If you've ever been intrigued by the mystery of a dusty cassette you found in a thrift shop—or if you're just looking for a new time-sink—you have to check out Intertapes, a website that digitizes "found cassettes" sent in by users all over the world, then posts them in full for anyone to listen to.

The catalog is small at the moment—only 14 cassettes—but already really interesting. There's a bootleg cassette of music played at a Spanish nightclub in the late 1990s (lots of squelchy noises and relentless bass) and a 90-minute recording of New York hip hop station WBLS captured in '94 (Warren G.'s "Regulate" represent), amid more mysterious choices, like this haunting recording from a "destroyed cassette tape found on the side of the coast highway near Heraklion" in Greece; this tape full of ominous noises found in a parking lot in Tbilisi, Georgia; tape of binary code from Barcelona; and a cassette recorded in the USSR featurng 1970s pop hits.

I love how each cassette is treated like an important archeological object, because in a way, they are—discreet time capsules made more poignant by the hiss and warp that speaks to the time that's passed since this audio was captured and the ephemeral nature of analogue recording. From musical snapshots to accidental field recordings, these tapes are fascinating for there mere existence in the modern day, where the question of who recorded them and why adds a layer of mystery to each one.

The ongoing cassette tape revival

Intertapes could be viewed as a reflection of the growing cassette tape revival, a movement that celebrates the outdated format. Since they hit the market in 1963, audiophiles have generally considered cassette tapes an inferior format to vinyl—tapes are more rugged than records, but the sound quality is markedly worse. The spread of CDs and streaming music pretty much killed off commercial cassette releases by the early 2000s, and it's easy to see why: Digital music doesn't hiss or degrade. Cassettes have a more narrow dynamic range. You can instantly select tracks on a CD or MP3 player, and it will never play at a slightly wrong speed, unspool, or melt on your car dashboard. Bonus: You never have to rewind them to hear a song again.

Most people didn't see it at the time, but when tapes slipped into obsolescence, we lost something real and tangible. Dropouts, distortion, and warp are evidence of life. Cassette tape compression is a unique sonic aesthetic that conveys warmth and nostalgia. And then there's the way they impart meaning into the act of "listening to music." Starting a Spotify stream is frictionless, optimized, and weightless, while cassettes are physical objects with histories that defy the disconnection of the digital space. You own the music on tapes in a way you never own information being served to you by a tech company. A friend handing you a cassette of their favorite songs is meaningful in a way a link to playlist will never be, and your Spotify playlist will never be found by the side of the road near Heraklion, to be pondered over by future people.

Yes, by digitizing them, Intertapes is removing some of the qualities that make these recording special—but it's also preserving them, at least for now (if you've ever tried following a decades-old weblink, you know the internet is ephemeral too).

How to submit your own tapes to Intertape

If you're of a certain age, you probably have a dusty cassette or two hanging around somewhere. Don't let it molder in a desk drawer. Describe the origin of your recording and a background story, scan a picture of your tape, and email connect@intertapes.net to arrange you submission to the site. This collection really deserves to grow.

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AI is still the big thing in the tech world, but it's no longer the big new thing. It's been around long enough that simply integrating it into your product isn't enough to make it stand out anymore, especially at the biggest tech show in the world. While I attended this year's CES, the trend I noticed over and over again on the show floor was that AI is getting weird now. From personal hologram sidekicks to a gaming monitor that basically cheats for you, here are the five weirdest AI inventions I saw at CES 2026.

Razer is giving you your own personal anime girl

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

At last year's CES, gaming lifestyle company Razer introduced Project AVA, an AI esports coach concept that was just a disembodied voice that lives in your laptop. Yawn. This year, the company's expanding on that by bringing AVA into the real world.

In Razer's suite this year, I held a conversation with "Kira," an anime girl "hologram" that lives in a little USB tube you can plug into your laptop. She noticed my orange sweater thanks to a camera installed in the tube, before asking me about the show and prompting me to start up a round of Battlefield 6, where she gave me some generic loadout advice. I spoke with her using microphones also built into her tube, and she responded using her own speaker rather than the laptop's. Razer said this demo was more directed, hence why she brought up gaming right away, but that the end goal is to let the new AVA work as a convincing all-purpose AI companion, so you don't have to use it for only play.

To that end, the company says it's "AI agnostic," so you can plug your own model into it. The demo I ran through was clearly using Grok, and generally felt a lot like talking to the AI companions built into that app, right down to the cringeworthy jokes. But Razer said you could theoretically use ChatGPT or Gemini instead.

While we were chatting, Kira played animations courtesy of Animation Inc., which powers similar but more app-driven AI companions. In other words, the chatbot and the animations aren't really new here, so what you'd be buying would be the USB tube and the characters.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Kira isn't your only option for an AI companion here—she's a typical anime gamer girl, but I also got to briefly look at Zane, a tattooed muscle man in the deepest V-neck I've ever seen. You can kind of see the target audience for both of these characters right away, but if you want something more tame, you can also have your tube display Razer's logo surrounded by an audio waveform, which simply goes by AVA (even though the project as a whole is still called AVA). And the company's also working on celebrity likenesses, with esports star Faker and influencer Sao having already given their approval.

Razer said it's still working on figuring out how it'll distribute these characters, and I was told you'd get a bundle of them with your purchase, but would probably be able to buy more down the line.

As for pricing and availability, no word on that. This is technically still a concept, so it might go back to the drawing board again. But Razer's website does say it's hoping for a release in the second half of 2026, and that you can put $20 down now to reserve your unit.

In short, if you strip away the functionality that's already baked into apps you can download now, the new Project Ava is basically a talking hologram toy for your desk. That's still not a bad pitch, but unfortunately, I'm not sure if hologram is the right word for this. Kira looked pretty flat to me, less like that one Princess Leia projection and more like she was displaying on a normal transparent screen that just happened to be stuck inside of a cylinder. I don't think the novelty quite matches the pitch yet.

The gaming headset that uses AI to read your mind

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Whenever I play a competitive game, instead of hopping right into a match, I instead load up into a few practice sessions to warm up. It's helpful, but time consuming. The new Neurable x HyperX concept headset is hoping to change that by helping you lock in within just a few minutes.

Essentially, it looks like a normal gaming headset, but built into the earcups are various sensors that can supposedly read your focus levels. These are similar to the brain-computer interfaces you might have seen in sci-fi shows, the ones with a bunch of wires and discs attached to them, but shrunken down for the consumer market, with no creepy wires in sight.

That's where the AI comes in. Shrinking down the sensors so much does mean this headset gets fewer readings than the bigger ones in labs, but Neurable claims its models are still able to pick up on trends in those readings and translate them into useful data, while also throwing out junk data.

For gamers, that means it can run you through a quick focus exercise called "Prime," where you concentrate while noticing a cloud of dots shrink into a solid orb. Once this is done, which took about 90 seconds for me, you're supposedly focused up and ready to play.

Unfortunately, I actually did worse in a practice shooting game after focusing than beforehand, but that doesn't mean the data was useless. I ran through the exercise with a colleague whose score improved by maybe about a third after focusing, and with such a small sample size, there could be any number of reasons I choked after focusing up. The company said that it could even be helpful to practice choking in this way.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

And at any rate, numbers are fun. That's why I'm most excited about the headset's plug-in for streamers, which allows them to show their focus levels on screen for their chat to see. I could easily imagine a community looking at that data and teasing their favorite streamer to try to distract them.

That said, it'll be a while until you can actually buy this. It's still a concept for now, with no pricing or promise of release. However, Neurable does already have a similar, non-gaming headset made with Master & Dynamic that will be shipping out soon, just without this software. For more, read my full article here.

Lenovo's laptop can nod when you ask it a question

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

This one is more of a hardware innovation, but it's a clever touch. This CES, Lenovo introduced a laptop with a motorized hinge that can automatically close, open, and even rotate from side-to-side. It'll be coming out later this summer, but while the company was demonstrating the unit to me, it also showed off a prototype chatbot app it's making for it. This uses ChatGPT for now, and is still just a concept and will not ship with the laptop. But it was cute.

Essentially, while I talked with the app, the laptop displayed a big pair of animated eyes on screen, and used its hinge to nod or shake its head no when I asked it questions. It also displayed small animations in response to certain questions, like showing an umbrella when I asked about the rainy weather.

It's still very early days, but I was impressed that the hardware was able to recognize what an affirmative answer was and trigger the laptop to respond accordingly. A lot of AI feels pretty disconnected from the real world, so anything that can give it a physical presence is probably a good idea if you want people to take it seriously.

The Lenovo AI gaming monitor that's basically cheating

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Also shown off at CES this year, Lenovo's AI Frame gaming monitor is probably the most practically useful item on this list, almost to the point where it feels like cheating. Essentially, this fills up most of the 21:9 screen with a regular 16:9 view of whatever's on your computer, and uses AI to show a zoomed-in look at critical game information on the rest.

For instance, in a demo showing a MOBA game (think League of Legends), the monitor zoomed in on the map. In a demo showing Counter-Strike 2, it zoomed in on the reticle. Personally, I didn't think getting a blown-up look at the map was all that helpful, but being able to constantly see what was essentially a sniper scope around my reticle was a game changer, since it worked with any gun and made targets much easier to see.

I could see Counter-Strike 2 developer Valve go as far as banning this if it ever makes its way to market, since it's taken similar actions before. But this is still just an idea for now. Still, it shows that companies are starting to figure out concrete ways AI can help you in your games, beyond just feeding you advice you probably already know.

XREAL's new AR glasses can automatically convert any 2D content into 3D

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Finally, probably my favorite AI invention at CES this year was XREAL's new REAL 3D technology. Built into its newest AR glasses and already added to an existing pair via a firmware update, this uses AI to automatically find depth in any 2D video source and convert it into 3D. And trying it out for myself, it practically looked official.

