AI is being integrated and rolled out everywhere you look in tech right now, and Google is leading the charge. The company is adding its AI model, Gemini, to just about everything it offers, including Google Chrome. Just this week, the company announced three new AI features coming to its web browser, including Google Lens, product comparisons across tabs, and AI-powered search in history. But that's far from all the AI Chrome features in the works: As reported by Android Police, and first spotted by WindowsReport, Google is currently testing a feature that will help you organize your many, many tabs. The feature has been in the works since at least November, although Google first announced it in January of this year following the release of Chrome 121.How to try out AI tab organizer in ChromeTo try this feature out for yourself, you'll need to download Chrome Canary, the version of the web browser where Google tests new features. You can use Chrome Canary as you would Chrome, but know the browser could be unstable, just as any software in beta can be. Once you have Chrome Canary up and running on your computer, sign into your Google Account and enable sync. This is required for this feature to work. From here, you'll need to enable some feature flags, which are settings that turn on experimental features in the browser. Type chrome://flags into the address bar, hit enter, then search for the following three flags:#tab-organization#tab-organization-settings-visibility#multi-tab-organizationClick the drop-down menu next to each, and click Enabled. Credit: Jake Peterson Once complete, head to Chrome Canary's settings, hit Experimental AI, and toggle on Try out experimental features. Here, you'll see a new toggle for Tab organizer. Make sure this this toggle is enabled, too. With all the above set, click the arrow in the corner of the browser window (depending on your platform, this may be in the top left or top right), then choose Organize tabs. Chrome Canary will run you through a few pointers about the feature, including that it uses AI, and won't always be correct. More importantly, the feature needs access to your tabs, page titles, and URLs, which will all be sent to Google. Data generated from this experience will also be sent to reviewers to improve the feature. (No one said this feature would be particularly private.) If you're okay with those stipulations, however, click Let's go.Chrome Canary then analyzes your open tabs, and begins suggesting tab groups you can make. For example, it suggested I round up The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal into a "News" group, complete with a newspaper emoji. If I wanted to, I could adjust this name, but "News" seems pretty fitting to me. To proceed, click Create group, and Chrome Canary moves these tabs into their own group on the left side of the tab row. Credit: Jake Peterson You can repeat this process to keep grouping your open tabs as many times as you like. It seems to work well enough in my initial testing (the feature wants to group any Google pages into a "Google Suite" group) but one change I'd like to see is the ability to run through multiple tab group options at once. It's fine to keep repeating the process, but if I could see a bunch of potential tab groups in one go, I could approve or clear all options quickly, rather than have to constantly click through the Tab organizer option first.

Restarting your iPhone is harder than it should be. Up until iOS 17, you either had to press and hold two buttons to see the power off button, or go to Settings > General > Shut Down. Many, including my parents, found it tedious. Thankfully, someone at Apple appears to have taken the note and made restarting easier in iOS 18. There's now a super-quick way to restart your iPhone, although you'll first need to install the iOS 18 beta (for now).How to restart your iPhone in iOS 18The revamped Control Center in iOS 18 adds an easier way to restart your iPhone. With your iPhone upgraded to iOS 18, open the Control Center by swiping down from the top-right corner of the screen. You'll see a tiny Power Button. Tap it to see a power off button. Slide that to the right and your iPhone will shut down. To restart the iPhone, hold down the power button until you see the Apple logo. Isn't that much quicker than before?Quickly restart your iPhone in iOS 17, tooIf you can't or don't want to upgrade to iOS 18, there's still a trick to restart your iPhone more quickly. There are two ways to do this. The easiest one is to ask Siri to restart your iPhone. It'll show you a confirmation prompt where you can tap Restart to let it do the job for you. The second method uses a shortcut called SCSettings, which makes it easy to access useful iPhone features that are otherwise hard to find. Install SCSettings on your iPhone and add it to the home screen to access this feature. Tap the SCSettings button on the home screen, then from the pop-up, select Restart Device and tap the blue Restart button to confirm. Fortunately, both these methods also work in iOS 18, which make them even more useful.

