The Department of Education announced Monday that the Federal Student Aid (FSA) will restart collections on defaulted student loans beginning May 5. Even before this news, millions of borrowers were already seeing their credit scores plunge in recent months, and loan servicers are warning that a record number of borrowers are at risk of defaulting by the end of the year. I recently covered the basics of what you need to know about the upcoming changes, as well as how to prepare for them. Now, let's dive a little deeper into how borrowers suffering through collections can navigate their financial future.What the end of the pause means for your finances"Many people have been feeling like they're in some sort of personal financial recession for years now," says Lauren Bringle, an accredited financial counselor at credit-building platform Self Financial. And if you've been carrying credit card debt, you know that those higher interest rates may have caused what you owe to increase significantly.Factor in the cost of many monthly expenses increasing—groceries, gas, eggs—all while salaries have stayed stagnant. "Now add in that student loan payments have resumed, and for some, that means hundreds of dollars in extra expenses monthly," Bringle notes. Especially after the five-year pause on payments that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, many borrowers are having to significantly readjust and re-evaluate their budgets. With all of the additional costs, it's left millions of Americans stretched beyond their means.Strategies to protect and rebuild your creditHere's what you can do to navigate a hit to your credit score. 1. Free up money wherever you canIf your income is limited and you simply don't make enough to cover your student loan payments, Bringle suggests an income-driven repayment plan for federal student loans. "The federal student loan landscape has been rapidly changing, but you may be able to qualify for lower monthly payment options (even down to $0/month in some cases) based on your income," advises Bringle. You can learn more and apply at studentaid.gov here.2. Prioritize your credit"Credit is an essential part of your overall financial profile because it opens the door to long-term financial goals, such as renting an apartment or securing a mortgage," Bringle explains. Missed loan payments can significantly impact your credit because payment history accounts for 35% of your FICO credit score, making on-time payments critical.If your credit has already taken a hit due to missed student loan payments, consider alternative ways to rebuild. For instance, something as small as implementing this payment schedule helps to send your credit score in the right direction.Additionally, Bringle recommends organizations like Operation Hope, NFCC, and AFCPE, where credit counselors can review your income, expenses, debts, and overall financial picture to help you create a personalized budget and spending plan.3. Keep building positive money habitsRegardless of where you stand financially, focus on developing positive short-term habits. Especially in the face of something like student debt, it helps to control whatever you can.Stick to your budget. "As you're setting up your financial goals, make sure you have a really clear view of your overall finances," says Bringle. "Your budget plays an important role in helping your credit score, because it helps you track your expenses, and ensures that you are able to pay your monthly payments on time, and in full." Here's my guide to evaluating and making strategic cuts to your budget.Make payments on time. Setting up automatic payments can help ensure you don't miss due dates, which would negatively impact your score. "Depending on the conditions of your student loans, borrowers usually have up to six months after graduation before they have to start making payments," Bringle notes. "Be sure to check your loan and know exactly when your first payment is due so you can plan ahead and pay on time, since payment history is a critical piece to building and maintaining healthy credit." To find out exactly how much you’re expected to pay, head to studentaid.gov.Hack your credit utilization. Credit utilization is the second-largest factor of your FICO score, so it's important not to use too much of your available credit. The general rule is to stay below the 30% threshold, but even lower is better. Using more than 30% of your available credit can affect your credit utilization, which could ultimately decrease your score. For example, if your credit limit is $1,000, you should not put more than $300 on your credit card before paying down the balance.Review your credit report regularly. Checking your report gives you a clear understanding of your credit health and what might be impacting your score. You can review payment history, recent balances reported to credit bureaus, accounts under your name, and identify negative items like collections that need to be addressed. Free copies of your credit reports from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are available at annualcreditreport.com.Looking aheadBringle emphasizes the importance of preparation: "Make sure your budget is set up to support your payments, start setting aside the payments from your monthly budget to build the habit, and set up autopay if you can to reduce the chances of a late payment."By taking proactive steps now, you can protect and rebuild your credit score as much as possible before student loan collections resume.

If you're a gamer born in the '80s or '90s, you might have some strong nostalgia for the Nintendo GameCube. It's not just your childhood memories fueling those opinions: It's a great console, with classic library to boot: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker; Mario Kart: Double Dash; and Super Smash Bros. Melee, just to name a few.It might be tempting, then, to pick up a new GameCube controller, specifically designed for Nintendo Switch 2, and all the GameCube games Nintendo plans to make available through a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. If you're lucky enough to snag the new console at launch, you'll be able to play Wind Waker, Soulcalibur II, and F-Zero GX, with more titles on the way. Sure, you could use the Joy-Cons or Switch Pro controller to play these games, but why not fully commit to the bit, and play these GameCube titles with the controller they were designed for? The GameCube controller is not ideal for modern Switch 2 games I have no doubt the GameCube controller for Switch 2 is going to be massively fun for these GameCube titles. But when it comes to using the controller beyond these Nintendo Switch Online games, things aren't so rosy. In fact, for a time, it seemed like these GameCube games were the only ones you could use the controller for. IGN found some small print on the UK version of the Switch 2 GameCube controller trailer that said, "The controller is only compatible with Nintendo GameCube - Nintendo Classics." That seems pretty unambiguous. Luckily, the limitations don't appear to be so severe. Nintendo recently clarified this compatibility question, confirming that while the controller is designed for these GameCube titles, it isn't incompatible with other Switch 2 games. But that doesn't mean it's meant for these games. Nintendo has gone so far as to say there "may be some issues" if you use the GameCube controller for standard Switch 2 titles. Part of the problem is the GameCube controller is missing certain buttons and features that modern controller designs have—buttons that developers expect players to have when designing their games. There are more buttons on this unit than the original GameCube controller, as you now have a tiny ZL button on the left side, accompanying the original Z button on the right. But most buttons are not for game play: The C-Button is meant to launch GameChat on the Switch 2; the Capture button takes screenshots; the Home button takes you to the home screen; and the pairing button pairs the controller to your Switch 2. To that point, it seems the joysticks don't push in for L3 and R3 button responses, which takes away another two button options. Of course, there's also the fact the GameCube controller doesn't offer your average button layout in the first place. The left joystick is relatively large, while the right stick (the C-stick) is tiny. The d-pad and ZL buttons are also tiny, and the A, B, X, and Y buttons are as non-traditional as you can get. I love the controller, but I can imagine even with all buttons accounted for, it might not be ideal for someone used to playing modern games on modern controllers. Cost and exclusivity Then, there's the price tag: You'll need to spend $64.99 if you want a GameCube controller for your Switch 2. That's not a terrible price as far as console controllers go, but it is pretty steep when you factor in the limitations. You could, instead, put that money towards another set of Switch 2 Joy-Cons for $89.99, or a Switch 2 Pro Controller for $79.99—both of which will work with every game you buy for your new console. Speaking of the new console, this GameCube controller is exclusive to the Switch 2. If you're looking for something you can use with your original Switch, this controller ain't it. Nintendo is making the entire GameCube feature a Switch 2-only affair, which is frustrating. Why can't my console from 2017 play games from 2001? If you're already buying a Switch 2 and you know you want to fully emulate the GameCube experience on your new console, you shouldn't have reservations in picking up the controller. But it's important to know these caveats before you do: You wouldn't want to drop $65 only to find Mario Kart World or Donkey Kong Bananza don't play as well as you expected.

I was recently having lunch with a couple friends and their 7-year-old and we ordered a giant soft pretzel with beer cheese. As we mindlessly broke off pieces of the pretzel during our chatter, I noticed how the small human was silently eating her pretzel piece—salt first—and I saw a bit of myself in her. I have a vivid memory of being in middle school at a friend’s house and eating seasoned salt straight off of a plate. Eating salt so voraciously isn't wrong, per se, but sadly, the love affair can’t last forever.   While my love for sodium chloride crystals has hardly faded, I am of an age where I need to chill on my salt intake as I am interested in longevity. Am I perfect? Hardly. I still love deli meats and the occasional fast food, but I am improving. It’s a work in progress. To reduce my salt intake, I’m using MSG and soy sauce to help me on my journey. Salt isn’t everythingTo other salt fans, this is blasphemy, but truly there are four other flavors we should give equal attention to: bitter, sour, umami, and sweet. If you find yourself constantly reaching for the salt cellar when you’re cooking because “something” is missing, it might be one of those other flavors. After you’ve added that first measurement of salt, try to tap into striking a balance with those other flavors. Squeeze in some fresh lemon or lime juice; even a spoonful of tomato sauce could bring in much needed acidity. Add chopped nuts, or keep the peels on your vegetables for bitterness. A teaspoon of sugar, maple syrup, or a handful of raisins can add surprisingly welcome sweetness. But salt’s sister seasonings are certainly those that exhibit umami. Seasonings like MSG and soy sauce might be the “something” you’ve been seeking.How MSG and soy sauce can help you cut down on saltFor context, in an equal measurement comparison, salt contains considerably more sodium than both soy sauce and MSG. A teaspoon of table salt contains about 2,300 mg of sodium. A teaspoon of soy sauce has about 300 and a teaspoon of MSG has about 500.  My regular Kikkoman soy sauce, not low sodium, has 320 mg of sodium per teaspoon. (A teaspoon is 1/3 of a tablespoon.) Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann Aside from just the quantity of sodium, it’s important to keep in mind that each flavoring agent has different potency, too. A quarter-teaspoon of MSG can adequately flavor about two cups of soup broth, while you might use ¾ of a teaspoon of salt for the same volume of liquid. I rarely use more than an eighth of a teaspoon of MSG when I make a personal serving of vegetables for example. For some other ways I use MSG in cooking and baking, read here.How I cook to reduce saltYou can see how by adding a pinch of MSG and a teaspoon of soy sauce (which also contains the building blocks of MSG) you’re still getting that salty flavor but with so much more. With these two seasonings you activate your glutamate receptors, which stimulate that mouth watering response, along with building a well-rounded savory flavor. Despite my history of really leaning into salt, I’m learning that umami and a smidge of salt is often enough. Whereas in the past I would add another pinch of salt, and then another, never really hitting the perfect note. To reduce salt, I’ve switched around my cooking style slightly by using a “salt last” seasoning method when I can. I sautée, braise, or make soup as usual, but I add a portion of MSG or soy sauce first. Then I’ll taste the finished dish. If it needs some salt then I’ll add some and taste it again. This way I can use MSG and soy sauce in combination with salt or as a complete replacement for salt when it works. Granted, sometimes I prefer to add salt earlier in the cooking process, like if I’m roasting vegetables or dry brining a chicken. For roasted veggies, I’ve simply taken to cutting the usual salt in half and adding a splash of soy sauce after it’s finished cooking. For dry brining, I’ll cut the salt in half again, and replace it with MSG. Holy cow, what a chicken. Do not sleep on adding MSG to your brines, whether dry or wet. Luckily, soy sauce and MSG go well with pretty much everything so you don’t have to spend much brain power wondering if it pairs well with what you’re cooking. If you need some inspiration, here are some unexpected ways to use MSG, and an excellent cookbook, Salt, Sugar, MSG, for flavorful recipes that include these seasoning heroes. Note that these are my tricks for reducing salt simply because I'd like to, but if you have a medical requirement to reduce your salt intake, be sure to check with your doctor as you make changes to your diet.