When I used it to play Mario Kart World, I would have believed you if you told me Nintendo had added this mode itself. It also worked great with James Cameron's Avatar, and there was no loading time to set it up or turn it off. There also wasn't any fuzziness, like there might be with glasses-free 3D screens like the 3DS.

It's a great option for people who like watching 3D games and movies, but might have trouble finding them now that 3D TVs and the Nintendo 3DS are mostly in the past. Now, you can just watch your existing 2D library, but in 3D.

The only issue you might come across is in content that doesn't have depth. For instance, XREAL's Ralph Jodice told me the software didn't quite know what to do when he tried playing the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros. with it, and would randomly emphasize only certain game assets without any rhyme or reason. An illusion of depth does seem to work, though. Super Mario Bros. is entirely flat, but when I tried watching the pen-and-paper animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with this technology, it correctly separated characters in the foreground from scenery in the background, even though everything on screen was entirely hand-drawn.

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I just got back from CES 2026, and you can see my real-time reports on some of the best and weirdest things I saw in our CES 2026 live blog. I tried on six(!) different exoskeletons, perked up my ears whenever I heard about a new smart strap, and looked in vain for new models of familiar fitness tech like watches. Here are the biggest trends I noticed and some notes on what was conspicuously missing. I've included prices where possible; anything without a price is likely too far from market to have one yet.

The number of non-Whoop smart bands just doubled

Luna band (underside) Credit: Beth Skwarecki

This is a continuation of a trend that really got going in 2025. Whoop is no longer the only player in the screenless fitness strap space. Last year we saw straps from Amazfit ($99) and Polar ($199), plus a sleep band from Garmin ($169). At CES I learned about two more. 

The Luna Band is likely to be the next one to market—the company’s reps said to expect it to ship sometime in the next month or two. (I plan to review it once units are available.) It will be $149, won't require a subscription, and it will use the same app as the Luna Ring, which I’m currently reviewing. Its maker, Noise, is new to the U.S. wearables market but is one of the leading smartwatch makers in India. 

Besides the new hardware, Noise also announced that the Luna app will soon have a system to take voice notes to give context to your health data. (This is coming to the app in the next few weeks.) For example, if you tell the app that you had a few glasses of wine, it will remember this when it sees your poor sleep the next morning, and it will adjust its recommendations accordingly—say, reminding you to hydrate, rather than telling you to take a nap.

Speediance Strap prototypes Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Speediance also announced the Speediance Strap, although it doesn’t seem to be as close to market. No price has been announced, and the units at the show were clearly prototypes. The Strap will collect sleep and recovery data, without requiring a subscription to view it, although some more advanced metrics will require a premium subscription. 

Rings are everywhere

RingConn gen 3 Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Oura has had competitors for years (and has taken up suing them to stop sales), but it seems like the number of smart rings out there is just exploding—though not all of them are fitness or health oriented. Besides Pebble’s Index 01 ($75), which is charmingly simple, there are plenty of rings that pack in more functions—NFC payments, AI voice processing, haptic alerts, and more. There are so many I can’t give a full list, but to name a few: there’s the Muse Ring One ($323), the Dreame Ring, and the Vocci AI ring. 

RingConn announced its third-generation ring, with blood pressure insights (I’m skeptical) and haptic alerts, including the ability to buzz for a smart alarm (I’m intrigued). This one isn’t on the market yet, and a rep at the booth asked me what price I thought it should go for. In the meantime, RingConn gave me a gen 2 ring to compare to Oura and others—watch for my review soon.  

Watches (mostly) aren’t exciting anymore

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The companies that make smartwatches and fitness watches tend to be on their own release cycles, not necessarily tied to CES. Apple certainly wasn’t going to announce a new Apple Watch; Google and Fitbit didn’t show up, either. Amazfit had a new watch, the Active Max ($169) in its lineup, but it was more of a refinement to the product line than a new exciting announcement.

The only real exception I can think of is Pebble, but you’ve heard from me already on why it bucks the trend. I got to go hands-on with the Time 2 (announced last year) and the Round 2 (announced last week), which was so thin and sleek it made the Coros on my wrist feel like a big ol’ hunk of plastic. As a reminder, the Round 2 doesn’t have a heart rate monitor and Pebble is trying not to be a fitness watch brand. (I’m still looking forward to reviewing its watches anyway.) 

Pebble Time 2 Credit: Beth Skwarecki

I think the main reason for the stagnation here is that watches already have everything they need to have for fitness and health tracking. There's not a lot of room left to innovate; either you give a device slightly better battery life (nice, but yawn) or you stick something else into it just to say you did—like a flashlight or a microphone. That's nothing against flashlights or microphones, which are both great in context, but we're hardly in game-changing territory anymore. Companies like Oura and Whoop are pivoting to services like blood tests that take the focus off their hardware. My colleague Stephen Johnson said it best: tech launches don't feel magical anymore, partly because we don't have many problems left that consumer tech can easily solve, and partly because every new advice adds a hassle to your life.

And so Garmin’s main announcement this weekend was a nutrition tracking feature in its Connect+ subscription. I thought at least there was a good chance of a new watch from Garmin—nope. Garmin announced the Instinct 3 at last year’s CES, but no new hardware this year besides a camera system for truckers (I’m happy for them). 

A few other companies used the buzz around CES to announce non-hardware developments as well: Oura is finally shipping the charging case it promised last fall, and Ultrahuman announced a limited-time free tier of its blood testing service with 20+ markers. Its other tiers give you 50+ markers for $99, or a 100+ marker test followed by a 60+ marker follow-up test for $365. (Ultrahuman told me that the exact blood tests it's able to offer vary slightly by state, hence the vague numbers.)

AI was present, but not center stage

A prototype of Amazfit's V1TAL camera, which analyzes the food on your plate Credit: Beth Skwarecki

There were, of course, plenty of mentions that “AI” is baked into this or that fitness app. But the companies mostly seemed to understand that while AI might help to create features their users want, users don’t buy devices for the AI. (See also: Dell executives commenting that its customers don’t seem to want AI, and that it has adjusted the marketing for its computers to de-emphasize it.)

I heard at CES that apps are using AI to identify foods from photos (Garmin and Amazfit) or that AI is helping to find patterns in data (basically everybody). Merach did say it would let me try an AI-powered treadmill, but a rep apologetically told me the device wasn’t available in time to ship the prototype to CES. 

They’re trying to make exoskeletons happen

The Sumbu hip-based exoskeleton Credit: Beth Skwarecki

Exoskeletons were the biggest new-to-me trend at CES. These are devices that you strap on to your body, and their motors give an added boost to what your muscles are doing. Several of the companies described them as being like an e-bike for walking. 

I gave myself a side quest of trying every exoskeleton that was available to demo. That ended up being a total of six: four that assisted you at the hip, one at the knee, and one at the ankle. One device made by Ascentiz ($1,299-$1,848) can be configured with combined hip and knee action, but the knee module wasn’t available for me to test.

All six devices really did give me a boost while walking (or climbing stairs—several of the companies wisely included a mini staircase in their booths to try out). But I have to wonder who the exoskeletons are really for. If you’re not a serious hiker, an exoskeleton might help you hike up a mountain and keep up with your friends. But I’d think that only a serious hiker would have $1,000+ to spend on hiking gear like an exoskeleton—and that they would probably prefer to train harder and spend the money on something else. 

If I had to predict where this tech is going, I think the rental market makes the most sense. Imagine if you could borrow the Ascentiz for a scenic hike on vacation without having to train for months ahead of time, or strap on Dephy’s “powered footwear” ($4,500) to get you through a day at Disneyworld.

Most people haven't actively managed a firewall in at least a decade, assuming they ever have. But keeping track of which applications are using the internet—and how much data they're using—is still useful at times, as is blocking apps from accessing the net entirely.

While you're traveling, for example, internet access might be limited, so it's a good idea to cut off applications that constantly churn through data. But even while at home, it's a good security practice to review which applications are connecting to the internet. And while macOS comes with a firewall, it's not really a useful tool for that.

Which is why I like FireWally. This totally free application, offered by the Ukraine-based indie Mac developers Nektony, isn't a tool for power users—it's streamlined and user friendly. Click the menu bar icon and you'll see a list of applications using the internet. You can see a summary of all traffic today, in the past hour, or monitor incoming traffic in real time.

Beside every application is its data usage. You can see a breakdown of inbound and outbound traffic for any application by hovering the mouse over it. You can block any application from accessing the internet by toggling the switch.

Credit: Justin Pot

What if you don't recognize an application? I, traditionally, ended up copying the name of the application and pasting it into a search engine. FireWally tries to save you some time by providing AI-generated summaries of each application using Apple Intelligence (assuming your Mac supports that feature). It's a useful way to quickly remind yourself what a particular application is, or to identify one you don't recognize.

It's a very streamlined application, but perfect for anyone hoping to understand a bit more about how much data their various Mac applications are using. Give it a spin if you're looking for a simple firewall application.

Any new phone almost certainly comes with a handful of preinstalled apps you'll never use, regardless of which manufacturer you buy from or which operating system you're on. Some devices are more bloated than others: Google Pixels have a relatively "clean" build compared to Samsung phones, for example, and don't typically come with third-party apps and games.

But you may still want to eliminate apps and features that clutter your home screen, take up valuable space, and create a drag on performance, especially if you have alternatives you like more. On Android, that likely means uninstalling what you easily can and disabling everything else.

