Technology

In June 2023, Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft ran a three-month ChatGPT beta on the automaker's MBUX Voice Assistant. Before that, the assistant could only recognize a fixed set of pre-programmed commands or phrases drivers had to memorize and repeat back, almost word for word, to get a scripted answer.

I've used Linux seriously for over 20 years. I love it, but as with a lot of things I like it's not necessarily for everyone. Still, more people are talking about Linux, and looking to switch to it, more than ever. Over the years of using Linux, here are the users I believe would get the most out of Linux.

Samsung discontinued its Messages app earlier this year, leaving Galaxy owners without the One UI messaging experience they'd grown used to. The Android community tends to right these wrongs, and a replacement app that recreates the app closely has been released—it even works with RCS.

Paramount+ dumped a mountain (see what I did there?) of catalog titles on its service at the beginning of the month, and U.S. subscribers responded by watching The Hangover so much that it's the No. 1 movie right now, according to Flixster. The most thrilling thing near the top 10, though, is Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, but I think we can do better than that.

Google finally unveiled its own answer to the AirTag, and on paper, you'd think the Pixel Tag will dominate, given Android's install base. That's far from a given, though. In practice, there are four major problems that will likely keep it from being the category leader it was hoping to be.

The modern hypercar has become a numbers game. More horsepower, quicker acceleration, faster lap times, higher top speeds, and of course bigger price tags. These are the measurements many manufacturers use to grab the attention of the public and potential customers. Making 1,000 horsepower doesn’t raise any eyebrows nowadays. You can go to your local Chevy dealer and pick up a Corvette that makes more than that. So, hypercar manufacturers are pressing for more, more, more.

Any machine with moving parts that touch needs some sort of lubrication to minimize the effects of friction if you don't want them grinding against each other. Apart from perhaps your car, there are probably few devices in a typical home with more moving parts than a 3D printer, so naturally you'll need to keep it lubricated if you want it to work correctly.

Grand Theft Auto VI is being plagued by more leaks than a sinking ship, beginning with the trailer three years ago, and continuing into this week with a gameplay release that sees the protagonist, Jason Duval, robbing a gas station convenience store, escaping in a car, suffering a slow-motion car crash, and then escaping into a strip club.

Some of these gameplay elements will definitely be familiar to long-time fans of the series, but the slow-motion camera interrupting the regular game speed is definitely a novelty, and probably something Rockstar Games wanted to keep secret, given that Rockstar still hasn't revealed actual gameplay.

In fact, they've been saving the biggest reveal for a Netflix launch on Thursday, Aug. 27th at 3 p.m. ET, which is itself an unprecedented move for a game release.

Behind the scenes, Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two are working hard to discover the source of the leaks, reportedly even having been granted subpoenas for GitHub, Microsoft, and Discord server records by a federal court, which they allege will help them uncover the culprits. 

Even Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet has weighed in on the issue, promising to support efforts to stop the theft, saying in a post on X that "[Xbox] are working closely with Take-Two and Rockstar Games to support efforts to protect creative works and intellectual property."

The main leaker, using the alias Cyberleeks, is so confident in his IP theft that he's now charging up to $165,000 (in cryptocurrency) to anyone wanting to advertise in his leaked footage, according to Yahoo Tech. 

While these leaks are definitely sucks for the developers at Rockstar Games, they're also probably doing even more to hype up what promises to be the biggest game launch of all time.

You might have deployed Pi-hole to stop all tracking on your network, but it actually can't do that. Pi-hole is a fantastic tool, and it can definitely block trackers from working on your network, but it's not a perfect solution—here's why.

Most people have a drawer, a box, or a pile somewhere full of physical documents they know they should digitize and never do. Scanners are either slow or too bulky when attached to a printer, even when you find the right one. And a phone app tends to upload everything to a server you didn't choose while not having the quality needed. A webcam you already own, pointed straight down at your desk, can replace all of that.

The 2026 Kia Niro Hybrid isn't the kind of SUV that grabs attention in a crowded parking lot. It doesn't have the size, power, or rugged image of many of its competitors, but it does something far more useful for everyday drivers: it keeps fuel costs remarkably low.

Like most of my friends, I got my first iPhone in high school. However, I have been using Android for the last four years. When I recently dabbled with an iPhone 17, I expected the switch to feel familiar, but I was struck by how much I missed several Android features that I rely on every day.

3D printers are hardworking machines, and it's also an area that's moving ahead so quickly that even relatively new machines can feel obsolete quickly.

I love reading, but I always find it hard to find the time these days. I read non-stop as a kid, but now I have kids of my own, life seems to get in the way. I'd seen people raving about how a tiny eReader had helped them read far more, and I was skeptical but decided to give it a try.

Plex is the ideal starting point for anyone who wants to build their own media server with minimal setup. But it isn't perfect. Some features you might want are missing, while others are locked behind a paywall. I use a few companion apps to add these features and upgrade my Plex experience in the process.

Earlier this month, we reported on the disturbing trend of AI companies using and then destroying physical copies of books to train their agentic AI, in a practice so eerily reminiscent of book burning that it's spooking even devotees of artificial intelligence.

Well, according to Axios, the FTC is now being urged to investigate the practice, not, as we might like, for crimes against humanity, but for violations of antitrust law, since every book destroyed is one less book available for competing AI agents to use. 

Axios reports that "[m]ore than a dozen civil society groups," including Demand Progress Education Fund, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, are urging the FTC to investigate these practices, particularly those involving rare books. In their letter, they "urge the FTC to view this practice not in isolation but rather as the latest escalation in a documented pattern of anticompetitive conduct designed to create an insurmountable systemic moat around AI incumbents." 

The problem is all the more acute because these companies are allegedly targeting older books — especially those published before 2022 — since those books are guaranteed not to have been written by AI and are far more likely to have been well edited.

The letter continues:

"Unlike a standard data acquisition strategy, this hoard-and-destroy practice could serve as yet another structural mechanism to raise rival companies' costs and deny start-ups and fledgling competitors a key source material essential to competing in the AI marketplace."

Recall OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's description of knowledge as a utility that could be sold to you "like electricity and water"? That business proposition looks a lot less wholesome when it involves the wholesale destruction of books, our first and still-unsurpassed repository for human knowledge, most of which can still be acquired cheaply or freely loaned from a local library.

Sadder still is the fact that our best practical defense against this modern book burning isn't an ethical one but a legal one: that it would be bad for other businesses.

Part of owning a smartphone is knowing that apps track where I go more than I'd like to admit. That doesn't mean there's nothing you can do about it. I started spoofing my location on purpose: here's what happened, why it's worth trying, and what else you can layer on top of it.

Windows comes with a built-in firewall, and right out of the gate, I have to say that it is adequate. If you've never thought about the word "firewall" and don't have any interest in managing your Windows computer's network activity or security, then the default firewall is great.

Like many Linux users, I came to appreciate Linux through beginner-friendly distros like Linux Mint and Zorin OS. They make the transition from Windows much easier, and in Mint's case, a big part of the appeal is how little it asks of you. It's stable and familiar to Windows users. You can install it and use your PC without spending much time thinking about what's happening underneath.

You can do a lot of cool stuff with an older Rapsberry Pi. I use mine for a few things: development, home lab experiments, and some light writing and programming. But, like many Pi enthusiasts, I also use it for various retro projects. Lately, I've been using optical media for storage and retrieval for very specific reasons.