The Nintendo Switch 2 is quite a bit different than the OG Switch: The Joy-Cons are beefier and connect via magnets; when docked, the console supports 4K 60fps output; and you can finally charge the console when playing in tabletop mode. But at the end of the day, what matters most about a new console like the Switch 2 is the games: If there's nothing new to play, what's the point?Of course, Nintendo shared a number of Switch 2 exclusives during its big Direct on Wednesday. This isn't a repeat of the Nintendo 3DS launch: There are games to play if you buy a Switch 2 on day one. But there are also a number of interesting titles coming soon and later this year. (There's even a new From Soft title coming in 2026!)Games launching the same day as Nintendo Switch 2 Whoa. Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube Nintendo Switch 2 launches on June 5. While many of the games announced today do not launch alongside the console, there are also many that doincluding Mario Kart World.True to its name, this game offers an open-world Mario Kart experience. You can drive around the world, with friends, as you travel to different races. Not that every game needs to be open-world, but this one's kind of a no brainer. It just seems like fun to drive around a giant Mario Kart map. You don't even need to drive anywhere in particular: Nintendo encourages you to drive around leisurely, taking selfies as you do. Of course, the core gameplay is still the same: Race other drivers around a track. But now, you can compete in races with up to 24 people at a time, and part of the competition is driving to the next race. There's even a new "Knockout Tour," where you race non-stop from one side of the map to the other. If you pass through a checkpoint in too low a position, you're eliminated. Plus, you can bounce off walls like Mario in a platformer, grind on rails, and play as a cow, for some reason.Here are the rest of the games that you can play on launch day:Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome TourStreet Fighter 6 Split FictionHogwarts LegacyHitman World of AssassinationBrave & Default Flying Fair (HD Remaster) Yakuza 0 Director's CutThe Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo Switch Online)Soulcalibur II (Nintendo Switch Online)F-Zero GX (Nintendo Switch Online)Deltarune 1 + 2 + 3 + 4Civilizations VII Survival KidsCyberpunk 2077 Ultimate EditionFortniteArcade Archives 2 RIDGE RACER Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma Puyo Puyo Tetris 2SNobunaga's Ambition: Awakening Complete EditionFast FusionUpcoming Nintendo titlesThere are a number of first-party games and upgrades Nintendo announced during its presentation that won't be ready for launch on June 5. Drag X Drive (Summer 2025) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube This is an entirely new game for Nintendo. Drag X Drive is wheelchair basketball that uses the new mouse controls on the Switch 2 Joy-Cons. You can push both controllers forward, as your character pushes both wheels forward on their wheelchair. You can also swing the Joy-Con to throw a basket, similar to the experience with Wii Sports.Donkey Kong Bananza (TBA) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube After a number of remasters, Donkey Kong is finally getting a new game. This was the last announcement of the Direct, and was worth the wait: Bananza looks like Donkey Kong's version of Super Mario Odyssey3D platforming in an open environment (though I'm not sure if it's "open world.") The biggest difference? You smash your way through just about anything you can see in the world. Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment (Winter 2025) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube This is the third entry in the Hyrule Warriors series, and takes place prior to the events of Tears of the Kingdom. I won't go into spoiler territory here, but you will get to play out the events of the Imprisoning War, and even get to play as Zelda.Kirby Air Riders (2025) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube It looks like we're finally getting a sequel to 2003's Kirby Air Ride. We don't have a lot of details yet, other than seeing stars, bikes, and space ships as rideable vehicles. But Kirby Air Riders is directed by Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of both Kirby and Super Smash Bros., which bodes well. Nintendo Switch 2 EditionsLike other consoles, Nintendo is now offering Switch 2 users upgraded versions of certain Switch 1 titles. These can include better visuals, faster performance, or new features that take advantage of the Switch 2's controllers. These upgrades include: Super Mario Part Jamboree + Jamboree TV (July 24, 2025)The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (TBA)The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TBA)Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star Crossed World (TBA)Metroid Prime 4 Beyond (TBA)Pokmon Legends ZA (TBA)GameCube gamesNintendo Switch Online is finally adding support for GameCube gamesbut only for Nintendo Switch 2. (Why my 2017 Nintendo Switch is incompatible with games that ran on a system from 2001 is beyond me, but I digress.) In addition to the three aforementioned GameCube titles that will be available at launch, here's what's coming down the line, none of which have release dates yet:Super Mario SunshineFire Emblem: Path of RadiancePokmon XD: Gale of DarknessSuper Mario StrikesChibi-RoboLuigi's MansionPokmon ColosseumThird-party titles Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube Nintendo ran through a number of third-party titles that are making their way to Switch 2. They include:Elden Ring Tarnished Edition (2025)Hades II (TBA)Daemon X Machina Titanic Scion (Sept. 5, 2025)Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 (Summer 2025)Project 007 (TBA)Borderlands 4 (2025)WWE 2K (TBA)NBA 2K (TBA)Enter the Gungeon 2 (TBA)Starseeker Astoneer Expeditions (2026)Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (TBA)Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the GoddessHollow Knight: Silkson (2025)Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar (Aug. 27, 2025)Goodnight Universe (2025)Silksong (2025)Two Point Museum (2025)Wild Hearts S (July 25, 2025)Witchbrook (Holiday 2025)Marvel Comic Invasion (Holiday 2025)Star Wars Outlaws (2025)Shadow Labyrinth (July 18, 2025)RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army (June 19, 2025)No Sleep For Kaname Date - From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES (July 25, 2025)REANIMAL (2025)Professor Layton and The New World of Steam (2025)Tamagotchi Plaza (June 27, 2025)Human Fall Flat 2 (TBA) The Duskbloods (2026)

There are many ways to copy text that can't be easily selected, but few that are as simple and fast as Text Lens ($6)a new Mac app by prolific developer Sindre Sorhus. Text Lens lets you select any part of your Mac's screen and automatically copy all of the text from that part. This makes it easy to copy text from images, videos, scanned pages, settings menus, and other types of text that are otherwise impossible to grab.Text Lens vs. Apple's Live TextLive Text, which is built into macOS, allows you to capture text from screenshots. While it's good enough to get you started, it works only with Safari, Preview, and the built-in screenshot tool. You can't select text from other apps without taking a screenshot first, which adds an extra step to the process. With tools such as Text Lens, you can instantly go into selection mode to capture and copy text. There's no need to take a screenshot and then extract text.Using Text Lens on your Mac Credit: Pranay Parab Text Lens is simple and fast, but you should take a moment to configure it to make the most of the app. Once you've installed the app, click its menu bar icon and go to Settings. In the General tab, enable the following options:Launch at loginClick menu bar icon to capture [you can right-click it to open the menu]Next, go to the Shortcuts tab and record keyboard shortcuts for this app. You can even use Raycast's Hyper Key to quickly create unique shortcuts. Once this is done, you're ready to use the app. Try either its keyboard shortcut or click the menu bar icon to fire up the selector. Click and drag to cover the area you want to copy text from, and release the mouse when you're done.Text Lens will show a popover to confirm if the text has been copied to your clipboard. (In case it fails to copy, the same popover will tell you that no text was detected.) Once it's successful, you can now paste the text in any app and carry on with your day. This app supports 18 languages including English, French, and Spanish. Text Lens will also allow you to copy text from saved files on your Mac: You can import images, PDFs, or other files, and Text Lens will copy everything on the page. The app can also copy text from images in your clipboard. Credit: Pranay Parab While I was quite impressed with Text Lens' accuracy with smaller bits of text, I imported a few larger batches of text to see how it works. For this, I compared it with the results from TextSniper ($11.99 for unlimited license) and Cleanshot X($29), two other Mac apps that let you copy text from images. I used one of my invoices to see how all three apps handle formatting challenges, and at the end of the quick test, TextSniper did the best job with the file.Text Lens and Cleanshot X were able to capture text from the invoice fairly well, but they both included a few typos and messed up the formatting. Both these apps listed all the items and dates first, and lumped together the prices at the end. Meanwhile, TextSniper listed each item, its date, and the price together. It also had the fewest typos.Still, for basic text copying, Text Lens does a fairly good job and is priced quite well. I hope that it gets better at copying large amounts of text in the future, but for copying a few lines here and there, it will do what you need it to do without much of a fuss.

Want to turn a video file into an MP3? Or any video into an MP4? If you have PowerToys installed on Windows, you don't need a third-party applicationa quick copy-and-paste will do the job.We've talked about Powertoys, the longstanding Windows utility that offers all kinds of customizations to the operating system. One of the many tweaks added is the Advanced Paste feature, which can convert copied text into other formats. This is triggered by using the keyboard shortcut Windows-Shift-V to paste, instead of the usual Ctrl-V. A pop-up window asks which format you'd like to paste your text asMarkdown, HTML, and JSON are all offered. You can optionally set this up to use AI, useful if you want to convert text to a format not offered. It's very useful for anyone who regularly needs to convert text from one format to another.But now it can convert more than just text. A new feature means that Advanced Paste can turn any copied audio or video file into either an MP3 or an MP4 file. To use this feature, you need at least version v0.89.0 of PowerToysopen the application and check the General tab to make sure. Credit: Justin Pot If you have the feature, all you need to do is copy a video or audio file in File Explorer, then attempt to paste it using the keyboard shortcut Windows-Shift-V. Note that if you "Copy as Path," the feature won't be offered, as you haven't copied the file itself.There are two conversion options: "Transcode to MP3" and "Transcode to MP4." The MP3 option will extract the audio of any media file, including a video, and save it as an MP3. The "Transcode to MP4" option converts the video to use the H.264 video codec and the AAC audio codec.Now, there are use cases where this won't workif you want to create an AAC audio file, for example, or convert a video to some other format. In those cases, software like Handbrake is essential. But it's nice to have a simple option built into PowerToys; give it a try next time you want to turn a video into an audio file.

Google search has steadily been getting worse, but most of its free alternatives just aren't as good at surfacing the things I'm looking for. Since Google makes money through advertising, its primary incentive is to boost revenue by showing you better ads. Of late, this has resulted in a noticeable decline in the quality of my search results. That brought me to the idea of using a paid search engine instead of Google. Enter Kagi.What is Kagi?Kagi is a paid search engine developed by the people behind the Orion browser. It lets you make 100 searches for free, but after that, you can pay between $5/month and $25/month for different tiers of its service. Thanks to search giants and AI companies, the idea of paying for web searches might seem absurd at first glance, but Kagi promises an ad-and tracker-free experience, which is tempting.Is it worth it to pay for a search engine?Kagi has lots of useful features (and no ads) that make it worth the price to me. After all, when the business model is to charge people for a service, the company is incentivized to create good products. I hope that Kagi is able to continue to do so in the long run. I've been using Kagi as my default search engine for the past few months and I've begun to really like it. Up until now, all my attempts to get away from Google search have failed, but with Kagi, I've finally found a good alternative to the search giant. Here are some of my favorite ways to use Kagi, all of which have convinced me that, sometimes, it's worth it to pay for a search engine.See AI results only when you need toI am so tired of AI being forced into everything, but Kagi's approach to AI is refreshing. The search engine has kept it opt-in, which is great to see. If you use Kagi, you won't encounter AI unless you manually trigger it. To do this, just add a question mark to your search query. This will show an AI answer above the search results.Remove AI generated images from search resultsKagi allows you to block AI generated images from your search results. This is a hard feature to implement effectively because the internet is absolutely filled with low-effort AI slop nowadays, but Kagi does an acceptable job. Just go to Kagi settings by clicking the hamburger menu icon in the top-right corner of the homepage and selecting Settings. Now, go to Search > AI and enable Exclude AI generated images. Kagi says it blocks AI images on a "best-effort" basis, which means that there's a chance that some may slip through the cracks. Kagi automatically labels AI generated images in its search results and, in addition to the settings option, provides search filters that let you show only AI images or remove them altogether. In my tests, it was able to identify about 50-60% of AI-generated images in the search results, and you can always block domains that serve up too many of these kinds of results to supplement the rest. You can read more about how Kagi implements AI image filters in its documentation. Try search filters to fine tune resultsWhen you search for something on Kagi, you'll see a list of suggested filters to help you fine tune your query right above the first result. While these buttons are displayed prominently, there's also a drop down menu right next to them with more options. These filters allow you to look for results from a different region, sort results by relevance, or by the number of trackers on the website, or recency, plus filter results by time period. Plus, there's an advanced search tab that lets you further refine results, if that's not enough.Hide clickbait from videosKagi also lets you search for videos, and it has two interesting features to reduce clickbait. First, you can replace clickbait thumbnails with screenshots from the actual video. Second, you can change titles to lower case or sentence case. This removes awful thumbnails and those annoying all caps titles from your results, making it easier to find useful videos. To enable these features, go to Kagi Settings > Search > General. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see Video Search Settings. Click the drop-down menus next to the two options here and select what you need.Create lenses to refine results Credit: Pranay Parab If you want to limit your search results to a handful of trusted sites, try using Kagi's "search lenses." Each of these lenses lets you filter out unwanted results by focusing only on some sites. By default, Kagi has a few interesting lenses such as Small Web, which limits results to smaller websites, and Forums, which searches only forums. This allows you to surface some hidden gems that you may not otherwise find. You can also create your own lens by going to Kagi Settings > General > Lenses > Create New. I've created one to search for posts on websites that I write for and assigned a bang to it (!lh). Now I just need to append !lh to any search to look for results on these websites, which helps me find my own articles much faster.Tweak results to your likingYou can raise or lower the rankings of various domains in Kagi's search results (although only for your account). This feature also lets you see specific domains less, or block them entirely. To tweak this, simply go to Kagi Settings > Search > Personalized Results > Add Domains. You're also free to view Kagi's Domain Leaderboard to see which sites its users are raising, lowering, or blocking.Learn all the keyboard shortcutsOpening Kagi's website and pressing the ? key will reveal a full list of all supported keyboard shortcuts. Learning a few of these can speed up your workflow significantly, and I highly recommend doing so. I really like using !bang operators, which allow you to perform searches faster. For instance, you can append !v to any search term to look for videos. Similarly, !i does an image search, !n does a news search, and so on. I use two other keyboard shortcuts regularly: Shift-~ (tilde) to open the Kagi Control Center, and / to quickly return to the search bar and type another query.Open links in the same tabIt annoys me when websites open links in a new tab without asking me if I want to do the same. By default, Kagi is no different in that regard, because its default setting is to open links in a new tab. However, you can go to Kagi's General Settings page (Settings > Search > General) and disable Open Links in a New Tab to change this preference.Use redirects to reduce annoyancesKagi has a useful Redirects feature that lets you replace certain URLs with preferred alternatives. You can use this to bypass Google AMP links and go directly to the source website, or to open old Reddit every time you click a Reddit link in Kagi. This feature is under Kagi Settings > Search > Advanced > Redirects. It's worth going through Kagi's Redirects support page to learn how to make the most of them.Use the Privacy Pass for anonymityIf you want a more private Kagi search experience, you can use its Privacy Pass feature. Since Kagi requires you to be logged in to use the product, you can't actually do anonymous searches on the service. To get around that limitation, you can try the Kagi Privacy Pass, which authenticates your account using a token system and keeps your searches anonymous. The install process varies by browser, and this feature isn't supported in some browsers (such as Safari).There are many more advanced features that you can try in Kagi, but these are the ones that I find the most helpful. But as a bonus before I go, I'll also mention Kagi Translate, which is a good alternative to Google Translate. It displays alternative translations below each result, and if you hover over the translation, it explains what is different about it. This lets you pick the best variant of a sentence to share with others, or makes it easier to understand the context of a quote in another language.

