviewed the best handheld gaming console you can buy right now. To test the best handheld gaming console contenders, we use them in every situation we think you will. That meant long sessions on the sofa, dealing with our backlogs in bed, killing time during flights and even booting up a game in…
With enough force, almost every phone can fold in half – not even the best phones on sale are immune from brute strength. But only a few can do it without suffering terminal damage. From retro revivals to cutting-edge clamshells, these best flip phones are perfectly pocketable, yet don’t skimp on top-tier hardware. By hiding a larger screen on the inside, flip phones are half the size of a traditional smartphone. Their outer screens are getting smarter and smarter, too, saving you from constantly flipping the thing open to reply to messages or check incoming emails. Add in increasingly capable…
Microsoft first introduced a dark mode option in Windows 10 in 2016, but there were still plenty of areas of the operating system that looked like a mish-mash of light and dark modes. Nearly a decade later, the latest preview build of Windows 11 now includes even more darkened UI elements.Windows watcher Phantomofearth spotted updated file operation dialogs with a dark theme. If you’re copying files or deleting them, these dialogs will finally have a dark mode instead of light-themed prompt. It’s clearly a work in progress though, as the buttons on these prompts still have light buttons instead of…
If you know where to look, you can often score discounts on Apple’s ever-expanding AirPods lineup. Both the newer AirPods Max and AirPods 4 (with and without ANC) now consistently receive discounts, as do the latest AirPods Pro with USB-C. Events like Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday often bring the steepest discounts, though you can still find great deals throughout the year.Below, we’ve rounded up the best deals currently available on each model, including both iterations of the AirPods 4, the latest AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Max.$99Apple’s AirPods 4 improve on previous models with better sound,…
I carry a lot of different phones around, and I rarely get questions about them because most people stopped talking about which phone they own around 2017. I could be using an unreleased iPhone 18 Pro Max Air Ultra to pay for my coffee and nobody would raise an eyebrow (present company excepted, of course). To the majority, a phone is a phone; no matter who makes it or what software it runs, they’re all roughly the same size and shape. Unless that phone happens to be a flip phone.Flip phones attract attention from the kind of people who have…
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 94, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, did you hydrate today, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)I also have for you some durable cables, a great new Alien show, a strange RPG, and more.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know…
Some people like to stay on the cutting edge of technology. If that’s you, you already know that Google is going to officially unveil its Pixel 10 phones (including a new Fold) during its August 20th event. But if you’re someone who prefers to use these opportunities to save on last-gen tech, you’ve been rewarded with a sweet deal on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The base 256GB version in obsidian (black) is down to $1,199 at Amazon and Best Buy, which is 33 percent off its original $1,799 price. It was selling for $100 more just last week.The Pixel…