Setting Up Your Home Office

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. On a post on its blog this morning, Spotify announced it is doing something to combat the glut of AI-generated music on its streaming platform. According to the company, bad actors and content farms that "push 'slop' into the ecosystem" are going to be dealt with. Spotify says it has already removed over 75 million such tracks in the last year, and bigger changes are coming. Over the next few months, Spotify says it will crack down on musical impersonators, implement a new spam filtering system, and work wit…

If you're subscribed to Spotify, start checking your inbox. The music streaming service is sending emails to customers letting them know about yet another price hike coming next month. To Spotify's credit, the price hike is pretty minor. But starting on whatever your February billing date is, individual premium plans will jump from $11.99/month to $12.99/month, while student plans will go from $5.99/month to $6.99/month. More extensive plans will see a slightly more costly jump. The Duo plan, which gives premium access to two people at the same address, is going from $16.99/month to $18.99/month. The Family plan, which gives premium access to up to six people at the same…

Built-in lyrics are one of my favorite features of modern music streaming services. Back in ancient times, I had to google the lyrics to the songs I was listening to—which was fine if I was near a computer, but impossible when I was on the go with my iPod. This is probably why there are so many songs I think I know the words to, only to discover, once I read the actual lyrics, that I am sorely mistaken. Built-in lyrics are thus a feature that is equal parts useful and humbling. As it happens, Spotify's existing lyrics features are getting some upgrades to kick off February. The company announced three key updates on Wednesday—two that impact free users, and one exclusive…

What do you primarily use Spotify for? Enjoying music? Keeping up with your favorite podcasts? Listening to audiobooks? Well, the next time you open it (at least on Android) you might just use it to shop for a book—not just an ebook, mind you, but a physical book. Spotify is officially a bookseller As reported by TechCrunch, Spotify is now selling physical books on its Android app to users in the U.S. and the U.K., with plans to roll out the feature to iPhones next week. The company first announced the initiative back in February, revealing that it was partnering with Bookshop.org to facilitate the transactions. This isn't your typical corporate agreement, either: Booksh…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Spotify noticed how many of us use its popular music app for fitness—workout mixes are one of the top uses of its playlist creation tools—and now it’s adding fitness content directly. Some workout videos are available to everyone, and premium users can take Peloton classes as well. Peloton App $12.99 Per Month at Peloton …

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. If you have a Premium Family plan through Spotify, there's good news: You can now set up managed accounts for your kids. Not only can you control what they listen to, their music choices won't reflect in or affect your listening history. Congratulations: You're getting your Wrapped back. On Tuesday, Spotify announced it is rolling out managed accounts for Premium subscribers to seven new regions: the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Premium Family subscribers in these co…

Spotify is about much more than music these days, and nothing makes that clearer than the company's recent commitment to books—not just audiobooks, but old-school paper ones. Today, Spotify announced it's coming hard for Amazon's Kindle and Audible businesses, and will soon start selling physical copies of books in addition to audiobooks. Starting today, the company is also introducing "Page Match," a feature that allows you to use your phone's camera to instantly sync an audiobook with either a physical book, or one you're reading on an e-reader. How you'll buy physical books through SpotifySpotify's physical book sales infrastructure isn't quite ready yet, but the mere …

Streaming services make it easy to listen to a lot of music, but they don't necessarily tell you much about the songs themselves. You can see how long each track is, who performed it, and maybe even the song writing credits, but you don't know why the artist wrote the song, or what each song is supposed to mean. You can, of course, scour the internet, looking at articles and blogs to learn more about your favorite music—or, you can skim Spotify's new summary cards that offer fun facts about each track. Spotify announced the new feature, called "About the Song," on Friday. The feature, which is launching in beta, is available in the app's Now Playing View. When you select…