There has been increasing attention in recent weeks on travelers being hassled at the U.S. border with searches of their digital devicesand in some cases, denied entry as a result of what was found. Therefore, it's worth keeping in mind that there is a possibility when you arrive to the U.S. from abroad that law enforcement will pull you aside and request to search your phone, computer, and other electronics. There are, of course, some serious privacy concerns with granting them access to this data, but there's not a simple answer as to whether you should. Here's what you need to know about protecting your digital privacy when crossing the U.S. border. Can my device be searched at the border?U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has long been able to conduct electronic device searches without warrants at the U.S. border, though the rules governing these searches have evolved over time. Prior to 2018, CBP guidance allowed agents to search any device at random, even if they didn't suspect the traveler of any wrongdoing. A new policy issued in January 2018 amended that to permit "basic" or manual searchestapping through a device and opening files or apps with your device on airplane modeat any time, while requiring "advanced" forensic searches that use other devices or software to analyze data to have reasonable suspicion. (There's a broad "national security concern" loophole for advanced searches.)According to reporting from The Verge, though, this is complicated by the fact that courts across the U.S. have issued various rulings on border searches, so whether you can be subjected to a basic and advanced search may be different depending on your port of entry. But as an analysis from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes, any device search is intrusive and a privacy violation, as a manual search can still reveal everything from to-do lists and family photos to sensitive information like health records and financial data. So what can you do? If you're a U.S. citizen, you cannot be denied entry into the country even if you decline to unlock your device, though CBP may detain you temporarily or seize your device and hold it for weeks or months. Lawful permanent residents (green card holders) have the same right of entry, while visa holders and tourists may not be admitted if a search is refused. Additionally, law enforcement can require you to unlock devices with biometrics, but cannot force you to enter passwords and passcodes. What has changed? While there have been recent reports of travelers, including valid visa holders, being detained or denied entry to the U.S., EFF senior staff attorney Sophia Cope says CBP has always been an aggressive agency when it comes to device searchesso in that regard, not much has changed. "What seems to be a bit different is that particularly for non-citizens, the U.S. government seems to be a lot more aggressive in being willing to look at people's devices and actually also just deny them entry into the United States, even if they have a visa," she says. Device searches have also consistently risen year over year (with a few exceptions), so that's not new either. In fiscal year 2024, CBP conducted 47,047 border inspections of electronics4,322 of which were forensic searcheswith the majority (36,506) on devices owned by non-citizens. That's less than 0.01% of international arrivals, though a big jump from the 19,051 total device searches conducted in fiscal year 2016. How to assess your riskCope recommends that anyone anticipating a border crossing assess the risk of being searched and decide in advance whether to comply with a secondary inspection rather than try to figure it out when stressed in real time. Some risk factors have to do with you personally, and others with the technical aspects of your devices and data. Immigration status is one of the most important factors to weigh, according to Cope. For U.S. citizens, a secondary screening is an inconvenience and may cause travel delays, and declining a device search may cause you to temporarily lose access to data as well as possession of device(s) that you may need to replace. For visa holders or non-citizens, data found on your device and noncompliance with a search can be used to deny entry. For green card holders, actions at the border may be used to challenge lawful status. There are a variety of other issues you should consider when determining your risk and how to handle a search: Travel historyLaw enforcement historyTolerance for confrontationPhilosophy on privacySensitivity of data on your device (such as confidential sources or patient information)Data access needed while traveling (and whether you have a backup for any data lost if your device is seized)Internet availability while traveling for accessing cloud servicesDevice ownership (personal vs. work, for example)Steps to protect your digital privacyAt all risk levels, the simplest way to protect your privacy is to limit how much data you carry across the border. EFF advises leaving devices you don't need at home. You may consider selectively deleting sensitive or extraneous data or moving it to the cloud to re-download once you've cleared the border (or on a different device if yours is confiscated). You should also log out of apps and browsers that give access to cloud-based data and online accountsincluding social mediaand remove any stored credentials, or uninstall apps temporarily. Alternatively, you could get a separate phone or computer that contains only what you need while traveling, although this may not be realistic for some due to the cost or logistics of carrying additional devices. Further, using a blank burner phone that has no data at all may raise suspicion in a search. You should also back up your data and encrypt your device using full-disk storage encryption secured by a strong password. Turn off biometrics and lock your device with a password instead, and power your devices down before arriving at the border to block high-tech attacks. The Intercept has a helpful guide to encrypting your devices as well as other digital privacy best practices. If you do comply with a search and need to enter a password, do it yourself rather than supplying it to an agent, and be sure to change it as soon as your device is returned. Finally, while tempting, wiping your device completely may raise suspicion if you are searched, and attempting to hide data may be interpreted as lying to border agents, which can be a crime.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.The Max streaming app has always benefitted from being the home for HBO hits like Game of Thrones, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us, but the streamer has also produced some quality original programming. Hacks is a buzzy award winner, and shows like Peacemaker and The Sex Lives of College Girls have drawn eyeballs toward the former "HBO Max." More recently, The Pitt is burning up social media, and Spanish-language import When No One Sees Us is drawing critical acclaim.Given the volume of streaming content out there, and the number of shows Max has already produced, there are some great choices that might have flown under your radar. In our current streaming era, in which good shows arent just canceled but erased from existence (farewell, Raised by Wolves), it never hurts to take a moment to consider the slightly less talked-about shows that are equally worthy of your attention. (The shows found below are all Max originals, which means they were either initially produced for and/or are currently distributed exclusively by the streamer, at least in North America. Stuff that originally premiered elsewhere in the U.S., like Adult Swim's recent buzzy hit Common Side Effects, don't qualify.)The Pitt (2025, renewed for a second season) E.R.'s Noah Wyle is back in scrubs as Dr. Michael "Robby" Rabinavitch, senior attending at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospitals emergency room. Robbys mentor died during the height of COVID-19, and hes only just recovering from his traumatic experiences. It's gonna be a long day, though: Each episode represents a single hour of a tumultuous 15-hour shift, peppered by tragedies including a mass shooting. It feels like medical dramas are a dime a dozen, but this one is quite a bit more interesting, and a lot buzzier, than most. You can stream The Pitt here. Hacks (2021 , fourth season coming April 10) After getting canceled over a tweet, 25-year-old writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) struggles to get her career back in order, reluctantly taking a job for Deborah Vance (Jean Smart)a comedy trailblazer who remains popular with an older Vegas crown, but whose career is largely on autopilot. They're an entirely mismatched pair, but their chemistry is ultimately explosive, with Jean Smart doing some of the best work of her incredible career as the (often) deeply unlikeable Vance, and Einbinder more than holding her own in return. It's funny, bitchy, and surprisingly moving when it wants to be. You can stream Hacks here.When No One Sees Us (2025, first season ongoing) A distinctive police thriller imported from Spain, When No One Sees Us stars Mariela Garriga (Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning) as a Cuban-American special agent of the U.S. Army, and Maribel Verd (Pans Labyrinth) as a Spanish Civil Guard sergeant, both investigating an apparent death by extremely violent suicide on an air base during Holy Week. It's a twisty-turny mystery, but the performances and the emphasis on character over plot make it an absolute standout. You can stream When No One Sees Us here. Trixie Motel (2022 2024, two seasons) A pick-up in its second season from Discovery+, Trixie Motel poses that all-important question: how would a drag queen with disposable income run a hotel? In the first season, RuPaul alum Trixie Mattel and then-partner David Silver buy a run-down Palm Springs motel and turn it into a campy desert destination; in the second the two buy and decorate a new home. Celebrity guests stop by to help the pair drag up their accommodations. It's fluffy, flashy, and fun. You can stream Trixie Motel season one here, and Drag Me Home, the second season, here.Doom Patrol (2019 2023, four seasons) Maxs early DC show was originally ported from the now-defunct DC Universe streamer (past and future episodes are now Max-exclusive), a largely forgotten effort. Thank goodness it survived; though ended after four seasons, it was an uncharacteristically bold and freaky entry in the superhero canon. Nearly indescribably weird, the show includes characters like the non-binary Danny the Street (a literal street), paranormal investigators the Sex Men, Imaginary Jesus, and orgasm-generating body builder Flex Mentallowhile also grounded in some really excellent, frequently emotional character work from the entire cast, including Brendan Fraser, Matt Bomer, Michelle Gomez, and Timothy Dalton. Its also very queer and sex positive, making it a standout among the usually chaste and straight world of superhero cinema. You can stream Doom Patrol here.Full Circle (2023, miniseries) Creator Ed Solomon (Now You See Me) and director Steven Soderbergh navigate a big cast and a labyrinthine plot involving murder, kidnapping, corporate espionage, and magicthe title refers to a murder ritual conducted by a Guyanese crime lord (played by CCH Pounder) that involves drawing a literal circle in New York, centered on the scene of a murder. There are a few too many balls in the air at any given time, but watching the chaos unfold is addictive. Pounder is joined by Zazie Beetz, Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant, and Dennis Quaid. You can stream Full Circle here. Scavengers Reign (2023, one season) A qualified recommendation for this one, only because it was cancelled after its first season with plenty left unresolved. Nevertheless! It's a smart, impressively voice acted, and beautifully animated sci-fi epic following the stranded survivors of the crashed interstellar cargo ship Demeter 227. The web of natural life on the world on which they find themselves is unusually complex, an the rules they're used to don't seem to apply. The creators are shopping a second season around, but it seems likely we'll be left with a few questionswhich is maybe not the worst thing. You can stream Scavengers Reign here. The Flight Attendant (2020 2022, two seasons) Kaley Cuoco plays hard-living (i.e. alcoholic) flight attendant Cassie Bowden, who, in the first episode, wakes up in a Bangkok hotel room with no memory of the night before. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, given that she's sharing a bed with a dead passenger from her last flight. Afraid to call the police, she tries, on her own, to piece together the increasingly convoluted memories of that last night. Impressively twisty-turny, but also with a hallucinogenic sense of fun, it's an impressively unique show that earned several Emmy nominations, including for a great Cuoco. Despite generating plenty of buzz and seemingly good numbers, it was canceled after two seasonswhich will become something of a theme with Max. You can stream The Flight Attendant here.The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021 2025, three seasons) Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) is an endlessly nave scholarship student; Bela (Amrit Kaur), is an aspiring comedy writer on the make for the hottest guys; Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) is an overachieving athlete and senators daughter; Leighton (Rene Rapp) is a closeted sorority girl. They're randomly assigned to room together as freshmen at the fictional Essex College in Vermont, a mismatched quartet exploring young adulthood together. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, the comedy-drama isn't nearly as salacious as its title suggests: There's sex, for sure, but like Sex and the City before it, the funny and queer-friendly show is more about female friendship. You can stream The Sex Lives of College Girls here.Jellystone! (2021 2025) The Hanna-Barbera cartoon pantheon has been largely dormant in recent decades, but this is a fun revisit, with the titular town serving as home to dozens of characters from back in the day, led by Mayor Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear (now a doctor at Jellystone Hospital), Augie Doggy, Jabberjaw, Top Cat, and dozens more, with out-of-towners like The Jetsons and Space Ghost popping in now and again. The show's silly, anarchic style is definitely not a one-for-one match to the source material, but it's not a terrible thing that the show is focused on appealing to modern kids rather than their parents (or grandparents, at this point). It's fun for that older elementary age group. You can stream Jellystone! here. Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai (2023, second season ongoing) It was weird, but kinda cool, that the original Gremlins movie was marketed toward kids, given that the plot turns on moments like a Mogwai blowing up in a microwave and an anecdote about someone's dead dad mouldering in a chimney dressed like Santa Claus. That all being said, this animated prequel is legit kid-friendly, even if it doesn't shy away from the Looney Tunes-esque style of the live-action movies. It also takes the awkward Orientalism of those movies and makes it a virtue: Sam Wing (played by Hollywood legend Keye Luke in Gremlins) is, here, a 10-year-old boy who meets Gizmo and is then forced to join him on a journey through the Chinese countryside, sometimes encountering mythical creatures. The stacked voice cast includes Izaac Wang, Ming-Na Wen as Fong Wing, B. D. Wong, and the great James Hong. You can stream Secrets of the Mogwai here.The Other Two (2019 2023, three seasons) Helne Yorke and Drew Tarver stars as a couple of meandering siblings whose lives are turned upside down when their younger brother becomes a viral sensation. The show has a lot of fun dissecting modern pop culture, and, though it has a sweet side, its some of the best cringe comedy you'll find on Max. As class satires go, it never quite achieved Succession levels of obsession, but deserves a bit more love. You can stream The Other Two here. Tokyo Vice (2022 2024, two seasons) Your tolerance for Ansel Elgort may vary (given assault allegations), but he stars here alongside always-welcome Japanese actors Ken Watanabe and Rinko Kikuchi as a young journalist who becomes embedded with veteran detectives in Tokyos vice squad circa 1999. The show pays tribute to both the glitzy and wonderfully seedy aspects of the title city, while also working as an effective crime drama set in a very different context from more typical America-set shows. You can stream Tokyo Vice here. Rap Sh!t (2022 2023, two seasons) Issa Rae follows up Insecure with the story of socially conscious Miami rapper Shawna (Aida Osman), who winds up selling out, at least in her own eyes, when she teams up with her friend Mia (KaMillion), whose popular OnlyFans brings the new rap group a built-in fanbase. Meanwhile, Shawnas boyfriend Cliff (Devon Terrell) has to come to terms with the fact that Shawnas more commercial career path might put his dreams of political success in danger. Like Insecure, its deeply funny, but also has plenty to say about friendship and ambition between young Black women. You can stream Rap Sh!t here.The Big Brunch (2022, one season) Finally: a reality show for people who love brunch (some of whom, Im informed, might even be straight). Schitts Creeks Dan Levy hosts the cooking show involving ten chefs competing for the money to make all their dreams come true (to the tune of $300,000)but only if they can make the perfect brunch. The show avoids the stressful elements of a Gordon Ramsey-type competition, while being quite a bit funnier than a GBBO. Its a solid entry in the reality-cooking world with a unique style, though its one-and-done single season (at least so far) will be a pro or a con depending on how hooked you find yourself. You can stream The Big Brunch here. Its a Sin (2021, miniseries) Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk, Doctor Who) revisits the 1980s through the story of a group of friends living in London during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The miniseries brings an impressive cast to bear on a story that tracks them through the early days of queer liberation through the developing menace of a disease that no one in the broader world was willing to talk about, much less do anything about. You can stream It's a Sin here.Peacemaker (2022 , renewed for a second season) A funny and violent bright spot in the wildly convoluted onscreen world of DC Comics, Peacemaker spins out of James Gunn's snarky 2021 entry The Suicide Squad, with John Cena reprising his role. Having survived the events of that film, he's recruited once again by the United States government to join a team trying to stop mysterious butterfly creatures inhabiting human hosts. It's got the same bloody comic tone of the movie, but adds just enough dimension, and an emotional arc, to the the jingoistic superheroes' story that it's easy to root for him, even as his self-awareness remains limited. It also seems to be a bit of a bridge between the old DC movie universe and the upcoming, James Gunn-lead onethe upcoming second season will follow the events of the new Superman movie, and there's also a Viola Davis-lead Waller spin-off in the works. You can stream Peacemaker here.South Side (20192022, three seasons) Creators/writers Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle (who also have parts in the series) brought a unique style to their three-season sitcom set in Englewoodthe close-knit cast and production crew (Bashirs brother, Sultan, plays one of the leads) give the show a familial vibe. it follows two mismatched friends (Sultan Salahuddin and Kareme Young) trying to find success while running a rent-to-own store amid a widely diverse ensemble, and trying to find some kind of accord with the local PD. You can stream South Side here.Through Our Eyes (2021, miniseries) An original production from Sesame Workshop, each episode of the docuseries deals with a distinctive issue facing children, and each is directed by a different talented and acclaimed director. The four current episodes engage with kids with incarcerated parents, families displaced by climate crises, the children of veterans relying on caregivers, and those without permanent housing. The series offers a rare perspective, and takes an appropriately straightforward and honest approach without feeling the need to manipulate our emotions. Its a miniseries at the moment, although there might be more coming. You can stream Through Our Eyes here.Equal (2020, one season) The well-done docuseries pulls in some star power to tell stories around some of the most significant events in LGBTQ+ history during the 20th century. The combination of talking head-style discussions alongside scripted reenactments is particularly effective. You can stream Equal here. Julia (2022 2023, two seasons) Im increasingly drawn to stories of people who made it later in life, probably unrelated to being solidly middle-aged while having accomplished (as yet) nothing of note. Sarah Lancashire plays Julia Child magnificently, capturing much of her distinctive style and patter, and the show has a lot of fun with the production woes of early public television. Even though it has a light touch, the shows also an important reminder of the importance of a woman like Julia, a woman in her 50s who become an unlikely trailblazer as not just an on-camera personality, but also as an innovative producer. Another one that deserved more than two seasons, but still delightful. You can stream Julia here. Expecting Amy (2020, one season) Not a stand-up special (although it does interweave with the development of one), but instead, another in Maxs impressive and (fairly) diverse docuseries offerings. What might otherwise be a vanity project (a doc about comedian Amy Schumers complicated pregnancy) is buoyed by a real sense of honesty, and by discussion of her husband Chriss autism diagnosis around the same time. It probably requires a bit of an appreciation for Schumer going in, but its a fairly fascinating journey. Titans (20182023, four seasons) Theres an almost relentless edginess to an awful lot of the movies and shows based on DC superheroes, feeling at times as though theyre apologizing for the source material. Titans is right there, but with swearing, fucking, and some fairly intense violence. What it has, though, that some of the movies lack, is an addictive quality that mimics the feel of getting really into a good long-form superhero comic book storylinebut more swearsy. You can stream Titans here. Young Justice (20102022, four seasons) This is the little cartoon that could: canceled way back in 2013, picked up by the defunct DC Universe streamer for season 3, and then getting a final season as a Max original (those first three seasons are also on Max). Theres a reason it has hung in there, even without the name recognition of some of DCs other stuff: Its an impressively animated series that draws from any number of comics sources while scrupulously developing its characters. Unlike a lot of cartoons (or comics), its also allowed its characters to grow up over the years and introduced new generations of heroes along the way. You can stream Young Justice here.Heavens Gate: The Cult of Cults (2020, one season) Its not always an easy watch (the ending episode, not surprisingly, is downright harrowing), but its not a terrible time to revisit the story of the Heavens Gate UFO-worshipping cult and its leader, Marshall Applewhite. The group had come to believe strongly in ideas that are fundamentally goofy, with deeply tragic consequences. Which is all sounding a little familiar lately. The doc makes use of never-before-released footage. You can stream The Cult of Cults here.Station Eleven (2021, miniseries) The miniseries, based on the Emily St. John Mandel novel, was released at either the best time or the worst possible time, the story of a flu pandemic landed on the former HBO Max right in the middle of the first phase of COVID. The show follows Kirsten Raymonde, a young stage actor whose performance in a production of King Lear is cut short by the onset of a virus with a 99% fatality rate. We meet Kirsten at the outset of the pandemic, and then visit her 20 years on, still an actor, in a world very much changed. Its a slow burn, but ultimately, the series makes a moving case for the power of art, even (or especially) in moments when survival is on the line. You can stream Station Eleven here.Harley Quinn (2019 , renewed for a sixth season) Kaley Cuoco voices Harley in this very adult cartoon series starring the anti-hero who made her debut in Bruce Timm and Paul Dinis Batman: The Animated Series way back in the day. Dont expect traditional superheroicsits very much a zany comedy, but its often funny and delivers some solid queer representation. A Kite Man spin-off is in the works. You can stream Harley Quinn here. The Staircase (2022, miniseries) Going beyond the standard true crime tropes, The Staircase stars Colin Firth as Michael Peterson, the real-life novelist convicted of murder after his wife, Kathleen, was found dead at the bottom of the titles staircase. Uniquely, the miniseries deals not primarily with the events surrounding the death, but instead the aftermath, and the filming of a French documentary during Petersons legal battle. The result is a smart look at the medias impact on crime and punishment in our true-crime obsessed world. You can stream The Staircase here.Love & Death (2023, miniseries) The story of 1970s housewife Candy Montgomery has been told several times before, most memorably via a 1990 TV movie and a Hulu series from just last year. Here, Elizabeth Olsen gives a stellar performance as the woman who kills her lovers wife, maybe in self-defense? It hits plenty of the expected true crime notes, but Olsens performance is top-tier, humanizing the lead character. You can stream Love & Death here.Search Party (20162022, five seasons) This very dark comedy became an HBO Max/Max original following its cancellation by TBSbut it still counts, kicking off with a Veronica Mars vibe involving Alia Shawkats Dory and her hunt for a missing college friend. The largely narcissistic characters are hunting for meaning and attention as much as for the missing friend, while the show grows weirder, funnier, and more interesting with each season, becoming a convincing chronicle of the absurdities of modern millennial existence. You can stream Search Party here. Our Flag Means Death (2022 2023), two seasons I think everyone probably knows about this one alreadyat least those of you who are extremely onlinebut the swashbuckling pirate comedy isnt only wonderfully goofy and funny, it also features, unexpectedly, one of the most believable and compelling gay romances of the last several years, so I just wanted to give it a little extra love. Max cut it short after a mere two seasons which, boo! But that doesn't mean it's not worth diving in. You can stream Our Flag Means Death here.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.Amazon's Big Spring Sale might technically be over, but there are still plenty of good tech deals to be found for cheap. Across Amazonplus Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and moregadgets from laptops to TVs are still seeing deep discounts, regardless of any official deals windows. Shopping these sales can be a bit difficult unless you know how to track an items price history, but fortunately, Ive already done all of the work for you. Prices are accurate as of the time of writing, but you can expect them to fluctuate and for inventory to sell out, so you may not want to hesitate if you see a sale that grabs you. The best deals on laptops Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch with M4 Chip $1,439.00 at Amazon $1,599.00 Save $160.00 Get Deal Get Deal $1,439.00 at Amazon $1,599.00 Save $160.00 Sales events are a great time to buy laptops, as they're one of the most frequent items to go on sale during these periods. Here are some of my favorite picks for the best laptop deals available now.Apple MacBook Pro with M4 Chip: $1,439 at Amazon (was $1,599). For a more powerful Apple computer, the MacBook Pro is the obvious choice. As time of writing, sales are present across all chip options (the M4 has multiple upgrades available), as well as across multiple RAM and storage loadouts, but you will need to stick to a 14-inch screen.Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360: $1,499 at Amazon (was $1,699). A Windows-based alternative to the MacBook Air, although with power potentially rivaling the Pro at points, this lightweight laptop is a touch more expensive, but comes with a higher resolution OLED screen with a higher refresh rate, plus the ability to convert into a tablet.Microsoft Surface Laptop: $672 at Amazon (was $1,400). A cheaper alternative to the MacBook Air, the Microsoft Surface Laptop offers a familiar form factor and, thanks to its Qualcomm chip, higher battery life and greater AI compatibility, although at the cost of some performance.Lenovo IdeaPad 1i: $420 at Best Buy (was $600). This is a more basic, "get the job done" kind of laptop, but with a respectable mid-range chip, surprisingly generous storage for the price, and a touchscreen, there's quite a bit of value to be had here.HP Victus 16 Gaming Laptop: $900 at Best Buy (was $1,500). The HP Victus 16 is a tremendous deal below $1,000, getting you a respectable chip, 16GB of RAM, and enough storage to get by, but also the RTX 4070 GPU, which is typically reserved for much more expensive machines.The best deals on tablets Apple 11-Inch iPad Pro with M4 Chip $909.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $90.00 Get Deal Get Deal $909.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $90.00 Good tablets are a bit rarer to find deals on during sales events, since iPads so overwhelmingly dominate the space, and Apple can be a little more stringent with supply. Still, there are good opportunities to be found if you're willing to look.Apple 11-Inch iPad Pro with M4 Chip: $909 at Amazon (was $999). Apple's first iPad with an OLED screen, the M4 Pro is now available for less than four figures, with deals available for all storage configurations.Google Pixel Tablet: $279 at Amazon (was $399). A more affordable tablet, this device uses the same Tensor G2 chipset as the Pixel 7 line, has 8GB of RAM, and features a 2,560 x 1,600 display. That means it's on the humbler side, but as a positive, it can also double as a smart display.The best deals on phones Google Pixel 9 (Unlocked) $629.99 at Amazon $799.00 Save $169.01 Get Deal Get Deal $629.99 at Amazon $799.00 Save $169.01 Similar to tablets, the current phone deals are a bit held back by Apple, as iPhone sales tend to be a bit hit-or-miss, often relying on third-party sellers with refurbished devices. However, if you're on Android, you have a wealth of options.Google Pixel 9 (Unlocked): $640 at Amazon (was $799). Google's latest non-pro phone has the Tensor G4 chip, a lot of exclusive Gemini-powered goodies, and a 6.3-inch OLED "Actua" display.Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 (Unlocked): $1,068 at Amazon (was $1,220). Flip phones are still an expensive proposition, but the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is a bit more affordable with the sale. This phone has many of the same specs as the S25, albeit with the camera's performance being traded out a bit in favor of the foldable screen.The best deals on TVs Amazon Fire TV 55" $1,485.00 at Amazon $2,296.99 Save $811.99 Get Deal Get Deal $1,485.00 at Amazon $2,296.99 Save $811.99 Like laptops, TVs almost always go on sale at every opportunity, and waiting until these discounts drop is a great way to get a display that punches above its weight class.LG 77-inch B3 OLED TV: $1,487 at Amazon (was $2,297). OLED is still my favorite display tech out there, and if I can get on my soapbox for a moment, it's the only one that really compares to CRTs. LG makes some of the best OLED TVs around, and this big-screen model has a 4K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. There are four HDMI 2.1 inputs.Samsung 50-inch QN90D QLED TV: $998 at Amazon (was $1,398). QLED takes a different approach than OLED, sacrificing pixel-perfect pure blacks in favor of higher brightness and more affordability. Samsung's Neo QLED tech combines this with Mini-LEDs to help claw some of that contrast back, and is a great choice at this price point, especially with its built-in 4K upscaling and Dolby Atmos support.TCL 55-inch Class Q6-Series 4K Smart Google TV: $300 at Best Buy (was $320). If you're not big on Amazon's or Roku's operating systems, then a TCL TV is a good bet. This model comes in up to 98 inches, has a 4K QLED panel, supports Dolby Vision, and has a 60Hz native refresh rate.The best deals on headphones and earbuds Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones $249.99 at Amazon $399.99 Save $150.00 Get Deal Get Deal $249.99 at Amazon $399.99 Save $150.00 Headphones and earbuds are one of those things that it's easy to forget about in an upgrade cycle. If you can hear your content, that's good enough for most people, right? But discounts present an easy excuse to improve your gear and get access to features you didn't even know you were missing.Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones: $220 at Amazon (was $400). These are Sony's flagship over-ear headphones, complete with noise canceling, a promised 30-hour battery life, and Alexa voice control alongside capacitive touch control.Apple AirPods Max Headphones: $500 at Amazon (was 549). Apple's AirPods Max are a great choice for anyone in the Apple Ecosystem, especially with the USB-C version's recent adoption of lossless audio.Bose QuietComfort Headphones: $249 at Amazon (was $349). Bose's QuietComfort headphones are a little cheaper that Sony and Apple's most recent flagships, but still promise strong noise canceling performance as well as battery life that will last you over a day.Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Gen Earbuds: $199 at Amazon (was $250). Apple's 2nd Gen AirPods Pro added a few new software tricks that make them a great upgrade, including conversation awareness and even the ability to use them as hearing aids.The best deals on smartwatches Apple Watch Series 10 $329.00 at Amazon $399.00 Save $70.00 Get Deal Get Deal $329.00 at Amazon $399.00 Save $70.00 Smartwatches are one of those smartphone value adds that seem easy to ignore, until you have one. Then it's hard to go back. If you're either a fitness enthusiast, or you just want to make tap-to-pay and music controls a little simpler, here are a few good ways to get started.Apple Watch Series 10: $329 at Amazon (was $399). Apple's current standard smartwatch, the Series 10, is on sale across both its 42mm and 46mm sizes. It comes with a sport loop and features a thinner design and bigger display than the previous model.Apple Watch SE Gen 2: $199 at Amazon (was $249). If all you need from a smartwatch is the absolute basics, the Apple Watch SE is a budget option that can still do tap-to-pay and track your fitness. It's currently on sale in both its 40mm and 44mm sizes, and comes with a sport band.Pixel Watch 3: $290 at Amazon (was $350). Google's own smartwatch, the Pixel Watch 3, offers a more rounded design than the Apple Watch and includes some extra smarts straight from Fitbit. It's on sale in both 41mm and 45mm sizes and comes with an elastic band.Samsung Galaxy Watch 7: $240 at Best Buy (was $300). A slightly cheaper Android option, the Galaxy Watch 7 still has full WearOS compatibility and measures over a dozen different fitness statistics. It's on sale in both 40mm and 44mm sizes and comes with an elastic band.Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra: $420 at Best Buy (was $650). One of the few premium smartwatches on sale right now, this Galaxy Watch upgrade comes with a titanium design, an extra button, and improved waterproofing. It only comes in 47mm and includes an elastic band.The best deals on desktop PCs Apple M4 iMac $549.00 at Amazon $599.00 Save $50.00 Get Deal Get Deal $549.00 at Amazon $599.00 Save $50.00 Not everyone needs their computers to come with a screen and keyboard attached. If you do all your computing at a desk, here are a few great stationary computers that will give you all the power you need.M4 Mac Mini: $549 at Amazon (was $599). Apple's Mac Mini got a much-needed refresh in 2024, with a new design and Apple's latest chip. This model comes with the M4 chip, 16GB of memory, and 256GB of storage.M4 iMac: $1,018 at Amazon (was $1,299). If you need your desktops to have a screen built-in, iMacs are always a good bet. This model, also revamped in 2024, comes with the M4 chip, 16GB of memory, 256GB of storage, and a 24-inch display.Minisforum DeskMini UM870 Slim: $480 at Amazon (was $580). Apple isn't the only company in on the Mini PC game. Over in Windows land, Minisforum has made a name for itself with small computers, and this one has a capable Ryzen 7 8745H chip, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Dell Inspiron 3030: $650 at Dell (was $900). When it comes to office computers with more traditional form factors, Dell is a classic standby. This Inspiron deal will net you a respectable Intel Core i7-14700 chip, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage.MSI Codex R2 Gaming Desktop: $839 at Newegg (was $899). As for gaming, this deal is a good starting point, with an Intel Core i5-13400F chip, an RTX 4060 graphics card, 16GB of memory, 1TB of storage, and a couple of RGB-equipped fans thrown in for good measure.Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop: $4,650 at Dell (was $5,050). On the ultra-premium end of the spectrum, you can save a bit on one of the most powerful desktops out right now, even if you'll still end up paying a hefty sum in the end. This Alienware Area-51 gaming desktop boasts an Intel Core Ultra 9 chip, a very recent Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, 64GB of memory, and 4TB of storage. Wow.The best sales on video game tech Xbox Core Wireless Gaming Controller $44.99 at Walmart $59.99 Save $15.00 Get Deal Get Deal $44.99 at Walmart $59.99 Save $15.00 The best video game sales tend to be more often relegated to summer and fall, but there are still a few sales to be found right now, especially on hardware and accessories.Xbox Series X 1TB Digital Edition: $435 at Amazon (was $450). It's a slight discount, but if you're willing to live without a disc drive, you can find some small savings on Microsoft's most powerful Xbox.PlayStation 5 Slim Digital Edition Astro Bot Bundle: $400 at Amazon (was $460). This PS5 deal snags you a console without a disc drive plus the critically acclaimed Astro Bot game, all for less than buying a PS5 usually costs on its own.PlayStation 5 Slim Disc Edition Astro Bot Bundle: $449 at Amazon (was $510). If you prefer to get your games physically, or you watch a lot of Blu-Ray movies, this Astro Bot PS5 bundle as another great way to save on both items.PlayStation VR2 Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle: $399 at Amazon (was $469). This deal comes with a PSVR2 headset and controllers alongside the Horizon Call of the Mountain game, giving you everything you need to get started with console VR. Plus, the PSVR2 now works with PC using an adapter.Amazon Fire TV 4K Max with Xbox Core Wireless Controller and 1 Month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $105 at Amazon (was $145). This bundle will snag you Amazon's best streaming stick plus an Xbox controller and one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, turning it into a full-on cloud gaming console.Xbox Core Wireless Gaming Controller: $45 at Amazon (was $60). Almost no video game accessory is as versatile as the basic Xbox controller, which can work across a slew of devices and has a standard layout that most games recognize immediately.Shopping for tech? Lifehacker can help you make the right decision. Browse our tech reviews and head-to-head comparisons for everything from laptops and smartwatches to e-bikes and home gyms. Subscribe to our deals newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox, or browse our best-of lists directly on Amazon, including:The Best Over-Ear HeadphonesThe Best Wireless EarbudsThe Best Adjustable Dumbbell SetsThe Best Projectors

