Setting Up Your Home Office

Google's Gemini app is getting an overhaul, in terms of both design and function. At Google I/O 2026, the company announced Gemini is getting upgraded models that will lean more into agentic AI capabilities, which allow the assistant to send emails, add calendar events, and perform other actions on your behalf. (Google does emphasize that all agentic capabilities are designed to be used under your supervision, which hopefully allays fears of the agent going rogue and, I don't know, draining your bank accounts.) Here's is everything Google announced about Gemini's app upgrades during this year's event. Gemini has a new lookGoogle says it has revamped the design language f…

Google Workspace is getting a slew of AI-related updates, including a brand new app called Google Pics, which can generate and edit images for you. Many of these updates will be available to those who use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, and other Google Workspace apps, the company announced during the Google I/O 2026 keynote. This includes conversational features that will allow you to control Gmail, Docs, and Keep; a new AI inbox that aims to help you stay on top of your email; and a personal AI agent called Gemini Spark that can integrate with Google Workspace apps to get things done for you. Here are all the major Google Workspace updates unveiled during Google I/O …

It wouldn't be a Google I/O keynote without a new frontier AI model. At I/O 2026, Google finally revealed the Gemini 3.5 family to the world, starting with Gemini 3.5 Flash. As you'd expect, it's the latest and greatest model from Google, designed to work across a slew of Google products like the Gemini app, Android, and Google's Antigravity coding platform. Google says that the latest frontier model is designed especially for complex agentic workflows. Google isn't the only company we're thinking about today, either. Lifehacker is launching a Big Guessing Game, featuring questions about what Apple might announce at its various events this year. The entire CNET Group is p…

At Google I/O 2026, Google announced that they're going all in on AI Search. According to Google, AI Mode now has more than a billion monthly users. To tackle all those questions, Google is plugging their best new Gemini 3.5 model directly into AI Mode, and, of course, they're integrating agents directly into Google Search so they can accomplish things on your behalf. Google Search gets Gemini 3.5 FlashStarting today, Google is integrating its latest Flash model, the Gemini 3.5 Flash, directly into AI Mode—and it's going to be available to everyone, globally. Google also sees the AI Mode search queries as the beginning of a longer conversation, so they're making the input…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The new Google Health app starts rolling out today, replacing the Fitbit app for data tracking on Fitbit and Pixel Watch devices. It’s what the Fitbit “Public Preview” previewed, and now, the finished app is live. The final app is definitely better than the preview, but still has its problems—here’s what I’ve noticed so far. (By the way, to get the Google Health app, you don't have to do anything—just wait, and the upgrade will come to you sometime over the next week or so.) Google Fitbit Air - Berry with Large Fog Active Band Bundle $99.99 at Amazon …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. At the upper echelon of earbuds, you have a few options to choose from: Bose, Sony, and Apple. If you are an Apple user, go with AirPods Pro 3. If you value audio fidelity and like to control the nitty-gritty details, go with the Sony XM6 earbuds. If you value comfort, user-friendliness, and ANC, the 2nd Generation Bose QuietComfort Ultra are your best option. And currently, the latter of those is $50 off, bringing them to $249 (originally $299) on Amazon. (All five color options are on sale.) …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Insta360 Ace Pro 2 (Dual Battery Bundle) has dropped to $329.99 on Amazon from its usual $419 price, and according to price trackers, it’s just 99 cents above its all-time low. That makes it one of the more compelling alternatives to the GoPro Hero 13 Black right now, especially for people who want usable 4K footage rather than headline-grabbing 8K specs. The good news is that the camera is genuinely very good at that—it can record 4K at up to 120fps for smooth slow-motion clips, and the footage looks sharp without going overboard on artificial …