What you can (and can't) uninstall on Android

Unfortunately, many preinstalled first-party apps can't be easily removed. This varies by manufacturer and device—for example, Pixel users can uninstall Google Play Games and Books but are stuck with Chrome, Drive, Maps, and Calculator. As HowToGeek points out, you can delete other pre-selected Google apps added during initial setup, such as the Pixel Watch app and NotebookLM.

On Samsung Galaxy phones, again, some preinstalled bloatware is locked in, but ZDNET calls out five native apps that most users should delete right away: Global Goals, Samsung Free, Samsung TV Plus, Samsung Shop, and Samsung Kids.

To uninstall an app on your Pixel, go to the Google Play Store and tap the Profile icon. Tap Manage apps & devices > Manage, select the app you want to remove, and tap Uninstall. On Samsung, go to Settings > Apps, tap the app name, and tap Uninstall > OK. You can also touch and hold the app icon on your home screen and tap or drag to uninstall.

If you're absolutely set on removing preinstalled apps that can't be deleted using the above steps, you can use the Android Debug Bridge (ADB), but these methods are more advanced.

How to disable preinstalled apps

Built-in apps that aren't in use can be disabled, which hides the icon from your app drawer. They'll still take up space, but at least they'll be out of sight. Most preinstalled apps can be disabled if you don't need them, with the exception of critical system apps.

On your Pixel, go to Settings > Apps > See all apps to select individual apps, and tap Disable at the top of the screen. You can hide preinstalled Samsung apps from your home screen settings: tap Hide apps and tap the icon of the apps you want to disable, the press Done.

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Apple's flagship products rarely get substantial discounts—but if you wait for the right moment, you can grab a great deal. If you've been eyeing Apple's top-of-the-line smartwatch, that moment is now: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 has dropped to $549.99 on Amazon, saving you $250 off the retail price. This matches the lowest price it has yet reached, according to price tracking tools.

Apple Watch Ultra 2

$549.00 at Amazon

$799.00 Save $250.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$549.00 at Amazon

$799.00 Save $250.00

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 was released in September 2023, and after the Ultra 3 dropped last two years later. it was inevitable that the Ultra 2 would see a price reduction. The cool thing is you don't need the latest model to receive the latest WatchOS features, since Apple has a good record of updating their flagship products for many years to come.

The Ultra is the premium Apple Watch model, with the biggest case size, brightest screen (3,000 nits), deepest water resistance (100 meters), and longest battery life (up to 36 hours).

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is packed with fitness-focused features, but even if you aren’t a health nut, it also has a lot of great features for casual users. People who want a reliable sleep tracker can learn a lot about their sleep habits with the Ultra 2 as long as they keep it well-charged.

Currently, all sizes are available for $549.99, but not all colors are available. You can read more about this watch on PCMag's "excellent" review.

The Ultra 2 is different than the previous first-generation Apple Watch Ultra, which you can find for $319 refurbished at Amazon. It’s also different from the Apple Watch Series 11, which you can get for $329 on Amazon right now. If you're looking for the latest budget-friendly Apple Watch, consider the third-generation Apple Watch SE available for $269 (originally $299).

Internet videos have always been addicting, but short-form content is a whole other beast. Whatever platform you watch them on, these brief clips pull you in and don't let go, and, before you know it, you've mindlessly scrolled through hours of videos, most of which you'll never remember watching.

YouTube Shorts are no exception. But unlike TikTok or Instagram, short-form content is not the main source of videos on the platform. YouTube, of course, hosts long-form videos first and foremost, and is the sole reason why many of us visit the site or app. Shorts are just an afterthought, but an afterthought that YouTube pushes hard. You might hop on to watch a specific video, or check out new content from your subscriptions, but to do so, you'll have to push past rows of "Shorts" all vying for your attention. God help your afternoon if you accidentally click on one.

If you like YouTube Shorts, please disregard. But for the rest of us that just want to find and watch standard videos on YouTube, there's now some respite: As part of a larger update to search filters and content discovery, YouTube is now allowing users to filter out Shorts in searches. The company is pitching this as a way to separate searches between either Shorts or traditional videos, but you'll never catch me searching specifically for Shorts. What YouTube has done here, at least for users like myself, is to create a way to exclude Shorts from any particular search.

How to remove YouTube Shorts from search

To start, open YouTube and search for something. You should now see a series of options along the top of the display, one of which is "Videos." Choose it, and you'll reload the search with only long-form videos. Huzzah. You can also do the same from the greater search filters settings: On desktop, when the results appear, select "Filters" in the top right then look for "Type" on the left of the "Search filters" pop-up window. On mobile, tap the three dots icon, then choose "Search filters." On both platforms, you'll find the "Videos" option here.

Unfortunately, this isn't something you can set and forget: You'll need to choose this option every time you search for something, which is definitely a bummer. That said, at least there's some way to filter Shorts out of a search—especially if those Shorts were impacting your ability to find what you were looking for in the first place.

YouTube might not ever let us disable Shorts completely, but there are tools to get around them. You can choose to limit how many Shorts you watch in any given day—though the guardrails aren't necessarily strict. The company also lets you tell them to show you fewer Shorts on the home page, but if that's not enough, you can also install an extension to block Shorts from your feeds.

Other changes to YouTube filters

In addition to this new Shorts filter, YouTube made some adjustments to filters and sorting options. "Sort By" is now known as "Prioritize," and while YouTube doesn't say whether it changed the function, it does say the menu "aims to maximize utility." The company also changed the "View count" sort option to "Popularity." The menu still takes view count into consideration, but also watch time, to sort videos in a search by the algorithms' assumed popularity.

Finally, YouTube is removing the "Upload Date - Last Hour" and "Sort by Rating" options from search. The company says you can still find videos uploaded most recently from the "Upload Date" filters.

The Kindle has become the default e-reader for many bookworms, and I get it. I've used Kindles for well over a decade, and I've enjoyed using my latest Paperwhite quite a bit. It helped me read more than 30 books last year, so I'm not complaining.

The basic Kindle setup is okay, but if you learn your way around the device's gestures, hidden features, and additional services, you can really get a lot out of this unassuming reading device.

Kindle Gestures that you really should know

There’s only one button on the Kindle. Everything else happens using touch. And like every touchscreen device, there are countless gestures you need to know to use the device. The most obvious ones are for the page turns. You can swipe or tap right to go to the next page and swipe or tap left for the previous one. If you have a Paperwhite Signature Edition, you can also double tap on the back or sides of the device to move to the next page.

Tap on the top of the Kindle to bring up the toolbar, where you can go back to the Home screen, change the settings, view the table of contents, and more.

If you tap the bottom left corner, you can cycle between different stats like reading progress, page number, time left in chapter, and more. Oh, and if you want to quickly change the font size, just pinch in or out to zoom in on the text (like you would zoom into images on your phone).

Want to take a screenshot of what’s on your Kindle screen? Tap any two opposite corners of the screen together (top-right and bottom-left or top-left and bottom-right). The screen will flash for a second, and the image will be saved as a PNG in the root directory. Connect your Kindle to your Mac or PC to retrieve the image file.

Easily navigate between chapters

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

The Kindle isn’t the easiest device to navigate, especially when you’re reading a book where you need to jump between different chapters. Here, again, a hidden gesture can help. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring up a new Page Flip mode. You’ll see a slider at the bottom, which you can use to move forward and back. There are buttons to jump to the next chapter as well (I use this all the time).

Switch to dark mode and schedule warm light

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

If you love reading in bed, you’ll want to enable dark mode. Pull down from the top edge to bring up the quick settings panel. Here, tap the Dark Mode button to quickly invert the colors. You’ll now read white text on a black background. While you’re here, also check out the Warm Light settings (if you have a Kindle Paperwhite, Oasis, or Scribe). Use the slider to increase the warmth of the screen, making it more amber-toned.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

This is especially useful for reading in the evenings or at night, but I like it so much I keep it enabled at all times. You can also set your color temperature to change on a schedule, so that the display slowly warms up in the evening hours. Do this under Settings > Device Options > Display Settings > Schedule.

Lock your Kindle

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Not everyone needs to know what’s on your Kindle, right? If you read a lot in school, or public areas, you can lock down your Kindle using an optional setting. Go to Settings > Device Options > Security and Privacy > Device PIN. You can then set a numeric unlock code up to 12 digits long, but it might be easier to stick to a four or six-digit code.

Send documents and books to Kindle wirelessly

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Reading on your Kindle doesn’t need to be limited to books you buy from the Kindle store. In fact, you can send any PDF or DRM-free ebook to your Kindle, and wirelessly. I have previously outlined multiple methods for doing this, ranging from using an email address, to using the Kindle app. But the one I keep coming back to is Amazon’s own Send to Kindle website. Open it on any browser, sign in with your account, drag and drop a document in a supported format (.DOC, .DOCX, .HTML, .TXT, .PDF and .EPUB), and send it off. Once you sync your Kindle using Wi-Fi, these documents will be available to read on it, just like that.

Show your book covers as screensavers

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Every time I set up a new Kindle, I’m surprised that this is a feature that I still need to enable manually. By default, Kindles shows a couple of images as screensavers when turned off. That's because of the e-ink display, which lets them show a static image without using power. These default screensavers, though, are boring. You can make this feature much more interesting (and useful) by showing the cover of the book you were last reading as the screensaver instead. Go to Settings > Device Options and enable the Display Cover feature.

Read long articles on Kindle

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Kindle’s built-in browser is pretty barebones and laggy, but you can still read long articles on it. For a smoother experience, though, you can wirelessly send articles to your Kindle, where they’ll show up in form of books, devoid of ads, formatting, and images.

The simplest way to do this is by using Amazon’s Send to Kindle Chrome extension. Visit a page, trigger the extension, and send it off to your e-reader.