The Shortcuts app comes preloaded on the iPhone and can be used to set up quick automations; you can set up shortcuts that can execute multiple options at the same time. For example, you can connect to your HomePod and play instrumental music while dimming your smart lights, all at once, with a tap. If you're new to the Shortcuts app, start here with seven recommended automations.Strangely, Apple never offered a shortcut action for simply opening an iMessage thread. In iOS 18.4, though, Apple is fixing that mistake. And because Shortcuts is so well integrated across the entire iOS software, you can then add this shortcut to the Lock Screen, the Control Center, and even the Action button. How to create the iMessage shortcut Credit: Khamosh Pathak Open the Shortcuts app, and tap the Plus button at the top to create a new shortcut. Then, in the Search Actions bar, search for Open Conversation, and add the action. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Tap the empty "Conversation" field, and choose the iMessage conversation you want to use for the shortcut. (It can be a group message thread or an SMS conversation.) Credit: Khamosh Pathak And there you have it. I would recommend you tap on the Shortcut name up top, and rename it something you'll remember.How to add the message shortcut to the Home and Lock ScreenYou can add your message shortcut to the Home screen from the Shortcuts app itself. Tap the Shortcut name up top, and choose the "Add to Home Screen" option. Here, you can give the shortcut a name, and customize the icon with an image.To add it to the Lock screen, first tap and hold the Lock screen. Then, tap on Customize, and choose Lock Screen. Credit: Khamosh Pathak You'll now see the two buttons below. First, tap the Minus button on a quick access button that you want to remove, then tap the Plus button in the empty space. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Here, search for and choose the "Shortcut" option. Next, tap the Choose button, and select the shortcut we just created. Tap Done, to save the Lock screen layout.How to add a message shortcut to Control CenterTo add the shortcut to the Control Center, open the Control Center, press and hold to enter the editing mode, and tap the Add a Control button. Next, search for and add the Shortcut control. Credit: Khamosh Pathak In the customization screen, tap Choose, and select the shortcut that you just made. Go back to the Control Center and feel free to move the control as you wish.How to add a message shortcut to the Action buttonIf you're using the iPhone 15 Pro series or higher, you have access to the Action button. You can use it to quickly launch the Camera or any shortcut that you wish.To set this up, go to Settings > Action Button and slide over to the Shortcuts option. Then tap on Choose a Shortcut, and select the shortcut just created. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Now, when you press and hold the Action button, it will instantly open the iMessage conversation of your choice.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.For fans of The Mandalorian or anyone after a headset with cross-platform support, the Logitech Astro A30 (Mandalorian Edition) might be worth a closer look—especially now that it’s hit its lowest-ever price (according to price trackers) of $119.99 on Woot (down from $249). The same model is currently $175 on Amazon, making this Woot deal a solid choice if you’re in the contiguous U.S. (Woot doesn’t ship elsewhere). This deal is live for eight days or until its stock runs out. Free shipping applies to Prime members; others will need to cough up $6. The headset ships with a 90-day Woot limited warranty and includes everything you’d expect: a USB transmitter, a detachable boom mic, charging and audio cables, and a hard-shell carry case. Logitech Astro A30 (Mandalorian Edition) $119.99 at Woot $249.00 Save $129.01 Get Deal Get Deal $119.99 at Woot $249.00 Save $129.01 Design-wise, the Mandalorian theme isn’t just a slap-on sticker job. It’s finished to resemble Beskar Steel, with Din Djarin and the Mudhorn signet featured on the speaker tags. It’s a slick look, no doubt, but comfort-wise it's more of a mixed bag. The rectangular earcups are padded with memory foam and faux leather that feels soft and breathable. However, the rubberized headband can press down a little harder than you’d like during longer sessions, especially compared to headsets with more suspension-style designs, notes this PCMag review. The controls are compact but can be tricky—the small four-way switch that lets you toggle volume and game/chat mix might not be the easiest to use if you have larger hands.Performance is generally OK. The A30 supports both Bluetooth and 2.4GHz wireless through a USB-A dongle (USB-C transmitter sold separately if you want one for your Switch or PS5). It works with PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and mobile devices, but switching between systems can reportedly be a chore, especially when sound levels drop if you forget to change modes. There’s also no built-in spatial audio, so you’ll be relying on your system’s surround settings. Sound-wise, the A30 favors clarity over raw bass. Music and in-game audio sound detailed at moderate volumes, but things flatten out if you push the volume too high. The boom mic is fine for chat, but not sharp enough for streaming or recording. You can tweak the settings like EQ via the Logitech G app, but it only comes with two presets.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your tablet or just want something lightweight that doesn’t feel like a compromise, this refurbished 2022 iPad Air deal on StackSocial could be worth a closer look. It’s the 5th Gen 64GB model in pink (other colors are available too), going for $369.99, a decent drop from Amazon’s current $435.06 listing. And while it’s refurbished, it comes with a Grade "A" rating, meaning you’re getting a nearly new device with little to no visible wear and nothing that impacts how it works. It’s also light and slim, making it easy to throw in a bag or hold for long stretches. For reference, PCMag gave this model an Editor’s Choice award when it debuted and named it the Best iPad of the Year 2022 (read the full review).Under the hood, this iPad Air runs on Apple’s M1 chip—the same one found in the MacBook Air and iPad Pro—so performance is not an issue. It handles multitasking, gaming, and media editing without lag. That said, the 64GB of storage might not cut it if you download lots of files or use heavy creative apps, and there’s no way to expand it later. The 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display is fully laminated, shows off vibrant color with P3 wide color support, and gets bright enough for most lighting. And the 12MP front-facing camera with Center Stage is a big plus if you’re often on video calls—it follows your face as you move, keeping you centered in the frame.This iPad also supports the 2nd Gen Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard (sold separately), so it can pull double duty as a sketchpad or productivity device if you’ve already got the gear, or plan to grab it later. However, it's wifi only—no cellular connectivity. There’s also no Face ID, though Touch ID on the top button does a fine job. If you need a modern iPad for web browsing, reading, streaming, or light creative work, this one delivers a lot of value for the price, without jumping to the Pro models or spending full retail.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.I love Kindle e-readers, and have been using them since the first Kindle Paperwhite came out in 2012. One thing I've been looking forward to since I first had one in my hands is the color version. It finally came out in November with the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, which is on sale for $224.99 (originally $279.99), the lowest price it has been since its release, according to price-tracking tools. Right now, you can also get it with three months of free Kindle Unlimited (it'll auto-renew unless you cancel it), and if you're a Prime Member, you can fill it up with some free e-books. Here's what you can expect from the Colorsoft. Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition (32 GB) $279.99 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $279.99 at Amazon The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is exactly what it sounds like: It's a Kindle e-reader with color. It's essentially the same hardware and design as the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, with the same dimensions, weight, and 32GB of storage. It also has the same features, like the automatically adjusting front light, the IPX8 rating waterproof rating, wireless charging, and an ad-free lock screen that either shows the cover for the book you're reading, or generic wallpapers. The battery life is shorter than a Paperwhite, with eight weeks compared to 12, but still plenty for most people.The seven-inch color E Ink display seems to be the industry standard 300 pixels per inch (ppi) for black-and-white content and 150ppi for color, according to PCMag's review. If you love reading comics, this is where the Colorsoft Signature Edition shines. The colors look like printed newspaper quality, and there's a feature that provides a close-up of each comic panel so you can enjoy the art and read it without having to zoom in. Although the screen doesn't get too bright (94 nits of brightness), the screen does a good job at deflecting glare. The auto light adjuster is nice if you're coming indoors and outdoors a lot. I personally love the warm and cool front-light settings, as I like to read at night and not stress my eyes before bed. Considering it's only $25 more to upgrade from the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition to the color version, it makes it a great deal for anyone who needs a bit more color in their life.

Netflix's May slate kicks off with a new comedy miniseries starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell: The Four Seasons (May 1) is an adaptation of Alan Alda's 1981 film in which three married couples take one of their quarterly weekend getaways, on which they discover that one is about to divorce. The series also features Marco Calvani, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Erika Henningsen, and Kerri Kenney-Silver. Also on the comedy slate is black comedy series Sirens (May 22), in which Julianne Moore plays a socialite with a cult-like life of luxury. Kevin Bacon also stars. May brings the eighth and final season of adult animated sitcom Big Mouth (May 23), which includes a long list of guest stars in addition to the main cast voiced by Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, and others. Netflix is releasing several new installments of its Untold sports documentary series in May. Untold: Shooting Guards (May 6) covers the gambling dispute that led to a locker room standoff between NBA players Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton, while Untold: The Liver King (May 13) tells the story of a steroid scandal centered on fitness and "ancestral living" influencer Brian Johnson. Untold: The Fall of Favre (May 20) is an exposé on Brett Favre's controversial career. Netflix also has new sports content on F1 (F1: The Academy, May 28) and NASCAR (Full Speed, May 7). The May standup comedy lineup includes new hours from Sarah Silverman (Postmortem, May 20) and Mike Birbiglia (The Good Life, May 26) plus the coverage of Conan O'Brien's acceptance of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which took place at the Kennedy Center in March. Finally, there are a handful of drama-filled original documentaries coming to the platform, including American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden (May 14), Britain and the Blitz (May 5), and Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story (May 14). Here's everything coming to Netflix in May, and everything that's leaving.What's coming to Netflix in May 2025Available soonLosmen Bu Broto: The Series—Netflix SeriesLost in Starlight—Netflix FilmMad Unicorn—Netflix SeriesRhythm + Flow: Poland—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 1Angi: Fake Life, True Crime—Netflix DocumentaryThe Biggest Fan—Netflix FilmThe Four Seasons—Netflix SeriesAirportAirport '77Airport 1975AliAmerican GangsterAmerican GraffitiBurn After ReadingConstantineCrazy, Stupid, Love.Dawn of the DeadEat Pray LoveThe Equalizer 2HannaHomeThe JerkThe Lego MovieMid90she MuleOcean's ElevenOcean's ThirteenOcean's TwelveThe Paper TigersPast LivesSistersStarship TroopersThe Sugarland ExpressTrainwreckTrollsTwilightThe Twilight Saga: New MoonThe Twilight Saga: EclipseThe Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-RabbitAvailable May 2PeninsulaTrain to BusanUnseen: Season 2—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 4Conan O'Brien: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor—Netflix Comedy SpecialAvailable May 5Britain and The Blitz—Netflix DocumentaryMighty Monsterwheelies: Season 2—Netflix FamilyAvailable May 6The Devil's Plan: Season 2—Netflix SeriesUntold: Shooting Guards—Netflix Sports FilmAvailable May 7Full Speed: Season 2—Netflix Sports SeriesLast Bullet—Netflix FilmAvailable May 8Blood of Zeus: Season 3FOREVER—Netflix SeriesHeart EyesKarol G: Tomorrow was Beautiful—Netflix DocumentaryAvailable May 9A Deadly American Marriage—Netflix DocumentaryBad Influence—Netflix FilmNonnas—Netflix FilmThe Royals—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 11ABBA: Against the OddsAvailable May 12Tastefully Yours—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 13All American: Season 7Bad Thoughts—Netflix SeriesUntold: The Liver King—Netflix Sports FilmAvailable May 14American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden—Netflix DocumentaryFred and Rose West: A British Horror Story—Netflix DocumentaryMarried at First Sight: Season 17SmileSnakes and Ladders—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 15Bet—Netflix SeriesLove, Death & Robots: Volume 4—Netflix SeriesFranklin—Netflix SeriesPernille: Season 5—Netflix SeriesSecrets We Keep—Netflix SeriesThank You, Next: Season 2—Netflix SeriesVini Jr.—Netflix DocumentaryAvailable May 16Dear Hongrang—Netflix SeriesFootball Parents—Netflix SeriesThe Quilters—Netflix DocumentaryRotten Legacy—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 20Sarah Silverman: Postmortem—Netflix Comedy SpecialUntold: The Fall of Favre—Netflix Sports FilmAvailable May 21Newly Rich, Newly Poor—Netflix SeriesReal Men—Netflix SeriesSneaky Links: Dating After Dark—Netflix SeriesThe UnXplained with William Shatner: Season 6Available May 22Sirens—Netflix SeriesTyler Perry’s She The People—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 23Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds—Netflix DocumentaryBig Mouth: Season 8—Netflix SeriesFear Street: Prom Queen—Netflix FilmForget You Not—Netflix SeriesOff Track 2—Netflix FilmAvailable May 24Our Unwritten Seoul—Netflix SeriesThe Wild RobotAvailable May 26CoComelon: Season 13—Netflix FamilyCold Case: The Tylenol Murders—Netflix DocumentaryMike Birbiglia: The Good Life—Netflix Comedy SpecialAvailable May 28F1: The Academy—Netflix Sports SeriesAvailable May 29Dept. Q—Netflix SeriesAvailable May 30A Widow's Game—Netflix FilmThe Heart Knows—Netflix FilmAvailable May 31Netflix Tudum 2025: The Live Event—Netflix Live EventWhat's leaving Netflix in May 2025Leaving May 1About TimeAnnieApollo 13Blade Runner: The Final CutDallas Buyers ClubDefinitely, MaybeErin BrockovichEuropa ReportThe FlintstonesFridayThe Frozen GroundFuryKing KongMaid in ManhattanNext FridayNotting HillOut of AfricaPompeiiPublic EnemiesQueen & SlimSchindler's ListSpider-ManSpider-Man 2Spider-Man 3Spider-Man: Across the Spider-VerseThis Is 40Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by MyselfWaterworldWedding CrashersThe WhaleWhiplashThe WizYou, Me and DupreeLeaving May 4Insidious: The Red DoorLeaving May 5The Peanut Butter FalconLeaving May 9The Lost CityResident Evil: Death IslandLeaving May 10RamboRambo: Last BloodLeaving May 15The Clovehitch KillerCrossroadsMadam Secretary: Seasons 1-6Leaving May 16The Sum of All FearsTullyLeaving May 19A Simple FavorLeaving May 28BurntLeaving May 29The Silencing

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Following a brief delay while Nintendo evaluated the ongoing tariff situation, Switch 2 preorders are back on. The company made the new date official last week, and retailers have been getting their stores ready for the likely digital stampede.If you're interested in picking up the latest Nintendo handheld-console hybrid, there are a number of stores to choose from. Here's when each plans to start preorders, so you can secure your unit among the masses. WalmartLike most retailers, Walmart's Switch 2 preorders go live starting April 24 at 12 a.m. ET. The store will happy sell you any number of Switch 2 games and accessories, but if you're just looking for the console or the Mario Kart World bundle, you can simplify your preorder that way. The company is advertising free delivery by 9 a.m. on June 5 if you preorder right away—the only store on this list guaranteeing such a timeframe. Nintendo Switch™ 2 System $449.00 at Walmart Get Deal Get Deal $449.00 at Walmart TargetTarget also opens up preorders at midnight tonight, April 24. It won't guarantee a timeframe, but like Walmart, you can preorder the standalone console, the Mario Kart World bundle, or Switch 2 games and accessories, like Donkey Kong Bananza or the Switch 2 Pro controller. GameStopGameStop is very excited about the fact that it is holding midnight releases for Switch 2 in June. However, it's not doing the same for Switch 2 preorders. In fact, you can preorder the console in person starting when the brick and mortar stores open, or 11 a.m. ET on April 24—11 hours after other retailers open their preorders. That might make GameStop a great backup in case you run out of luck with the midnight preorders at other stores. Like others, you can order the console by itself, or bundle it with Mario Kart World. Best BuyBest Buy is also launching preorders at midnight tonight. There isn't too much that differentiates it here, as it's the same deal as other stores: You can pick up the console, the bundle, or any number of accessories and games. NintendoYou can, in fact, preorder a Switch 2 from Nintendo directly—but it's a bit weird. First of all, you aren't really "preordering" a console through Nintendo so much as registering your interest to buy one. From there, Nintendo will contact you with an "invitation" to buy the console if you are selected. In order to be eligible for selection, however, you need to meet some odd criteria. In an effort to minimize scalpers, Nintendo is requiring preorder customers to connect their Nintendo accounts to the registration. Each account needs to have at least 50 hours of play time associated with it, as of April 2. That means you cannot create multiple accounts to try to game the system, nor can you apply if you just started your Nintendo journey after the second of the month.If you meet these specifications, go for it. It won't be necessary if you secure a preorder through any of the other retailers, but it could be another good backup option—if you qualify, anyway.