You can get this 13-in-1 docking station on sale for $44.97 right now (reg. $70) through August 4. It connects to your device with a USB-C cable, allowing you to connect USB 3.0, USB 2.0, USB-C, SD and TF cards, Gigabit Ethernet, and 3.5mm aux devices. There are also two HDMI connections that support 4K monitors and a VGA connection, allowing you to add three monitors to your device. You can also use the USB-C power delivery connection to charge a device with up to 100W of power. Since the docking station measures just over five inches long, it wont take up too much space at your desk.You can get this 13-in-1 docking station on sale for $44.97 right now (reg. $70) through August 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT, though prices can change at any time.

Like many things, the world of cooking has moved on to TikTok and Instagram Reels. Before, you'd go to a website or someone's blog to find recipe inspiration. But these sites are now filled with long-winded stories, ads, and descriptions of the dish, which can make them a hassle to scroll.In these trying times, cooking shows, personalities, and even enthusiasts have taken to TikTok and Instagram Reels for sharing recipes, tips and tricks. Because videos on these sites are only a minute long, the focus there really is on the dish. But here, you meet another problem. The videos are too damn short. And if you're not careful, you'll end up watching the same 45 second video in a loop for 17 times, just trying to figure out how this guy made Turkish eggs for breakfast.Or may be you're like me and my partner, who see all these great recipes on Instagram, save them for later, only to never come back to them. This is where the third-party cooking app Pestle can help.How to save recipes from TikTok to PestlePestle is a recipe organizer that automatically formats any recipe you share to it. This can be from one of those long winded blogs, or a recipe you've created yourself. Now, with the latest update, Pestle is using on-device AI to quickly convert Instagram Reels captions into full-fledged recipes that you can easily follow via the app's step-by-step cooking guide.This will work as long as the recipe Reel has the ingredients list and the recipe steps written in some form or the other in the caption (or contains a link to a recipe). Your source video doesn't need to follow any specific format, which is thanks to the AI. Pestle will run the caption through its system, extract the recipe, and show it to you in a nice format that you can easily follow. The video will be added to the recipe, too. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Because the app is doing this on-device instead of pinging the cloud, the whole process is surprisingly fast. It all happens in just 5-10 seconds, after which your recipe will be ready in the app. I tested this out with five different videos, each with a different kind of recipe caption, and it worked every time.Here's how it works. Tap the Share button from the video, then choose the Share To option. Choose the Pestle app. If you don't see it, go to the More section, then choose the Pestle app.The Pestle app will ask you for a name for the recipe. Once that's done, it will automatically populate the ingredients and steps from the video caption. Go through it to make sure everything looks right. You can also tap the Edit button at the top to add or remove any part of the recipe. And that's it, the recipe will be stored in the Pestle app and you can now make a habit of opening the app every time you feel you don't know what you'd like to make tonight. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Pestle has a lovely interface where it will show you the steps for the recipe in huge font so it's easy to follow along as you cook. A really nice touch is that when an ingident is mentioned, you can tap on it to reveal the quantity as well. For example, in my Turkish Eggs recipe, tapping on the eggs text reveals that I need four free range eggs to pull off this recipe. In the cooking view, you can also switch to an ingredients list and check off items that you've got set for cooking. The app also has a voice mode for hands-free cooking, so you can say things like "Next" to switch to the next step, without even touching your iPhone or iPad.The app lets you store 15 recipes for free, but for unlimited recipes, you can upgrade to Pestle Pro, which costs $1.99 per month or $19.99 when billed annually.