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If youre someone who reads every night before bed and doesnt mind a few scuffs, this refurbished 2019 Kindle Oasis deal might be worth a look. Its going for $129.99 on Woot (for the next 30 days or until it sells out), which is a steal for the 32GB modelespecially considering a refurbished 8GB model is going for $119.99 on Amazon (and brand-new ones usually push past $250). Just a heads-up, since this is a scratch and dent unit, it's not going to look fresh out of the box (expect light scuffs and small dings). That said, it's been tested and certified to work fine, and Woot throws in a 90-day Amazon warranty just in case. Additionally, this version is ad-supported, meaning youll see sponsored content on the lockscreen, but it wont get in the way while youre reading. Shippings free if youve got Prime, otherwise its $6, and it only ships within the lower 48 states. Kindle Oasis Waterproof eReader 10th Generation, 2019 Model $129.99 at Woot $250.00 Save $120.01 Get Deal Get Deal $129.99 at Woot $250.00 Save $120.01 What youre getting, functionally, is still solid. The 7-inch, 300ppi display is crisp, sharp, and front-lit with 25 LEDs. It has an adjustable warm light setting, which makes late-night reading easier on the eyes. Unlike the cheaper Kindles, the Oasis still has those physical page-turn buttons on the side, which makes it easy to flip pages when you're holding it one-handed. This model is also IPX8 waterproof rated, so you can dunk it in the tub or spill coffee on it without panicking. For what its worth, the screen is sharp and evenly litPCMag called it the most luxurious Kindle, and they werent wrongbut this model doesnt support USB-C, so youre stuck with micro-USB. That might be a dealbreaker if youve fully phased out the old cables in your house. And it doesnt have wireless charging either, if thats a priority.

