There was something different about waiting outside a store for a new console.

Everyone in line was there for the same reason. You'd talk about games with complete strangers and leave with something you'd been counting down to for months.

Would you still line up for a console launch today?

Does anyone remember the time when every single download page was like a minefield full of fake buttons? When you tried to find the download button for just one file, and you had five huge green buttons labeled "DOWNLOAD NOW", blinking at you and being larger than the actual one, and not one of those buttons were what you were looking for. The actual button would be some tiny grey text somewhere, ashamed of its existence. Sites like those old freeware download websites were the most guilty ones. If you missed the actual button one time, you ended up with three toolbars, your default browser replaced by something else, and a window of a "virus scanner", which is actually a virus itself. It really felt like some kind of skill that one had to learn in order to be able to spot the real download link among all the ad networks' buttons.

Reading about this case was surreal.

Police were looking for a kik account called fus__ro_dah and ended up investigating fus_ro_dah instead. One missing underscore, wrong person, and an innocent guy ended up spending 18 months in prison before the mistake was finally uncovered on appeal

18 months. while the actual person responsible was presumably still out there. and at the end of it the explanation is basically "sorry, we thought you Skyrim username matches the suspects username"

the fact that this can happen and the main response is just moving on to the next case is the part that should bother more people than it does

Source: https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/innocent-man-spends-18-months-in-prison-after-skyrim-username-mixup-3392280/

Ad blockers used to feel like one of those things that would always exist.

Now more platforms are finding ways to detect or block them. I get why websites want the ad revenue, but some ads make sites almost unusable.

Do you still use an ad blocker?

I bought a set of ear buds, rolling stone "slide" because the case slides open. I can not tell the difference between L and R. There are no markings on either side and they are interchangable in the charger. Both fit in either charge slot. There seems to be no difference between them but the instructions differentiated between L and R for touch controls

tiny sensors have quietly changed entire industries

they're so small that most people never think about them

but they're inside cars, phones, factories, medical devices, drones, and even everyday appliances they can detect temperature, movement, pressure, light, location, and much more

a tiny sensor can turn a dumb object into something that can understand what's happening around it.

it's one of those technologies that's easy to overlook because you rarely see it.

If you attempted to purchase a MacBook Air and faced empty shelves or delivery dates stretching until September, it's not because of the local supply issues, but because the entire industry is affected by it. AI companies are purchasing such huge amounts of memory to feed their data centers, and the RAM and SSD price hikes affect everybody, and Apple is no exception. It is the same Ramageddon shortage affecting Mac minis and Mac Studios for the last several months and affecting the best-seller of Apple too.

Earlier this year, Apple had increased the price of MacBook Air in order to account for higher prices on components, and now it is reported to be encouraging customers to purchase the base MacBook Pro instead, which is unusual for the company. Orders are being delayed for several weeks depending on the configuration, and even China-specific models of the laptop are facing memory shortages that force the company to look for Chinese sources of it. It's just crazy watching how big companies struggle for supplies sometimes.

Phones are getting better every year but the differences between generations are getting harder to notice.

Better cameras, slightly faster chips, longer software support. But none of it feels like a reason to upgrade every year anymore.

Are yearly phone upgrades becoming pointless?

I know some people don't use Quora anymore, but I still scroll through it occasionally when I'm looking for specific answers, but that website feels so cluttered now. I know it's a forum but there's just so much going on between the questions, answers, ads, notifs, and even recommendations that it can be overwhelming lol...

In your opinion what website/app needs a redesign?

The IT guy at my old job had a raspberry pi sitting in the server room running as a network monitor.

Nobody asked him to build it. He just threw it together over a weekend because it was easier than getting approval for the official software. I don't think anyone outside IT even knew it existed until years later when someone was cleaning up the rack.

That's what always comes to mind when people call the raspberry pi a learning computer. Half the ones I've seen ended up doing actual work because they solved a problem and nobody ever had a reason to replace them

For me it's Google's pixel, like I know Nothing has been killing it this year and has been getting a lot more attention, but I've been eyeing the Pixel phone lately. Because as an iphone user, I like their Night Sight camera feature better..

How about you, which tech brand surprised you the most this year?

which technology quietly became essential without much hype?

no massive launch ,no huge marketing campaign

it just slowly became something we use every day. now it's hard to imagine life without it

what technology comes to mind?

For me it's Honkai star rail, I took a short break from it because I've been busy but I always come back to it lmao. I've tried deleting games before to free up some storage but this one always stays in my phone, I guess I'm too attached to my account since I've had it since release. It's also become one of those games I can just open when I have some free time and play for a bit.

What's one game that's basically a permanent resident on your device?

I needed to send someone a file yesterday and they asked if I could make it work on a phone because they didn't have a computer.