Garlic is a bit of a garden anomaly. Its planted in fall and then hangs out until mid-summer, harvested in time to give you a tiny window to grow something else before fall hits and its time to replant. Still, its one of the easiest plants to grow, with exceptional yields. If youre like me and use garlic all the time, its a crop you should absolutely try, as long as youre ready to give it its own bed.Garlic seed is just garlic cloves Credit: Amanda Blum Unlike true seeds, most people plant garlic cloves to get a harvest of garlic. In fact, if you buy garlic at the garden center, youll notice it looks like garlic you buy in the store. Once you have your first crop, youll realize how cost-effective it is to save a few of the heads you grew, split them up and replant them. Every year you gain more garlic. While you can purchase cloves at your garden center or online, lots of people also plant run-of-the-mill garlic from the store and it, too, has a relatively high yield.When choosing the cloves youll actually plant, you want to choose the best and beefiest cloves to yield the best heads of garlic. As I split up the cloves in the garden, I place the smallest cloves in my pocket, bring them inside and use them for dinner.There are technically two kinds of garlic: soft neck and hard neck. The neck is the stalk that rises through the center of the garlic. Soft-neck garlic has a neck you can cut through, and hard neck doesnt. Soft neck tends to be ready for harvest sooner, and hard neck tends to last longer, once dried. Technically, soft neck garlic is easier to braid into those garlic wreaths you see, but as a seasoned braider, I've done so with hard neck garlic, too (although it's harder to do). I prefer the taste and longevity of hard neck garlic, and while I used to grow a variety, Im now in year three of only growing Music, a common garlic variety. Its reliably produced flavorful heads, and while I sometimes prefer a spicier garlic like a Spanish Roja, the heads they produce are smaller.Garlic needs spacing and good soilGarlic grows over the summer, but you plant in the fall and it remains in the ground over the winter. If you missed the window, you get a second shot to plant it in early spring, but the sooner, the better.Garlic needs loose, loamy, rich soil. Heres where you want to focus on good compost and start with a well-cultivated bed. A slow-release fertilizer is ideal to sprinkle into the soil and work in. Each year, your bed's soil compacts, and you lose some soil as you harvest. Usually you top off those beds with compost. I dont do that, which means my beds are a little low when its time to plant garlic. I rake the bed smooth, and sprinkle on my fertilizer. Then I take my cloves and plant them in a grid, eight inches apart. By plant, I take each clove, still in its papery cocoon, and I stick it into the soil, with the sharp tip up, so it is visible above the soil. This is so you can see where each one is. Then I cover the entire bed with a few inches of compost. I then cover that with a few inches of mulch. (I use wood chips.) How to deter squirrels over winterSquirrels and other animals arent particularly drawn to garlic, but they are drawn to a nice place to stick their nuts. If you dont protect your garlic bed, youre going to start seeing a bunch of holes dug in the mulchbut I have devised the perfect foil. I cut a piece of hardware fabric the size of the bed, and then lay it across the bed and screw it down. The holes are large enough for the garlic sprouts to grow through, and by the time the garlic outgrows the fabric (which you roll off) youll be well into spring, and the garlic has a fighting chance against the squirrels.Garlic has two harvests: scapes and headsPlants sprout with the intention of forming seeds. Plants arent great at multi-tasking, so they tend to be able to only focus on one thing at any time. Forming roots, forming greenery/flowers, or forming seeds. Once they start to produce seeds, the rest of the plant is done. In order to get those really nice big bulbs of garlic, you want to stop the plant from that seed productionand luckily, garlic makes that easy and delicious. In early summer, the plants will send up a hard stalk that will curl like a pig tail once it has some loft to it. At the end, youll be able to see a bud of a flower. That is the scape. You want to make sure to take that scape off before that flower opens up, since that is where the seeds come from. The trick is waiting long enough so the scape is edible. This will happen over a week or so in a bed, so you want to check daily, but make sure to wait until the scape has made that curly-q shape. Then break it off as close to the base as you can. Scapes ready to be harvested. Credit: Amanda Blum The real harvest comes mid summer, when it is time to harvest the bulbs. By now, youll have tall green stalks rising from the soil for each bulb. The outside of the stalk has papery layers, like an onion. The rule is that when the two to three lowest leaves/layers turn brown, its go time.To harvest, do not pull on the necks of the garlicuse a hand spade. Holding the neck, slide the spade down vertically a few inches away until it is as far in the soil as possible, and then push it towards the stalk. This will loosen the garlic so you can pull it out. Be methodical, going along the grid.Processing your scapesScapes are pungent and concentrated in flavor. While some people grill or pickle them, my favorite recipe is to make a kosh with them, a recipe of Jori Jayne Emde that I use. Blitz the scapes in a blender or food processor, then weigh the scapes, and add 20% salt to them. Mix well and then allow to ferment in a jar. She lets it hang out on a shelf for a few weeks before moving it to the fridge, but at that level of salt, I believe it to be shelf-stable, so it remains there all year. After six months, it will become the most spectacular paste, to be used as a rub on any protein or a base for soups or sauces.Curing your garlic Am I too excited about these braids? Yes. Yes I am. Credit: Amanda Blum The heads themselves need some work when they come out of the soil. They need to be cured in order to last a few months. This involves cleaning the garlic and then exposing it to a nice breeze and dry but cool conditions. To clean up the garlic, pull off the lowest leaves altogether, leaving a nice clean bulb.If you intend to braid your garlic, leave the stem on and braid away. If youve ever french braided hair, it's the same method. Start with three heads of garlic making a basic braid. On each subsequent crossover, add a head of garlic and add the stem to the crossing handful. At the end, continue your braid without adding more garlic and then tie the braid off with twine or a knot of the stems. Credit: Amanda Blum You dont have to braid garlicyou can simply store it. In this case, trim it off five inches above the bulb.Regardless of your method, you'll want to put the garlic someplace airy but dryinside or under coverand you want to hang it in a way that air will move around the whole bulb. So lay them out or use chicken wire suspended in the air that you stick garlic heads through. If youve braided the garlic, hang it up.When the whole stalk is brown and outer layers are papery, your garlic is ready. This takes from two weeks to a month. Once cured, you want to store the garlic someplace it gets airflow and cool temperatures.Long-term storageThe best solution for long term storage, if you sense your garlic starting to sprout or turn, is to process it into your own garlic powder. By peeling all the garlic and dehydrating it sufficiently, you can then grind it into a powder that's pretty shelf stable, so long as youve really dried it.