If you don’t use Chrome, you can also use a dedicated service like Push to Kindle to send articles to your Kindle. You can send up to 10 articles a month for free, and a $2.99/month plan unlocks all limits.

Export your highlights and notes

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If you’re using your Kindle to research or read non-fiction books for school or work, you’ll end up with a lot of highlights. Those highlights, just sitting in your Kindle, aren’t that useful. Amazon has a dedicated website that lists all the highlights from all the books you’ve purchased via the Kindle Store, but it's not your only option.

Personally, I prefer Clippings, which also works for content not bought from the Kindle Store. With it, you can import all the highlights and notes from your Kindle books and personal documents using a browser extension. You can view and organize all your notes from your browser, too, but if you want to export them to a document, you’ll need to pay for a $1.99/month Professional plan.

Borrow books to read from your local library, for free

There are many places where you can rent and borrow books to read legally and for free. The most popular option is using the Libby app from Overdrive, which loans you books via your library card or student ID. In the Libby app, go to Shelf > Loans > Read With... > Kindle. Here, sign in with your Amazon account and verify your Kindle device. Then, tap Get Library Book. Voila, an ebook from your local library will instantly show up on your Kindle device.

De-Amazon your Kindle

Lastly, you can take inspiration from my colleague Pranay, who uses his Kindle without any Amazon services. You can set up a Kindle without an Amazon account and use it as a perfectly good e-reader. You can buy DRM-free books online from various sources and transfer them to your Kindle simply by transferring the ebook files to your Kindle storage or using the Send to Kindle feature I talked about above.

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Premium noise-canceling wireless earbuds don’t come cheap, and Bowers & Wilkins earbuds (a brand owned by Samsung) are definitely at the top end of that category. But in a market crowded with ANC earbuds that do little more than meet the bare minimum, these justify their price tag by leaning into thoughtful features, sound quality, and build that go beyond the basics. Right now, a brand-new pair of Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 earbuds are going for $279.99 (originally $399) on Woot, their lowest price ever.

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Compared to the Pi7, the Pi8 has improved noise cancellation, higher-grade 12mm drivers with Carbon Cone technology, and an upgraded digital-to-analog converter alongside an updated digital signal processor. Its charging case also functions as a Bluetooth transceiver, making it seamlessly functional with in-flight entertainment when you’re on the go. CNET, in a glowing review, dubbed them “easily among the best-sounding earbuds out there,” and they also have a more secure and comfortable fit than their predecessors, making them more ergonomic. The review does note that they don’t have a 3.5mm headphone port but do include a USB-C to 3.5mm cable adaptor.

The Pi8 earbuds have the latest Bluetooth 5.4 with support for aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless for top-quality wireless streaming, as well as an IP54 dust and sweat rating. The case offers around 6.5 hours per charge with ANC on, going up to 13.5 hours with the charging case and a 15-minute quick charge that gives you 2 hours of playback. While 6.5 hours is decent, it’s not best-in-class compared to competitors that reach the eight to 10 hour mark. And although it has three built-in mics for calls, users also note that background noise can occasionally leak through.

Ultimately, if premium sound quality, music fidelity, and rare features like wired retransmission are at the top of your priority list, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 earbuds are a comfy and travel-friendly option with competitive ANC. However, if your top priorities are maximum noise cancellation and battery life, you may want to consider the (lower-priced) Bose QuietComfort earbuds instead.

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The ANC headphones from Sony and Bose are great, but they look like gadgets, not music gear. Luckily, Marshall is offering these Monitor III ANC earbuds, which offer a cool retro look. And right now, they're available for the lowest price ever, at $279.99 (down from $379.99), beating the heavyweights from Sony and Bose on price.

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These Monitor III headphones feature the iconic Marshall script logo, a retro brass control knob (instead of touch buttons), and a textured black vinyl finish that mimics Marshall guitar amps.

Other than the looks, the most impressive part is the battery life. These will last you for 70 hours of ANC playback (and 100 hours without ANC). That is a staggering number; for comparison, the Sony XM6 gets you 30-40 hours of playback per charge. The headphones are also collapsible, folding into a small ball. They come with a hard-shell travel case and are pretty lightweight, too, at 250 grams. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack here, but the box does include a USB-C to 3.5mm cable for wired listening.

They feature the signature Marshall sound, warm and punchy. They are tuned for listening to rock, heavy metal and guitar-heavy music, and offer a more fun sound profile compared to Sony or Bose, which can sound a bit more flat or balanced.

In its review, PCMag gave the Monitor IIIs a 4.0 star rating, noting that they deliver a "pleasing audio signature, a comfortable fit with intuitive controls, easy portability, and excellent battery life."

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Prime Video's Fallout, an adaptation of the popular video game series of the same name, is set more than two centuries from now on an Earth still devastated by a long-ago nuclear war between the United States and China. The protagonist, Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), emerges from the underground fallout shelter where she's lived her entire life in search of her father, and a fuller understanding of the world above, a wasteland is dominated by warring factions and freakish mutants.

It's a gutsy, hilarious adaptation of out-there source material, and it's wild to consider that, in the space of a couple of years, we've gone from approximately zero worthwhile video game adaptations to having two series (the other being HBO's The Last of Us) contending for Outstanding series Emmys. Strange days. Yet these two are definitely not the only post-apocalyptic narratives you'll find streaming right now. Here are 15 more to shows, from dramatic, to funny, to everything between, to fuel your end times fantasies. (It's fine, everything's fine, I'm fine lol.)

Twisted Metal (2023 – )

This '90s were a great time for post-apocalyptic video games, and the 2020s seem to be a great time to adapt them for TV. The most brutal show on Peacock is based on the vehicular combat games that parents probably hated way more than they hated Fallout (it’s a lot of wild, demolition-derby style action involving smashing and/or blowing up your opponents). It stars Anthony Mackie as John Doe, an effective anchor for the chaos of this lawless future America in which the roads have become battlegrounds. There's tons of clever humor amid the frenetic car-on-car (and car-on-semi, car-on-hearse, -ice cream truck, etc.) action. Things go boom, mostly, and sometimes that’s exactly what you want—it’s the show for the 15-year-old gamer inside all of us. Stream Twisted Metal on Peacock.

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Silo (2023 – )

Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette Nichols, an engineer who gets wrapped up in an investigation involving the local sheriff (David Oyelowo)—usual procedural stuff, except that the characters all inhabit a massive silo, 144-levels deep, protecting the remaining 10,000 humans from the allegedly poisoned world above. Those running the silo have managed to convince everyone left that only strict adherence to rules and procedures will keep them safe from the dangers outside. This is a more dour, less colorful apocalypse than the one in Fallout—it's a prestige drama that incorporates elements of horror, mystery, and science fiction to tell human stories about fear and control. Two further seasons are coming. Stream Silo on Apple TV+.

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Z Nation (2014 - 2019)

Where The Walking Dead and The Last of Us made prestige television out of the zombie apocalypse, this SyFy channel original is all about treating zombies as a campy, gory good time. Things kick off with a soldier who’s been tasked with transporting a package across country. The package in question is actually a human being, a survivor of a zombie bite who might be able to help create a vaccine (sound familiar?), but the emotional stakes are a lot lower than The Last of Us's tortured trek. It comes from the schlock-masters at The Asylum, purveyors of infamous B-movies like Sharknado, which should tell you all you need to know about the tone. Stream Z Nation on Peacock, Tubi, AMC+, and Shudder.

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The Decameron (2024)

I've never been particularly convinced that an end-of-the-world narrative needs to be set in the future, and this darkly funny but surprisingly humane show offers up a slice of a real-life apocalypse. Loosely adapting Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th century story collection with hints of Bridgerton-esque swagger, we're taken to plague-ravaged Florence, as a bunch of nobles and attendants make their way across a dangerous landscape to hole up in a countryside villa to wait out the end while draining the liquor supplies—as you would. Rules and social mores are turned upside down, particularly by servant Licisca (Tanya Reynolds), who kind of accidentally kills her lady on the way to the villa and then decides to take her place. Despite being primarily a show about how hell is other people, it makes for an entirely addictive binge experience. Stream The Decameron on Netflix.

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Into the Badlands (2015 – 2019)

About 500 years from now, war has eradicated anything resembling civilization and left the planet ravaged, even as some vestiges of technology remain. Still, firearms are largely taboo given the devastation they've caused—allowing for an action apocalypse dominated by kick-ass martial arts combat. The Badlands, Rocky Mountains and Mississippi River are transformed into competing feudal-esque kingdoms, dominated by Marton Csokas's creepy, over-the-top Baron Quinn and, at least initially, his chief lieutenant Sunny (Daniel Wu). Stream Into the Badlands on Prime Video and AMC+.

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Scavengers Reign (2023)

This smart, impressively voice-acted, beautifully animated sci-fi epic follows the fates of the stranded survivors of a crashed interstellar cargo ship. The web of natural life on the world on which they find themselves is unusually complex, and the rules of biology they're used to don't seem to apply. The outer space sci-fi setting doesn't, on the surface, have much to do with the blasted desert of Fallout, but both shows are set in imagined worlds that are intricate, colorful, and devilishly clever. Stream Scavengers Reign on HBO Max.

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Snowpiercer (2020 – 2024)

Though initially feeling like an unnecessary extention of Bong Joon Ho's allegorical post-apocalyptic film, Snowpiercer, the show, ultimately takes on a life of its own as a clever sci-fi melodrama, smartly recognizing that there are no heroes and few true villains at the end of the world—it's mostly just people doing whatever they can to survive. In a frozen future (2026, to be precise), humanity survives on an extremely long train that circumnavigates the globe. If it stops, the power will go out and everyone (literally everyone) will die. Those who came aboard with wealth live near the front in relative luxury, while the poor live on scraps (or worse) in the train's tail. Daveed Diggs stars as former detective Andre Layton, a "Tailie" deputized by Jennifer Connelly's Melanie Cavill, engineer and the train's Head of Hospitality, to solve a series of murders. The inevitable uprising that follows sets the two of them on different sides of a violent conflict, before each eventually realizes they're just pawns of elites—same as it ever was. Stream Snowpiercer on AMC+ or buy episodes from Prime Video.