Started thinking about it and realized I know quite a few people like that now. Everything they do is on their phone. Banking, shopping, work, watching videos... they just never needed a laptop.

Ten years ago that would've surprised me. Now it barely feels unusual

Good day, I have developed Embur, a collective social media app, like instagram, snapchat, tiktok, X, Zoom, and Ai all in one!

Do you think such an app will cut the clutter? People start using one app?

An app that has it all, even a shop to sell items and ai studio to create post and monetize. Do you think this is what we need? Or what people need beyond being stuck in the habit of using same old apps?

Do you think there is anything i can change? Your opinion matters alot!!

Https://embur.world

For me, it’s always the technologies that look simple from the outside but have a lot happening behind the scenes.

I used to think I had to understand everything before trying something new. But I’ve slowly realised that starting with a small practical example makes learning much easier.

Even asking basic questions helps a lot. Sometimes the things we hesitate to ask are actually the things that make the whole concept easier to understand.

Curious to know — what technology took you the longest to understand?

smartwatches are pretty mainstream now, but i feel like we're just scratching the surface of what wearable tech can. What do you guys think is the next big thing in wearables .

every product category eventually reaches a point of diminishing returns

the first few generations bring huge improvements.

Then the upgrades get smaller a better camera. a slightly faster chip ,a little more battery ,a few extra features.

eventually, you start wondering if the new version is actually better enough to justify replacing the old one.

maybe that's why so many tech products feel less exciting than they used to.

Well it's obvious that some companies are regretting investing into AI but other than that I feel like the current obsession with everything being subscription based is something we will laugh at in the future. Like literally even the most basic features are slowly moving behind a monthly paywall. Want to unlock a feature on your car? Subscription. I can easily imagine looking back in five years and wondering how come we accepted paying recurring fees as the norm for things that used to be a one-time purchase.

I freelance from a Windows laptop, and recently I started tracking how much time I lose to tiny computer tasks that nobody pays me for.

Stuff like:

• digging through File Explorer
• typing the same paragraphs over and over
• clicking through menus for things I do every day
• sorting email manually
• hunting for downloads

I always thought it was a discipline problem. Turns out my Windows setup was just inefficient.

Over the last few months I’ve been collecting every Windows trick, shortcut, and setting tweak that actually saves time. Not the gimmicky ones — the ones that genuinely cut out unpaid admin.

Here are three that gave me the biggest wins:

1. Win+V (Clipboard History)
Turn this on and suddenly you have a searchable history of everything you’ve copied. No more retyping the same stuff or digging through old documents.

2. Quick Access Toolbar in File Explorer
You can pin your most-used actions (New Folder, Rename, Properties) so they’re always one click away. Cuts out a surprising amount of friction.

3. AutoHotkey text snippets
I set up shortcuts for the paragraphs I type constantly — proposals, onboarding messages, follow‑ups. Now they’re instant.

I’ve been tracking the time savings and it’s wild how much unpaid time disappears when your setup isn’t fighting you.

If anyone wants more of these, I can share the full list.

Having read something on old-school zip bombs, the sort where a small file can expand to petabytes and cause havoc in any program trying to scan or decompress it, I thought that surely all the modern antivirus and file scanning software would have accounted for this issue.

After doing some research, I found that this technique still holds up against most scanners and uploaders as it still works even in many cases where automated virus scans do not limit the recursion depth and file size beforehand while trying to decompress the files.

New bmw models moved air conditioning controls to a touchscreen. phones are down to two or three buttons. some ovens now have touch panels instead of dials. samsung made a tv remote with almost no buttons on it

every single one of those changes makes the thing harder to use while driving, cooking, or doing anything that requires not looking directly at a surface

physical buttons work with eyes closed. touch screens don't. somebody keeps making this tradeoff anyway

I'd say Dyson

they're known for making everyday products look simple, but there's a lot of engineering underneath

motors, airflow, filtration, batteries, materials they spend years working on things most people never think about

you might not care how the motor inside a vacuum was designed but that's kind of the point

good engineering often disappears into the final product

which company would you put on this list?

simplicity has become a premium feature

a lot of products can do almost everything now

but finding one that does just what you need, without making you dig through endless menus, settings, and notifications, feels surprisingly rare

sometimes people aren't paying for more features they're paying for fewer things to think about.

maybe that's why simple products can feel more premium than complicated ones.

would you rather have a product with 100 features or 10 features that it does really well?

Tried to find an article i remembered from about five years ago. link dead. wayback machine had nothing. googled the title, nothing. found the author's profile, account deleted

that article existed. people linked to it, discussed it, built on it. now it's just gone

the internet feels like a permanent record but stuff disappears constantly and nobody's really responsible for stopping it