Setting Up Your Home Office

Apple has been under fire for several years after it was discovered that Siri violated user privacy, and the company earlier this year agreed to a $95 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit, which includes compensation for affected users. Eligible individuals can now apply for their share of the total. The dispute centered on Siri-enabled devices, including iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, HomePod, iPod touch, and Apple TV, which may have activated and recorded and shared private conversations without user knowledge. If you qualify for the settlement class, you'll receive $20 for each device claimed—up to five devices per individual for a total of $100—thou…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. There have been many earbuds with great active noise canceling (ANC) over the years, but none have reached the standard set in 2023 by the Bose QuietComfort Ultra. They are still the best ANC earbuds you can get in 2025. Right now, you can get the Moonstone Blue for $219.99 (originally $299) on Amazon, matching the lowest price they've been, according to price-tracking tools. You can also get the Diamond 60th Anniversary Edition for $229. …

There are now useful language translation features everywhere you look, whether they're built into your web browser or available through your AI assistant of choice. If you own a recent Google Pixel phone (the Pixel 6 or later), you've also got access to a suite of features known as Live Translate, which work across calls, texts, and media. This functionality works separately from Google Translate, and is actually built right into Android on Pixel devices. It means you can understand conversations you're having or videos you're watching in a foreign language without any additional apps, and it's straightforward to set up and use. Live Translate works quickly, too, leverag…

Like many AI chatbots, ChatGPT has offered image generation for some time now. You might be well acquainted with it, seeing as its latest image generation tools have recently gone viral. Putting both the ethics of AI art as well as its errors, quirks, and inconsistencies aside for a moment, you may have noticed some issues with ChatGPT's image generation, especially if you've been using a lot. Since each image is contained to the ChatGPT conversation in which it was generated, it's quite difficult to keep tabs on all your images, unless you're exporting and cataloging them somewhere else manually. OpenAI might not be able to solve the other issues with AI art yet, but it …

If you've got a Samsung phone, you've got an alternative, lightweight option for computing on the go: Galaxy handsets come with a desktop interface called DeX built right in, and depending on what you need to do, you might be able to use this mode in place of a laptop while on your travels. Essentially, you plug your Samsung phone into a TV or monitor, and Android shifts to look more like Windows or macOS. You're still using the same software and the same apps, but you get floating windows and easier multitasking. While a lot of the apps will stick to their mobile views, you can make use of apps such as Google Docs or Google Chrome to get work done while you're away from …

Sleep can be a mysterious process even under ideal conditions, but when you’re in a completely alien environment like a hotel room or other temporary lodging it can become seemingly impossible. But if you take a little control over your environment, you can get more—and better—sleep no matter where you find yourself at night. Make the space feel more like homeStudies have shown that aspects of our home environment like sound and smell can help us be more relaxed and and happy when we’re away, so replicating those aspects of your life in an unfamiliar spot can help you sleep: Sound. If you normally sleep with a white noise machine, bring it with you when you travel, or fin…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Beats headphones are well known for their style and better compatibility with Apple devices. Both of these hold true with their flagship headphones, the Beats Studio Pro, currently $169.95 (originally $349.99), the second-lowest price it has been after a 51% discount, according to price-tracking tools. While it is compatible with Android users, Apple users will get the most out of these premium headphones. Beats Studio Pro …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. My sweet tooth has been nagging me lately. I expect this is because I’ve been trying to eat more vegetables and my dopamine hormones find this to be disrespectful. I like veggies, but I'm only so powerful to resist the call of sweets. In one of my bookstore browsings, I came upon a cookbook with hefty slices of lemony-looking pie with a chocolate crust scatter…

