Home Office Setup & Equipment

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. You've probably heard of Sonos smart speakers and soundbars. They're one of the best in the market for audio quality and simple user experience. But unless you're in the weeds of tech audio, you probably missed their debut in the headphone space with the Sonos Ace, which was released last summer. You can get the Sonos Ace for $349 (originally $449), the lowest price they've been according to price tracking tools. Sonos Ace …

It feels like every social media site now has a 'reply guy' problem. You'll post about something that you know your followers will get, but if the post goes any degree of viral, multiple random strangers will appear in the replies questioning all your decisions and putting you down for making a harmless quip or a minor error. Bluesky is now helping you do something to address this problem. The site's moderation tools are among the best I've seen on social media platforms and in its latest update (1.98), Bluesky is doubling down on its efforts to help you keep harassment at bay. You can now restrict replies to only your followers, which is another great tool to reduce the…

Whenever I have a carb emergency I make one of two things: cookies or quick bread. Lately I’ve been leaning toward the latter—like banana bread, lemon poppy muffins, or biscuits—because they’re less sweet compared to cookies, and I enjoy the ritual smear of salted butter. I’ve been making this Irish soda bread on repeat and I think you’ll like it too. Quick-bread satisfactionThe quick breads category is pretty wide. They can be sweet and cake-y like banana bread, barely sweet like scones, or savory like cheddar cheese and thyme biscuits. Unlike yeast-raised breads, quick breads are raised with chemical leaveners (baking soda or baking powder), which means they require abs…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Prior to September 2024, any Apple user interested in active noise-canceling (ANC) AirPods would've had to shell out $250 for the AirPods Pro. With the release of the ANC AirPods 4, the tech is much more affordable—and you can currently grab these $179 earbuds for $148.99. (Apple also has a more budget-friendly version of the AirPods 4 without ANC; that model is currently for $99.99, down from $129. Both of these prices mark record lows, according to price-tracking tools. While the discounts aren't mind-blowing, the fact we're seeing any price reduc…

Cheese and carbs have never been a tough sell, but if you’ve ever had a stretchy, springy bite of pão de queijo (a Brazilian cheese bread puff) then you know that this simple combination can soar to new heights. It’s the most utterly stretchy cheese puff you’ve ever known. If you haven’t had the pleasure of noshing on pão de queijo, then we should change that. Luckily, it only requires six ingredients and with the help of a blender or stand mixer, it’s nearly effortless. What is pão de queijo?While many South American countries have a version of a this cheesy bread, pão de queijo originated in Brazil. This delightful snack owes its stretchy, gummy center to tapioca flour…

Like the first few months of the year, April is a relatively quiet month for sky watching, but it does bring one of the oldest meteor showers and a micromoon. April 13: Pink MoonApril's full moon is known as the Pink Moon, so named for the color of ground phlox, a wildflower that blooms during the month—though the moon itself doesn't actually appear pink in the sky. The Pink Moon is also a micromoon, meaning it occurs at that furthest point from Earth. The opposite of a supermoon, it will look about 5% smaller in diameter than usual. April 21: Lyrid meteor shower peakThe main event in April is the Lyrid meteor shower. It starts mid-month (around April 17) and will peak …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. After a long winter of planning, strategizing, and buying seeds, you can finally start to plant this month. Most of that planting will happen inside, beginning the seedlings that will eventually move into your spring and summer garden. All the seeding tools like trays and heat mats come out of storage for a cleaning. As excited as you may be, it's important to exercise some restraint: You don't want to start all your seedlings at once. This is a game of timing. March only sees us starting a few spring seedings, as well as some seeds that take a long time. Everything else will get started next month. Once you start seeding…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. International Women's Day, in one form or another, has existed since around 1909—placing the holiday's inception roughly in line with the early days of film. It seems fitting, then, to take a look at movies that examine and celebrate the accomplishments (and trials) of real women in history. This isn't an exhaustive list of movies about women who've changed the world (or at least changed their worlds), and there are plenty of very important women whose lives have never been touched by filmmakers (and others, sadly, with movies that aren't streaming—I'm looking at you Hypatia of Alexandria and Agora). But, like Internationa…