WhatsApp is adding a new privacy feature that will allow you to block others from exporting chats, automatically downloading media, and using your messages for AI features, among other limitations. All of this is a part of a new option called Advanced Chat Privacy, which is currently rolling out to WhatsApp users worldwide. How to block people from exporting your WhatsApp chatsTo use these features, make sure you are running the latest version of WhatsApp on your device. Then, open a private chat or a group in WhatsApp, tap the name of the contact or group, and scroll down until you see Advanced Chat Privacy. This button is located near the Lock Chat option on this page. Note that it may not appear on WhatsApp immediately since it's being rolled out in batches worldwide. If you don't see this feature, sit tight, as it should roll out to you soon.Once you enable Advanced Chat Privacy, others won't be able to export your chats from WhatsApp. You can also block others from enabling automatic media downloads on their device or using your messages for AI features in WhatsApp. Notably, the company is calling this the "first version" of Advanced Chat Privacy, and says it will add more features to this setting in the future. You should know that enabling this setting doesn't make it impossible to export your chats or save media. If someone is determined to export data from WhatsApp, they can easily take screenshots or manually download media. This privacy feature will make it a little harder to export data, since users won't be able to rely on WhatsApp's built-in options, but it won't really be able to stop someone who is determined to bypass these restrictions. The latest update follows a slew of new WhatsApp features, including the ability to see who's online in a group chat, more control over group notifications, a built-in document scanner on WhatsApp for iPhone, and many more.

While no one is entirely immune to the threat of malware, you can certainly minimize your risk by following good digital hygiene practices when browsing the internet, downloading apps, and engaging with emails or messages with links or attachments. That said, if you notice your PC is running slowly, programs or apps are crashing repeatedly or unexpectedly, or you see software or processes you don't recognize, you may have a malware infection. To identify malware and remove it from your PC, follow these steps. Disconnect your device from the internetFirst things first: cut off any internet connection to your computer. This prevents malware from spreading through your network to other devices or receiving updates from its source that may cause more damage or make it more difficult to contain or delete. If you end up needing to download software—such as a malware removal tool—disconnect as soon as you're done. Reboot in Safe ModeRestarting your PC in Safe Mode minimizes the number of drivers and services running so you can isolate malware and reduce the risk of damage. Safe Mode is the bare minimum, while Safe Mode with Networking will allow you to access the internet if needed (to download and install malware removal software). To restart your machine in Safe Mode (on Windows 10 or 11), follow these steps: Hit Windows + I to open your settings. Click Update & Security > Recovery or System > Recovery. Under Advanced Startup, select Restart Now. On the Choose an Option screen, which appears after restart, select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Restart. After the second restart, select 4/F4 to go into Safe Mode or 5/F5 to enter Safe Mode with Networking. Once you enter Safe Mode, avoid logging into any apps or services, as some types of malware include key loggers or other ways of stealing your credentials from your screen or clipboard. Monitor your PC's activityThere are a few ways to see activity and processes on your PC to identify anything suspicious. First, review the apps and files that have run recently under Settings > Privacy & security > Activity history. Event Viewer shows detailed logs of security and system activity and can be launched by searching Event Viewer in your Windows search bar. Expand Windows Logs on the left sidebar and select the category to view events. Finally, Task Manager shows you everything that's currently running and what resources are being used. Open it with the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc or from the Start menu. Look for processes that are resource-heavy or that have suspicious names. You can select and end tasks from the Processes tab. Remove temporary filesMalware may install temporary files on your PC that allow it to hide or spread—you can find and delete these under Settings > System > Storage > Temporary Files. Click Remove Files to clear out some or all of the files. Windows also has a built-in tool called Storage Sense that will automatically clean up temporary files on a set schedule, which you should enable if you haven't already, or you can run it on demand. Under Settings > System > Storage, toggle Storage Sense on, and click Clean now to use it immediately. Reset your browserYou can also reset your web browser to its default settings to address any modifications resulting from a malware infection. On Chrome, tap the three dots in the upper-right corner of your browser window to open Settings. Tap Reset Settings in the left toolbar and select Restore settings to their original default. Confirm with the Reset settings button. On Edge, the process is similar: Settings > Reset settings > Restore settings to their default values > Reset. On Firefox, go to Menu > Help > More Troubleshooting Information and click Refresh Firefox > Refresh Firefox > Finish. You should also clear your browser's cache, cookies, and history (and maybe check out our guide to the best internet browsers for privacy). Run a malware scanMalware scanners can identify, quarantine, and remove threats from your PC. Windows has built-in antivirus software with Microsoft Defender—via the Windows Security app—but if you suspect an infection, it may be a good idea to run a second-opinion scanner or other third-party program to detect anything that was missed. Lifehacker sister site PCMag has a list of their favorite malware scanners. Avast was their favorite free option, while Malwarebytes (also free) was their choice for fighting persistent malware. Again, you can download software if you rebooted in Safe Mode with Networking.Restart (or reset) your PC Once you feel confident you've isolated and removed any threats, you can restart your PC. If the malware removal process is unsuccessful, you may need to start from scratch by reinstalling Windows and all apps (i.e., resetting your PC). If you restore from a backup, make sure it was created before the malware infection.

The Department of Education announced Monday that the FSA will finally restart collections on defaulted student loans beginning May 5, 2025, following a five-year pause that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.This decision affects approximately 5.3 million borrowers who were in default before the pause. For these borrowers, the government can soon begin collecting repayments from tax refunds, withholding Social Security benefits, and even garnishing wages (up to 15% of disposable income). How do you know if you're already in default on your loans, or if you're at risk of defaulting soon? Here's what you need to know about the upcoming changes, and how to prepare for them.What the end of the pause means for youThis change primarily impacts borrowers who were already in default before pandemic protections began. That amounts to around 5.3 million people, according to the Education Department. In this case, "in default" means a borrower failed to make a loan payment for at least 270 days (about nine months).To determine if you're affected, log into your account at studentaid.gov. (Note: This is not the same portal you may typically use to make student loan payments, e.g., through a servicer like Sallie Mae.) Your dashboard should show your total debt amount, the name of your loan servicer or servicers, your monthly payment amount, and, most importantly, a warning message if you're in default. What to do if you're in default on your student loansBorrowers in default have three main options.1. Repay the loans in fullI know, I know. While this is technically an option, most borrowers in default aren't in a position to pay off their entire loan balance at once. Still, it is the quickest and most effective option to deal with your debt. 2. ConsolidationThis process combines and simplifies your existing federal student loans into a new Direct Consolidation Loan. Consolidation can lower your monthly payment, but increase the period of time you will have to repay your loan—resulting in more payments and more interest overall than if you didn’t consolidate. You can log in to studentaid.gov to access the online direct consolidation loan application.3. Loan rehabilitationWith consolidation, the fact that you were once in default stays on your credit report. With rehabilitation, you can remove the default status from your credit history. To do this, you have to make a certain number—typically nine—consecutive on-time payments. The exact amount of each payment is usually based on your income.How to choose the right repayment plan for your student loansOnce out of default (or if you're at risk, but not yet in default), you'll need to select an appropriate repayment plan. The first step you can take here is to find out exactly how much you’re expected to pay. On studentaid.gov, select “My Aid” in the dropdown menu under your name. Your loan servicer(s) should appear in that section. Clicking on “Loan Breakdown” will show you a list of the loans you received, including loans you have paid off or consolidated into a new loan.Once you confirm your loan company, visit that servicer’s website and log in to your account to ensure all your contact information is up to date so you don’t miss any notifications from them as you take the next steps. (Do the same on studentaid.gov—make sure your contact information, including email and physical address, is current so you receive all important communications.)Remember that you can change your repayment plan as your circumstances change. For instance, if you're experiencing financial hardship, several options can help lower your payments:Income-driven repayment plans that cap payments based on your incomeEconomic hardship deferments if you recently lost your jobOther deferment or forbearance options for temporary repayment reliefWhat you can do about your defaulted student loans right nowThe Department of Education should alert all borrowers in default before May 5, via email and social media posts. They also said they will send notices of wage garnishment "later this summer."Whatever your status, don't wait for collections to resume to take action. With not a lot of time between now this summer, it’s important to get your repayment plan in order as soon as you can. If you're in default, here are the immediate steps you can take:Confirm your status on StudentAid.gov and update your contact information so that you don't miss any communications. Contact your loan servicer to discuss repayment plans.Consider seeking advice from a financial counselor if you need additional guidance.Even if you're not in danger of default today, you could be soon. Student loans have a chokehold over millions of Americans, but you have a little bit of time to put yourself in the best position to tackle yours. By taking proactive steps now, you can avoid the more severe consequences down the line.

Blue Shield of California shared the protected health information of 4.7 million individuals with Google over a nearly three-year period, a data breach that impacts the majority of its nearly 6 million members, according to reporting from Bleeping Computer. This isn't the only large data breach to affect a healthcare organization the last year alone. Community Health Center records were hacked in October 2024, compromising more than a million individuals' data, along with an attack on lab testing company Lab Services Cooperative, which affected records of 1.6 million Planned Parenthood patients. UnitedHealth Group suffered a breach in February 2024, resulting in the leak of more than 100 million people's data. What happened with Blue Shield of California?According to an April 9 notice posted on Blue Shield of California's website, the company allowed certain data, including protected health information, to be shared with Google Ads through Google Analytics, which may have allowed Google to serve targeted ads back to members. While not discovered until Feb. 11, 2025, the leak occurred for several years, from April 2021 to January 2024, when the connection between Google Analytics and Google Ads was severed on Blue Shield websites. The following Blue Shield member information may have been compromised: Insurance plan name, type, and group numberCity and zip codeGenderFamily sizeBlue Shield assigned identifiers for online accountsMedical claim service date and providerPatient namePatient financial responsibility"Find a Doctor" search criteria and resultsAccording to the notice, no additional personal data—Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, and banking and credit card information—were disclosed. Blue Shield also states that no bad actor was involved, nor have they confirmed that the information has been used maliciously. What to do if your information was leakedBlue Shield of California has begun notifying members of the breach, though the company is unable to confirm whether any specific individual's information was compromised. Blue Shield is not offering credit monitoring or identity protection services to affected members at this time. If you have questions about the breach and how you may be impacted, you can call the support line at 833-918-5064 Monday to Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT. That said, as with any data breach, you should continue to monitor your credit report and financial accounts for any suspicious activity. Request a free copy of your credit report (available weekly), freeze your credit and place a fraud alert, and take steps to protect your Social Security number from being used fraudulently.