Last month, Spotify announced "Prompted Playlist," a new feature the company claimed let users "steer the algorithm." This was a bold—if not vague—claim, to be sure, but it was backed by everyone's favorite tech trend of the last three years: AI. The pitch was that Spotify would let subscribers use the company's AI models to better control their listening experience, so long as they lived in the country of New Zealand. That's a very small slice of Spotify's very large user base. Luckily for those of us in the United States and Canada, Prompted Playlist is expanding to our side of North America. Spotify announced the move today, Jan. 21: Now, Premium subscribers in any of…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When digital music first started popping off, the vast majority of us didn't care all that much about audio quality. Some of the less, erm, legal methods of downloading music offered horrific quality audio, while even the best options at the same (i.e., iTunes) only supported MP3, a relatively low-quality codec. Times have changed: While most of us still aren't necessarily audiophiles, we do expect high-quality tracks from the streaming services we use—especially if we pay for them. It might not be the "gold standard," but streaming sounds great, even with wireless headphones. But there is a clear ceiling in audio qualit…

Spotify keeps adding new features lately. Last week, the company rolled out "Exclusive Mode" for desktop users to stream in the highest quality possible; last month, Spotify announced "Smart Reorder," which automatically sorts your songs by BPM; and in January, the company's AI-powered "Prompted Playlists" landed in the U.S. after an exclusive stint overseas. It's still not easy to pick a favorite among other services like Apple Music, but Premium subscribers can at least say Spotify is giving them something for their money. Now, the company is rolling out another new feature, one that actually seems like a cool way to learn about your music. On Tuesday, Spotify annou…

If you're anything like me, you'll come back to a book or TV show after pausing it for a few days or weeks, only to have to spend hours on a wiki reminding yourself of where you left off, while also trying to dodge spoilers. Spotify is doing its best to fix at least one of those problems, by testing AI recaps for some of its audiobooks. It's the first new AI-powered feature in a while that I would actually use. In fact, I've played a few video games with similar features (not powered by AI, admittedly), and it's always such a value-add that it makes me pine for it in pretty much every other piece of media I engage with. Here's how Spotify's new feature works: First, you u…

AI is a divisive technology. Some of us can't stand it, and avoid it at all costs. Others are AI-curious, and dabble with certain apps or features; still others still embrace it with enthusiasm, and use the tech for as many purposes as possible. Still, though I'm aware of this AI spectrum, I'm struggling to understand who exactly would want to connect their Starbucks account to ChatGPT—so, naturally, I connected mine. Starbucks rolled out this collaboration on April 15 as a "natural, personal, and fun" way to discover new drinks to order. As someone who only ever orders a plain coffee with cream, or maybe an iced espresso, perhaps this would finally be my opportunity to b…

It’s well-established that physical clutter impairs your productivity and focus, going as far as to make you exhausted, stressed, and burnt out, which is why decluttering your workspace is key component in a lot of productivity techniques. In this day and age, though, your "workspace" isn't always (or, in some cases, even) an office or desk. Your phone and computer are your workspace. That's where you spend most of your work day looking and interacting—and when it's cluttered, you can feel discombobulated, the same as you might with a messy cubicle. It's time to stop thinking only about decluttering the physical world and make a better plan to keep the digital one in good…

Time is ticking to file your taxes before April 15, 2025. If you've already do so, congrats! Now you can kick back and await that refund, right? Sure—but your relief will be short-lived. Once tax season rolls around next year, you'll again find yourself frantically searching for receipts, statements, and other documentation needed to file an accurate return. Instead of accepting the annual scramble, you can get ahead of the game by using a spreadsheet to track all your tax-related information throughout the year. And there's no better time to start than right now—when your tax knowledge is fresh as can be—to make your spreadsheet and start logging things away for next Ap…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Apple Vision Pro is taking another step toward becoming the killer VR gaming device we all know it could be. Valve recently announced that it is adding Steam Link, an app for Vision Pro that will let users wirelessly stream Steam games from their PC or Mac to their headsets. Steam Link will allow streaming up to 4k and includes a panoramic mode with an adjustable screen curve. Apple Vision Pro $3,499.96 …

