Valve just released Steam Machine, a compact computer designed to run SteamOS in living room settings. It arrives as a small black cube with ports along the base and a simple power button. The package includes a matching controller and targets people who want console convenience without giving up access to a full game library. A popular YouTuber who focuses on hardware decided to explore what sits inside one of these units. ETA Prime bought the 2TB version and set out to document every step of opening it while also pushing the specifications higher.

The outer casing is made of plastic, with a metal-reinforced rear part for added strength. A few screws hold the whole contraption together, with two in the rear and four more buried in the rubber feet. To detach the faceplate, press firmly down with a plastic spudger along the front edge, taking care not to yank it off with brutal force. Inside the case, a large cooling system takes center stage; copper pipes and thick aluminum fins do an excellent job of keeping the processor and graphics chip cool, and a custom fan is hidden in its own small shroud. The motherboard is wedged between the cooling block and the power supply, explaining why it appears tight at first glance.

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Getting to the memory is a little difficult because you have to detach the antenna cables for the wireless features and remove a few screws from the small boards near the ports before sliding the whole internal assembly out. The heatsink assembly is removed using four screws, however there is no need to reapply thermal paste because the contact surfaces remain intact throughout the process. One memory stick was already installed and running in single channel mode, but ETA Prime removed it and replaced it with a matched pair of 32GB Crucial modules. They match the original speed rating exactly, and with both modules installed, the system now claims 64GB of memory, with approximately 62GB accessible for use. When the second stick is inserted, dual channel operation is instantly enabled.

To be honest, storage access is straightforward because you only need to remove one panel on the side to see the drive region. The OEM device featured a smaller 2230 size M.2 solid state drive attached via an adapter and ribbon cable, however there was just enough room in the chassis for a full size 2280 drive, thus no modifications were necessary. A 4TB Kingston Fury Renegade drive replaced the original, and the read and write speeds are far quicker than before. To avoid having to reinstall the operating system, the previous disk was cloned onto the new one with free software on a different computer, which proceeded smoothly. After installation, the bigger drive exhibited its full capacity.

Reassembly is simple and gets everything back up and running quickly. You reattach the cables in the opposite sequence, screw everything back in place, and the outer case clicks into its groove. The computer booted into SteamOS without any warnings or missing hardware messages. The system information appears immediately, including the total memory quantity and the new storage size, with little fuss. Gameplay tests revealed that it continues to play as smoothly as possible, with occasional slight frame rate increases. For instance, the graphics chip only has 8GB of video RAM, thus adding system memory will make little impact in more demanding titles. Nonetheless, the dual channel RAM and increased storage facilitate multitasking and allow you to save a big number of games on the laptop without the use of external media.

However, the hardware required for the improvements is somewhat expensive, with the new memory kit costing around $820 and the new solid state drive costing nearly $1,000. Then you have to factor in the initial purchase price to get to around $3,247 for the full setup. Some believe that 64GB of RAM is too much for this system, but it’s comforting to know that Valve left the design open to a number of upgrades in important areas. Storage upgrades are easy and require little specialized tools.
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China now has the world’s fastest supercomputer, overtaking the United States. The system, known as LineShine and installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen, displaced the US system El Capitan from the top spot in the TOP500 ranking in terms of computing power.

The breakthrough comes amid an intense competition between Beijing and Washington for technological supremacy, marked by high tariffs and restrictions on a wide range of hardware components and software.

Since 1993, the TOP500 ranking has identified the world’s most powerful supercomputers every six months through a series of standardized benchmarks that evaluate each system’s performance, taking into account both its theoretical speed and its real-world performance, as well as its energy efficiency.

Historically, the ranking has been dominated by US-developed systems. However, LineShine has returned China to the top after nearly a decade out of first place.

El Capitan, located in Livermore, California, had held the top position since 2024. Now, benchmark results have confirmed that LineShine exceeds the US system’s processing capacity by more than 20 percent.

