Setting Up Your Home Office

AI isn't coming for your job. Probably? Look, it's complicated. And anyone who has ever played around with a chatbot has likely asked themselves, "This is what they want to replace a human with?" It's a valid concern, because generative AI chatbots like Google's Gemini aren't super useful. To my surprise, though, Gemini's Canvas feature can be. I will say up front, I'm coming at this as a generative AI skeptic, but I'm also not an AI doomer. There are some situations—like creating alt text for images to boost accessibility—where AI-based tools can come in handy. I prefer to find where tools can be genuinely useful, and ignore the noise. To that end, Gemini's Canvas is the…

Normally, it's illegal to chop down a tree in a national forest. This month, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is all for it—provided you get yourself a Forest Service-issued permit first. In fact, cutting your own tree on federal land is actually a pretty affordable and ethical way to source a Christmas tree. The only catch is you must follow specific guidelines, which can vary from forest to forest. Before you grab your axe and head into the woods this holiday season, here’s what you need to know about the USDA's tree-cutting permit program. Why you should cut your own tree from a national forest What's cool is that securing yourself a tree-cutting permit isn'…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find. Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more. Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices an…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deep work is a concept most popularly defined by Cal Newport, who wrote the aptly titled Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. As he tells it, deep work is a state where you find the ability to focus completely on a demanding task without letting distraction get in your way. If you can get the hang of it, you’ll get more done in less time and ultimately end up feeling more fulfilled. On his website, Newport observes that it’s rare to see someone feel energized and happy after sending emails, but there’s a sense of fulfillment that comes from sustained focus on more meaningful tasks. How do you achiev…

ChatGPT introduced its Memory feature more than a year ago now. This feature lets users save particular details about their life or work in the ChatGPT memory bank, so they don’t need to repeat them with each new prompt. But using the Memory feature as it launched frequently required manually checking which information was saved and managing it yourself, which meant it was pretty easy to let it fall behind. OpenAI’s solution was to let ChatGPT remember way more about you. The Memory feature now builds a long-term memory bank based on all your saved ChatGPT conversations, rather than just key details. You can still save those key details, but you don't have to rely only on…

GIMP, the free and open source image editing application long seen as the best free Photoshop alternative, just released a major update: Version 3. The update brings long-awaited improvements to working with filters, layers, and text. There's also a sleeker user interface with improved UI scaling. Among the biggest changes is nondestructive filters. Previously applying filters, such as blurs, was final—you could use the undo function to get back to a pre-filtered state but you couldn't simply edit or remove the filter. You can now tweak the settings of filters, or even remove filters entirely from the layer panel. …

Google is adding a slate of AI features to Gmail that could save some of the hassle of searching for important information buried in messages and threads. Many users will soon see a more personalized inbox with AI-powered suggestions, summaries, and proofreading support. Plus, some AI functionality that was previously available only to paid subscribers will be rolling out to all Gmail users, including Help Me Write, AI Overviews for threaded emails, and Suggested Replies. See personalized, AI-powered snapshots Gmail users will soon have an AI Inbox view with two sections. "Suggested to-dos" will show immediate action items found in your inbox, such as bills to be paid an…

You might not think about it, but you're probably pretty used to how Gmail's search function works. You type in your query, wait a moment, then scroll through the results, looking for the email in question. These results are always in chronological order, with the most recent results appearing at the top. After years of searching this way, you're likely subconsciously expecting this order, scrolling backwards in time to find the result you have in mind. I imagine it's going to be a bit confusing the next time you search for something in Gmail, and the results are not sorted by recency. That's because Google is changing the way it returns Gmail results for users: Google an…

Gmail already adds an Unsubscribe button to every promotional email or newsletter you receive in your inbox. That way, you can stop someone from sending you emails without first visiting their website. The service is now going one step forward, giving you a single place to manage all your subscriptions, and an option to unsubscribe from each with just a tap—kind of like the Subscriptions screen on YouTube. Manage Subscriptions is rolling out nowThere's a clear advantage to the new Manage Subscriptions feature. With it, you no longer need to go through your entire inbox to find all the newsletters, as Gmail will instead surface them for you. You'll see the names and email …

Google's Smart Replies are getting an AI-themed, and to me, slightly creepy update. At its Google I/O 2025 keynote, Google announced a new feature called Personalized Smart Replies. This feature uses Gemini AI, alongside the data in your Gmail and Google Drive, to reply to emails in a way that sounds like you. Google promises is can write like you would, using your tone and writing style, as learned by your Gmail history. With this new update, the Smart Replies option that shows up when you reply to an email will be a lot more powerful and a lot more contextual. On stage, Google CEO Sundar Pichai used planning a trip as an example. Let's say a friend emails you asking for…

Google announced many new Android features and upgrades during The Android Show: I/O Edition. Among these are a handful of security and privacy tools Google hopes will protect users (and their data) from scams and theft. Android already has a suite of safeguards—in-call scam alerts, anti-theft settings, and a lockdown mode called Advanced Protection, to name a few—which the new features largely build on and strengthen. Here's what's new. Android will automatically end calls that spoof financial institutionsGoogle rolled out a feature last year to protect against bank impersonators who might attempt to steal your login credentials or convince you to transfer money. In-call…

It's that time again, for Google to announce that real-time translation has come to one of its communication apps. This time, it's Google Meet, which can translate between English and Spanish as you speak in a video call. If that sounds familiar, it's because it's not the first time Google has announced something like this. Google Translate has had features that let you speak to someone in another language in real time for a while. For example, back in 2019, there was a real-time translation feature called Interpreter Mode built into Google Assistant. It's also been possible on Pixel phones for a while (and even Samsung phones). Most of these, however, have been either te…

