I was feeling overwhelmed by the assortment of laptops, tablets, and other gadgets accumulating around the house and finally decided to do something about it.
The post Extra antivirus is still overkill appeared first on Advisorator.
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Bose is rebooting its smart speakers for the Sonos haters (FastCo)
The audio giant spent years reviving its classic Lifestyle speaker line, with hopes of making it future-proof.
Bose is rethinking its approach to smart speakers.
– https://www.fastcompany.com/91535790/bose-is-rebooting-its-smart-speakers-for-the-sonos-haters?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss
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Put your gadgets in their place (Advisorator)
I was feeling overwhelmed by the assortment of laptops, tablets, and other gadgets accumulating around the house and finally decided to do something about it.
The post Put your gadgets in their place appeared first on Advisorator.
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My secret to remembering people (FastCo)
Or, why you should have a ‘People’ note.
Let me tell you my trick for remembering the names of people I meet: I don’t.
– https://www.fastcompany.com/91532384/my-secret-to-remembering-people?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss
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Meet your favorite new way to watch YouTube (FastCo)
This free website offers the YouTube interface makeover you never knew you needed.
There are more than 20 billion things to watch on YouTube, but sometimes that endless choice can feel constraining.
It’s all too easy, for instance, to get trapped inside an algorithmic bubble that keeps stuffing you with more of the same thing. And that’s before you get sidetracked looking at comments, descriptions, and sidebar recommendations.
– https://www.fastcompany.com/91517966/youtube-channel-surfer?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss
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Advisorator: My duplicate photo cleaner (Advisorator)
After failing to find the duplicate photo cleaner of my dreams, I decided to just make one myself.
The post Advisorator: My duplicate photo cleaner appeared first on Advisorator.
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Answering your tech questions again (Advisorator)
What to do with an old Mac, whether the latest phones are worth buying, making a party photo album, and more.
The post Answering your tech questions again appeared first on Advisorator.
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Fixing AirPods problems (Advisorator)
Make your AirPods calls sound better with these tweaks.
The post Fixing AirPods problems appeared first on Advisorator.
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Should you be using built-in password managers? (Advisorator)
The case against built-in password managers is weaker than it once was, even if I’m not going to start using them myself.
The post Should you be using built-in password managers? appeared first on Advisorator.
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Apple at 50: The tech giant’s best, worst, and weirdest ideas (FastCo)
Over five decades, Apple has built some of the most influential tech ever made—and some genuinely strange flops. These are the highs, lows, and oddities.
Founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple officially incorporated on April 1, 1976. The company helped usher in the era of personal computing, pairing meticulous design with tight hardware–software integration and a simple promise: “It just works.” Its history has been anything but linear. There were early breakthroughs, a near-collapse in the 1990s, and a dramatic revival after Jobs returned, followed by a run of mass-market hits beginning with the iPod and accelerating with the iPhone. All told, Apple has over five decades launched category-defining products, shelved its share of misfires, and pushed some genuinely odd ideas. These are the clearest examples of each.
– https://www.fastcompany.com/91517872/apple-best-worst-weirdest-products?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss
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The Surge: An old-school Souls-like
After finishing up Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a while back, I experienced an inexplicable urge to play a game in the style of Dark Souls, ideally one that was already in my backlog. And that’s how I wound up sinking 30 hours into The Surge, an action RPG from 2017.
The game received so-so reviews at the time, the knock being that it didn’t do much with the Dark Souls formula beyond transporting it to an industrial sci-fi setting. I quickly lost interest during my first crack at it some years ago, but was always intrigued by the setup: Your character, in a wheelchair, takes a job with a megacorp in exchange for a cybernetic exoskeleton, all while a slick spokesman preaches from TV screens about the virtues of a company that provides everything. Then some event turns most of the other cyborgs into crazed killing machines, and you’re stuck figuring out how why.
I can see the argument for The Surge being a lesser version of Dark Souls, but I also appreciated it as a throwback to the mid-2010s, when the series was still singular and not yet an entire genre. Playing it felt a lot like playing those early Souls games, before everyone figured out how to smooth out the rough spots.
Let’s start with the difficulty: The Surge is about as indifferent to your progress as the original Demon’s Souls, where you’d spend hours hitting the same walls with nothing to show for it but lived experience. In the game’s second area alone, I must’ve died at least a few dozen times at the hands of basic enemies, until I took it upon myself to look up some combat strategies online. (The slide attack is a life-saver; I’m not sure the game ever explained it.)