Web browsers collect a lot of data and share it with the sites we visit, so if you're concerned about your privacy, it's worth wondering which browsers are best for keeping our online habits to ourselves. Whether you're an activist concerned about surveillance, someone doing research in a country where your topic can get you in trouble, or simply a person who doesn't want spying eyes on their search history, using a more private browser can be one of the simplest steps you can take towards less worry. I spoke to William Budington, a Senior Staff Technologist on The Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Public Interest Team, and Janet Vertesi, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Princeton University who publishes extensive work on human-computer interaction and online privacy. They had subtly different opinions on which browsers are best for your privacy, but they definitively agreed on one thing: It's not Chrome."There is no perfect choice here in the array of browsers that protect your privacy, but certainly Chrome is not one of them," Budington says.Vertesi agrees: "If you're on Chrome, you have to get off Chrome."It shouldn't be surprising that the most private browser is not the one made by a company that generates the majority of its revenue by collecting data. But which browsers are more private?Tor is the ultimate private browser, but it comes with trade-offs Credit: Justin Pot Tor is built with privacy in mind. The browser disables all cookies, masks fingerprinting, and routes all traffic through at least three different nodes. That level of privacy is unparalleled, but it comes at a price: a lot of websites simply don't work."Because it's aimed to be ephemeral, not leaving traces, and turning off cookies by default, it's going to be the gold standard when it comes to privacy and anonymity," Budington says, "but there's a tradeoff in usability." The problem, according to Budington, is that Tor's privacy means it's a common tool for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which in turn means many services block it."Tor is probably the safest in that it's totally untraceable, but it's not usable for everything," Vertesi says. "You can't use Tor exclusively."Both experts recommended using Tor for those moments when you really want to make sure no one is watching."If you're someone who wants to look up a medical condition, use Tor because it won't leak your browsing," Budington adds. "You might want to use Tor browser in those specific situations, but there are browsers that do a pretty good job at protecting your privacy but will be much more usable."Brave is a good option for private browsing but also comes with caveats Credit: Justin Pot Brave is a Chromium-based browser made for privacy. It offers built-in ad and tracking blocking, fingerprint randomizing, and various other privacy features. Both experts acknowledged the various controversies about the company but still feel it's a solid out-of-the-box option for private browsing."It's clear that they are taking reasonable and good steps in order to protect users' privacy," according to Budington. He particularly emphasized the length Brave goes in order to randomize your browser's fingerprint, which can protect against canvas fingerprinting in which sites render an unnecessary vector image to detect subtle differences in hardware configuration. The other browsers on this list don't do that, which might be worth keeping in mind.Brave is also built on the Chromium code base, meaning sites that break on Firefox and Tor generally open without problems. "Brave is an option if you need a Chrome compliant thing around," according to Vertesi.Firefox is still great with the right extensions Credit: Justin Pot You already know about Firefoxonce among the most popular browsers on the planetand it's still a solid option for security conscious users if you don't mind a bit of setting up."With the right add-ons installed, Firefox can be just as private as Brave," Budington says, recommending EFF's own Privacy Badger alongside the ad-blocker uBlock Origin. "There's no reason not to use these in combination," he adds, mentioning there are also add-ons for randomizing fingerprinting.And there's more to discover if you dig around. "The thing I like about Firefox is you can really lock it down in the settings," Vertesi says. She emphasized the fact that Firefox is built by a nonprofit instead of a commercial entity. "Their job is not to satisfy investors," she notes. "That's important, because it means that you're not the product." Both experts acknowledged that, like Brave, Firefox has its share of recent controversies that are worth keeping in mind, but they still recommend the browser.Why you should use different browsers for different usesVertesi emphasized that a core part of her privacy strategy is to use multiple browsers. "Don't just choose one best browser, use many," she said. "It's a way of cordoning off different parts of your life, so your browser doesn't know about other accounts." Vertesi, for example, generally has a single browser for occasionally browsing Facebook products and nothing elsethat way Facebook can't track her other browsing. She said there are many good options out there including Opera, Vivaldi, DuckDuckGo Browser, and even Apple's Safari, which has a few privacy-specific features. Budington mentioned that because Apple devices are all so close in terms of hardware configuration, Safari has incidental fingerprint protection.Ultimately, privacy isn't something we can get by installing a particular browserit's more of a mindset, and it includes strategies that come with compromises to our convenience. Tor, Brave, and Firefox all strike a different balance in privacy and usabilityalong with smaller options like Opera, Vivaldi, and DuckDuckGo Browser. The right one will depend on how you're balancing those factors at any given time.But, again, if you care about your privacy, a good place to start is simply not using Chrome. "If you have an amazing VPN but you're doing everything in Chrome...why bother?" Vertesi says.

When you use the internet on your laptop, tablet, or phone, your browser stores information about the sites you visit and how you engage with them to improve loading speed and personalize your browsing. Caching is one of these processes. Here's how it works and why you should consider clearing it regularly. What exactly is a browser cache?Your browser cache is a temporary storage area for elements of websites you visit, like images, fonts, and code. When you first visit a website, your browser downloads and stores that data locally to load the next time you navigate back to that site. When you come back, your browser first checks the cache for an existing page version, but if the website has been updated since your last visit, it will download and cache whatever new information it discovers as missing or outdated. Websites can also set expiration dates for cached files, forcing your browser to download the latest version and update the cache. The primary benefit of caching is faster loading, as your browser won't have to wait for page data to be found and re-downloaded each time you open it. Caching differs from cookies, which are small bits of information created by sites you visit that your browser saves to personalize your experience, such as your logins, site preferences, or shopping cart items. The cache is also different from your browser history, which is simply a record of all the sites you've visited and when you visited them. All of this data is stored locally on your device, though. Why you should clear your browser cache (and when to do it)Caching enhances your overall browsing experience, as you don't have to wait for every page element to be retrieved and downloaded each time you open a site you visit often. That said, occasionally clearing your cache can be useful for fixing loading or formatting errors that occur when old files remain stored. Of course, browsing speed may slow down temporarily, though, as your cache has to save new information for each site. Browser caching also comes with a handful of privacy and security considerations. Hackers can use cached data to spread malware or direct users to fake websitesattacks known as cache poisoning and DNS spoofing. Your cache can also expose your browsing information to anyone accessing your device, whether a household member or someone who steals or confiscates your computer or phone. Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recommends that users concerned about keeping their browsing data private should use device encryption so anyone with physical access to their device can't get in. You can also clear cache if you've been browsing sensitive material or utilize Incognito Mode, which prevents your browser from saving information (including cookies and history) in the first place, at least on your device. "Deleting browsing data only affects what's on your device," Hoffman-Andrews says. "Your ISP or government may be keeping records of what sites you visit. The sites themselves may be keeping records of which specific pages you visited."Most browsers let you clear cache, cookies, and browser history altogether. Still, if you want a more private browser that protects against snoops tracking your data and internet history, your best place to start is by reevaluating what browser you use.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Garmin announced a new fitness watch today, the Vivoactive 6. Its predecessor, the Vivoactive 5, is my pick for the best smartwatch to replace a Fitbit (beating out the Pixel Watch 3), and, if you ask me, it's the most underrated device in the Garmin lineup. The Vivoactive 6 is poised to be even better, adding a few new features, including a "smart wake" alarm and on-watch coaching for walking and strength training.The Vivoactive 6 will be available for preorder on April 4, with a suggested retail price of $299.99, the same initial price as the Vivoactive 5. (If youre looking to save money by going with the older model, the Vivoactive 5 is currently on sale for around $219an excellent deal on what is still a great fitness watch.)What kind of watch is the Vivoactive 6?The Vivoactive 6, like the 5 before it, is best described as a fitness watch. Its not as sport-specific as something like a Forerunner, which is made specifically for runners, or an Instinct, which is made for people who are out hiking in the woods all the time.The Vivoactive 6 is more of a modern, everyday watch, with an AMOLED (smartphone-like) touchscreen and a lightweight plastic body that strikes a middle ground between sporty and fashionable. It measures 42 millimeters diagonally, which is on the smaller side for smartwatches. Its roughly the same size as the Venu 3S and the Forerunner 265S, which are the smaller versions of their respective lines. In addition to the touchscreen, the Vivoactive 6 still has two buttons, so youre not dependent on the touchscreen during activities. (This is a major plus for any fitness or sports watch.) Its definitely more fitness-focused than a true smartwatch (like an Apple Watch), with its built-in fitness features available just a swipe or button press away from the home screen.Whats new on the Vivoactive 6?The size, shape, and general specs of the Vivoactive 6 are very similar to the Vivoactive 5. Colors have been slightly updated: there are still black and white models, but lavender and navy are out and peach and olive green are in. The new Vivoactive 6 has 8 GB of storage, double what the Vivoactive 5 had. It also has a gyroscope, the better to detect movement. Beyond those changes, there are a few really excellent features that are entirely new to the Vivoactive 6. Heres a tour.Smart wake alarmInstead of just setting a time youd like to wake up, the new smart wake alarm feature will let you set a window of time, and the watch will look for lighter sleep stages during that window to wake you with a vibration. (The manual for the Vivoactive 6 is not online yet, but thats how it was described in a press release.)Daily suggested workouts for walkingGarmins running watches have long offered daily suggested workouts (DSW, we Garmin-heads call them) for running and cycling. The Vivoactive 5 didnt have any DSW, and the Vivoactive 6 still doesnt have them for running or cyclingbut it does have DSW for walking.Coached running and strength programsThe Vivoactive 6, unlike the 5, gives you access to Garmin Run Coach and Garmin Strength Coach. The running coach is similar to the DSW for running, but theyre viewable on your phone. (I have thoughts on Garmins run coaching.) From my experience with the Forerunner watches, you cannot use both a run coach and a strength coach at the same time.The Vivoactive 5 only had run coaching through the expert plans (where you choose Coach Amy, Coach Greg, or Coach Jeff). The Vivoactive 6 still has those too.Improved navigationThe Vivoactive 6 can navigate with Beidou and QZSS networks, in addition to the usual GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO.Red shift modeIf you need to use your watch in low-light environments, you can shift the display to a dim red-on-black mode to give your eyes a rest.More activity modesThe new activity modes include (this is not a full list) mobility, track run, trail run, obstacle running, horseback riding, golf, mountaineering, disc golf, archery, gravel biking, cyclocross, kayaking, surfing, snorkeling, motorcycling, ATVing, snowmobiling, ice skating, and inline skating.

When it comes to chickpeas and aquafaba, the liquid and the legume are two very different residents of the same can. Just because you used garbanzo beans in your salad doesnt mean that youre craving these fluffy pancakes on the same daybut you might on Saturday. In the event that you have leftover aquafabaor really, any time youre eating chickpeas and find yourself about to drain out the liquidstop your hand. It freezes incredibly well.How to use aquafaba Aquafaba has gained a lot of traction since it was discovered in 2014 as being a surprisingly effective replacement for making a fluffy and silky meringue (read more about the history here). However, it has more applications than being a pavlova party trick. Its an excellent vegan ingredient that can thicken soupsor replace eggs as a binder or aerating ingredient for baking. Use it as-is in muffins, whip it for fluffy pancakes, or try these other ways.Im not vegan, and I use eggs in most of my baking, but I do often use aquafaba to thicken soups and sauces. It has some similar components to eggs, like albumins and globulins, and its starches give soup stocks added viscosity. It took some practice for me to stop draining my chickpeas, but Ive built up a habit of freezing the leftover aquafaba. Whenever my soup could use a little somethin, now I can easily turn to my freezer. Should you store aquafaba in the fridge or freezer?It's tempting to pop leftovers into the fridge. But if you're like me, containers get pushed to the back and then you discover it three months later and realize you probably should have frozen said item. You can store aquafaba in the fridge, but only for up to five days. After that, the liquid can get a little funky and it's not worth trying to use it. Aquafaba is easy to thaw so the best storage method is almost always going to be freezing it. How to freeze aquafabaAmericas Test Kitchen suggests freezing the stuff in ice cube trays, but I usually only freeze one cans worth at a time, and slightly less than half a cup is not enough to command a whole tray. Instead, I freeze the aquafaba in a small plastic container (approximately a 4-ounce square), and then I tap out the brick into a freezer bag for long-term storage. A quarter cup brick is a great size for adding to soups and sauces. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann Sometimes Ill have two or three cubes in there at a time, ready for my next soup or sauce. If you decide to divide it up into an ice cube tray, be sure to whisk or lightly shake the chickpea liquid before pouring. Aquafaba is not naturally homogenous, so this helps to evenly distribute those albumins and globulin particles before freezing.Aquafaba keeps in the freezer for up to four months. If youre worried about the aquafaba not performing as well after its had some time in the ice chest, put your fears to rest. Freezing does not destroy or impair the starches that are responsible for its excellent whipping abilities, and according to Americas Test Kitchen, the frozen and thawed version works just as well as before. How to thaw aquafabaThaw aquafaba by putting the cubes in a bowl, covered, in the fridge overnight. If you need the viscous liquid sooner, simply microwave it for a minute or two, depending on how large the cube is. If youre using it in a soup or sauce, just throw a frozen slab directly in the pot with everything else.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.The Bose Smart Soundbar wasn't very well received by reviewers when it came out last fall, citing small improvements for a larger price tag. But now with a $100 discount, we can have a serious conversation about who it's good for. You can get the Bose Smart Soundbar for $399 (originally $499), the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. Bose Smart Soundbar Channels: 3.0.2, Physical Connections: HDMI, optical, IR, subwoofer, USB. $399.00 at Amazon $499.00 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $399.00 at Amazon $499.00 Save $100.00 The Bose Smart Soundbar is the successor to the Bose Smart Soundbar 600, which was already a very good soundbar, so needless to say, standards were high. Bose essentially made a new soundbar with more modern features, but didn't upgrade the hardware, bringing into question the steep price increase, according to PCMag's and many other reviews. If you already have a 600, it's not worth upgrading even with the discount. However, if you're looking for a modern premium soundbar that has enough bass to not need a subwoofer, then consider the new Bose Smart Soundbar.Like most premium speakers, the soundbar doesn't need a subwoofer, because it creates its own bass, but the output will never match that of a dedicated subwoofer. This works well for bedrooms or small apartments. But keep in mind you can always add a subwoofer and/or rear speakers. Speaking of which, if you own Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, you can connect them to the soundbar to work as rear satellite speakers, creating a pseudo-surround-sound system (only for you, though). As the name implies, this is a "smart" soundbar, with wifi, meaning as long as you're in the same wifi network, you can stream your media to it with AirPlay or Chromecast. They also work as a smart speaker since it comes with built-in Alexa. The instrument separation is what makes this soundbar shine, which goes hand-in-hand with the AI Dialogue Mode feature for dialogue enhancement. But, if you can afford to spend a bit more, the Sonos Beam Gen 2 is the best stand-alone soundbar you can buy.

Apple just released iOS 18.4 and macOS 15.4 for the iPhone and Mac, respectively. Once you complete the update, you'll see a prompt informing you that, as part of the update, the company has enabled automatic updates on your device, even if you had previously switched them off. This means that, unless you do something, Apple will start downloading and installing future software updates to your devices on its own.To test this out, I disabled automatic updates on my iPhone and on my Mac, and then began updating to iOS 18.4 and macOS 15.4. Sure enough, once the updates were complete, Apple duly informed me that it had gone ahead and enabled automatic updates on my devices. Now, I generally don't mind having the OS download updates automatically in the background while I go about my day, but enabling automatic installation without explicit consent is the kind of overreach that I absolutely don't want to see.On macOS, once an update is downloaded, you'll see a notification that says the Mac will restart within 60 seconds to complete the update. If you're away from your computer for a bit and miss this, you risk losing unsaved data. On my main work machine, I cannot have that happen. To Apple's credit, you can select Only Download Automatically on the update notification to stop automatic installation (the update's data will download to your machine but won't install), but the button can be a bit hard to notice, and you need to go into your settings to disable getting any future updates altogether.How to disable automatic updates (if you absolutely don't want it)I generally don't recommend disabling automatic downloads for new operating system software, since these updates can also close vulnerabilities, but it's the only option for people who wish to retain total control over their update schedule. This may be useful for those who rely on these devices for critical work, such as app developers, designers, or anyone who doesn't have enough free space on their phone or laptop.To disable automatic updates on your iPhone and Mac, go to Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates. On your iPhone, disable all three checkboxes on this page (or pick and choose for a more granular experience). On macOS, disable Download new updates when available and Install macOS updates (or, again, pick and choose).

