Setting Up Your Home Office

This week, OpenAI released ChatGPT Atlas, the company's first AI web browser. Atlas lets you surf the web like any other browser, but, as you might expect, comes with ChatGPT integration. You can log into your account and tap into the assistant via the sidebar menu, which will remember not only past conversations, but your browsing history as well. Like other AI browsers—namely Perplexity Comet—the browser has an "agent mode," which can take actions on your behalf. You can ask it to order you food through DoorDash or buy you plane tickets on Kayak instead of doing those things yourself. While that might sound useful to ChatGPT fans, I had trouble recommending the browser …

Red light therapy devices are everywhere—from lamps, to full-body mats, to those glowing face masks flooding my social media feed. I usually see red light therapy advertised for "younger-looking skin," but I'm not interested in these devices as a means to slow down aging—I'm interested in them as a recovery-obsessed athlete with very sore muscles. These gadgets promise to boost athletic performance, speed muscle recovery, and reduce inflammation, all by bathing your body in specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared light. But do these trendy tools live up to the hype, especially for muscle recovery? What red light therapy advocates claimRed light therapy devices typic…

Last week, YouTube started rolling out a new look across both the web and its various apps, promising a "more expressive and intuitive interface." In reality, the reaction has been mixed. The TV app, for instance, no longer automatically rewinds or fast forwards when you press back or forward, instead navigating between buttons including "like" or "subscribe." More than once while on TV, I've accidentally subscribed to a channel without meaning to, before realizing that I now need to press up first to get to the progress bar. Now, the changes have reached the YouTube mobile app, as first spotted by 9to5Google. While they're a bit more mild than you'll see on TV, there's s…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. I've been seeing a lot more interior design content on my feed lately, likely because I moved to a new home this year. Most of the content advising on living rooms talks about the furniture revolving around the TV. If you're looking to wow your next guests, a TV that doubles are art will look much better than a big black rectangle. The 75-inch Samsung The Frame is the original canvas TV, and it's $1,100 off right now, currently $1,797.99 (originally $2,997.99). This is matching the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Pretty much every fitness tracker and smartwatch has an optical heart rate sensor, but they're not always perfectly accurate. Not only can you get better accuracy by wearing a chest strap heart rate monitor, you can even use a chest strap without a fitness watch—just connect it to your phone. Chest straps don't break the bank, either; my favorite is around 30 bucks. CooSpo H808S Chest Strap Heart Rate Monitor $29.87 …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I broke one of the biggest rules in the running book and lived to tell about it. Everybody knows you need to replace your running shoes after 300 to 500 miles to avoid injury (or 200 to 400, or whatever running companies are saying these days). Well, I put over 1,000 miles on mine, and I’m not sorry. I know it’s been over 1,000 miles because I’ve been tracking my shoes’ mileage in the Garmin Connect app. My watch logs the mileage, and I make sure the credit goes to the appropriate shoe in the app. I carefully ported my shoe miles to and from the Coros app when I switched ecosystems for a bit this past summer. Some of my r…

The pandemic proved that a lot of us can do our jobs just fine out of the office. Nevertheless, companies continue to push for workers to return to their cubicles—whether in a hybrid arrangement, or five-days-a-week mandatory attendance. In both cases, many companies are looking for ways to hold employees accountable: Since many of our jobs can be done anywhere with an internet connection, if your boss doesn't have eyes on you, it's not always easy to tell where you're working from. Perhaps your company has rolled out initiatives meant to encourage office attendance. Maybe your boss counts your badge swipes, to ensure that you're meeting your weekly in-office quota, or y…

Though it brings me no pleasure, it's once again time to discuss the viral apps Tea and TeaOnHer. You may remember them from the summer, when Tea—where women could anonymously rate and discuss men under the pretense of helping each other safely navigate dating—was the target of data breaches that exposed users' personal information. From there, an app called TeaOnHer was launched for men and Tea faced a class action from users who were upset about their private data being easily accessible to hackers. Whether you remember them or not, they're gone now—sort of. Apple has yanked them from the App Store. The App Store removal of Tea and TeaOnHerTea was around for about two …