It's been clear for some time that the Gemini AI app would be replacing Google Assistant, once it had learned all the necessary tricks and been granted all the required hooks into other apps. Now, Google is in the process of actively dismantling the features available in Google Assistant ahead of its retirement. As per Google's official support document (as spotted by 9to5Google), seven more Google Assistant features have recently been pulled across Android devices and Nest smart speakers and displays. These deactivated features add to a bunch of other capabilities that were taken away last year. On smart displays, you can no longer use your voice and Google Assistant to …

In a strange reversal of the usual seller/customer dynamic, Google is now giving buyers the power to send out their own robocalls. It's not the first time the company has experimented with giving the average Joe the ability to send AI robocalls, but it is much more robust than previous outings. Rolling out today, the feature will show up while you're browsing for certain products on Search, so long as you add a "near me" to the end of your query. If the product is supported, you'll see a "Let Google Call" button, which is where the fun begins. Credit: …

If you told someone twenty-five years ago that, in the near future, people would voluntarily carry devices that share their locations with companies and organizations at all times, they probably wouldn't believe you. And yet, it's just one way smartphones have changed the way we think about personal privacy. Of course, not only do we choose to take our smartphones everywhere, but it's tough to manage modern life without them. But it's important to note that not all location information is the same: While the default option is often to share your exact coordinates with the app or service that requests it, you often have a second choice that goes a long way to preserving y…

Nothing lasts forever, and technology is no exception. As shiny and new as your computer was when you first bought it, eventually, developers will drop support for it. There's no telling when exactly, but at some point, you'll open an app to find a message that reads something like: "This device does not support the latest version of this app. Please update your hardware." That goes for Macs, as well. You might forget that fact, since Apple's computers tend to stick around for a long time. But inevitably, the shadow of end-of-life policies comes for them, too. If you're still rocking an older Mac, I have some bad news, specifically if you use Chrome: Google is officially …

While I generally consider Chrome to be a mature, feature complete browser, it's great to see that Google is still making meaningful additions to it. With its latest update, Google Chrome for desktop now has three new productivity features: Split View, PDF annotations, and the ability to save downloads directly to Google Drive. These features are targeted at both regular and enterprise users, the company says, so you don't need to worry about Workspace exclusivity. Let's take a look at each new feature and how you can best use it. Split View lets you boost your productivity …

The Google Gemini apps are getting a memory upgrade, with the AI bot now able to recall past conversations you've had with it—building on the tool's existing ability to remember personal details about you, such as the foods you like or what you do professionally. Like several other new Gemini features when they first launched, this is exclusively for Google One AI Premium subscribers ($20 per month), with English language users getting the upgrade first. Google says support for more languages and Enterprise accounts will be added in the "coming weeks." Google's intention here is to make Gemini more useful. You could refer back to something you were chatting about last wee…

Since the days when Google Gemini was still called Bard, it's been able to connect with the company's other productivity apps to help pull context from them to answer your questions—but you still had to connect those apps to the AI manually using extensions. And even after bringing your apps together, you usually had to tell Gemini where to look for your data to get much use out of its abilities. For Instance, if you wanted it to pull information from your emails, you might have started a prompt with "Search my email." Now, Google is making it easier to connect Gemini to its various services, and adding "reasoning" when pulling context from across your Google Workspace. …

On Wednesday, Google announced "notebooks," a new feature for Gemini designed to help organize your research materials while using the company's flagship chatbot. Google says you should think of notebooks as "personal knowledge bases shared across Google products, starting in Gemini." If that's a bit too vague for you, here's a simpler explanation: Notebooks are like Gemini chats, but designed to focus on a single topic, complete with bespoke resources Gemini can reference as you discuss that topic. How Gemini's "notebooks" workIf you're a frequent Gemini user, you probably have a number of chats spanning any number of topics. The goal of notebooks is similar, but more …

Google is announcing a slew of new Gemini features today, this time aimed squarely at its free users. Features that were previously only available with the $20 per month Advanced plan will now be accessible to the public. GemsGems are Gemini's little AI helpers that you can create for any task. You can start with pre-made ones like Google's Career guide. But you can create a Gem for any purpose. You can create one for repeated tasks, or to help you research a topic with very specific prompts. Previously, the Gems feature was exclusive to Gemini Advanced users, but now Google is making them to available to all users. You'll find Gems in the sidebar, where you can easily ge…

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…

Google I/O 2026 is finally here. On May 19, 2026, Google will take the stage in California to announce all the new software (and perhaps some hardware) initiatives the company has been cooking up over the past year. While it will undoubtedly focus considerable attention on AI, Google may have some other announcements up its sleeve as well. If you're looking for the most up-to-date information on each and every one of those announcements, you've come to the right place. From now until Google I/O concludes, I will be updating this live blog with all the updates I come across. That includes any leaks and rumors that pop up in anticipation of the show, as well as all of the…

Starting this week, Google will start rolling out the ability for kids under the age of 13 to use Gemini on their own accounts. Both on the web and through the Gemini mobile app, kids will be able to use Google Gemini to help with their homework, create songs, draft poems, and more. Parents started getting notified about the update towards the end of last week, according to an email seen by The New York Times and Chrome Unboxed. It makes a major change for the company, and a bold one, too. While parents will receive an email the first time their child uses Gemini, AI access is nonetheless being added as a default, rather than an opt-in. Google does encourage talking to yo…

Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference, is nearly here. The show kicks off May 20, and will likely center around Google's plans for its services and products for the coming year. Android, of course, is a huge Google service that is usually highlighted at each I/O. This year, however, it appears the company is taking a different approach; rather than feature Android as part of the general I/O presentation, Google is giving Android its own event, called, appropriately, "The Android Show: I/O Edition." "The Android Show" itself isn't something new for this year's I/O. It's actually an existing Google podcast that covers new features and changes surrounding the…