As the summer slips into its last phase, its time to check a few maintenance tasks off your list. From HVAC to landscaping, a little bit of maintenance now can prevent small problems from becoming bigger ones. Here are a few tasks you should do in August to keep everything in good shape heading into fall.Check your downspoutsIn some areas, the end of August is a rainy season; in others, its a storm season with major downpours. To make sure that your roof lasts and to protect your foundation from flooding, check that your downspouts are clear of leaves and debris. To clear a clogged downspout, you can remove it from the drain connector on your gutter and shoot a strong jet of water from your hose through it. If a hose isnt strong enough, you can try an extendable cleaning brush to get the blockage out.Check your HVAC filtersIn some areas, its wildfire season already, and smoke buildup in your furnace filter can be a problem. In other areas, dry weather can kick up dustand theres likely a seasons worth of pollen in there, too. Inspect your filter to see how it's holding up, even if it's not officially time to swap it out yet. Having an extra filter or two on hand if you live in an area that could be affected by wildfire smoke is also a good idea.Tighten and grease hingesAs the seasons change, the moisture content in the air shifts, as well as the temperature, causing woodwork to swell and contract. When this happens, doors can stick or become loose in their frames. Take a few minutes in August to give your doors a once-over, checking that hinges are securely seated by giving screws a quick turn with a screwdriver to help your doors stay functional. In addition to checking the door hardware, you can use a needle oiler to lubricate hinges, locks, and latches that are noisy or sticky. Now is a good time to check the hinges and latches on fence and deck gates as well.Clear out dead brushIf you have dead tree branches, dead twigs on bushes, or other dry plant material, August is a good time to trim it away. Trimming dead branches reduces damage from storms and hurricanes, and removing dry wood and leaves from your yard reduces risk from fire as well. If you prefer to leave some leaves and brush for wildlife habitat, you can make a leaf or brush pile thats at least 15 feet away from structures.Replace old bulbs with LEDsAs the days begin to get shorter, youll likely be turning on the lights more often. If you still have some conventional incandescent bulbs in a few places, now is a great time to swap them out. You can save some money on your electric bill, and check this task off your list for the next few years as good quality LED bulbs last much longer than their incandescent counterparts.Build your seasonal emergency kitsIf you dont already have an emergency kit set up for hurricane season, wildfire season, or extreme heat, August is a good time to build one. A good emergency kit should have:A battery-powered radioA battery-powered light sourceA battery-powered device chargerThree days worth of waterThree days worth of non-perishable foodA first aid kitYou can add other items that are useful for the particular climate and weather in your area as well. If you already have an emergency kit, you can check your supplies and expiration dates on your food and water.

