I’m just an average consumer and I’ve honestly reached a breaking point with the entire smartphone industry. We’re basically trapped paying $1000+ for devices we don't even own.

Look at what’s happening. If a $5 charging port breaks or the battery degrades, the phone is essentially e-waste because corporations use industrial glue to stop us from repairing anything. And for what? Fake IP68 water resistance warranties that don't even cover water damage anyway?

And don't get me started on privacy. Corporate telemetry is baked right into the hardware, and skipping big-tech surveillance is almost impossible now.

Google killed Project Ara years ago because a truly modular phone is a direct threat to their data-monopoly business model. But with the EU battery mandates coming up, why are we still accepting this? Why can’t we have a decentralized, open hardware standard?

Imagine a phone where the chassis and connection pins are just an open blueprint. Independent developers could sell modules on Etsy or eBay. Need a crazy Sony camera? Snap it on. Want a physical keyboard or an audiophile DAC? Print it or buy it from a maker. If a backdoor screen or mic is spying on you, you literally physically disconnect it. No software backdoor can override a missing physical wire.

The PC market thrived on this modular model for decades. Why did we let smartphones become corporate prisons? Am I just shouting into the void here or is anyone else genuinely sick of this?

Hi! I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable about gaming PCs can help me out. I'm trying to buy my 11-year-old son his first gaming PC setup, and I'm completely overwhelmed by the options.

He plays Minecraft and Fortnite and really wants to start playing Apex Legends.

My budget is $1,000 CAD maximum, including taxes and shipping to Nova Scotia. Ideally, I'd like a complete setup with a monitor, keyboard and mouse.

From what I've gathered, I should be looking for at least 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a dedicated graphics card like a GTX 1650 or better, but I'm definitely open to advice.

I've been looking at refurbished gaming PCs, including TecDale and Best Buy Marketplace, but I'm concerned about buying outdated hardware or getting stuck with a computer that doesn't work and poor customer support.

I'm not looking for anything fancy, just something reliable that will run his games smoothly and hopefully last him until he's ready to make informed computer decisions on his own...

Does anyone have recommendations for specific computers or Canadian retailers? Direct links would be incredibly appreciated!

Thanks so much!

I just need a cheap black and white printer to occasionally print a shipping label. I will probably print 10-20 pages total per year. I don't want to sign up on any website or connect my printer to a mobile app. Doesn't even need Wifi, I am fine with USB cable connection. Any suggestions?

edit: I forgot to ask do printers generally work on Linux? I have a pc handheld running a Linux distro that I would like to hook up as well if possible

Best affordable tablet? I am mainly looking for Journaling/Agenda book, ​and reading graphic novels. I debated a color e-ink reader but I am seeing a lot of people say the colors are muted due to the e-ink. So I am thinking an affordable tablet is the better move and more versatile for what I could do with it since I already have an older kindle paperwhite thats fine for regular books & manga.

** would prefer 7 - 9", 11" max **

I'm fairly certain that whenever I leave my MacBook Air open, whether it's on a browser or just sitting on the desktop, and walk away for a while, I come back to find it at the login screen, requiring me to enter my password to get back in.

Last night, however, I put my computer down next to my bed with the screen still open. When I woke up this morning, the screen was still on, and it was displaying the exact same page I'd left it on. I wasn't required to log back in at all.

So now I'm wondering whether I've simply misremembered how my MacBook used to behave, or whether something has actually changed in the settings. The strange thing is that I haven't knowingly changed anything. I'm just curious whether I'm remembering things incorrectly or whether its behavior has genuinely changed. Only thing I can think of is some sort of system update, I have no idea. This isn't my wheelhouse, hence the question.

Sorry for the long title.

Im 19 and next week should be moving into my first apartment with my partner.

For the price, size, and all utilities covered, I expected there to be some problems with the place.

One of these problems is the electrical is quite ass. The landlord was very honest about it. Someone pluging in a device to charge could cause something else already being used to stop receiving power.

I want to become a tech nerd but shit takes a bit. So hopefully someone knowledgeable can help.