Why do I still carry a wallet? My iPhone can handle just about anything you used to need a traditional wallet for. Most (if not all) of my purchases are made via Apple Pay or QR code, my phone holds all of my pictures, and most of my receipts go straight to my email. Basically the only I keep my wallet around is to carry my ID. Once my state starts supporting Apple’s digital ID feature, however, things will change between me and my wallet—provided that support ever comes. Since iOS 15.4, Apple has allowed you to add a driver’s license or other state ID to your iPhone’s digital wallet. That doesn’t mean you’ve been needlessly carrying your ID around since then—states have …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Investing in a smart thermostat won’t just keep your home comfortable — it also can help you save money on energy bills and reduce your carbon footprint. By automating scheduling and learning preferred temperatures, smart thermostats conserve energy and make your home more comfortable. The 2022 Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium might not be the newest option on the market, but to this day, it receives consistently excellent ratings, and right now, it’s $198.99 (originally $249.99) on Walmart, marking its lowest price ever according to price trackers. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE has dropped to $331.50 at Walmart, which is a pretty sharp price considering the same model is listed at $429.99 on Amazon. Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE, 128GB $331.50 at Walmart $499.99 Save $168.49 …

You may or may not have heard of "eating the frog." It's one of those things that triggers the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon once you learn about it: Suddenly, everyone seems to be saying it, which is jarring, since it's a little graphic and evocative. Luckily, it doesn't mean you have to eat any frogs for real; it's just a way to refer to the productivity philosophy that says you should tackle your biggest, toughest task first thing in the morning. What it means to "eat the frog"“Eat the frog” means “do the day’s worst task as soon as you wake up.” It comes from a quote attributed to Mark Twain, though there are a few different versions floating around. (Lifehacker Editor-i…

While logic might suggest that getting more done means operating in a constant state of productivity, the opposite can actually be true: When you hit that afternoon slump and can’t seem to push through the simplest of tasks, it's probably because you needed a break earlier in the day—certainly science backs up that idea. Put simply, your brain needs regular periods of downtime to maintain peak operation. After periods of intense work, taking a brief break doesn’t just improve your mood—it can actually boost your concentration and performance. So if you want to be truly productive, you should schedule those rest periods into your busy day. The case for scheduling your "b…

Here's a hot take for you: I always kind of liked Clippy. Maybe it's because I was an only child, but as useless as the animated paperclip (officially known as "Clippit," by the way) was for advice, I did enjoy having a buddy on my desktop while I worked on essays. Now, Microsoft is bringing that same energy back, but for AI. And, finally, I think I understand the Clippy hate. Called Mico, the character is part of Copilot's fall release, which includes a dozen new updates. Some of these are what you'd expect by now: There's a new memory feature that ensures every new conversation doesn't start from scratch, and better integration with outside apps like Gmail or Google Cal…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. When Mark Zuckerberg described Meta's Horizon Worlds back in 2019, he seemed to think the virtual community hub would be a place for cool, tech-forward young adults to socialize and network. Six years later, it’s essentially a virtual daycare center; everywhere in virtual space is filled with kids. I don’t mean 16-year-olds or tweens, either—I’m talking young kids, so prevalent they’ve earned the nickname “squeakers” for their high-pitched voices and twitchy energy. So what’s a grown-ass adult who likes virtual reality but wants to avoid children to do? Here are some tips and strategies for finding VR places to game and/o…

Walk through any park these days and you might spot them: people sporting bulky weighted vests, adding 10, 20, even 30 pounds to their morning stroll. Scroll through social media and you'll find countless influencers touting weighted vests as the secret to building unbreakable bones and sculpted muscles. Many videos have gained hundreds of thousands of views with claims that weighted vests will "transform your body"—a claim that, to be fair, is par for the course in any fitness trend. "Weighted vest walks" are popular enough to be parodied, and even if I find those videos a little mean-spirited, they do point to an important question: Does this trendy fitness accessory ac…