Looking to settle in with a good movie? Me too. That's why I've pored over release schedules to bring you the best original and new-to-streaming movies you can watch on Netflix, Prime, Max, Hulu, and other streaming platforms. The can't-miss-it movies of the week are director Zack Snyder's new edits of his Rebel Moon movies. Adding an extra hour or two to a feature film completely changes its meaning, so this is a good excuse to revisit these two epic science fiction flick. Another suggestion: a Superman film festival. Prime is offering all the Christopher Reeve's Superman movies as well as the 2006 re-boot. Rebel Moon Directors Cuts If you can't get enough of Zach Snyders' Rebel Moon movies, the director's cuts might finally slake your endless thirst for Snyder-y space opera. The combined runtime of Rebel Moon Part One: Directors Cut and Rebel Moon Part Two: Directors Cut is six hours and 17 minutesthat's almost two hours of added footage. Expect extra violence, extra sex, and extra-Snyder with these R-rated new edits of the sci-fi epics.Where to stream: NetflixSaving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie Spongebob Squarepants is an American institution, the pop culture hero we both deserve and need. In this full-length original feature, everyone in Bikini Botton is scooped out of the ocean onto dry land, leaving Spongebob and Sandy Cheeks to travel to Texas to put things to right. Saving Bikini Bottom is the kind of kids' movie that everyone likes, so gather the fam.Where to stream: NetflixElizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes In 1964, actress Elizabeth Taylor recorded over 40 hours of interviews; this HBO original documentary dug 'em up and is playing The Lost Tapes for the first time. These intimate recording go deep into the vagaries and contradictions of stardom and the forces that influenced Taylor's complicated life as an actress, an activist, and the most beautiful woman in the world. Where to stream: MaxSuperman 1, 2, 3, 4 and Superman Returns If a new Batman series isn't enough super-heroics for you, in August, Prime is offering the original four Christopher Reeves Superman movies as well as the 2006 series reboot Superman Returns. This is the perfect opportunity to grab some super-popcorn, sit on your super-couch and have an old fashioned super-film festival.Where to stream: Prime VideoImitation of Life (1959) Featuring both Lana Turner and Mahalia Jackson, Douglas Sirk's study of the lifelong friendship between a white woman and a black woman is a fearless (for 1959) examination of race, class, alienation, gender and more, told through lush visuals and Sirk's patented ironic-melodrama style. If you haven't seen it, you really should watch Imitation of Life; they really don't make movies like this anymore.Where to stream: Prime VideoLast week's picksMission: Impossible Dead Reckoning (2023) In case you haven't heard of him, Tom Cruise is a national treasure and the worlds greatest movie star who does his own stunts even though hes 112 years old. In Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, Cruise turns his charisma up to 15 million gigawatts in his recurring role of Ethan Hunt, agent of the Impossible Mission Force. The plot has something to do with an evil mastermind trying to take over the world with artificial intelligence or something, but it really doesnt matter. Mission Impossible movies live or die based on the quality and quantity of their over-the-top action set-pieces, and Dead Reckoning over-delivers. It takes action to such ludicrous, even critics like itthe movie has a 96% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.Where to stream: Prime VideoContinental Split Many know and love Tubi for its price ("free") and massive stinkpile of movies and shows no one asked for. But did you know there are Tubi originals? Like Continental Split, a disaster movie with a massive premisea fault-line literally splits the United States in twobut a minuscule budget with which to realize it. But against all odds, Continental Split is actually kind of good. The effects are laughably cheesy (but in a fun way), the acting is decent, and there's even a stab at metaphorically connecting the physical split in the earth to political and social fault lines in our culture. If you like goofy disaster movies and you don't care about the effects looking "real" or whatever, this is the movie for you. Also good If you're too broke for Netflix.Where to stream: TubiKnox Goes Away(2024) If you saw Michael Keaton in 1983's Mr. Mom, you probably didn't imagine that its seemingly lightweight star would still be active in the 21st century and his thing would be making complex, dark films like Knox Goes Away. Keaton directed and stars as the title character, a hitman who's stricken with dementia, trying to help his estranged son who's committed a murder. So it's weird, intriguing, and not quite like any other movie.Where to stream: MaxCirque du Soleil: Without a Net Cirque du Soleil, the circus that costs $100 to visit, had a rough time during the pandemic lockdownits a cool show and all, but is cool acrobatics worth contracting Covid? Without a Net documents the struggles of Cirque's crew and performers as they dust off the trapeze and harnesses and work toward a post-vaccine grand re-opening in Las Vegas. With that famous the-show-must-go-on ethic driving it, the worlds most high-class circus journeys back from the brink in an inspiring story.Where to stream: HuluAbigail (2024) I don't know why, but we find ballerinas scary, and horror movies about ballerinas tend to be awesome. There's 2010's Black Swan, Suspiria (both the 1977 and 2018 versions), 1949's The Red Shoes, and now Abigail, a moody horror flick about a little undead girl who loves sucking blood as much as she loves arabesques and jets. While it's inferior to the ballet-core classics listed above, it's still got an 82% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and is totally worth the watch. Where to stream: Peacock