With a power consumption of approximately 42.2 megawatts, the Chinese supercomputer delivers 2,198 exaflops, meaning it can perform more than 2 quintillion operations per second.

One of LineShine’s most striking features is that, unlike most next-generation supercomputers, it does not use graphics processing units (GPUs). Instead, it relies exclusively on central processing units (CPUs), components widely used in smartphones, desktop computers, and laptops but rarely found in large-scale scientific computing systems.

Another notable feature is that its entire infrastructure is built with hardware and software developed in China. LineShine’s architecture is based on the LingKun platform and consists of roughly 45,000 LX2 processors. Each processor has 304 cores and operates at a clock speed of 1.55 GHz.

The nodes are connected through a high-speed network called LingQi, designed to minimize latency and accelerate data exchange. The entire system runs on Kylin OS, a Linux-based operating system widely used in China’s scientific and government computing infrastructure.

A Clear Message From China to the US

China’s return to the top of the TOP500 ranking has been interpreted as an achievement that goes beyond simply possessing the world’s fastest supercomputer, as the country is eager to show the world its tech industry can thrive despite lacking access to key US technologies.

During Donald Trump’s first administration and throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, the United States imposed strict export controls on components, software, and platforms related to advanced computing in an effort to slow China’s technological progress. In response, Beijing adopted similar measures.

Those restrictions have intensified during Trump’s current administration, particularly through tariffs and limits on imports of GPUs, advanced chips, and other components related to artificial intelligence (AI), a technology that now underpins a significant share of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

These restrictions have forced China to invest in developing new architectures and technologies capable of building supercomputers that can compete with the highest-performing US systems despite lacking access to certain state-of-the-art resources.

This story originally appeared in WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

The best Apple Watch overall has every feature you could want in a smartwatch (aside from satellite messaging, but I presume that isn’t a dealbreaker for most of you). There’s blood oxygen sensing, sleep tracking, electrocardiogram reading capabilities, and high blood pressure notifications. Best of all, the battery lasts for a full 24 hours, and it’ll get watchOS 27. And at $279, it’s the cheapest it’s been sold out for the past few months.

This is the best-value Apple Watch. It’s compatible with the latest watchOS and has several basic fitness features, though it lacks the extended battery life and some of the more high-tech tracking capabilities of the more-expensive Watch 11. But if you don’t need blood oxygen or ECG readings, and you don’t need a super-bright display, this affordable smartwatch is a smart buy. And now’s a good time to buy, as it’s $20 cheaper than it’s typically sold out, even when on sale.

Best MagSafe and Accessory Deals

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Not everyone needs a stylus to work with the iPad, but for artists or avid notetakers, there’s no better option than the Apple Pencil Pro. It supports all sorts of gestures and magnetically attaches, pairs and charges.

OpenAI has appointed Prabhjeet Singh, the outgoing president of Uber India and South Asia, as its first managing director for India. Singh will join in September and report to Kiran Mani, the company’s managing director for Asia Pacific, OpenAI told TechCrunch. He will oversee consumer growth, enterprise adoption, partnerships, regulatory engagement, and operations in what OpenAI has called its second-largest market after the United States.

Singh spent nearly 11 years at Uber, joining in August 2015 as head of strategy before becoming president in June 2020. Before Uber he was an associate partner at McKinsey, where he advised clients across financial services, telecom, and consumer technology. He is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad.

The hire is the latest in a string of investments OpenAI has made in India over the past year. The company opened its first office in New Delhi last August and said earlier this year it would establish additional offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru. In 2024 it hired former Truecaller and Meta executive Pragya Misra to lead public policy and partnerships, a role later expanded to head of strategy and global affairs.

OpenAI had also brought on former Twitter India head Rishi Jaitly as a senior adviser to help shape its engagement with the Indian government on AI policy. Mani himself, a former JioStar CEO who previously spent 13 years at Google, was appointed to lead the Asia Pacific region in March.

