Home Office Setup & Equipment

If you've had trouble accessing Bluesky this morning, you're not alone. The social media platform has been experiencing intermittent interruptions to service on Thursday. That's obvious from a glance at Downdetector, which shows thousands of user reports of issues with Bluesky starting at about 1:51 a.m. ET, and really kicking off at 2:21 a.m. ET. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by Lifehacker parent company Ziff Davis.) While my Bluesky feed does seem to be working at this time, there are still issues causing downtime for users and parts of the platform, including loading notifications. As of this article, Bluesky's status page reads "We are investigating an incident w…

I'm one of those folks who has completely moved from X to Bluesky, and for the most part, it's been a pretty seamless experience. It's not hard to move your following list over; you can upload (almost) all of your old tweets if you want; and the scrolling and posting experience is almost identical to what you'll remember from the old days of Twitter. The only feature I've missed? Drafts. Finally, drafts have arrived. In a post to the official Bluesky account, the company announced that it's added drafts to the platform, and that they're rolling out now. To create a draft, just start writing a post, and instead of tapping the Post button, hit Cancel or Drafts instead and c…

Bluesky is setting itself up to be a social media jack of all trades. There's the main experience, of course, which replaces something like X or Threads. But it's not all about the text posts: Soon, you'll be able to use an app like Flashes to transform Bluesky into a kind of Instagram. Before that drops, however, you can use a different app to turn Bluesky into TikTok. It's not quite there yet, but it's a fascinating look into a unique kind of social media client—an app that turns one platform into something else entirely. Introducing Bluescreen for Bluesky Bluescreen is a Bluesky client with one singular purpose: It identifies the videos from your Bluesky feed and deliv…

Bluesky's latest update adds a few more useful options to its impressive arsenal of anti-harassment tools. The changes make it easier to hide direct messages (DMs) from strangers, and to mute accounts even faster. You don't need to do anything to receive these features, too. As long as you're using the latest version of Bluesky's apps or log in to the website on any browser, you should see them. Here's everything that's now available as a part of Bluesky's 1.99 update. Block DMs from strangersNo one wants a bunch of DMs from strangers, and Bluesky has now acknowledged that. If you're on the end of a targeted harassment campaign, you'll now be able to sort out DMs from str…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. It's Cyber Monday, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before the sales are over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more…

My concentration is shot. I know this because I've checked my phone four times while writing this opening paragraph. I'm addicted to my phone in a way that feels both embarrassing and completely normal, which is perhaps the most damning part. My phone feels essential for everything: my job requires Slack and email responsiveness, my hobbies live in apps and group chats, and even my downtime involves scrolling through feeds I don't actually enjoy. These days, we tend to think of upgrades (in life, in tech, wherever) as adding features, but sometimes the real upgrade is eliminating. So I did something a little radical this year: I bricked my iPhone. Well, sort of. And it's …

Phone notifications are tricky to balance: too many of them, and you're constantly distracted by buzzes and pings. Too few of them, and you risk missing something important, from a relative in trouble to a great deal on headphones (two ends of the importance scale there, but you get the idea). Over the years, Apple and Google have tweaked and refined the notification systems built into iOS and Android, but there's still room for improvement. The native features that are currently in place work fine, but lack the sort of granular control you need to properly manage the alerts you want and the alerts you don't want. Enter BuzzKill: It's Android only (sorry, iPhone users), a…

As Lifehacker’s smart glasses and virtual reality expert, I spend a lot of time flooding my eyes with bright light. Last night, I was testing a pair of soon-to-be released display style glasses that blast out 1,200 nits of light. That’s roughly car-headlight-bright, squeezed into a postage-stamp-sized image projected on glass about a half inch from my eyes. I thought to myself, “Wait, am I frying my eyeballs?” So I called up Dr. Sunir Garg, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and professor of ophthalmology at Wills Eye Hospital, and asked him point blank: What am I doing to my eyes with this stuff? “We think not much,” Garg replied. “If the light is …

As egg prices skyrocket, you too may be considering if it would be cheaper going straight to the source and raising your own flock. As the steward of four sweet but dimwitted backyard chickens, I'll caution that it's more expensive than you think—but with prices spiking as high as $1 per egg in some areas, it may be worth considering. Each day, I reliably pull three or four gorgeously colored eggs out of my backyard chicken coop. “They're free!” I think to myself. But these eggs are only “free” if one ignores the costs of feeding, sheltering, protecting, and entertaining a flock of tiny, feathered dinosaurs. Now, most people with backyard birds aren’t going the cheap rou…