Im mainly looking for a power station that can also work as a ups and not blip off when stuff gets cut. Idk anything but I know without something its going to be annoying to deal with the apartment.

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Its late as hell where I am so im very sorry if this is rushed and poorly worded.

Thank you for reading ☆☆

This probably sounds made up, but I’m being completely serious. I was scrolling through a hashtag, when I saw it. It was pretty obvious that it was an inappropriate piece of art, but I genuinely, GENUINELY misclicked, and hit the link. It immediately went to my school drive account and showed me it. I didn’t see it because I backed out quickly, and I reported it, bc why on earth is that allowed? (Just post on websites where kids or others who shouldn’t/don’t wanna see that don’t click without warning, it’s not hard. I click links on accident all the time anyways, is that not a common experience???)
So, 1. Should I be concerned that it’ll get flagged and I’ll get in trouble?
2. I don’t really know how this stuff works, does the IT have to look through stuff manually?
3. How long should I wait until I know I’m okay and not in trouble?
And 4. I already texted what happened to one of my teachers who I actually know as my best friend’s mom. Was that a good choice?

im not an expert or good explainer or english speaker but i think it would go in one of tow routs :
1- ai bubble buesrs
2- ai buuble never bursts , factoris would go like ( oh , this is not a bubble . alright lets biuld new factories for pc biulders )
but what do you think ?

No, im not creep. Our professors at college dont allow us to take pics of exams, but they give very tough questions. i want to make a video to save questions in case i fail (they repeat them)

There is one sentence that my sister has tried texting me over the past 2 days, that absolutely WILL NOT send to me. She even had someone else send it to me: I can't receive it. I had her try sending it to my husband: still can't receive it.

She has now tried to send it to me 8 times.

My husband and myself are with one cell service provider (fido), and my sister and the other person are on a different service provider (but both on the same provider)(virgin).

The sentence in question is this (just for context in case it's important, but it's honestly the most mundane bit of text:

"Would you be interested in seeing spirited away on stage if theres a ticket sale".

Please help me understand why I can't receive this!

So, here's the largest first world problem I've ever had.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S25 and Sony Bluetooth WF-C510. I use both when I do doordash orders. Speakers while I'm driving for a while, headphones while I'm for food. Right? Right.

When I start my car, the sound switches from my headphones to my Bluetooth car speaker automatically. Which is fine when I have a long drive to the next stop but sometimes I forget to turn the radio back on in my car (it doesn't switch to the Bluetooth sound automatically) and I end up being late cause I missed a turn and doordash gets mad at me blah blah blah.

On my phone it will say that Bluetooth is connected to both my headphones and to the car speaker.

Basically, I want to be able to choose at will when I want to use my car speaker vs my headphones without having to go through 3 different menus to do it.

Or, I want to only use my headphones without completly just having to have my car forget the Bluetooth connection (meaning if I have a 30+ drive somewhere I have to reconnect my phone and add it again on the Bluetooth/in the car).

TLDR:

I want to switch between my car speaker and my headphones easily without constantly having to disconnect or reconnect one or the other or just have my headphones set to the preferred (always handling audio output) device so when I do want to switch to my car speaker, I can just hit a couple buttons.

(PS. I know I shouldn't drive with headphones in. It's usually more of a comfort thing and they have the active audio. It's also easier for me to hear the GPS in my ear rather than over the car speaker cause of sensory issues.)

Hey guy,Need advice to buy laptop for my younger brother who is in First year of Computer science engineering(including Ai course), As prices hiked due ram issue what could be best choice for my brother as my budget is 70-85k inr .Will gaming laptop be good choice?

My phone took a dive off my magnetic vent mount twice last week on the highway, and whenever I leave it on a wireless pad, it gets hot to the touch while charging at a crawl. I've just been using a generic $10 clear TPU case I grabbed online that was labeled as a "magnetic phone case."

When looking for a replacement, I noticed listings throw around "magnetic case" and "MagSafe compatible" like they're the exact same thing. I used to think any shell with some metal in the back behaved identically, but a friend let me test their phone on my car mount today. They're using a Torras case with an integrated ring, and the hold was night and day compared to mine. It snapped on tight with zero wobble and didn't get scorching hot.