Google announced a lot of updates at I/O 2026. The company's first modern smart glasses (dubbed "Intelligent Eyewear) are coming later this year, as is Google's Universal Cart shopping assistant. There's even a brand-new AI model, Omni, that can create any output from any input, which should do wonders for our AI-generated misinformation problem. But not everything Google announced on Tuesday is available now (or for free, for that matter). Most of the new Workspace features, for example, require some type of subscription, as do many of the AI enhancements coming down the pike. If you want to test out Omni today, you can, but you need to pay for one of Google's AI subscri…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Earlier this month, I strapped on two different Garmin watches to race a 10K—a mid-range model on one wrist, a premium one on the other—to see how they stacked up. This time, I branched outside of Garmin's ecosystem. For the Brooklyn Half-Marathon, I wore the Garmin Forerunner 970 ($749.99) on my right wrist and the Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro ($449.99) on my left, pitting one of the most trusted running watches in the game against Amazfit's more affordable and most ambitious claim to the long-distance running space. Here's how it went. Garmin® Forerunner® 970, Premium …

My fellow Lifehacker writer Beth Skwarecki is a weightlifter. I'm a marathon runner. Together, we make one reasonably competent Hyrox athlete—and in a little over one week, we're going to find out if that's enough. Beth and I are competing together in a Hyrox doubles race on May 29. It's something of a joint experiment to see just how little training you can get away with before showing up to one of these things. Hopefully, we will each bring our respective strengths to the competition, cover for the other's weaknesses, and survive. But before we're put to the test, let's take a look at what proper Hyrox prep looks like, and the bare minimum you can (probably) get away w…

I'm strongly in favor of using password managers to store your credentials, but, so far, I've resisted the prompts that ask me to switch to passkeys—even though passkeys are better than passwords in just about every way. You don't need to remember or store a long string of random characters if you use passkeys, because they don't actually use a password at all. Instead, you use your device's authentication method, such as a face scan, a device passcode, or fingerprint unlock, to log in to your accounts. Passkeys are also more resistant to phishing attacks because your password manager won't let you use a passkey to log in to dummy websites created by scammers. Despite the…

It's no secret that Google, like most big tech companies, has gone all-in on AI. The company believes it is the future, and, as such, has injected the technology into every one of its products, none more visibly than Google Search. Over the past two years, Google has introduced AI summaries that seek to answer your questions, pulling the information from websites that fewer and fewer users are actually visiting and reading for themselves. Given this trend, it should hardly come as a surprise that during I/O 2026, Google announced "a new era for AI Search." This "era" essentially marks an expansion of its investment in AI in Search: In addition to rolling out its new Gemi…

The word “calorie” may bring up thoughts of nutrition labels and treadmill readouts, but really calories are just units of energy. Your car runs on gas, your house runs on electricity, and your body runs on food energy. So how many calories do we burn each day, and how many should you burn? Let’s dig in. You actually burn most of your calories at restCalories aren’t only burned during exercise. It takes energy to keep the lights on, so to speak—for your heart to beat, your brain to think, your cells to repair themselves, and more. In fact, most of our calories are burned doing these maintenance chores. Scientists call this baseline calorie burn our "basal metabolic rate,…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The 65-inch Toshiba C350 Fire TV is down to $264.99 on Amazon right now, which is half off its usual $529.99 price and the lowest it has dropped so far, according to price trackers. At this price, it sits in the same territory as many smaller budget sets, but with a much bigger screen. The main appeal here is simple: You’re getting a straightforward 65-inch 4K TV with Amazon’s Fire TV platform already built in—and because of that, setup is pretty painless if you already use Amazon devices. Once you sign in with your Amazon account, Prime Video recom…

If you have a Microsoft account that uses SMS for two-factor authentication, you may soon have to choose a more secure method for logging in. As reported by Windows Latest, the company is ditching text-based authentication codes for personal accounts, stating that these are "now a leading source of fraud." Users will be prompted to set up a passkey instead. Microsoft is trying to eliminate passwordsMicrosoft has already started moving toward a password-less environment—last year, the company made passkeys the default on new accounts at setup. Now, it is phasing out SMS codes for 2FA and account recovery in favor of passkeys, authenticator apps, and verified backup email …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The first-generation Sonos Beam has dropped to $260.93 at Woot for an open-box unit, and according to price trackers, that’s the lowest price this soundbar has hit so far. For comparison, the same model is still sitting around $488 on Amazon, where it has never dropped below $299. The “open box” label here is also less risky than it sounds. Woot says the packaging may have been opened for testing or display purposes, but the soundbar itself is new and still covered by a standard 12-month manufacturer’s warranty. Shipping is free for Prime members, w…