Adobe just wrapped up its Max keynote, which means its time for its biggest free competitor to announce its own set of new features. While Adobe's done its best to keep up with Canva by adding its own free, web-based tools to its lineup, the simple browser-based editor has become a key part of my creative routine. Now, it's coming for more of Adobe's lunch by launching a "creative operating system," which while largely a rebrand of existing (but expanding) tools, smacks of the Photoshop makers' "creative cloud" branding. As part of the update, Canva's introducing a bunch of—say it with me—AI to its products, but is also taking a big swing by making popular Photoshop alter…

Canvas, the cloud-based learning management system used by more than 8,000 colleges and universities, including all top ten colleges in the U.S., is being held for ransom. A group called Shinyhunters has claimed responsibility for the hack and has given Canvas' parent company, Instructure, until May 12 to reach a settlement, or else "everything is leaked." Canvas outages have been reported nationwideThere's no word on how many schools have been affected, but reports of students being unable to access Canvas are coming in from universities and colleges all over the country. Over the last half an hour, complaints of Canvas being down have gone from nearly none to over 8,000…

Android Auto users are reporting a bug that is making their cars disappear from the road—ok, not literally, but within Google Maps. On both Reddit and Google's own support forums, drivers now say their car icons are sporadically disappearing from their navigation screens while using the Google Maps app through Android Auto. Some users have discovered workarounds, but the fixes don't appear to be consistent for everyone. Here's what's happening, and what you can do to try to fix it. Why are car icons disappearing in Google Maps in Android Auto?The news first started popping up six days ago, on a Reddit thread where multiple users reported problems with their car icons disa…

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is often referred to as "the most powerful tech event in the world," bringing together tech companies from around the globe to unveil their latest innovations. The massive event is held across various locations, including the Las Vegas Convention Center, The Venetian, Mandalay Bay, and The Sphere, and is a staple event for both companies vying for recognition and media outlets that cover them. One day into "Unveiled," the media-only prelude to the trade show, I landed on what might be my mantra for my CES 2026 experience. "Cool, if true," Associate Tech Editor Michelle Ehrhardt had said about a new product booth, summarizing how I felt …

Not to be outdone by the likes of Samsung and TLC, Amazon is joining the picture frame TV space. At CES 2026, the company announced a new line of unobtrusive smart TVs, complete with a new brand name and a redesigned FireTV OS, which will also show up on other FireTV devices. Meet the Ember Artline TV series Credit: Amazon Amazon is calling its new line of art TVs "Ember Artline." They will ship in two sizes, 55 inches and 65 inches, with pricing starting at $899 for the base model—some $200 cheaper than the list price of Samsu…

When you come across an AI video on Instagram, or watch ChatGPT respond to your query, do you ever think about how that content was generated? Beyond the actual programs and prompts, generative AI takes an enormous amount of compute to support, especially as it skyrockets in popularity. As such, AI companies are looking for more power than ever, which means, of course, turning to those that make the hardware. AMD calls Helios "The world's best AI rack" During a Monday evening keynote, AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su showed off the hardware that will soon power everything from ChatGPT to the AI videos overwhelming your feeds. Su introduced "Helios" against a backdrop of dramatic mu…

Anker launched a pair of "2-in-1" earbuds under its Soundcore brand at CES 2026, and it has a unique feature: They can be worn in two ways by adjusting the ear hooks. When you want active noise cancellation, you can wear it in-ear, and when you don't, you can adjust the hooks for an open-ear design. This quirky product is called the Soundcore Aerofit 2 Pro—and you can already buy it for $150, which includes a launch discount of $30. When it comes to CES announcements, I'm always wary of vaporware, aka products that are announced but never shipped. That's why I keep an eye out for products with a shorter launch window so you can actually get your hands on the things you're…

CES is the time of year for weird computers, and Asus is bringing back an old fan favorite to help fill its unusual form factor quota. Gamers who miss the days of dual screens, get excited: the ROG Zephyrus Duo is returning for 2026, and it's bigger than ever. Looking a bit like a gigantic Nintendo DS, the new ROG Zephyrus Duo stacks two full-sized 3K OLED screens on top of each other, with a standard laptop hinge in between. It's a lot like the company's existing Zenbook Duo, but that one's geared more for productivity users—the Zephyrus Duo is fully specced out for gamers, with a 120Hz refresh rate on both screens, the latest Intel Core Ultra chips, up to an RTX 5090 la…

