We may earn a commission from links on this page.This is a website about hacks, so you know I'm not going to advocate for a cleaning product unless it really gets the job done. Lifehacker has years' worth of archives explaining how, for the most part, common things like hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and vinegar get the major cleaning jobs taken care of, and all you need is a rag or a sponge to go with them. Still, there are some more specialized products that are worth having on hand. These are what I use to make cleaning easier and faster. Useful cleaning tools you might not haveFirst up, you need a little squeegee. In fact, I think you should have a few. The first one should be stored in your shower and, after you finish washing up, you should use it to get the fog, scum, and water off your shower doors and walls. Doing this every time you bathe takes just a few seconds, but drastically reduces how much and how often you need to clean the tile and glass in the shower. Get one with an adhesive holder so it dries straight up and down, then stick it to the shower wall. This one is $9.59.Second, you should keep one in the kitchen. Use it to scrape wet messes off your countertops or to gather spills on your floor. Why waste a bunch of paper towels or dirty up a rag when you could just push the wet mess off the counter and into a container, then put it in the trash? Pick up a two-pack for $13.99.We aren't finished with squeegees, actually. You also need a gigantic one for your floor. This will replace your broom and I'm serious. It's $29.99 (though you can apply a 30% coupon on Amazon right now) and it solves all the annoying little problems you face with a regular broom. There are no bristles, so hair and dust don't get caught in anything and there are no gaps for dirt and debris to slip through. To wash it, you just wipe down the silicone. What's even better is that, unlike a standard broom, you can tackle wet messes with this, dragging all the droplets and rivulets into a more concise puddle that is a lot easier to wipe up. Magic Air Broom $29.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $29.99 at Amazon Next, consider some soap-dispensing brushes. You may have seen these for dishwashing, which is great, but they're also perfect for scrubbing floors, tile, and hard-to-reach spots, all without having to fill up a whole container of soapy water and drag it around. Obviously, keep the one you use for household cleaning away from the one you use for the dishes, so get at least two. Better yet, this one for $9.89 comes with detachable heads, so you only need one handle. Speaking of brushes, it's time to upgrade to an electric one. Stop getting on your hands and knees, putting too much elbow grease in, or over-exerting yourself when you could outsource the strenuous part of your labor to technology. You can get an electric spin scrubber with a telescopic handle and eight different brush heads for $49.99, then use it as a handheld or long-reach solution when you just don't want to scrub. My favorite cleaning solutions and productsThe wide array of tools and gadgets available to address needs you didn't realize you had is great and all, but what about cleaning solutions and products? It might seem like, hey, an all-purpose cleaner is an all-purpose cleaner, but that's not true. For instance, I recently tested out "double concentrated" solutions from Pine Sol and Fabuloso and found both of them to be way more effective than their standard-concentration predecessors. Did you know floor-cleaning solutions were innovating? Well, now you do. Another innovation I really like counts as both a tool and a product. Yes, you probably have a melamine sponge, like a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, on hand and yes, you probably also have some kind of foaming soap you use around the house. But now they've been combined into one product: It's called the Mr. Clean Ultra Foamy Magic Eraser and I can no longer live without it. You get five for $8.94 and with them, you can clean a lot faster and easier. It takes me far fewer passes of the eraser over any kind of grime to remove it than it does when I use the original version. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Ultra Foamy Multi Purpose Cleaner, Foaming Magic Eraser Sponge Multi Surface Cleaner, 5ct $8.94 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $8.94 at Amazon And the last unexpected product that has really changed how I clean is this set of coatings from spotLESS. Three bottles of coating cost $24.99 and you get one for glass and mirrors, one for toilets, and one for sinks and fixtures. I spray these on their respective surfaces after cleaning and have definitely noticed I need to clean those areas again more infrequently. The coating works to keep grime from accumulating and makes it easier to wipe off when it eventually does appear. The glass spritz has proven especially helpful for the glass table I got a few months ago. Again, I didn't realize I had these problems until I found a product that fixed them. We're truly living in the future.