India’s importance to OpenAI is backed by numbers. CEO Sam Altman said in February that the country has 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users, and that users aged 18 to 24 account for nearly half of all messages sent from India. The company has since struck partnerships spanning higher education, enterprise payments with Pine Labs, web streaming with Reliance’s JioHotStar, and data centre capacity with Tata Group.

The appointment also arrives as India’s AI landscape grows more contested. Rival Anthropic opened its Bengaluru office in late 2025 and in January named former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose to lead the country. Google, Amazon, and domestic contenders like Sarvam, which reached unicorn status with a $234 million round last month, are all competing for developers and enterprise customers in a market with more than a billion internet users.

The competitive pressure has a geopolitical edge. The US government’s order in June to suspend Anthropic’s most powerful models for non-US users triggered a sovereignty debate in India and concrete proposals for a $5 billion annual fund to build domestic AI capabilities. For OpenAI, putting a seasoned local operator in charge signals that it takes the risk of being seen as a foreign dependency seriously.

Singh inherits a mandate that is as much political as commercial. India’s government has embraced AI as a national priority, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosting OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google chiefs at the AI Impact Summit in February. But the Anthropic suspension showed how quickly access can be revoked, and Indian policymakers are now weighing how much to rely on American providers.

OpenAI has simultaneously ramped up hiring in India, with open roles including AI deployment engineers, developer experience engineers, a developer marketing lead, a partner director, and solutions engineers. Uber has not yet announced a successor for Singh but is expected to outline its leadership transition plans in the coming weeks.

Algeria vs Austria is shaping up to be one of the more exciting World Cup 2026 matches – it’s a winner-takes-all contest to finish Group J runners-up. Both sides are on three points, but Austria’s superior goal difference means a draw is enough for them to finish second.

There’s narrative here, too. As Group J wraps up last, the teams will know before kick-off whether the side that finishes runners-up or third have the easier last-32 opponent. Algeria may even choose to play for a draw, and third spot, and that’s irony at its best.

We’ve tested a lot of crazy workout gear over the years, from Adidas’ pressurized workout shoes to elaborate virtual coaching booths, but never anything from space.

Let me confirm that I haven’t actually worn anything from outer space: this is a workout layer from premium activewear company Walero, which also makes professional-grade motorsport gear. The Walero Active temperature-regulating baselayer incorporates Outlast technology, which is a fabric system originally developed for NASA to clothe its astronauts.

EarthRoamer builds expedition vehicles that blend heavy-duty truck toughness with the kind of self-contained living spaces most people only find in high-end homes. This 2023 XV-SX stands as a pre-roamed example with just 8,228 miles on the odometer and a full complement of factory options already installed. At $1.1 million it sits at the top of the price range for anything on four wheels that can still tackle serious trails while keeping occupants comfortable for weeks at a time.

Builders start with a standard Chevrolet Silverado 6500HD crew cab chassis driven by a 6.6-liter Duramax turbo-diesel V8 that generates 350 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque. A six-speed automatic Allison transmission powers a four-wheel drive system. It boasts manual front lockers and low-range gearing to assist you maneuver through challenging terrain. The air suspension system consists of heavy-duty remote reservoir shocks and stabilizer bars, which do an excellent job of combining consistent highway performance with the ability to level the car on rough terrain.

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You’ll be driving on 43-inch Goodyear tires that fit snugly into military-grade beadlock wheels at each corner. The ground clearance is a decent 12 inches, with approach and departure angles of 34 and 22 degrees, respectively. A front Warn winch capable of 16,500 pounds and a matched rear unit provide numerous rescue options when needed. The electric running boards will fold down for convenient access and then tuck away on the route. A full-size spare even has its own electric hoist, enabling for rapid replacements as needed.