No matter what you've heard, Macs get viruses too. There are a handful of indicators that your Mac may be infected by malware: your computer running slower or working harder than usual (or overheating), apps or programs crashing unexpectedly, or unfamiliar software or processes running on your device. Here's what to do if you suspect a malware infection on your Mac—and how to get rid of it. Disconnect your Mac from the internetAn active internet connection may allow malware to spread across your network to other devices or communicate information to and from bad actors, ultimately making it more challenging to isolate and remove. If you need to download any programs to address a potential infection, such as a malware scanner, do it quickly. Otherwise, cut your device off from the internet, and don't reconnect until you are sure the threat is gone. You should also avoid signing into any accounts that require credentials, as some malware includes keylogging capabilities that steal your passwords. Restart in safe modeWhen you restart in safe mode, your Mac prevents some software from loading and runs a check on your startup disk, allowing you to isolate and address potential issues. The process for entering safe mode depends on whether you have an Intel-based Mac or a Mac with Apple silicon. If you aren't sure what you're running, click on the Apple in the top left of your screen, then choose About This Mac to clarify. Apple silicon will be labeled as Chip, followed by an M-series processor (e.g. M1 or M2 Pro), while Intel Macs will be labeled as Processor.To restart an Apple silicon Mac in safe mode, go to the Apple menu > Shut Down and wait for your device to turn off completely. Then press and hold the power button until Loading startup options appears. Select a volume (likely Macintosh HD for most) then press and hold Shift and click Continue in Safe Mode. When your device restarts, you'll see Safe Boot in the menu bar. For an Intel-based Mac, restart your device and press and hold Shift until the login window appears. Log into your device, and you should see Safe Boot in the menu bar. You can also confirm that you're in safe mode by pressing and holding Option, then choose Apple Menu > System Information > Software. Under System Software Overview, look for Boot Mode: Safe. If it says Boot Mode: Normal, you are not in safe mode. Run a malware scanApple has built-in antivirus software called XProtect, but you can't run manual, on-demand checks with it. It may be best to use a second-opinion scanner to identify, quarantine, and remove whatever XProtect may have missed. Lifehacker sister site PCMag recommends BitDefender as the best antivirus software for Mac. If you're looking for free solutions, PCMag also recommends Avast and Malwarebytes for addressing malware infections. Monitor your Mac's activityActivity Monitor on macOS shows you real-time information about processes running on your device, including memory usage and activity across disks and networks. This is a good way to identify suspicious programs or processes that may be malware. To open, go to Launchpad and search for Activity Monitor. Look for any unusual names or processes that are hogging CPU or memory, then double-click and quit them. You should also quit any applications that are currently running until you identify the source of the problem.Reset your browserMalware can also modify browser settings, so you should reset any browsers on your Mac to their defaults. Safari doesn't have a singular restore settings button, but you can manually reset it to its default by clearing browsing data. On Chrome, open Settings from the three dots in the upper-right corner. Tap Reset Settings in the left toolbar and select Restore settings to their original default. Confirm with the Reset settings button. On Firefox, go to Menu > Help > More Troubleshooting Information and click Refresh Firefox > Refresh Firefox > Finish.Also consider disabling and removing extensions you may not recognize, or believe may be slowing down your browser and Mac. You'll find them in Settings > Extensions (Extensions & Themes on Firefox). Remove temporary filesMalware may install temporary files on your Mac that allow it to operate or hide, so you can consider deleting these from your device. However, a good malware scanner should find these types of files on their own, so you shouldn't need to delete them yourself. If you don't know what you're looking for, you might end up deleting files that help your Mac run smoother.If you want to delete these temporary files yourself, however, here's how: Open a Finder window and press and hold Shift + Command + G. Type ~/Library/Caches into the search bar to pull up temporary files, select any you want to delete to open them in a Finder folder, and press Command + Delete (or Control + click > Move to Trash) to move to Trash. You'll also want to empty the Trash to delete the files permanently from your device. Restart (or reinstall) macOSOnce you are confident the malware threat has been eliminated, you can restart your Mac in its normal mode. However, if you believe or worry any remnants of malware are still present, you may need to get a fresh start by reinstalling macOS from Recovery. While you can restore from a backup to make things the way they were before the reinstall, note that you should only do so if you are sure the backup was made before your device was infected with malware. If there's a chance you made a backup with the malware infection in place, don't use it.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.The descriptor “science fiction and fantasy” serves as an umbrella term for fantastical stories all the time, but if you look closer, the genres each contain multitudes. A sci-fi/fantasy movie might be an alien invasion blockbuster; a bloody sword-and-sorcery epic; or a quiet, reflective fable. What these movies all have in common is the imagination to think outside of the world we can see from the window. Here are 30 of the best you can stream on Netflix right now.Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) I wasn't expecting much from this adaptation of a game with an impenetrable mythology, and which had previously garnered a string of fairly dismal adaptations. Happily, it turns out to be unexpectedly delightful: funny, action-packed, and respectful of the franchise without getting bogged down by decades of lore. Chris Pine stars as bard Edgin Darvis, imprisoned after a heist gone wrong but hoping to be reunited with the daughter, who's since come under the influence of ambitious con artist Forge (Hugh Grant). Luckily, he's got help from Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), a barbarian with a heart of gold, who cares as much about Edgin's daughter as he does. It makes the case that IP movies don't have to be soulless. You can stream Dungeons & Dragons here. Blade Runner (1982) Back in 1982, Ridley Scott's influential Philip K. Dick adaptation painted a vision of the future back that we're still living with today (though the Cybertruck may well put the aesthetic to bed once and for all). Images of a rainy Los Angeles filled with impossibly tall skyscrapers, floating cars, and endless electronic advertisements are indelible, so much so that style nearly outweighs the substantial plot: Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard, a Blade Runner for the LAPD charged with hunting down and "retiring" replicants, bioengineered humans who were created as workers but who've outlived their usefulness. You can stream Blade Runner here. Damsel (2024) Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things, Enola Holmes) is practically the face of Netflix these days. In this dark fantasy from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later), she plays Elodie, the titular damsel, who's been offered into an arranged marriage by her family. It doesn't sound too terrible, until she learns that it's all been part of an elaborate ritual sacrifice intended to keep a dragon from destroying the kingdom. Lucky for her, she's far more resourceful than her in-laws give her credit for. First goal: get out. Second goal? Get even. You can stream Damsel here.Paradise (2023) Time is a literal commodity on this German sci-fi dystopia. Max (Kostja Ullmann) works for the appropriately named Aeon, a tech company that buys time (as in years) from the poor to extend the lives of its wealthy and powerful clients. He's great at his job, but it doesn't matter much when his condo burns down and he's liable for the loan backed by 40 years of his wife Elana's life. Suddenly married to a senior citizen, he's determined to get his wife's time back, whatever the cost. You can stream Paradise here.Nimona (2023) Based on the graphic novel from ND Stevenson, Nimona traveled a rocky road to the screen, surviving delays, company shut-downs, the pandemic, and pressure from Disney to tone down its queer themes. Luckily, none of that drama made it into the finished product (eventually brought to streaming by Netflix). It's a heartfelt, joyful, and funny fantasy set in a futuristic world full of medieval trappings. Ballister Boldheart, alongside his boyfriend Ambrosius Goldenloin, is about to be knighted by the queen, the first commoner ever to receive the honor. It's all good, until he’s framed for the queen’s murder and forced to flee, becoming the criminal that the snobs already took him for. Luckily (or not) he’s joined by Nimona, a teenager outcast shunned for her shapeshifting powers. The two work together to clear Ballister’s name, even as Nimona has things to teach Ballister about living authentically. You can stream Nimona here.The Old Guard (2020) The comic-inspired Netflix film stars Charlize Theron as Andromache, the sometimes-leader of a group of immortal-ish individuals who are already centuries old as the film starts. They generally work as mercenaries when the cause is right, but find their group starting to splinter in the face of a new threat: Modern technology has made it harder to hide their secret, and a pharmaceutical exec has plans to capture them, figure out why they’re immortal, and then make a sellable product. The movie’s a solid blend of comic-book heroics and mercenary-movie action, with a sequel on the way. Shortly after this, director Gina Prince-Bythewood made the historical action-drama The Woman King, also on Netflix. You can stream The Old Guard here.Circle (2015) It’s alien abduction for the Squid Game generation, this one picks up in the aftermath of a mass snatching. Circle opens on 50 people waking up in a dark room. They’re on platforms from which they can’t move on pain of laser-inflicted death, and they quickly realize they’re trapped in a game with simple, specific rules: Via hand gestures, they’re meant to vote on the next person to die (if not, someone is chose at random every two minutes). It’s a sick scheme enacted by would-be invaders, but it’s also a study of our species, and reaches some not-entirely-flattering conclusions about how quickly we’ll throw each other under the bus (er, laser beam). You can stream Circle here.Godzilla Minus One (2023) Eschewing the more-is-more approach of the American Godzilla series, writer/director Takashi Yamazaki offers up this reminder that Japanese filmmakers really know their monster king. A prequel of sorts to the original 1954 film, this one finds kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) encountering Godzilla multiple times over the years following World War II. That wartime trauma, which harkens back to the original film, lends this one a kaiju-sized emotional weight. Nearly as important: the masterful, Oscar-winning visual effects make Godzilla scary again, and the action sequences have real weight and stakes. You can stream Godzilla Minus One here.Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) Where the Japanese iteration of the franchise has gone back to Godzilla's roots for a deeper, more emotionally satisfying story involving that country's nuclear terror in Godzilla Minus One (also on Netflix), the American spinoff series is doing very well for itself with a bit of counter-programming. Leaning on the wilder and more outré elements of kaiju lore, director Adam Wingard and company toss everything at the wall to see what sticks; the result is goofy, colorful, and generally a fair bit of fun—if endless giant monster fights don't give you too much of a headache. You can stream Godzilla x Kong here.The Call (2020) I love a good time travel horror movie (a specific but venerable genre that includes the likes of Timecrimes, Triangle, and Happy Death Day). This one involves Seo-yeon (Park Shin-hye) visiting her childhood home in 2019, only to discover that an old cordless phone still works (never a good sign), and connects her to Young-sook (Jeon Jong-seo), living in the house in 1999. The two bond over shared experiences, but things soon go very wrong when Seo-Yeon tells the other young woman about the future, and influences her to make changes. It's clever and disturbing, with a solid high concept. You can stream The Call here. Reversi (2024) Did I mention that I like my movies with a bit of time travel? This effective Malaysian import stars Beto Kusyairy as Akid, a police negotiator who loses his wife and son to tragedy—fortunately for Akid, though, he has a genetic propensity for time travel. But each trip to the past knocks a bit off of Akid's own lifespan, and he soon discovers that trying to rewrite history can be at least as traumatic as moving on from loss. You can stream Reversi here.Ultraman: Rising (2024) This Japanese-American co-production reboots the beloved half-century-plus franchise with help of director Shannon Tindle and co-writer Marc Haimes (both of the brilliant Kubo and the Two Strings). Professional baseball player Ken Sato returns home to Japan when he inherits the mantle of (you guessed it!) Ultraman from his retired father. The stylish animation is lovely and there plenty of family-friendly action, but it wouldn't work half as well without the emotional arc: egotistical sports star Sato needs to reconnect with his distant father, even as he becomes the unwilling parental figure to an orphaned kaiju child. You can stream Ultraman: Rising here.Conan the Barbarian (1982) It might not be exactly what prolific writer and Conan-creator Robert E. Howard had in mind but it’s a lot of fun in a shirtless, sweaty, sword-and-sorcery kind of way. It’s the movie that kicked off a pretty cool cycle of ‘80s fantasy films, and also gave Arnold Schwarzenegger his big cinematic break. A long-haired James Earl Jones also offers up his second-most-memorable villainous performance as evil sorcerer Thulsa Doom. You can stream Conan the Barbarian here.See You Yesterday (2019) See You Yesterday tricks you into thinking you’re signing on for a sci-fi romp—an early cameo from Michael J. Fox seems to underline it. As it begins, young prodigies CJ Walker (Eden Duncan Smith) and Sebastian Thomas (Dante Crichlow) develop a time machine and plan to test it by traveling back one day and scrupulously avoiding making any changes. Shortly after, the Spike Lee-produced film takes a dark turn: CJ’s older brother is shot and killed by an NYPD officer who mistakes a phone for a gun. CJ tries again and again to save him, but is frustrated as each attempt goes wrong in a new way. It’s not an entirely downbeat movie, but, in the best sci-fi tradition, the high concept at its core has more down-to-earth relevance. You can stream See You Yesterday here.The Midnight Sky (2020) There’s quite a bit derivative in this George Clooney-directed film, but it’s also quietly poignant in ways that modern science fiction rarely is. That’s a very specific mode, but refreshing in its way. Clooney plays Augustine, a scientist with a terminal condition in 2049 who’s become one of the very few remaining humans alive on Earth after some unknown event left the surface contaminated with radiation. He discovers that a mission from a moon of Jupiter is on its way back to Earth, and makes it his mission to warn them that the planet is no longer hospitable—a mission complicated by the discovery of a young girl he feels the need to protect. You can stream The Midnight Sky here.The Platform (2019) OK, the metaphor is a little heavy-handed: In a large tower, euphemistically referred to as the “Vertical Self-Management Center,” food is delivered in a shaft that stops on each floor from the top down: those near the top get to eat their fill; those at the bottom get scraps. The Spanish-language thriller is wildly violent, but inventive, and it’s not as if real-life capitalism is particularly subtle in its deprivations. You can stream The Platform here.What Happened to Monday (2017) Tommy Wirkola, director of the recent David Harbour Christmas-themed action movie Violent Night and the upcoming Spermageddon, helmed this high-concept science fiction story about the perils of overpopulation. In the near-ish future, a one-child policy sees spare kids frozen cryogenically until such time as they can be either become colonists on another planet, or until Earth finds more resources—whichever comes first. Think Children of Men, but a bit goofier. Glenn Close is in charge of enforcing the policy, while Willem Dafoe plays the grandfather of identical septuplets. He comes up with a plan to keep all the kids out of the freezer: they’ll take turns playing at being the same person (Noomi Rapace, in multiple roles). Ridiculous, but fun. You can stream What Happened to Monday here.Rebel Moon (2023) Zack Snyder, late of the entire DC cinematic universe, inspires passionate opinions all around—but his science fiction Army of the Dead followup can't be faulted for lack of ambition. It's a multi-part (currently unclear how many parts that will be) space opera that blends Snyder's distinctive visual style with Star Wars-style action. Sofia Boutella stars as a former soldier who rallies warriors from across the galaxy to join in a revolt against the imperial Motherworld on the title's out-of-the-way farming moon. You can currently catch part one (aka A Child of Fire) and part two (The Scargiver), as well as an R-rated director's cut of the first movie. You can stream Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire here.The Curse of Bridge Hollow (2022) Halloween movies are valid at any time of year, so there's no reason to hold off on this family-friendly seasonal fantasy. The Howard family has moved to the town of Bridge Hollow just in time for the holiday, and daughter Sydney (Priah Ferguson of Stranger Things) couldn't be more exited about the town's holiday spirit. Dad (Marlon Wayans), on the other hand, is all about the science and hates the spooky nonsense—mom Kelly Rowland often left to referee. The family has to try to come together, though, when Sydney accidentally frees a ghost who makes an army out of the town's decorations. Whoops! You can stream The Curse of Bridge Hollow here.Bubble (2022) From Attack on Titan and Death Note director Tetsurô Araki and an all-star creative team, Bubble finds Tokyo cut off from the rest of the world when reality-bending bubbles rain down on the city (shades of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, perhaps). Anime fans were almost certainly on the lookout for the gorgeous, parkour-infused love story, but anyone who loves animation (or great sci-fi films in general) should check it out. You can stream Bubble here. My Father’s Dragon (2022) Based on Ruth Stiles Gannett’s 1948 children’s novel of the same name, and geared toward even younger audiences than the other all-ages animated movies on this list, My Father’s Dragon still has plenty to recommend it to just about anyone—along with more emotional intelligence than many movies made for adults. In the film, a boy named Elmer (Jacob Tremblay) and his shopkeeper mother, Dela (Golshifteh Farahani) leave their tight-knit town in favor of a bigger city—though the promise of better circumstances doesn’t quickly materialize. Elmer’s patience is rewarded, though, when a talking cat invites him to take a beautiful, candy-colored adventure. The movie is from the director of the The Breadwinner, set in modern-day Afghanistan, and Cartoon Saloon, production company behind animated movies like the beautiful Irish folk tale, Wolfwalkers. You can stream My Father's Dragon here.The Wandering Earth (2019) The title isn’t a metaphor: this Chinese blockbuster is literally about what happens when the Earth goes off-course, and the people who come together to keep it from smashing into Jupiter. The whole thing begins when a rogue red giant threatens to engulf the Earth within a century, leading the nations of the world to come together around building giant engines to shove us out of the way. It’s bonkers in the best possible way, with special effects that easily outpace those of many American blockbusters. The human element here is also a plus, as the movie makes room for a broad ensemble of interesting characters, suggesting that great things (like not hitting Jupiter) happen when people work together. You can stream The Wandering Earth here.Space Sweepers (2021) It doesn’t entirely reinvent the wheel, but there’s a refreshing focus on the underclasses of the future, without edging too far into the dystopian. I’m not the first to make a comparison between Space Sweepers and Cowboy Bebop, but, given the recent and speedy failure of Netflix’s live-action version of that cartoon, it’s not going too far to say that you’ll find a better encapsulation of Bebop’s spirit of rag-tag found family and its outer space western milieu here then in the live-action show that bore its name. What this one lacks in originality, it makes up for in engaging characters and extravagant special effects. It’s also nice to see a less American-centric perspective on the future. You can stream Space Sweepers here.The Block Island Sound (2020) Strange doings are afoot on Block Island, the most obvious of which are the vast numbers of dead fish that keep washing up on shore. More alarming though is the behavior of one of the local fishermen, Tom, who keeps waking up in strange places and generally losing time. His daughter Audry (Michaela McManus) works for the Environmental Protection Agency and is sent to investigate the mass fish deaths; she brings along her daughter and reunites with brother Tom (Chris Sheffield) along the way. Together, they discover no ordinary environmental catastrophe is to blame for all the dead fish, as the film blends the family drama and the eerie local events as it builds to a fairly chilling climax. You can stream The Block Island Sound here. They Cloned Tyrone (2023) This genre mashup from debut director Juel Taylor spins plenty of plates, and mostly manages to keep them from crashing down. John Bodega stars as Fontaine, a drug dealer in a Blaxsploitation-inspired world just this side of our own. Following a showdown with one-time Pimp of the Year Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), Fontaine is shot dead, but awakens the next day in his own bed with nothing seemingly having changed. Teaming up with Slick Charles and sex worker Yo Yo (Teyonah Parris), he dives into an unlikely web of scientific conspiracy, the gist of which you can kinda get from the title. A sci-fi genre parody shouldn’t work nearly so well, but the stellar cast and assured direction from Juel Taylor sell it. You can stream They Cloned Tyrone here.Dune: Part Two (2024) The fickle nature of streaming means that you can only watch the second part of Denis Villeneuve's Best Picture-nominated epic on Netflix, so you'll want to catch that one first, then rejoin Villeneuve and company for the conclusion (for now) of the journey, and descent, of exiled Duke Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he joins with the Fremen of Arrakis to overturn the colonial rule of the Harkonnens—or perhaps just to restore his own power. With an epic, thoroughly cinematic scope, and tremendous performances, particularly from Zendaya as Fremen warrior Chani and Rebecca Ferguson as Paul's thoroughly relentless mother, Lady Jessica, it's a sci-fi epic like no other. You can stream Dune: Part Two here.Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) This Fury Road prequel is every bit the thrill-ride it's predecessor was, even as it slightly dials back the action in favor of a bit more emotional complexity in and around our titular ass-kicker. Anna-Taylor Joy takes over from Charlize Theron as Furiosa, born into the Green Place of Many Mothers, one of the last remaining oases in a radioactive, post-apocalyptic Australia. When she's taken by warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), she winds up on a decades-long journey to get home. Even after four decades of Mad Max movies, George Miller is still innovating. You can stream Furiosa here.Okja (2017) A Korean-language sci-fi fantasy about a girl and her genetically modified pig might not sound like an easy sell, but the movie certainly attracted more much-deserved attention when its director, Bong Joon-Ho, won one of the best-justified Best Picture Oscars in recent memory for Parasite. The darkly whimsical film that challenges the norms of the American and South Korean meat industries is very much its own thing, but fans of Parasite will recognize Bong’s mix of dark comedy, action, and hard-to-ignore social commentary. You can stream Okja here.Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) The director’s passion project, Pinnochio had a long road to the screen, but it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t all worth it. Set in fascist Italy between the wars, and told through stunning stop-motion animation, the beautifully moving film won a well-deserved Best Animated Feature Oscar. You can stream Pinocchio here.Blame! (2017) In the future, The City grows like a virus, endlessly in all directions, humans long since having lost control of the automated systems designed to run things. Those same systems now see views humans as “illegals” to be purged, so flesh-and-blood survivors are caught between the city’s murderous defense systems and the need to find food. One group of humans, though, is on the hunt for the existence of someone with a genetic marker that they believe will allow for access to the city’s control systems—a hunt lead by Killy, a synthetic human who might have the key. You can stream Blame! here.

