Setting Up Your Home Office

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Beats Studio Buds + are currently down to $119.99 (from $169.95), their lowest price to date, according to price comparison tools (in fact, all Beats headphones and speakers are seeing Black Friday and Prime Day equivalent discounts right now). Beats Studio Buds + $119.99 at Amazon /images/…

Instagram has a new feature that curates custom Reels feeds for you and your friends. Blend, an invite-only option within individual or group chats, refreshes daily and suggests content based on participants' tastes. Spotify has a similar Blend feature that creates shared playlists—also updated daily—based on both listeners' tastes. Note that Instagram Blend, which is a mobile-only feature, is not yet available to all users, even if the icon appears in your chats. How to use Instagram BlendTo start a blend, you'll need to invite users via your individual or group chats. From Messages on the mobile app, open the one-on-one or group chat you want to create a blend with …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Oura ring can give you a ton of data on your sleep, health, and fitness, but you need to pay for a $5.99/month subscription to see all of it. So what happens if you get an Oura ring but don’t pony up for the subscription? Here’s the full rundown, with screenshots of exactly what you’ll see—and a little-known way of getting data the app doesn’t show you.. As I explain in my review of the Oura ring 4, you should budget for both the ring and its ongoing subscription if you want to get the data and analysis the Oura ring is famous for offering. The subscription isn’t for premium extras; it’s for the basic functionality of…

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 …

Android is redesigning its parental controls to give caregivers easier access to their child’s data, as well as bring what were initially smartwatch-only “School time” features to phones and tablets for the first time. Credit: Google It’s now easier to find screen time tools on AndroidFirst, all of Family Link’s screen time tracking tools are getting consolidated into one tab. This reflects changes Google made to Family Link’s screen time tools during the pandemic, which gave parents a more granular look at which apps their ki…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Ever since my home was broken into, I've installed as many security cameras, floodlights, and other security measures in place as I could get away with (and they've been working great so far). The video doorbell I chose to go with for my front door is the Reolink Video Doorbell. Right now, you can get one of the best video doorbells of 2025 for a $51.99 (originally $109.99), the lowest price it has ever been, even cheaper than used ones on Amazon, according to price-tracking tools. Reolink Video Doorbell …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I've been working hard on upgrading my kitchen and dining area lately. Recently, I bought these gorgeous, light pink, upholstered dining chairs, for instance. The whole goal of this endeavor has been to make the area as cozy and calm as possible, so last night, I decided to enjoy the fruits of all those labors and light a few candles. Guess what happened? Yes, I dripped wax on one of the new chairs. For a moment, my emotions were the opposite of cozy and calm. But then I remembered it's entirely possible—and even easy—to remove candle wax from soft surfaces. Here's what to do if this horror ever befalls you. Remove candle…

With Tax Day 2025 finally here, many of us are pressed for time to file our returns. You might be wondering, "Hey, what if I just... don't pay my taxes at all?" And you're not alone in this line of thinking. But even if you can't pay right now, you absolutely want to file before the deadline. Fortunately, the IRS offers taxpayers an easy way to get more time: by filing for an extension. Let's take a look at how to properly request an extension, what it means for your tax obligations, and important considerations to avoid penalties. What a tax extension actually gives youLet's start with a critical point: A tax extension grants you additional time to file your tax return,…

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/assam-india-june-25-2021-google-1999771961 Face it: with the competition spending hundreds of millions of dollars on it, Google's recent foray into AI isn't going to stop anytime soon. While you can hide Google Workspace's Gemini buttons and prompts for now, you can't actually stop the company from continuing to build its apps around a technology that revolves around getting its hands on as much data as possible. I rely on Google Docs for collaboration, but the company's AI push has got me looking for alternatives, even if Google currently denies using your data to train its models. On that note, these are the best AI-free, encrypt…

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…

My Boox Palma is one of the most easily lovable pieces of tech I've ever used—an e-ink reader with a phone-like form factor that isn't locked down to one specific retailer's ecosystem. It has helped me read more and waste time on social media less, but as much as I appreciate it, it can also be weird and finicky. For example, why is it so tricky to use it to listen to audiobooks? Like most people, before I got the Palma, my phone was my main driver for audiobooks, music, and podcasts—it was always with me and the apps made it super convenient. But I'd find myself pausing my book every time a notification pinged in my headphones, so I decided to shift that "content" over …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Sonos Era 100 is an improved version of the Sonos One, with much more powerful bass and other upgrades that make it one of the best multi-room smart speakers you can buy. It's currently at its lowest price ever—$199 (originally $249) after a $50 discount—according to price-tracking tools. Most of the other Sonos speakers are also seeing their lowest prices right now. Sonos Era 100 Black - Wireless, Alexa Enabled Smart Speaker …

It makes sense that most of us focus on money when it comes to our happiness. Not being able to afford stuff like rent is stressful, and going into debt to feed yourself just exacerbates that sense of powerlessness. Whatever your financial situation, unless you’re oligarch-levels of wealthy you probably focus everything on making, saving, and stretching a much money as possible. But if you’re not happy even if your bills are paid and your debt is manageable, it’s probably because you’re thinking about money the wrong way. Instead of thinking about being affluent in terms of money, you should be thinking in terms of being affluent in time. What is time affluence? Time affl…