Being self-sufficient begins with a 1600-watt solar array installed on the roof, which generates enough power to charge an 18-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery bank. You’ll then have a 7000watt inverter and charger setup that can power most household items without a problem. When the battery levels drop too low, the engine can automatically start to replenish them via the alternator. You have 100 gallons of diesel split between the front and rear tanks, giving you about 1000 miles of range depending on how harsh the terrain is and what you’re carrying.

Water systems contain 120 gallons of fresh water in insulated and heated tanks, as well as 55 gallons of grey water. Two 5-gallon cassettes hold black toilet water. UV and particle filtering will keep the drinking water safe and clean. You’ll have a diesel-hydronic heater as well as electric components to keep you and the cabin warm all year, and electric pumps and remote monitoring will make it easy to manage everything from the rig’s touchscreen displays.

The body is comprised of a single piece of vacuum-infused carbon fiber, providing greater strength without adding weight. The frameless windows are huge and provide a superb view of the living room from wherever inside. The electric awning even has LED lighting for a nicely covered outdoor environment. There are also several lockable pockets, a rear bumper storage system, a Pelican box, and a passenger-side slide-out rack to keep your belongings organized. You receive x-guard protection to keep the rig’s paint looking excellent while also protecting against rock chips and trail rash.

When you walk through the integrated entry door, you’ll find yourself in the Mount Princeton floor plan, which features a very sophisticated yet utilitarian arrangement finished in Woodland Timber Oak cabinetry. The galley is designed around a two-burner induction cooktop, a 6-cubic-foot stainless steel refrigerator with a separate freezer, and a 1.5-cubic-foot convection microwave. You have a deep stainless-steel sink with a retractable sprayer and high-quality fittings to make cleanup a snap. Custom quiet-ride organizers keep your cookware, plates, glasses, mugs, and flatware from rattling around, and the slide-out pantry and trash system keep the workplace neat and tidy.

A six-person group can assemble around a dining table that folds down to form a gigantic California-king-sized bed measuring 72 by 84 inches. Upstairs, a separate sleeping room includes its own California-king memory foam mattress, which is easily accessible via a robust ladder and assist handle. The two rear captain’s chairs provide an extremely versatile lounge seating choice that’s ideal for relaxing. You’ll also discover a cedar-lined closet with enough space for all of your belongings, complete with shelving, hanging rods, and a full-length mirror to double-check your appearance in the morning.

The dry bathroom is particularly impressive, with a real stand-up shower with a rain head and a height-adjustable handheld shower wand that allows you to get clean exactly as you want. There’s also a toilet and vanity with high-end fixtures, as well as a laundry combination unit to keep your clothes clean while traveling. The air circulation is decent, with variable speed exhaust fans and just the right amount of intelligent illumination to keep you comfortable.

A 43-inch drop-down ceiling-mounted television with Sonos surround sound and amplifier keeps you entertained in the main living space, while a 32-inch tilt-mount screen with a Sonos Beam sound bar is available in the upper bunk. If you’re off the grid, don’t worry; the 5G-ready cellular wi-fi has a rooftop antenna and integrated Starlink capability, so you can stay connected no matter where you go. A pair of touchscreen control panels provide a quick overview of the power, water, and climate status, which is really helpful for keeping things running smoothly.

The security specs on this thing are also pretty top-notch, with a GOST camera system, a FLIR infrared camera, front facing and rooftop cameras, and even a dash cam view displayed right on the rear view mirror screen. If you’re concerned about privacy, don’t be, because the window tint on the cab and some additional security measures will keep you safe. Carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, and other roadside safety features are included as standard.

This XV-SX includes every major factory option we could think of, including a washer/dryer combo, rear captain’s seats, an outside gas grill, more storage options, and a full camera suite. Low mileage, a complete build in Colorado, and a 3 year / 36,000 mile warranty on the conversion work itself, as well as the standard 3 year / 36,000 mile warranty on the underlying Chevrolet, mean this thing is ready to go right out of the box. If you ever need service, EarthRoamer has you covered with its global service network, as the base chassis is pretty much a standard heavy duty truck.
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