There are a lot of trends in generative AI right now. There are the reasoning models like OpenAI's o3, that "think" through each step of a problem before it answers. There are also "deep research" features that can compile information from across the web to generate reports for you. But perhaps the trend that is most "futuristic" of all is Voice Mode. This is the future 2013's Her promised: a chatbot that you can talk to like any other person. The chatbot doesn't say anything differently than it would if you were chatting over text; however, it responds in a "realistic" and "natural" voice, which could create the illusion that you're talking to a person, not a robot.I've never found the feature to be particularly engaging, even from big names like ChatGPT. The tech is impressive, sure, but it's still painfully obvious to my ear that I'm talking to a bot. AI companies haven't been able to shake these identifying quirks, but that hasn't stopped people from forming "relationships" with chatbots—even falling in love with them.What's more impressive to me is the feature's "vision" component. Some chatbots can not only talk back to you, but can access your camera to see what you're seeing, and incorporate that information in its replies. Both ChatGPT and Gemini offer these features, and now, so does Grok. Grok can seeGrok is the latest chatbot to gain this ability in its Voice Mode. xAI developer Ebby Amir announced the feature, dubbed "Grok Vision," on X Tuesday, noting that Grok Vision supports multilingual audio as well as realtime search. Those latter features are exclusive to SuperGrok subscribers, however. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. The feature is already live on my end. You can access it by tapping the existing Voice Mode option. If you haven't used this feature already, you'll need to grant Grok permission to access your device's microphone. Following this, you'll be able to start chatting immediately. However, to access Vision, you'll need to tap the camera icon in the bottom left corner. Here, allow Grok to access your camera. Once the feed is live, you can start asking Grok about what it sees. I'm not super keen on sending my live video feed directly to xAI, so I kept my phone directly on the table, so the video feed was all black. Grok, to its credit, tried earnestly to help me fix the problem, suggesting there might be something wrong with the camera, or that my environment was too dark. When I informed it that I had actually taken my phone up to outer space with me, it "laughed," and concluded that had to be the problem: "Ha, outer space, huh? That black feed makes sense now—no light out there, and the camera’s probably not designed for that environment. You might need a space-grade device to get a proper feed." This is the second big feature drop for Grok this month. Last week, xAI rolled out a memory feature for the bot, which allows it to access past conversations for more relevant responses.

Gmail already adds an Unsubscribe button to every promotional email or newsletter you receive in your inbox. That way, you can stop someone from sending you emails without first visiting their website. The service is now going one step forward, giving you a single place to manage all your subscriptions, and an option to unsubscribe from each with just a tap—kind of like the Subscriptions screen on YouTube.Manage Subscriptions is rolling out nowThere's a clear advantage to the new Manage Subscriptions feature. With it, you no longer need to go through your entire inbox to find all the newsletters, as Gmail will instead surface them for you. You'll see the names and email addresses of senders of both newsletter subscriptions and promotional emails.The feature is rolling out on Android, iOS, and on the web, but according to Google, it's going to be a gradual rollout, so it might take time to show up on your devices. For example, I can access it on Gmail's iPad app, but not on my iPhone or the web, even though they're all logged into the same account.How to easily unsubscribe to email newsletters en masseFirst, let's find a list of all your subscriptions. To do this on iPhone or Android, tap the three-lined Menu in the top left, and choose Manage Subscriptions. On the Gmail website, you'll have to click the More button to expand the sidebar options and find Manage Subscriptions. Credit: Khamosh Pathak You'll now see a list of all the people who send you newsletters, and an estimate of recently received emails. If you tap on a sender name, Gmail will show you a list of all of their recent emails. To unsubscribe from a newsletter, tap Unsubscribe on the right (the button that looks like a mail icon with a minus sign). Credit: Khamosh Pathak Gmail will then ask you for a confirmation. Just tap Unsubscribe, and you're done. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Gmail will tell you that it has unsubscribed you from the newsletter on your behalf, but that it might take a few days to stop receiving those emails. For most newsletters, the ones that have a clear-cut Unsubscribe button, this is how it will work. But in some cases, Gmail won't be able to unsubscribe automatically on your behalf.In such cases, you'll see Go to website instead, where Gmail will open the website for confirmation. But that's just one extra tap, and is still easy to do. Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Max is joining the lineup of streaming platforms limiting users sharing a single subscription to those in the same household—unless you pay $7.99 per month for an "extra member" add-on. Adding an extra member to an existing streaming plan costs a little bit less than purchasing a new, separate subscription, though these users are limited to one profile and one supported device at a time. The best value for extra members typically comes with the most expensive plans. On Max, that's Premium, which costs $20.99 per month. How Max's "extra member" option stacks upMax subscribers on any plan (except Disney+/Hulu/Max bundles) can add one extra member at $7.99 per month if the plan is billed directly through WarnerMedia. Those who pay through third-party apps and mobile and TV providers are ineligible. Extra members get their own account login but only one profile and streaming via one device at a time. Extra members also have to be 18 and in the same country as the primary subscriber. As noted, the best deal is on Max's $20.99-per-month Premium plan and a decent one on Standard, which costs $16.99 per month. An entire Basic with Ads subscription at $9.99 per month is barely more than an extra member, especially if you buy a whole year upfront for $100. Plus, as 9to5Mac notes, Max often runs promos that bring subscriptions down to $2.99 per month.Other streamers with "extra member" plansMax isn't the only streamer cracking down on password sharing with extra member pricing. Netflix allows users on its Standard plan to add one member outside the account holder's household—two for those on a Premium subscription—at $6.99 per extra member per month with ads and $8.99 per extra member per month without. Netflix charges $7.99 per month for its Standard plan with ads, $17.99 per month for ad-free, and $24.99 per month for Premium subscriptions. Disney+ subscribers can also add one extra member to any Disney+ plan billed directly by Disney+ as well as bundles billed by Disney+ or Hulu. (Hulu + Live TV plans are excluded.) Fees range from $6.99 per extra member per month on Disney+ Basic to $14.99 per extra member per month for the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ Premium bundle. The same standalone plans cost $9.99 per month and $26.99 per month, respectively.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If you’ve been eyeing a premium Xbox or PC controller that could actually give the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller a run for its money, the Razer Wolverine V3 Pro is currently $149.99 on Woot. This is its lowest price yet, according to price trackers. Normally, it sells for $199.99, which is still the going rate on Amazon. This deal is live for eight days or until it sells out, and Prime members get free shipping (others pay a six-dollar shipping fee). Razer Wolverine V3 Pro $149.99 at Woot $199.99 Save $50.00 Get Deal Get Deal $149.99 at Woot $199.99 Save $50.00 The Wolverine V3 Pro lacks Bluetooth support, but if you’re only gaming on Xbox and PC, that may not matter. Razer’s 2.4GHz Hyperspeed wireless connection offers a 250Hz polling rate (quadruple that of Bluetooth), and you can reportedly push it to 1000Hz in wired Tournament Mode on PC. For more options across all platforms, check out PCMag's best game controllers for every setup roundup.There’s a nice click to the face buttons of the V3 Pro and a surprisingly tight feel to the circular D-pad (though it isn't swappable to a plus-shaped one like the Elite's). The analog triggers use Hall Effect sensors to avoid drift and come with trigger locks for faster activation in shooters. You get two extra buttons near the triggers and four on the back, all programmable via Razer’s app, which also lets you tweak the lighting and fine-tune dead zones. That said, you can’t remap core buttons or set full trigger curves, so there’s some trade-off in flexibility. But in actual gameplay, this thing just feels dialed in. Movements are responsive, the sticks hold tight accuracy, and the familiar wide-body design hits that muscle memory if you’re coming from a standard Xbox layout.The programmable rear buttons are sculpted to sit well under your fingers, and although they can’t be swapped out, they don’t feel intrusive. You also get a textured grip, USB-C charging, and a travel case, though battery life tops out at 20 hours (shorter than the Elite’s 40), notes this PCMag review. At this price, the Wolverine V3 Pro is a serious alternative to the Elite—one that makes a few smart sacrifices in exchange for better ergonomics, long-term stick durability, and faster wireless response.