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Train to the End of the World (2024)

This anime series makes clear that it definitely isn't 5G that we need to be worried about...it's 7G, an experimental cell network that warps reality and leaves Japan as a series of isolated settlements—it's also caused strange mutations, including turning people into animals, and creating mind-controlling mushrooms à la The Last of Us. Discovering evidence that one of her classmates is alive outside of Tokyo, Shizuru Chikura gets some friend together and they commandeer a train to carry them through the strange new wilderness. Stream Train to the End of the World on Crunchyroll or buy episodes from Prime Video.

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The Last of Us (2023 – )

Predating Fallout by just about a year, The Last of Us started what remains an extremely exclusive club of video game adaptations that click, in this case even picking up a bunch of Emmys—Fallout maybe running a bit behind in terms of major awards, but has picked up nominations for Outstanding Drama and Lead Actor Emmys, which ain't too shabby. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey star here, at least initially, as Joel and Ellie, travelers through an apocalyptic wasteland populated by zombified humans infected by a fungus. There's genuine suspense and expertly crafted horror in the show's zombie threat, but it's all built around the dynamic between Joel and Ellie, a beaten-down smuggler and the immune teenager he's being paid to deliver to the other side of the country. Their relationship sells the premise, and makes the stakes feel very real when the zombie mushroom people come out to bite. When the show upends that cart in season two, it's devastating. Stream The Last of Us on HBO Max.

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Murderbot (2025 – )

I suppose it says something about our uniquely fun era that you can turn on the TV and take your pick of future dystopias—here we visit a hyper-capitalist future in which everything's hunky-dory, as long as you mostly only care about money. A dark comedy based on the Hugo-Award winning book series by Martha Wells, the show stars Alexander Skarsgård is the title's hilariously deadpan robot, a private "security construct" who's managed to hack its way through its own programming and gain free will—which it mostly wants to use to watch its favorite streaming shows. It can't just run off for fear of drawing attention, but the self-named Murderbot (it's being ironic, kinda) is content to do the bare minimum when it's assigned to a team of inexperienced and naive hippie researchers who don't see the need for a killer security robot—at least, not until they're enmeshed in a complicated capitalist plot in which they're all just cogs. Stream Murderbot on Apple TV+.

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Station Eleven (2021 – 2022)

The miniseries, based on the Emily St. John Mandel bestseller, was released at either the best time or the worst possible time, the story of a flu pandemic twenty years on hitting HBO square in the middle of COVID—and don't all of our current apocalypse dramas owe just a bit to that waking nightmare? The show follows two tracks, one introducing 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 also visit Kirsten twenty years on, still an actor, in a world very much changed. It’s a slow-burn, picking up steam only after a couple of episodes, but ultimately, the series makes a moving case for the power of art, even (or especially) in moments when survival is on the line. Stream Station Eleven on HBO Max.

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The Leftovers (2014 – 2017)

No weird mutations here; instead we get an apocalypse that looks disturbingly normal. As the series begins, around 2% of the world's population disappears without explanation—it's enough to upend just about everything. Politics have adapted to the new normal, religions have collapsed and reformed, and families have had to make peace with the inexplicable loss of loved ones. The first season revolves around the Garvey family led by Kevin (Justin Theroux), a sheriff whose wife (Amy Brenneman) left him to join a cult, while subsequent seasons broaden the scope to bring in other characters in other locations. Showrunner Damon Lindelof also co-created Lost, and Leftovers inherits that show's relatively grim tone while doing it one better in sticking a landing. Stream The Leftovers on HBO Max.

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The Rain (2018 – 2020)

We get a lot of Fallout-esque desert dystopias, but leave it to those melancholy Danes to center an apocalypse around precipitation. In this three-season import, a virus spread by rainfall that wipes out most of the population of Scandinavia. Siblings Simone and Rasmus emerge from their bunker six years later, setting off across Scandinavia with the hope of finding a safe haven, and maybe their father. It turns out that one of them holds the key to wiping out the virus and saving the world. It’s not the most original premise (The Last of Us game came out five years earlier), but the setting gives it a unique feel, and the series comes to a decisive ending. Stream The Rain on Netflix.

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Now Apocalypse (2019)

OK, so maybe the end of days is feeling a little heavy at this point, and you're looking for something a little brighter and a lot more gay. I got you! New Queer Cinema pioneer Greg Araki followed up his neon-tinged apocalypse in Kaboom with Now Apocalypse, a successor in spirit. Avan Jogia plays Ulysses Zane, living in sun-soaked California with his best friend Carly (Kelli Berglund), a struggling actress and sex worker. He keeps having bizarre dreams about an alien invasion that feel increasingly like they might be premonitions...or possibly just anxiety delusions brought on by too much weed. The show only lasted one season, and never quite made it to its own prophesied apocalypse, but it was definitely fun while it lasted, and definitely offers something a bit to the left of the typical dreary end-of-the-world. Stream Now Apocalypse on Tubi.

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The 100 (2014 – 2020)

At seven seasons, the CW’s YA The 100 is, currently, our most deeply explored TV apocalypse, telling the story of the descendants of refugees of nuclear devastation who return to Earth from their habitat in space—to encounter the remnants of humanity who’d survived on Earth. Naturally, the first people sent to scope things out are the juvenile delinquents (better them than me, honestly), and they discover that three civilizations that have risen up in the aftermath of the apocalypse, and they are all pretty darned scary (including the inevitable cannibals). The show builds an impressive mythology over the course of its run, leading to a conclusion that’s borderline metaphysical. Buy episodes of The 100 from Prime Video.

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I really adore my Series 10 Apple Watch. But if I hadn't upgraded last year, I would have gone for the Series 11, just for the extra battery life upgrade. I usually like to wait for discounts before upgrading, though, and if you're like me, Amazon has some good news: While the Series 11 only came out four months ago, it's already down to its lowest price ever. You can get the 42mm Series 11 model for $299 (down from $399) and the 46mm Series 11 model for $329 (down from $429). That's a discount of $100 across the board.

Apple Watch Series 11 GPS 42mm Jet Black Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band - M/L

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The Series 10 was the one with the big redesign, but the Series 11 upgrade is about the smaller, quality-of-life upgrades, the chief of which is the battery life. For the first time in 10 years, the Apple Watch's battery life jumped from 18 hours to 24 hours. I already use some tweaks to make my Series 10 last for two days, so the Series 11 model will go even further still.

The screen is brighter at 2,000 nits peak brightness, and Apple now uses a Ion-X glass for better wide-angle viewing. It's also twice as scratch-resistant as before, IP6X dust resistant, and swim-proof (WR50). And if you plan to go for the cellular mode, you also get 5G for the first time in an Apple Watch. There are also new software features like background hypertension notifications, and a new Sleep Score (though they're available on the older models as well).

Overall, the Series 11 makes for a solid upgrade if you're using an Apple Watch Series 7 or 8. PCMag gave the Apple Watch Series 11 a 4.5 star "Outstanding" rating, and an Editor's Choice award. PCMag notes that "while the watch's design and sensors haven’t changed much this generation, they remain at the head of the class. With top-notch lifestyle and health features, excellent performance, and almost two days of power on a charge, the Series 11 earns our Editors’ Choice award, making it the best Apple Watch for most iPhone users."

I'm someone who routinely switches between Mac and Windows. It's a hazard of being a tech writer. But the thing is, I'm so used to the user friendliness in macOS that whenever I shift to Windows mode, there are some hiccups. Windows tends to throw up walls where there really shouldn't be any. I used to just white-knuckle through it, but that was before I fully embraced PowerToys.

PowerToys is a collection of utilities made by Microsoft itself. It's free to download on GitHub, or a myriad of other places, and unlike with Windows 11, Microsoft actually adds useful and interesting features to it every couple of weeks. You can download and install PowerToys from the GitHub page, the Microsoft Store, or using Windows Package Manager.

Here are a few of PowerToys utilities that have become a must for me (after installing the app, you really should browse all that it offers to see what strikes your fancy). If you took them away, I wouldn't be sure how to use my Windows PC anymore—this thing should really come pre-installed.

Command Palette

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These days, Windows Search can come across a little heavy and bloated, just like the Start menu. While it’s fine for opening apps once in a while, I can’t really use it for anything more than that. Plus, I’m a macOS user, so I’m used to Spotlight Search’s lightning-fast keyboard launcher. While you can use third-party keyboard launchers on Windows now (Raycast being the latest addition), my favorite option is actually Microsoft’s own keyboard launcher, the Command Palette that’s included in PowerToys.

Like Spotlight Search, it’s light and fast, and you can assign any shortcut to it. I use it to quickly launch apps, search for files, and even search for open windows. Command Palette even has a really helpful Bookmarks feature that I use a lot. I’ve created bookmarks for quickly opening frequently used folders like Downloads and Screenshots, and even websites. A Bookmark can be triggered by searching for a keyword, or through its own dedicated keyboard shortcut (I’ve set one up for my Downloads folder, which is really handy). For more, I’ve got a detailed guide on setting up Command Palette that you should check out.

Light Switch

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It's mind-boggling that Windows 11 still does not have an automatic dark mode. Over the years, Windows 11's dark theme has slowly expanded to cover all the apps you care about. But there's no easy way to toggle it on, and there's no way to automatically turn it on in evening, or on a schedule.