Google's Gemini AI is going beyond Android phones, the company officially announced today, prior to its Google I/O 2025 conference later this month. Specifically, Google says it will bring the AI assistant to smartwatches, cars, TVs, and even mixed reality headsets. This is a significant step forward for its Gemini push, as it'll allow people to use the service on almost all devices in the Google ecosystem. Gemini on Wear OS devices Credit: Google The goal of Gemini on your smartwatch is to ensure you've always got your AI ass…

There are many ways to copy text that can't be easily selected, but few that are as simple and fast as Text Lens ($6)—a new Mac app by prolific developer Sindre Sorhus. Text Lens lets you select any part of your Mac's screen and automatically copy all of the text from that part. This makes it easy to copy text from images, videos, scanned pages, settings menus, and other types of text that are otherwise impossible to grab. Text Lens vs. Apple's Live TextLive Text, which is built into macOS, allows you to capture text from screenshots. While it's good enough to get you started, it works only with Safari, Preview, and the built-in screenshot tool. You can't select text fro…

Journalists love a good tech prototype. These exciting experiments break up the monotony of covering the same incremental refreshes day-in and day-out.They also come with a downside: As attention grabbing as they are, there’s no guarantee that they’ll ever actually come to market. That’s why covering them can be a bit tricky, as it can be difficult to decide how much attention to give a product consumers might never actually see. Luckily, Lenovo actually made good on one of its earlier promises at CES this year, showing off a rollable laptop that’s set to launch sometime in 2025. Now, the company has three additional concepts it's showing off for Mobile World Congress, al…

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…

Gboard, the default keyboard on many Android phones, is finally getting a proper undo button. Up until now, you had to use a Japanese keyboard to access the undo button, but Google has finally addressed that gap. With Gboard 15 for Android, you'll be able to use the undo button that, thankfully, works with all languages. How to set up the undo and redo buttons in GboardFirst up, go to Google Play store and update Gboard to the latest version. After that, open any app where you can see the keyboard, such as Messages or Chrome. Fire up the keyboard and tap the four squares icon in the top-left corner of the keyboard. This will show you all the shortcuts that you can add to…

There used to be a clear progression in home ownership: You bought a “starter” home when you were young, built equity, then cashed in when prices rose and leveled up to something bigger, newer, or with the features you really want. And if you bought a house that didn’t live up to expectations, or if your situation changed without warning (hello, unexpected third child!), you would list the place and move to a better option. But increasingly, that seems like an artifact of a bygone age. It’s easy these days to feel “stuck” in your current home—because of that amazing mortgage rate you locked in years ago, the eye-watering cost of a house these days, or some other issue. If…

This week Google added Veo 2 to YouTube Shorts and—wow, this article is already gibberish. Let me back up. YouTube Shorts is YouTube's TikTok knockoff competitor. Veo2 is Google's AI tool for generating videos. As of this week, you can use that AI to make clips for YouTube Shorts. This innovative and revolutionary change will forever alter the vertical videos most people scroll past so they can find the thing they actually wanted to watch. According to a confusingly worded announcement post, you can now create clips to add to your Shorts simply by typing a sentence. Anyone can create a Short right in the YouTube mobile app either by combining footage already saved to thei…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. If your kitchen counter is currently housing a Vitamix blender, you know that you can whip up some serious soups, sauces, and nut butters in that thing. In fact, my Vitamix's hot soup function is one of my favorite ways to use it. But it is almost summer, and I am no longer in the mood for soup. Now I crave chilled treats. Can my favorite blender, the Vitamix Ascent X5 go from hot soup to sorbet? Yes, and surprisingly well. Here’s how to make yourself a frozen dessert in this amazing blender. The Vitamix is not an ice cream machineIt’s important to note that the Vitamix is a blender, and not an ice cream machine. Most ice…

When the Nintendo Switch 2 was officially announced, it was hard to feel like it wasn’t just more of the same. With no weird 3D gimmicks and no absurd naming scheme, did it even really feel like a new Nintendo device? But eagle-eyed viewers picked up on something else—Nintendo, it turns out, might be the first console maker to build a mouse right into its default controller. At about 1:01 into the announcement trailer, you can see what looks like an optical sensor pop up on the side of one of the Switch 2’s Joy-Con controllers (or whatever they end up being called), and just a few seconds later, those same two controllers glide along a desk on their side, as if t…