Dark mode has saved many of us from eye pain when using our smartphones at night. The difference between a black display with white text and a blinding white screen with black text is immeasurable when your phone is the only light source in the room—especially when you're opening your eyes for the first time in a while. While many Android users prefer to use dark mode all the time, others prefer it exclusively in the evening and night. That's where the "sunset to sunrise" schedule comes into play: On many devices, such as Google's Pixel phones, you can choose to schedule dark mode from sunset to sunrise. After the sun rises, your phone stays in light mode, so your content…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Garmin watches like my beloved Forerunner 265S have so many features buried in their menus that you may not have discovered some of the best ones. Here are some of the best underrated features of Garmin watches (available on Forerunners and other models), as well as convenient shortcuts you’ll find yourself using all the time. Shortcuts for getting around your Garmin watch Left is the flashlight (it's brighter in the dark, I promise). Right is what you get when you long press on the sunset time complication. …

You might be having a bad week, but AI is having a worse one. First there was the "racism glitch" that beset Grok, and now music platform SoundCloud is facing some serious criticism for a clause buried in its terms of service. The imbroglio began in February 2024, when SoundCloud quietly changed its TOS to include: In the absence of a separate agreement that states otherwise, You explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services. That quietly sat there in the TOS for more than a year, but this week, Ed Newton notice…

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a great way to boost the security of your accounts. But even with that added layer of security, malicious actors are finding ways to break in. So-called adversary-in-the-middle attacks take advantage of weaker authentication methods to access accounts. Your two-factor and multi-factor authentication (MFA) may be weak, but, luckily, there's something you can do about it. How multi-factor authentication worksMFA uses two or more checkpoints to confirm a user's identity for accessing an account or system. This is more secure than relying on just a username and password combination, especially given how easy many passwords are to crack, and…

The internet is always open. What if it were closed sometimes? That's the central question of Seven39, an experimental social network that's only open for three hours a day, starting at 7:39pm Eastern. I logged in to the service last night and found a small, mostly friendly collection of people excited to try something new. We're a few decades into an experiment where everyone on Earth uses the same couple of social networks for everything. It's ... not perfect. That might be why more and more alternatives to Instagram, X, and Facebook keep popping up, all with some sort of hook. Some, like Mastodon and Bluesky, make decentralization their central promise. Seven39's hook …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Audio enthusiasts need no introduction to Sony's 1000X series. They've been around since 2016, improving on the previous iteration to eventually land on the latest Sony WH-1000XM6, the best over-ear headphones for ANC your money can buy in 2025. As you can imagine, that means the still excellent 1000XM5 is dropping in price. If you're willing to splurge, it's a good time to do so during Amazon's Memorial Day Sale. The WH-1000XM5 are currently $298 (originally $399.99), matching Black Friday and Christmas prices, according to price-tracking tools. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. As Lifehacker's resident marathon runner and senior finance writer, there is one perfect point where my worlds intersect: buying sneakers. When it comes to investing in—and maybe even splurging on—running gear, nothing affects your running experience more than your shoes. Finding the perfect running shoes is about much more than style or brand preference. Proper footwear can be the difference between achieving your running goals and suffering through preventable injuries. Why proper shoe fit mattersMany runners unknowingly wear the wrong shoes for years. According to Jessica Lyons-Quirk, director of footwear merchandising…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. When it comes to speakers, Sonos has the best reputation and the best companion app on the market. If you're interested in seeing what the hype is all about, it's a great time to test the waters, as Sono's entry-level speaker, the Sonos Roam 2, has reached a record low price, according to price tracking tools. The portable, waterproof device is on sale for $134 (originally $179) at Amazon, part of a small Sonos sale that also includes the a discount on the larger Sonos Move 2 (also currently at its lowest price ever). …

The third and final season of dystopian survival series Squid Game—one of Netflix's most-watched shows—is coming in June. The South Korean thriller picks up after last season's cliffhanger, with Gi-hun (Player 456) at the center of the new game. The new season will be available on June 27. Also on June's lineup is the return of FUBAR (June 12), the action series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Monica Barbaro as a father and daughter who both work for the CIA. Carrie-Anne Moss joins the cast this season as a former East German spy. On the documentary side, Netflix will stream Titan: The OceanGate Disaster (June 11) following its premiere at the Tribeca Festiv…