I used to hate cooking steak at home for one big reason: the smoke. I rent an apartment in Brooklyn, which means I have to deal with a close and sensitive smoke alarm. But even without the threat of a piercing siren, steak was always one of those sometimes foods that ended up being more of a mess than I care to clean up. That is, until the concept of reverse searing entered my life, and changed everything. Now I can make myself a perfect steak, and you can too.What is reverse searing?Searing is the classic way to prepare a steak: simply pop it in a screaming hot pan and sear it until its done. Reverse searing is the catchy phrase for first cooking a steak low and slow in a conventional oven, only tossing it in a hot pan for a few minutes afterward to get some nice color on the outside. The steak effectively cooks almost completely in the oven; you pan-sear it simply for the glorious browning and flavor the process brings.A restaurant kitchen has industrial fans and grease traps, and getting a meal prepared in minutes is the priority. Thats an appropriate place to cook a steak quickly in a pan. But at home, there are complicationsspecifically, scorching, especially for newcomers learning to cook steak at home. Scorching the fats and meat is what causes smoke to fill your kitchen. And although mostly aesthetic, searing a steak over high heat will cook the protein fibers on the outside much more rapidly, shrinking the outer layer and causing the middle to bulge, and that warping of the meat makes it hard to get an even sear. Searing is primarily to add flavor, so an uneven sear actually minimizes flavor.Why reverse searing totally rulesReverse searing cooks the meat gently, at around 250F, and slowly, for 20 to 50 minutes, depending on how you like your steak (and a few variables I will discuss later). Slow cooking allows the meat to warm up and heat through more evenly, keeping its shape nice and flat. The best part, if you ask me? No smoke. There is no opportunity for scorching when using this cooking technique. Well, not yet anyway. (You do sear it briefly at the end, but its for no where near as long.) Moreover, its lower stress: Cooking this way allows you to do other things in the kitchen while the steak cooks away in the oven, and you can use a probe thermometer every 10 minutes or so to see how its coming along. If you have a terrible habit of overcooking your steak, this method nearly guarantees you wont overcook it.The right way to reverse sear a steak1. Preheat your ovenSet your oven to 250F. Place a wire rack over a sheet pan. There wont be much that drips off the steak, but elevating the meat allows the warm air to flow around all sides. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann 2. Set your target temp and bake the steakThoroughly season your steak and place it on the wire rack. Youre aiming for an internal temperature 10 to 15 degrees below the target finished temperature. Consider that the steak will sear in a hot pan, and also experience carry-over cooking.I like my steak somewhere between medium-rare and medium, so if you check this steak temperature chart from Omaha Steaks, medium doneness is 140F. I subtracted 15 degrees, and aimed for 125F -ish. It took me 45 minutes to get to 122F, with two temperature tests after the first 25 minutes. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann There are variables to keep in mind. How thick is your steak? Was it fridge-cold or room temperature? My ribeye was one-and-a-half inches thick, and still chilly from the fridge. After 25 minutes, it had just reached the internal temperature fit for a rare steak, about 102F. My advice is to keep in mind the thickness of your steak and check on it after 10 minutes for a thin steak (around an inch thick), and after 20 or 25 minutes for a thicker one (an inch and a half or more). Once you have an initial reading, you can adjust the cooking time from there.3. Sear in a hot panOnce your target internal temperature has been reached, remove the steak from the oven. Heat a frying pan on medium heat until its very hot, which usually takes a few minutes. Sear the steak on all sides, for about one minute per side. Let the steak rest for at least five minutes before slicing. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann If its your first time reverse searing, you might be dismayed by how ugly and gray your steak looks out of the oven. Hang in there. Once you sear it, youll understand what its all about. Reverse seared steak has great flavor and looks beautiful. Although you miss out on some nice pan drippings, to me the benefits outweigh the missing fond. So say goodbye to scorching, and hello to a more relaxing, better steak experience.