Google's first Pixel Drop of 2025 happened this week with a long list of upgrades for the company's flagship phones, tablets, and watches. Google followed the update closely with the March 2025 Android Security Bulletin, with fixes for 43 malicious bugs—including two zero-day vulnerabilities that may actively be under "limited, targeted exploitation" on devices running Android OS. The patches cover concerns ranging from flaws that allow attackers to gain remote code execution on vulnerable devices to issues with Qualcomm and MediaTek components. The two zero-day (highest severity) exploits are labeled CVE-2024-43093 and CVE-2024-50302, both of which are "privilege escalat…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Peppers are one of the best vegetables to grow. They are expensive to buy, even when in season; they don’t take up a lot of garden space; and although there are a limited number of peppers available in stores, there are thousands of varieties are out there that you can grow. Plus, you can choose precisely when to harvest them. The pepper most people choose to grow in their garden—full size bell peppers—are a waste, though, in my opinion. Each plant only yields a few peppers, and because of their size, bell peppers take a while to grow and then to ripen. In that time, the pepper is susceptible to pests and disease. Even in…

The dock, an iconic Mac feature, is used to launch apps, switch between them, and as a hub for displaying key apps and minimized windows while they're open. By default, the dock has a clean look and features a few apps that your computer thinks you might want to use. However, you can get a lot out of customizing your dock, like removing the icons for default Apple apps you don't use. You can also change its placement and its look. Here's what you need to know to do just that, plus a bit extra. Remove apps you're not going to use Credit: Pranay Parab …

Less than a month after Apple released its own "budget" iPhone, the iPhone 16e, Samsung is out with a new midrange Galaxy A series update for 2025. And unlike Apple's $599 phone, the Galaxy A26, an admittedly more budget-friendly device, starts at just $300. The Galaxy A56 on the other hand, a more direct iPhone 16e competitor, will be $500 when it launches later this year, yet nets you double the storage as the 16e. If you're thinking about picking up any of these phones, you might be curious about how they all compare on paper. While we'll need to wait for reviewers to get their hands on these devices before we truly know how they stack up, it's helpful to see the specs…

Nintendo Switch 2 preorders are currently underway (if you can manage to find a store with inventory, that is). As we approach the console's June 5 launch date, it's worth getting a bit reflective: The Switch as a product line is now more than eight years old, and Nintendo has made some significant changes with this latest device. If you have a Switch and are thinking about picking up a Switch 2, you might be wondering how these two generations of consoles compare. Now, Nintendo didn't just release one console during the Switch era: It released three. There's the original Switch, the Switch OLED, and the Switch Lite. I'm taking a look at all three and comparing their spec…

Aside from the launch of the sky blue M4-powered MacBook Air, this week's flurry of Apple announcements saw the introduction of the most powerful Apple silicon desktop processor yet. Given Apple's numbering scheme for its own chipsets, you'd think that would be one with an M4 label attached, but it's actually the M3 Ultra, which will power the newest Mac Studio. Since Apple started releasing its own chipsets with the M designation, we've seen a variety of different labels attached. First came the standard processor, then the Pro, then the Max, and then the Ultra, with performance improving with each iteration. We're now up to the M4 Max and the M3 Ultra. When preordering …

I'll download any app I get an ad for—this fact has been established over and over again. Because the algorithm knows me well, that usually means I am served up advertisements for apps and services that revolve around fashion and beauty. Yet I also have a hidden introspective side, though, again, apparently not hidden from the algorithm: Over the weekend, I was encouraged to download something called Death Clock AI. This app claimed it could guess when I'll die based on my data, correlated to some scientific studies. How could I say no to that? Now, I do not believe I actually will die on Friday, June 30, 2079, as the app predicted, nor do I really think an app is the bes…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. These days, you don't need to be a spy to have tracking devices. If you're an Apple user, AirTags use Find My to track anything that you can put these devices on. Right now, Amazon has the four-pack for $67.99 (originally $99)—a new record-low price according to price-tracking tools—likely because the AirTag 2 release date is approaching. If four is too many, you can also get a single AirTag on sale for $22.99 (originally $29). …