Author: Dave Warren Hans Co

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Google’s Gemini Notebook gets Collections: rollout starts now

Google has added Collections to Gemini Notebook, a new organization feature that’s rolling out now and gives people a far better way to handle growing notebook libraries inside Google’s source-grounded research assistant.

Evernote Download

You can now group related notebooks into custom sets for work, research, study, or personal topics. And because Collections behave more like playlists than folders, the same notebook can live in multiple groups at the same time, which helps when your subjects overlap. At launch, though, Collections are personal only and can’t be shared.

Gemini Notebook is still Google’s source-grounded research assistant for your documents, PDFs, notes, and other materials, not the open web, so this tackles a real headache for heavy users with crowded libraries. It also lands just days after Google rebranded NotebookLM as Gemini Notebook on July 16, 2026, alongside newer additions such as secure cloud-computer support for code execution and data analysis, broader Gemini app syncing, and planned integration with Google Search‘s upcoming Mode experience.

If you use Gemini Notebook a lot for source-heavy projects, you’ll probably want this as soon as it shows up.

Collections is rolling out now in Gemini Notebook, but the release looks gradual. So far Google has shared only limited details about country and language availability, and some users, especially in Europe, are reporting slower access.

Microsoft OneNote Download

Google Phone beta update reveals Pixel 11a codename: another budget Pixel may be coming

Google’s Phone app got an update today to beta version 230.0.946661649-publicbeta-pixel, and the code in that release seems to point to the Pixel 11 lineup, especially a Pixel 11a.

Inside the code, bear names appear to line up with specific devices: “cubs” for the Pixel 11, “grizzly” for the Pixel 11 Pro, “kodiak” for the Pixel 11 Pro XL, and “formosan” for what looks to be the Pixel 11a.

That’s probably a nod to the Formosan black bear, and it’s the clearest sign yet, straight from Google’s own app code, that another budget Pixel is on the way, even if the specs, branding, and release plans could still shift before anything is official.

Since these names turned up in Google’s own Phone app, this leak carries more weight than the usual third-party rumor. If you keep up with Pixel news, this beta is worth grabbing just to poke around for clues. It also lines up with Google’s habit of accidentally letting unreleased Pixel details slip through its own software.

If Google sticks to its usual timing, the Pixel 11 series should show up at Google’s confirmed August 12 event in New York City, right in its normal August 2026 window. The Pixel 11a could then follow in spring 2027. Other rumors have also suggested 256GB may replace 128GB, prices could go up, and the standard model might get a “Pixel Glow” light.

You can download the Google Phone beta through Google Play on supported Pixel devices.

Starlink rolls out the new V5 dish in the US: smaller, lighter and more efficient

SpaceX has begun offering the Starlink V5 residential dish to a limited group of new U.S. customers, at least based on current Starlink listings. It brings smaller, lighter hardware that also pulls less power, which makes it a more practical fit for home internet.

Starlink Download

Next to the Starlink V4 dish, the V5 is a big drop in size and power use. It goes from about 6.5 pounds down to 2.4, and it draws roughly 35 to 50W instead of 75 to 100W, according to Starlink’s official specs and those early listings. The V5 package also comes with a smaller Router Mini and a pipe adapter, and the same specs point to a setup built for easier use at home, not for in-motion use.

Starlink lists peak speed for the V5 at 375+ Mbps, compared with 400+ Mbps for the V4. That gap is small on paper, and your real speeds will still come down to your plan, network congestion, and local capacity more than the published maximum.

If you’re looking at Starlink for a house, a remote property, or a battery-backed setup, this seems like the better pick because of the lower weight and lower power draw. If you need internet while driving, though, this isn’t the one to chase. SpaceX is steering those customers toward the updated Starlink Mini.

There are still some obvious caveats. Availability is limited, most customers probably won’t see the new dish yet, and there’s still no public timeline for an international rollout. Also, most of what’s known so far comes from Starlink’s own specifications and early listings, not from broad real-world testing.

Right now, the Starlink V5 is available directly from Starlink as a residential option for select new U.S. customers.

Speedtest by Ookla Download

Silent Hill: Downpour gets a native PC fan port with restored content

Silent Hill: Downpour is finally making its way to PC, just not through Konami. Fan developer Aleksey Shevchenko, better known as Indie_RU, has put together an unofficial native version of the 2012 Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 entry.

He says it isn’t the old console game running through emulation. The content is being moved over and adapted by hand, which gives this console-only Silent Hill a real preservation angle for anyone who wants to revisit it legally, and without the hassle of dragging out old hardware.