Every new gadget you buy comes at a cost to your wallet, but theres a hefty environmental price to pay as well. Every phone and laptop out there is a non-compostable mass of metal and plastic, and every new generation of them means more rare earth metals pulled out of the ground. Then theres the human labor required to put them together, and the water and fuel used in manufacturing and shipping. It all adds up, but you can help bring that cost down a bit by recycling your old devices.Fortunately, companies and governments alike have made it possible to dispose of your old devices responsibly. You can take your items to a recycling center, drop them off at a store, or even mail them in. Heres how to find places that will take your old gadgets.National chainsThere is no national electronics recycling law at this time, so you won't find any federal programs to assist you with getting rid of old devices. The USPS does run a program for federal agencies and their employees, but it's not available to the general public. Instead, the rest of us have to rely on nationwide retailers to toss out our old stuff.Best BuyWith more than 1,000 locations in the United States, there may be a Best Buy close to you, in which case, you can go to a location to drop off items to be recycled. You just need to take it to the customer service counter. They'll issue you a receipt, but keep in mind that you can't claim the drop-off as a deduction on your taxes because Best Buy isn't a charity.As of 2025, Best Buy also has a mail-in option. You can purchase a small- ($23, up to 6 pounds) or medium-sized ($30, up to 15 pounds) box from the retailer, fill it up with as many approved gadgets as you can (while staying under the weight limit) and ship it back to Best Buy to be recycled. You can either drop off your boxes at a UPS drop-off point or schedule a UPS pickup (do not drop the boxes off at a Best Buy store).You can even recycle televisions and monitors, though in most places you'll be charged a fee of $30 per item to cover the higher costs of transporting and disassembling them. Best Buys in-house TV brands, Insignia and Dynex, will always be accepted for free, though, as long as theyre smaller than 50 inches. (Consumers in California are not charged the $30 fee, while locations in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan charge the fee but offer a $30 gift card as reimbursement. Connecticut locations will only accept Insignia and Dynex sets for recycling.) If you're turning in any desktops, laptops or PC gaming accessories, youll get a voucher for 20 percent off toward the purchase of a new Logitech mouse, keyboard, webcam or headset. Just be aware that Best Buy limits you to three items per household per day, including up to two televisions or monitors.StaplesRecycling your stuff at Staples is similar to Best Buy just bring your products to the checkout counter and an associate will help you out. But you can only bring in seven items a day, and the store wont accept televisions at all (monitors are allowed). Staples Easy Rewards members also receive points for bringing in goods to be recycled or shredded; the points can be redeemed at checkout for discounts on purchases (200 points = $1 off).If you cant make it to a store, Staples also offers a mail-in program. Youll need to purchase a recycling box first, which starts at $14 for a small box and goes up to several hundred for a full pallet (only available for commercial locations). You can put as much as you want into a box as long as it fits inside and doesnt exceed the weight limit (a large box can accept up to 70 pounds). A serialized option is also available for an additional charge, which includes an inventory list for everything you send back. The boxes are shipped to you and then back to Staples at no extra cost; just drop off the sealed packages at your local UPS drop-off point or call for a pickup.Office Depot / OfficeMaxOffice Depot and OfficeMax have almost 1,000 locations around the United States but, unlike Staples and Best Buy, the company won't recycle your old gadgets for free. If you're only getting rid of a few phones, batteries or ink and toner cartridges, those can be turned in at any Office Depot or OfficeMax store for no charge.For everything else, you must purchase a Tech Recycling Box ($8.39 for small, $18.29 for medium, and $28 for large) even if youre already at the store. Once you have the box, you can fill it with as many items as you can fit inside, including smaller televisions, as long as it doesnt exceed the weight limit. So it's a great deal if you have a lot of stuff you want to dispose of. These must be turned in at an Office Depot or OfficeMax store; an associate will check to make sure all the items are acceptable and prepare the box for shipping (youll be asked to fill out a form).You can also return used ink and toner cartridges and get $2 each, up to 10 a month, if youre a rewards member and spend at least $10 in-store on products within the same month.Home Depot and LowesYou can dispose of old rechargeable batteries, old phones and CFL bulbs in the dropoff boxes at any of 2,300 Home Depot or 1,700 Lowes locations. The bins are usually located in the front of the store, and Home Depot has an 11-pound limit on individual items, while batteries must be under 300Wh.TargetTarget locations have drop-off bins for recyclables located near the entrance; in addition to bins for paper and plastics, there is a specially-designated bin for e-waste like cellphones and used ink cartridges.ManufacturersIf you can't make it to a retail location, especially when you need to get rid of only one or two items, many companies offer recycling programs for their own products. They'll even pay for shipping. Some run their own programs while others use outside organizations. We've outlined policies from a handful of manufacturers