So, of course, there's a PowerToys utility for that. The recently added Light Switch utility lets you create a global custom keyboard shortcut for turning on the dark theme. For the Schedule section in the Light Switch utility, you can set up an automated schedule based on fixed hours, or using the local sunset time, which is how I use it.

Peek

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I shuffle between macOS and Windows 11 all the time, and there are some creature comforts in macOS that I now have a hard time living without. One of them is the ability to quickly preview any file in Finder by pressing the Space button. There is no such option in Windows, and until now, you needed a third-party app to enable it, which wasn't always reliable. Now, Microsoft has included a similar feature in PowerToys' Peek utility. Once enabled, you can press the Space bar after selecting any file to preview it. You can then use the arrow keys to navigate to other files in the folder as well. Press Enter to open the file in the default app.

Text Extractor

Windows has a built-in OCR (or text extractor) feature for images that can be accessed via the Snipping Tool. But it's really slow. When I'm in a pinch and I need to copy text from an image, I prefer to use the Text Extractor utility in PowerToys instead. It's much faster. Use the dedicated shortcut Windows + Shift + T to see an overlay on the screen. Use the mouse to highlight the area that you want to transcribe. Once you let go of the cursor, the text will be saved to your clipboard automatically.

Image Resizer

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This is one of those PowerToys utilities that really should be a default Windows 11 feature by now. Resizing an image, or a batch of them, is something that I need to do often, as someone who writes online for a living. But you might need it too, from time to time, to compress or resize images for an online upload, or a presentation. Instead of opening a heavy image editing program and manually resizing images one by one, use this plugin instead.

Once enabled, it will show up in the right-click menu in File Explorer. Select one or multiple images, click Resize with Image Resizer, choose one of the size presets (you can add more presets from the PowerToys app) or create a custom resolution, click the Resize button, and that's it.

Awake

I can't imagine using Windows without PowerToys' Awake utility. It adds a handy little tray icon that I can click to keep my PC awake longer than the default sleep settings would allow for. I have a custom-built PC with a big honking power supply, so I take my auto-sleep settings quite seriously. But there are times when I'm downloading a large file in the background, or I have a long AI task running, when I want the PC to stay on. That's where the Awake utility really helps. You can choose to keep your PC awake indefinitely, or for 30 minutes, 1 hour, or any custom duration.

FancyZones

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The built-in window management in Windows is quite impressive in its own right, but it falls short for my workflow. I usually like working with my text editor, a browser, and Slack open at all times. Because I have a large monitor, I have my writing app and Slack on one side and a browser on another. But it can take me a while to get everything set up. This is where FancyZones really helps. I can create custom zones for each app I use that helps me puts them where I want them, and resizes them, too.

To set this up for yourself, first go to the FancyZones section in PowerToys utilities. Here, open the Zones Editor and create a new custom layout. You can now use the mouse to move the zones around and to add a new zone. Once a layout is enabled, all you have to do is move a window around and hold down the Shift key. Dropping the window in any designated zone to instantly resize it.

You can pinpoint the exact minute of the high-water mark for tech-based enthusiasm: January 9, 2007, 9:41 AM PST, the moment Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the world.

Cell phones weren’t new—neither were cellphones with touch screens—but this one was different: so high-tech it seemed like it couldn’t be real, but so perfectly designed, it felt inevitable. And people were hyped. Not just tech nerds: normal people. The crowd at the 2007 Macworld Conference & Expo broke into rapturous applause when Jobs showed off the iPhone’s multi-touch—an ovation for a software feature!—because it seemed like Jobs was touching a better future.

The iPhone, people said, was like something out of Star Trek. But unlike communicators or tri-corders, it was obtainable (if you had $500) evidence of a future where technology would finally free us from the drudgery of our lives so we could boldly go—wherever, it doesn't matter.

The science fiction fathers of modern tech

Steve Jobs mentioned Star Trek as an inspiration for the iPhone all the time; apparently the show is quite popular among tech people. Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, and thus was the spiritual father of the iPhone. He spent the 1960s lounging poolside in Los Angeles, dreaming of a post-scarcity tomorrow where the wise, brave men of The Federation kept the Romulans at bay and there were hot alien chicks on every Class-M planet. At the same time, the future’s real prophet, Philip K. Dick, was huddled in a dank Oakland apartment, a stone’s throw from Silicon Valley, popping amphetamines like breath mints and feverishly typing dystopian visions of corporate surveillance states and nightmare techno-realities into his Hermes Rocket typewriter.

Roddenberry's Federation promised technology would help humanity evolve beyond its baser instincts. Dick saw technology amplifying our worst impulses.

So what happened? How did we go from a Roddenberry future where each new product release seemed like another step closer to collective utopia to our Dick-esque present, where the first question we ask of any new technology is “How is this going to hurt me?"

Where does tech excitement come from?

Visionary heads of start-ups like to blather about "paradigm shifts" and "world-changing technology" but people don’t get excited for tech products that are going to, say, cure cancer. Most of life (for pampered Westerners, anyway) is dealing with routine annoyances, and tech promises a way out. Remember printing MapQuest directions before leaving the house? It was a pain in the ass. People were excited for the iPhone because it solved the MapQuest problem and so many other small, intimate problems, like “I can't instantly send a photo to my friend” or “I get bored while I’m riding the bus.” Products that do this flourish, and ones that fail are discarded like a Juicero.

It’s hard to overstate how great the iPhone was back in 2007 in terms of solving annoyances. Buying one meant you no longer had to carry a notepad, camera, laptop, MP3 player, GPS device, flashlight, or alarm clock. It was all crammed into a single black mirror. But speaking of black mirror ...

Excitement turns to boredom

"We’re in an era of incremental updates, not industry-defining breakthroughs," says Heather Sliwinski, founder of tech public relations firm Changemaker Communications. "Today's new iPhone offers a slightly better camera, marginally different dimensions or AI features that no one is asking for. Those aren't updates that go viral or justify consumers shelling out thousands of dollars for a device that's only slightly better than what they already own."

In economics, "marginal utility" is the additional satisfaction or benefit a consumer gets from consuming one more unit of a good or service. The marginal utility leap between a flip phone and the first iPhone was huge. But economics teaches us that marginal utility diminishes with each additional unit consumed. Each new iPhone release provided progressively less additional satisfaction compared to what users already had. Slightly faster chips, slightly better cameras, USB-C instead of Lightning, titanium instead of aluminum—who cares?

If we were merely bored with tech products, it would be one thing. But increasingly, devices that were desired because we want to make our lives easier or more enjoyable are making them harder and worse.

The great technological hassle

“When you buy a new tech product today, you're not just buying one physical product. You're committing to downloading another app, creating another account and managing another subscription," Sliwinski says. "Consumers are exhausted by the endless management that comes with each new device."

In economics, you’d call that “diseconomies of scale”: what happens when a business becomes so large its bureaucracy costs outweigh efficiency gains. In personal terms, it’s when the time and energy it takes to sync, charge, and coordinate your “time-saving” device makes you the middle manager of your own life.

Then there’s the kipple. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick defines “kipple” as useless objects that accumulate: ”junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday's homeopape.” That drawer full of orphaned power cords and connectors, your broken earbuds, the extra game controllers, the Roku, Chomecast, and old Fitbit are physical kipple, but the virtual kipple is worse. “Personally, I have at least four different apps that I need to download and manage just to live in my apartment complex—smart lock system, community laundry, rent payments, maintenance requests,” Sliwinski says.

According to Dick, kipple doesn't just accumulate; it metastasizes, growing constantly until the Star Trek lifestyle you envisioned becomes a Dick-esque swamp of dependencies, and The future goes from being a place you want to live to somewhere you’re trapped.

The enshittiffication of everything

The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. ― Philip K. Dick, Ubik

"Corporations have spent years trying to manufacture excitement around relatively low-importance features instead of genuinely useful developments, and consumers have learned to recognize that pattern," says Kaveh Vahdat, founder of RiseOpp, a Fractional CMO and SEO firm based in San Francisco.

Nowhere does this consumer indifference seem greater than with AI. "Consumers are testing Sora or testing Grok and all of that, but there’s really not been a single use case or product for AI that I think consumers are excited about," says Sliwinski.

This will not stop tech companies. Even without excitement, artificial intelligence is everywhere in tech, from toothbrushes to baby strollers (I think PKD would have found the AI stroller darkly funny: it's self-driving, but it won't work if you put a baby in it.) "There’s a lot of buzz around AI but we’re missing the 'so what?'"

Beyond indifference and toward dread

Beyond "so what?" consumers have started asking "How will this hurt me?" "Is AI going to encourage my child to take their own life? Is it going to steal my job? Is it destroying everything pure about humanity?"

Tech companies don't seem like they're scaling back on AI or doing an effective job of explaining its benefits, and if the recent past is an indicator, if they can't make our lives easier, they'll try to imprison us instead, employing psychologists, neuroscientists, and "growth hackers" specifically to make products harder to put down. The innovation isn't in new products that make life easier, but in encouraging addiction through variable reward schedules, social validation metrics, parasocial relationships, and other dark arts until eventually we end up like the half-lifers in Ubik, husks in cryopods, living in a manufactured reality where we still have to pay for the doors to open. That's the PKD take, anyway.

"Maybe 10 to 20 years down the road we will have another huge step change like the iPhone that can condense all these different devices that we’re using or apps that we’re using —but the tech isn’t there yet," Sliwinski says.

In Star Trek, humanity doesn’t abandon scarcity. Technology eventually makes scarcity indefensible, and that's only possible after a planet-wide war. From that Roddenberry-esque perspective, enshittification is what happens when old economic systems try to survive in a world where technology keeps eroding their justification, and each tiny "I don't care" iteration to tech products is a small step closer to Star Trek's promised land of holodecks, abundance, and hot aliens.