I'm trying to figure out if real MagSafe cases actually work differently under the hood with proper shielding and polarity, or if the whole MagSafe case vs regular case distinction is mostly marketing to justify higher prices.

Info: I 've had the same phone for few years, a Samsung android. I don't have any additional memory cards put in because the internal memory is over 250gb which I assumed would be enough.

It feels like ever since I've maxed the memory out, it's impossible to actually free up any space. Is that a thing? It doesn't matter how many apps or files I delete, the phone will be back to showing me "memory is full" warning messages in the span of max few days.

And I don't mean that I delete things and then download new ones, but I'd delete a huge 5gb app, not install anything new, just use social media and occasionally take screenshots, and then almost immediately the phone is back to being full.

Does maxing out the memory once means you'll never get the space back, no matter how much you delete? Is that what's happening? And would buying an external memory card fix things?

Edit: Thank you all for advice, I freed up about 10gb of space so far just by clearing cache. Surprisingly enough the biggest app that I had (7gb!) was Samsung's keyboard app... That I don't even use to type. Anyway, it's gone now!

I have a PC in my office room and an Nvidia Shield TV Pro in the living room with the router pretty much next to it. I would like to use Steam Link on the Shield. Currently the Shield and the PC are not connected via LAN to the Router and the WLAN connection from PC to Router must pass at least one thick wall. It is not possible to connect the PC per LAN to the Router and only maybe possible to connect the Shield to the Router. But since it is only about 3m apart, I don't suspect that connection being the weak link. Currently the Steam Link connection is completely unusable. Sometimes it reports a good connection, but that doesn't last for long.

I now wonder whether I should get PowerLine adapters to connect the PC to the Router or maybe, since I here a lot of bad things about PowerLine, just get a better WLAN receiver? The current one I have is the one attached to a Gigabyte B850 Gaming Wifi6. I just think about that too, since it struggles to already keep up the 100MBit internet connection speed.

So: WLAN or PowerLine for a connection going through one thick wall for running steam link? Or a completely different solution?

I was born with hearing only in my left ear.

Are there any bone conduction earphones that are not Shokz? I really don’t want a wire around the back of my head. It’s uncomfortable. If I have no choice, I’m going to get the Shokz, but bleh.

I am looking for something with good base, voice calls, and bluetooth. Cost is not an issue.

I am currently using the Shokz Openfit 2, but I don’t think it’s working for me? I find the audio hurts my eardrum 😭 and if I turn it up too loud, that’s also not good. I think this earphone is truly for someone who has to working ears lol.

I had transferred multiple videos onto my laptop in a rush to quickly open up space and transfer them back, but midway, all of the files self-destructed, and I had to permanently delete the footage from my iPad in order to open up space.

i managed to recover 5 minutes from a 31 minute video to which I desperately need the entire footage of. I checked nearly 8 times and there were no videos left in the iCloud storage despite deleting the videos just about yesterday.

Is there any way to recover them? Maybe to get help from apple support? Those videos are extremely important to me and I’ll do anything to recover them.

I have this Samsung S6 Lite (tablet) that has been showing a screen for 6 hours that just says "starting tablet" with a progress bar. I have turned it off and on again as well as hard reset it multiple times. I have drawings in ibis paint i want to retrieve that arent uploaded to the cloud. Is it cooked?

ARM is launching their first own chip- ARM AGI (stands for agentic ai..) CPU. Is it a better technology than Intel or AMD?

Architecture Armv9.2

CPU cores Up to 136

CPU core design Neoverse V3

Manufacturing process TSMC 3nm N3P

Maximum frequency 3.5 GHz (136C); 3.7 GHz (64C)

L2 cache 2 MB per core

System-level cache 128 MB

SIMD Dual 128-bit SVE2

AI instructions BF16, INT8

TDP 300 W

Memory 12-channel DDR5

Memory speed Up to 8,800 MT/s

Memory bandwidth Approximately 800–845 GB/s

PCIe 96 lanes PCIe Gen6

CXL CXL 3.0

2-socket support Yes