If you're like me, you're probably juggling multiple audio apps throughout the day. I listen to audiobooks on Audible, switch over to music on Spotify, check out podcasts on Pocketcasts, and there's always something on YouTube in the background. Usually, switching between audio sources means opening the app, finding the playback function (or the media itself), and pressing play, every time you want to listen to something new. With Android 17 (currently in beta), Google is giving us a more advanced version that lets you easily switch between playback sources right from the Notifications panel. The new Now Playing media switcher is rolling out to Android 17 QPR Beta 3 users…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. That book you tried to avoid reading in high school? It's now a pretty damn successful, and fairly faithful, BBC miniseries—succeeding either because brutal times invite brutal narratives, or maybe just because we like watching kids go wild. And the kids, indeed, are absolutely crucial to the series and to William Golding's original novel: The book version of Lord of the Flies is perhaps better known than read because of its relatively straightforward narrative about how fast humans will devolve once the strictures of society are removed. We know that story, and we can imagine echoes of it in the news every day, but Goldi…

We all get enough spam messages these days that we can avoid the obvious scams: If an unknown number texts you asking for money, or a spammy email address warns you about a computer virus, you'll likely delete them and move on. But if the message comes from a company you trust, like Microsoft, with a legitimate email address at that, you wouldn't be blamed for assuming that email was real. In this specific case, however, it's not, and you should be wary when interacting with it. As reported by TechCrunch's Zach Whittaker, scammers are sending emails from a legitimate internal Microsoft email address: msonlineservicesteam@microsoftonline.com. Microsoft uses this address t…

Flipper Devices, the company behind the semi-infamous Flipper Zero "hacking" multi-tool, is developing a Linux-powered mini-PC with the goal of creating a "truly open hardware platform." The Flipper One is described as a pocket-sized ARM device for high-performance computing, IP networking, and on-device AI use. The device is in development, so there is no price or release date as yet. The Flipper One is being built on a Rockchip RK3576 processor and the modular design means it can be expanded. "Flipper Zero taught us how much you can do with a tightly scoped, open product and a community that pushes it further than you can. Flipper One is what happens when we apply the …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. A ton of early Memorial Day sales are going on right now, and if you're an audiophiles, one of the best is happening over on Amazon, where tons of Sonos speakers are seeing huge discounts. Nearly every soundbar, smart speaker, subwoofer, or portable speaker the company makes is on sale right now, some for as much as $200 off. Sonos Era 100 SL - Compact, Microphone-Free Speaker with WiFi, Bluetooth - White $169.00 at …

Strava announced today a complete overhaul of its strength training experience. It's one of the bigger gym-based updates I've seen from the app—the new features include 14 partner integrations, a dedicated workout log, auto-populated muscle maps, and five new strength-specific shareables. According to Strava, the update is rolling out globally in the coming weeks, so you should be able to try all of these new goodies soon. For anyone who has ever wished Strava treated their weight training with even a fraction of the seriousness it gives to runs and rides, the update certainly looks promising. Whether it fully delivers on its potential is a question that will require some…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. As extreme weather, power outages, and energy uncertainty get harder to ignore, home generators and portable power stations are becoming an essential part of your emergency kit. While smaller power banks are helpful for camping trips or keeping your phone alive, a more substantial generator like the Jackery HomePower 3000 is a better choice for people who want something a lot more substantial. Right now, a bundle with the battery and solar panel attachments is $1,300 off on Amazon, a more than 40% discount from the original $2,999 price. Jacker…

In all likelihood, Apple won't acknowledge iOS 27's existence until WWDC 2026, but that doesn't mean the company is saving all its iOS 27 announcements until then. On Tuesday, Apple published a press release announcing a slew of new accessibility features coming "later this year." While Apple didn't specify, that almost assuredly means they will arrive with iOS 27. Apple does have a good track record when it comes to accessibility features, and it usually announces a slate of new accessibility updates ahead of WWDC. But this year feels a bit different: While these features will indeed likely benefit users with limitations or special needs, Apple also advertises them as "…