One of my favorite tabs to check when I'm looking at new PC Games on the Steam Store is "Popular Upcoming," but over the years, it's gotten far less useful. While it's supposed to show me what the next big game is ahead of time, the truth is, there are just too many games and too many types of players out there for it to keep up anymore. My tastes probably aren't the same as yours, and limiting the highlights to a small selection of popular picks could bury smaller titles some players might be more interested in. That's why I'm so excited about Steam's new Personal Calendar page. Released last night, it's technically an experiment, but it's already looking great. Essentia…

The following content is brought to you by Lifehacker partners. If you buy a product featured here, we may earn an affiliate commission or other compensation. We're all tired of receiving text messages and calls from random marketers on our personal numbers. Whenever you give out your number to sign up for stuff online, your information is very likely sold to a marketing company, then sold again—until your phone is blowing up in the middle of the night with texts from who knows. Surfshark Starter Package Generate a virtual number, mask your email, and take advantage of other VPN …

Big news for runners with an Apple Watch: You can now follow Strava routes directly from your wrist. Route navigation on Strava-compatible watches isn't exactly new technology—it's just been inexplicably absent from Apple's platform until now. In a Reddit post from Strava's product team, the news was welcomed by runners, cyclists, and hikers who've long wondered why their Apple Watch couldn't do what Garmin and Coros devices have offered for years. What's new with Strava's Apple Watch appThe core update here is users can now view maps directly on their Apple Watch during activities, seeing both where they're headed and how to backtrack if they take a wrong turn. For subs…

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…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. Two of the biggest names in fitness tracking are beefing: Fitness app Strava has filed a lawsuit against Garmin, demanding that the device manufacturer cease selling effectively all of its fitness watches and cycling computers. The suit claims patent infringement on two core features—segments and heatmaps—and alleges that Garmin violated a decade-old cooperation agreement between the two companies. But according to Strava's Chief Product Officer Matt Salazar, the lawsuit is a response to a much more imme…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Strava, the superstar running/cycling app, now has a subscriber-only AI feature that will predict how fast it thinks you could run a 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and marathon. The predictions use a different method from those you might see from other sources, though. For me, Strava's predictions look less accurate than the ones I get from Garmin and Runna, but the feature is too new to say for sure how accurate they will be for everybody else. How to view your race predictions in StravaRace predictions are only available to Strava premium members. That membership runs $11.99/month or $79.99/year and also gets you mapping tool…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Right before the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, I noticed a trend in robot vacuums. The suction power these robots were reporting were astronomical. Where Pa (suction power is measured in pascals) in 2024 was considered “high” at 8,000 or 10,000, the Ecovacs x8 is 18,000, the Dreame x50 is 20,000, and the Roborock Saros 10 is 22,000. In calls with the marketing reps and engineers of these machines I would routinely ask, “Is there a limit to how much suction is realistically useful?” And on more than one occasion, engineers revealed that the reason Pa levels had gone sky high was primarily because internal stud…

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. Whether you’re revising your notes right after class or condensing them later so you can study using the Feynman method, you’ll need a solid system for pulling out the most critical information and distilling everything down into something digestible and easy to retain. This is where the GIST method can prove extremely useful. The worst-case scenario when you're studying is that you read and read and read, but don't exactly retain much of it. That's even worse than if you don't study at all because you wa…

Something you don't see every day: a sports tech company actually giving away premium features for free. Suunto's route-planning tool lets you create and download GPX files without even creating an account. No paywall, no trial period—just open the page and start planning routes. And the tool itself works great. What you can do with the Suunto RouteplannerThe tool packs in everything you'd expect from a paid service, and then some: Route creation that uses different map types (outdoor, satellite, even specialized ones for winter and avalanche terrain) Routing that optimizes for your activity (running, hiking, cycling, mountaineering, roller skating, and more), using actua…