From infamous tyrants to modern media monsters, these podcasts explore the most messy, menacing, and sometimes misunderstood figures throughout history. Whether you’re into true crime, pop culture, philosophy, or political intrigue, here are 10 standout podcasts that dive deep into the dark side.Behind the Bastards Credit: 'Behind the Bastards' Hosted by Robert Evans (not the film guy, the journalist and former war correspondent,) Behind the Bastards is a deep dive into some of the worst people in history, from brutal dictators to modern-day grifters and cult leaders. Episodes are long and go extremely in depth. Evans will often take several episodes to cover a single subject. (Like his Vince McMahon series, which is incredible and a good place to start.) With every episode, he and a guest blend sharp historical research with biting humor and a little righteous rage. It’s dark, funny, and educational.Behind the Insurrections Credit: 'Behind the Insurrections' A spin-off of Behind the Bastards (and also hosted by Robert Evans), Behind the Insurrections is a limited series that looks at the history of attempted (and successful) insurrections around the world. (There’s a fun sprinkling about history’s antifascists, too.) Along with his friend and co-host Propaganda (from Hood Politics), Evans uses his signature wit and insight to draw chilling parallels between past uprisings and modern-day threats to democracy that feel both clarifying and terrifying. It’s shocking how familiar it all sounds. Start at the very beginning with "Mussolini's March on Rome: The First Fascist Insurrection."Weird Little Guys Credit: 'Weird Little Guys' On Weird Little Guys, Molly Conger leans into her niche expertise: terrible people who, deep down inside, are actually just messed up weirdos. In each episode, she profiles questionable characters from history, media, and myth whom you may or may not have heard of. I love that even if the subject matter is heavy or depressing, listening to this show feels like getting gossip from your smart, well-read friend. If you can’t do anything about skinheads, the least you can do is figure out how they got to be such huge losers. It’s cathartic. This Guy Sucked Credit: 'This Guy Sucked' Historian Claire Aubin is the host of This Guy Sucked, an academic takedown of awful men throughout history, culture, and current events, from Voltaire to mid-century liberals. Claire ups the ante with historians and professors for conversations that are equal parts funny and smart. This a history podcast with a great host who is doing more than just reading Wikipedia entries—she’s sparking engaging conversations and teaching you about some of the stuff you learned wrong the first time around. Bad Gays Credit: 'Bad Gays' Bad Gays, hosted by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller, shines a light on villainous figures, but only the queer ones. Each episode is full of great storytelling, lots of jokes, and academic rigor. It challenges simplistic narratives and asks important questions about power, identity, and complicity, something that anyone on the gender spectrum can fall prey to. Start with “J. Edgar Hoover,” an episode about an iconic bad gay, dissected with nuance and wit.Real Dictators Credit: 'Real Dictators' Real Dictators is a gripping narrative history podcast that dives into the lives of some of the world’s most infamous authoritarian rulers. Hosted by Paul McGann (with a dramatic, cinematic tone), the show blends historical facts with the kind of immersive storytelling, dramatic narration, beautiful sound design, and compelling pacing that will make you feel like you’re at the movies. Each season or multi-part episode focuses on a different dictator—think Stalin, Mao, Saddam Hussein—tracing their rise to power, ideologies, and brutal regimes.The Villain Was Right Credit: 'The Villain Was Right' The Villain Was Right is a hilarious rewatch podcast that defends famous movie villains and asks, “Were they really that wrong?” Comedians Craig Fay and Rebecca Reeds bring episodes that are clever, irreverent, and surprisingly persuasive. You’ll never look at The Devil Wears Prada the same way again. We’re not talking about Stalin and Hitler, we’re talking about The Wet Bandits in Home Alone. (In fact, that’s a fun place to start.) Disgraceland Credit: 'Disgraceland' On Disgraceland, Jake Brennan combines true crime stories and the music world, to tell the stories of musicians who have gotten away with murder, if not literally then figuratively. The production level is high, Jake has an unforgettable voice that brings drama to every story, and the show is endlessly bingeable. Think Behind the Music behind bars.Evil Genius with Russell Kane Credit: 'Evil Genius' You’ll love the debates on Evil Genius, where host and comedian Russell Kane (and his guests) argue whether controversial historical figures were truly evil—or just complicated. It’s both history and game! Russell is a comedian, so this is for people who like their history with a dash of comedy. Episodes are fast-paced and dig into moral gray areas without getting preachy. Start with Walt Disney, a guy we all love but who also really needs a few minutes under the microscope. Very Bad Wizards Credit: 'Very Bad Wizards' On Very Bad Wizards, a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro) talk about the morality of bad behavior in pop culture, film, and real life. It’s both entertaining and will send you down philosophical rabbit holes. You’ll love it because it’s both academic and insightful while still being casual and fun. Sommers brings the fiery, contrarian philosopher energy and Pizarro offers thoughtful, data-informed perspectives. They have great chemistry, and they’re not afraid to roast each other.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If you’ve been thinking about adding a security camera to your setup but want something a little more refined than the entry-level options, the Ring Spotlight Cam Pro might hit that middle ground. Normally priced at $229.99, it’s now down to $159.99 on Amazon, which price trackers confirm is its lowest ever. Ring Spotlight Cam Pro, Battery $159.99 at Amazon $229.99 Save $70.00 Get Deal Get Deal $159.99 at Amazon $229.99 Save $70.00 That’s a rare drop for a Ring Pro series camera, which typically stays at the premium end of Amazon's home security lineup. This model came out in 2022, and while the 1080p resolution doesn’t exactly feel cutting-edge anymore, the overall package still holds up well.This camera is battery-powered, meaning wireless setup and easy installation. Plus, it offers a wide 140-degree field of view, quick notifications when motion is detected, and two-way audio that’s unusually clear. According to this ZDNet review, you can carry on a full conversation with someone 40 feet from the camera without any lag or distortion. That said, the spotlight feature isn’t quite as strong—it maxes out at 375 lumens, which is enough for basic visibility in a small yard or porch, but not something you'd want for full floodlight coverage. Still, it’s equipped with color night vision and an adjustable alarm, which adds another layer of deterrence.You’ll need a Ring Home subscription to actually record and store your videos, which starts at $4.99/month for a single camera—but live view and alerts work without one. And while it plays well with Alexa and IFTTT, it skips out on Google Assistant and HomeKit support. As for battery life, depending on your activity zones and lighting preferences, it can last anywhere from six months to a year, notes this PCMag review.

Instagram is officially launching Edits, the company's take on mobile video editors. The launch comes three months after Instagram announced the app, and two months after Edits' original launch date in February. Instagram is coming for TikTokIt makes sense for Instagram to have a video editor of its own for many reasons. The company is no longer just the app you open to check out the photos and videos people and companies post on their page: Instagram reels are a huge part of the experience now. Short-form videos have taken off everywhere (even LinkedIn has them), and Instagram is no exception. There's a good chance it's your platform of choice for these bite-size clips, especially if you live in the United States—even if TikTok users scoff at the idea of using Reels at all.But it's not just the friendly competition that is fueling this push for Edits to take off. You might recall that back in January, TikTok and its associated apps went dark. Not only did Americans lose access to the most popular short form video app in the world, but also other popular apps like CapCut. While TikTok and many of its apps returned, the situation is ongoing, and these apps' future in the U.S. is anything but guaranteed. There's a real opportunity for Meta to solidify Instagram as the one-stop shop for both consumers and creators of short form videos, both to compete with TikTok and to take its crown should the apps be banned again.What can you do with Edits? Instagram itself has an editing tool you can use when creating a reel, but the Edits app appears to be a more complete experience. I haven't had a chance to try out Edits yet, but from Meta's promotional materials, the app seems like a standard mobile video editor. You can import video files, or shoot directly within the app (up to 10 minutes), and edit on a non-linear timeline. Like other apps, you can access various editing tools, like a chrome key tool for green screening, a caption editor, and a cutout feature to isolate subjects and objects. You can check out reels with trending audio, and use a track if you find one you like, or access a greater audio library to add music and sounds to your video. While there's a general project manager, there's also an "Ideas" section. Here, you can write down concepts for future videos; it looks to be more than a glorified notes app, as it seems you can create vision board-like stickers for these ideas. You can also keep tabs on how any video performs from an "Insights" tab. Credit: Images courtesy of Meta Of course, it's 2025, so Instagram is incorporating AI into Edits. That manifests as the Animate feature, which lets you animate static images with generative AI. It sounds similar to features offered by other companies, like Google's Veo 2 video model, but we'll have to see how it performs before passing judgment. Meta says there's also a "Modify" feature that changes the "look and feel" of your videos using AI, but hasn't specified much about how that really works. Again, we'll need to test out the app to see what that's all about. You can download Edits starting today from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. You'll need to log in with your Instagram account to use it, which makes sense: Meta wants you to use this for Instagram reels. However, as long as you have an Instagram account, you can use Edits to make videos for any platform. The company says all exports come without watermarks, so you can, in theory, use Edits to post videos on platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts, not just Instagram. Again, the big question is how the app performs when compared to established mobile video editor apps. If you use Instagram already, it might makes sense to use Edits, too. But if you're used to another mobile video editor, especially one that isn't at risk of being banned, will Edits be enticing enough to make the switch? Only time (and edits) will tell.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.I used to buy cheap earbuds from random brands all the time, simply because I needed some earbuds that wouldn't give me a heart attack if (or when) I lost them. If that sounds like your earbud-buying strategy, there's a great deal on a pair of budget earbuds that actually have pretty decent specs: the Anker Soundcore P20i. Right now, these workhorse earbuds are on sale for $19.99 (originally $39.99), matching the lowest price they have reached according to price-checking tools. Soundcore by Anker P20i Color: White, Ear Placement: In Ear, Battery life: 30 hours, Water resistant: Yes. $19.99 at Amazon $39.99 Save $20.00 Get Deal Get Deal $19.99 at Amazon $39.99 Save $20.00 Anker has been making surprisingly good budget-friendly earbuds, headphones, and speakers for a while. The Anker P20i/P25i (same earbuds, different names) came out in late 2023 and are a decent budget pick, offering features that you usually only see in higher-end earbuds. You get Bluetooth 5.3, 10-hour battery life per charge and another 30 hours from the case, a bass boost feature, and a companion app.The app lets you choose from 22 preset EQ options so you can find the sound signature that best works for you. There is no custom EQ, but the fact that you have a companion app from a reliable brand for under $20 is impressive by itself. You can also set up a voice assistant from your phone through the app by making it one of the touch control commands.The earbuds are great for people who need a cheap pair to take to the gym, since they are rated IPX5 for water resistance. Although they don't have ANC, the in-ear design naturally eliminates a lot of background noise. These earbuds work with iOS and Android phones and have a "Find My Device" feature with via the aforementioned app.If I was still in my cheap earbuds era, I'd be grabbing these right away.