Hackers continue to find ways to sneak malicious extensions into the Chrome web store—this time, the two offenders are impersonating an add-on that allows users to have conversations with ChatGPT and DeepSeek while on other websites and exfiltrating the data to threat actors' servers.

Beware these Chrome extensions

On the surface, the two extensions identified by Ox Security researchers look pretty benign. The first, named "Chat GPT for Chrome with GPT-5, Claude Sonnet & DeepSeek AI," has a Featured badge and 2.7K ratings with over 600,000 users. "AI Sidebar with Deepseek, ChatGPT, Claude and more" appears verified and has 2.2K ratings with 300,000 users.

However, these add-ons are actually sending AI chatbot conversations and browsing data directly to threat actors' servers. This means that hackers have access to plenty of sensitive information that users share with ChatGPT and DeepSeek as well as URLs from Chrome tabs, search queries, session tokens, user IDs, and authentication data. Any of this can be used to conduct identity theft, phishing campaigns, and even corporate espionage.

Researchers found that the extensions impersonate legitimate Chrome add-ons developed by AITOPIA that add a sidebar to any website with the ability to chat with popular LLMs. The malicious capabilities stem from a request for consent for “anonymous, non-identifiable analytics data." Threat actors are using Lovable, a web development platform, to host privacy policies and infrastructure, obscuring their processes.

Researchers also found that if you uninstalled one of the extensions, the other would open in a new tab in an attempt to trick users into installing that one instead.

How to avoid malicious browser add-ons

If you've added AI-related extensions to Chrome, go to chrome://extensions/ and look for the malicious impersonators. Hit Remove if you find them. As of this writing, the extensions identified by Ox no longer appear in the Chrome Web Store.

As I've written about before, malicious extensions occasionally evade detection and gain approval from browser libraries by posing as legitimate add-ons, even earning "Featured" and "Verified" tags. Some threat actors playing the long game will convert extensions to malware several years after launch. This means you can't blindly trust ratings and reviews, even if they've been accrued over time.

To minimize risk, you should always vet browser extensions carefully (even those that appear legit) for obvious red flags, like misspellings in the description and a large number of positive reviews accumulated in a short time. Head to Google or Reddit to see if anyone has identified the add-on as malicious or found any issues with the developer or source. Make sure you're downloading the right extension—threat actors often try to confuse users with names that appear similar to popular add-ons.

Finally, you should regularly audit your extensions and remove those that aren't essential. Go to chrome://extensions/ to see everything you have installed.

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The 65-inch Samsung QN90F Neo QLED TV is currently $1,199.99 on Woot in "factory-reconditioned" condition. That undercuts a new unit, which sits around $1,600 on Amazon, and even slips below what some retailers ask for “like-new” stock. This deal runs for seven days or until it sells out. Shipping is free for Prime members, while everyone else pays a flat $6 fee. One thing to note before checkout: This item doesn’t ship to Alaska, Hawaii, or PO boxes, and you’ll need to provide a valid phone number and physical shipping address.

The QN90F isn’t a midrange panel dressed up with buzzwords. It’s Samsung’s current flagship mini-LED 4K TV, built to get extremely bright (over 2,500 nits) while still holding deep blacks and tight contrast. The screen uses Samsung’s glare-reducing coating, which won’t defeat direct sunlight but does take the edge off harsh overhead lighting. In daily use, the QN90F feels more polished than most LED TVs. The bezel-free design keeps attention on the screen, and the compact metal stand doesn’t dominate your media console. Around back, you get four HDMI ports, two USB ports, Ethernet, optical audio, and an antenna input, all tucked into a side-facing recess that keeps cables tidy. The included SolarCell Remote is refreshingly practical. It charges via USB-C or ambient light, so you’re not cycling through disposable batteries. Picture quality is where this TV earns its flagship status. Mini-LED backlighting delivers OLED-like blacks with minimal bloom, and colors stay balanced rather than oversaturated. That said, there’s no Dolby Vision support, which is still a sticking point for some buyers, but HDR10 and HDR10+ performance here is strong enough that many viewers won’t miss it.

This TV also leans hard into gaming and smart features. The panel runs at 120Hz natively and supports VRR up to 165Hz, along with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. Input lag stays under 10ms, which is well within “good for gaming” territory, according to PCMag’s “excellent” review of this smart TV. PC gamers can even use ultrawide 21:9 or 32:9 modes. Sound is better than average, too, thanks to a 60W 4.2.2-channel system with Dolby Atmos and support for Samsung’s Q-Symphony if you add a compatible soundbar. Tizen OS covers every major streaming service and supports Alexa, Apple AirPlay, and Matter smart-home control, though the interface still feels busy and occasionally buried under layers of menus. At this price, the reconditioned QN90F makes sense for buyers who want top-tier brightness and gaming performance without paying the full flagship price.

What if a team of super magicians used their talent and training to stage elaborate heists? That’s the high concept that drives the Now You See Me franchise. Critics were lukewarm when Now You See Me was released in 2013, categorizing the film as a heist flick with thin characters and a plot that fell apart as often as it twisted, but Now You See Me pulled off its own escape act—audiences loved the movie's flashy style, whipsaw pace, and all-star cast featuring names like Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, and Morgan Freeman. The result was box office magic: a movie with a $75M budget that returned over $300M worldwide. Now You See Me has since grown into an internationally successful, long-term franchise for distributor Lionsgate: The third installment was released on Nov. 14, and a fourth Now You See Me film is already in development.

Like any long-running franchises, the Now You See Me-verse can be confusing, so we put together 10 infographics to pull back the curtain on Now You See Me's magic. First, a quick recap of each movie:

• Now You See Me (2013): The initial entry in the series introduces us to the thieves/illusionists known as the “Four Horsemen.” These best-in-the-business magicians are recruited by a mysterious secret society called The Eye to pull off large-scale heists in front of live audiences, then distribute the money to the needy.

• Now You See Me 2 (2016): The sequel expands the world of the first film, with bigger heists, deeper secrets, and funnier jokes. Having gone into hiding at the end of Now You See Me, The Horsemen resurface a year later and are coerced into a global heist by a tech mogul trying to steal all the privacy in the world. 

• Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025): Set a decade after the last film, Now You See Me: Now You Don't features all five Horsemen teaming up with three cocky young criminals/illusionists to pull off their most audacious caper yet: the theft of the world's most valuable diamond.

The real-life magicians behind The Horsemen

The Now You See Me movies present stage magic in a semi-realistic (though highly stylized) way. To nail the realism, the films draw inspiration from some of the greatest magicians in history, including:

• David Copperfield: The Horsemen’s larger-than-life illusions/heists like stealing the contents of a bank vault while performing a Vegas show seem inspired by the feats of magician David Copperfield, whose magical feats include flying over the Grand Canyon and vanishing the Statue of Liberty. 

• David Blaine: Street magician David Blaine’s shadow is all over the Now You See Me Movies. Without the popularity of Blaine’s modern, gritty take on magic, the Now You See Me movies would likely not exist.

• Harry Houdini: Anything about stage magic is ultimately inspired by Houdini, the greatest magician of all time. Houdini's daring escape tricks inspired the series’ inciting incident, the death of magician Lionel Shrike, as well as the opening set piece where Henley Reeves escapes a water tank. 

• Andrei Jikh: Jikh’s cardistry skills are evident in all the Horsemen, particularly in Jack Wilder. Jikh served as a consultant on Now You See Me.

• Keith Barry: Another Now You See Me magic consultant, Irish mentalist Keith Barry pioneered and popularized many of the hypnosis and mentalism feats used by character Merritt McKinney.

The Horsemen's greatest heists

The Horsemen are known as much for their larceny as their skills at illusion. Below are their most memorable heists, hold-ups, schemes, and burglaries.

The Paris-to-Vegas bank robbery

In the caper that introduces us to the Horsemen, the magicians rob a bank in Paris while performing before a crowd in Vegas. They choose a seemingly random person from the crowd and tell him he’s going to rob his own bank, the Crédit Républicain de Paris. Then they appear to teleport him to France, where he breaks into a bank vault, hits a button on a vacuum machine, and the money is seemingly sucked from Paris to Vegas where it rains down on the audience. 

The Tressler Insurance heist

At a show in New Orleans, the Horsemen introduce their benefactor, insurance magnate Arthur Tressler, then proceed to drain his personal bank account while they’re onstage, depositing the money in the accounts of audience members, who all turn out to be victims of Hurricane Katrina that Tressler’s insurance company stiffed on repayments. 

The Macau data chip theft

In Now You See Me 2, The Horsemen are coerced by evil tech magnate Walter Mabry to steal a cutting-edge computer chip that can decrypt and expose every system in the world. Housed in a highly secure research facility in Macau, China, the chip is conveniently the size of a playing card, allowing the Horsemen to use cardistry and sleight-of-hand skills to remove it from the building while being searched by guards. 

The Magic Castle: the real-life Château de Roussillon

In Now You See Me Now You Don't, the Château de Roussillon is an ultimate magician's playground. The Eye's headquarters in a mansion in the French countryside is decked out with mind-bending large-scale illusions like rotating rooms and halls of mirrors. The Château de Roussillon is a real castle, but the filmmakers used Nádasdy Castle for the exterior shots in the movie. A main inspiration for the building is a real place: Los Angeles' Magic Castle.

Opened in 1963, the Magic Castle is a restaurant/club/clubhouse for magicians housed in a stately Victorian mansion overlooking Hollywood. Not only is The Magic Castle credited as magic consultants on Now You See Me: Now You Don't, much of the cast trained at the Castle to prepare for their roles.