While apples and broccoli have become basic—constantly on the grocery store shelves year-round—rhubarb is a vegetable unicorn. It only appears for a very short and magical window. I'll spot it in the market for maybe a month and before I know it, I’ve missed it. That’s why I buy bundles of it when I do happen to catch it, and I get right to work. Not cooking it down in a pot with a cup of sugar, no: My favorite way to prepare rhubarb for pies and cakes is roasting. Roasting keeps things from getting soggyMy first time working with rhubarb was right out of culinary school, making dozens of miniature strawberry and rhubarb tarts. It was actually my first time eating it to…

Continuing the steady stream of news about the upcoming Switch 2 console, Nintendo has now revealed that it's improved the console's ability to find lost Joy-Con controllers. The company demonstrated this in a video posted in the Nintendo Today app, which is available on Android and iPhone. How to locate missing Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-ConsTo find your missing Switch 2 Joy-Cons, go to the home screen, open the Controllers menu, and select Search for controllers. Now, select the missing controller to start your search. If you don't have the Nintendo Today app, check out this Bluesky post to see the feature in action. A similar feature was available on the original Nintendo …

Not that long ago, sending a message was final. It didn't matter if you had an embarrassing typo, or you sent a message to the wrong person: Once you tapped that "send" button, you were locked in, and whoever that message was sent to would have it as long as they wanted. These days, however, we have the technology to save ourselves from such embarrassment. Many chat apps now have options to retrieve a message after it was sent, whether by editing the message to fix a mistake, or the ability to delete a message from everyone in the chat. It doesn't guarantee that the people who received the message didn't see it, but it does remove that message from view. If they didn't c…

If you use Spotify to listen to audiobooks on your iPhone, you now have fewer hurdles to clear to purchase and download titles to your device. Apple has approved an update that allows Spotify users to view pricing and buy individual audiobooks as well as add "top-up" listening hours right from the iOS app. How in-app purchases are changing on iOSThis change is the outcome of a recent court ruling that requires Apple to allow app developers to provide links to external sites outside of the App Store to make purchases. Previously, users had to seek out where to sign up for subscriptions—in an external browser, for example—or potentially pay a premium price to cover the Ap…

Your company’s human resources (HR) department is often pitched as an employee advocate—the place where you take problems or concerns. But most employees know by now that HR—or, in some start-up environments, "the people team"—isn’t really intended to protect you, the human resource in question. Instead, HR works to protect the company’s interests more than anything. And the way job hunting has become a grueling gauntlet of ghost jobs, endless interviews, and zero responses from HR representatives hasn’t exactly endeared HR to workers. In fact, research shows that more than 70% of employees don’t trust their HR department. While it’s true that HR departments work for and …

The YouTube TV app has been disappearing for some Roku users. Luckily, if you are among those affected, there are a few fixes you can try for this issue. Starting this week, several users on both Reddit and Roku's forums have separately reported issues opening the YouTube TV app or even locating it on their Roku devices. Those who tried reinstalling the YouTube TV app were able to see an Open App button, but pressing it simply resulted in an error. What's worse is that the issues seem isolated to Roku, with users of devices like the Google TV Streamer 4K not issuing the same complaints. Luckily, this issue only seems to be impacting people with dedicated Roku devices and…

Mother’s Day is supposed to be wholesome and sort of boring: some flowers, a Hallmark card, maybe doing some chores around the house for once. But the American version of Mother's Day wasn’t born in a garden. It was forged in the smoke and death of the Civil War, shaped by radical women, and became a battleground between profit and principle—a holiday so contentious its own creator devoted her life trying to destroy it. Mother's Day's history is dramatic as hell. The ancient ancestors of Mother's DayMoms have been around for a long time, and so have celebrations to honor them. These kinds of celebrations have been around at least since the ancient Greeks and Romans threw…