Home Office Setup & Equipment

You don't need to do much digging online to find complaints about the iPhone keyboard: From typos and spelling mistakes to lag and missed keystrokes, there are multiple issues being reported by users, across multiple versions of iOS. While the root causes of these problems tend to vary, there are some broad fixes you can try that should go some way to giving you an iPhone keyboard experience you can rely on—besides waiting for the next bug-squashing iOS update from Apple. Reset the keyboard dictionary on your iPhone Resetting the keyboard on iOS. Credit:…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Soaking in a warm bath can be relaxing, but nothing beats the soothing convenience of a hot shower. Like everything else in your house, your shower will start to show its age long before it stops being useful, leaving you to have a functional but uninspiring experience every day. If you can afford to remodel, that’s not a huge problem. But if you’re stuck with a shower that’s lost its shine and you can’t afford to tear it out and start over, there are a lot of affordable, easy ways to upgrade your shower with just a few purchases and minimal effort. Spruce up tiles with this shower-safe paintIf your shower tiles are in goo…

Anthropic's Claude is an AI bot that keeps up a steady pace when it comes to pushing out new features, and the latest upgrade of note sees three useful features make their way down to free users, having previously been exclusive to the paid-for plans. If you're choosing between AIs and comparing the features available on the free plans, then there's now more of a case to be made for choosing Claude over a competitor like ChatGPT or Gemini for your next batch of AI tasks. The three new features now available to free users on Claude are file creation, external plug-ins called Connectors, and bundles of instructions called Skills. Here's how you can make use of them. File cr…

This week we're taking a look at some hyper-specific cultures within the larger youth culture. They run the gamut from the truly disturbing Looksmaxxing community, to the strange world of hardcore audiophiles, to the nostalgic domain of the bebot girls. What's a bebot girl? I'm glad you asked! What is a "Bebot Girl"?TikTok is being taken over by Bebot Girls. "Bebot" is Filipino slang from the 2010s that means "babe" or "baddie." The bebot girl trend is posting videos of the transformation from a regular person to a bebot, that is, a Filipino baddy from the 1990s. This is usually accomplished through period-appropriate makeup like heavy bronzer, frosty inner eyes, and str…

There's little worse than losing an hour or two of hard work, just by clicking on the wrong button or pressing the wrong key in Microsoft Word—a mistake that sees your well-crafted document (or a sizable portion of it) disappear before your eyes. A slip of the fingers isn't the only way you can potentially lose work, either. Maybe you just have the misfortune to be busy at your computer when a power outage happens—taking your desktop, Microsoft Word, and your unsaved work along with it. However, before you begin all over again, there are some tricks you can try to bring your work back. Use Undo (Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z) …

I have always found it annoying to search for anything in Apple's Messages app. Admittedly, things have gotten better in recent years, especially as Messages allows you to use search filters now, but my biggest complaint still stands: searching in Messages can be both slow and complicated, particularly if you just want to find a specific text. If you have the same experience, I have good news: I've found a workaround that offers a massive improvement to Apple's built-in search function. The problem with searching in MessagesFor most people, the easiest way to search for texts on an iPhone involves opening the Messages app, tapping the search bar near the base of the scre…

While OpenAI is pushing ads on its free users, DuckDuckGo's Duck.ai portal is going a different way. Duck.ai is a privacy-first AI chatbot that doesn't use your data for training, but still gives you AI answers using popular models, including those from OpenAI. The data privacy feature goes beyond as well. DuckDuckGo removes all private metadata (like your location and IP address) before prompting the AI model, and it doesn't share anything about you or your device. Your questions, as well as DuckDuckGo's answers, are never used for AI training. Since its launch in 2024, the portal has only offered a chatbot interface, but now, DuckDuckGo has added a voice mode as well. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Impeccable period vibes are a highlight of Ponies, the Peacock spy show starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson. They play a couple of housewives living in Moscow with their CIA agent husbands, at least until their spouses are killed under mysterious circumstances. In order to get to the bottom of things, the two convince the Moscow station chief that they could be useful as agents themselves. He figures, hey—who'd ever suspect a couple of secretaries? You can stream Ponies on Peacock, and then stream these stories of other unexpected spies. The Americans (2013 – 2018) Set during the Cold War 1980s, and cr…