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.Amazon's Big Spring Sale is over, but a few deals still very much alive.Below, you'll find the tech items I've found that received the steepest discounts during the sale, and even though it ended on March 31, the prices for these items have yet to go back up. Here are the 50% off deals from the Big Spring Sale that are still liveand some items worth grabbing for under $50. IP67 Waterproof and Dustproof with 25 Hour-Battery and Retractable Handle Sony SRS-XG300 X-Series Speaker $142.95 at Amazon $349.99 Save $207.04 Get Deal Get Deal $142.95 at Amazon $349.99 Save $207.04 1800W (Peak 2400W) Solar Generator, Full Charge in 58 Min, 1056wh LiFePO4 Battery for Home Backup. Anker SOLIX C1000 Portable Power Station $799.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal Get Deal $799.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $200.00 dreame L40 Ultra Robot Vacuum with Removable & Liftable Mop, Extendable & Liftable SideBrush, 11,000Pa Suction, 149 Mop & Washboard Self Cleaning, Auto-Empty, Auto Refill, Voice Control $499.99 at Amazon $1,499.99 Save $1,000.00 Get Deal Get Deal $499.99 at Amazon $1,499.99 Save $1,000.00 dreame L20 Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop with Mop-Extend, Auto Mop Removal & Raising, Washing and Drying, 7000Pa Suction, Self-Emptying, Self-Refilling, AI Obstacle Avoidance $599.99 at Amazon $1,399.99 Save $800.00 Get Deal Get Deal $599.99 at Amazon $1,399.99 Save $800.00 Soundcore by Anker P20i $24.99 at Amazon $39.99 Save $15.00 Get Deal Get Deal $24.99 at Amazon $39.99 Save $15.00 Sony SRS-XG300 X-Series $142.95 at Amazon $349.99 Save $207.04 Get Deal Get Deal $142.95 at Amazon $349.99 Save $207.04 DREAME L20 Ultra Robot Vacuum and Mop $599.99 at Amazon $1,399.99 Save $800.00 Get Deal Get Deal $599.99 at Amazon $1,399.99 Save $800.00 iRobot Roomba Combo j5 Robot $249.00 at Amazon $529.99 Save $280.99 Get Deal Get Deal $249.00 at Amazon $529.99 Save $280.99 Anker Portable Charger $16.09 at Amazon $25.99 Save $9.90 Get Deal Get Deal $16.09 at Amazon $25.99 Save $9.90 Anker SOLIX C1000 Portable Power Station $799.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal Get Deal $799.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $200.00 SEE 7 MORE Earphones and speakers still 50% off or more Soundcore by Anker P20i $19.99 (originally $39.99). 30-hour long battery life, water resistant, and the same great companion app as all the other higher-end Soundcore earphones for less than $20? That's a steal.Sony SRS-XG300 X-Series Speaker $137.95 (originally $349.99). The SRS-XG300 is a solid portable speaker with loud and heavy bass, and like any outdoor speaker, it can handle the elements well.Other deals to considerAnker Space A40 Earbuds $59.99 (originally $99.99) after the 40% on-page coupon. The A40 have a companion app that makes the experience better with EQ and other features. They are a great value for budget ANC earbuds that you can read more about here.Beats Studio Buds + $99.95 (originally $169.95). This is a recent record-low price and makes these noise-cancelling earbuds a great deal. Chargers and generators still 50% off or more Anker SOLIX C1000 Portable Power Station $495.38 (originally $999) after the 38% on-page discount. It's hard to predict when you'll need a portable power generatorand when you need one, you usually really need one. This model is from a trusted brand and has a solar generator to make it fully off-grid. At 55% off, it's a great deal.Anker Portable Charger $11.99 (originally $25.99) when using 0UH6DMMH code at checkout. Anker also has a 10,000mAh portable charger that can charge most iPhones up to 50% in less than half an hour. For less than $13, it's a steal.Other Big Spring Sale deals to considerAnker 525 Charging Station $39.99 (originally $65.99). If you don't want a MagGo for wireless charging an iPhone, then consider the Anker 525 with the same other ports for almost half the price.Robot vacuums still 50% off or more Roomba Combo j5 Robot $249 (originally $529.99). I'm not a fan of Roombas, but people seem to love them. But if you're going to get one, get a mop combo that maps your home for over 50% off.Dreame L20 Ultra Robot Vacuum $599.99 (originally $1,399.99). Dreame makes impressive high-end robot vacuums, and this one in particular has an incredible discount. Dreame L40 Ultra Robot Vacuum $699.99 (originally $1,499.99). If you have a larger budget, for $100 more, you can up the suction to 11,000Pa with a mop feature that heats up to 149 degrees. Other Big Spring Sale deals to considerRoborock Q5 Pro+ Robot Vacuum and Mop $359.99 (originally $699.99) after using the $120 on-page coupon. Roborock has a lot of deals on robot vacuums right now, but if you're looking for a good one with must-have features at a decent price, the Q5 Pro+ is it.More Big Spring Sale tech deals Arlo Video Doorbell 2K $59.99 (originally $129.99). If you want to upgrade from a Ring camera or are looking for a decent first video camera, this Arlo camera is an incredible value at just $60.Eufy Security SoloCam S220 $69.99 (originally $129.99). I love Eufy cameras because they're subscription-free. The SoloCam S220 also has a solar panel to make it self-sustainable, meaning you can easily install it somewhere with direct sunlight and let it do its thing.Anker Space A40 Earbuds $59.99 (originally $99.99) after the 40% on-page coupon. The A40 have a companion app that makes the experience better with EQ and other features. They are a great value for budget ANC earbuds that you can read more about here.Beats Studio Buds + $99.95 (originally $169.95). This is a recent record-low price and makes these noise-cancelling earbuds a great deal. Big Spring Sale tech deals under $50 you can still getSwitchBot Wallet Tracker Card: $13.99 (originally $24.99) after 30% on-page coupon. Switchbot's Bluetooth tracker is shaped like a credit card and works with iOS using Apple Find My network (sorry Android users).Tribit MaxSound Plus Speaker $48.99 (originally $79.99). Tritbit makes quality portable budget speakers, and the MaxSound Plus sits somewhere in the middle in price and size.Roku Express $17.99 (originally $29.99). I love Roku TV, and if you're looking for the cheapest option to get your foot in the door, this is it. It's also 40% off.INIU Portable Charger $15.99 (originally $24.99). I've been using the same INUI portable chargers for four years and have dropped it too many times. It's reliable and does its job well. For $16, you could do much worse.Kasa Matter Smart Dimmer Switch (3-pack) 43.99 (originally $74.99). This smart light switch turns your light into a smart light with access to integrated smart home tech. You can also dim the lights, use voice controls, or manage it remotely.Govee Smart Light Bulbs $23.99 (originally $34.99). I've been using Govee smart lights for a couple of months and have really liked their app. If you want a reliable companion app and budget smart lights you can control remotely, look no further.Anker 525 Charging Station $39.99 (originally $65.99). If you don't want a MagGo for wireless charging an iPhone, then consider the Anker 525 with the same other ports for almost half the price.Eufy Digital Bathroom Scale P2 Pro $39.98 (originally $79.99). You can buy digital smart scales that read your body fat percentage from any no-brand company for cheap, but why not get it from a trusted brand also for cheap?Shopping for tech? Lifehacker can help you make the right decision. Browse our tech reviews and head-to-head comparisons for everything from laptops and smartwatches to e-bikes and home gyms. Subscribe to our deals newsletter,Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox, or browse our best-of lists directly on Amazon, including:The Best Over-Ear HeadphonesThe Best Wireless EarbudsThe Best Adjustable Dumbbell SetsThe Best Projectors

If you're out and about with your laptop, or just in a different room than your charging cable, you want to eke out as much time as possible before the next rechargeand an important part of that is knowing which apps are draining the battery the quickest.Once you know who the worst offenders are as far as battery drain is concerned, you can do something about it. Maybe you can use the programs in question less often, enable any battery-saving features (if they're available), or uninstall them altogether and switch to less power-hungry alternatives.Take Google Chrome, for instancenot a program known for its light touch on system resources. If you find it's putting a lot of stress on your battery, you can turn on the Energy Saver feature, or perhaps just be more careful about how many tabs you've got open at any one time.Here's how to track down the apps using most battery life on Windows and macOS.Tracking apps on WindowsLoad up the Settings screen from the Start menu, then choose System and Power & Battery. If you click Battery Usage, you'll see how your laptop battery level has dropped over the last 24 hours or the last seven days (open the drop-down menu on the right to switch between the two time periods).Underneath the main graph, you should see a list of the programs that have been responsible for the battery drain over the last day or the last week, with the biggest battery hogs listed at the top. If you can't immediately see an app you want to check up on, scroll down the list or use the search box just above the list. If an app doesn't show up, then it hasn't affected the battery level for the chosen time period. Windows will list apps by battery usage. Credit: Lifehacker The drop-down menu under Sort by lets you order the apps by name rather than by battery usage. You can also choose to see programs based on how much battery life they've used up while in use, while running in the background, or both together (which is probably the most useful metric).With certain apps, you can click the three dots next to them and choose Manage background activity to reduce the demands they place on the battery when they're not being used. This feature is mostly available with native Windows applications, including Notepad and Paint, and will take you to the settings for that app.Tracking apps on macOSOver on macOS, you can start your investigations by clicking on the battery icon on the menu bar up in the top right corner of the screen. This will tell you which of the apps that you currently have open are "using significant energy"so you're most likely going to see your web browser or your video editing software here.Click Battery Settings from the same pop-out dialog and you can see how your MacBook's battery has drained over the last 24 hours or the last 10 days (use the tab switcher just above to change between these two views). You can also turn on Low Power Mode and other battery options (like dimming the screen when on battery power). Head to Activity Monitor on macOS to check battery usage. Credit: Lifehacker What you can't do from this screen is see any more about which apps are using up batterythere's no simple list as there is on Windows. Instead, load up Activity Monitor from Spotlight or the Utilities folder in Finder, then switch to the Energy tab: You get to see which apps are currently using up most battery life, and which have been the most demanding in terms of energy use over the last 12 hours.To limit which apps can run in the background as well as in the foreground on your MacBookwhich again can affect battery lifeyou need to go back to System Settings (via the Apple menu). Open the General tab, then click Login Items & Extensions, and you've got a series of permission toggle switches for all the installed programs that have requested to run in the background.

On Wednesday, April 2, Nintendo will finally host its first Direct entirely dedicated to Nintendo Switch 2. While we all know what the console looks like by now, there are still plenty of questions left for Nintendo to answer (and I'm expecting answers.) Here's what I'm looking out for, and where you can watch the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct.The truth is, we really don't know what Nintendo is going to share during Wednesday's Direct. What we know for sure is this: The presentation itself is going to run about 60 minutes. That's a long time for a Nintendo Direct. The company's last presentation on March 27, for example, was just under 37 minutes, which means Nintendo must have quite a bit to share about the Switch 2. But aside from that, Nintendo is tight-lipped about the actual content of its upcoming Direct.What we know about the Switch 2 That said, Nintendo has already shown off quite a bit about the Switch 2. In its original announcement earlier this year, the company unveiled the new hardware, revealing a larger display and console, and a redesigned kickstand that offers steeper angles to play in handheld mode. It also sports two USB-C ports instead of one (the new one is on the top of the console), and the dock now sports a "2," so you know you're playing on the latest Switch. The most noticeable change in the announcement video, perhaps, was the Joy-Cons: These Switch 2 controllers are beefier, with larger shoulder buttons and an adjusted shape. In case you didn't notice those adjustments, you could probably tell these Joy-Cons have a different color design than the originals, as these new controllers are mostly black, with color accents under the joysticks and along the rails. (The Switch 1 Joy-Cons, of course, are the opposite: very colorful, with black rails and accents.) These Joy-Cons connect to the Switch 2 magnetically, as opposed to the slide-rail mechanism of the original console. I'm sure Nintendo will show off more about this functionality tomorrow.The video did confirm a rumor that Nintendo would add a new "C" button to the console, but Nintendo did not elaborate further. What does it do? We simply don't know. We also know that Switch 2 will be backwards-compatible with Switch 1, which gives players a lot of flexibility. Of course, Switch 1 players likely won't be able to play Switch 2 games (though you never know), so the new Mario Kart that Nintendo teased in its announcement might just be a new-console exclusive.What we've learned since the announcementWhile Nintendo confirmed many of the leaks and rumors that had been circulating online for some time, there were still many questions left unanswered. While there are still plenty of unknowns here, we have learned more in the months since the official Switch 2 announcement. In February, a Nintendo patent surfaced showing off a feature that lets you use your Joy-Con as a computer mouse. It seems to track with the Switch 2 announcement video, which shows the new Joy-Cons dragging along a surfacelike a mouse. While Nintendo hasn't publicly acknowledged this functionality yet, it could open up different kinds of gameplay mechanics. (Perhaps we'll have touchscreen-based DS and 3DS game support on Switch 2.) Then, last month, Nintendo submitted a number of filings with the FCC, which revealed three key things about the Switch 2: The new console supports NFC, Wi-Fi 6, and charging via both USB-C ports. What's left to learnIn all, we know a lot here: We know what the console looks like, many of its features, and that there's at least one new game in the works. But there's still plenty to learn. We don't know, for example, the console's true specs yet, nor do we know how powerful it really is. While analysts think the Switch 2 could be significantly more powerful than the original Switch, it's all speculation until Nintendo demos the games the console can run. Will we finally get a Nintendo console to run at 4K (preferably at 60fps)? Speaking of games, what will we actually be able to play on Nintendo's shiny new console? Rumors suggest third-party developers are planning titles including Assassin's Creed, Halo, and Microsoft Flight Simulator, while previously announced first-party Nintendo titles that haven't released yet, like Pokmon Legends: Z-A and Metroid Prime 4 will likely have a Switch 2 debut. We also don't know about the price. Rumors had suggested a $399 MSRP, which would seem reasonable when compared to the Switch's $299 price tag, but Nintendo hasn't confirmed one way or another. We also don't have an official release date. Hopefully, we will learn all these details tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo has some wild-card announcements to generate buzz for the Switch 2. Could there be a 3D Zelda announcement? Will the company announce high-performance modes for older Switch titles? It's really a guessing game at this point. But it won't be for long.How to watch the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct Nintendo is going to stream live starting at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT) on Wednesday, April 2. You can catch the show from Nintendo's official YouTube page.

The average website seems to have more ads than content. There's the banner at the top, the square in the sidebar, and in most cases, a few auto-playing video ads thrown in for good measure. Ad blockers can help clean things up, but experts say that installing an ad blocker does more than make the internet less cluttered: They can also help you stay safe online. Ad blockers can protect you from scamsIn a perfect world, outright scammers and cybercriminals would not be able to buy ads from massively profitable search engines. However, we do not live in a perfect world."Criminals have started buying ad space," said Kim Key, senior security analyst for our sister site PCMag who has written an extensively researched list of the best ad blockers. "That means that some ads may infect your device with malware when you interact with them, or may contain links to malicious websites."A version of this is ads designed to mimic legitimate companies in search results, a problem common enough that in 2022, the FBI put out a statement recommending the use of ad blockers."Cyber criminals purchase advertisements that appear within internet search results using a domain that is similar to an actual business or service," the statement said. "When a user searches for that business or service, these advertisements appear at the very top of search results with minimum distinction between an advertisement and an actual search result."The report mentions that not all ads are scams (good?) but that installing an ad blocker is one way to protect yourself from being sucked into these scams in the first place.(Some) ad blockers can protect your privacyI don't think I need to tell you that online advertising is invasivewe've all noticed ads following us around the internet. Spend time researching shoes on Amazon and ads about the shoes you've looked at will pop up everywhere you go. It can feel creepy.Ad blockers can protect you from this, but there's a caveat: Some ad blockers prevent you from seeing ads without blocking the tracking. "If your ad blocker doesn't block trackers, but just blocks ads, it doesn't protect your privacy," said William Budington, a senior staff technologist on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Public Interest Team.Janet Vertesi, associate professor of sociology at Princeton University who publishes extensive work on human computer interaction, told me this is a reason she herself doesn't use an ad blocker. "Some ad blockers make you think you have privacy because you're not seeing ads, but you don't know if the sites are taking your data," she said.Having said that, there are options out there specifically built to block tracking. Privacy Badger, built by the EFF, wasn't made to block adsonly trackingbut Budington told me it ends up blocking most ads anyway. "The reason why there's such conflation of ad blockers and tracker blockers is that the vast majority of ads online are also trackers," he said.Vertesi told me that this distinctionblocking tracking versus blocking adsmight be behind Google's recent ad blocker changes in Chrome."What made uBlock Origin such a great ad blocker is it was blocking both coming out and going in," she said. "Chrome is a Google Product. Google is in the data-gathering business. Of course they don't want you to use uBlock Origin."Which is all to say: Ad blockers can protect your privacy, but only if you're using the right one.Drawbacks to using ad blockersHaving said all that, there are reasons you might not want to use an ad blocker. Supporting the things you read, for one thing."Some content creators rely on ads for revenue, so as a supporter, you may not always want to block all of the ads," Key said. "I recommend trying an extension like Adblock Plus in this instance, because it allows you to allow some ads while blocking others."And some ad blockers themselves introduce privacy problems."I recommend reading the ad-blocking extension's privacy policy before installing it," Key said. "Make sure you know what types of data the ad blocker collects from your browser, and how the company plans to store and use your personal information."There's also an argument to be made that using an ad blocker makes it hard to notice when you're being tracked."I don't use an ad blocker because I am monitoring what they think they know about me," Vertesi said. "They're like the canary in the coal mine. I want to see those shoes following me around the internetI need to know if my guard was let down."