Picture-in-picture (PiP) is a great feature for us multitaskers. We have things to do, sure, but there are so many videos to watch, too. Why not kill two birds with one stone, and cross off our to-do lists with a floating media player in the corner of our screens?The thing about PiP, however, is it's not always the most convenient feature to use—especially on desktop. Usually, you need to learn how to activate it in the first place, which might entail a keyboard shortcut, or perhaps a double right-click to reveal a hidden menu. Unless your browser or app contains a convenient shortcut, it's often more of a hurdle than it should be. Contrast that with how it works on mobile, where simply switching out of the app will automatically place the video in a PiP window. This function makes a lot of sense for PiP: Usually, you want to use the feature in order to continue watching a video while moving away from its source, so it tracks to have the PiP window launch on its own once you switch to another window or app. In my view, the more platforms that adopt this behavior, the better.So it is with Chrome: As reported by XDA Developers, Google is actively working on a feature for its web browser that automatically launches a PiP window when switching out of a YouTube tab. While Google announced the feature back in February, it hasn't made it actively available for testing until now. Researcher Leopeva64 discovered this development, posting about it on X on Friday. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. How to force YouTube to automatically open in picture-in-picture The feature is not live yet—it's currently being tested in Google's beta version of Chrome, Chrome Canary—but you should, in theory, be able to try it out right now. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working for me at this time, but here are the potential steps you can take to try it out today:First, you'll need to be running Chrome Canary, which you can download for your platform of choice here. Then, head to chrome://flags, and search for "picture in picture." There are two relevant flags here: "Browser initiated automatic picture in picture," and "Auto picture in picture for video playback." You can try enabling both to force the feature to work, but again, neither forces it to work on my end yet. Next, open YouTube, and click the settings button directly to the left of the URL. Choose Site settings, then scroll down to Automatic picture-in-picture. By default, it should be set to Ask, which would force the site to ask each session if you want picture-in-picture, but you can choose Allow to enable picture-in-picture each time. Now, start playing a video, and switch tabs. If the feature is working on your end, it should automatically present a PiP window when you leave the YouTube tab. If the setting is configured to Ask, you will need to approve the window permissions before it begins playing. This feature might not be for everyone. If that's the case, you can disable it completely from this same settings page by choosing Block.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.In "celebration" of Earth Day, some tech retailers are offering discounts on their refurbished products. Sonos is one of these retailers, and their discounts are actually good. Sonos says it repairs these products to "like-new" conditions and still offers the same one-year warranty. Here is what you can get from them on sale today: 30 hour battery, ANC, lossless streaming, spatial audio with dynamic head tracking. Refurbished Sonos Ace $269.00 at Sonos $359.00 Save $90.00 Get Deal Get Deal $269.00 at Sonos $359.00 Save $90.00 Dolby Atmos, two height channels, Sonos app, and Apple AirPlay 2, multiroom, wifi. Refurbished Sonos Arc Ultra $599.00 at Sonos $719.00 Save $120.00 Get Deal Get Deal $599.00 at Sonos $719.00 Save $120.00 Spatial audio, Dolby Atmos, Sonos app, voice control, multiroom. Refurbished Beam (Gen 2) Smart Soundbar $299.00 at Sonos $399.00 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $299.00 at Sonos $399.00 Save $100.00 Sonos app, voice control, and Apple AirPlay 2. Refurbished Beam (Gen 1) - Shadow Smart Soundbar $191.00 at Sonos $319.00 Save $128.00 Get Deal Get Deal $191.00 at Sonos $319.00 Save $128.00 Wireless, sonos app. Refurbished Sub (Gen 3) Premium Wireless Subwoofer $479.00 at Sonos $639.00 Save $160.00 Get Deal Get Deal $479.00 at Sonos $639.00 Save $160.00 Sonos app, wireless. Refurbished Sub Mini Wireless Subwoofer $259.00 at Sonos $349.00 Save $90.00 Get Deal Get Deal $259.00 at Sonos $349.00 Save $90.00 SEE 3 MORE The Sonos Ace headphones are $269The Sonos Ace is Sonos' only pair of headphones, first released last summer. You can get a pair for $269 ($449 for new ones). The battery life is impressive, with about 30 hours with either the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) or Aware Mode settings active, or about 40 hours with both of those off. The Bluetooth multipoint connectivity means you can connect up to two devices at once and switch seamlessly between them. Their ANC and Aware Mode are top-tier, competing with the best headphones on the market. You can read more about them on PCMag's "excellent" review.Soundbars start at $191The Sonos Beam Gen 1 has been around since 2018, but it's much better than most soundbars you can get under $200 today. It supports both Google and Alexa voice assistants, as well as AirPlay, according to CNET's review. At $191 straight from the Sonos website, this is a great deal for anyone who wants to try the Sonos ecosystem for cheap.The Sonos Beam Gen 2 came out in 2021 with Atmos compatibility and a better processor, according to CNET's review. For $299 ($499 for a new one), you get a much bigger and fuller sound on the same-sized compact soundbar.If you're looking for a top-notch soundbar, consider the Sonos Arc Ultra. This is the latest soundbar from Sonos and one of the best on the market, according to PCMag's "outstanding review." It's still expensive at $599, but it's 40% cheaper than a new one ($999). It has a speakerphone, Sonos Voice control, an Ethernet connection, multiroom, and the best sound Sonos offers.Subwoofers start at $259If you want to have that rumbling bass that adds more depth to your theater system, get a subwoofer. The Sonos Sub Gen 3 is not the newest (that's the Gen 4), but the 3 is much cheaper and still a very capable subwoofer. You can get it for $479 ($799 for a new one).The Sonos Sub Mini is a smaller and more affordable version of the Sonos Sub, perfect for a small apartment or room where you want a soundbar and subwoofer combo. You can get it for $259 ($428 for a new one); learn more about it on CNET's review.

Obsidian is my favorite productivity tool. I use it for all of my writing, as a journaling app, and to replace multiple productivity tools. There's a big downside, though: no grammar checking tool.Grammarly is the best known grammar checking tool, but there's no way to add it to Obsidian. I also wouldn't enable it even if I could. Grammarly processes text on their own servers, which is a potential privacy issue and also generally inefficient. This is why I've come to love Harper, a free and open-source alternative that runs entirely on your device and can be added to Obsidian in a couple of clicks.Harper isn't just an Obsidian tool—there are also plugins for WordPress, Visual Studio Code, or any developer tool that supports the Language Server Protocol. If you'd like to see Harper in action before installing, there's a live demo on the Harper homepage—just type whatever you want and watch the recommendations.The Harper plugin for Obsidian can easily be installed from the Community Plugins tab in the Obsidian settings, the way you'd install any other extension. After you download and activate the plugin it will start working immediately.Harper can make spelling recommendations, while also pointing out grammatical and stylistic issues. I've been trying out Harper for a week now after missing a couple of embarrassing typos. It's helped me notice easy-to-overlook issues while, for the most part, staying out of my way.Potential issues are underlined. Hover the mouse over any highlighted issue and you'll see an explanation and suggestions. Credit: Justin Pot I find Harper noticeably faster than web-based tools, which makes sense, given that the developer was primarily motivated by speed during development. In the settings you can choose between American, Canadian, Australian, and British English. You can also change the settings for a specific Harper rule, allowing you to do things like use the Oxford comma. Right now Harper isn't easy to use outside of Obsidian—there's no browser extension. But if you do your writing in Obsidian, or are a developer who uses a supported IDE, Harper is a tool that integrates into your workflow right now—one well worth trying out.