During last year's CES, Dell killed the brand behind the very first laptop I ever owned, ditching its beloved XPS branding alongside other classic names like Inspiron and Precision. In its place, the company said all of its future (non-gaming) computers would now be known simply as "Dell," either being Dell, Dell Pro, or Dell Pro Max devices. In addition to these, other monikers like Dell Plus and Dell Premium were also tossed into the mix—and with all those similar-sounding adjectives floating around, it was just a mess to know what you were actually buying. If you can tell me the difference between a Dell 14 Plus, a Dell 14 Premium, and a Dell 14 Pro Premium without loo…

It's CES week, when the tech world gathers in Las Vegas to check out the latest gadgets, prototypes, and innovations that will shape the future. Lifehacker's tech team is on the ground at the convention, tracking down big stories and cool gear. What is CES?Billing itself as "The Most Powerful Tech Event in the World," CES (short for "Consumer Electronics Show") is the Consumer Technology Association's trade convention. It began in 1967 as a small showcase for televisions and radios, but over the decades CES has become a gathering of the tribes for tech culture. Everyone is there, from huge companies like Samsung and Sony, to scores of journalists, to scrappy startups wit…

Listen up, Ford drivers: You're getting a new AI assistant this year. During a decidedly low-key CES keynote, the company announced Ford AI Assistant, a new AI-powered bot coming to Ford customers in the early half of 2026. While the company has plans to integrate the assistant into Ford vehicles directly, that isn't how you'll first experience this new AI. Instead, Ford is rolling out Ford AI Assistant to an upgraded version of its Ford app first, and plans on shipping cars with the assistant built-in sometime in 2027. In effect, Ford has added a proprietary version of ChatGPT or Gemini to its app. How Ford AI Assistant worksFord's idea here is to offer users a smart as…

Gaming controllers are just one of those things that I love to collect, but living in a small New York apartment, eventually enough is enough. At CES this year, I saw three new controllers that are all trying to be the last ones I'll ever need to buy (for specific systems, at least). It seems like modularity is in, and all three of these devices want to meet all of your needs. However, they're not settled on what the best approach is. GameSir x Hyperkin X5 AlteronThe GameSir x Hyperkin X5 Alteron is probably the cutest controller on this list, especially if you grew up playing GameCube or Nintendo 64. Essentially, it's a telescopic mobile controller that stretches to fit …

Hisense is all about TVs at this year's CES—specifically, how those TVs display color. If the company's keynote is any indication, Hisense is extremely invested in leading the charge in color reproduction. Though its tagline this year is "Innovating a Brighter Life," the pitch is less on how bright their TVs are, and more on how true to life their colors are, especially when it comes to accurately displaying the filmmakers' original intent. Will consumers buy a TV because their favorite movie looks a bit more how the director intended it to be? I'm not sure. But that's largely the idea behind Hisense's new RGB MiniLED Evo. RGB MiniLED Evo …

Like many parents, sometimes I view my kids as lazy. This was one of those times: At Orlando International Airport, on our way to Disney World, my 16-year-old daughter shared how much she wanted a rideable suitcase. I laughed and told her that she can walk just fine. "Besides," I added, "that would never work." I hadn't seen rideable luggage yet, and I pointed out the immediate detractions that came to mind. First, it wouldn't work for someone like me—6'3 and 215 pounds. Second, I had doubts that it would have much storage space to carry items, which is the whole point of luggage. And third, who would be caught dead riding something so silly? But my daughter was determin…

Robot vacuums are a convenient way to keep your house clean without actually putting in much work, but they've all got one major problem—what if your house has multiple stories? At CES this year, I saw two attempts to fix this problem, but one of them was much more fabulous than the other. Roborock has a robot vacuum with legsThis is the more unique of your stair climbing robot vacuums, and the one that's new for this year. At CES 2026, robot vacuum company Roborock introduced the Roborock Saros Rover, which has two fold-out and individually articulated legs built into it, with wheels on either one. This …

Before this CES, I thought gaming headsets had gotten about as complex as they ever would. How many improvements can you possibly make on speakers and microphones? Well, forget all that. Apparently, the future of gaming headsets is mind-reading. In a private demo with a colleague from IGN this CES, I tested out a collaboration between HP's HyperX gaming brand and brain-computer interface company Neurable. Neurable's been at CES before, but most of its work has been in the defense and enterprise sectors. The idea behind the brand is specifically aimed at helping you nail down your focus, and now, Neurable thinks it can use that to help gamers. …