below.AmazonAmazon would love for you to use its trade-in program and, if youre looking to recycle Amazon-branded products like Kindles, Fire TVs and even Ring doorbells, you absolutely should. Amazon will send you a gift card as well as promotional discount to use on a future Amazon device purchase, even if the returned product is non-functional.For products from other manufacturers that cant be resold, Amazon offers mail-in recycling through its partner Re-Teck. You can send in your busted phones and tablets, as well as select peripherals like keyboards and mice. You'll just need to fill out some forms online and generate a shipping label, which you can slap on any box. Drop it off at a UPS location, and you're good to go; Amazon will cover all the costs.AppleAppleIf your iPhone or MacBook is still in good shape, you should consider selling it, but if it's too old or beat up you can still score a gift card by using Apple's trade-in program. For iPhones (as well as select handsets from Samsung and Google) and iPads, you'll be asked to fill out a form attesting to the product's condition and given a trade-in quote (at the time of writing this, a working iPhone 8 snags you a $40 gift card and an iPhone 12 scores you $170). For Macs and Apple Watches, you'll be asked to provide a serial number as well. Though Apple won't give you cash for anything it deems too old, broken or otherwise unacceptable, you can still mail it in or bring it to any Apple Store so it can be responsibly disposed of.DellDell offers drop-off recycling via a partnership with Goodwill. Not every location participates, but there are more than 2,000 that do. And, because it's a charity, you may even be able to deduct it as a donation on your taxes. Dell also has a mail-back program on its site where you can generate and print out a shipping label and drop the package off at a FedEx location instead.EpsonYou can ship old products back to Epson by simply creating a shipping label on its site and dropping it off at a FedEx location. If youre located in New York, you can even get free packaging sent to you by calling 866-922-8252. Epson also recommends getting in touch with a local charity via Digitunity, where your old equipment may be refurbished for use by people in need.HPIf you can, HP recommends taking its products to the nearest Best Buy. HP does have a trade-in program, but its geared toward business customers looking to upgrade equipment that still has market value and individual consumers will be redirected to other recycling methods.Ink and toner cartridges can be returned by mail; the company will mail you an envelope that can hold between three and eight ink cartridges and can be dropped off in a mailbox or at the post office. For toner and large quantities of ink cartridges, you can print out a label and use your own box, or request a box be sent directly to you, which youll fill with items and drop off at a UPS location.Other manufacturersMany other companies use outside recyclers to dispose of their products, and you'll often see the same names popping up again and again across different manufacturers. This should simplify things in some cases you should be able to send in products from multiple sources in one package. You just need to fill in the make and model to generate a prepaid shipping label. However, different states have different rules on what you can return, so the drop-downs for selecting your product may vary by area.Two major recycling companies you'll notice a lot are RLG, which covers Acer, Google, Intel, Lenovo, and Microsoft; and MRM, which recycles products for Brother, Hisense, Hitachi, HTC, Logitech, Panasonic, TCL and Wacom.StatesThere may not be a national law dictating that you must recycle your electronics, but at least 26 states have passed rules that vary widely on what they demand of manufacturers and consumers. Almost all states that do collect products for recycling provide this service free, with the bill footed by the companies in some way. Most provide some local programs to help you get rid of your stuff, regardless of whether recycling your gadgets is required or optional.States where you can no longer dispose of electronics in the regular trash and must recycle them include: California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.The following states have laws requiring manufacturers to pay for recycling, but you, the consumer, are not actually required to recycle your electronics: Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington.The following states have some special circumstances worth noting:ConnecticutDoes not allow recycling centers to charge you a fee for turning in electronics, so many organizations and retailers that would usually charge for recycling televisions and monitors do not accept them. Because you cannot dispose of them curbside, you can take them to a municipal transfer station for free.New YorkNew York State has a law making it illegal to charge a fee at recycling centers, so this is your best bet for disposing of old televisions (retailers can still charge for the service). If you live in a New York City apartment building with 10 or more units, contact your landlord about getting an ecycleNYC drop-off box installed in your building. Its super convenient and free.PennsylvaniaDoes not allow retailers to charge you a fee to recycle, so places like Best Buy and Staples will not accept most televisions or monitors. Many recycling centers have also closed as a result of underfunding, so check the list of open locations first. Some nonprofit recyclers may still accept the items, and you should check to see if your local government is hosting any drop-off events. Lancaster and Dauphin Counties also still run civic recycling programs.VirginiaThis state does not have a dedicated statewide recycling program, but some localities run