XDA Developers

When Apple made the transition to Apple Silicon, apps could either be compiled and run natively for Arm, or they could be compiled and run as x86_64 applications through Rosetta. However, it's a distinct choice; pick one or the other, you can't do both. Windows on Arm does a similar thing to emulate x64 apps too, except Microsoft went a step further: a single Windows process can run native Arm code alongside emulated x64 code. That's thanks to Arm64EC.

Bootable Linux USB drives are useful for getting into a PC when Windows refuses to start. You can inspect the internal drive, copy your files, and use recovery tools without loading the broken installation. I wanted to add something else to that setup – a chatbot that could help me understand what those tools were telling me, even without an internet connection.

Emulation used to be a complicated endeavor, even for some of the consoles we consider relatively simple today. But now, things have progressed so much that we often don't focus as much on the emulation part, but more on the interfaces that make it happen.

I've spent the better part of the last few months jumping from one AI coding tool to another. The big three are undoubtedly the ones I reach for most: Anthropic's Claude Code, OpenAI's Codex, and Google's Antigravity. One of my favorite things to do has been pitting them against each other to see which one comes out on top.

Like thousands of other people, the first mesh VPN I tried was Tailscale, and it was because of word-of-mouth. For a while, it did most of what I needed, but when I wanted to take back control of each part of the chain, I attempted to trade it for a plain WireGuard setup with a VPS acting as the hub, but that had so many ease-of-use issues that I began hunting for another alternative, and I eventually found it in NetBird.

Intel's 8th-gen CPUs launched almost a decade ago, so I wouldn't blame you for thinking they're practically obsolete at this point. After all, even today's entry-level Ryzen CPUs can put the "high-end" i7-8700K to shame in gaming benchmarks. But the point of those CPUs today isn't to prove they can still compete with what's available on the market. It's about how much performance you're getting for the money and whether you actually need anything faster for your use case.

One of the downsides of buying the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is that a lot of its features aren't available for all users. For instance, the ECG and blood pressure features are restricted to certain regions. Additionally, you can't use these features when the watch is paired with a non-Samsung phone, even in supported regions. These restrictions truly take away from the overall experience of using them, but thankfully, there's a workaround.

AI-based transcription is one of the most popular use cases of LLMs, but most tools tend to rely on offering a subscription and cloud-based transcriptions. I'm talking about tools like Whisper. Now, I've used Whisper enough for turning long interviews, voice memos and recordings into text, and it works well.

Jellyfin is a great open-source self-hosted media server that lets you do a lot with your media. It has a huge community of enthusiasts and developers who keep adding great tools and features. A new project seems to come up daily, from new clients on every modern streaming platform to plugins that make customization and management easier.

There's a lot of talk about upgrading to a Wi-Fi 7 router to benefit from all the latest features it promises. Wi-Fi 7 routers have been around for a few years, but they still hold only a 7.2% share of Wi-Fi router generations (as of Q1 2026). So, it's only just picking up, even as the Wi-Fi 8 hype train is gathering steam. We already have Wi-Fi 8 routers from TP-Link and Asus on the market, and Wi-Fi 8 mesh systems are slated to launch in Q1 2027.

I’ve spent the better part of a year turning an old laptop into a home server, and I can confidently say that repurposing aging hardware is one of the most rewarding things you can do with a computer you no longer use. The possibilities are always exciting, especially when the alternative is to just let that hardware continue rotting in a drawer.

Google's recent policy change to Google Drive for desktop infuriated a lot of users. The new policy prevents Drive from uploading images to the Photos library. It was a good feature, but Google no longer wants to pursue it. So, it forces a lot of Drive for desktop users to switch to a new strategy because the direct automated integration won’t work. The limited free storage capacity wasn't working for me anyway.

Forgetting the password to your Windows laptop is an incredibly frustrating and worrying experience. The fear that you may be losing all your data is not something anyone wants to experience. Thankfully, Windows 11 allows you to recover your password or sign-in information if you've forgotten it.

I have a mix of streaming services and self-hosted media libraries, and the former is better at recommending new things to watch. I recently switched to Jellyfin from Plex, and things like watch time got lost in translation. Maybe I set things up wrong, which isn't out of the question, but now I have a blank slate for what data Jellyfin can use to suggest things, and that's a problem. It suggested a vampire movie because I watched "His Girl Friday," and that's not even the same genre.

There’s no shortage of software recommendations online. Every day, I come across new apps promising to improve productivity, simplify workflows, or replace tools I already use. Some look impressive, while others make me wonder how I managed without them. But with so many options available, choosing the right one has become surprisingly difficult. It’s easy to get caught up comparing features, reading reviews, and jumping between alternatives without making much progress. Over time, I’ve realized

I have always liked the idea of having a single workspace for everything, but somehow, my productivity setup ended up across multiple apps. I relied on Notion to organize information and manage databases, Miro to brainstorm ideas on an infinite canvas, and Trello to keep my projects moving.

Budget-priced retro handhelds are super popular right now, and they might seem like the way to go if you're trying to build a handheld retro gaming library. But what you might not realize is that under the hood, these handhelds pack specs similar to any old Android flagship. In fact, the real difference tends to be just the addition of controls and a nice-looking skin.

Custom instructions in your AI tools are really just a double-edged sword. Yes, they help you fine-tune the model in a way, or guide it in the right direction, but the part nobody writes about is when you switch to a different AI provider or simply juggle a bunch of tools at the same time. Then you're either right back where you started and need to create instructions from scratch, or get used to juggling between different stacks of skills with different AI tools.

When you shut down your PC at night and turn it back on the next day, you expect it to start from scratch. After all, that's pretty much what the term "Shut down" implies. And you'd expect "Restart" to do the same thing without making you press the power button again. But what if I told you restarting your PC is actually a more thorough reset than shutting it down? I know this sounds a bit counterintuitive, but this behavior is mainly due to a feature called Fast Startup, which has been around s

I've always liked playing retro games on my Android/Google TV devices. In fact, repurposing an old Chromecast with Google TV as a retro gaming device is still a viable option for simpler games. So, I decided to see what a box with more storage and processing power could do, and once I paired a controller with it, the streamer became a decent retro console.