It's about to get a whole lot harder for catfishers on Tinder. Starting today, new users in California will have to scan their faces while setting up their accounts to ensure that they're both real and that they match their profile photos. Called Face Check, the new mandatory feature is the first step in a new initiative from Tinder's parent company Match Group, which says the goal is to help reduce "spam, scam attempts, or [bots] operating automated fake profiles." When signing up, users will need to complete a "liveness check," during which they'll take a video selfie from various angles. After that, the app will compare the selfie to profile pictures also uploaded dur…

Memes can be fun. But when a big corporation decides to get in on the action, the fun usually dies. As spotted by Android Authority, Google is currently working on a new feature for Google Photos called "Me Meme," though Android Authority thinks it could be called "Meme Me" upon release. The feature is simple: Through the power of AI (sigh), you can turn pictures of yourself or a family member into "your favorite memes." Cool. Here's how it's supposed to work: You choose a "meme template," along with a sample photo of yourself, a friend, or a family member. That photo reportedly needs to be backed up to Google Photos before you can use it here. And while not a requiremen…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Apple products are expensive for a reason: they're good. But that doesn't mean you have to spend an arm and a leg to get Apple brand stuff. Apple's "Special Edition" (SE) watch models for us mere mortals are more budget-friendly, but they still have competitive features. If you've been eyeing an Apple Watch look no further than the 2nd Generation GPS Apple Watch SE, starting at $169.99 (originally $249) at Walmart. The bigger 44mm size is available for $199 (originally $279). …

Sora, OpenAI's short-form AI video platform, has been available for iPhones for the past few weeks. Users have spent that time generating hyper-realistic vertical videos that, despite their watermarks, might already be fooling people on the internet. I, for one, see nothing good about a tool that can make these types of videos from simple prompts, perhaps outside the sheer novelty alone. But the app is undeniably popular, and, as expected, OpenAI is continuing to "improve" it. On Wednesday, the head of Sora, Bill Peebles, shared a roadmap of updates coming to the app, from cameos for your pets to video editing tools. Sora will soon let you make cameos of anything you wa…

The Spotify app is currently experiencing crashes and freezing on Android, the company has acknowledged after about two weeks of pressure from listeners. A fix is purportedly on the way, but in the meantime, there are a few steps you can take to get your music going. Reports of problems with the Android Spotify app first started on the Spotify help forums, although they have since spread to social media as well. Those affected complain that the app either freezes when opening, or crashes midway through listening. Others mention that problems only pick up when connecting to wifi—Spotify has since confirmed that "the issue doesn't occur while using mobile data." According t…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Fire TV sticks have one advantage over every other streaming stick: They're owned by Amazon, which means they're more likely to get discounted. Right now, for instance, you can get Amazon's best streaming stick, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, for $39.99 (originally $59.99). Fire TV Stick 4K Max Streaming Player With Remote (2023 Model) $39.99 …

Breaches are an unfortunate reality of the digital era. Chances are, some of the companies you trust your data to are going to get hacked, and sensitive information stored on those servers is going to leak. If you've been online for a long time, that means quite a bit of your data is floating around various corners of the internet. While there isn't one centralized database for all the stolen credentials on the web, one researcher has compiled quite a large database, that you can check to see if your email address is affected. 183 million email addresses Cybersecurity researcher Synthient has compiled a massive database of stolen credentials from sources across the intern…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’re in the market for a new mesh router that’s smart-home ready and has a minimalist appearance, the Google Nest Wifi Pro is currently down to $121.14 (originally $199.99). At a nearly 40% discount, this system offers comprehensive, high-speed coverage for anyone dealing with dead spots or spotty wifi. Google Nest Wifi Pro $121.14 …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’ve been eyeing a big-screen upgrade without blowing past your budget, the Vizio 65-inch 4K UHD LED Smart TV (V4K65M-08) might just be the solution you need. It’s currently $348 at Walmart (down from $428)—a solid deal for a name-brand 65-inch TV that supports 4K, Dolby Vision, and HDR10. VIZIO V Series 65" 4K HDR Full Array LED Smart TV (V4K65M-0804) …