Google has pushed out a shiny new AI model in the form of Gemini 2.5 Pro, albeit with an experimental label next to itand it's available for free, so you don't need to subscribe to Gemini Advanced to get it. As with many recent AI model releases, the "reasoning" capabilities of the model are said to be the biggest upgrade here.In artificial intelligence terms, reasoning means answers that are more thoroughly worked through. That should produce fewer mistakes, more logical responses, and a better appreciation of "context and nuance" according to Google. This capability for extra "thought" will now come as standard in future Google models.The Pro (Experimental) release is the first variant of Gemini 2.5 to show up, and while the original blog post didn't mention free users, less than a week later we've got an update saying it's available for everyonewith rate limits applied if you're not a Gemini Advanced subscriber (Google hasn't specified what those rate limits are). The new model is available now through the desktop app, and coming soon to mobile. Gemini 2.5 Pro hits new levels in a variety of AI benchmarks. Credit: Google Google points to several benchmark tests that show the prowess of Gemini 2.5 Pro. At the time of writing it tops the LMArena leaderboard, where users give ratings on responses from dozens of AI chatbots. It also scores 18.8 percent on the Humanity's Last Exam testwhich measures human knowledge and reasoningnarrowly edging out rival models from OpenAI and Anthropic.Also of note: the large context window. In simple terms, this is an indicator of how much data the AI model can churn through in one go, and Gemini 2.5 Pro has a context window of one million tokens, with two million "coming soon" according to Google. That compares to a context window of, for example, 200,000 tokens for ChatGPT's o3-mini reasoning model. As tends to be the norm with these AI announcements, there's no mention of copyright infringement as far as training data goes, or increasing energy use. According to MIT researchers, modern-day AI models use a "staggering" amount of electricity and water, and have put us on an "unsustainable path" that needs to change direction quickly.Putting Gemini 2.5 Pro to the testIt can be tricky to quantify improvements from one AI model to the next, which is why benchmarks like LMArena are useful. I lack the expert scientific or programming knowledge needed to really put Gemini 2.5 Pro to the testthough as with the previous model, I was able to create some simple web apps (like an online timer) in minutes.I do know a bit about Charles Dickens' Bleak House, so I set Gemini 2.5 Pro to work on the text. It gave me an accurate summary of the plot, and a clever assessment of the different narrative devices used (which would've really helped me in my study days). It also converted the book into a reasonably well done three-act structure for a movieevidence of it holding a lot in its "mind" at once.The older Gemini 2.0 Flash was able to answer the same Bleak House prompts accurately too, but the responses from Gemini 2.5 Pro were longer, more detailed, less generic, and smarterevidence of that extra "reasoning" being put to work. The Gemini 2.0 Flash model also had to split the movie adaptation into three responses, perhaps due to the sheer amount of text it was trying to process. Google has provided its own example of the capabilities of Gemini 2.5 Pro, showing how a simple endless runner game can be produced from a single prompt. While the demo video showing the code output is sped up, the game does appear to work and be pretty well-designed, which is an impressive end result from a single natural language prompt. There's also a neat web demo of digital fish swimming around.Elsewhere on the web, the new AI model is being extensively tested. Software engineer and independent AI researcher Simon Willison ran several tests covering image creation, audio transcription, and code generation, and came away very much liking what Gemini 2.5 Pro had been able to come up with.The frenetic pace of AI development shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon, and we can expect more Gemini 2.5 models to appear in the near future. "As always, we welcome feedback so we can continue to improve Gemini's impressive new abilities at a rapid pace, all with the goal of making our AI more helpful," says Koray Kavukcuoglu, from Google's DeepMind AI lab.

Take a moment to list all the digital accounts you've signed up for, and it's probably more than you realized: email, social media, banking, streaming services, cloud storage, music, gaming, and fitness...it adds up. But using the same login credentials for every service is a bad idea, and if you reuse passwords across accounts, let me summarize the simplest advice you should take away from this article: You shouldn't. But, of course, it's nearly impossible to remember as many unique usernames and secure passwords as you need for your various accounts. That's where password managers come in.Password managers hide your various login credentials behind one main username and password so that logging into the password manager gives you access to everything else. It's a secure alternative to writing your passwords down or saving them in a spreadsheet, and more reliable than your memory. They can often store other data, toothink credit card numbers, PIN codes, and authenticator keysand may also give you extra features like scanning data breaches for your credentials. If you've yet to switch to a password manager, consider this a sign to get started. It can be intimidating at first, but getting started may be easier than you think.Some of the most important password manager featuresPassword managers are all slightly different, but you'll find many of the same features across brands. First and foremost, they store your passwordsoften popping up inside web browsers and on phones whenever you need to log into an accountand provide you with your login credentials with one click or tap. As sign-in technologies have evolved, though, so have password managers. Many can now also help with two-factor authentication codes and passkeys for websites or apps that need more than just a username and password. At the same time, these password managers are secured with a main username and password you need to rememberand often with biometric authentication, too. The best password managers work seamlessly across devices. Credit: NordPass Most password managers will also suggest strong passwords for new accounts: Passwords that mix up random special characters, letters, and numbers, so they're extremely difficult to hack. With a password manager, you don't actually need to know what your passwords arethe program handles everything. You'll often see password managers offer additional security features as well, ranging from notifying you of duplicate passwords, to dark web monitoring for your email addresses, usernames, or passwords. If your login details appear in a data breach, you get an alert about it, and you can change them.How password managers secure your dataYou might wonder how password managers make sure your passwords are securely and privately locked away. Details vary between software packages, but they'll invariably use end-to-end encryption, with your main password as the decryption key, meaning that means no one elsefrom hackers to password manager developers to government agenciescan access your details without that password. Additional security measures are often implemented as well. Take 1Password as an example: It uses PBKDF2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2) key strengthening, which, in simple terms, means that passwords are obscure enough that it would take decades to crack. It also gives users a secret key, known only to them, that works as an extra security layer on top of your password. A host of encryption and other security layers are applied to your password vault. Credit: LastPass In other words, you can't just use your pet's name as your password manager password. Extra security layers, including two-factor authentication and biometric scans, are often added too. Where your credentials need to be synced across multiple devices, strong encryption protocols are again deployed. Without your password, the data is useless, and only you know your password.Most password managers now combine local and cloud storage options, because we all need our passwords on so many devices. However, it's worth bearing in mind that the fewer places you have your password manager installed, the less chance there is of someone else gaining access to itso some users just keep their password manager on their phone.Why you should use a password managerSimply put, using a password manager is a whole lot more secure than other options, like listing them in a Google Doc. Say, for example, that you left your laptop unlocked and someone sat down at it. With a Google Doc, that person would be more likely to access your password document than they would a password manager where they would need extra security clearance. Apple and Google have their own password manager options. Credit: Lifehacker The free offerings from Google and Apple have improved significantly in recent years, but they still don't quite offer the level of protection, breadth of features, and cross-platform support of the best dedicated password managers. One example: In the case of Google Password Manager, on-device encryption (meaning that you manage the decryption key locally, as with a password manager, rather than Google managing it) remains an optional extra that you have to enable, rather than enabled by default.Given the protection and features that come with dedicated password managers, it's typically worth most people investing in one. Some software packages offer a free tier, but they may be limited in terms of the features you get and the number of devices you can use them on. You can expect to pay a few bucks per month for most apps, but you can also look for bundled deals that include VPNs and adblockers, for instance. Whatever brand or package you choose, though, you should begin using a password manager. You get a private password vault, a host of protections to keep it safe, and added features like data breach monitoring and strong password generators. Plus, the best password managers sync seamlessly across all of your devices, ready when you need them.

When venturing out into the wilds of the modern web, many people now make use of a VPN, or a Virtual Private Network. These software packages have been around for decades as ways of securely connecting to private networks remotely, but the term is now more commonly used to refer to third-party VPN services that act as intermediaries between your devices and the internet at large.The idea behind VPNs is they keep you and your data safer while you're browsing, with a trade-off in terms of speed (though the best VPNs will aim to minimize the hit on download and upload transfer rates). If you're wondering what exactly a VPN is, how these services work, and whether or not you should be signed up for one, you'll find all of these questions and more answered below.Why use a VPN?Using a VPN is beneficial in terms of both security and privacy. VPNs create an encrypted tunnel between you and dedicated servers run by the VPN company. Your traffic is then sent down that tunnel, and your VPN service of choice then sends it on to websites or other servers. Traffic going in the other direction travels back in the same way.This tunnel offers several protections. It means it's a lot harder for people on the same wifi network as you at the local coffee shop or the hotel you're staying in to see what you're up toso VPNs are often deployed by users when they're traveling and connecting to numerous public wifi networks. VPNs can let you pretend you're in places you're not. Credit: Lifehacker Connecting to a VPN also means your traffic is hidden from your internet service provider, or ISP. Your ISP can see you're connecting to the VPN, but nothing beyond thatso it's impossible for your ISP or any of its staff to snoop on you or keep logs. It also means ISPs are more limited in terms of what they can tell government agencies and law enforcement.Another reason for using VPNs is to conceal or spoof your location: Websites can only see the location of the VPN server you're using, not your actual location. That means they can't track your whereabouts as easily, and in the case of streaming services, might serve up different libraries of content depending on where your VPN server is (though streaming services are pretty wise to VPNs now, so this doesn't always work).How VPNs workand their limitationsThat idea of an encrypted tunnel covers the basics of how VPNs work: You connect to a VPN server, then it connects to the web for you. When data comes back, it first goes to the VPN server, and then to your device. VPN providers will tell you how many servers they have and in how many countrieseach time you connect to the VPN, you can typically choose which server to connect to, or have one assigned automatically.If you want to stay safe on a public wifi network, it's best to connect to a server in your countryit'll be faster. If you want to pretend you're in another country, or would like to stop websites and apps from knowing where you are, you can pick a server somewhere else. Some VPNs let you double-up servers for extra security. If you connect to a lot of wifi networks, VPNs can help keep you safe. Credit: Lifehacker It's important to recognize the limitations of how VPNs work, too. Your location aside, they aren't going to stop a lot of the tracking tech you'll find on the web, such as cookiesand of course if you log into your Amazon account, Amazon will know it's you. VPNs don't offer anonymity cloaks.In addition, you're essentially transferring your trust from your ISP to a VPN provider: Your ISP provider can't see your traffic, but your VPN service potentially can. What's more, VPNs are under the same legal obligations as ISPs when it comes to giving data to government and law enforcement agencies. With that in mind, it's important to pick a VPN you trust.How to choose a VPNAs noted above, VPNs aren't above the law, and can see the traffic they're ferrying for you. With that in mind, it's important to look for a VPN with an independently audited "no logs" policymeaning none of your data is kept permanently. That means there's less information that can be exposed or handed over to the authorities, if they come knocking.It's a crucial part of choosing a VPN, so VPN providers will usually promote "no logs" policies quite prominently. Read the policies for ExpressVPN and NordVPN, for example: You'll see mention of independent auditors, technologies that scrub data automatically, and operations that are based in countries where data retention laws are less strict (which means VPNs aren't legally obliged to keep records on their users). See what VPN providers say about their data retention policies. Credit: Lifehacker There are lots of other criteria to use when weighing which VPN provider to go for. As previously mentioned, you can look for how many servers a provider offers, and where they're based. You can also check up on the promised speeds, as well as the basics of how much you're going to have to pay and what else you get included (maybe dark-web monitoring for data breaches, for example, or a bundled password manager).Make sure you check how many devices you can connect to the VPN service at any one time, as this will varyand some VPNs may not even have apps for every platform. You can also look at what you get in terms of customer service and support if something goes wrong. And don't forget to consult reviews from trustworthy tech publications, too.How much VPNs costAs with most digital subscription decisions, cost is likely to be a big factor in your choice. Free VPNs are available, though they'll usually be cut-down versions of paid-for packages, with limitations on how many connections you can make and the speeds you're going to get in terms of uploads and downloads.Considering how important VPNs are, in terms of trusting them with your data, it's a good idea to avoid free ones if you canat least if it's not clear how they're making their money. There are trustworthy free VPN packages around, and we've listed some of them here, but make sure you go for a well-known name with a long history. Check the deal length and bundled features when comparing VPN prices. Credit: Lifehacker If you are able to pay for a VPN, make sure you weigh everything you get with your subscription: the number of available servers, the number of compatible devices, the length of the deal you have to sign up for, the customer support on offer, the bonus software included. Comparing prices is tricky because each VPN provider offers different packages for your money.While subscription tiers and pricing are changing all the timelook out for introductory deals if you're just signing uphere are a few offers available at the time of writing to give you a general idea: ExpressVPN is $12.95 a month, NordVPN is $12.99 a month, ProtonVPN is $9.99 a month, and TunnelBear is $9.99 a month. As usual, you can get lower monthly pricing by signing up for a year or two, and varying tiers with varying features are available on these services.Should you use a VPN?There's no doubt that using a VPN on your phone or your laptop means your data is more secure and more private: The question is whether it's worth paying for another subscription. It certainly gives you extra peace of mind if you're on the go a lot, and often bouncing between different public wifi networks. For secure travel, and accessing services from abroad, VPNs are definitely appealing.Then there's the ISP issue: These big internet companies keep much more detailed records than most VPNs do. If you'd rather as little of your browsing activity was logged as possible, then a VPN might be the way to go (though again, this applies to activity logged by ISPs, and not necessarily advertising companies or websites). VPNs can offer extra peace of mind. Credit: Lifehacker You've also got the built-in protection for your locationyour IP addressand the ability to spoof locations to some extent, which can be helpful if you're in a place with tightly regulated internet, or where your usual streaming services aren't available. Bear in mind, though, that as soon as you log into Google or Netflix, they know who you are and which country you live in anyway.VPN providers are usually falling over themselves to offer free trials or introductory offers, so there's no harm in signing up for a package and seeing how it suits youand how much you actually use it. You could even sign up for a couple at a time and compare them in terms of online speeds and the quality of their apps.

