Bunnings Warehouse is to introduce facial recognition technology, citing problems caused by repeat offenders threatening staff and customers. Read...

The technology was intended to provide proactive warnings when serious repeat offenders entered a store. Read...

I love my home state of California. But sometimes its best intentions go awry. It’s not surprising that California’s legislature passed the Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043) last October—age verification is currently a popular focus within governments. (And the reason for Discord’s current struggles.) But its approach had multiple PCWorld staffers raising their eyebrows in response—and half of us are residents of the Golden State, so we’ve seen well-meaning legislation with unintended consequences before. Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the surprising topics on our YouTube show or latest news from across the web? You’re in the right place.  Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website!  AB 1043 works like this: By July 2027, operating systems and app stores must have a system in place to capture age information (either the number or birthdate, or both). Developers must then request said age information for its users by July 2027 to enact appropriate safeguards, based on the age bracket. The law defines those groups as those under 13, 13 to 15, 15 to 17, and 18+. Ostensibly, the goal is to keep apps from manipulating kids and teens into sharing information that could harm their safety. The bill names “privacy and data protections” as a driving factor behind the legislation. The problem is, AB 1043 relies on self-reporting for age—while also expecting developers to ignore said data if they have internal information that clearly and convincingly contradicts that number. Linux could become a casualty of California’s Digital Age Assurance Act.Pexels Outside of the potential privacy issues that could result (stored age data being stolen from OS or app stores; developers essentially having to monitor and surveil users to predict age based off of usage patterns), I wonder how many developers will tolerate this level of complexity. Sure, California is a decently sized market, but if money’s not involved, then what? For example, will Linux officially become unavailable to Californians? (RIP Dual Boot Diaries?) I won’t yet call AB 1043 the digital version of Proposition 65, which us Californians get roasted for all the time. The interpretation of the law has resulted in warnings on almost all goods, with sometimes comical effect. (That said, it is handy to know the carcinogens present in things like kitchenware.) I also won’t yet force a comparison with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is responsible for all those cookie consent notices we see everywhere, even while living outside the EU. But the potential for AB 1043 to echo the effects of these laws hovers overhead. Onerous implementation, a drag on our use of devices, with comparatively lower benefit than intended. Modern parenting is hard, and so too is keeping kids safe. I want smart regulation to help, but this seems more a signal for us digital-literate folk to better educate our representatives about tech. Heck, California’s own governor cautioned a deeper examination of this bill’s impact, when signing it into law. In this episode of The Full Nerd In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Brad Chacos, Alaina Yee, and Will Smith judge other people’s taste in fake frames (just kidding, Brad and Will love them), as well as reminisce about the GeForce 3 on its 25th anniversary. I expected a verbal brawl, but instead thoroughly enjoyed our nuanced chat about testing methodology, biases, and hardware. And no, Will. You will never catch me denigrating cats. Sir. (Not seriously, anyway. Little punks.) Alex Esteves / 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 on our channel, too. PLUS: Adam’s new joint show with Retro Gaming Corps is live! Catch Episode 1 of Expedition: Handheld 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 erratic nerd news Noisy sneaker treads, a boost to VRAM in a mobile GPU, DNA as storage—I didn’t expect so many quirky stories this week, but I was definitely here for them. I could do without AI deanonymizing folks on the internet, though. Not that it wasn’t possible before, but… Desktop PCs may become humbler for the short- to medium-term.Erik Gazi / Unsplash ‘The dire state of desktop PCs’: My colleague Mark Hachman took a closer look at the state of desktop PCs in 2026, and man. Things feel grim. An attention fix? I don’t like to think technology has wrecked my ability to focus, but sometimes I wonder. This BBC article proposes that adding a bit of difficulty into activities can help increase attentiveness—and life satisfaction. I checked my calendar: I thought we had settled this already — apparently, governments aren’t done suing companies over loot boxes. (This time, it’s the state of New York going after Valve.) I think that’s a win? If manufacturer listings are any indication, the mobile version of the RTX 5070 may be gaining VRAM—a boost to 12GB. What a bewildering world we live in. Windows 11 rising: An analytics service says that Windows 11 now holds close to 75 percent market share—a dramatic jump from the near-even split we saw last year. I’m currently wondering if this jump was aided by users who left the Windows ecosystem altogether. Didn’t we all try less successful variations of this as kids?Harvard University (via Ars Technica) Science is a serious business: It’s one thing to figure out why sneaker soles squeak. It’s quite the other to use the knowledge to play music from Star Wars. What’s old is new again: MSI is releasing two DDR4 motherboards in Japan, to help ease DIY builders’ pain. The prices currently convert to about $80 USD for the higher-end board. Call me hopeful but wary: A DNA storage drive sounds straight out of science fiction, but with so little detail, I’m more eager to see the concept in a sci-fi novel for the moment. You can’t hide from AI: Large language models are good at pattern recognition, so security researchers let them loose on anonymous posts (like on Reddit). Turns out they can suss out your real identity if you’re not careful. I’m gonna say it—I hate Daylight Saving Time. (If you don’t have to experience the one-hour “spring forward” in your part of the world, I am very envious.) I’m gonna be so wrecked. Catch you all next week. Zzz. Alaina This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld. Read...