With iOS 18, Apple introduced a feature that allowed you to set a charge limit on your iPhone. The goal was to extend the lifespan of the battery, by limiting how often you fully charge it up. Batteries age with each full charging cycle, so by preventing your battery from charging to 100% every time you keep it plugged in, you can slow down that aging process, which means your device will last longer in between charges. Now, that same feature is coming to your Mac. Apple is currently testing the feature as part of macOS 26.4, which means you'll soon be able to ask macOS to stop charging your laptop once the battery level hits a specific charge level. This feature is gre…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Anker Prime 20,000mAh 200W Power Bank is built for the moments when your phone is at 3%, your laptop is at 8%, and there is no outlet in sight. Right now, it is selling for $79.99 on Woot, down from its listed $139.99. That is a $60 drop, or about 43% off. The same model is also $79.99 refurbished on Amazon, so this price puts a new unit on par with what you would normally pay for a refurb. Also, it comes with a two-year manufacturer's limited warranty. Shipping is free for Amazon Prime members, while others pay $6, and this deal runs for 11 mor…

Over the years, Apple Music has improved its algorithmic playlists. There's now an AI DJ, and you can use ChatGPT to generate playlists. With iOS 26.4, which is currently in beta, Apple wants you to make playlists with its own AI tech. The upcoming update includes a feature called "Playlist Playground," which lets you generate AI playlists directly in the Apple Music app—as long as you're running iOS 26.4. How to download and install iOS 26.4I do not recommend installing and running beta versions of iOS on your primary iPhone. Beta software is unfinished, which means you could run into bugs and glitches that may impact how you use your iPhone, or even result in data loss.…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Beats Powerbeats Pro have been on the market for years, and they remain a go-to option for people who work out and want earbuds that stay in place. At launch, they cost $249.95. Right now, they are $134.95 on Woot, and you can use code CNN2025 at checkout to take an extra $5 off. For comparison, refurbished units are selling for $149.97 on Amazon, which makes this new pair the better value. This deal runs for the next eight days or until stock runs out. Prime members get free standard shipping. …

AI-related changes to Notepad—yes, that Notepad—allowed attackers to execute arbitrary code on your computer. The vulnerability was related to Markdown support, which was added last year. Markdown is a simple way to add formatting, including links, to plaintext documents—and links were the source of the vulnerability. "An attacker could trick a user into clicking a malicious link inside a Markdown file opened in Notepad, causing the application to launch unverified protocols that load and execute remote files," according to the security response notice. Markdown has long been popular in certain parts of the internet—anyone who occasionally comments on Reddit or chats usi…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Resistance bands and dumbbells are both great for strength training at home, since they don’t require much storage space and tend to be a lot cheaper than a full setup with a barbell and plates. But they each have pros and cons, so let’s talk about how to choose. Resistance bands can offer more total weightIf you buy beefy enough resistance bands, they offer a lot of resistance. A pair of “strong” bands from EliteFTS will pull on a barbell with the same force as 122 to 275 pounds of weights, depending on how far you stretch them. During the time gyms were closed because of COVID, coach Greg Nuckols told us that a set of b…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Last-minute Presidents’ Day sales are the perfect time to stock up on gaming monitors that normally have a much higher price tag, and right now, an award-winning model from Alienware (dubbed “one of the best curved gaming monitors on the market” by PCMag) is $200 off. The Alienware 34 Curved QD-OLED Gaming Monitor is 28% off at $499.99 (originally $699.99), marking its lowest price ever as the holiday discounts wind down. Alienware 34 Curved QD-OLED Gaming Monitor …

If you use Google Chrome, you should install the latest update ASAP. Google has issued a patch for a high-severity flaw that has been actively exploited in the wild—the first Chrome zero-day in 2026. What the Google Chrome patch fixesThe latest flaw, catalogued as CVE-2026-2441, is a use-after-free vulnerability in CSSFontFeatureValuesMap, Chrome's CSS font feature implementation. A use-after-free vulnerability is a flaw in which an application attempts to use memory after it has been released back to the system. This type of bug allows attackers to execute code, escalate privileges, cause app or system crashes, and leak sensitive data. CVE-2026-2441 would allow "a remo…

iOS 26.3 was a decidedly small update. It introduced a new tool to transfer data to Android, and gave some iPhones the ability to hide precise location data from cellular networks. But beyond some other small changes and security patches, that's all there was to write home about. iOS 26.4 is a different story. The update, which is currently in beta testing, adds a number of interesting new features to compatible iPhones, especially if you're an Apple Music user. As with all beta software, iOS 26.4 is currently in testing, which means these features are subject to change at any time. It's possible some won't make it to the official release of iOS 26.4, while others could l…