I love an easy, impressive dessert. It must have few ingredients, require little to no elbow grease, and have a big payoff at the end. The galette des rois delivers on all fronts. Often made for Three Kings’ Day at the beginning of January, there’s really no better time to make this dessert than whenever the heck you want it. Why should January have all the fun? Make it for your partner’s birthday, friends dropping in for dinner, or a fancy spin on the king cake for your upcoming Mardi Gras party. With the wonders of pre-made puff pastry, all the hard work is done. In about 40 minutes, you can have a stunner of a dessert. What is a galette des rois?A galette des rois, Fre…

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…

It’s official: Skype is dead. The long-lived (by internet standards) voice-over-internet app has been put out to pasture by parent company Microsoft. Though Skype was once considered the way to call someone online, it's now going the way of Google Hangouts and dozens of other trendsetting apps before it. Come May 5, it’ll officially be replaced by Microsoft Teams. It’s truly the end of an era. Launched in 2003, Skype quickly became synonymous with video calls online, with “skype-ing” entering the lexicon as its own verb. It has supported countless long distance relationships, podcasts recording sessions, and remote D&D games, but after being supplanted by apps like Z…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Before this review, I had never heard of Brane, but now, it's all I want to hear when I play my music. The Brane X is many things, but cheap isn't one of them. But for $499, you get a multi-use premium speaker that can handle itself underwater, has Alexa voice assistant, connects through wifi for better audio, has the best bass of any wifi speaker, and can be used as a soundbar and subwoofer combo. The Brane X is a great wifi speaker for someone who values bass, would like to take their speaker outdoors, and needs a soundbar and subwoofer combo for their home theater. However, it isn't perfect and at its price, it competes…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Pixel 9 is the latest series of the Google Pixel phone lineup. They were released late last summer with the 9 Pro and Pro XL getting released as well. But if you're OK with an already good camera and prefer to save some money, the 128 GB unlocked Pixel 9 is just $599 (originally $799) after a $200 discount, the lowest price it has been since its release, according to price-tracking tools. You can get it in obsidian, peony, or porcelain. …

You can now use Siri with added ChatGPT on your iPhone, but Google is keen for you to use its Gemini AI bot instead: A few months ago, an official Gemini iPhone app was launched, and now we have some lock screen widgets to go with it. While you can't swap out the iPhone's default digital assistant entirely, as you can on Android, these six new lock screen widgets do give you easier access to Gemini on iOS, and are handy shortcuts if you prefer Google's AI. The widgets are available to you whether or not you're paying $20 a month for Gemini Advanced. To make use of these widgets, you first need Google Gemini for iOS installed. Launch the app after it's been downloaded, and…

You've probably heard you can use your phone's personal dictionary to save time typing. It's one of our favorite time-saving tricks. However, there's an even easier way on Android to save whole blocks of text, and you've been using it without realizing it: your clipboard's history. This feature may vary depending on your model of phone, so we'll focus on Google's Gboard. By default, the keyboard will keep a history of what you copy, so you can paste multiple blocks of text without bouncing back and forth between apps. You can see this history by tapping the Clipboard icon on your keyboard (in some contexts, you may have to press the four-square apps button to pull it up).…

Installing a bunch of applications at once on Windows can be annoying. You need to find the installer packages, download them, then run them all, one after another. It requires spending a bunch of time clicking though menus and checking boxes. But you don't have to live this way. Linux users have long used package managers to accomplish this with far greater ease—as have some Mac users. Using a package manager, you can type a single command to install as many different applications as you want. And, it turns out, Windows comes with a package manager. It's called Winget. You can try it right now—just open PowerShell, which you can find in the start menu or by right-click…

Unpaid parking tickets happen to the best of us—and one of the latest phishing scams is counting on you to believe you've missed or forgotten to pay an outstanding fee. This text message scam prompts you to pay overdue parking fines and hand your credit card number and other personal information directly to the scammers to turn around and use. Scammers are using the threat of unpaid parking feesThe unpaid parking fee scam is one of many relatively unsophisticated text-based phishing attempts that depends on recipients responding to the threat of owing money and giving up personal and financial information in the process. It's similar to the current unpaid tolls scam text…

Sprint interval training, or SIT, is super trendy right now. It’s a great way to improve your running speed and to get in a hard interval workout, and I’ll explain exactly how. But I also need to clear up this silly question about whether it’s “better than” HIIT (or high-intensity interval training). SIT is, in fact, a type of HIIT. What is SIT? Sprint interval training refers to exercise routines where you run as hard as you possibly can (or nearly as hard) for a short time, typically 30 seconds. A SIT workout usually looks something like this: Warm up with walking and/or easy jogging for 10 to 15 minutes. Run 30 seconds as hard as you can. Recover (walk or rest) for t…

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…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When you watch a piece of media produced in a language you don't speak, you have a couple of options. You can, of course, turn on subtitles and follow along by reading. But in some cases, you can switch the audio track to whichever language you speak. This is called the "dub," and it usually requires voice artists to record the lines in this new language—in a way that matches the original tone of the show or movie. This requires time and money, something studios aren't always willing to part with. As such, not everything has a dub. But what if it could? On Wednesday, Amazon announced "AI-aided dubbing" for Prime Video. O…