According to Shevchenko, the plan includes support for up to 1440p, uncapped 60 FPS, improved lighting and shadows, keyboard-and-mouse controls, quick-save and quick-load, plus skippable cutscenes. If it comes together the way he’s describing it, it could also clean up the performance issues that held back the original release.

And he’s not stopping at a straight port. Shevchenko says the project will also restore deleted cutscenes, dialogue, notes, side quests, 3D models, weapons, and the cut Monocle Man boss fight.

If you’ve been waiting for a good excuse to replay this overlooked entry without relying on aging hardware, this looks worth grabbing once it’s ready.

The project is headed to PC at a time when Silent Hill has picked up steam again, following Bloober Team’s 2024 Silent Hill 2 remake, while Silent Hill Townfall and Silent Hill f are still in development.

Sony confirms new physical PlayStation games will end in 2028

Sony Interactive Entertainment has confirmed that it will stop producing new physical PlayStation games on disc in January 2028.

ChatGPT Download

Games that were already released on disc before that date won’t be affected, and publishers will still be able to reorder existing titles. New PlayStation releases after the cutoff, though, are expected to shift toward boxed download codes.

January 2028 explains why: Sony Interactive Entertainment said 85% of full PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 sales in Q4 FY2025 were digital, and 78% of sales across the full year were digital too, up from less than 10% at the start of the PlayStation 4 era. The company also said digital sales bring in roughly twice the margin, and Sony stock climbed after the announcement.

If you still buy PlayStation games on disc, pay attention to this. It adds to the sense that 2028 could line up with the PlayStation 6, and that we’re heading toward a future where a disc drive isn’t standard anymore. It also brings back the usual digital-only worries: ownership, delistings, preservation, fewer second-hand and retail discount options, and the need for fast broadband.

Sony Interactive Entertainment is also shutting down the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita digital stores worldwide by July 2027, so if there are physical PlayStation games you want to hold onto long term, it’s smart to buy them before the cutoff. Until then, PlayStation releases will still be available on disc and digitally through the PlayStation Store on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

PlayStation App Download

X launches Live Studio: $1 million creator fund is now live

X, the platform many people still call Twitter, has rolled out Live Studio inside Creator Studio. It’s available now, with a new dashboard for livestreaming and a $1 million creator payout fund built around live video.

OBS Studio Download

X says you can schedule streams, upload thumbnails, limit access to subscribers or verified users, and keep an eye on numbers like concurrent viewers and audience demographics from the same place. The company is pushing harder on live content, and this looks like a direct bid to look more competitive next to YouTube and Twitch.

The fund is meant to get creators trying live video right away. What’s still missing is the part people will actually want clarified before they commit real time to it: X hasn’t said what the long-term payout model will look like or exactly which benchmarks creators will need to hit.

If you stream on X often, this is something to pay attention to.

There are catches. The more advanced Live Studio features require an X Premium subscription, livestreaming itself is on track to become Premium-only, and X is also giving monetization preference to original creators over repost and aggregation accounts.

That all fits with X’s bigger video push, especially as video viewing on the platform keeps climbing and the X TV app has now joined the mix. But X still has to show it can support bigger streams without issues, and it needs to explain payouts in a way that isn’t so vague.

You can get to Live Studio now through X’s Creator Studio. If you want the advanced tools, you’ll need X Premium.

NotebookLM adds YouTube support: a powerful study combo

Google added public YouTube URL and audio file support to NotebookLM in September 2024. That means people who learn from video can now pull in a transcript and get summaries, explanations, and study guides without having to build everything from scratch.

YouTube Download

Drop a public YouTube link into Google NotebookLM and it works off the transcript: you can ask about the main themes, line up multiple videos against each other, and turn lectures, certification courses, coding tutorials, language lessons, or denser research material into tight notes. For revision, course review, and research prep, that’s a lot faster than rewatching a full video or dragging through timestamps looking for one section.

There are also tools that make the import step quicker. The Chrome extension YouTube to NotebookLM lets you bring in videos, playlists, channels and even search results with one click, so an entire playlist or a whole channel can turn into something you can actually search and study from. It also lines up with the broader 2024-2025 move toward more automated digital tools in education, alongside an edtech market that’s still growing.

If YouTube is already part of how you study or teach, NotebookLM is probably worth a look. Still, it makes more sense as a supplement than a replacement: summaries can stay on the surface, transcript quality isn’t always consistent, logic-heavy subjects don’t always compress cleanly, and any generated answer still needs to be checked against the source and understood for real.