Storage is hard to find. Graphics cards are hard to find. RAM is extremely hard to find, even if you’re a PC manufacturing giant. And it’s all thanks to the “AI” data center buildout. But Nvidia, or at least its highly visible CEO Jensen Huang, couldn’t be happier about it. “I love constraints,” said Huang at a recent conference. “In a world of constraints, you have no choice but to choose the best.” Huang’s “no choice” means an inevitable buy from Nvidia, for GPUs that are crucial for said data centers. For context, Huang was asked about constraints on memory and electricity in the “token economy” at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, referring to “AI” output capability and not the more classical definition of the term. Huang went on to say: If the data centers, if the land, power, and shell is constrained, you’re not gonna randomly put something in there, just to try it out. You’re gonna put something that you know for certain is gonna deliver the tokens per watt that you know for certain is going to allow you from the moment you secure the capacity, we’re gonna be able to stand up an entire factory for you. We’re the only company in the world that can come into your company and help you stand up an entire AI factory.  Huang continued, waxing on Nvidia’s ability to help data center builders optimize their rollout plans and resources. It’s the last part of this transcribed answer (emphasis added) that has raised eyebrows: You know, everything from copper to multilayer ceramic capacitors, everything’s secured. That’s one of the reasons why Nvidia’s balance sheet being strong is so strategic. A strong balance sheet today is not only helpful, it’s strategic. You look at the amount of revenues we’re shipping into, just look backwards and look at the amount of supply chain capacity we had to go secure or that they have to believe. You know, if you set up a factory, a plant, a DRAM plant, and I come in and say, “You know what? Go ahead and set up the DRAM plant because I’m gonna use it,” that goes a long way. You might as well take that to the bank, as many of them have. I think the fact that everything is scarce is fantastic for us. To be fair, the CEO is talking about much more specific topics than the RAM crunch that’s affecting the entire electronics industry, from the biggest PC manufacturers to cash-strapped home builders. But it’s hard to be even-handed when Nvidia is riding the “AI” bubble to become the largest and most powerful company on the planet. PC Gamer notes in its report that Nvidia has a current evaluation of about $4.5 trillion dollars. Nvidia reported revenue of $130.5 billion in 2025, up over 100 percent on an already-strong 2024, with the lion’s share of that coming from data center customers. Nvidia If it seems like we’re not talking a lot about Nvidia’s graphics cards, the products the company is best known for by regular users around the world… well, yeah. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Nvidia had very little to say to consumers at all, shoving what little news it had that wasn’t about industrial applications into a secondary announcement—which didn’t include any new cards for the first time in years, instead focusing on DLSS improvements. Nvidia is reportedly cutting down production on its RTX 5000 series, and may have cancelled a mid-cycle refresh of “Super” cards, all to more effectively focus on the enterprise market where it’s making bank. Even workstations, previously a tiny but profitable slice of the market, are getting more love than gaming PCs. The really frustrating thing is that even if Nvidia seems to be ignoring gamers, gamers are still buying Nvidia cards. The company has a near-total stranglehold on the consumer graphics market, with a 94 percent share of desktops and laptops with discrete graphics cards going with Nvidia hardware. In the last year alone, the same report saw Nvidia’s main rival AMD slip from 15 percent down to 5 percent, with Intel holding onto a tiny sliver of just 1 percent. As the future of consumer hardware seems to be in massive flux, if not actually in an existential crisis, Nvidia and Huang are going from strength to strength. If there was anyone in real life who’s swimming in gold coins in Scrooge McDuck style right now, it’d be Jensen Huang. And if you’d like an “AI” to generate that image for you, then odds are pretty good it’ll be doing so with an Nvidia GPU. Read...

TechHive Editors Choice At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Lots of modes, including surface skimming  Super easy cleanup  Cheaper (but far from cheap)  Cons Not nearly as good at cleaning the floor as other Beatbot robots  Surface skimming efficacy is dependent on type of debris  Slow-moving, takes a long time to clean  Our Verdict Most users won’t miss the features that have been stripped out of the Sora 70 to hit its lower price point, but this isn’t the perfect option for pool owners looking for perfect performance.  Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Beatbot Sora 70 Retailer Price Check Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices The very best robotic pool cleaners aren’t cheap, with top models like the Beatbot AquaSense 2 Ultra going for close to $3,000. Recognizing that consumers want high-grade cleaning power at a more approachable price, Beatbot has taken a shot at a lower-cost offering with top-shelf features, and at $1,499, the new Beatbot Sora 70 packs a collection of the company’s greatest pool-robot hits into a less costly package. But what had to be stripped out to reach this price level? Beatbot Sora 70: Specifications Beatbot sticks to the tried-and-true design aesthetics of many of its other pool cleaners, with a few added features such as side guide wheels and ultrasonic sensors. Christopher Null The Sora 70 keeps the basic design aesthetic of Beatbot’s other robots, with a tall filtration unit perched atop two rolling treads and a pair of centrally mounted cylindrical bristles. If the device weren’t painted a soothing shade of purple instead of black, it wouldn’t really look any different than Beatbot’s prior releases. (A more traditional midnight blue option is also available.) The Sora 70 weighs 23 pounds and features a 10,000 mAh battery that Beatbot specs with a maximum of five hours of underwater running time. Like other Beatbot robots, it can clean the floor, walls, and waterline of the pool — and skim the surface, too. Most of this is configurable via Beatbot’s mobile app, which offers five cleaning modes built around various combinations of the four zones in which it can operate (though that’s far fewer modes than you get with other Beatbot gear). The Sora 70 can clean in as little as 8 inches of water.Christopher Null New to the device are four side guide wheels which are mounted to the sides of the treads and which help keep the robot from scraping against your pool walls. Two ultrasonic sensors also help with navigation and obstacle avoidance, particularly on steps and stairs (the unit can operate in shallow water with as little as 8 inches of depth), though the robot lacks the camera-based debris recognition capabilities of the more advanced robots in the Beatbot arsenal. When finished cleaning, the Sora 70 automatically climbs the wall and floats, which makes retrieval so much simpler (and which is probably the best argument for picking a Beatbot robot over another brand today). Beatbot Sora 70: Installation and setup This robot works with Beatbot’s simple app, though it features fewer operating modes than other models. Christopher Null The Sora 70 requires no setup aside from peeling off its protective film and some taped-on Styrofoam pads. It merely needs to be charged via the included A/C adapter and connected to the Beatbot app via a simple onboarding process; in my case, the robot was automatically discovered via Bluetooth when I brought my phone nearby. While the device lacks the wireless charging capabilities of Beatbot’s more advanced robots, the Sora 70 features a new charger design that makes for easy connection without the need to unscrew grommets or deal with large rubber stoppers designed to keep water out. With the Sora 70, the charging block slides into a port that’s covered by a hinged door. When the charging block is removed, the door swings shut, keeping water out without the user having to do any heavy lifting. With nothing to disassemble and no basket lid to open, getting the unit ready for its next run is extremely simple — making for perhaps the easiest clean-up I’ve encountered to date. Using the Beatbot Sora 70 As usual, I tested the Sora 70 with both organic and synthetic debris, both on the floor of the pool and on the surface. The unit can be configured from the app or via a switch on the front of the robot. Slide the switch left to enter Pro mode (cleans floor, walls, waterline, and surface) or right to enter Preset mode (one of the additional modes which you select in the app). Once you have the unit set to your desired mode, you can just drop it in the pool any time without having to do anything else. When cleaning the floor of the pool, it was immediately evident to me that the Sora 70 didn’t do quite as good a job as its more expensive brethren, though it was difficult to say why. In the “clean everything” Pro mode, I felt like the robot just didn’t spend enough time on the bottom of the pool, and it consistently left behind about 8 to 10 percent of my test debris, typically missing leaves in the corners. The unit did much better when I set it to only clean the floor and walls, and in this mode it captured 99 percent of test debris on the floor — though it took a full six hours to get it all. The Sora 70 is ultimately fairly methodical and thorough, but it’s quite slow, and it needs a lot of time to complete its work. A revamped skimming mode uses water jets to direct debris to the sides of the pool for later cleanup. Christopher Null On the surface of the pool, the robot’s skimming technology has been fully revamped. Rather than attempting to suck all debris into its mouth while it cruises along, a new design uses two water jets on its front corners to push leaves to the edges of the pool, only capturing smaller debris as it skims back and forth. After multiple passes, it then does a victory lap around the edge of the pool to suck up everything it pushed out of the way. In practice, this worked well with debris that was prone to floating. The small, thick leaves of a Texas live oak were readily snapped up by the Sora 70, but the vast majority of my silk synthetic leaves and more delicate debris like flower petals, both of which sink much more readily, were scuttled by the water jets and sank to the bottom of the pool before they could be collected. Ultimately, your success with this feature will entirely depend on the type of debris your pool collects. The unit has a lengthy running time, but oddly, the first time I ran the robot in Max mode, which is supposed to run until the battery nearly dies, the robot operated for only three hours before quitting, with the app indicating 54 percent of its battery life still remained. After a firmware update, the robot started running for much longer — over 6 1/2 hours in total — before calling it quits — though in Pro mode more than half of that was on the surface. Note that the robot will need to be on land or the surface of the pool to interact with via the app; after you drop the robot into the water, its operating mode can’t be changed on the fly due to range issues. Fortunately, since the robot does rise to the surface when its work is complete, it is able to send a notification to the app to let you know to retrieve and clean it. A simple remote control system is also available when the unit is on the surface of the pool. The Sora 70 makes cleaning a breeze thanks to its pop-out single-basket design.Christopher Null Lastly, after each run, cleaning is easy thanks to an open, single-basket design which pops out quickly from a top-mounted hatch. With nothing to disassemble and no basket lid to open, getting the unit ready for its next run is extremely simple — making for perhaps the easiest clean-up I’ve encountered to date. Should you buy the Beatbot Sora 70? At $1,499, the Sora 70 is far cheaper than other Beatbot robots, but it’s still in the premium price band, slightly outpacing the $1,398 Polaris Freedom Plus, one of our top high-end picks. The Sora 70 has at least two features that the Freedom Plus lacks, however — surface skimming and automatic waterline retrieval — which makes choosing between them a very difficult choice. My ultimate advice is that, if you have the budget, Beatbot’s AquaSense robots are definitely better performers and are worth the extra outlay, but if you can’t justify the extra expense, the Sora 70 makes for a good second choice. If you don’t need surface skimming, you can safely stick with the Polaris Freedom Plus. Read...

Running low on space? It happens a lot, especially among gamers who play a lot of triple-A games. You could delete some stuff to free it up… or upgrade your PC storage… but the problem is, what if your laptop or desktop doesn’t really allow for it? Or make it easy? What if you don’t want to risk voiding your warranty to add a bigger drive? That’s where external storage really makes a difference. It’s quick, easy to install, upgradeable in the future, and—at least compared to pre-built laptop storage—often more affordable, too. The modern game size problem Alongside ray tracing and upscaling techniques, one of the most consistent trends in PC gaming has been the ever-increasing size of games. Whereas it was once rare for games to edge close to 100 GB, now it’s a surprise when new triple-A games are less than 150 GB. Some games are even blowing through 200 GB with DLCs and updates! Enormous games can make storage decidedly difficult, especially when new laptops and desktops ship with a mere 512GB SSD as their entire storage capacity. (It’s time to make 1TB the default!) And it’s not like you can always install a new SSD, what with inaccessible designs and scary warranty-voiding stickers and pre-builts with bespoke layouts. So, what’s the solution? External storage! If you can’t increase it inside, then go outside. Thanks to the growth of USB4 and Thunderbolt technologies, external storage has caught up to what’s possible with internal SSDs. If you just need a quick boost in storage capacity, plug an SSD into a USB port and get all the performance you need to run games directly. You don’t even need to pay the slightly-over-odds pricing for typical external storage drives. Just grab an external enclosure and plug in a typical internal drive and you’re ready to go. What I’m saying is: your next storage upgrade should be an external SSD, and you should start putting your games on it. Avoiding the voiding One of the greatest strengths of external storage is that there’s no risk. You get the drive, you plug it in (like you would a standard USB flash drive or gaming mouse), and you get all that added storage space with zero danger of voiding warranties or breaking hardware. Even if upgrading your PC or laptop won’t invalidate your warranty or weaken your consumer protections, there’s always some risk when modifying your device. Experienced DIY PC builders can occasionally damage a component when installing it, and even something as small as dropping a screw behind the motherboard can be a monumental pain when all you wanted was extra storage to install a game. External storage just makes the whole process easier. You buy the drive, you plug it in, and you install games on it. You don’t even need to turn your laptop or desktop off to do it! External SSD performance is plenty The reason why external storage has only become a viable option for direct gaming in recent years is because performance has only just caught up. Older drives weren’t fast enough, nor were the hardware interfaces. But with USB4 and Thunderbolt 4/5 now increasingly common on laptops and desktops, we now have real options for external SSDs that have the potential to play games directly. Today, mainstream external SSDs can support data transfer rates up to 20 Gbps, with some even capable of up to 40 Gbps. With these SSDs built using PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 technology, we can now get upwards of 4,000 MB/s speeds, which is plenty for loading the latest triple-A games almost as quickly as top desktop drives can. (For options, check out our picks for the best external SSDs for gaming!) We recommend: Lexar SL600 By raw numbers, these kinds of drives are well behind the 64 Gbps theoretical max of PCIe 4.0 internal SSDs, and even more so behind the top PCIe 5.0 SSDs that theoretically cap out at 112 Gbps. But when it comes to gaming, you won’t find much practical benefit with those faster drives. When loading apps or game files, you just don’t move enough data to fully take advantage of that greater performance. The only downside to using an external SSD for gaming is the availability of the fastest ports. Although USB-C ports are everywhere now, not all USB-C ports are the same. Some are based on older USB standards like USB 3.2 2×2, particularly in older and budget-focused laptops. That’s plenty fast, but not quite as fast as USB4 or Thunderbolt 5. Is it the end of the world? No. You can absolutely play games from an external SSD at these slower speeds, but your game load times will be slower for it (enough to be noticeable, even if it isn’t entirely unplayable). In my book, the benefits of an external SSD for gaming outweigh the potential drawbacks. It’s worth having the extra space, and the convenience factor makes up for it. (Even lots of techies don’t want to go through the hassle of installing internal SSDs.) Just be sure to check the speed of the available USB ports before buying an external SSD—don’t overpay for performance you can’t use. You can also convert internal SSDs There are so many great external SSDs to choose from, but if you have a spare internal SSD lying around, or if you don’t want to pay the occasionally inflated price tags of external SSDs, you can always opt to put an internal SSD into an external SSD enclosure. It does cost a little bit more since you need to buy the enclosure—I’m assuming you don’t have spares of that—but there are lots of great SSD enclosures that are under $50. We recommend: Ugreen CM850 USB4 NVMe enclosure Best Prices Today: $59.99 at Amazon Prime | $89.99 at Amazon An external enclosure also makes it easier to upgrade down the line. When the drive inside eventually runs out of space, you can simply swap it out for another—and then you can even swap the original SSD back in later. Keep your games installed on different drives, then put a given drive back into the enclosure as needed. Easy, convenient, plentiful PC storage When it comes to storage, the most important aspect is having enough of it. Yes, the faster PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 internal SSDs are nice to have when testing with benchmarks, but the real-world differences between those and other, more affordable options is negligible. Bottom line: if your laptop or PC runs out of space, it doesn’t matter how fast your drive is. No space is no space! And when you find yourself in that conundrum, external SSDs are the most convenient way to increase storage capacity. You can plug them in to a range of devices, swap them over, use them for file transfers between devices, and upgrade them later if you want to. For laptops with limited M.2 slots, for those who don’t want to risk wrecking their warranty, for anyone who just needs more storage space without the hassle of installing, modern external SSDs are a great choice. Further reading: Why did PC games abandon DirectStorage? Read...

CRT monitors have surged back to relevance on a wave of nostalgia, driven by the exploding popularity of retro gaming. Unfortunately, most of the reviews, specification sheets, and comparison data that once existed has vanished from the Internet, making it difficult to know what you should look for while scanning eBay and Craigslist ads. If you’re looking for a modern display filled with pixels and fancy cutting-edge features, our guides to the best PC monitors, best ultrawide monitors, best 4K monitors, and best gaming monitors can help you find the perfect fit with both concrete recommendations and buying advice. But shopping for old-school displays isn’t quite so cut and dry. This particular guide will get you up to date on aging, but still hotly desired CRT monitors, so you can use the information to hunt down a retro gem of your own. Editor’s note: This article originally published in June 2023, but we wanted to give it another moment in the sun given the current excitement around retro PC builds. Why you (yes, you!) should buy a CRT computer monitor CRT monitors fell from fashion with the same breathtaking speed as portable CD players and vinyl records. Three out of four monitors sold in 2001 were a CRT. But in 2006, Sony drew curtains on the era when it ceased production of new CRT TVs and monitors. Still, CRTs have their perks. Most have a better contrast ratio and higher refresh rates than modern LCD monitors, so content looks richer and deeper. There’s a sub-culture of first-person shooter fans who swear FPS games always look best on a high-end CRT monitor. Matt Smith/IDG A CRT is also a window into an entire era of media. Films, movies, and games produced from the dawn of television to around 2004 were created with a CRT in mind. You can enjoy older media on a modern LCD or OLED, but it will never look as originally intended. A CRT computer monitor is the most versatile, practical choice for tapping into nostalgia. One quick note: This guide is for CRT computer monitors, not professional video monitors. PVMs are high-end CRT televisions. They’re amazing for retro console gaming but aren’t designed for use with a computer. What CRT monitor brand is best? Sony’s Trinitron dominates the conversation just as it does in the world of retro CRT televisions and PVMs. Trinitron computer monitors are excellent, easy to find, and come from Sony, a brand people still recognize today. Other outstanding brands include Mitsubishi, Hitachi, LaCie, NEC, Iiyama, and Eizo. kifo / Flickr Dell, Gateway, HP, and Compaq monitors are less loved, but this can be an opportunity. Large PC manufacturers didn’t make monitors in-house but rebranded monitors from others, and some use the same CRT tubes found in Trinitrons and other brands. Deciphering what’s in a rebrand can be difficult, though, so you may need to take a leap of faith. I don’t recommend fretting brands and models if this is your first CRT. Trying to find a specific monitor is frustrating and, depending on your dream monitor, can take years (or cost thousands of dollars). Still, keep brand in mind when negotiating price. A Gateway monitor with mystery specifications might look great, but it’s not worth top dollar.  CRT monitors are old, but newer is better CRTs were improved and refined over the years. The oldest CRT monitors commonly sold are pushing forty years of age. They have a low maximum resolution, a low refresh rate, and small physical display size. Newer CRT monitors, such as those produced in the mid-90s and the 2000s, will look sharper, handle reflections better, and have less noticeable lines or gaps in the image they display. You’re also find better on-screen menus with extensive image quality options. Luckily, CRT monitors often have a label indicating the year or even month of production. This is printed on the rear of the display or might be found on a sticker in this same location. Newer is better, and a CRT built this millennia are best. What size of CRT monitor is best? Most CRT computer monitors have a display size between 13 and 21 inches. If you follow my advice and stick with newer monitors, though, you’ll be comparing monitors between 15 and 21 inches. I don’t recommend going below 17 inches unless you’re trying to replicate the experience of a late-80s or early-90s computer or have very limited space. Smaller CRT monitors feel tiny by modern standards. They also tend to support lower resolutions that are only ideal for enjoying older content. Blake Patterson / Flickr There’s such a thing as too large, too, so be cautious about massive CRTs. A 21-inch CRT monitor can weigh 50 or 60 pounds. You’re unlikely to run into a CRT computer monitor larger than 21 inches, and if you do, it can weigh nearly 100 pounds. The Sony GDM-FW900, a truly epic 24-inch 16:9 CRT, is the most well-known of these rare beasts. 19 inches is the sweet spot. This size of CRT monitor remains manageable. It’s about as tall as a 24-inch LCD (though narrower, of course) and isn’t too hard to find. With that said, 17-inch monitors are more common and less expensive, so don’t hesitate to leap on a 17-incher if you find one. What resolution of CRT monitor is best? Resolution works differently on a CRT computer monitor than on a modern LCD. CRT monitors are an analog technology and don’t have a native resolution. CRT monitors were sometimes marketed with a “recommended” resolution that served as a guideline, but CRTs computer monitors support a range of input resolutions and refresh rates. Take the Hitachi SuperScan 751 as an example. This 19-inch CRT computer monitor lists a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 at 85Hz but supports 1024 x 768 at 130Hz and 640 x 480 at 160Hz. In general, the best resolution is the highest you can find. A monitor with a high maximum resolution will also support lower resolutions, and often a higher refresh rate.  A resolution of 2048 x 1536 is the highest you’re likely to see. 1600 x 1200 is more common. The importance of resolution depends on your use. I use my CRT monitor to run Windows 95/98 in a virtual machine, play late-90s PC games, and emulate console games. All of these were designed with lower resolutions in mind, so the content I’m viewing is usually at a resolution of 1024 x 768 or lower.  If you want to use a CRT monitor to play Doom: Eternal at insane refresh rates with near-perfect response times, however, you’ll prefer the highest resolution you can find. Resolution is not the final word on CRT monitor sharpness but in general a higher resolution will appear sharper. What is dot pitch, and why does it matter? Resolution doesn’t determine the sharpness on a CRT monitor. But if that’s true, what does? The answer is a specification now hardly more than a memory: dot pitch. Dot pitch is the distance between dots in a shadow mask or the distance between wires in an aperture grill. More on that in a moment. Remember that a CRT shoots electrons at the front of the display. The shadow mask or aperture grill filters the electrons so they hit phosphors at the front of the display and create a usable color image. The gaps in the shadow mask or aperture grill influences how sharp the image appears. Ben Schumin / Flickr Dot pitch is measured in millimeters. I recommend monitors with a horizontal dot pitch around .28 millimeters or lower. A dot pitch between .24 millimeters and .21 millimeters is excellent. Lower is better, but you likely won’t find a monitor with a dot pitch below .21 millimeters in your search. Make dot pitch a priority if you care about sharpness at resolutions beyond 1600 x 1200. A monitor with a lackluster dot pitch might support a high resolution but appear blurrier at a high resolution than a low resolution. This occurs when a CRT monitor’s dot pitch isn’t up to the task. Dot pitch is less important if you only care to use a CRT at lower resolutions. Late-model CRT monitors will be enjoyable at 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 no matter the dot pitch listed on their spec sheet.  Shadow mask vs. aperture grill: Which is better? A shadow mask or aperture grill is a filter a CRT computer monitor uses to make sure electrons end up where they should be. A shadow mask does the job with a metal mask of evenly spaced holes. An aperture grill uses an array of wires instead. Sony was the first to introduce aperture grill technology under the Trinitron brand name, but Sony wasn’t the only company that sold CRT monitors with an aperture grill. In general, a monitor with an aperture grill will be superior to one with a shadow mask. The aperture grill blocks less light than a shadow mask, which translates to a brighter and more colorful picture. The aperture grill is also better suited for a flat CRT display, though flat shadow mask CRTs were produced. That’s not to say shadow masks were trash. Hitachi and NEC put a ton of effort into shadow mask technology to rival Sony’s Trinitron and had success. A late-model Hitachi ErgoFlat or NEC ChromaClear is a great monitor. If you’re comparing two random, mid-range monitors, though, the aperture grill will probably be brighter and more attractive. What refresh rate is best for a CRT monitor? As mentioned, CRT monitors support a range of resolutions and refresh rates. The higher the resolution, the lower the refresh rate. Most late-model CRT monitors had a refresh rate of at least 75Hz at maximum resolution. Lower resolutions come with higher supported refresh rates with the best models topping out at 200Hz. Refresh rate and resolution are linked. CRT monitors with the best refresh rates also support the highest resolutions. If you want the best refresh rate, then, you’ll need to keep an eye out for a top-tier CRT monitor, and you should expect to use it at a resolution lower than the maximum it supports. Obsessing over a CRT’s refresh rate is often not worth the trouble. CRT monitors feel smooth not just because of refresh but also thanks to fundamental differences in how an image is produced. Nearly all late-model CRT monitors support a refresh rate of at least 75Hz at their maximum supported resolution and look exceptionally smooth. Should you buy a CRT monitor with a curved or flat screen? Most CRT televisions and monitors have curved (also known as convex) glass. This was necessary to fix some problems of CRT technology. CRT makers found ways to overcome these issues by the mid-1990s and flat CRT displays hit the market. Shoppers loved them and flat-screen models dominated the final years of CRT production. The big difference is the most obvious: Curved CRT monitors are curved, and flat CRT monitors aren’t. Your choice should come down to the “feel” you’re going for. A curved CRT will feel more accurate to a mid-90s PC or earlier, while flat screens were more common after the turn of the millennium. Those looking to use a CRT with modern software and games will prefer a flat screen as well. Connectivity: It’s all VGA, except when it’s not The vast majority of CRT computer monitors you’ll encounter have a VGA video input. This is likely the only input on the monitor. It’s an analog technology that most modern computers do not support, so you’ll need an active DisplayPort or HDMI to VGA adapter. I use a StarTech adapter from Amazon. Afrank99 / Wikimedia Commons Be careful about the adapter you purchase. Many, including the one I purchased, have a maximum resolution and refresh rate below the best CRT monitors available. It works for me because I’m mostly driving lower resolutions and my CRT monitor is a mid-range model. But I would need to upgrade if I bought a better CRT. While VGA dominates by far, it’s not the only input you might find. A handful of late-model CRTs support a version of DVI-A or DIV-I, which can provide an analog signal. CRT monitors from the 1980s might use a different video input. Commodore 1701 and 1702 monitors, for example, can use a composite input (just as you’d find on a CRT television). How to buy the best CRT monitor: a cheat sheet You now have the knowledge to find the perfect CRT computer monitor for you. If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, however, here’s a cheat sheet. What brand is best? Sony, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, LaCie, NEC, Iiyama, and Eizo. What size is best? 17 to 21 inches, though larger displays models may overwhelm your desk. What year is best? Newer is better unless you want a period-accurate monitor for a vintage PC. What resolution is best? 1600 x 1200 and higher is excellent. What refresh rate is best? Look for a refresh rate of 75Hz or higher. What dot pitch is best? .28 millimeters or lower is fine for general use. Look for .24mm or lower if you want to display a resolution of 1600 x 1200 or higher. Is a shadow mask or aperture grill better? Aperture grill monitors generally have a superior image. Is a curved or flat screen better? This is up to your preference. Where to find a CRT monitor There’s no secret to finding or buying a CRT monitor. You will need a lot of patience or a lot of money. The fastest way to buy a CRT monitor is eBay or Etsy. Hundreds of CRT computer monitors are available, including many that fit the recommendations of this guide. You’ll have to spend several hundred dollars, however, and you can’t see the monitor before buying. Shipping is a gamble, too. Many fine CRTs have met their demise in the hands of Fedex.    Local listings like Craigslist, OfferUp, and Facebook Marketplace can help you find a more affordable monitor, but stock can be limited depending on your location. Rural readers may have to search for months or drive long distances. Try to test the CRT before you buy, especially if it’s not sold at a low price. Ask the seller to have it connected to a PC when you arrive. Don’t neglect searching offline. I snagged my current CRT computer monitor for free from someone a few blocks away who decided to put old electronics on the curb. Yard sales and estate sales are great, too. They can be a grind if you don’t enjoy the search, but you’ll spend a lot less than you would online. Put out the word, as well. Post on social media about your search and ask relatives if they have a hidden gem. CRT monitors aren’t easy to move or dispose of, so they’re often stuffed in a closet, attic, or basement. Many people will let you have a monitor to get it out of their hair. Conclusion Good luck on your search. Just remember: The best CRT monitor is the one you own. Don’t be too harsh on the CRTs you come across. Your first task is finding one that meets your needs and reliably works. After that, you can get picky. Once again, if you’re looking for a newer display filled with the latest and greatest goodies, our guides to the best PC monitors, best ultrawide monitors, best 4K monitors, and best gaming monitors can help you find the perfect fit for your needs. Read...

Women already belong in the rooms where technology`s future is decided. As AI reshapes our industry, it`s time their voices truly shape the path forward. Read...

Anthropic has begun rolling out a voice mode in its AI coding assistant Claude Code, according to a social media post by Thariq Shihipar, an engineer at Anthropic. This new feature makes it possible to control the tool with speech commands instead of text prompts. Voice mode is activated by the command /voice, after which the user can give instructions verbally. For example, you can verbally ask the AI bot to refactor code or change a function. Voice mode is rolling out now in Claude Code. It’s live for ~5% of users today, and will be ramping through the coming weeks.You`ll see a note on the welcome screen once you have access. /voice to toggle it on! pic.twitter.com/P7GQ6pEANy— Thariq (@trq212) March 3, 2026 It’s still unclear what the limitations are when interfacing with Claude Code via voice. Among other things, it’s not known whether there’s a limit to how many voice commands can be issued, or whether the technology is based on an external voice provider, reports TechCrunch. Voice mode is currently available to around 5 percent of users, but Anthropic plans to roll out the feature more widely in the coming weeks. Incidentally, Anthropic’s regular AI chatbot Claude previously gained support for voice mode back in May 2025. Read...

Congrats, Paramount. You’ve succeeded in snatching Warner Bros. away from Netflix. Now what? So far, Paramount hasn’t laid out much of a plan for Warner, aside from somehow mashing HBO Max and Paramount+ into one streaming service. Its press release mostly extolls the value of getting bigger for shareholders, while viewers seem to be an afterthought. (The deal is still subject to regulatory approval and a vote by Warner shareholders.) All of which leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions about how the merger will affect the folks who actually watch Warner and Paramount programming. In its zeal to embiggen itself, has Paramount thought through any of this? Which app will survive? Compared to the HBO Max app, Paramount+ can be borderline unbearable, especially on low-power devices where its interface is prone to skipping and lagging. Users constantly complain about the app’s quality, and MakeUseOf’s Dan Selcke recently found that loading Paramount+ and getting into a show took 1 minute and 15 seconds on his smart TV, 33 seconds longer than HBO Max. You might think it’d be obvious which app to build on for a combined streaming service, but Paramount’s press release doesn’t say which way it’s leaning. It merely mentions “consolidating streaming technology stacks” as a way to save money. Either way, expect a mess. When Warner rebuilt its Max app on Discovery’s tech stack in 2023, it had all kinds of issues and missing features that took years to clean up. What happens to HBO? “HBO should stay HBO,” Paramount CEO David Ellison said this week, suggesting that the brand will stick around and operate with some autonomy. But will HBO stay front-and-center on a combined service, or will it be relegated to some seldom-visited section on a Paramount+ home screen? We’ve already been through one round of big-brained TV execs mistakenly thinking the HBO brand doesn’t matter, with HBO Max rebranding as “Max” in 2023, then reversing course two years later. An unnamed source told CNBC that HBO is “likely to be a sub-brand within the larger service,” suggesting that Ellison could make the same mistake. How will pricing and packaging work? HBO Max costs $11 per month with ads, $18.49 per month with ad-free programming and live sports, and $23 per month for 4K video. Paramount+ costs $9 per month with ads, or $14 per month for ad-free viewing, Showtime programming, and a live CBS feed. Good luck reconciling all of that into one service that people will actually want to pay for. Among the things Paramount will need to figure out: Whether to charge extra for Showtime and/or HBO, whether to charge extra for 4K, and how to partition sports programming. It will need to do all that while landing on prices that are still competitive with other streaming services. Given that HBO Max’s standard plan already costs more than Netflix—by far the more-watched service—there’s not much breathing room. How is sports streaming going to work? HBO Max’s ad-free tier currently offers all the live sports programming that airs on TNT, TBS, and TruTV. But prior to the Paramount deal, Warner had been planning to break off that sports coverage into a separate “TNT Sports” service. That plan is likely off the table now, as Paramount wants sports to play a big role in its combined streaming service. Still, streaming services are increasingly trending away from making everyone pay for sports. Disney offers a bundle of Disney+ and Hulu without ESPN. Peacock offers a cheaper “Select” package that excludes its sports coverage. DirecTV now offers various live TV packages without sports channels, and YouTube TV is doing the same. Requiring an ad-free plan for live sports seems counterintuitive, yet both Paramount+ and HBO Max do this today. A combined service could provide a much-needed reset, or it could just make live sports even more expensive to access. What happens to Discovery+? Ellison has indicated that Paramount and Warner Bros. will combine all their streaming services into “one platform,” but it’s unclear what that means for Discovery+. Will it still be available as a separate subscription within Paramount’s app, or will existing subscribers have to upgrade to a more expensive service? This isn’t the first time the future of Discovery+ has been in question. When WarnerMedia and Discovery merged in 2022, the original plan was to shut down Discovery+ in favor of HBO Max. The company then reversed course, not wanting to risk 20 million subscribers to a service that, unlike HBO Max, was actually profitable. Will Ellison and company come to the same realization? What’s the timeline for all this? Paramount expects the Warner deal to close in the third quarter of this year. This assumes Warner’s shareholders vote in favor and regulators allow it, neither of which are givens. That means HBO Max won’t see any changes until at least the fall, but realistically it’ll take a lot longer. For reference, WarnerMedia and Discovery completed their merger in April 2022, and the rebranded Max app built on Discovery’s tech stack arrived 13 months later. The merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, if it happens, will be even more complicated given the size and scope of both companies. Yes, Paramount will have achieved the goal of getting bigger for bigger’s sake. But does it even understand what it’s getting into by doing so? Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming TV advice. Read...