their own programs including Fairfax, Loudoun and Rockbridge counties, and cities like Arlington. Check each municipalitys site for details.Cell phonesCell phones are the easiest gadget to recycle if you haven't already decided to sell yours off on eBay or via sites like Decluttr and ecoATM. But, if these options dont appeal to you, you can send it to:Call2Recycle, which has drop-off centers all over the country in many chain stores, including Lowes, Home Depot and Staples. It will also accept rechargeable batteries.Cell Phones for Soldiers accepts phones in any condition and sells them to refurbishers or recyclers. The proceeds go toward purchasing phone cards for troops so they can call their friends and family back home. To be clear, the phones are not given directly to the soldiers. You can donate via mail: If youre sending less than 10 devices, youll need to pay for shipping. More than 10 devices, and Cell Phones for Soldiers will give you a prepaid mailing label. You can also just drop it off at one of more than 3,000 locations.The three major US carriers Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all offer free recycling. You can trade in your old device in-store or send it in for a credit toward a new phone, or let them straight up recycle it. AT&T also participates in Cell Phones for Soldiers.If you do decide to try your luck with ecoATM to see if your old phone is still worth a few bucks and it turns out it's worth nothing, you can at least rest easy knowing that the company will also recycle your phone responsibly.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/where-to-recycle-electronics.html?src=rss

Last week was a busy one filled with Apple announced news, with the company refreshing its Mac and iPad lineups. Now, we're starting to see deals on some of the older models that will soon be discontinued. One of the best sales is on the 10th-gen iPad, which is down to $269 at Amazon for the blue and silver colorways. It briefly dropped to a record low of $260 at the end of last week, but now you'll find the $269 price more readily. The 10th-gen iPad arrived in late 2022. At least until we put the new model through its paces, this is our current pick for the best budget iPad a recommendation that automatically becomes a little stronger whenever it gets this kind of discount. We gave this model a score of 85 in our review. We felt that the screen was somewhat lacking compared with those found in the likes of the iPad Air. However, we appreciated several updates such as the switch to a USB-C charging port and improved performance compared with the previous base iPad. Apple also moved the front-facing camera to the landscape edge, making video calls much more palatable when you're using the tablet in that orientation. If you just want an iPad to help you catch up on reading and email, control your smart home devices, watch videos and stream music, this is probably the one to go for. More resource-intensive tasks will require a more powerful tablet, but this one will handle the basics. Meanwhile, if you're interested in picking up the latest base iPad, you can pre-order one now. Amazon even has a small discount on the latest iPad, dropping it from $349 to $329. Apple has upgraded the chipset to an A16 and doubled the base storage to 128GB, but there's no support for Apple Intelligence in the 11th-gen iPad. Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-10th-gen-ipad-drops-to-a-near-record-low-price-171121239.html?src=rss

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The van makes its way slowly but surely through the city streets, braking gently when a car swerves into its lane. But its steering wheel is turning on its own, and theres no one in the drivers seat.The driverless technology from Nissan Motor Corp., which uses 14 cameras, nine radars, and six LiDar sensors installed in and around the vehicle, highlights Japans eagerness to catch up with players like Googles Waymo that have taken the lead in the U.S.Japan, home to the worlds top automakers, has not kept pace with the global shift to autonomous driving, so far led by China and the U.S. But momentum is building.Waymo is going to land in Japan this year. Details havent been disclosed, but it has a partnership with major cab company Nihon Kotsu, which will oversee and manage their all-electric Jaguar I-PACE sport-utility vehicles, first in the Tokyo area, still with a human cab driver riding along.During Nissans demonstration, the streets were bustling with other cars and pedestrians. The vehicle stayed within the maximum speed limit in the area of 40 kph (25 mph), its destination set with a smartphone app.Takeshi Kimura, the Mobility and AI Laboratory engineer at Nissan, insists an automaker is more adept at integrating self-driving technology with the overall workings of a carsimply because it knows cars better.How the sensors must be adapted to the cars movements, or to monitor sensors and computers to ensure reliability and safety requires an understanding of the auto system overall, he said during a recent demonstration that took reporters on a brief ride.Nissans technology, being tested on its Serena minivan, is still technically at the industrys Level Two because a person sits before a remote-control panel in a separate location outside the vehicle, in this case, at the automakers headquarters, and is ready to step in if the technology fails.Nissan also has a human sitting in the front passenger seat during the test rides, who can take over the driving, if needed. Unless there is a problem, the people in the remote control room and the passenger seat are doing nothing.Nissan plans to have 20 such vehicles moving in the Yokohama area in the next couple of years, with the plan to reach Level Four, which means no human involvement even as backup, by 2029 or 2030.Autonomous vehicles can serve