Given the time sink, I was relieved to learn that The Surge is fairly compact, with only six main areas and five major bosses between them. Instead of sprawling out, the game seemed to delight in looping its levels back upon themselves. The shortcut system is so extensive that each area has but a single med bay for restoring health and cashing inexperience points. Later Souls games got away from this convention in favor of frictionless fast travel, and some sense of place was lost as a result. I loved this element of The Surge, even if the areas themselves lean too heavily on the same types of industrial corridors.
Eventually the difficulty becomes less pronounced, as you get into the game’s groove and seize upon some repeatable strategies. (In my case, that was to ply myself with enough stamina and armor to hide behind the block button while waiting to counterattack.) From an action standpoint, I was ready to be done with The Surge before it was done with me.
What kept me going, though, was the vibe. The Surge is as bleak and oppressive as any From Software creation, but with a tinge of cynicism aimed at the megacorp that designates itself as the world’s savior. The parallels to today’s tech giants are clear, especially in the preening of the aforementioned spokesman, Don Hackett, whose motion capture guy must’ve spent hours learning tech CEO mannerisms. The resemblance between his video broadcasts and a Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai keynote is at times uncanny.
The “techlash” was only just getting underway when The Surge arrived in 2017, so the commentary was prescient for its time and feels fresh even now. After promising to fix the world’s problems with technology, The Surge‘s Creo corporation winds up making things much worse. There’s some grim satisfaction in seeing its executives get their comeuppance at the hands of their creations.
Not that it’s any comfort to The Surge‘s characters. Through found audio notes, environmental cues, and the occasional direct encounter, the game has a haunting way of weaving various personal plotlines into the story. Seeing them through to their tragic ends is one of the The Surge‘s high marks.
As a tech journalist I naturally gravitated toward the story of Hackett, whose subtle stutters and stammers in the game’s later videocasts hint at a growing discomfort with playing the company shill. We eventually learn that he was once an award-winning journalist, who switched over to corporate PR to better provide for his family. This tends to work out handsomely for the PR people I know in real life; not so much for Hackett.
For me, all of this helps elevate The Surge into that rare category of “flawed video game with heart.” The combat can be a bit janky at times, the environments start blending together, and the strategy of drawing out one enemy at a time for a fair fight can become a chore.
And yet, I kept coming back, crawling through its corridors for every last plot point, eagerly seeing the game through to its final battle, and generally enjoying a kind of Souls-like that they just don’t make anymore.
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Manus AI cleaned up my computer—for a price (FastCo)
The desktop app can automate all kinds of tedious computing tasks, but the costs can quickly get out of hand.
With help from AI, I finally tackled some computer chores that I’ve been putting off for months.
– https://www.fastcompany.com/91515944/manus-ai-cleaned-up-my-computer-for-a-price?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss
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Try this instead of Google Chrome (maybe) (Advisorator)
A great Google Chrome alternative that I’m nonetheless conflicted about
The post Try this instead of Google Chrome (maybe) appeared first on Advisorator.
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The most innovative consumer electronics companies of 2026 (FastCo)
From AMD and Framework’s potent AI rigs to Eight Sleep’s aids for better slumber, these companies are applying fresh thinking to a bevy of consumer categories.
This year’s most compelling consumer electronics innovations are all about making technology more empowering, with fewer annoying compromises.
– https://www.fastcompany.com/91497095/consumer-electronics-most-innovative-companies-2026?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss
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This innovative chip series continues to drive AMD’s transformation (FastCo)
Expected to launch later this year, AMD’s MI450 chip will power increased performance and scale up to vast systems.
A decade ago, chipmaker AMD was deep in debt and an afterthought in the PC business, with some analysts fearing bankruptcy. After revitalizing its PC business with its Ryzen chips and bringing a much-needed alternative to Intel, the company is now injecting competition into the booming AI data center sector. The chipmaker hopes to compete with rival Nvidia by lowering costs and creating a more open ecosystem. To that end, AMD has been pivoting from being mainly a chip supplier to providing end-to-end AI architecture and systems.
– https://www.fastcompany.com/91502012/amd-most-innovative-companies-2026?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss