You may not realize it, but we've been here doing our thing at HotHardware since 1999; we remember the good (and bad) old days of the PC enthusiast scene. There was a time when graphics cards were a wild market. You could find Quantum3D Obsidian Voodoo cards with double the RAM and an extra TMU compared to the competition. As late as the GeForce256,

Security researchers at Rapid7 Labs have unmasked a new piece of malware dubbed SantaStealer, which got its name due to the proximity of Christmas. If this app makes its way down the chimney, though it’s looking for more than just milk and cookies. Attackers can utilize SantaStealer to steal a variety of data from unsuspecting Windows users.

Bah, humbug! Another Google tool has just been sunsetted, as Scrooge McGoogle has announced the immediate wind-down of its 'dark web report' feature, a free tool designed to alert users when their personal information is compromised and found circulating in illicit corners of the internet. While it wasn't a particularly proactive/reactive

There's going to be a new space telescope in town: the Nancy Grace Roman (the famous NASA astronomer, not to be mistaken for the crime show host), which is slated to launch by May 2027. At least initially, its main mission will be to chart the nature of dark energy and the hidden structure of our own Milky Way galaxy. As many of us already

Sometimes we can all use a little reassurance that everything will be okay. If you're PC enthusiast, now is definitely one of those times, as the booming AI market is gobbling up NAND flash memory chips and other hardware at a breakneck pace (and sending consumer brands packing for the data center hills). Well, enter Kioxia, which is rolling

OnePlus has officially confirmed the launch of a brand-new Turbo smartphone series, marking the company’s official entry into the high-end mobile gaming market with a focus on performance and endurance, among others.  The existence of the new line dropped in a Weibo post by OnePlus China President Louis Li Jie, who said that the Turbo series

It's been a minute since Google last rolled out an update for its first-generation Pixel Buds Pro, which released back in 2022. Now more than three years after launch, Google is offering another firmware update (version 5.11) to its original Pixel Buds Pro, and it could very well be the last one. Before the 5.11 release, the last firmware

Are we about to lose another NAND flash brand in the consumer storage space? Following Micron's decision to pull its 29-year-old Crucial brand from the consumer market to focus on higher margin data center clients, rumors began to swirl that Samsung was getting ready to stop selling SATA-based solid state drive (SSDs) to consumers. According

SPhotonix is the latest big name in 5D glass storage technology, and it's proving to be quite ambitious in its goal to bring the technology to market, estimating "another three or four years of R&D" to get it there. 5D glass storage, for the uninitiated, refers to a technique where high-density, high-durability silica glass is used with

Have you looked at the price of RAM lately? Retail prices for desktop DDR5 memory kits are three to five times what they were just a month ago. Building a PC has gone from "your GPU should be the most expensive component" to "make sure to budget for enough RAM." In fact, the shortage reminds us of the GPU shortage just a few short years ago.

Pop!_OS is a new Ubuntu-based Linux distribution from System76, flaunting the COSMIC Desktop Environment and available on either a PC of your choice or one of many US-made laptops or desktops. While the naming of Pop!_OS recalls a more distant era of computing, the operating system itself is quite modern, featuring all the core features you've

One of our favorite set of earbuds is on sale in time for Christmas. That would be the Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) that we recently reviewed. One of the very few knocks we had against these earbuds was the premium price, but that is partially mitigated with this holiday deal. It still might not be the type of thing that qualifies as

NVIDIA has announced the release of Nemotron 3, the latest generation in its ongoing Nemotron line of large language models (LLMs). It presents the new models as open, high-efficiency building blocks for agentic AI systems. The first model in the series, Nemotron 3 Nano, is available now, with larger "Super" and "Ultra" variants scheduled

LG makes some of the most popular TVs on the market thanks to its long running line of OLED sets, which happen to be part of some solid holiday discounts right now. As with most other TV manufacturers in the market, it bundles pre-installed apps on its smart TV platform, WebOS. However, the latest addition to this included set of apps hasn’t

Despite its limits as a game streaming device, PlayStation Portal has proven surprisingly successful—and now, the update allowing for PlayStation Portal to stream from Sony's servers instead of your own PlayStation 5 has finally come out of beta, meaning the device can now technically function as a standalone handheld. There are still many

Have you been on the fence about jumping into VR? Now is a great time to go ahead and make the leap because Amazon is serving up a fantastic deal on Meta's Quest 3 headset, which comes 512GB of built-in storage, controllers, and a couple of noteworthy bonuses, not the least of which is a $100 Amazon gift card. Meta Quest 3 Is 19% Off And

Ahead of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next month, ASUS is giving a sneak peek at what to expect, which includes a "new chapter" for its innovative Zenbook Duo laptop. Already a unique laptop among a crowded field, a short teaser clip posted to X suggests that the next-generation model will sport dual battery slabs. There's

The writing has long been on the wall, but finally, the maker of the synonymous Roomba vacuum, iRobot Corporation, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a "strategic transaction" intended to secure the company’s long-term future. Let's find out what that also means for both future customers and current owners. The filing, initiated in

If you're going to spend a fortune on memory for your new build, you might has well pair it with an extravagant motherboard that has all the bells and whistles, right? Hey, it's your money and if you have over a grand to spend on a motherboard, then MSI's newly available MEG X870E Godlike X Edition has your name written all over it. Just be

The Nex Playground has caught the Internet's attention this holiday season, and it may just prove to be the sleeper hit of this console generation. Since Nintendo Wii made motion controls mainstream with its release in November 2006, motion controls have developed significantly but with mixed reception. Xbox 360 soon received a motion-tracking

Half-Life 3 may be a Steam Machine launch title, according to journalist Mike Straw. Since the Steam Machine's launch date and MSRP have yet to be announced, however, those plans may have changed. According to the report, all of the originally-planned announcement dates have passed, and it seems tied to the ongoing RAM crisis impacting the

AMD's business is growing rapidly, and that means it needs more employees. The company is hiring for many positions on its website, and this is a frequent area of interest for leaksmen trying to find interesting info about the company's future plans. Unfortunately, one such fellow spotted something of mild interest and tried to make it into

In Star Trek, it took until the year 2151 for a functional universal translator to come into existence, but Google is leveraging Gemini to accelerate that timeline. The company is offering real-time speech-to-speech translation via Google Translate, using your existing phone's audio hardware. It's hard not to be critical of generative AI and

This past week Disney inked a $1 billion deal with OpenAI to become a content licensing partner for the Sora AI video generation platform, then immediately went on the legal offensive against Google. As with prior cease and desists sent to Meta, Character.AI, NBC, Warner Bros., and others, Disney's cease and desist relates to AI tools being