If you'd like to visit, it won't be easy: The Magic Castle is an invitation-only private club, so you have to be a member of the Academy of Magical Arts or be invited by a member. But if you aren't friends with a magician, you can book a night at the nearby Magic Castle Hotel, where a stay comes with an invitation to the Castle.

“How do they do that?”

I analyzed the tricks in the movies with professional magician Dave Cox, and as over the top as the Horsemen's heists are, all but two of the many magic tricks presented in the Now You See Me movies could technically be done in real life—but the word “technically” is doing a lot of work here. The tricks are possible within the context of a stylized blockbuster, but would be extremely unlikely to work as well in real life: an extended, impromptu cardistry routine involving four magicians passing a playing card between themselves while security guards thoroughly search them makes for exciting cinema, but almost definitely wouldn’t go that smoothly in reality. 

But, here is how three of the most iconic tricks from the franchise could be done in real life.

How to do Atlas’s “riffle force” card trick

Now You See Me opens with a unique piece of cinematic trickery. Street magician J. Daniel Atlas is performing for a crowd on a city street. He riffles quickly through a deck of cards and asks a spectator to “see one card.” When his subject has a card in mind, a nearby building is lit up revealing a giant seven of diamonds, the card the subject was thinking of.  

It’s amazing if you’re “playing along at home,” because the chances are very good that you chose the seven of diamonds too. The trick is done in real life the same way it’s done in the movies: The magician uses sleight of hand or a gimmicked deck to pause on the desired card imperceptibly longer than the other cards. The director of Now You See Me added a frame or two to “pause” on the seven of diamonds, making it more likely that you think of that card.

How Jack Wilder throws cards as weapons

While it’s probably not possible to throw a card as accurately or forcefully as the characters in Now You See Me, you can throw playing cards really fast with the right technique and a lot of practice. 

How Henley Reeves escaped the water tank

Henley Reeves’ introduction is a trick where she escapes from a water tank filled with piranhas, a variation of the kind of classic escape artist illusions popularized by Houdini. Water escapes are dangerous, but not as dangerous as they might seem because they’re rigged—no sane person is really going to try to escape from handcuffs and chains while underwater.

Real-life heists that seem right out of the Now You See Me movies

A group of thieves publicly “performing” large-scale robberies is strictly Hollywood, but the three real-life crimes below share some of the showmanship and audacity of the Horsemen’s heists:

• Louvre heist (2025): A recent jewelry-jacking at the Louvre involved a highly professional and brazen plan executed in broad daylight. The thieves used a truck-mounted mechanical lift to break into a second-floor balcony window and were in and out in less than eight minutes. The robbers have all been caught, but won't say where the jewels are.

• Stockholm helicopter robbery (2009): This thrilling heist involved a gang using a stolen police helicopter to land on the roof of a G4S cash management service building in the Stockholm suburb of Västberga. The brazen thieves smashed through a skylight, lowered themselves into the building, and stole millions while police were stymied by fake bombs placed near the police helicopter. Seven men were sentenced to prison, but authorities suspect as many as ten more people may have gotten away with the crime, and the 39 million Swedish krona loot was never recovered.

• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist (1990): This heist involved two men who disguised themselves as Boston police officers to gain entry into the museum just before it opened. The pair convinced one security guard to let them in, then handcuffed the rest of the guards and stole 13 priceless works of art valued at over $500 million. Despite a $10 million dollar reward, the art has never been recovered and no one has been charged with the crime.

Seven more movies for fans of Now You See Me

If you’ve watched all three NYSM movies and you’re still craving magical entertainment, check out these seven, all-killer no-filler movies about magic and magicians:

• The Prestige (2006): The Prestige is set in the late 19th century, before you could just google how any magic trick was done. Back then, the secret of sawing a lady in half was closely guarded, and The Prestige’s rival magicians–played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale–will go to any length to keep the hidden knowledge of their craft.

• The Illusionist (2010): This animated, silent feature provides a complete contrast to the Now You See Me movies. There’s no glitz or flash, just a quietly devastating character study of a magician’s relationship with the last person in his world who still believes in magic. Adapted from a screenplay by French cinema legend Jacques Tati, The Illusionist tells its intimate story through the evocative animation of Sylvain Chomet. It will definitely make you cry.

• The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013): The Now You See Me movies go to great lengths to deny it, but magic is cheesy and magicians are weirdoes. Burt Wonderstone leans into the goofiness by casting Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi as Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelson, past-their-prime Vegas magicians bedeviled by Jim Carrey's Steve Gray, a Criss Angel-esque magic man who’s a different flavor of cheesy.

• The Magician (1958): Max von Sydow plays the title character in The Magician, where everything is shot in black-and-white and no one gets away with a bunch of money or engages in any witty banter.

• The Illusionist (2006): Yes, I’m recommending two movies with the same title. 2006’s The Illusionist is a moody, slow-burn mystery/romance that’s tonally a world away from Now You See Me’s glitz, but both films share a love of clever misdirection, intricate magic, “woah” reveals, and head-spinning plot twists. If you like the “magic as a means of social justice” theme of NYSM, you’ll like The Illusionist.

• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010): The Sorcerer’s Apprentice stars Nicolas Cage, who brings his own magic to every role, as a bonafide sorcerer who lives in modern New York City and fights a lonely war against dark magic on behalf of all mankind. Jay Baruchel plays his apprentice, and the pair use magical spells to battle a rival sorcerer.

• Sleight (2016): This scrappy, low-budget flick provides a very different vision of an illusionist turning to crime. Jacob Latimore plays a young street magician who’s left to care for his sister after their parents die. Magic isn’t paying the bills, so he turns to drug dealing, and must use his skills at deception and sleight-of-hand to stay alive. 

If you've been running several email accounts through your Gmail, you might want to double-check your settings this month—that's because Google is ending support for the POP3 protocol that can sync emails from third-party accounts. And while there are some other solutions, they don't work quite the same.

POP3 is an older standard of syncing emails between multiple accounts that allowed users to import emails from a third-party account and manage them in one spot. It's also a less secure method of transferring emails, so it's not a total surprise that Google is phasing it out, but the company hasn't broadcast the change too loudly, so it might come as a surprise to some users.

How to keep your third-party accounts working in Gmail

If you're still using POP3 to fetch your emails from a third-party account, there are a couple of ways to fix it before Google pulls the plug:

• Forward emails from your other accounts. Rather than having Gmail reach out to your third-party accounts, you can set up automatic forwarding on the other end. How to do this will depend on which email providers you use, so check your third-party account settings for forwarding options.

• Use IMAP to check your email from the Gmail apps. In the Gmail app for Android and iOS, you can log into third-party email accounts that support IMAP connections.

The IMAP protocol works a bit differently than POP3. While POP3 would import messages into your Gmail but leave the original, IMAP syncs between your accounts. So if you use the Gmail app to check your email and delete some messages, they'll be gone if you check the original account later.

Google's support doc says this change will take effect "Starting January 2026" with no more specific time frame. At time of writing, POP3 support is still working on my own email accounts, so it's not disabled just yet, but it's a good idea to update your email setup sooner rather than later.

Whenever you have a bunch of looming tasks—as many of us do at the start of the new year, when everyone actually "circles back" on the things we've been putting off—having a structured to-do list is an essential part of getting everything done. Determining what goes on that list and in what order, though, is a task all its own. I've covered a lot of ways to do that, but if you're stuck with a high volume of important responsibilities, you need an approach that matches the complexity of what you're trying to do—and that's where the RICE method comes into play.

What is the RICE method of prioritization?

RICE, as you probably guessed, is an acronym. Here's what it stands for:

• Reach: How many people or parts of your life or project this task will impact

• Impact: How meaningful that impact will be if and when it's done correctly

• Confidence: How sure you are about your estimates of the other three factors

• Effort: The time, energy, knowledge, and resources required

A unique combination of those factors is going to give you guidance on which tasks are the most crucial to prioritize, which is helpful when you're overloaded by information and dread, unable to think about when or where to get started.

How and when to use RICE

I won't lie to you: This method is more convoluted than some of the others I've covered in the past. I might even recommend trying a simpler prioritization technique, like the Eisenhower matrix, before you try this one and only whip this out if Eisenhower or its peers aren't given you solid results. RICE takes a little time—and that's because you need to do some math.

Start by writing down all your tasks. Under each, you're assigning numbers. The Reach score will be the number of people or parts of your life or project that the task will impact and the Impact score is a 3 (massive impact), 2 (high), 1 (medium), .5 (low), or .25 (minimal impact). Confidence should be a 100, 80, or 50, to represent the percentage of confidence you feel in your estimates and abilities. You can use any number between 0 and 100, but falling back on those three just makes it easier. Most adherents of this method use a complicated math equation (determining "person-months") for Effort, but I'm going to simplify that for you. Score it the same way you scored Impact, with a 3 for multiple days or resources, 2 for a day, 1 for half a day, .5 for an hour, and .25 for a half an hour or less. You can also score Reach that way if you're working on a personal project and your results won't necessarily reach a big number of people. In that case, think about the different areas of your life or personal goals it will affect and use that 3-to-.25 scale.

That part is all subjective, similar to using the ABCDE method to assign grades to your to-dos. It can't be avoided—you won't know the true resources required or reach of the project until it's done—but you can quantify it a bit.

Next, you do math. It's R x I x C divided by E. You'll end up with a numerical score for each task. Rank the tasks in descending order, with the biggest numbers first. Obviously, you may find that some can't be completed until others are done, so use your discretion there, but for the most part, you've just created a clear outline of which things will have the biggest impact and reach and you can at least know where to start. Add each into your calendar using time boxing and time blocking, then get after it. Knowing you have a plan of attack is half the motivational battle.