The feature is available in Google NotebookLM through YouTube links, and faster importing is available through the YouTube to NotebookLM Chrome extension.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword may launch three weeks early: retailer lists September 4

Onimusha: Way of the Sword may be coming a little earlier than expected. A Canadian retailer has it listed for September 4, 2026. If that date is accurate, the game would be moving up, but right now it’s still just a rumor. Capcom’s only official date is still September 25, 2026, and the company reiterated that in early June.

Steam Download

Reports also say Japanese promo materials are still using the September 25, 2026 date.

Retail listings do sometimes tip a real release-date change before a publisher says anything. They also end up being placeholders, clerical slipups, or backend errors all the time. Capcom only restated the September 25 launch in early June, so if this September 4 listing is legit, Onimusha: Way of the Sword would be arriving about three weeks early.

If you’ve been waiting for the first completely new mainline Onimusha in more than 18 years, this is worth keeping an eye on. A September 4 release would give the early Edo-era action RPG, starring Miyamoto Musashi with a likeness modeled after Toshiro Mifune, a bit more room before Control Resonant and Silent Hill: Townfall show up.

Both Control Resonant and Silent Hill: Townfall are reportedly slated for September 24. If that holds, the gap could matter more than it sounds like it would. Word of mouth, review coverage, streaming attention, pre-order momentum, all of that gets tighter when releases start piling up on top of each other.

Player reactions so far have gone both ways. Some of you are happy at the thought of getting the game sooner. Others are wary that a sudden shift in the date could point to a rushed final stretch.

While Capcom decides whether September 25 is staying put, or says otherwise, you can at least try the playable demo that went live on June 3, 2026.

The Sims 4 fairy cheats are already a hot topic: Enchanted by Nature fuels demand

The Sims 4 has kicked off another round of fairy-cheat demand, especially from players picturing something along the lines of an Enchanted by Nature expansion. The focus has already landed on the kinds of commands people would expect from a fairy-themed pack: cheats to edit Fairy Sims, raise an Apothecary-style skill, and jump a Sim straight up the occult ranks.

The Sims 4 Download

Looking at how Electronic Arts handled The Sims 4: Vampires, The Sims 4: Werewolves, and The Sims 4: Realm of Magic, the usual guesses make sense. Players would likely expect cheats that turn a Sim into a Fairy, let them skip rank progression, unlock perk trees, use the familiar `stats.set_skill_level [skill_name] [level]` format for Apothecary, and maybe even control a nature- or alchemy-based career connected to the larger game world.

Cheat wish lists usually tell you what people actually want from a new life state. In this case, it’s more than wings and sparkles. Players are asking for real progression, careers, strengths and weaknesses, and gameplay that feels genuinely separate from spellcasters, vampires, and werewolves. Fairies have stayed popular for a reason, going back to The Sims 3: Supernatural and continuing through years of mods, wings, magic animations, and fairycore custom content.

If your saves already lean hard into occult gameplay, a pack like this would only feel worth buying if it came with a full system that could hold up over time. Cosmetics on their own wouldn’t be enough.

And some players still aren’t convinced a single occult type can carry a full expansion, especially with Kits, Marketplace content, and Project Rene heading off in its own free-to-play direction.

There’s nothing to download yet, but The Sims 4 is available on PC and consoles.

GTA 5 is now free to upgrade on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC

Grand Theft Auto 5 just picked up a new free upgrade path on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. If you already own GTA 5 on older platforms, you can move up without buying it again. Rockstar says PC players with the Legacy version can upgrade to Enhanced at no extra cost too.

Grand Theft Auto V Download

On PlayStation, any PS4 copy of Grand Theft Auto 5 qualifies on PS5, whether you own it physically or digitally. Xbox is a bit more specific. Rockstar says you’ll need the digital Xbox One version of Grand Theft Auto 5.

For PC players, the switch from Legacy to Enhanced being free is a pretty big change. The old setup was a lot less friendly, since upgrading used to mean buying the game again for £35/$40, unless you happened to catch the short-lived £8/$10 discount in 2022. Rockstar says the upgrade includes support for up to 4K in Fidelity Mode, 60fps, faster load times, 3D audio, and DualSense features on PS5.

Rockstar also says the update adds Hao’s Special Works in GTA Online, along with a one-time transfer for both Story Mode saves and GTA Online progress. This is rolling out alongside July’s Kortz Center Heist, and that content is still being kept available on last-gen systems too.

It also looks like another push toward PS5 and Xbox Series X/S ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6. Rockstar still has that game scheduled only for those platforms, with launch set for November 19, 2026.

If you’re still using an older version, this upgrade is well worth claiming. The reaction, though, has been mixed. Some players are happy it’s finally free. Others are annoyed because they already paid for the upgrade earlier.

Rockstar Games Launcher Download

You can grab the free upgrade now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.