Today is April 1, April Fools Day, the annual holiday that celebrates pranking, hoaxes, and all manner of horseplay and tomfoolery. But why? Where did this faux holiday come from? Why do we do this to each other, and when will we finally just stop?These are surprisingly tricky questions, and April Fools' Day has been around for a surprisingly long time. As far back as 1708, the British newspaper Apollo asked, Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools? and provided unconvincing answers. So we know the April Fools' tradition goes back centuries, but the exact origins of the holiday are still a mystery. There are theories, but they all reek faintly of bullshit. April Fools Day origin story #1: The great French calendar switch of 1582The most popular (but still probably bullshit) April Fools' origin story blames France. It goes like this: Back in 1563, The Council of Trent declared that Christ is entirely present in both the consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist. But more importantly, it decreed Catholic nations should use the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar. Frances King Charles IX ordered his nation to get on board with the switch by 1582, but when the actual day rolled around, some citizens were non-compliant. (French people can be stubborn.) April 1 is beginning of the new year according to the Julian calendar, and some people either didnt know about the new calendar or didnt like it, because they went on celebrating the new year on April 1. To get everyone back in line, people started mocking calendar-truthers by playing tricks on them. Because the first day of April used to coincide with the end of Lent, and fish was a popular Lenten gift, giving a fool a fake fish was seen as a hilarious joke (or so the story goes). This evolved into the French April 1 prank of affixing a paper fish to someones back, which is still practiced to this day, mainly by school kids; its why French people call April 1 poisson davril, or "April fish."I like the alternative April fish origin story better, though: The real prank was secretly sliding a fish in someones pocket and hoping they didnt notice until it started to stink. Thats timeless comedy and requires no explanation.So case closed, right? April Fools Day began in France when the calendar changed. Nah. Probably not (April Fools!), because the first written reference to the day dates back some two decades earlier, to 1561. Flemish writer Eduard De Denes Refereyn vp verzendekens dach / Twelck den eersten April te zyne plach is a comical poem about a nobleman sending his gullible servant on a series of ridiculous fake errands on April 1. Along with a message that remains timely today (Youre a fool to believe what someone says on April 1), the poem makes it clear that the seasonal pranks were already a widespread, well-known phenomenon decades before the calendar changed in France. Unlike many holidays with changing customs and rites, April Fools seems to be celebrated in much the same way now as it was in the 1500s.April Fools Day origin #2: The ancient Romans did itSome historians have dug all the way back to Ancient Rome to uncover evidence of the first April fool. Back then, they called days of rejoicing hilaria. People had private hilaria, like their wedding days, or public ones, like the Hilaria Matris Dem, celebrated on March 25 as part of a 10-day festival to honor Cybele, the mother of the gods. After several festival days devoted to fasting, castration, mourning, and scourging, the hilaria gave everyone the chance to enjoy some much-needed fun, playing games and having orgies (I assume). The biggest highlight of Hilaria Matris Dem was masquerading. You could get away with imitating anyone you wanted on this day, including government officials. So maybe this was the original April Fools Day? The evidence seems a little shaky to me. The time of year is roughly correct, but the connection to pranks and hoaxes seems tenuousdressing up as someone to mock them is not the same as tricking them into eating a donut filled with mayonnaise.Since no one knows where or when April Fools Day originated, so Im going to say it came fromoh, Denmark. From there, it spread to the rest of Europe, probably. No matter the origin, by the late 1600s, April Fools' Day was so firmly established that newsletters saw no reason to explain it to readers. For example, the April 2, 1698 edition of Dawkss News-Letter contains an item that reads: Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed. (Sending fools to see lions washed is hilarious.)April Fools Day goes from personal to publicWhether its sticking a paper fish on someones back or sending tourists to the lion washings, the first few 100 years of April Fools Day pranks were personal. It wasnt an official holiday; it was just a bunch of folks joshing their friends or strangers on the street. But as society shifted from individual experiences to more mediated ones, the nature of April pranks shifted too. Beginning in the early 1900s, newspapers started publishing fake stories on April 1. Then radio started doing it, telling listeners that wasps were about to attack them, or the world was going to end. In the 1950s, television got in the act; even the staid BBC pranked viewers with a fake story about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.The April Fools pranks current most popular formfake announcements on the internetis fitting for the state of our culture. Traditionally pranks were at least enjoyable for the one doing the pranking, but modern April Fools isnt fun for anyone. The audience knows its going to happen, so no one is really tricked, and the technology and media companies that are pranking people are doing it because they want clicks and engagement to further solidify their brand image. That's the opposite of fun. The only thing that was ever good about April Fools' Day is that it was a home-grown, unofficial folk holiday of the people. The jerky people, but still. Now April Fools' Day is entirely corporation-approved. Why April Fools' Day needs to dieThere arent really any studies on this, but strictly from a personal Ive been on the Internet for a long time perspective, the popularity of online April Fools jokes have been declining for several years and hopefully it drops off to nothing soon. No one needs a holiday that has victims. In the disinformation age, every day is April 1 anyway; were constantly being taken for fools. Were bombarded by people using technology to try to trick us, whether its criminal robots sending texts to steal the money in our bank accounts, influencers monetizing our envy through filters and careful camera angles, AI-generated deep-fakes of the pope in a puffer jacket, or the more subtle but all-encompassing hoaxes of modern politics and commerce as a whole. Hearing some jerkass saying "Ha ha, tricked you," just isn't funny anymoreif it ever was.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.For April Fools' Day, I thought I'd look into the fascinating story of a major source of one of the longest-lasting and widely believed conspiracy theories in American history. According to a 2023 YouGov poll, 54% of Americans believe that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone when he gunned down president John F. Kennedy in 1963so most Americans are wrong about this, and they're wrong about it partly due to a work of fiction published in the late 1960s.The granddaddy of all modern conspiracy theoriesWidespread disbelief in the "official story" of the Kennedy assassination has inspired a library of books, congressional hearings, major motion pictures, and most recently, the declassification of thousands of documents (none of which, by the way, support the idea of a conspiracy). But more importantly, Kennedy assassination conspiracies normalized and mainstreamed conspiracy theories in general, bolstering every piece of fake news that followed, from Obama's birth certificate to vaccine skepticismif the government could cover up a political assassination, the argument goes, they could be up to anything. But what if the basis of the most widely accepted Kennedy conspiracy theory was a work of satirical fiction? That's the premise behind Phil Tinline's recent book Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today, an examination of the history and impact of Report from Iron Mountain, a 1967 work of fiction that started as left-wing satire but became one of the most influential texts in American history. Oliver Stone's JFK and the "CIA did it" conspiracyWhile there are hundreds of theories about who was really behind Kennedy's assassination and why they did it, probably the most widely accepted version of the story, the one you may believe, is the theory Oliver Stone went with in his 1991 film JFK: The CIA killed Kennedy because he was about to withdraw troops from Vietnam and end the Cold War. Main character Jim Garrison lays it out like this in the film: "What took place on November 22, 1963 was a coup d'tat ... The war is the biggest business in America worth $80 billion a year. President Kennedy was murdered by a conspiracy that was planned and advanced at the highest levels of our government, and was carried out by fanatical and disciplined cold warriors in the Pentagon and CIA's covert-operation apparatus."But where did Stone's protagonist get this idea? As Tinline's book details, the CIA theory is laid out in JFK by "X," a character based on real-life former air-force colonel L. Fletcher Prouty. Prouty's source is what he believed was a "suppressed think-tank paper" called Report from Iron Mountain: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace. And Report from Iron Mountain is a literary hoax dreamed up by the editors of the short-lived, left-wing satirical journal The Monocle. The birth of Report from Iron MountainBack in 1966, Victor Navasky, editor of The Monocle, read a news item about a dip in the stock market caused by a cutback in military spending; Wall Street called it a"peace scare." This inspired Navasky to commission writer Leonard Lewin, with help from economist John Kenneth Galbraith and others, to write Report from Iron Mountain, supposedly the leaked findings of "Special Study Group" tasked by the Kennedy Administration to plan the transition from a wartime to a peacetime economy. Its conclusion: Peace would likely bring about the collapse of the USA.Iron Mountain was edited by H.L. Mencken, and published as a work of non-fiction in 1967, but most reviewers and literary types recognized it as social commentary. Members of the general public were divided, however, so author Lewin dispelled all doubt by confirming Iron Mountain was a hoax in 1974. And that should have been the end of it. But it wasn't.The strange afterlife of Report from Iron MountainThe real point of Iron Mountain was to highlight the absurdity of the Cold War through exaggeration and satirethe book tips its hand fairly heavily by suggesting UFO hoaxes, "blood games," and bringing back slavery as possible replacement for warbut its ideas, shorn of their satirical context, spun outside the control of the literary types who dreamed it up. Iron Mountain started percolating in the poisonous coffee pot of fringe thinkers, combining and metastasizing with other seminal, fictional, conspiracy texts like Alternative 3 and The Protocols of the Brotherhood of Zion, until Iron Mountain became a foundational text for cranks, part of the ideological framework they can hang anything on. It wasn't just Oliver Stone's source who mistook Report from Iron Mountain as truth. Much to the author's dismay, the book was also rediscovered by the burgeoning-right wing militia movement of the 1980s, and reprinted as non-fiction by the anti-semitic Noontide Press. Milton William Cooper excerpted Iron Mountain in seminal conspiracy theory text Behold a Pale Horse, said to be a favorite of Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh. From there, it's a straight shot to "The Deep State," Q-anon, Alex Jones, Covid cover-ups, and whatever else loonies are on about this week on X.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If youre a Mac user who just wants the classic Microsoft Office experience without the whole subscription situation, this $42.99 deal on Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for Mac might be worth your attention. Normally priced at $229, its a one-time purchase that gives you lifetime access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Teams Classic on just one Mac. Thats itno monthly fees, renewals, or ongoing charges. Youll get an instant email with your redemption code and download link, so you can be up and running within minutes.This is Office 2019not 365 or 2021. Microsoft has already ended support for Office 2019 on Mac, which means you wont receive any more security updates or bug fixes. If you like staying fully up-to-date, this isnt for you, but if your needs are simplewriting reports, sending email, managing budgets, making presentationsit still holds up just fine. Its designed to work with macOS 13 through 15 and takes advantage of Mac features like Retina display support and full-screen mode. Youll need at least 4GB of RAM and 10GB of hard disk space, so make sure your setup can handle it. Just one key step: once you install it, turn off auto-update. Otherwise, it might upgrade you to 2021, making this lifetime license pointless.There are no frills herejust full access to the essential Office suite for a one-time price. This is a solid deal if youre a student, freelancer, or small business owner who doesn't need cloud syncing or the newest version every year. You wont get ongoing support and can't use it on multiple devices simultaneously, though you can switch devices (the license is tied to your Microsoft account, not your Mac). But for everyday productivity on a single Mac, its a straightforward, affordable solutionespecially if youre tired of renting your software.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.Amazon's Big Spring Sale might almost be over (it ends tonight), but there's still plenty of good tech deals to be found for cheap. Across Amazonplus Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and moregadgets from laptops to TVs are still seeing deep discounts. Shopping these sales can be a bit difficult unless you know how to track an items price history, but fortunately, Ive already done all of the work for you. Prices are accurate as of the time of writing, but you can expect them to fluctuate and for inventory to sell out, so you may not want to hesitate if you see a sale that grabs you. The best deals on laptops Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch with M4 Chip $949.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $50.00 Get Deal Get Deal $949.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $50.00 Sales events are a great time to buy laptops, as they're one of the most frequent items to go on sale during these periods. Here are some of my favorite picks for the best laptop deals available now.Apple MacBook Air 13-inch with M4 Chip: $949 at Amazon (was $999). Released earlier this month, Apple's M4 MacBook Air is already on sale. At time of writing, the discount only applies to the 13-inch model with 16GB of RAM, but that's still enough for plenty of users.Apple MacBook Pro with M4 Chip: $1,399 at Amazon (was $1,599). For a more powerful Apple computer, the MacBook Pro is the obvious choice. As time of writing, sales are present across all chip options (the M4 has multiple upgrades available), as well as across multiple RAM and storage loadouts, but you will need to stick to a 14-inch screen.Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360: $1,475 at Amazon (was $1,699). A Windows-based alternative to the MacBook Air, although with power potentially rivaling the Pro at points, this lightweight laptop is a touch more expensive, but comes with a higher resolution OLED screen with a higher refresh rate, plus the ability to convert into a tablet.Microsoft Surface Laptop: $921 at Amazon (was $1,400). A cheaper alternative to the MacBook Air, the Microsoft Surface Laptop offers a familiar form factor and, thanks to its Qualcomm chip, higher battery life and greater AI compatibility, although at the cost of some performance.Lenovo IdeaPad 1i: $420 at Best Buy (was $600). This is a more basic, "get the job done" kind of laptop, but with a respectable mid-range chip, surprisingly generous storage for the price, and a touchscreen, there's quite a bit of value to be had here.HP Victus 16 Gaming Laptop: $900 at Best Buy (was $1,500). The HP Victus 16 is a tremendous deal below $1,000, getting you a respectable chip, 16GB of RAM, and enough storage to get by, but also the RTX 4070 GPU, which is typically reserved for much more expensive machines.The best deals on tablets Apple 11-Inch iPad Pro with M4 Chip $909.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $90.00 Get Deal Get Deal $909.00 at Amazon $999.00 Save $90.00 Good tablets are a bit rarer to find deals on during sales events, since iPads so overwhelmingly dominate the space, and Apple can be a little more stringent with supply. Still, there are good opportunities to be found if you're willing to look.Apple 11-Inch iPad Pro with M4 Chip: $919 at Amazon (was $999). Apple's first iPad with an OLED screen, the M4 Pro is now available for less than four figures, with deals available for all storage configurations.Microsoft Surface Pro 13-Inch: $1,000 at Best Buy (was $1,200). This pick blurs the line between a tablet and a laptop, coming equipped with Windows 11, which gives it a full desktop ecosystem of apps to explore. Plus, this particular model also has a few Copilot+ goodies thrown in. Storage is 512GB and RAM is 16GB.Google Pixel Tablet: $279 at Amazon (was $399). A more affordable tablet, this device uses the same Tensor G2 chipset as the Pixel 7 line, has 8GB of RAM, and features a 2,560 x 1,600 display. That means it's on the humbler side, but as a positive, it can also double as a smart display.The best deals on phones Google Pixel 9 (Unlocked) $629.99 at Amazon $799.00 Save $169.01 Get Deal Get Deal $629.99 at Amazon $799.00 Save $169.01 Similar to tablets, the current phone deals are a bit held back by Apple, as iPhone sales tend to be a bit hit-or-miss, often relying on third-party sellers with refurbished devices. However, if you're on Android, you have a wealth of options.Google Pixel 9 (Unlocked): $629 at Amazon (was $799). Google's latest non-pro phone has the Tensor G4 chip, a lot of exclusive Gemini-powered goodies, and a 6.3-inch OLED "Actua" display.Samsung Galaxy S25 (Unlocked): $700 at Amazon (was $800). Samsung's Galaxy phones are a favorite alternative to Google's Pixels, with a more traditional camera setup and more powerful chips. You lose out on Google's exclusive Pixel software features, but if you can get used to Samsung's own ecosystem, there's also some convenience to be gained with its spin on Android.Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 (Unlocked): $1,067 at Amazon (was $1,220). Flip phones are still an expensive proposition, but the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is a bit more affordable with the sale. This phone has many of the same specs as the S25, albeit with the camera's performance being traded out a bit in favor of the foldable screen.Motorola Razr+ (Unlocked): $749 at Amazon (was $1,000). This nostalgic flip phone is a slightly cheaper alternative to the Z Flip series, with a slightly weaker chipset but also a slightly larger size.The best deals on TVs Amazon Fire TV 55" $769.99 at Amazon $899.99 Save $130.00 Get Deal Get Deal $769.99 at Amazon $899.99 Save $130.00 Like laptops, TVs almost always go on sale at every opportunity, and waiting until these discounts drop is a great way to get a display that punches above its weight class.LG 77-inch B3 OLED TV: $1,487 at Amazon (was $2,297). OLED is still my favorite display tech out there, and if I can get on my soapbox for a moment, it's the only one that really compares to CRTs. LG makes some of the best OLED TVs around, and this big-screen model has a 4K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. There are four HDMI 2.1 inputs.Samsung 50-inch QN90D QLED TV: $998 at Amazon (was $1,398). QLED takes a different approach than OLED, sacrificing pixel-perfect pure blacks in favor of higher brightness and more affordability. Samsung's Neo QLED tech combines this with Mini-LEDs to help claw some of that contrast back, and is a great choice at this price point, especially with its built-in 4K upscaling and Dolby Atmos support.TCL 55-inch Class Q6-Series 4K Smart Google TV: $300 at Best Buy (was $320). If you're not big on Amazon's or Roku's operating systems, then a TCL TV is a good bet. This model comes in up to 98 inches, has a 4K QLED panel, supports Dolby Vision, and has a 60Hz native refresh rate.The best deals on headphones and earbuds Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones $249.99 at Amazon $399.99 Save $150.00 Get Deal Get Deal $249.99 at Amazon $399.99 Save $150.00 Headphones and earbuds are one of those things that it's easy to forget about in an upgrade cycle. If you can hear your content, that's good enough for most people, right? But discounts present an easy excuse to improve your gear and get access to features you didn't even know you were missing.Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones: $318 at Amazon (was $400). These are Sony's flagship over-ear headphones, complete with noise canceling, a promised 30-hour battery life, and Alexa voice control alongside capacitive touch control.Apple AirPods Max Headphones: $513 at Amazon (was 549). Apple's AirPods Max are a great choice for anyone in the Apple Ecosystem, especially with the USB-C version's recent adoption of lossless audio.Bose QuietComfort Headphones: $249 at Amazon (was $349). Bose's QuietComfort headphones are a little cheaper that Sony and Apple's most recent flagships, but still promise strong noise canceling performance as well as battery life that will last you over a day.Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Gen Earbuds: $199 at Amazon (was $250). Apple's 2nd Gen AirPods Pro added a few new software tricks that make them a great upgrade, including conversation awareness and even the ability to use them as hearing aids.Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds: $219 at Amazon (was $299). Conversely, if you don't need to be in the Apple ecosystem, Bose's QuietComfort Ultra offer outstanding noise cancelling for an in-ear product, plus an upgraded Bluetooth codec.The best deals on smartwatches Apple Watch Series 10 $329.00 at Amazon $399.00 Save $70.00 Get Deal Get Deal $329.00 at Amazon $399.00 Save $70.00 Smartwatches are one of those smartphone value adds that seem easy to ignore, until you have one. Then it's hard to go back. If you're either a fitness enthusiast, or you just want to make tap-to-pay and music controls a little simpler, here are a few good ways to get started.Apple Watch Series 10: $329 at Amazon (was $399). Apple's current standard smartwatch, the Series 10, is on sale across both its 42mm and 46mm sizes. It comes with a sport loop and features a thinner design and bigger display than the previous model.Apple Watch SE Gen 2: $199 at Amazon (was $249). If all you need from a smartwatch is the absolute basics, the Apple Watch SE is a budget option that can still do tap-to-pay and track your fitness. It's currently on sale in both its 40mm and 44mm sizes, and comes with a sport band.Pixel Watch 3: $290 at Amazon (was $350). Google's own smartwatch, the Pixel Watch 3, offers a more rounded design than the Apple Watch and includes some extra smarts straight from Fitbit. It's on sale in both 41mm and 45mm sizes and comes with an elastic band.Samsung Galaxy Watch 7: $240 at Best Buy (was $300). A slightly cheaper Android option, the Galaxy Watch 7 still has full WearOS compatibility and measures over a dozen different fitness statistics. It's on sale in both 40mm and 44mm sizes and comes with an elastic band.Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra: $420 at Best Buy (was $650). One of the few premium smartwatches on sale right now, this Galaxy Watch upgrade comes with a titanium design, an extra button, and improved waterproofing. It only comes in 47mm and includes an elastic band.The best deals on desktop PCs Apple M4 iMac $549.00 at Amazon $599.00 Save $50.00 Get Deal Get Deal $549.00 at Amazon $599.00 Save $50.00 Not everyone needs their computers to come with a screen and keyboard attached. If you do all your computing at a desk, here are a few great stationary computers that will give you all the power you need.M4 Mac Mini: $549 at Amazon (was $599). Apple's Mac Mini got a much-needed refresh in 2024, with a new design and Apple's latest chip. This model comes with the M4 chip, 16GB of memory, and 256GB of storage.M4 iMac: $1,204 at Amazon (was $1,299). If you need your desktops to have a screen built-in, iMacs are always a good bet. This model, also revamped in 2024, comes with the M4 chip, 16GB of memory, 256GB of storage, and a 24-inch display.Minisforum DeskMini UM870 Slim: $480 at Amazon (was $580). Apple isn't the only company in on the Mini PC game. Over in Windows land, Minisforum has made a name for itself with small computers, and this one has a capable Ryzen 7 8745H chip, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Dell Inspiron 3030: $650 at Dell (was $900). When it comes to office computers with more traditional form factors, Dell is a classic standby. This Inspiron deal will net you a respectable Intel Core i7-14700 chip, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage.MSI Codex R2 Gaming Desktop: $829 at Newegg (was $899). As for gaming, this deal is a good starting point, with an Intel Core i5-13400F chip, an RTX 4060 graphics card, 16GB of memory, 1TB of storage, and a couple of RGB-equipped fans thrown in for good measure.Alienware Area-51 Gaming Desktop: $4,650 at Dell (was $5,050). On the ultra-premium end of the spectrum, you can save a bit on one of the most powerful desktops out right now, even if you'll still end up paying a hefty sum in the end. This Alienware Area-51 gaming desktop boasts an Intel Core Ultra 9 chip, a very recent Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, 64GB of memory, and 4TB of storage. Wow.The best sales on video game tech Xbox Core Wireless Gaming Controller $44.99 at Walmart $59.99 Save $15.00 Get Deal Get Deal $44.99 at Walmart $59.99 Save $15.00 The best video game sales tend to be more often relegated to summer and fall, but there are still a few sales to be found right now, especially on hardware and accessories.Xbox Series X 1TB Digital Edition: $435 at Amazon (was $450). It's a slight discount, but if you're willing to live without a disc drive, you can find some small savings on Microsoft's most powerful Xbox.PlayStation 5 Slim Digital Edition Astro Bot Bundle: $400 at Amazon (was $460). This PS5 deal snags you a console without a disc drive plus the critically acclaimed Astro Bot game, all for less than buying a PS5 usually costs on its own.PlayStation 5 Slim Disc Edition Astro Bot Bundle: $449 at Amazon (was $510). If you prefer to get your games physically, or you watch a lot of Blu-Ray movies, this Astro Bot PS5 bundle as another great way to save on both items.PlayStation VR2 Horizon Call of the Mountain Bundle: $399 at Amazon (was $469). This deal comes with a PSVR2 headset and controllers alongside the Horizon Call of the Mountain game, giving you everything you need to get started with console VR. Plus, the PSVR2 now works with PC using an adapter.Amazon Fire TV 4K Max with Xbox Core Wireless Controller and 1 Month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $105 at Amazon (was $145). This bundle will snag you Amazon's best streaming stick plus an Xbox controller and one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, turning it into a full-on cloud gaming console.Xbox Core Wireless Gaming Controller: $45 at Amazon (was $60). Almost no video game accessory is as versatile as the basic Xbox controller, which can work across a slew of devices and has a standard layout that most games recognize immediately.Shopping for tech? Lifehacker can help you make the right decision. Browse our tech reviews and head-to-head comparisons for everything from laptops and smartwatches to e-bikes and home gyms. Subscribe to our deals newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox, or browse our best-of lists directly on Amazon, including:The Best Over-Ear HeadphonesThe Best Wireless EarbudsThe Best Adjustable Dumbbell SetsThe Best Projectors

