Setting Up Your Home Office

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…

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…

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…

Responding to posts on social media claiming that ChatGPT will no longer offer legal or health advice, OpenAI is clarifying that "model behavior remains unchanged" and there is "not a new change to our terms." The clarification follows a since-deleted viral post from betting platform Kalshi, which claimed "JUST IN: ChatGPT will no longer provide health or legal advice." Since then, concerned users have repeated the claim, while others have attempted to push back against it. The confusion likely stems from an Oct. 29 update to OpenAI's Usage policies, which appeared to add a stipulation that users cannot use OpenAI for "provision of tailored advice that requires a license,…

There are myriad ways to prioritize your to-do list, but even if you find one that works for you, you might find they can be a little weedy and overcomplicated. That means when it comes to tasks that don't quite require that level of involvement, your productivity method can actually manage to stress you out. If you're tired of your to-do list feeling like such a heavy lift, you can make simplifying things, well, simpler by prioritizing your tasks with the "must, should, want" technique. What is the “must, should, want” technique This technique was developed by Jay Shirley about a decade ago. The blogger set out to enhance not only people’s productivity, but their dail…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds take a sharp turn from the brand’s usual noise-canceling dominance. Instead of sealing you off from the world, they sit outside your ears, letting in ambient sound while still delivering rich, detailed audio. Priced at $199 (down from its original $299), this is their lowest price yet (according to price trackers), and they cater to people who prefer awareness over isolation. Think cyclists, runners, or anyone who doesn’t want to miss the honk of a car while listening to music. …

Whether you're hosting a party or just cleaning the house, sometimes it's nice to have audio in multiple rooms. You could do that by running wires through your house, or by purchasing a multi-room audio system, but if you have a Mac you don't have to do any of that. There's a feature that makes it possible to send your Mac's audio to multiple speakers, including Bluetooth ones. The feature is a little obscure, though—you won't find it in System Settings, or anywhere obvious. No, to send audio to multiple devices on your Mac you need to open an application called Audio MIDI Setup, which you can find using Spotlight or by browsing to Applications > Utilities in Finder. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Google TV Streamer 4K is Google's latest iteration of the smart TV stick. No longer is it hiding behind your TV, but now it takes center stage with a hub on your TV stand. Right now, you can get the Google TV Streamer 4K for $74.99 (originally $99.99), the lowest price it has been since its last summer, according to price tracking tools. Google TV Streamer 4K 32GB With Voice Search Remote (Porcelain) …

If you've joined a private Facebook group—counting on your membership and posts to be visible only to those approved to join—and receive a notification that said group is about to go public, you don't need to panic. While Meta is now allowing admins of previously private Facebook groups to change the status to public, it is also assuring users that past activity will remain private. Private Facebook groups can be made publicAccording to Meta's post announcing the update, the option to transition from private to public allows small groups to grow into larger communities that are more easily found, with content visible to anyone (even people who aren't on Facebook). Any ad…

Since the days of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, you've always have a choice when it comes to the program you use to access the internet—but we now have a whole new breed of software to consider: The AI browser. These browsers place AI models front and center, even more so than integrations like Gemini in Chrome or Copilot in Edge. These browsers give you AI-powered search, AI-powered answers to just about any question you can come up with, and even agentic AI control—so the browser can actually do some browsing and complete simple tasks for you. A future where we never have to manually fill out another web form or compare prices on sixteen different flights is…

The ongoing feud between Disney and Google is heating up. It all started last week, when Disney pulled its channels from YouTube TV, Google's Live TV service, over fee disputes. Now, Disney seems to be pulling content from other Google services as well. As first noted by 9to5Google, Disney movies are starting to disappear from YouTube's pay-per-view offerings too, and even other platforms like Google TV. For instance, try typing "Avengers" into your YouTube search bar right now. Aside from trailers and videos uploaded from individual users, you're more likely to see a rental option pop up for that 1998 Sean Connery and Uma Thurman spy movie than Marvel's superheroes. Mean…

If you've been an iPhone user for a long time, you might remember "slide to unlock." When you wanted to use your iPhone, you had to physically move your finger along the screen to actually unlock the device. It was a clever way of ensuring than your iPhone didn't unlock in your pocket, or due to an accidental touch. With iOS 10, Apple killed slide to unlock in favor of pressing the Home button, then later swiping up on the bottom of the screen. Since then, for the better part of a decade, swiping right on the Lock Screen simply takes you to the "Today View," which contains your widgets. Change is good, and I don't necessarily think Apple should bring back slide to unlock…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Every few decades, the pop culture machine spits out a person who purports to have supernatural powers. In the 1980s, it was spoon-bending swami Uri Geller. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was “mediums” like John Edward, who supposedly talked to people’s dead relatives. In 2025, we have Oz Pearlman. To be fair, unlike the rest of these examples, Pearlman doesn't claim supernatural powers himself, but a lot of people seem to be taking his stage patter explanation for his mentalist tricks as the unvarnished truth. They're wrong. Oz (pronounced “Oh’s”) has a hell of a schtick. The 43-year-old dude seems like an unassuming nerd, un…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Amazon is having a big Google sale right now while retailers are churning out early Black Friday deals. The standout deal is the Google Pixel 10, with the 128GB going for $599 (originally $799) and the 256GB for $699 (originally $899), both at record low prices, according to price-tracking tools. Google Pixel 10 - Unlocked Android Smartphone with Gemini, Your AI Assistant - Advanced Triple Rear Came…