Notion Mail is finally out in the wild, for anyone who has a Gmail account. And it's quintessential Notion. If you've used the standard Notion app, you really can't confuse it for anything else.Notion Mail is a minimalist and text-based take on the Mail app that isn't trying to do anything revolutionary. There are no AI summaries, and no complicated split views like in Superhuman. It's just your email, sorted in a way that you like.What does it mean, though, to apply the Notion philosophy to email, and is it good enough for you to make the switch? That is, if you even can. Currently, Notion Mail only works on the Web and on Mac, and it only supports Gmail accounts (leaving out Outlook and enterprise emails). Notion Mail's iOS app is on the way, and the Android app will launch in 2025 as well. But there's no app for Windows on the roadmap.What is Notion?Notion Mail is the latest product from Notion Labs, which is known for its extremely customizable note taking app. Every note in Notion starts with a blank page, but can be customized with blocks, tables, images and more. Some people even turn it into a database, as Notion makes it easy to link one page to another. Notion is free to use for individual users, but charges $10 per month per user for businesses. Plus there's the $10 per month cost for Notion AI, which I'll come back to below. Essentially, Notion Mail aims to take the same minimalist approach of the note-taking app, and apply it to email.Notion users will feel at home Credit: Khamosh Pathak Let's start with how Notion Mail looks and works. It has the same unassuming black and white design that Notion is known for. The buttons are gray, and there are none of the pastel colors or rainbow gradients usually found in AI apps these days. In other words, it feels like Gmail did 15 years ago, but modernized.There's a sidebar that shows all your views, and then a list of email. And that's that, as far as design goes. But because this is Notion, there is also a highly useful command palette (Command+K), so you can compose emails or take actions without leaving your keyboard. Credit: Khamosh Pathak There's support for keyboard shortcuts, too, and native Markdown support, which makes formatting long emails a breeze (and is something that's missing from Gmail and every other major email app).Notion AI is also integrated into the compose box, so you can highlight text and improve your writing, or write an email with a prompt.For integrations, you can set up reminders to remind you to reply to an email, in case you miss it. You can also integrate Notion Calendar to easily display your availability.It's all about AI Auto LabelsNotion isn't rocking the boat with its mail app, but its selling point is the Auto Label feature, which is coupled with the sidebar's Views feature. Let's talk about the Views first.When you first click on Views, you'll be prompted to create feeds for email categories like Promotions, Calendar invites, Updates, and more. You might even be prompted to create custom Views based on your inbox. For instance, the app suggested that I make a view for all my GitHub emails, which is slightly confusing because I'm nowhere near a developer.But you can go in and create a new View at any time. Notion has some templates ready to go from the start, but the easiest way to go about it is to use a prompt and the AI Auto Label feature. Credit: Khamosh Pathak Click the Auto Label button in the top toolbar any time to create a new Label. Here, you'll see a simple text box. Enter any prompt here to create an auto label. For example, you can enter "Emails from Reddit" or "Emails from Grace" to get started. It can help to get a bit granular: The more detailed or specific that you can make it, the better off you'll be. After you enter the prompt, you'll see a toggle switch asking if you want to separate out these emails from the Inbox or not. Notion will also prompt you to "auto label similar" emails as you go about your business.Don't worry: Notion will ask you to approve any labels before applying them. If it's gotten something wrong, you can remove that email, or add in an email that the system overlooked. Credit: Khamosh Pathak After a couple of days of using AI Auto Labels, my experience has been mixed. The first thing to note is that Auto Labels don't go as far back as I would like. So you can't use it to sort out all your invoices from Amazon in the past year in one View. For that, you'd still need to use Gmail search, or another AI like Shortwave. Though, you can create a View for all incoming Amazon emails and invoices, so your future emails will at least be all set. Credit: Khamosh Pathak While Notion Mail is free, you also only get limited access to Notion AI features in the free plan, including the Auto Labels feature. Notion doesn't make it clear what the specific limits are for individuals, but I ran into them pretty quickly after doing my casual testing, where I created 5–6 Auto Labels and tested out Notion AI's writing capabilities. Business limitations are a bit clearer, as Notion says free AI tokens are limited to 500 responses for a workspace. And the more people you add in a workspace, the more Notion raises the free responses limits.As for me, my Notion AI trial ended after just 10 or so responses. And once that happens, you'll have to either wait for the next month to get more free AI credits, or pay up the $10/month for unlimited usage. When you run out of free Notion AI credits, the Auto Labels feature will stop working, and the button with have a Red icon on it, too. The same goes for AI writing features. A Notion wrapper for GmailNotion Mail can serve as a nice alternative to Gmail users who are frustrated with growing bloat, or having to dodge Gemini sidebars. For these users, the minimalist, test-heavy, keyboard-first, and Markdown supported take on Gmail should serve as a faster and simpler alternative. But when it comes to AI, it's still a developing story. AI writing tools are now pretty standard in almost every email app, so whether Notion will appeal to you depends on how much you like to label your email, and how interested you are in some AI help with that. For something more complex, try Shortwave, which offers free and paid plans and offers some more robust AI inbox integration. It's less minimal, but also far more powerful.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Two years ago, screenless fitness tracker Whoop took on a problem that none of its competitors have managed to solve: answering the question “how hard was your weightlifting workout?” Its initial implementation was clunky and finicky. I don’t think I managed to log a single workout correctly. But now, with improvements over the years, it’s become a much more useful feature. The game changer for me? Being able to connect exercises to a workout after you do the workout. This way you can’t mess up the tracking during the workout, but you still get the thing you actually care about—a Strain score accurate enough to power the app’s sleep and recovery recommendations. Read on for more about how to use the Strength Trainer, and what it can and (still) can’t do. What is Whoop’s Strength Trainer?  Credit: Beth Skwarecki The Strength Trainer is a way of tracking strength workouts, separate from the way you’d track any other workout with Whoop. It was introduced in 2023, and aims to give you a more appropriate Strain score (reflecting how hard the workout was on your body) compared to tracking it purely by heart rate. To use the Strength Trainer, you need to create (or choose) a workout in the app, telling Whoop exactly what exercises you plan to do, what weight you’re using, and how many sets and reps. You can either have the app follow along with your workout in real time, or connect a workout to an activity after the fact. Why Whoop’s Strength Trainer gives it a huge advantage over other wearables Normally, when you track a workout with Whoop, you simply start an activity, and it measures your heart rate during the activity. This makes perfect sense for cardio activities, like running. The higher your heart rate is, for longer, the higher Strain score you’ll get as a result. A high Strain activity is hard on your body, and requires more recovery. A lower Strain score is easier, maybe even restorative.This approach never worked for strength training, though—and that’s a caveat that applies to tracking strength training with any heart-rate-enabled wearable. Your heart rate graph during a weightlifting session will show lots of resting time, and only brief spikes into higher territory. Those heart rate spikes don’t tell the full story of how hard your muscles were working to lift the weight. That’s why I keep saying to ignore heart rate during weight lifting sessions. Before Whoop introduced the Strength Trainer, my weightlifting sessions would always appear in the app as light workouts, equivalent to an easy run or brisk walk—even if I’d had a killer, heavy workout. But with the feature, strength workouts now show an appropriate amount of Strain. And since Strain scores power your recovery recommendations, that’s kind of important. The Strength Trainer turned Whoop from a wearable that only made sense for endurance athletes into one that makes sense for strength athletes, as well, and everybody in between. The best way to use Whoop’s Strength Trainer is after the fact Adding the details of my strength workout brings it from a 9.2 strain (light) to 13.1 (the upper end of moderate—maybe not accurate, but definitely closer to reality). Credit: Beth Skwarecki Below, I’ll explain how you’re supposed to use the Strength Trainer during workouts. But let me skip to my conclusion: Using it during a workout sucks. Using it after a workout is a stroke of genius by the Whoop team, and gives me everything I really need from this feature. All you do is this: Tap “start activity” and select the activity type as Weightlifting, Powerlifting, Functional Fitness, or Box Fitness. Do your strength workout. End the activity and wait for Whoop to process it. Tap the activity, ignoring its insultingly low Strain score, and tap the box that invites you to connect a strength workout to calculate muscular load. Choose or create a workout that matches what you did. Wait while Whoop re-processes the workout, and enjoy your new, higher Strain score.I keep track of my workouts in a notebook while I do them, so it’s simple for me to fill in the details afterward. You could use an app if you prefer—Hevy is one of my favorites. And yes, you could follow along with the Whoop app, but that’s an experience so frustrating and error-prone that I can’t recommend it. Still, for the sake of being thorough, let’s dig in.How to use Whoop’s Strength Trainer during a workout (and why I don’t)Before you start using the Strength Trainer during a workout, you’ll need to set up a workout with the specific exercises you’d like to do. You’ll also want to fill in the reps and weights of each exercise, if possible. To start the workout, you go to the plus icon in the corner of the app’s home screen, and instead of selecting Start Workout, select Strength Trainer instead. Choose the workout you created, and hit Start Workout from that screen. The app will start a warmup timer, and you can begin your exercises by tapping Start First Set. Ironically, one of the things that makes the Whoop ideal for weightlifting—that you can wear it on a bicep band to keep your wrists free for wraps, straps, or kettlebell movements—is not kosher here. The app asks if you’ll be wearing your Whoop on your left or right wrist. Those are your only choices. (I wear it on my bicep anyway. I don’t know if this affects the results.)To do the workout, you’ll need to tap a button in the app every time you start a set and every time you finish one. This is awkward if you don’t want to have your phone with you, and double awkward if you do want to use your phone for anything during the workout. For example, if I’m videoing a set, I need to start the set, switch apps, start my camera, do the set, stop my camera, switch apps, and stop the set in the Whoop app. Miss a step, and you screw up your workout tracking. During a workout, you can: Add a set Remove the last set of an exercise (but not a specific set in the middle)Reorder exercisesRedo a set (if you started it by accident)Add an exerciseRemove an exerciseChange the weight of an exercise (including one you already did)You cannot: Log a set as having been done in the past (if you did it but forgot to hit the start button)Set a timer to alert you when a certain rest time has passedBeing able to edit the workout on the fly, or undo a set, are great additions that the Strength Trainer didn’t have when it first launched. But there is still no way to address the common problem (for me, anyway) of forgetting to start a set. When I’m filming sets, or using my phone for anything else during the workout—responding to a text, say—I can easily lose track of the Whoop app. I say, “that’s enough texting,” put down the phone, lift my weight, and then return to the phone and realize my mistake. Drives me nuts. It would help if the Strength Trainer could do a live activity on the lock screen, like it does when I go for a run. Unfortunately, live activities for strength training are only available on Android at the moment. (I use an iPhone.) Why the Strength Trainer still disappoints meI still have such mixed feelings about the Strength Trainer. On the pro side: It does give me an appropriate Strain score for my weightlifting, and adding the workout after the fact is convenient and doesn’t mess up my workout. (I wish there were a push notification so I couldn’t forget, but as long as I remember, it’s all good.) No other wearable does anything like this; they all track the effects of strength training as if it were a type of cardio. But the follow-along version is high-maintenance, like babysitting a toddler during your workout. I’m always making mistakes that there isn’t an easy way to fix. It also doesn’t want me to use my bicep band (sorry, but I can’t use a wrist device for some of my exercises). There’s also no way to enter paused exercises (like a squat where you count to three before standing up) or complexes (like clean + front squat + jerk as one rep). These limitations seem to be tied to the Strength Trainer’s origins in Whoop’s 2021 acquisition of Push, a company that tracked strength exercises through a wrist-based velocity sensor. Whoop users were excited to see velocity-based training (VBT) come to Whoop, but that never happened. In a VBT workout, a coach (or app) gauges how fast you were moving—say, how fast you could stand up from a squat—and use that data to tell you whether or not to add weight for your next set. This way, you’d get customized coaching that responds to how you’re actually performing that day. If you’re tired and everything feels heavy, you’d move slower and the app would cue you to use less weight. If you’re feeling great and even heavy weights move fast, the app would have you push yourself a little harder. But Whoop never brought that promise to Whoop users. (If they have plans, they’re still under wraps.) Instead, they seem to have used some of the underlying technology to train their own algorithms to recognize exercises. If you do a squat while using the Strength Trainer, your Whoop device will, presumably, notice when your rep starts and ends, and record how fast you did the squat. What Whoop does with this data is unclear, though. The company’s materials, like the press release from the Strength Trainer’s launch, carefully avoid using the word “velocity” anywhere. Instead, they seem to use “intensity” as a substitute, which only leads to confusion. In traditional strength training, an intense (heavy, hard on your body) rep would show up in VBT as slow movement. But a Whoop spokesperson said on Reddit that they assume you’re working harder when you move a weight fast. Unfortunately, since Whoop is so squirreley in describing its algorithms, it’s really hard to know what it’s doing, or even what you’re missing (if anything) when you log a strength workout after the fact versus following along in the moment. I emailed back and forth with the Whoop team when the Strength Trainer first came out, trying to understand what calculations it was doing and why, but they kept sending me vague statements that explained nothing. There also haven’t been any validation studies that I can find, comparing the results of the Strength Trainer to, well, anything. Whoop now says it “estimat[es] maximum volume from your workout history,” but I don’t know if that’s a change from the initial implementation or not. They also say it “calculates your personal muscular load by taking the highest intensity of each exercise from your profile.” Does that mean the heaviest (using the traditional sense of intensity) or the fastest (using intensity as a euphemism for velocity)? Again, they don’t define their terms.So, I’m disappointed on many levels. I’m disappointed that Whoop seemed to cannibalize a VBT company to provide something that doesn’t even do VBT. I’m disappointed that Whoop doesn’t tell you what the Strength Trainer is even doing in there. I’m disappointed that the Strength Trainer is so hard to use in its most full-featured version, and I’m disappointed that I don’t even know whether I’m missing out by using the more convenient Log Later function. Ironically, the part of the Strength Trainer I use most—logging later—probably never needed any heart rate or velocity tracking at all. Just enter your numbers, and let the algorithm see how much and how heavy you were lifting. Whoop didn’t need to acquire a company or build out a finicky follow-along feature for that. But here we are. If you find it convenient to follow workouts through the app, great. You are luckier than I. But even with the after-the-fact workout logging, Whoop has still managed to address the fact that strength training is harder on your body than a light cardio workout—something that other wearable companies have not figured out how to do.

Whether it’s your starter home or just the latest move up the property ladder, buying a house is a huge investment—financially and emotionally. Despite the stakes, house hunting can be a rushed, stressful experience pushed along by tight timetables, precarious financing, and unpredictable market forces. So it’s not actually surprising to learn that more than 80% of Americans experience some level of regret after buying a house.But buyer’s remorse when house hunting isn’t a given. Most of those regrets are due to a few common mistakes people make when buying a new house, and they can be prevented—or at least minimized—by following some simple advice. Here are the most common reasons for house hunting buyer’s remorse and how to protect yourself against it.High maintenanceRealizing that your new home is going to be a pit of endless—and expensive—maintenance is one of the most common reasons people experience house buyer’s remorse. A house that seemed ideal when you were walking through it on a sunny day can feel like a prison when you realize it’s difficult to keep clean and functional.There are two easy ways to avoid this regret:Inspections. Almost a quarter of home buyers waive the inspection contingency when they buy a house—but this is a bad idea, according to real estate attorney William London of Kimura London & White LLP. “Always conduct your inspections, and do not waive contingencies to have your offer be accepted,” he says. “Remorse is frequently emotional, not legal. After escrow closes, it is too costly or impossible to turn back.”Asking questions. The easiest way to avoid this kind of regret is to ask a lot of detailed questions about how frequently aspects of the house need maintenance, what the costs are, and repair histories.Another aspect of home maintenance comes with fees associated with homeowners association (HOA) fees, which are used to maintain common aspects of a property. Brandon Blakeley, co-founder at Mirador Living, notes that HOA fees are often kept artificially low due to deferred maintenance. “Florida recently passed a bill (SB 4-D), which exposed just how widespread this problem was,” he says. “Once buildings were forced to catch up on repairs, HOA fees skyrocketed and property values plummeted.” Always ask to see the fee and maintenance records for any property you’re considering that belongs to an HOA.Unknown infrastructureWhen touring a potential home, it’s easy to be distracted by the finishes, the fresh paint, and the smell of cookies in the oven. But nothing causes homebuying remorse faster than a series of expensive breakdowns right after you move in—the washing machine breaks down, the water heater leaks, and your HVAC stops blowing cool air, all within a few months.To avoid that kind of regret, it’s important to not only check maintenance schedules, but to find out how old different aspects of the home are. Ask for installation dates and warranty information for a list of the home’s infrastructure, including appliances, HVAC systems, roof systems, windows, and sump pumps. Even if they don’t need to be replaced immediately, an estimate of how much time you have before you have to start splashing out will stave off regret.Succumbing to bidding warsReal estate agents and home sellers love a good bidding war—but they lead to a lot of regret when the dust settles and you realize you overpaid for the home. There are several psychological factors that goad you into a bidding war, but defending against this kind of regret requires just one thing: a plan.“Start with a good understanding of your price constraints and adhere to them,” London says. “Even in the heat of a market.”If you have a hard line in terms of how much you’re willing to pay for a house (and thus how big a monthly mortgage payment you’re willing to take on, you’ll be a lot less susceptible to being swept up in the hysteria of a bidding war.Wrong-sizingMore house is not always better—and compromising on a smaller house than you really need (so you can squeeze into a specific area, or because the aesthetics of the house appeal to you) is an easy way to become mired in regret. One factor that complicates these decisions: time. If you plan to stay in the house for a long time, you need to consider where your life might be years from now.“The key to the house is, what items can you not live without?” says Jeff Lichtenstein, CEO of Echo Fine Properties in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. “If you have three kids, does only having three bedrooms mean you need to make a second move? In my own case, I bought a home with a two-car garage and a short driveway. Once both kids got cars, there was a lot of ‘musical cars’ that we were constantly moving around.”Lifestyle mismatchA house isn’t just a place to store your stuff and sleep. It’s an intrinsic part of your life. When it comes to specific features or the location that you want, it’s often a mistake to compromise. “I have heard of a story of a family that desperately wanted to live by the coast, but could not afford it, so they purchased a home inland and immediately regretted it,” says Heather Myers, co-owner of the Snyder Real Estate Group in San Diego.Another easy way to regret a home purchase is to overlook the neighborhood. When you’ve narrowed your house hunt down to a specific property, take the time to thoroughly check out the area to ensure it’s got the vibe, amenities, and access you need in your everyday life. “We always advise our clients to take multiple trips over to their new neighborhood at different times of the day and on weekends and weekdays,” Myers says. “We tell them to get out of their car and walk around their new block multiple times.”You also have to match your lifestyle to the house itself. If you work from home and need a quiet, specific office space to be happy, buying a house without that spare bedroom will be something you will probably come to regret. If you love throwing parties, buying a house that lacks an open floor plan and comfortable outdoor area like a patio or deck means you’ll probably wish you’d held out for a different house.The best way to deal with buyer’s remorse when house hunting is to avoid it entirely. Myers is blunt about your options if you don’t: “If buyers regret their decision, they typically have two options: They can immediately sell or they can rent out their new home and go rent somewhere else.”

If you receive nude photos via Google Messages, your Android device will soon detect and blur them with a sensitive content warning before you can view them. The feature, which is being rolled out to all users, also allows you to block numbers that send NSFW images and alerts you before you can send or forward them. When sensitive content warnings are turned on, users will be directed to a resource page (tap Learn why nude images can be harmful) and see an option to block the sender's number. You can choose to open the image you receive (tap Next > Yes, view or No, don't view) and unblur and re-blur by tapping the Preview icon. How to enable Google's sensitive content warningsSensitive content warnings are opt-in for adults, so you'll need to enable the feature in your Google Messages settings under Protection & Safety > Manage sensitive content warnings. Flip the toggle next to Warnings in Google Messages. For Android users under 18, sensitive content warnings are on by default. Those with supervised accounts cannot control or turn the feature off by themselves, though parents can do so in the Family Link app. Unsupervised teens ages 13–17 can disable the feature in their Google Account settings. According to 9to5Google, this feature is currently available only on some Android devices running the Messages beta, so it may not appear in your settings yet. Sensitive content warnings do not currently work on videos. All detection happens on-device powered by Android's SafetyCore, meaning no identifiable data or classified content is sent to Google servers.