While Prime Video hasn't released a full list of content coming to the platform in April, the streamer is dropping a handful of original series and films throughout the month. toile (April 24), a new series from the creator of Gilmore Girls and Prime Video's hit The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, is a drama/comedy about the competitive world of dance set in New York and Paris. The eight-episode show also stars The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel cast members Luke Kirby and Gideon Glick. Fans of horror and gore (and Kevin Bacon) may want to catch action series The Bondsman (April 3), in which Bacon plays a murdered bondsman who has been resurrected by the devil and sent on a mission to collect demons that have escaped from hell. Also in the action genre (and for fans of Die Hard) is new original film G20 (April 10), in which Viola Davis stars as the U.S. president trying to save the world when the G20 summit is taken over by terrorists. Prime Video's April lineup includes new seasons of two reality shows, starting with the second installment of Americas Test Kitchen: The Next Generation (April 1). The culinary competition hosted by Jeannie Mai and judge Dan Souza pits 11 aspiring cooks against each other for a spot on America's Test Kitchen. At the end of the month, fashion personalities Clinton Kelly and Stacy Londonof What Not To Wear famewill reunite for Wear Whatever The F You Want (April 29), a reimagining of their original style-makeover show. Here are all the originals coming to Prime Video in April.Whats coming to Prime Video in April 2025Available April 1America's Test Kitchen: The Next GenerationAvailable April 3The BondsmanAvailable April 8Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuXSpy HighAvailable April 10G20Available April 13Godfather of HarlemAvailable April 17#1 Happy Family USALeverage: Redemption (US + UK only)Available April 18LOL: Se Rir, J Era!Available April 24toileAvailable April 29Wear Whatever The F You Want

Summer is on the wayat least for those of us in the northern hemisphereand Google has pushed out some useful upgrades across several apps to make your travel planning a little easier (and a little more reliant on AI).First, the AI Overviews that you've no doubt noticed up at the top of Google search results are being expanded to cover travel itineraries for regions and countries, as well as cities. All you need to do is ask for a plan for a certain place (like the south of France), together with any requirements (such as kids or a specific budget), and the AI will do the rest.You get a day-by-day breakdown of where you should go and what you should do, and you can check out photos and reviews left by other usersas well as quickly share recommendations via Google Docs or Gmail, if you have fellow travelers. This is live now for U.S. users, but heed Google's own warning that generative AI is experimental: Double-check the details with information from actual human beings. AI Overviews can now produce itineraries for regions and countries. Credit: Google Secondly, there's a new price tracking option over at google.com/hotels. This works like it already does for Google Flights, where Google will email you if prices change for certain dates at a hotel you've got your eye onso you can grab a bargain quickly. It's a useful feature for saving money on plane tickets, so it's good to see it available for hotels too. This feature is now rolling out globally.Third, there's going to be a new Screenshots feature in Google Maps: If you choose to enable it, the app will scan your screenshots for place names, and quickly get you to those spots on the map. If you're someone who's always collecting screen grabs of places you want to visit, this should prove helpful, and all the AI text detection work is done locally.This place recognition feature seems to be based on text alone, rather than combining images and text, so your screenshots will need recognizable locations that appear as text. This is appearing now in Google Maps for iOS for U.S. users, and is apparently "coming soon" to Google Maps for Android. Google Maps is now able to pick out places from your screenshots. Credit: Google And there's another recent AI upgrade for Google Maps that isn't mentioned in Google's latest official blog post. As spotted by Android Authority, if you select a place in Google Maps on Android and then enable Gemini with a voice command or button push, you get an Ask about place shortcut above the main input box. You can then ask whatever you want about the selected location. It's not a new feature, but it's now easier to get to.Back to Google's official announcements: The last two are more reminders about features that have already gone live. As Lifehacker reported a couple of weeks ago, custom Gemini Gems AI bots are now available to all users, with or without a Gemini Advanced subscriptionso anyone can create a Gem specifically for travel advice (from popular spots to visit, to what to pack), Google suggests.Finally, Google again promotes the capabilities of Google Lens for your travels. In the Google app for Android and iOS, you're able to tap the Lens (camera) icon in the search box, snap a picture, and ask questions about what you're looking atlike "what is this used for?" or "what's the history of this place?" You then get AI-powered responses above regular search results.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.The Sonos brand is well known in the smart speaker and surround sound space. And very much like Apple, people will pay a premium price for their minimalistic, premium quality, and discounts are often hard to come by. But today, the Sonos Arc, which was Sonos' flagship soundbar prior to the launch of the Sonos Arc Ultra, is $599, $300 off its usual $899 price. It's also a record low price for this model, according to price-tracking tools. Maximum Output Power:110 Watts, Connectivity Technology:Wi-Fi, Audio Output Mode:Surround Mount. Sonos Arc Soundbar $599.00 at Amazon $899.00 Save $300.00 Get Deal Get Deal $599.00 at Amazon $899.00 Save $300.00 SEE -2 MORE Sonos speakers are not for everyone, if only because you'll have to justify paying around two grand for a complete surround sound system when you can get a setup like the Samsung Q990C for about half the price. But audiophiles swear they can hear the difference, so the cost might be worth it to you. If you pick up this soundbar, you'll want to consider the Sonos 300 rear speakers and the Gen 4 subwoofer to go with itthey're the latest Sonos has to offer, though you can choose Eras 100 or an older or smaller subwoofer to lower the price tag.As for the Arc, it offers Dolby Atmos, providing immersive three-dimensional sound with height channels that simulate audio coming from above you (you can read the details in PCMag's "excellent" review). It offers enough of a low-end kick that you don't really need a subwoofer if you have a small space. If you already own other Sonos speakers, you can seamlessly connect them through the Sonos app to create a surround sound setup or a multi-room system.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If you like to buy in bulk or just want one less thing to worry about during weekly errands, this sale might be worth the look: You can get a one-year membership to Sam's Club for $25 right now on StackSocial. It's half the usual price, but the catch is that its only for new members in the U.S. If you're eligible, though, the sale opens up access to warehouse prices on groceries, household staples, electronics, furniture, and even tires. Its not just bulk cereal and 40-roll packs of paper towels anymoretheres a surprising amount of variety on the shelves. Youll need to activate your membership within 30 days of buying the code (and definitely before May 28, 2025, or the promo becomes invalid). Also, the code is non-transferable, so make sure youre signing up for yourself.Sams Club uses a limited-item business model, meaning fewer brands per category but carefully selected products across the board. From what regular members say, the quality holds up well, especially in categories like meat, produce, and household cleaning. The membership also includes perks like discounts on travel, rental cars, concert tickets, and even movie nightsso theres some value beyond groceries. You can shop in-store at one of their 597 U.S. locations or browse online through mobile and desktop platforms. Just be prepared for the occasional treasure hunt feelinventory can vary. That said, this deal includes auto-renewal, which means your card will be charged yearly (currently $50 for Club members, plus taxes) unless you cancel. If you like buying snacks for months in one go, finding discounts on random big-ticket items, or just having one place to cover most of your shopping list, this might be a practical pick. If you're more of a once-a-week, two-bags-max kind of shopper, it may not be worth the warehouse dive.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.The Oura Advisor, an AI feature formerly tucked away in Ouras beta testing program, is now rolling out to all Oura Ring customers. It takes the form of a chatbot that you can start a conversation with at any time from within the Oura appplus the Advisor promises to check in with you daily, weekly, or three times a week, depending on what you request. But do you actually want it to do any of those things?What does the Oura Advisor do? Credit: Beth Skawrecki Honestly, this seems to be a pretty standard fitness app AImeaning that all it really does is restate metrics from the app in a more conversational tone. The Advisor itself told me that it "analyze[s] your Oura data to provide insights and guidance tailored to your health goals." Its language is in the same style as the little encouraging sentences you get on the Oura home screen, and it tends to repeat the same kinds of advice.When you open a chat with the Advisor, it asks what youd like to talk about. So far I havent gotten it to tell me anything that wasnt already obvious from other screens of the app. When I asked why my resting heart rate has been high lately, it gave a generic list of reasons that a resting heart rate might be high for anyone. When I asked it for an insight (since it told me that its job is to provide insights), it told me my cardiovascular age, which is a metric that also appears on my app home screen.How to turn on the Oura AdvisorUntil recently, you had to opt in to Oura Labs (the beta testing program) to access the Advisor. Its still rolling out to all users, so if you want to try it in the meantime, you can turn on any Oura Labs features you like by going to the menu in the top left corner, selecting Oura Labs, and choosing what experiments youd like to turn on. (There is currently a meal tracking feature, and a heart check-in.)You do have to use the app in English, although Oura says they're planning to offer the Advisor in other languages in the future. Once the Advisor is enabled, you can tap the + in the bottom right corner (the same place you would add an activity or start a meditation session) and choose Advisor. This opens up the chat, and from this screen you can also adjust the Advisors settings.How to change settings and delete memories on the Oura AdvisorIn the chat, you can tap a settings icon in the upper right corner of the screen. The available settings are:Style: Conversational, conversational, or direct. I cant tell if the two conversational options are different, or if the duplication is an error on Ouras part.Check-in notifications: Daily, three times a week, or weekly; you can also set whether your preferred time of day is morning, afternoon, or evening (or any combination)Memories: The Advisor remembers things youve told it about yourself. My Memories section has The user participates in competitive weightlifting, and the user has been sick, both things I told it directly in our conversations. You can delete a memory by tapping the trash can icon next to it.There is also a button to reset the advisor, which means all settings, conversations, and memories will be deleted.To test what its getting from its memories, I asked the advisor if its data suggested I was getting sick. With the memory of my illness, it said yes, and suggested I might want to focus on recovery today. After deleting that memory, I asked the same question again. It said that my resting heart rate suggests Ive been under some stress, and that I might want to focus on recovery today.Is the Oura Advisor worthwhile? So far I havent seen the Advisor hallucinate data or say anything inappropriate, but it also hasnt told me anything I would consider an insight. I tried asking it about data that I cant easily read from the applike my long term resilience trendsand it said it didnt have that data available. On the Oura subreddit, most posts about the Advisor seem to be complaints that it isn't doing anything interesting, but one user said they were able to get the Advisor to talk to them about their meal choices logged with the Meals feature, which is still in beta. One user said the Advisor helped them to improve their resilience score, but they didn't provide much information about how it did that, just that they gave the advisor specific information about things like their sleep schedule. Now that the feature has rolled out to more users, perhaps we'll find out whether more people find it useful.