When Apple released the first beta for iOS 26.4 this week, testers immediately got to work looking for each and every new feature and change. To their credit, there's more new here than in iOS 26.3, including an AI playlist generator for Apple Music and support for end-to-end encryption with RCS (finally). But one update slipped under the radar, since it's not actually available to test in this first beta: CarPlay support for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. AI assistants are coming to CarPlay in iOS 26.4As spotted by MacRumors, CarPlay's Developer Guide spills the beans on this upcoming integration. On page 13, the entitlement "CarPlay voice-based conversa…

According to a New York Times report, Meta plans to add facial recognition technology to its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. The feature, called “Name Tag” within Meta, would allow users to identify people and get information about them through Meta's AI. The feature could be rolling out as early as this year. Adding the feature is not a done deal, however. According to an internal document cited by The Times, the company is weighing the “safety and privacy risks" of introducing facial recognition as well as discussing how to navigate the response to a no-doubt controversial feature. A document quoted by The Times suggests Meta is deliberately timing a potential rollo…

Google I/O 2026 is nearly upon us. This is Google's annual opportunity to showcase the software features (and perhaps some of the hardware) the company has been cooking up behind the scenes. Like other big tech keynotes, anyone can tune in live and catch Google's latest announcements as they happen. Here's when Google I/O 2026 will kick off, and what we know about the conference at this time. When and what time is Google I/O 2026?Google tends to kick off its I/O event in May of each year, and 2026 is no different. This year, Google I/O will run May 19 through May 20. If you're used to watching one single livestream, that two-day schedule might come as a surprise. But I…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A new software update for recent Garmin watches adds “glances” for types of data that weren’t previously viewable from the watch face. These include battery usage stats, lifestyle logging, sleep alignment, and even a few extras like sports scores. The update also includes features other than glances, including, notably, fitness coaching. The features I’m writing about are now available in the Forerunner 570, Forerunner 970, and Vivoactive 6, as well as the Fenix 8 series, Venu 4, and X1. (The watch in my photos here is a Forerunner 570.) New glances for Garmin watches …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Claire Danes is grieving mother and author Aggie Wiggs; struggling with her next book, she decides to focus it on her neighbor—which is obviously a good idea, even more so because he was accused of murdering his first wife. What could go wrong? Matthew Rhys plays Nile Jarvis, the maybe-murderer neighbor, who gets caught up in the mix when Abbie's story becomes about way more than just one death. You can stream The Beast in Me on Netflix, and then check out some of these other shows about deadly secrets, vicious lies, and phenomenally bad decisions. The Girlfriend (2025 – ) In a similar "am I just being paranoid?" …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are down to $129.99 on Amazon, from their usual $179.99. That is their lowest price so far, according to price trackers. PCMag gave them an “excellent” rating, largely because they deliver strong sound and active noise cancellation without pushing into premium pricing. At this price, they sit in the crowded midrange category, but they offer a feature set that competes with more expensive earbuds. OnePlus Buds Pro 3 Wireless ANC Earbuds (Midnight Opus) …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. As anyone who’s ever had to schlep their dirty linens to a laundromat knows, having in-house laundry is a godsend. But the convenience of doing laundry whenever you feel like it starts to feel less convenient if you're lacking in the necessary storage, shelving, or work space. If a total laundry room renovation isn't in the budget, though, don't fret: You can upgrade your home's laundry hub with just a few relatively inexpensive additions. Combined with some fresh paint and some other low-cost improvements, you can have a more beautiful and functional laundry area on a small budget. Use pedestal storage underneath your was…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Google is releasing their budget a-series version of the Pixel 10 on March 5, a whole month earlier than the 9a was released in 2025. There is not much dividing the 10a from the 9a, but there are a few software updates that can make it worth it for some people. Throw in a $100 Amazon gift card, and it's hard to say no. Google has the pre-orders for the Google 10a out already, going for $499, plus the gift card. Alternatively, you can get their Pixel Buds 2a instead of the $100 gift card for the same $499 price. …