If youre looking for the Wordle answer for August 2, 2024 read on. Well share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Todays puzzle is harder; I got it in five. Beware, there are spoilers below for August 2, Wordle #1,140! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to todays Wordle game.How to play WordleWordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if theyre correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isnt in the days secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)Ready for the hints? Lets go!Does todays Wordle have any unusual letters?Well define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it Edwin Shirdloo, like a name, and pretend hes a friend of yours.)Three of today's letters are from our mnemonic. One is somewhat common, and the other is less common. Can you give me a hint for todays Wordle?A tiny piece that's been peeled away. Does todays Wordle have any double or repeated letters?There are no repeated letters today.How many vowels are in todays Wordle?There are two vowels. What letter does todays Wordle start with?Todays word starts with F.What letter does todays Wordle end with?Todays word ends with E.What is the solution to todays Wordle?Ready? Todays word is FLAKE.How I solved todays WordleI started with RAISE and TOUCH, then guessed BLIMP and GLADE, narrowing down possible consonants. This left FLAKE as the solution. Wordle 1,140 5/6Yesterdays Wordle answerYesterdays Wordle was medium difficult. The hint was this is found in a classroom and used by climbers and the answer contained three common letters, one fairly common letter, and one less common letter. The answer to yesterdays Wordle was CHALK. A primer on Wordle basicsThe idea of Wordle is to guess the days secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, youll see an empty grid of letters. Its up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word.Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word:Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and its in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then its game over.The best starter words for WordleWhat should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, thats still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isnt a single best starting word, but the New York Timess Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:CRANETRACESLANTCRATECARTEMeanwhile, an MIT analysis found that youll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:SALETREASTTRACECRATESLATEOther good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that its better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.How to win at WordleWe have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if youre a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, dont waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldnt have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.Wordle alternativesIf you cant get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after anotherDordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the days solution. Youre required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

With AI working its way into seemingly every new mobile app, its easy to forget that its also getting baked into the apps weve all been using for years. Today, Google announced three new AI features coming to the desktop version of Chrome that, while a bit on the understated side, seek to make everyday browsing a bit more convenient. Credit: Google Google Lens is coming to desktopFirst up is a feature thats already been on mobile since 2017: Google Lens. Serving as the basis behind circle to search, Google Lens allows users to tap on an object in an image to quickly search Google Images for visual matches. Now, desktop users will be able to click on a new Lens icon in the address bar to do the same thing.Theres also some circle to search adjacent tech here: Beyond simply clicking on an object, youll be able to drag a box over the specific part of the image you want to search, an option Google suggests could be useful for students watching a math lecture who want some help with a specific equation.Once youve searched for a part of an image, youll also be able to use the existing multisearch feature to ask Gemini follow-up questions about your search. For instance, you could use Google Lens to look up a type of plant, then ask Gemini for care instructions for that plant. Credit: Google Use AI to comparison shopOutside of Lens, comparison shopping is set to get easier, too. If youve ever had multiple tabs open trying to compare between different phone cases or bluetooth speakers, you know how annoying it can be to bounce back and forth between them to check things like features and pricing. Google promises that Chrome users in the U.S. will soon be able to have Gemini generate a comparison table that will show images, pricing, user reviews, and basic summaries of all similar products across their open tabs, all on one page. Google said it could even see a future version of the feature being useful for planning travel or figuring out what university to attend, although its starting with shopping (which is probably easier to monetize than the college selection process). Credit: Google Search your browser history using natural languageFinally, Google wants to make it easier to catch up on where you left off by letting you use AI to search your browser history. The idea is that instead of being forced to remember URLs, you could visit your search history and ask a chat interface a question like what was that ice cream shop I looked at last week? Chrome would then pull up all the matching sites.Google says it will exclude sites browsed in incognito mode from AI searches, and a Google representative told Lifehacker that your browsing history will not be used to train Gemini. The feature will also be opt-in, requiring users to navigate to Settings > You and Google > Sync and Google Services > Other Google services > History search, powered by AI to turn it on.Google Lens on desktop will launch globally in the latest Chrome update rolling out over the next few days, while tab comparison and AI-powered history search will be U.S. exclusive to start. There is no set timetable for tab compare, as Google is calling it, but AI-powered search history is set for the coming weeks. All three features use cloud-based AI models, rather than relying on your devices native computing power.