a real need given the nations shrinking population, including a shortage of drivers.Other companies are working on the technology in Japan, including startups like Tier IV, which is pushing an open source collaboration on autonomous driving technology.So far, Japan has approved the use of so-called Level Four autonomous vehicles in a rural area in Fukui Prefecture, but those look more like golf carts. A Level Four bus is scuttling around a limited area near Tokyos Haneda airport. But its maximum speed is 12 kmph (7.5 mph). Nissans autonomous vehicle is a real car, capable of all its mechanical workings and speed levels.Toyota Motor Corp. recently showed its very own city or living area for its workers and partnering startups, near Mount Fuji, being built especially to test various technology, including autonomous driving.Progress has been cautious.University of Tokyo Professor Takeo Igarashi, who specializes in computer and information technology, believes challenges remain because its human nature to be more alarmed by accidents with driverless vehicles than regular crashes.In human driving, the driver takes responsibility. Its so clear. But nobody is driving so you dont know who will take responsibility, Igarashi told The Associated Press.In Japan, the expectation for commercial services is very high. The customer expects perfect quality for any servicerestaurants or drivers or anything. This kind of auto-driving is a service form a company, and everybody expects high quality and perfection. Even a small mistake is not acceptable.Nissan says its technology is safe. After all, a human cant be looking at the front, the back and all around at the same time. But the driverless car can, with all its sensors.When a system failure happened during the recent demonstration, the car just came to a stop and all was well.Phil Koopman, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, believes the autonomous vehicle industry is just getting started.The main problem is whats known as edge cases, those rare but dangerous situations that the machine has not yet been taught to respond to. Using autonomous fleets of a significant size for some time is needed for such edge cases to be learned, he said.We will see each city require special engineering efforts and the creation of a special remote support center. This will be a city-by-city deployment for many years, said Koopman.There is no magic switch.Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@yurikageyamaYuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer

By now everyone knows that scrolling social media isnt exactly good for you. But did you know it might be making you sweat? Researchers from the psychology department at Durham University tracked the physiological responses of scrolling on social media and found a rather strange side effect.The researchers asked 54 young adults to browse Instagram for 15 minutes while monitoring their heart rate and their skin conductance (which would tell how much sweat they produced). Compared to reading a news article on a phone, they found scrolling Instagram made peoples heart rates slow down and, simultaneously, made them sweat more. From the control group, who just read the news article, they could tell it was not being on the phone or reading that was causing this response. It was something about social media.Researchers found that the physiological responses were present in all participants, regardless of how they scored on a questionnaire that assessed the symptoms of social media addiction. When participants were purposefully interrupted from their scrolling, rather than snapping out of the excitement and returning to a calmer state, participants continued to sweat and their heart rates increased.When they were asked to completely disconnect, participants reported being stressed and anxious. They even reported having cravings for social media at that moment. Such bodily and psychological stress responses are similar to those addicts experience when going through substance withdrawal.Most Americans dont need another reason to want to cut down on screen time. Over half (53%) of Americans say they want to cut down on phone usage in 2025 (33% more than in 2023), with people spending an average of 5 hours and 16 minutes per day on their phonesa 14% increase from the 4 hours and 37 minutes people reported in 2024.While researchers didnt attempt to answer the question of whether weve developed a physical addiction to social media, the study does suggest that social media indeed has addictive elements.My screen time couldve told you that.

From the Beetle to the Rabbit to the Golf, Volkswagen has long made affordable, practical cars that those with smaller budgets can afford. Now they're aiming that prowess at the EV market with the unveiling of their ID EVERY1. The concept car is intended to make the transition into production for 20,000 (USD $21,667) in 2027. Hailed as "affordable entry-level all-electric mobility" by Thomas Schfer, CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Cars, the 94hp vehicle will reportedly have a range of 155 miles. Aesthetically, the vehicle was designed to have a friendly, approachable look. "Our ambition was to create something bold yet accessible," says Andreas Mindt, Volkswagen's Head of Design. "The ID EVERY1 has a self-assured appearance but remains likeable thanks to details such as the dynamic front lights and the 'smiling' rear. These design elements make it more than just a car: they give it character and an identity that people can relate to."The big question for Americans is whether that 20,000 sticker will apply in 2027, given the way our current administration's tariff war is going. The point may be moot; sadly, VW has announced no plans to bring this affordable EV to the U.S. market. With any luck things will change in two years' time.