If you're keeping up with generative AI, especially generative AI video models, then you've probably heard about Sora, OpenAI's short-form AI video app. Even though the app has only been available for a bit over a month, you've probably seen Sora videos on your other feeds—whether you realized it or not. Sora is capable of producing hyperrealistic AI videos that can be hard to distinguish from clips of actual reality. It doesn't help that the app's "cameo" feature lets you insert real people into these videos, leading to confusion and creating a risk of spreading misinformation. While the memes might be fun, if you ask me, there's really not much good that can come out o…

Scammers never miss an opportunity to prey on people's fear and confusion—and now they're capitalizing on the ongoing federal government shutdown to steal money and information from vulnerable targets. As Axios notes, reports of imposter scams—in which fraudsters impersonate government officials or agency representatives—rose in October as Americans experienced the loss of federal services and benefits. The Better Business Bureau's (BBB) Scam Tracker received 211 such complaints last month. Scammers are also taking advantage of shutdown stress to pull people into investment schemes and other malicious (and AI-driven) activity. Common government shutdown scams One common…

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. It's a good day for Apple shoppers looking for the latest Apple Watches. The Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple's latest and most premium smartwatch, dropped to its lowest price, and now, the Apple Watch SE 3, their most affordable smartwatch (and truly, the best one for most people), also dropped to its lowest price yet, according to price-tracking tools. Despite being released just this past September, you can get the GPS 40mm Apple Watch SE 3 for $199.99 (originally $249). The bigger 44mm case is $229.99 (originally $279), also with a $50 discount. …

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you just need a tablet for streaming, browsing, and the occasional recipe lookup, the Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) is tough to ignore at its current price. It’s down to $79.99 (from $179.99), and according to price trackers, this is the lowest it's ever been. The 32GB version costs $10 less, but spending that extra ten bucks is worth it if you plan to download movies or books for offline use. Whichever version you pick, you can expand the storage by up to 1TB with a microSD card (sold separately), so space won’t be an issue. Also, the battery life of…

One of the main reasons I've always insisted on having a keyboard with a full number pad—apart from being able to bash out numbers quickly—is that it lets me type out the Windows shortcut codes for an em dash (ALT+0151) and en dash (ALT+0150). They're punctuation marks I use a lot, and apparently AI bots do too. What you'll notice about those shortcut codes, if you've spent time with both Microsoft and Apple operating systems, is that they're longer and more awkward to type than the equivalents on macOS. On a Mac, you can type an em dash by holding down Shift+Option and pressing the hyphen ("-") button. For en dashes, it's even easier: Hold down Option, then press hyphen.…

The new version of Fitbit’s app (currently in “public preview” mode) has some improvements and some shortcomings. On the first day it was available, the built-in AI confused and frustrated me, but I figured I needed to give it a little time. Maybe it would learn more about me and give better responses. Maybe I would learn my way around its features. Maybe the team at Google would correct the worst of the problems. That last prediction came partly true. When I woke up the next morning, the AI finally admitted that the watch I was wearing, Google’s Pixel Watch 4, does actually exist. (The initial version of the app had claimed that the Pixel Watch 2, released in 2023, was …

Losing something you spent time working on, or photos that you can't replace, is devastating. You might think this is a problem of the past because of cloud storage services like Apple's own iCloud, but that's not completely true. For one thing, users sometimes get locked out of their cloud accounts, which makes it impossible to retrieve their files. For another, not everything on your Mac is stored in iCloud. Things like settings, applications, and customizations aren't easy to recover should something happen to your Mac. It's also a lot faster to retrieve files from a local backup than a cloud one, which is important if you're backing up things like videos or photo libr…

The kind of productivity method you need depends largely on the kind of person you are. Some methods are adaptable, open to interpretation, and fluid, which is nice if you just need a little guidance. Others, though, are detailed and rule-driven, which is great if you need to be told exactly what to do and when to do it. Agile Results, a system devised by J. D. Meier, is in the second category; it's stricter than others, but for some of us, that's what's needed to get things done. With Agile Results, you schedule and plan around all your goals, from the short- to long-term, so everything gets taken care of—even the biggest big-picture tasks. Here’s how it works. What is …

Apple dropped iOS 26.1 on Monday, introducing some small but meaningful changes to iPhones. But just one day after changing how alarms work, and adding options to adjust the look of Liquid Glass, the company is back at it with another update: iOS 26.2. To be clear, iOS 26.2 is not currently available to the public. Instead, Apple is now beta testing this version of iOS, allowing developers to trial the software against their apps, and report any and all issues back to Apple. While anyone can technically download this new software, I wouldn't recommend it. iOS 26.2 is not intended for public use, and, as such, it might introduce problems on your device. If you'd like to be…

For me, part of the appeal of TikTok is seeing smaller, less polished videos from people who don't fashion themselves as influencers. But what do I know? The company has announced it is holding its first U.S. awards show later this year. It seems the Oscars-ification of short form video is here. In a blog over on the TikTok site, the company said the show, fittingly called the TikTok Awards, will be held in the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Dec. 18, 2025, and will "honor the creators who have inspired, entertained, and connected communities across the country." To that end, the site also says it will invite users to "vote for their favorite creators" starting on N…

I'm always harping about how everyone should familiarize themselves with and start using time boxing and time blocking, the techniques that call on you to pre-plan your entire day down to the minute, filling up every space on your calendar with defined tasks. I stand by my enthusiasm for the methods, but even when you’re time boxing your whole day, you’ll notice you end up with a few random pockets of time sprinkled throughout your schedule. If you don’t have a plan for what to do with these, they’ll become unproductive—so start thinking of how you can maximize your productivity with “time pockets.” What are time pockets?Time pockets are small amounts of time throughout y…